Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#71

Post by peisistratos » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

> Meanwhile, the overall job market is fine...

In constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars, according to the US government's Bureau of Labor statistics, current earnings for production, nonsupervisory employees on private non farm payrolls is $23.65, in constant inflation-adjusted 1983 dollars for September 2019.

In February 1973 that was $23.33 an hour. Almost a half century of economic growth, in a good economy, and workers are making only 32 cents more an hour than they did 46 years ago.

If pundits were describing wages in the Soviet Union, this would be called 46 years of stagnation and so forth. Whereas we have someone from the Bill Gates funded corporation Slate telling us "the overall job market is fine" and other niceties.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#72

Post by ivalm » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

aey wrote: post #65

Yang is totally wrong about automation. The main cause of the shift of manufacturing from US to China is trade policy and China’s monetary policy. If automation was the problem, then US would be price competitive on goods with China. Somehow US automation is only good enough to eliminate jobs in the US, but not good enough to compete with cheap labor in China.

Whatever automation you can do in the US you can also do in China but with lower regulation. Whatever labor costs left over are also cheaper. What I mean is that automation is not an inherent advantage of the US.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#73

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

aey wrote: post #65

Yang is totally wrong about automation. The main cause of the shift of manufacturing from US to China is trade policy and China’s monetary policy. If automation was the problem, then US would be price competitive on goods with China. Somehow US automation is only good enough to eliminate jobs in the US, but not good enough to compete with cheap labor in China.

it is a characteristic of technology that what costs too much in one generation will in each following generation cost less - at some future point the quality of automation found in the U.S now will no longer be prohibitively expensive in China.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#74

Post by S_A_P » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

I’ve done some consulting at quite a few bigcorps in the Houston area. The amount of outsourcing of IT generalist work that I’ve seen is downright scary. Regardless of political affiliation, this should be front and center for both parties. It is the go to move for executives that want to spin stagnant growth into profitability. I generally disagree with tariffs. However outsourced work should be subject to a 100% tariff so that it’s disincentivized.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#75

Post by hackinthebochs » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

lend000 wrote: post #70

PakG1 wrote: post #3

In a 2018 paper, UC–Berkeley sociologist Steve Viscelli suggested that in the most likely scenario, long-haul truckers, who tend to make middle-class wages, will be replaced by poorly paid drivers tasked with steering autonomous vehicles through tricky city streets, which onboard navigation systems handle less well than highways. That’s not all jobs disappearing. It’s jobs changing. I'm not sure if the author is clai…

If only we hadn't invented the printing press, scribes would still be making good wages. Somehow everybody found a job afterwards, though -- the economy adjusts with an increased supply of labor. UBI is a promising antidote for short term automation shocks, which Yang is also a proponent of.

>If only we hadn't invented the printing press

The difference is that scribing was a limiting factor to new and expanded methods of communication. Removing this limit allowed industry to expand due to massive decreases in costs of communication and expansion into entirely new forms. A similar argument can be made for many of the usual purported counter examples against automation alarmism. Steam engines, combustion engines, trains, cars, highways, the internet, they all were massively reducing friction and transaction costs, thus opening up new forms of commerce which brought new kinds of jobs.

Automation is a different kind of beast. The promise of the automation revolution is not orders of magnitude increases in efficiency, its removing humans from the equation. A long haul truck doesn't get across the country and order of magnitude faster, it just gets there more cheaply without the constraints human involvement. This does create a market for self-driving trucks and the industries needed to support them. But they too can be automated. The potential for making human labor irrelevant to large chunks of the economy is real and shouldn't be hand-waved away.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#76

Post by jonnycomputer » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

nyhc99 wrote: post #69

alexandercrohde wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, honestly I don't really understand the article's point. Is it that say McDonalds switching to electronic kiosks to order your burger is going to create as MANY tech jobs as it took away? Because that doesn't pass the smell test.

There were a slew of anti-yang articles that came out from the leftmost media sources immediately after the debate, owing to the fact that Yang made Elizabeth Warren look unprepared in her answer about job loss. Andrew Yang, snake oil salesman: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/andrew-yang-tech-entr... Is Yang doing more harm than good to the case for universal income?: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/20…

National Review a leftmost media source?

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#77

Post by fullshark » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

mikeg8 wrote: post #61

fullshark wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there are some good points in the piece, but the headline and concluding paragraph are not supported by the body.

Curious as to what you identified as a good point? I didn’t really see any to be honest

I think Yang has been overstating automation’s impact, in part because that’s necessary for political messaging. Sounds like the Ball State study has some issues.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#78

Post by aey » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #72

aey wrote: post #65

Yang is totally wrong about automation. The main cause of the shift of manufacturing from US to China is trade policy and China’s monetary policy. If automation was the problem, then US would be price competitive on goods with China. Somehow US automation is only good enough to eliminate jobs in the US, but not good enough to compete with cheap labor in China.

Whatever automation you can do in the US you can also do in China but with lower regulation. Whatever labor costs left over are also cheaper. What I mean is that automation is not an inherent advantage of the US.

Nowadays 100%. 20 years ago China didn’t have a high technology sector that could have supported large scale factory automation, and factories where built to scale labor.

100% agree with regulation. That’s why US trade policy is the main cause of the decline. It should reflect regulatory arbitrage. It’s utterly pointless to save the environment in the US and poison it in China.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#79

Post by aeternum » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

aey wrote: post #65

Yang is totally wrong about automation. The main cause of the shift of manufacturing from US to China is trade policy and China’s monetary policy. If automation was the problem, then US would be price competitive on goods with China. Somehow US automation is only good enough to eliminate jobs in the US, but not good enough to compete with cheap labor in China.

Manufacturing is probably the worst example because trade policy has definitely had an impact there. However, look at other industries: Tier-1 tech support being replaced by chat bots, order-takers being replaced by kiosks and apps, realtors being replaced by self-service apps (ie redfin).

Whether by outsourcing or automation, the cause is the same: Loss of low-skilled jobs in return for cheaper products & services. The challenge is to find the best method to leverage those cheaper products and services to improve quality of life for everyone, especially those who's skills become obsolete.

Re: Andrew Yang's ideas on automation and mass unemployment are not based in reality

#80

Post by jbay808 » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #72

aey wrote: post #65

Yang is totally wrong about automation. The main cause of the shift of manufacturing from US to China is trade policy and China’s monetary policy. If automation was the problem, then US would be price competitive on goods with China. Somehow US automation is only good enough to eliminate jobs in the US, but not good enough to compete with cheap labor in China.

Whatever automation you can do in the US you can also do in China but with lower regulation. Whatever labor costs left over are also cheaper. What I mean is that automation is not an inherent advantage of the US.

Absolutely. In fact industrial automation components (robots, servos, linear bearings, etc) have been in huge demand from China. Suppliers often sell the same components there for half the price as they charge in the US for the same quality and quantities. Domestic Chinese companies are becoming major suppliers of a lot of factory automation equipment like presses, laser welders, coil winders, etc.

There's no reason to think the US has an advantage in automation. In fact, it's much easier as an automation engineer to design automation processes for the factory that's around the corner than to do so for a factory in another time zone that 90% of your team has never seen in person.