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Automation,
the science of replacing a worker with a machine/computer
Rightwingers go around saying that "it's common sense" that tax cuts to the rich create jobs.
Here's one proof, out of many (foreign bank account, outsourcing to China/India, etc) that the republican tax cut to the rich doesn't create jobs.
Give a tax cut to the owner of a factory, and this is what he's gonna do:
Technology's effect on job loss is "very significant," says Sandra Polaski, an economist and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "It's not just the same old thing that's been going on forever.... [It's] a very big pulse of new energy, of new ways of doing things."
Take industrial robots. Over the past 10 years, companies have spent some $100 billion installing them. Nearly 1 million are now on the job. The investment has proven spectacularly effective. The productivity of these machines has risen about 7% a year for the past decade.
But the human cost has been immense. Automation has eliminated some 10 million jobs, mostly in manufacturing, over the same time period. And the traditional advice to workers — join the computer-based "knowledge economy," or move to the service sector — looks suspect.
everything you posted is correct, but that isn't the point. Why do you think a factory owner would choose automation?
any guesses?
please no liberal hate speech deflection of your own character flaws.(in other words, don't cite the things you fear most in yourself.)
anything?
chirp....chirp....chirp
OK grasshopper, here is something to ponder: In Mexico the government demands that any work that can be done manually, will be done manually. Resulting in extremely low wages and low productivity.
Automation has significantly increased over the past decade, yet the number of folks employed has increased during this timeframe (even accounting for the downturn):
Employed folks Jan 1999 - 125,460,000
Employed folks Dec 2008 - 135,947,000
Why do you think a factory owner would choose automation?
We await the wisdom of the troll.
Finally somebody says something in here.
You have a point, but let's take it to a little extreme to make a point.
Let's make factories extremely profitable thanks to automation.
We give "Mr. Rich" a nice tax cut "to create jobs" he goes full blast with automation (I bet most of the stuff is from China).
A few people get jobs thanks to this, but he makes employers of the factory work to save money.
Now a factory that employed 1000 people only employs 50, the owner makes 10 times as much money, he's a happy man.
We gave "Mr. Rich" X billion dollars to boost our economy and now we have 950 people unemployed and one extremely happy millionaire.
Wouldn't it be better to create some government jobs (fake jobs, like you guys call it)
Put people to work that are already getting unemployment checks fixing things that we all use (streets, bridges, street lights, etc, etc.)
People have money to spend
People go to the store and buy the cheap inventory that has been sitting at the stores
Store's business pick up, need to re-stock, need workers to help, hire people
And get the whole economy going again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewToCA
Employed folks Jan 1999 - 125,460,000
Employed folks Dec 2008 - 135,947,000
And I'm sure the population didn't change in 10 years.
And I'm sure the population didn't change in 10 years.
Irrelevant, you would need to analyze the growth in retirees and youngsters in the population mix. You would also have to analyze consumption and imports. Meanwhile, the automation concern you discuss did not indicate a decline in employment totals (as per posting #7).
Great post, Dopo! Automation is definately the way of the future, whether it's automated factory production or automated customer service lines or grocery store RFID (coming soon) checkout. Automation is taking an ever increasing number of jobs "away" from the humans who really, lets be honest, cannot possibly compete with machine efficiency. Personally, I see this as mostly a good thing, as it frees humans from drudgery.
BUT- this is an issue that needs to be taken very seriously with regards to how we structure our tax systems and economic policies. If the owners of the automation technology are allowed to just completely do away with human workers, the profits would be absolutely obscene! Wealth concentration on a scale never seen before. At least currently some of the profits make it down to the workers!
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you are not wrong
