The new economy

[The Cosmic Avenger]

A quick follow up. Jobs for women. After checking with jeanie, I found out that not one single service that we have, (except our local bank) employs an American worker.... not only the mechanical thing that answers the phone, but the many different steps to follow after the first contact. Whether India, the Philippines, or maybe China, not a single person speaking native American English. Fortunately I can understand most, but find jeanie is frustrated by having to spend a long time to get information that should be available. Top it all off, a foreign voice answering my call to our state's attorney general office.

Just a gentle reminder that a "foreign voice" (I presume you mean they speak with a foreign rather than US regional accent) does not mean they are not in the United States or that they are not a US citizen. While a lot of corporate call centers are outsourced, I have yet to hear of any state government outsourcing any functions out of the country.

 

[RobbieB]

The less gifted should be less desirable as mates and therefor not reproduce improving the species.

 

[Starsky]

With respect to farming, a lot of crops are harvested today, the same way as decades or even centuries ago. The amount of manual labor involved in harvesting many delicate crops is significant, and the methods can be ancient - just hands, snippers and maybe a ladder. These are the backbreaking jobs that Americans really don't want and may be some of the easiest to transition from a labor perspective.

IMO, a lot of U.S. farms have not invested much of anything in modernizing the harvest processes for decades. Why? Because it's easier just to use cheap and readily available immigrant labor that is kowtowed not to complain or cause problems b/c they want to stay here. If the labor were to disappear tomorrow, they would have a huge problem harvesting many crops in time. The biggest technical improvements by farmers have been directed at increasing crop yields and managing the soil. Genetically modified seeds and pesticides, weather satellites, GPS and a myriad of other new tech is available to help farmers plan the next day and the next harvest; but far fewer are available to help them pick it.

My understanding is that in Australia, they have developed more types of farm automation to make up for the lack of labor at harvest time. I know that in Canada, they bring in laborers from other parts of the Commonwealth to harvest crops for a few months each year - my friend had a Jamaican crew that would fly to Canada every year.

Here in Southern California I see the development of a bifurcated farming industry that is split between the large factory farms; and the smaller family-owned organic farms and specialty producers. The factory farms can't economically produce the quality of product that the smaller local ones can; and local/regional organic grocers and high-end restaurants feature this branded organic produce in their establishments.

I expect indoor growing and hydroponics to become much more popular as solar energy is able to provide the cheap power that indoor growers need. From a large-scale farming perspective, these types of operations lend themselves perfectly to automation. They need much less physical space, and would be much more efficient and controllable than farming in nature with the vagaries of weather and pests. The food could also be produced much closer to the end-user, making it cheaper and fresher.

Farming is an industry that probably deserves all the automation it can handle. It is incredibly inefficient, slow and risky as a business model; and can be difficult and even dangerous for the workers. Perhaps if farming were more technical and less archaic, there might actually be more Americans that would choose agriculture as a career.

 

[JoeWras]

Farming is changing. It may be one crop at a time and incremental. It may only be one step. Maybe only going from straw hats to air conditioned cabs. NC is changing all their road signs because of that change alone.

Another example... I'm no tobacco farmer, but there are still enough of them in eastern NC you hear stories and see their fields and equipment. It used to be a true right of passage for young people in these parts to "top" tobacco. No more, it is automated. Much of this automation has occurred in the last 25 years. Huge change. So now you hear all the old people bitterly complaining that the youngsters just play their videogames instead of getting out in the fields like they used to. With automation like this, there's no need to get into the field.

 

[imoldernu]

I'd like to go back to the original post and the proposition that our world is changing, perhaps faster than anyone thinks.

Back to AI, and to equate that with efficiency and cost reduction and how that will affect our younger generation.

Big business has the understandable objective of making more money. The easiest way of doing this, in most cases, is the reduction of wage costs. In effect, the elimination of jobs.

Where do "former employees" go.?
........................................................................................................

Back to the subject of farms. Most recently, 2.2 million farms in the United States. Currently, for many of the reasons stated in posts here, the small farmer is in trouble. Crop and sale problems, an alltime high debt, with no reasonable solutions in sight.

