Ominous prediction indeed.

[kbate]

Well kiddo, the railroads (freight) are back and doing quite well.

No, I'm speaking of the folks that seem to think we're going to return to an industrialized nation that will be in need of hordes of unskilled and semi-skilled labor. The folks that produce regulations that in effect are nothing more than anti-competition protectionism. The folks that underwrite college loans to people that are majoring in the equivalent of 'underwater basket weaving.' The list goes on.

I don't think anyone believes we're going to bring back the 1910 to 1970's factory worker. Even those who grew up in those families know that is the past and good riddance.

We are going to have people to build things, maintain things and to service the wealthy. That has been the way of the world since Rome and technology has never changed that.

 

[eyer]

We are going to have people to build things, maintain things and to service the wealthy. That has been the way of the world since Rome and technology has never changed that.

Bullcrap...

...what technology has definitely changed is lessening exponentially the number of people needed to "build things, maintain things and to service the wealthy".

Which, btw, is exactly the point of the OP.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't think anyone believes we're going to bring back the 1910 to 1970's factory worker. Even those who grew up in those families know that is the past and good riddance.

We are going to have people to build things, maintain things and to service the wealthy. That has been the way of the world since Rome and technology has never changed that.

Of course we are. There is going to be a market for the skilled tradesman (some anyway) well into the foreseeable future. Carpenters, electricians, steelworkers, and the like. I wouldn't want to seek training as a Wheelwright these days though.

The point is that we have enough unskilled and semiskilled citizens right here, right now. We have no use for millions of imports.

Ishmael

 

[kbate]

Of course we are. There is going to be a market for the skilled tradesman (some anyway) well into the foreseeable future. Carpenters, electricians, steelworkers, and the like. I wouldn't want to seek training as a Wheelwright these days though.

The point is that we have enough unskilled and semiskilled citizens right here, right now. We have no use for millions of imports.

Ishmael

Until our low wage jobs pay worse than low wage jobs in other countries, our low wage work will look good.

Nobody is predicting that we won't have low skill jobs. 30 years ago, everyone cut their own grass, today every newly retired man with a pickup truck buys a zero-turn and goes into the grass cutting business. An entire industry sprang from laziness - it can happen again.

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth36415/small/

 

[Ishmael]

Until our low wage jobs pay worse than low wage jobs in other countries, our low wage work will look good.

Nobody is predicting that we won't have low skill jobs. 30 years ago, everyone cut their own grass, today every newly retired man with a pickup truck buys a zero-turn and goes into the grass cutting business. An entire industry sprang from laziness - it can happen again.

Yep. Exactly why I advocate hiring an illegal a felony.

Ishmael

 

[Que]

Until our low wage jobs pay worse than low wage jobs in other countries, our low wage work will look good.

Nobody is predicting that we won't have low skill jobs. 30 years ago, everyone cut their own grass, today every newly retired man with a pickup truck buys a zero-turn and goes into the grass cutting business. An entire industry sprang from laziness - it can happen again.

So no one is going to cut their own grass but the economy will survive by everyone cutting someone else' grass?

How about if we all become glaziers and break each others windows?

 

[Sean Renaud]

The operative word is SKILLS. How many unskilled workers do we actually need? Or possibly a better question is how many unskilled jobs are supported by skilled/professional labor?

There is always going to be janitors, burger flippers (although the burger flipper future may be bleak, robots are on their way), and such. But what is the saturation level?

I look at the unemployment/underemployment numbers and they're not only frightening, they're going in the wrong direction. (Yes, I see the reported 'unemployment' numbers but the reported number is hiding more than it reveals.) In particular I see the youth and minority unemployment numbers and those are frightening as well. How is flooding the nation with even more unskilled 'workers' a good idea?

Even among the skilled/labor force a great deal is gong to change. How many Social Workers and Dog Groomers do we really need? Clerk typists and secretaries? Many of the skilled construction trades will remain well into the foreseeable future. But others, such as machinists, will slowly disappear. Even today the machinists trade, with the exception of tool and die makers, has been replaced by programmers setting up the CNC machines. (GM's new Turbohydromatic divisions new plants are on the verge of being 'lights out' manufacturing facilities. The same with the New Departure Hyatt plants.)

If the article is close to being on target the need for MBA's is going to drop substantially as well. In general middle management is a burden that business and industry has had to bear. Those jobs are mostly unproductive overhead.

Ishmael

Why do you think Janitors will last much longer? I mean I have a fucking Roomba I can attest that robots can vacuum. I don't see any reason why one couldn't mop and take out the trash.

I mean you an I are in agreement on the "problem" here. That we are very shortly going to automate our way into a problem we're apparently too stupid to solve. I don't get why we're too stupid to solve it but I agree that we are.

 

[kbate]

Yep. Exactly why I advocate hiring an illegal a felony.

Ishmael

Which is protectionist and essentially the same as price setting. Plus, if as some are saying, the jobs are going to be gone - they illegals will be gone with them.

 

[kbate]

So no one is going to cut their own grass but the economy will survive by everyone cutting someone else' grass?

How about if we all become glaziers and break each others windows?

Every time you post, the collective IQ of the nation drops by .01 points.

 

[Ishmael]

Which is protectionist and essentially the same as price setting. Plus, if as some are saying, the jobs are going to be gone - they illegals will be gone with them.

LMAO. Lamest post you've made is ages. Whatsamatta, afraid you'll lose your stable boy?

