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Are you trying to suggest that this will be the standard anytime soon?
Hmmm...as the costs and capabilities mature, I would expect so. Expect 1 person to man the desks, and everything else-including housekeeping-to be done by robots. Timeframe? about 10 years. This is just the leading edge of whats coming.
Hmmm...as the costs and capabilities mature, I would expect so. Expect 1 person to man the desks, and everything else-including housekeeping-to be done by robots. Timeframe? about 10 years. This is just the leading edge of whats coming.
Since the dawn of the industrial revolution around 1800, there has been an endless drive to knock labor cost out of production. Skilled weavers were replaced by textile mills. Skilled gunsmiths were replaced by gun factories. Technology is relentless. It's totally dishonest to try to say that unskilled and semi-skilled workers should be paid proportional to productivity gains. It's never worked that way and it's not going to change. Those with the capital investing in equipment that reduces labor cost reap all the benefit. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. The bottom and second quintile of the labor force get paid less today because there is an enormous glut of unskilled and semi-skilled labor. There is no need to pay more than near-minimum wage for that kind of work since there are 100 people lined up to take that job.
The societal problem is: What do we do with all those people who will never be worth much more than minimum wage? You can take the libertarian view and say it's their own damned fault because they didn't work hard enough or smart enough to be successful. They did it to themselves. Let them starve. You can take the social democratic view that most had no shot at ever being successful. They weren't born smart enough. They didn't have access to good school systems. Their parents and peer group didn't impart a drive for success or stress education. I think we should split the difference between those two positions but it's going to be an ongoing political argument with no solution to the fundamental problem.... that there is an oversupply of unskilled and semi-skilled labor in the United States. With automation and global competition, it's not worth paying them much. If you make the safety net too cushy, only illegals will be willing to do much of the low paid work.
Why have a middle class in the first place? They tend to cause a lot of trouble in the long run. A much more efficient system is to have the top 1% of the 1% controlling 99% of the financial resources, and then leave that remaining 1% for the plebs to tussle over. Much like our current path is headed toward.
Clearly the answer is to import more unskilled illiterates from the 3rd world.
When the native-born unskilled illiterates don't want to do "demeaning" unskilled labor for low wages and no benefits, then yeah. Somebody has to pick the lettuce.
When the native-born unskilled illiterates don't want to do "demeaning" unskilled labor for low wages and no benefits, then yeah. Somebody has to pick the lettuce.
Ok, there are about 780K farm workers in the US, 40% of whom are foreign born. That's about 320K. How about the other 10's of millions of illiterate, unskilled immigrants being imported?
Ok, there are about 780K farm workers in the US, 40% of whom are foreign born. That's about 320K. How about the other 10's of millions of illiterate, unskilled immigrants being imported?
They're mowing my lawn, painting my house, rolling out fiberglass insulation in my attic, hanging sheet rock, shoveling the snow off my walkway.
50 years ago, you hired some teenage kid in the neighborhood to do most of those tasks. Good luck finding that today.
They're mowing my lawn, painting my house, rolling out fiberglass insulation in my attic, hanging sheet rock, shoveling the snow off my walkway.
50 years ago, you hired some teenage kid in the neighborhood to do most of those tasks. Good luck finding that today.
Maybe for the lawn mowing and sidewalk shoveling, but the rest was done by decently paid (often union) workers where I lived. You can pay people a decent wage to work, or do it yourself. Or maybe it doesn't really need to get done.
What do you do for a living? Whatever it is, I think you are way overpaid. I can hire a guy from India who will do it for a lot less. How would you like that?
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