Let's examine a problem that we have within a few miles of my home. Small farmers... 50 to 200 acres. Most in debt for equipment and maintenance, and many owned by aging farmers, who are facing a difficult retirement.
One by one the farms are being bought up by the XYZ Corporation... and in many cases, continuous acreage with nearby farms... also in the same position. Literally thousands of acres. No longer being plowed, sown, grown and harvested by many workers, but replaced by giant machines to do in a day what could otherwise take 20 workers. Machines that do not cost $50,000 but ten times that (even more).
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/6/1739361/-The-Corporate-Takeover-of-American-Farming

...................................................................................................
A quick trip back to telephone customer service. No more operators who say "How may I direct your call". More likely "Please listen carefully... dial one for bill payment, dial 2 for making changes to your account, dial 3 for.... etc", and then... despite what many seem to think, low paid operators in distant countries... India, Philippines, China, the Ukraine. Lowering the customer service costs of many, many American Corporations. A loss of tens of thousands of well trained operators. Women or men, a loss of American jobs.

Doesn't seem like such a big deal?... Try this (older) article listing the major corporations that provide this service. Note that while there are many foreign countries involved, the services of most are sustained by U.S. Companies.
https://themanifest.com/answering-services/companies

And we haven't even looked a the loss of Secretarial and mid-management jobs that can be provided by "Alexa".

So far, just touching the surface of two industries that are changing our neartime future.

So many industries, so many parts of life as we know it today. Perhaps thousands of changes to explore, as a result of AI and the trickle down.

Medicine-shortcuts to health, "repair", maintenance, improvement (longer lives)
Education - Teachers, schools and a movement towards perfection.
Transportation - reduction in vehicles, straightline high speed rail 200 mph+
ala China. A step beyond self driving cars. Even a self sustaining infrastructure... Electricity, water, sewer, waste, highways, eldercare, human safety nets.
How about this? New Amazon Delivery... sidewalk/bike lane:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-delivery-robots-are-officially-on-the-streets-of-california/

A step or two beyond the here and now... and just scratching the surface.

Look around your own life, and imagine how many changes there might be in the next 20 years.

 

[ncbill]

With respect to farming, a lot of crops are harvested today, the same way as decades or even centuries ago. The amount of manual labor involved in harvesting many delicate crops is significant, and the methods can be ancient - just hands, snippers and maybe a ladder. These are the backbreaking jobs that Americans really don't want and may be some of the easiest to transition from a labor perspective.

IMO, a lot of U.S. farms have not invested much of anything in modernizing the harvest processes for decades. Why? Because it's easier just to use cheap and readily available immigrant labor that is kowtowed not to complain or cause problems b/c they want to stay here. If the labor were to disappear tomorrow, they would have a huge problem harvesting many crops in time. The biggest technical improvements by farmers have been directed at increasing crop yields and managing the soil. Genetically modified seeds and pesticides, weather satellites, GPS and a myriad of other new tech is available to help farmers plan the next day and the next harvest; but far fewer are available to help them pick it.

My understanding is that in Australia, they have developed more types of farm automation to make up for the lack of labor at harvest time. I know that in Canada, they bring in laborers from other parts of the Commonwealth to harvest crops for a few months each year - my friend had a Jamaican crew that would fly to Canada every year.

Here in Southern California I see the development of a bifurcated farming industry that is split between the large factory farms; and the smaller family-owned organic farms and specialty producers. The factory farms can't economically produce the quality of product that the smaller local ones can; and local/regional organic grocers and high-end restaurants feature this branded organic produce in their establishments.

I expect indoor growing and hydroponics to become much more popular as solar energy is able to provide the cheap power that indoor growers need. From a large-scale farming perspective, these types of operations lend themselves perfectly to automation. They need much less physical space, and would be much more efficient and controllable than farming in nature with the vagaries of weather and pests. The food could also be produced much closer to the end-user, making it cheaper and fresher.

Farming is an industry that probably deserves all the automation it can handle. It is incredibly inefficient, slow and risky as a business model; and can be difficult and even dangerous for the workers. Perhaps if farming were more technical and less archaic, there might actually be more Americans that would choose agriculture as a career.

