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What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

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Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#71

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

mc32 wrote: post #42
krapht wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.

Except now people expect retirement and pensions... Not something people back then counted on when populations of people working declined...

This is the problem with our current first world financial system, it is predicated on constant growth. Even the slightest hiccup in growth leads to serious consequences for the over leveraged and make no mistake most of our safety nets are over leveraged and dependent upon unrealistic gains when faced with a stagnant to declining population.

The Great Aging is underway, the EU last year had more deaths than births and will for the foreseable future, Japan has been there for a little while and China's working age population is already in decline. Africa, the Middle East/India and parts of South America are the only places experiencing actual population growth, when immigration is not taken into the equation. With Demographics and Automation deflation is the likely outcome. The Central Banks are trying all they can to prevent this from happening in the near term by spending Trillions of dollars to prop up economies and drive interest rates lower to eek out some inflation. They seem not to care whether growth is actual demand growth or simply a mirage in terms of inflation. The central banks are doubling down their efforts and will be even more accomodative in the next few years when the growth they continue to state is right around the corner never materializes.

Unfortunately I do not see a way out of this without the developing nations taking care of themselves.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#72

Post by lastyearman »

learc83 wrote: post #50
mathattack wrote: post #12

It seems like there are 2 things that can be done: 1) Make it easier for new firms of all kinds to open and create job. (Less occupational licensing requirements, etc) 2) Reduce the cost/burden of employment. (If someone has the choice to hire an employee in SF and Texas, they'll choose Texas since the laws are more business-friendly)

Or 3) Since automation is making capital more productive at the expense of labor--tax a portion of the productivity increase and distribute it to labor.

Key is how labor spends that newly acquired money. Will that spending actually create something productive or just rising property prices.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#73

Post by jfoutz »

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #14
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is misallocation of labor. There's a huge to-do list of jobs that need to be done at almost every level, from design and build of significant infrastructure in most countries around the world, to community-level support work. It would be perfectly possible to retrain the long term unemployed for all but the most difficult design and management elements. They're not done because the metrics of Wall St…

> Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy. And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.

Well... we don't have a real long track record and past performance isn't indicative of future gains. I agree with you, but we are kind of speeding into the unknown. Which like any adventure is risky.

Hunter gatherers were real stable for a long long time. One person, or even a fairly large group of people couldn't cause much trouble.

We're moving much faster, which again i think is cool, but it's much riskier. An obvious one, there are enough nuclear weapons to wipe out humans in a few hours. I don't think nuclear war is coming any time soon, but we've only been at this 'high tech' stuff (i'm picking agriculture, neolithic revolution) for about 10,000 years. Wealth of nations is around 250 years old - traders are much older of course, but 10k seems like a good upper bound. Can we avoid nuking ourselves for 10k years? I sure hope so.

Anyway, there are existential risks, and other, less dangerous things like world wars that have the potential to be much worse than a guy with a club.

Also, there's not much incentive in the system to not wreck the system. For, example "The big short" is a fun movie. "Too Big To Fail" is a much more in depth look.

I guess, my point is, That strategy is a powerful tool. It's not a pat answer to all the world's woes. It's wise to treat it like any other dangerous piece of equipment. Be aware, be alert. It's ok to take a little more time with power tools to avoid cutting off an arm.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#74

Post by Almaviva »

krapht wrote: post #30
wrong_variable wrote: post #9

People forget History. The two times where labor was more valuable than capital. 1 | After the black death in Europe 2 | After the second world war Most of history's default was the gilded age, the roman empire survived for 600[1] years with having worse inequality than in the modern times. Usually the only way to reverse the trend is by a large scale elimination of significant portion of young people. [1] EDIT : cor…

Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.

People seem to have a lot of faith that a drive or urge to reproduce is not something that can be selected for and transmitted through generations, either genetically or culturally, in human beings. If it can be selected for, it will be, and very rapidly, by simple math.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#75

Post by clock_tower »

jseliger wrote: post #21

The rise of automated looms and spinning jennies clearly mean that the farms aren't going to be sufficient to provide employment for people, who are in turn going to turn to vice and sloth. And, as we know, when the old way is exhausted there is no new way forward. I propose that we be suspicious of the looms and especially of the people who make the looms.

The Luddites weren't wrong, but they were about 200 years too early. Technological unemployment is a thing now...

