Quote from Maverick74:
Now destroying technology is not an answer and you obviously are missing the economic utility of that argument. Technology makes everything cheaper. So in theory, people can actually earn less wages in a technological world and have the same economic utility.

something to think about, yes wages have stagnated, they show it on a chart all the time, but standard of living? It was a bitch back then in the old days when your truck broke down and you had to walk to a pay phone.Quote from achilles28:
Someone gets it. Nice to see
What's missed in the "technology destroys jobs" argument... tech displaces jobs in one industry, but creates jobs in other industries. Like when cars became cheaper, people had more money to spend on other things - clothing, food, vacations, entertainment etc. So those industries grew, overall consumption went up = increase in living standards. Iow, the average wage could buy more "stuff". Yea, it's gonna be a problem when robots do everything, and the world doesn't somehow socialize production. Then it'll be the robots/rich versus the jobless poor. etc. But that's a long way off...?
As far as destruction creates jobs....sorta. It's the broken window fallacy. Burning down a house and rebuilding creates jobs and GDP. But the world is no better off than it was before. So there was no real growth. Only the illusion of growth. The US grew enormously post WW2, but only to rebuild Europe and Japan back to the level they were at before the war.....
Quote from oldtime:
something to think about, yes wages have stagnated, they show it on a chart all the time, but standard of living? It was a bitch back then in the old days when your truck broke down and you had to walk to a pay phone.
I saw earlier today that Mexican farmers are using illegal immigrants from Honduras. Claiming they're doing farm work "Mexicans won't do."Quote from Triple X:
...All the illegals here. Don't waste your breath responding how they do jobs Americans don't want, that is a lie. They fill a cheap labor pool from greedy employers who don't want to pay a living wage....
Quote from Maverick74:
This is patently false and world war two proved that. Destruction does create jobs. When we bombed Germany and Japan (i.e their factories, their technology, their roads) we went to full employment. One, we destroyed our competition which created the middle class in this country for the next several decades. And two, we then re-built Germany and Japan thereby creating jobs. Hence the popular axiom war is good for the economy. The more you destroy, the better it gets...
Quote from MrN:
The notion that more jobs is synonymous with "more productivity" gets less and less true with each passing year. For a time there was something for displaced workers to be shuffled into, but I for one think that time has passed. With each passing year, The apparatus of modern productivity needs fewer and fewer "workers", yet every year more workers are turned out of schools with credentials and knowledge that is in essence no longer needed, and was in fact never needed in such a large quantity.
What most people fail to see is that a great bulk of "good jobs" today represent consumption, not production. This is particularly true for the nice, easy, reasonably well paid "office" jobs that so many people want.
Add on to this the massive and ongoing global cost of living wage arbitrage (which mostly effects people doing actual productive work, not the fake stuff) and the situation for "workers" under our current paradigm gets worse and worse with each passing day.
Yet, this is not a doomsday rant. The notion that less work is required should be considered progress, not a threat. We need new solutions and a new way to view this issue. The left-right dichotomy is beyond obsolete and needs to be retired.
Quote from MrN:
The notion that more jobs is synonymous with "more productivity" gets less and less true with each passing year. For a time there was something for displaced workers to be shuffled into, but I for one think that time has passed. With each passing year, The apparatus of modern productivity needs fewer and fewer "workers", yet every year more workers are turned out of schools with credentials and knowledge that is in essence no longer needed, and was in fact never needed in such a large quantity.
What most people fail to see is that a great bulk of "good jobs" today represent consumption, not production. This is particularly true for the nice, easy, reasonably well paid "office" jobs that so many people want.
Add on to this the massive and ongoing global cost of living wage arbitrage (which mostly effects people doing actual productive work, not the fake stuff) and the situation for "workers" under our current paradigm gets worse and worse with each passing day.
Yet, this is not a doomsday rant. The notion that less work is required should be considered progress, not a threat. We need new solutions and a new way to view this issue. The left-right dichotomy is beyond obsolete and needs to be retired.