I'm currently enjoying a "Zombie Apocalypse" series of books set around a decade after a worldwide economic depression.

Said depression was caused by increasingly efficient AI...in particular, automation improved to the point that food could be grown year-round in solar-powered greenhouses hydroponically with almost no need for human supervision...so worldwide family farms went out of business, rural communities emptied out, concentrating most population in dense urban areas.

That's an advantage to the survivors out in the country who can find food & other resources in automated farms & abandoned towns, with relatively few infected.

 

[GravitySucks]

I don't know about you but I'm living in more of an Idiotacracy based land than that.

Very few breed with someone thinking about their talents other than in athletics. Fact is most don't even seem to think they might be breeding while they're having their fun. LoL. (And you can count me in that group.)

The less gifted should be less desirable as mates and therefor not reproduce improving the species.

 

[Mdlerth]

Change is the only constant

I'd like to go back to the original post and the proposition that our world is changing, perhaps faster than anyone thinks.

Back to AI, and to equate that with efficiency and cost reduction and how that will affect our younger generation.

Big business has the understandable objective of making more money. The easiest way of doing this, in most cases, is the reduction of wage costs. In effect, the elimination of jobs.

Where do "former employees" go.?
........................................................................................................

Back to the subject of farms. Most recently, 2.2 million farms in the United States. Currently, for many of the reasons stated in posts here, the small farmer is in trouble. Crop and sale problems, an alltime high debt, with no reasonable solutions in sight.

Let's examine a problem that we have within a few miles of my home. Small farmers... 50 to 200 acres. Most in debt for equipment and maintenance, and many owned by aging farmers, who are facing a difficult retirement.
One by one the farms are being bought up by the XYZ Corporation... and in many cases, continuous acreage with nearby farms... also in the same position. Literally thousands of acres. No longer being plowed, sown, grown and harvested by many workers, but replaced by giant machines to do in a day what could otherwise take 20 workers. Machines that do not cost $50,000 but ten times that (even more).
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/6/1739361/-The-Corporate-Takeover-of-American-Farming

...................................................................................................
A quick trip back to telephone customer service. No more operators who say "How may I direct your call". More likely "Please listen carefully... dial one for bill payment, dial 2 for making changes to your account, dial 3 for.... etc", and then... despite what many seem to think, low paid operators in distant countries... India, Philippines, China, the Ukraine. Lowering the customer service costs of many, many American Corporations. A loss of tens of thousands of well trained operators. Women or men, a loss of American jobs.

Doesn't seem like such a big deal?... Try this (older) article listing the major corporations that provide this service. Note that while there are many foreign countries involved, the services of most are sustained by U.S. Companies.
https://themanifest.com/answering-services/companies

And we haven't even looked a the loss of Secretarial and mid-management jobs that can be provided by "Alexa".

So far, just touching the surface of two industries that are changing our neartime future.

So many industries, so many parts of life as we know it today. Perhaps thousands of changes to explore, as a result of AI and the trickle down.

Medicine-shortcuts to health, "repair", maintenance, improvement (longer lives)
Education - Teachers, schools and a movement towards perfection.
Transportation - reduction in vehicles, straightline high speed rail 200 mph+
ala China. A step beyond self driving cars. Even a self sustaining infrastructure... Electricity, water, sewer, waste, highways, eldercare, human safety nets.

A step or two beyond the here and now... and just scratching the surface.

Look around your own life, and imagine how many changes there might be in the next 20 years.

I submit that the concentration in farming isn't a new phenomenon. It dates back many centuries, and has been driven by multiple factors including economies of scale, evolving demand for agricultural variety, and technological advancement dating back to the invention of irrigation. How many manual soil-tilling jobs were lost when someone figured out how to use oxen pull a plow? And again when a tractor replaced the oxen, and the combine replaced harvesters wielding sickles? AI is just the latest link in a long chain of innovation.

If there are 2.2M farms today, imagine how much larger that number was, not 20 years ago but 100 years ago. You ask, "Where did all those former employees go?" They, or more precisely their descendants, work different jobs, many of which didn't exist a century ago.

