And it is going to continue and put more out of work.
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/27/the-era-of-robots-thousands-of-builders-to-lose-jobs-as-machines/
infrastructure improvements to make us competitive with other countries.
(no message)
(no message)
Robots still only replace the most mundane and/or dangerous of jobs, but not in the 3rd world. It's still cheaper to have a worker feed a cycling press with their hands in China than to use a robot for the same task in the USA.
(no message)
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966
That's roughly the population of South Bend.
No doubt there is a lot of low hanging fruit for automation in the 3rd world, especially with rising wages. In 2006 the average mfg worker in China made $2700, in 2016 it's $8300. My company has done projects in China, Mexico, SA, Indonesia, etc.
I have a degree in Robotics/Automation, programmed my first robot in 1999. I work in this field and have seen a lot of change, but the trend isn't towards replacing workers at least here in the US. Most of the focus here is on information and quality control, though new plants are definitely highly automated. Someone still has to tell the automation what to do, maintain it, retrofit/reprogram for new product offerings, etc. If my children were of college age, I would strongly encourage them into tech fields. The other thing that is happening is replacing outdated automation with new, but these projects don't tend to replace workers, at least in my experience.
Another focus here is on Cybersecurity. Chinese hackers are actively trying to steal machine designs, product recipes, etc. IT jobs are being added in the Industrial space.
Some believe that robotics will bring manufacturing back to the US, see the article below.
Link: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/21/how-robots-will-reshape-the-us-economy/
But in the meantime, all of the new production plants of at least our clients are already highly automated to the extent possible. Hershey sure is. That is only going to increase.
The fact that its happening at all in the third world is a telling sign.
Nor should we want that. My point is that most of the automation that can be done cost effectively here in the US, has already happened.
Since you are in the bidness and obviously knowledgeable, I accept your premise on the automation already occurring.
I question how much you can automate that process and at what savings, we'll see.
(no message)
(no message)
Cheaper and faster processes in construction (just like in mfg) will likely lead to productivity increases and more of a reallocation of resources. It'll take less people to build a building, but more buildings will be erected. This is a process that has been going on since the cotton gin or before. The word "robot" is a trigger word, but it's just another machine, at least at this juncture.
What really sent jobs overseas and such was what I'd describe as neo-slavery. The wages and conditions in China and elsewhere were outright appalling but getting better. Imagine being the guy hand feeding a press 12 hrs a day, if you fuck up and lose a hand, you lose your job and your family starves. You have no prospects of retirement as the air quality will kill you off long before then. Expendable people.
To be sure, there is job loss from tech advances, but that is not nearly the largest contributor. High corporate tax rates and expensive US employees -esp because of Obamacare. are the main reasons.
I know the Obama administration tries to prevent replacement of union laborers in one state with non-union laborers in another state.
It is probably the same with robots.
Trump proposes this principle between countries, and the Democrats oppose it. Go figure.
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
Trade is an issue not because free trade is bad.
Trade is an issue because free trade fails to compensate for the differing burdens that items 1 and 2 place on US companies vs. foreign companies.
The cost of managing distant factories and moving factories was an obstacle that allowed disparities in items 1 and 2 to arise without destructive effect. But, with the ever increasing ease of international transfer of factories (item 3), items 1 and 2 are becoming a big issue now.
Because we can't roll back the clock on item 3 (ease of transfer), Trump proposes to directly reduce one disparity (item 2, regulations) directly, and to mitigate the effect of another disparity (item 1, compensation) indirectly by directly addressing Item 4 (trade). Item 5 (robots) will happen globally no matter what.
Now, I'm hesitant to engage in a trade war, but I think that Trumps point is that we are already in a trade war because of disparities in compensation and regulations. He proposes two solutions, and we can argue about the merits of his solutions. But, Hillary merely proposes ignoring the problem.
office jobs as well.
Not necessarily a correlation anymore between increased productivity and employment. In fact now it's usually the other way around,
It is a country that defies all of your ideological tropes.
There is no denying that it is cheaper to hire workers in China and Mexico than in the US.
But, if you are saying that the union negotiated packages in the US are less detrimental than those of Germany's, then let's discuss.
You can't pick at one variable in the equation, and then say the equation is totally false. I think you make a decent point, but I'm not sure German to US comparisons are apples to apples. The US trades with Canada, Mexico and China. Germany trades with France, UK and the US. They are "upstream" from us, and therefore have a very different balance of trade. If we regulated our trade, things would be different...which is kind of what Trump is suggesting.
