OGIS
08-18-2016, 09:06 AM
I really do love this article. Every hand-wave and head-in-the-sand meme collected in one place. It's educational.
Perhaps I'm reading this the wrong way and the article is just total tongue-in-cheek sarcasm. Or perhaps not.
I've always wanted to be a gardener or a housekeeper. These are jobs that millions of bookkeepers, truck drivers, ditch diggers and other robot-replaced workers will really be able to sink their teeth into.
Workers, don’t fear the robot revolutionMy colleague David Ignatius is right [“When robots take all the jobs,” Washington Forum, Aug. 12] that millions of jobs are threatened by things such as self-driving cars, voice recognition systems and intelligent software, in the same way that millions of jobs were eliminated by the mechanical reaper and precision lasers and computers. The result will certainly be a lot of economic churn and dislocation. And as with similar job losses from globalization, if we don’t find a mechanism for the winners of this process to provide a better economic safety net for the losers, there will be a populist backlash.
However, there are many who, like Ignatius, worry that this next wave of technology progress may be different — that, in the end, there won’t be enough work for everyone to earn a living and have productive lives. These skeptics have a difficult time imagining what all those displaced cabdrivers and bookkeepers will do. But historical experience strongly suggests that there will be jobs for those who want them at wages in line with those in the rest of the economy.
So how would that work?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/workers-dont-fear-the-robot-revolution/2016/08/16/28c1606e-631f-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html
(Wapoop apparently decided to have one of those displaced truck drivers write their paywall software, so just hit escape just after accessing page to break through their paywall.)
Some of the better one-liners and my thoughts:
"The result will certainly be a lot of economic churn and dislocation. And as with similar job losses from globalization, if we don’t find a mechanism for the winners of this process to provide a better economic safety net for the losers, there will be a populist backlash."
Like guillotines and hungry mobs with pitchforks?
"But historical experience strongly suggests that there will be jobs for those who want them at wages in line with those in the rest of the economy."
The article then goes on to sing the praises of gardening and domestic servant positions.
"And let’s not forget all those new high-paying jobs associated with designing, manufacturing and marketing all that job-destroying technology. With their higher incomes, all of these people — the remaining workers, shareholders and technology producers — will buy more goods and services of all sorts, increasing the demand for the workers who produce them."
One programmer replaces how many truck drivers?
"The winners from job-destroying technology hire more gardeners, housekeepers and day-care workers."
All of these totally being high-paying career choices....
"They take more vacations and eat at more restaurants."
Served by robot waiters....
"They buy more cars and boats and bigger houses."
Built by robot assembly lines....
"They engage the services of more auto mechanics and personal trainers, psychologists and orthopedic surgeons."
There you go! All the displaced have to do is go back to school and become orthopedic surgeons, using the savings they have accumulated from their ditch digger jobs! Easy.
"In case you hadn’t noticed, yoga instructors (http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2015/01/27/best-jobs-2015/10.html) in big cities can now make upward of $30 an hour. That’s not far from what those lost manufacturing jobs paid. In a post-industrial service economy, they are the new working class."
Wow! We can all become yoga instructors! The nation will be overrun with yoga instructors!
"These adjustments can take years, even decades, because there is so much “friction” in labor markets."
So I guess that displaced workers can just get food stamps while they go back to school with government tuition assistance to retrain from cab driver to programmer.... Oh, wait, those "taker" programs are being killed off by the Republicans....
"People who lose their jobs must have the willingness and wherewithal to find new opportunities, learn new skills, move to new cities — and to the degree they do not, the economy’s ability to keep everyone employed will be frustrated."
No. Sh!t. Sherlock.
All of that takes $$$$$.
Fascinating article....
Perhaps I'm reading this the wrong way and the article is just total tongue-in-cheek sarcasm. Or perhaps not.
I've always wanted to be a gardener or a housekeeper. These are jobs that millions of bookkeepers, truck drivers, ditch diggers and other robot-replaced workers will really be able to sink their teeth into.
Workers, don’t fear the robot revolutionMy colleague David Ignatius is right [“When robots take all the jobs,” Washington Forum, Aug. 12] that millions of jobs are threatened by things such as self-driving cars, voice recognition systems and intelligent software, in the same way that millions of jobs were eliminated by the mechanical reaper and precision lasers and computers. The result will certainly be a lot of economic churn and dislocation. And as with similar job losses from globalization, if we don’t find a mechanism for the winners of this process to provide a better economic safety net for the losers, there will be a populist backlash.
However, there are many who, like Ignatius, worry that this next wave of technology progress may be different — that, in the end, there won’t be enough work for everyone to earn a living and have productive lives. These skeptics have a difficult time imagining what all those displaced cabdrivers and bookkeepers will do. But historical experience strongly suggests that there will be jobs for those who want them at wages in line with those in the rest of the economy.
So how would that work?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/workers-dont-fear-the-robot-revolution/2016/08/16/28c1606e-631f-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html
(Wapoop apparently decided to have one of those displaced truck drivers write their paywall software, so just hit escape just after accessing page to break through their paywall.)
Some of the better one-liners and my thoughts:
"The result will certainly be a lot of economic churn and dislocation. And as with similar job losses from globalization, if we don’t find a mechanism for the winners of this process to provide a better economic safety net for the losers, there will be a populist backlash."
Like guillotines and hungry mobs with pitchforks?
"But historical experience strongly suggests that there will be jobs for those who want them at wages in line with those in the rest of the economy."
The article then goes on to sing the praises of gardening and domestic servant positions.
"And let’s not forget all those new high-paying jobs associated with designing, manufacturing and marketing all that job-destroying technology. With their higher incomes, all of these people — the remaining workers, shareholders and technology producers — will buy more goods and services of all sorts, increasing the demand for the workers who produce them."
One programmer replaces how many truck drivers?
"The winners from job-destroying technology hire more gardeners, housekeepers and day-care workers."
All of these totally being high-paying career choices....
"They take more vacations and eat at more restaurants."
Served by robot waiters....
"They buy more cars and boats and bigger houses."
Built by robot assembly lines....
"They engage the services of more auto mechanics and personal trainers, psychologists and orthopedic surgeons."
There you go! All the displaced have to do is go back to school and become orthopedic surgeons, using the savings they have accumulated from their ditch digger jobs! Easy.
"In case you hadn’t noticed, yoga instructors (http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2015/01/27/best-jobs-2015/10.html) in big cities can now make upward of $30 an hour. That’s not far from what those lost manufacturing jobs paid. In a post-industrial service economy, they are the new working class."
Wow! We can all become yoga instructors! The nation will be overrun with yoga instructors!
"These adjustments can take years, even decades, because there is so much “friction” in labor markets."
So I guess that displaced workers can just get food stamps while they go back to school with government tuition assistance to retrain from cab driver to programmer.... Oh, wait, those "taker" programs are being killed off by the Republicans....
"People who lose their jobs must have the willingness and wherewithal to find new opportunities, learn new skills, move to new cities — and to the degree they do not, the economy’s ability to keep everyone employed will be frustrated."
No. Sh!t. Sherlock.
All of that takes $$$$$.
Fascinating article....