I also suggest that farming is hardly unique among industries seeing similar trends. For example, I spent most of my career in textile fibers. Fifty years ago, there were thousands of individual players in fiber processing, making threads and fabrics and garments and carpets, etc. Most of those have been either conglomerated or gone out of business. A handful of remaining large players dominate the domestic industry, and many products once manufactured stateside are inexpensively imported from elsewhere.

Again, "Where did all those former employees go?" The answer is still the same.

Economic displacement has been a feature ever since the dawn of civilization. Consider a timeline much longer than merely our own lives and our own localities and you may find more reason for optimism. Also consider that some new advancement will someday supplant AI, and the world will change again.

 

[imoldernu]

Economic displacement has been a feature ever since the dawn of civilization. Consider a timeline much longer than merely our own lives and our own localities and you may find more reason for optimism. Also consider that some new advancement will someday supplant AI, and the world will change again.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that there will be change, and change that we can't even imagine today.

I didn't mention one of the major reasons for my concern, and that is the effect of population change. When I was born, the U.S. population was less than 130 million... today an additional 200 million. 329,000,000.

We all live in "today".... so we adapt to change, and hardly think about about tomorrow. Hopefully the future will see a balance of global conscience and an accommodation for the people, rather than the historical turn toward oligarchy.

In 20 years, my granddaughter will be 31. I would like to believe that the world will be as good, or better than today.
.................................................................................................

One more thing... about textile!.. My jeanie's dad owned a warping company (mill) in Rhode Island 1935-1958. My mom and dad both worked in R.I. textile mills all of their lives. He, a loomfixer, she, a weaver. Still remember being on the third floor of Lorraine Mfg.... with 50 wide fabric looms, running from overhead leather belts. The whole building continually shook. Later on... mom worked for Apex Textiles narrow fabric... that later moved to N. Carolina.

Also, grandmother was a Cluett... of Cluett Peabody... Later Manufacturer of Arrow Shirts.. (early on, manufacturer of Arrow cuffs and collars...)

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

If you're of the belief the history rhymes, I've felt for a long time that we're witnessing a repeat of the 1880s, the time Mark Twain called the Gilded Age. The industrial revolution back then had produced huge advances in productivity, just as the computer revolution has done for us. The market had an oversupply of labor -- from immigration in the 1880s, from globalization in our era.

As in the 1880s, industrial advancements created vast wealth that became concentrated in few hands. Monopolies took control of large sectors of the economy. An anti-immigrant mood grew across the country, especially toward those who were slow to assimilate, like the Germans.

Eventually, the progressive movement sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction.

 

[joeea]

The market had an oversupply of labor -- from immigration in the 1880s, from globalization in our era.

Which market has an oversupply of labor today?

 

[MuirWannabe]

Which market has an oversupply of labor today?

The market of internet trolls and snarks. The market of extremists on all sides and political arsonists. I know, off topic. But top of mind for me today.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Which market has an oversupply of labor today?

Attorneys. Or you can look at this pretty long list...

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-...training=&newjobs=Declining&growth=&submit=GO

The market of internet trolls and snarks. The market of extremists on all sides and political arsonists. I know, off topic. But top of mind for me today.

'

You WIN the internet today. You may claim your prize at the National Sarcasm Convention.

 

[LRDave]

If you're of the belief the history rhymes, I've felt for a long time that we're witnessing a repeat of the 1880s, the time Mark Twain called the Gilded Age.

.........

Eventually, the progressive movement sent the pendulum swinging in the other direction.

The pendulum might be swung by something other than a progressive movement. History might rhyme with 1789 or 1917, as opposed to the 1880's in U.S.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Which market has an oversupply of labor today?

Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics' U-6 rate.

There's also a vast oversupply of labor in much of Asia. That's why so many corporations have outsourced production there.

 

[joeea]

Attorneys. Or you can look at this pretty long list...

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-...training=&newjobs=Declining&growth=&submit=GO

LOL!

Having a few jobs with a declining long-term number of new jobs isn't quite the same thing as a market with an over supply of labor.

It's just a mismatch between jobs. Happens all the time.