THERE WILL NEVER EVER AGAIN BE ENOUGH...

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...decent paying jobs for everyone who needs and wants one.

There will never ever again be enough decent paying jobs for everyone who needs and wants one.

There ain’t never gonna be enough decent paying jobs for everyone who needs and wants one.

Our leaders have to come up with a reasonable plan to replace the notion that we each must “work in order to earn a living.”

Can’t be done.

No president; no congress; no political philosophy can possibly change the fact that the value of human toil is fast approaching the value of grass clippings.

All the time, effort, and bullshitting our politicians are spending on ideas about how to create jobs...or create an environment in which the private sector will create jobs...IS WASTED TIME, because the only kind of jobs that can possibly be created are jobs paying labor wages that can compete with third world labor costs...or mechanized labor costs.

Every company in a capitalistic economy is required to maximize profits…and the cost element that is the easiest to cut is that of human labor.

There will never ever again be enough decent paying jobs for everyone who needs and wants one…or at very least, if you were forced to bet, it would be much, much better to bet on that than on “Oh, there will definitely be enough.”

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[+4] - roger - 08/29/2012Well, he didn't say there would never, ever be jobs again. He said, not enough. I'm inclined to agree with him, though I also suspect a significant part of the issue is matching...

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

There ain’t never gonna be enough decent paying jobs for everyone who needs and wants one.

You are going to fly someone in from the third world to repair your plumbing, your car, your home wiring at third world wages?

How about truck drivers, train crews, cops, firemen/women, and on and on jobs that need skills from local people?

You can order cheap pipes from China but those pipes do not come with the skill of a plumber to install them in a business or a home.

Those pipes in fact do not move themselves from the ports to the point of sale by themselves either that take train crews and truckers and the people that can keep the trucks and trains running such as train dispatchers and section crew for the rails repair and on and on and on.

Having been involve with the CNJ and NYLBRR railroads as a young man the skill sets to keep a railroad running take years to be develop and you are not going to be able to use minimum wages labor or replaced most of that work force with technology.

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@BillRM,

Well, he didn't say there would never, ever be jobs again. He said, not enough.

I'm inclined to agree with him, though I also suspect a significant part of the issue is matching skills/education/potential with vacant jobs.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

You are going to fly someone in from the third world to repair your plumbing, your car, your home wiring at third world wages?

How about truck drivers, train crews, cops, firemen/women, and on and on jobs that need skills from local people?

You can order cheap pipes from China but those pipes do not come with the skill of a plumber to install them in a business or a home.

Those pipes in fact do not move themselves from the ports to the point of sale by themselves either that take train crews and truckers and the people that can keep the trucks and trains running such as train dispatchers and section crew for the rails repair and on and on and on.

Having been involve with the CNJ and NYLBRR railroads as a young man the skill sets to keep a railroad running take years to be develop and you are not going to be able to use minimum wages labor or replaced most of that work force with technology.

Good points all, Bill.

But there will never again be enough for everyone who needs or wants one...and NOT NEARLY ENOUGH.

Yup, some people will work and earn a living. But we have a fairly large population of people who need to "earn a living"...and the number of jobs that fill that bill will be far short of what is needed.

Maybe I am wrong.

Back in the 60's I thought the Beatles were a flash in the pan.

Maybe I am wrong...and business are going to start hiring lots and lots of people at salaries that will be sufficient to keep a family comfortable.

Maybe people will be able to train pigs to fly.

Anything is possible.

What about the bet I mentioned?

1 Reply

@roger,

Quote:

I'm inclined to agree with him

I do not as the jobs that can be offshore to third worlds countries at third world wages are only a fraction of the total work force needed to keep a high technology society going.

Let go back to those pipes I question if the manufacturing work force needed was anything but a small percent of the total work force needed to move those pipes and install those pipes and so on.

As you are then moving those pipes many thousands of miles instead of hundreds of miles at most that mean you need far more people involve in the direct transportation and secondaries jobs maintaining the transportation infrastructure.

There is a limit and a sharp limit, third world wages or not, where offshoring no long make sense.

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@roger,

Roger...matching skills/education/potential with vacant jobs does play a significant role in the overall problem.

But we can vastly increase skills; vastly improve education; and take full advantage of potential...

...and I think the problem still remains.

We can, I will acknowledge, get everybody in America working again immediately if we wanted. Lower the minimum wage to 50 cents per hour...and businesses will hire like crazy. Not only did I not say there would never be jobs again...I said not enough...and I said not that pay decent salaries.

I think it is coming to a head. Whoever is elected this November will preside over a labor debacle in America...because there will be a labor debacle throughout the world. Third world labor makes our labor prohibitively expensive...and our geometrically increasing technology is making third world labor prohibitively expensive.

Soon, machines will be making most of the machines...and machines will be riding herd on most of the machines.

Or at least that is my guess...and that is how I would be betting.

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@Frank Apisa,

I see your point, Frank. And Roger's. I'd not take your bet.

On the other hand, things may change in ways we can't conceive of yet. Well, maybe some science fiction readers could, but I'm not up to speed on all that.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Yeah, where is a good science fiction writer when ya need 'em? Wink

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@Frank Apisa,

I don't buy it. What do you think has changed? What we are experiencing now is what we have experienced countless times before.