I'd add that one to the list as well.
But you would be wrong.
(no message)
"technology" is just something that economists working for industrial trade groups have latched onto to desperately try and re-direct people's attention. It does cause job loss, but cheaper labor abroad has been a far larger factor by an exponential variant.
We have lost 40,000 factories since the late seventies. Most of which housed goods that are now made abroad. Blaming that on automation and technology is not only idiotic, it just defies common sense.
What does an auto assembly line look like today versus 1980?
Labor intensive manufacturing is not the future.
Germany, for instance, is hooked into the global free-trade system, but it offers protection for its workers.
It is globalization + the relatively small social safety net that have caused the discontent in our rust belt towns.
I just looked at some numbers:
Germany has a positive trade balance with its top 10 trading partners.
The United States has a negative trade balance with 9 of its top 10 trading partners.
Why do you think this is?
They protect those at the bottom of the pyramid from the effects of globalization, with:
- rock-solid unions.
- socialized medicine, and MUCH lower healthcare costs. And they have much better health outcomes than we do.
- extensive unemployment benefits, which include free re-training.
In other words, they compensated their workers for the inevitable lost jobs as the world economy evolves. So they outsource, and they enter into free-trade deals, and they mechanize production....but they protect their most vulnerable citizens.
That is a fantasy world. Something must pay for the people that are losing their jobs and getting free money. EIther they are making money now and paying them, or they are borrowing against the future and paying them, which is a Ponzi Scheme.
Regarding jobs moving because of high wages: We sit here and wonder how jobs went from the US to China. Over in China, many companies are now seeing wages increase in the coastal regions in China (as iairishcheeks discusses above), and they are now looking to establish new operations in the interior of China where wages are lower. So, that which we lament at an international level is already starting to happen within China.
Also, within China, I've seen companies play different tax districts against each other, being willing to move factories from district to another for a tax cut.
Companies that last a long time are very responsive to wages, regulations, taxes (which I failed to put in my numerical list) and the like. If they can, they move. And, they are increasingly able to move with globalization. Because of this, the old policies will not work. If in fact Germany is doing something different, then we need to investigate that. But what you describe is not addressing the problem; it is something that would exacerbate it, and would be need the government to do something else to compensate. The question is, what is that something else? (Or, are they just at an advantage since they are trading with the likes of the UK and US, instead of China and Mexico...I don't know.)
Substantial vacations, too.
Soccer, though.
And you are looking at the wrong variable. The factors you listed would make the problem worse, not better. That's ok, as long as there is some other variable which is adjusted to compensate for that, which is what Trump is proposing.
Let me guess - you're no economist, right?
I'm guessing you picked the one variable you understood, and went with it, and ignore the other factors.
(no message)
They don't raid their skilled manufacturing labor force, and tell them to go to college. Indeed, they restrict people from going to college if they deem it unlikely that they will be successful. I like free choice (give people a chance), but not only do we give people a chance, we subsidize their failure, putting them in a debt hole at the beginning of their lives. Not every office job requires a college degree in psychology or history...in fact, none do.
They will be majority muslim in 100 years
(no message)
And free trade is part of it. But not all.
It reminds me of the Woody Allen line about how his dad lost his job because he was replaced by a tiny machine. The bad thing was that his mom ran out and bought one.
For example Hershey Bars are now made in Mexico, but in a highly automated factory.
They don't have to worry about union jobs there. One of the main reasons they modernized there, not here.
If you do not like union work, you can go to a number of at-will states (and many companies have done so). If the wage in Mexico went up to $8/hours tomorrow that factory would be closed within a month.
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
If we are talking non-sentient robots, then you can program them with unbreakable laws.
But I think sentience carries with it the ability to break the laws. Look at humans, for example. I think free choice is required for sentience. Truly sentient computers will not be programmed. They will be endowed with a brain structure, and that structure will restructure itself as it learns. That is what we do...we restructure our brain cells as we learn. Learning means we change physically.
Unless you think that true sentience cannot be obtained outside of biological constructs (outside of humanity), this will be a big problem some day. If we are unable to build true silicon-based AI, then that would prove the existence of the human soul. I don't think God will let us off that easily. He never has let us out of the moral effects of our decisions in the past; why would he start now? And, if there is no god, then sentience merely emerges from complexity, and there is nothing to stop us from creating complexity that leads to sentience. Either way, I think sentient artificial intelligence is an inevitability.
(no message)
(no message)