Debbie says: Past and present computerization & robotics have already decimated

[rcjordan]

jobs.

In a good economy, report reveals grim news for Florida families
https://www.tampabay.com/news/in-a-good-economy-report-reveals-grim-news-for-florida-families-20190206/

Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/business/economy/productivity-inequality-wages.html

Amazon job applications doubled after it raised its minimum wage to $15 — Quartz
https://qz.com/1539536/amazon-job-applications-doubled-after-it-raised-its-minimum-wage-to-15/

[ergophobe]

I'm starting to notice that Debbie is not an optimist...

[rcjordan]

Worse, she's an economist.

[littleman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science

[rcjordan]

It's not a future problem. We've just not been keeping count as it nibbled away at the edges.  We're alarmed now because we can easily foresee it reaching critical mass very soon.  I like to use toll booths as an example.

When I was a kid, you couldn't get up to speed on the Jersey Turnpike because the damn (seemingly) back-to-back walls of toll booths with 2 (high-paid, union) men sitting in each one raking in the quarters. 

The first automatic tolls collection station went into service this month in 1954. It was installed at the Union Toll Plaza on New Jersey's Garden State Parkway.

https://thebronxchronicle.com/2018/11/13/tolls-for-thee/

How many humans do you see manning the toll barriers nowadays?

[littleman]

>We've just not been keeping count as it nibbled away at the edges.

I'm just old enough to remember when being a cashier at a grocery store was a relatively hard job where all the data had to be manually put into the cash register.  Often those jobs were union and paid well.  Then, some time during the Reagan years scanning machines made those jobs a lot easier and the pay for those jobs have been dropping ever since.  Now, a lot of those jobs are vanishing as self-checkout machines spread.  One of the stores I went to recently didn't even have a human option any longer.

[rcjordan]

>cashiers

Good one! A friend just commented yesterday that her town's Walmart Supercenter had expanded self-checkout and cut the number of cashiers to 6.

A typical long distance operator work room this one is Dallas Tx, and had over 160 positons  *Poof* Gone decades ago.

http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/63193.jpg

[Mackin USA]

>>> Often those jobs were union and paid well.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map

[ergophobe]

We're alarmed now because we can easily foresee it reaching critical mass very soon.

We're alarmed because they're comin' for us. In other words, it's not the problem of uneducated slobs who work routine jobs. It's everybody, including insurance adjusters and journalists and paralegals and so on.

"First they came for the socialists..."

[rcjordan]

>journalists

brb==>

Saw this a couple of days ago.

The Rise of the Robot Reporter - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html

[littleman]

>"First they came for the socialists..."

With this issue I am not sure if that analogy applies (though I would say it is relevant for many today's social issues).   IMO the de-value of labor, like global warming, is mostly being ignored or denied by most people because the problems are overwhelming and it is easier to live in denial than face the feeling of helplessness and dread.

Also, there is a class of influential people who benefit from the status quo and really do not want people to think about these issues.

[rcjordan]

>people who benefit

Someone here posted a link about what execs were saying publicly vs candidly re employment at Davos.  In short, there is no room for altruism on your balance sheet.  To paraphrase Bezos; then their margin is a competitor's opportunity. 

[ergophobe]

Have you been following the Rutger Bregman thing at Davos?

He's the guy who said he had been asked to speak at Davos, but you can't talk about taxes. It's like being at a firefighting convention and not being allowed to talk about water. It's gone viral, but apparently the audience at Davos was "quite aggressive"

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-07/rutger-bregmans-viral-tax-speech-but-didnt-go-down-well-in-davos/10791322

If you haven't seen it, the speech itself is amusing.

[littleman]

The videos on that page wouldn't play for me. 

Here's the Youtube link.

[rcjordan]

So, how many machinists, welders, and assembly crew did this replace?

Take a look at the world's largest 3D-printed rocket engine
https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/08/3d-printed-rocket-engine-orbex/