100 years ago it was electricity and communication that was upsetting the economy and putting people out of work as labor needs shifted. 500 years ago it was the industrial revolution. This pattern goes all the way back to 10,000s ago as agriculture made people more productive and changed labor needs.

What you are complaining about is progress.

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@Frank Apisa,

Second Frank if you start talking about the offshoring of anything more complex then pipes you are going to run into that limit a lot faster.

When the parts manufacturing needed to support high tech products is in the next building over then on getting a call or an email that there is a problem you can then get up from your desk and walk over and interact with someone you know and who know you to solve the problem.

You are both employees and stakeholders in the same firm so whatever the issue is that is holding up the manufacturing of a subassembly you both are strongly motivated to solve the problem as fast as possible.

Not the same if you need to take a ten hours plane ride to a firm where your company is only one of many customers.

There are many times where cheap offshore labor is the most costly of all labor as in when you can not get a product out of the pipeline because of a problem with an offshore supplier half way around the world.

You have you own people sitting around with no work to do as your customers are calling and yelling why the hell you are already a week late in the delivery.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

I don't buy it. What do you think has changed? What we are experiencing now is what we have experienced countless times before.

100 years ago it was electricity and communication that was upsetting the economy and putting people out of work as labor needs shifted. 500 years ago it was the industrial revolution. This pattern goes all the way back to 10,000s ago as agriculture made people more productive and changed labor needs.

What you are complaining about is progress.

It is progress, Max...and I am not complaining about it. I am merely calling it to the attention of anyone reading what I write. And I am suggesting that unlike 100 years ago, this advancement in technology WILL make human labor virtually valueless.

I may be wrong...but I don't think so.

In any case, we developed the technology to make life easier for humans...to make less work for them to do.

We have succeeded.

Now we have to learn how to deal with our success.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

Quote:

Second Frank if you start talking about the offshoring of anything more complex then pipes you are going to run into that limit a lot faster.

When the parts manufacturing needed to support a high tech products is in the next building over then on getting a call or an email that there is a problem you can then get up from your desk and walk over and interact with someone you know and who know you to solve the problem.

You are both employees and stakeholders in the same firm so whatever the issue is that is holding up the manufacturing of a subassembly you both are strongly motivated to solve the problem as fast as possible.

Not the same if you need to take a ten hours plane ride to a firm where your company is only one of many customers.

Okay...so I take it you are voting that we have no employment problem...or that the employment problem we have is not especially dire and will be cleared up fairly easily once the right things get done by the politicians.

I vote the other way.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

And I am suggesting that unlike 100 years ago, this advancement in technology WILL make human labor virtually valueless

Nonsense..................

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Re: Frank Apisa (Post 5091801)
Quote:
And I am suggesting that unlike 100 years ago, this advancement in technology WILL make human labor virtually valueless

Quote:
Nonsense..................

Okay, I now understand how you feel on this. Thank you for sharing, Bill.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Okay...so I take it you are voting that we have no employment problem...or that the employment problem we have is not especially dire and will be cleared up fairly easily once the right things get done by the politicians.

I wrote a long long posting and then hit the wrong key and lost the whole thing but for a shorter version here go.

Like in the 1930s we have a financial and tax code problem not anything to do with technology or cheap foreign labor or the skills set of American workers.

Hell businesses are now sitting fat and happy on a trillion dollars of cash reserves and to get this economic moving once more they should be told to start investing it in their firms or those funds will be tax aways and transfer in one way or another to the consumers to start the pump of demands on the other end.

We had in the last thirty years or so been using the taxing system to reduce the middle class and enrich far less then the top one percent of the population.

In a consumer driven economic it is a very very bad idea to lock up the wealth in a few hands in fact it is even a bad idea for those who in the short term had benefit by us doing so.

We need to reverse this transfer of wealth from the middle class to the super wealthy and by so doing getting some more demand into the economic for goods and services.

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@Frank Apisa,

At the time I was working as an accounting clerk, I was getting more done than 5 or maybe even 20 people would have been required for thirty years ago. Now, if we could just move back to thirty year old technology, there would be a screaming demand for accounting clerks. In fact, all the unemployed and underemployed in the country wouldn't be enough to fill the void. We aren't going back thirty years.

1 Reply

@roger,

I just do not see it a technology problem anymore then the 33 percents unemployments in the 1930s was a technology problem it is a economic system problem and need to be deal with as such.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Okay, so what's your suggestion - besides taking in each other's laundry till we all get rich.

1 Reply

@roger,

Quote:

Okay, so what's your suggestion - besides taking in each other's laundry till we all get rich

Like we did in WW2 when we spend the great depression away on tanks and aircrafts and so on?

I already made the suggestion as the problem is lack of demand for goods and services as we had reduce the middle class demand base for those goods and services for the last thirty years or so.

Romney and people like him are just going to need to pay more then 13 or 14 percents in taxes and they need to have a little less then half the nation wealthy in their pockets and offshore bank accounts.

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@maxdancona,

Progress? Surely you mean progress toward socialism.

1 Reply

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