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Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

latimes.com

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Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#61

Post by fjjrxcbdhx »

harryh wrote: post #50
FussyZeus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the cost of manufacture and shipping goes down, and the price stays the same, the company makes more money and it isn't immediately obvious to the consumer that anything changed.

Historically prices of goods to consumers have dropped dramatically as automation and globalization have reduced the costs of production. Your hypothesis that most of the gains would be captured by producers in the form of increased profits is wrong for almost all consumer goods.

Citation needed. Over the last couple decades processed foodstuffs have been constant in price, but the portions have decreased to cut costs. You can play Russian dolls with old cereal boxes, fitting the newer ones inside the old ones.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#62

Post by harryh »

fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #61
harryh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically prices of goods to consumers have dropped dramatically as automation and globalization have reduced the costs of production. Your hypothesis that most of the gains would be captured by producers in the form of increased profits is wrong for almost all consumer goods.

Citation needed. Over the last couple decades processed foodstuffs have been constant in price, but the portions have decreased to cut costs. You can play Russian dolls with old cereal boxes, fitting the newer ones inside the old ones.

All you have to do is look around and see how much stuff people have. People have enormous amounts of stuff compared to even 20 or 30 years ago. Bigger houses. More cars. TVs. Computers. Smart Phones. And it's all, relatively speaking, dirt cheap. It's so cheap that storage units are a booming business because people don't have room to store all their stuff in their homes. It's so cheap that burglaries aren't even a thing anymore really because stuff is so cheap it isn't even worth stealing. It's so cheap that Marie Kondo has a best selling book about the challenges of getting rid of your stuff because you simply have too much of it.

Healthcare is expensive. Education is expensive. Land (in some places) is expensive. But man stuff. Stuff is cheap.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#63

Post by falcolas »

stale2002 wrote: post #41
fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumption that everything will be cheaper seems a bit disingenuous, because why would these companies want to automate themselves so badly if they weren't going to keep most of the savings as profit? Even if prices were lowered by a few percent for some goods thanks to cheaper shipping, that's little help when you have no source of income. This will only exacerbate the demand-limited economic slump we're curren…

Because of supply and demand and competition. If companies could squeeze more money out of customers why wouldn't they just do so right now by raising prices?

Well, if truck driving were automated, they certainly wouldn't lower then.

Personally, I imagine a lot of companies will use that extra money to buy out, take over, or otherwise eliminate their competition. I doubt the consumer will win.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#64

Post by grecy »

I'm continually dumbfounded by how Americans are so concerned with holding onto jobs, rather than moving forward.

When the automobile was invented think of all the farriers and hay people that went out of business and had to move on.

Think about the milkman or the guy that used to put ice in the back of your ice-chest out in the back yard.

When we eventually move off coal, think of all the millions of people involved in the coal industry that will be out of work.

Those lay-offs are a good thing, and we should be doing everything we can do expedite the process.

Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train. Job security was fleeting in the 70s and 80s. It's not real anymore.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#65

Post by smokeyj »

afarrell wrote: post #27
fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumption that everything will be cheaper seems a bit disingenuous, because why would these companies want to automate themselves so badly if they weren't going to keep most of the savings as profit? Even if prices were lowered by a few percent for some goods thanks to cheaper shipping, that's little help when you have no source of income. This will only exacerbate the demand-limited economic slump we're curren…

This depends on what the barriers to entry for starting a company. If the barriers to entry are low because you can buy self-driving software off-the-shelf for $20,000 then profits will be low. If the barriers to entry are high because the shipping is done by Uber, Google, etc then the profits will be high. But you are right that it would increase economic inequality.

How does automated truck drivers unequivocally equal economic inequality? It's theoretically possible that this labor is now freed up to create value for lower income households..

The only reason self driving tech won't be commoditized will be regulatory barriers. You can imagine why entrenched interests would lobby for such.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#66

Post by falcolas »

seunosewa wrote: post #29
sverige wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's no guarantee that MSRP will go down. More likely that PM will increase.

Competition all but guarantees it, if there's competition.

Competition will disappear, if companies start having excess liquid assets due to reduced costs. That competition will be lobbied, bought, or acquired right out of the space they were competing in.

Capitalism has a tendency to optimize for a monopoly.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#67

Post by MarkMc »

fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #14
GarrisonPrime wrote: post #7

>“If you can get rid of the drivers, those people are out of jobs, but the cost of moving all those goods goes down significantly,” Kaplan said. This is a major point of automation. Yes, many jobs will be lost. But the prices of many goods will decrease. The problem is that the current transition threatens to be so rapid as to seriously disrupt society. Perhaps new jobs will eventually be created to make up for those…

This assumption that everything will be cheaper seems a bit disingenuous, because why would these companies want to automate themselves so badly if they weren't going to keep most of the savings as profit? Even if prices were lowered by a few percent for some goods thanks to cheaper shipping, that's little help when you have no source of income. This will only exacerbate the demand-limited economic slump we're curren…

I don't think the word 'disingenuous' is appropriate here. You can argue that GarrisonPrime is misguided or incorrect, but there's no need to assume he or she is deliberately withholding information or is not sincere.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#68

Post by dcposch »

grecy wrote: post #64

I'm continually dumbfounded by how Americans are so concerned with holding onto jobs, rather than moving forward. When the automobile was invented think of all the farriers and hay people that went out of business and had to move on. Think about the milkman or the guy that used to put ice in the back of your ice-chest out in the back yard. When we eventually move off coal, think of all the millions of people involved…

This is global, it's not specific to America.

Fun story, the word luddite comes from Ned Ludd, an 18th century English weaver. He destroyed some mechanical looms and inspired a bunch of people to copy him. They were angry about automation taking their jobs.

This is a timeless problem.

> Of course for individuals in an industry that will be soon redundant it sucks, but that's the nature of life. Move on, adapt, re-train.

You're gonna need more empathy than that. For someone like a 50-year-old coal miner living in Kentucky, "adapt, retrain" is easier said than done.

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#69

Post by [deleted] »

grecy wrote: post #64

I'm continually dumbfounded by how Americans are so concerned with holding onto jobs, rather than moving forward. When the automobile was invented think of all the farriers and hay people that went out of business and had to move on. Think about the milkman or the guy that used to put ice in the back of your ice-chest out in the back yard. When we eventually move off coal, think of all the millions of people involved…

[deleted]

Re: Self-driving trucks threaten one of America's top blue-collar jobs

#70

Post by maverick_iceman »

falcolas wrote: post #63
stale2002 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of supply and demand and competition. If companies could squeeze more money out of customers why wouldn't they just do so right now by raising prices?

Well, if truck driving were automated, they certainly wouldn't lower then. Personally, I imagine a lot of companies will use that extra money to buy out, take over, or otherwise eliminate their competition. I doubt the consumer will win.

You could have made the same argument about any technology when it was first created. Why didn't that happen?
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