61–70 of 206 posts
Welding is not a routine job. Good welders make pretty good money.
Welding is also just about the least middle-class job I can think of.
"To counter these trends, the U.S. must invest in raising the skills of the workers most likely to be affected by the disappearance of routine jobs..." Not sure how's that going to play out for example a welding machine operator can't become a mechanical engineer in a short span of time because those routine jobs are eventually going to be consumed by automated robots, per this study. Why not motivate people to look…
The middle class is based on a mostly unskilled workers making a great wage because they are producing things that people will pay even more for. Automation has killed that future dream and is rapidly killing what remains of it.
I agree that it makes no sense to turn a welder into a mechanical engineer. The best we can do in the short term is turn them into robot mechanics but that is just buying time (although maybe a long time). Eventually, we have to re-evaluate what life is, can be or should be. I find this future fascinating and terrifying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably dead nothing and then blame liberals and Mexicans again in 4 years when everything has got worse.
You assume that blame would be misplaced? Liberals tossed workers and organized labor overboard ~30 years ago: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/23/yes-democratic-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand the reasoning here, like, at all. For decades now researchers have been pointing out the demographic issues of aging populations and the workforces required to care for them. I don't know the specific numbers, but they're doubtless enormous. Why wouldn't they be a significant part of the economy?
Not the above poster, but their point appears to be that caring for the elderly doesn't CONTRIBUTE to the economy (i.e. as a transaction it adds to GDP, but in terms of value-creation it's near zilch. So while a blue-collar worker might add value by creating a product, an elder care worker adds only humanitarian benefit. (And unlike a doctor that can help those blue collar workers continue to work, there isn't even m…
That's what I meant when I said I didn't understand the reasoning of the comment --- like, at all, even a little bit.
Remember, the average IQ in the US is just below 100[1]. Exactly what kind of jobs do you expect to retrain these people for? And how are they equipped to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?
Most of these jobs provided on the job training or apprenticeships so it's not even a matter of "they did it once they can do it again".
Also, many are battling obesity and related illnesses such as diabetes or struggling with mental illness and/or addiction.
We need a systemic overhaul of the economic system and soon. Self driving vehicles will put 3-5 million out of work in the next decade.
This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labour instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. IMO, the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onbo…
Plus you still have a huge mass of unemployed people who ended up in those jobs because they lacked either the aptitude of temperament to gain skills in the first place, or are too old, poor or poorly situated to take advantage of the opportunity now.
Soon, due to the dearth of people employed, and the shrinking wages of the minority who are, there is no longer enough people left with money to buy most goods and services. As a result, businesses start to shut down, exacerbating unemployment and sending the economy into a contractionary death spiral.
Yes, in a healthy job market, people will gradually retrain and relocate in order to fill demand. But what we're talking about here is a total breakdown in the jobs market, to the point where it becomes non-functional.
It's the difference between supply problems causing the prices of a few foodstuffs to rise, and an unending drought that destroys harvests year after year. The market can cope with the first, but not the second. The result will be famine and mass starvation.
"To counter these trends, the U.S. must invest in raising the skills of the workers most likely to be affected by the disappearance of routine jobs..." Not sure how's that going to play out for example a welding machine operator can't become a mechanical engineer in a short span of time because those routine jobs are eventually going to be consumed by automated robots, per this study. Why not motivate people to look…
Healthcare is not immune from Automation either. there is huge efforts underway to replace Doctors, Nurses, etc with AI.
"To counter these trends, the U.S. must invest in raising the skills of the workers most likely to be affected by the disappearance of routine jobs..." Not sure how's that going to play out for example a welding machine operator can't become a mechanical engineer in a short span of time because those routine jobs are eventually going to be consumed by automated robots, per this study. Why not motivate people to look…
elder-care cannot possibly be a solid basis for the economy. they are not in their working years and are not (on the average) contributing positive sums to GDP or tax revenue. there is a humanitarian case to be made for improved quality of life for elderly people, but I can't imagine that there is a reasonable economic case to be made for it, unless you're arguing that the elder-care industry is just an elaborate sub…
What the hell is the economy for otherwise?
Most of the economy is not based things that grow the pie massively like 'new energy forms' and 'more powerful computers' etc..
This is, for society at the very least, a "good thing". Who's dream is it to perform a "relatively narrow set of repeated tasks" for 8 hours a day? As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labour instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor. IMO, the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onbo…
No ones, but they also want to eat, have a home, and provide for their offspring
> As mentioned, take these "prime aged workers" teach them skills, and suddenly we have a spike in actually valuable labor instead of a middle class of unfulfilled office drones stuck in a stupor.
What about the people that can not be taught "skills", what about when the machines take over their skills? What about ... 100 other scenarios I can come up with
>the framing should be look at this amazing business opportunity to onboard high value workers, not cautionary doom.
To do what, exactly? No job is safe from automation. To deny the potential for this new wave of automation to create massive poverty is to deny reality.
We have ti adjust how society functions, how we look at labor, and honestly how we look at human rights.
If we do not, if we hold to the same Social Structure of 40 hours a week with minimum amount of pay as possible all that will be is suffering for the majority, because even in this "utopia" where you can take 100% of the lower skilled worker and magically impart upon them more skills all you have done is flood the market with a greater supply of workers for those higher skilled jobs while no increasing the demand for them. Economics 101 tells up that results in a reduction in the price of that labor, so what was once "valuable labor" is no longer valuable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for a welding operator to become a physical therapist is an even larger leap. Also, there's also a lot of resistance (and prejudice) in going from blue-collar to pink-collar, partly because care and health services are seem as feminine jobs(except doctors, of course).
My brother recently finished nursing school. The number of times he got the question, "you're gonna be a male nurse?" ... He had a number of cute responses.
The nursing profession is extraordinarily important, and we underutilize it in this country. Most of us should be talking to "nurses" much more frequently than we do, and much more often than we talk to doctors.