121–130 of 140 posts
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Just make sure you diversify. Quality land, managed rental units, and other assets will still hold some value even if stocks and bonds take a massive hit. Regardless of the state of the economy, people still have to live somewhere.
Not if they read Henry George and realize there's no reason to assign you the land value.
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Being a consultant with clients in a wide range of industries I concur. Most of the employees I come into contact with have jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort. They are one successful software project from losing their jobs. Lucky for them their companies are terrible at shipping software. Conversely, automating the work of a plumber would require a massive investment in AI and…
"Most of the employees I come into contact with have jobs that could be automated with a few days or weeks of programmer effort." After looking at some of the business processes at my company I am not so sure about this anymore. There are a lot of jobs that are pretty mundane but when you look a little closer most of the processes have a lot of exceptions where the employee makes decisions that don't follow the proce…
As in "Yes this office job could be replaced by three shell scripts but the boss wouldn't be capable of using them and they make six figures so it is cheaper to just add a minimally skilled and paid underling than to try to teach them."
It may be maddening to see the needless extra expenses and pointless job but doing so makes some economic sense. A "roll-over" to those capable of doing it themselves would likely be a slow process as inertia must be overcome. Since even if you have "also technically competent enough to automate it" there wouldn't be a selective pressure and jumping the gun on this issue may prove pound foolish if the replacements aren't up to snuff or worth the added expense from supply vs demand let alone politics.
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I'm sure the idea is to convert to cash before the apocalypse actually occurs. Even if one misses it by a little (ie, there is some downturn), the bulk of GP's earnings have gone to savings.
You’re assuming cash will hold value after a so-called economy apocalypse? If the economic credibility of the nation goes, so too does the value of its cash currency. What’s a “more white collar workers than jobs” economy look like? Personally, I’m leaning into useful life skills, like growing food, reconnecting to hunting, low level electronics, rebuilding my car, and home myself with my money now. I’d rather have d…
If it is world wide collapse than productive skills may be the best - since even if you have guns you may be outgunned but if you can supply food any remotely smart bandit or warlord would prefer the reliable food stream of a living serf under their protection than just a storehouse's worth.
Of course these are all very long odds and preventing a collapse is likely a far better use of resources.
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The solution is to keep your scripts private, automate your job, and work on whatever you want while making sure you always look busy when your boss walks by.
If you roll over like you suggest and let your boss tickle your belly, what do you say to yourself when you look in de mirror?
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That books was originally written in the 40s and updated in the 70s. Hazlitt likely didn't even dream of people being replaced by algorithms. The trick in the past has always been to invent new types of jobs to take advantage of the technological progress. We're out of tricks if one can automate highly sophisticated tasks.
He probably didn’t dream of auto industry automation either. And yet that industry employs millions of people.
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You can post a long wall of text but the actual claim is that FUTURE DISRUPTION due to globalization and automation will destroy existing jobs faster than new jobs that the displaced workers can move into can be created. Please respond to the actual subject of discussion in the future.
This has always been the claim, and it’s been historically proven false. The book quote provides a way for you to understand for how long this claim is made (with an exemple from the 18th century), and yet here we are.
My problem with this take is that people --- including me! --- have been predicting this for decades because the logic just seems so clear, yet unemployment is still low and long-term real wages have not declined, in fact around the world and in most wealth bands they have risen dramatically. I don't think there's some benevolent cosmic law that ensures job creation will always match job destruction, so I can't assum…
The grand total is being pumped by China, India, Eastern Europe playing catch up, with places like South Korea having almost reached it.
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Interesting. I'm really surprised that auto parts don't track vehicle assembly more closely. But, in your second reference, see the "back data" graph links for 1990-2019, in any of the manufacturing categories. I would expect that figures for the sixties and seventies would be much higher still, as much of the automation and de-industrialisation was through the eighties. The seventies perhaps, as a pure guess, the ma…
I’ve found this paper [1] which has data from 1960 to 1990 in a plot on page 3. The peak is in 1978 but the number range is very similar to today’s numbers (~1 million employees). I’m assuming the numbers in that chart are in manufacturing alone (didn’t read the paper), because today’s numbers including retail trade, wholesale trade and services add up to more than 4 million jobs, according to my second link above. […
I think it leaves the picture unclear without the associated parts trade, which aren't normally picked out when I've seen news pieces on the auto trade here in Europe. So we get stories and graphs of producing more cars than ever despite the industry employing few. Also leaves me wondering what those staff are doing when car factories themselves have lost such a huge proportion of their workforce.
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If a large amount of white collar workers are jobless, your SPY calls would also become worthless. It's a good idea to invest in index funds, but investing in index funds expecting a economic apocalypse is not good reasoning.
My model is that as median labour power decreases capital and superstars should capture a larger percentage of future productivity increases. And automation should provide huge productivity increases. This seems compatible with index funds being a good bet. Perhaps I am wrong, but could you provide details as to why?
The actual effect is that capital in the companies that are taking advantage of the new globoticized future does great. FANG does great. Upwork does great. AirBnB and Stripe do great, once they go public.
Labor and capital of old-line companies do terribly. This type of economic transformation doesn't just result in layoffs, it results in whole companies going out of business. Their value-networks are adopted to the cost structure of the old world; as that cost structure changes, they have no reason to exist as a firm.
When you buy an index fund, you're buying both of these types of companies. You should probably do okay, because the public market is actually pricing a lot of this phenomena in already: multiples on old-line companies are severely depressed while FANG shares are soaring, and the capitalization-weighting of the index is taking this into account. But you're leaving money on the table: many of the biggest winners will be new fast-growing startups that aren't public yet.
My problem with this take is that people --- including me! --- have been predicting this for decades because the logic just seems so clear, yet unemployment is still low and long-term real wages have not declined, in fact around the world and in most wealth bands they have risen dramatically. I don't think there's some benevolent cosmic law that ensures job creation will always match job destruction, so I can't assum…
When people haven't been able to adapt, results are every bit as tragic as people predicted. Think of the large swaths of Appalachia or the Midwest that are still smarting from our transition away from a coal & steel economy.