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#76

Post by nine_k »

wrong_variable wrote: post #9

People forget History. The two times where labor was more valuable than capital. 1 | After the black death in Europe 2 | After the second world war Most of history's default was the gilded age, the roman empire survived for 600[1] years with having worse inequality than in the modern times. Usually the only way to reverse the trend is by a large scale elimination of significant portion of young people. [1] EDIT : cor…

Roman Empire only lasted around 600 years, years -27 to 565. Roman Republic lasted slightly shorter that 500 years.

You must me mistaking it for Egypt of pharaoh times.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#77

Post by chris_va »

kiba wrote: post #18
pixie_ wrote: post #8

I feel like ancient civilizations a lot of times turned to art once their societies leveled off. Large structures, pots, roads, figures, clothing, etc.. I believe art is unlimited resource and we could have an economy running purely on art. Isn't a large portion of the economy already running off of art? Movies, games, tv, media, events. I actually feel there even a lack of art right now in terms of food, furniture,…

I doubt that's sustainable, especially given that you have people like 'starving artists', 'starving writers', and of course game programmers who throw themselves at projects working eighty hours per week. Anything that people likes to do tended to be oversupplied.

At the moment.

In a world with no demand for labor, there is an implication that the cost of goods would be dominated only by supply scarcity. For commodity goods, they would essentially be free.

200 years ago a real shirt would cost you ~$2000 in today's currency (land -> sheep -> farmers -> spinsters -> dyers -> weavers -> tailors). Now a decent shirt costs $40.

Eventually artsists won't starve, even with minimal income. Ideally, hopefully.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#78

Post by maxharris »

First, there are plenty of jobs, but not enough people that have decided to develop themselves enough to have the skills to do them. For example (a real life one, unfortunately for me): I need a biopsy of a mass near my heart, but the current waiting time for this procedure here in Seattle (at both major hospitals) is two months.

What we do have is plenty of regulations that constrain the supply of physicians, services, medical supplies, insurance, and everything else needed to perform operations. It is one of the most un-free markets in America, with predictably disastrous results. Sure, those laws prevent a few people from being duped by charlatans, but they also prevent people like me - who are willing to sit on the phone for hours and days, and willing to do research for weeks on end - the possibility of a longer life.

--

There are also plenty of regulations that are limiting career mobility, both in medicine and in other fields. An example of this is that anything that makes it hard for employers to fire people also makes it more costly for them to hire different people (because that new person is an unknown, and therefore risky, as the employer has to hold onto them longer, even if they aren't willing/able to produce.)

--

EDIT: I'd like to add that the idea that some people are destined to be doctors (and some aren't) is completely wrong. I was a premed in college (molecular biology degree, worked in a research lab on campus full-time for two years after graduating), and I gave up on the MD track after talking to a few younger doctors. They all told me to quit while I could because they were all in 200k+ in debt, and couldn't switch out of their careers because of it, and they were miserable (tons of useless paperwork, not a lot of progress either in research or with patients). So I went into software, where you don't have to convince a committee to give you permission to make a new app.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#79

Post by bduerst »

chrisbennet wrote: post #33

For anyone who has a theory that involves making new jobs and retraining people, consider these cases: A) 50 something factory worker whos job along with the other 100 folks he works with, have been eliminated by automation or some other sort of efficiency. B) 30 something software engineer who's field (except for research) has been eliminated by AI. "A" is something most of us have the luxury of had waving away with…

Considering the amount of data it takes to train an A.I., there isn't much threat to it taking human related jobs quickly, even less so in emerging industries.

You could hand wave about 10 years from now all the software jobs are replaced by A.I., but there will be entirely new industries in place that we can't really conceive of right now.

Case in point: Imagine if someone told you in 2006, that there would be a $70 Billion mobile app industry consumed by over a billion people worldwide, using some fantastic new device that's only vaguely similar to the flip phone in your hand.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#80

Post by karllager »

forgotpwtomain wrote: post #14
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem is misallocation of labor. There's a huge to-do list of jobs that need to be done at almost every level, from design and build of significant infrastructure in most countries around the world, to community-level support work. It would be perfectly possible to retrain the long term unemployed for all but the most difficult design and management elements. They're not done because the metrics of Wall St…

> Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy. And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.

I always wonder, how people can associate effectiveness, success and other positive things with the current developments. The price of the progress, as we experience it today, is enormous. Exhaustion of natural resources, severe climate change, not to mention societal costs. We see a rapid rise in violence across continents and this seems to be just the beginning. I can easily see the western world turning into totalitarian cyber-police states within the next ten years, just to protect against all those humans who are left disillusioned, without jobs, perspectives or with bullshit jobs and basically a life, that some of them will happily trade away for some moments of meaning, when they detonate themselves in a crowded place.

May I ask, is this what you call success?

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