Ishmael

 

[Libsam]

Are you really using Signs Of The Times as a source? The tinfoil-hat site that would have us believe that lizard people communicate with higher-order humans?

"We're now in the largest period of sustained job growth since 1939. You know what else happened in 1939? HITLER!"

#MaximumDerp

Oh sweet, conspiracy porn!

I hope it's good stuff like "Hitler was a manchurian activated by our central banker overlords"

Yaay!

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Wasn't The Ebola® supposed to wipe us out by now?

What happened with that? What happened to the ISIS?

What happened to the teachers' unions in Wisconsin? Remember them?

C'mon, guys...keep all your Fear Ducks moving in orderly rows, FFS!

 

[Que]

Every time you post, the collective IQ of the nation drops by .01 points.

This, to be sure added it right back.

I am always bemused by people with slightly above median IQs who are quite certain of their ability to divine the IQs of others. Lemme guess yours is between 128 and 142? The modern dumbed down chart showing that in the "genius ranking?"

You obviously are not stupid, but like most people, are not nearly as bright as you think you are.

Shall we compare dick sizes as well?

Which is protectionist and essentially the same as price setting. Plus, if as some are saying, the jobs are going to be gone - they illegals will be gone with them.

Not if we continue to make subsidize couch sitting at a higher rate than what illegals accept for actual work.

 

[Libsam]

Wasn't The Ebola® supposed to wipe us out by now?

Nah, they just gonna keep Ebola in their back pocket until they feel the need to enact martial law.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

We'll still have dogs, and we'll have people who are too good to get dog shite on their hands.

After Stalin murdered all the farmers he made perfessers and students harvest the potatoes and beets.

 

[Sean]

Liberals like to say, who will pick our lettuce if we send illegals home? I always say, Americans will for $15 an hour. They say, but that will drive up the cost of lettuce to unacceptable levels, and nobody but the wealthy will be able to buy lettuce. This might be true, but only until a smart entrepreneur recognizes the demand for lettuce is still there, but the cost of production prevents widespread affordability, and then invents machinery that will not only pick lettuce, but pick it more efficiently and at lower unit costs that are then passed on to the consumer in lower prices. Farm worker's unions are of course against this kind of progress that would benefit all wanting to buy lettuce. Until we recognize that growers who hire illegals are competing illegally against American labor and are given prison terms for doing so, this kind of unfair, illegal labor practice will undermine our market place.

Ah, gotta love the deus ex machina argument to justify either apathy or outright douchebaggery.

 

[trysail]

Ah, gotta love the deus ex machina argument to justify either apathy or outright douchebaggery.

A prima facie example of economic illiteracy on public display.

There is nothing in the quotation to suggest the slightest familiarity with or interest in reality. In its absence, we see the desperate resort to poo-flinging.


​

 

[eyer]

I read 25-30 years ago a futurist predict America would one day not produce a thing (figuratively speaking, of course)...

...rather, America would create and design the things the rest of the world produces.

That trend has evolved, for sure...

...but the problem is retaining and increasing the overall intellectual know-how, passion, and desire to keep creating to sate the world; facets, it seems, America is apathetically surrendering more and more with each passing day.

 

[Que]

I read 25-30 years ago a futurist predict America would one day not produce a thing (figuratively speaking, of course)...

...rather, America would create and design the things the rest of the world produces.

That trend has evolved, for sure...

...but the problem is retaining and increasing the overall intellectual know-how, passion, and desire to keep creating to sate the world; facets, it seems, America is apathetically surrendering more and more with each passing day.

Given that most things are created and designed virtually, there is no compelling reason for people with those talents to remain in the US to continue to support first world "wages" to be paid to an indolent underclass.

Plenty of beaches in the world to work from.

15 years ago, a friend of mine was designing turbines for an engineering firm that was under contract with GE. He moved to Australia and would send out terabytes of data by plane back to headquarters.

These days it is even easier to work from where-ever.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

Liberals like to say, who will pick our lettuce if we send illegals home? I always say, Americans will for $15 an hour. They say, but that will drive up the cost of lettuce to unacceptable levels, and nobody but the wealthy will be able to buy lettuce. This might be true, but only until a smart entrepreneur recognizes the demand for lettuce is still there, but the cost of production prevents widespread affordability, and then invents machinery that will not only pick lettuce, but pick it more efficiently and at lower unit costs that are then passed on to the consumer in lower prices. Farm worker's unions are of course against this kind of progress that would benefit all wanting to buy lettuce. Until we recognize that growers who hire illegals are competing illegally against American labor and are given prison terms for doing so, this kind of unfair, illegal labor practice will undermine our market place.

I think you have libs and conservatives confused with this argument.

 

[kbate]

LMAO. Lamest post you've made is ages. Whatsamatta, afraid you'll lose your stable boy?

Ishmael

Why do you hate the free market?

You can't stuff the global market back into the drawer. It's here, it's real and Americans are paid too much to be the world's labour force. You cannot demand that I pay an american $12.50 an hour to pick apples when a chinese farm getting the same price per pound for product pays $1.30 for labour.

If I can make more money by pushing the trees into burn piles and planting corn with one worker, one tractor, one combine - I will.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Except that the widespread development and use of machinery to overcome the shortcomings of manual labor is not just a rhetorical device to advance an argument. They have been advancing the fortunes of mankind for centuries. Mechanized farming is a fact of life, large scale use of manual labor is on it's way out in the western world.

What you report is why slavery wasn't the fuse that started our Civil War, mechanization doomed it. One Ford tractor was cheaper than one slave and cost a whole less to operate. I cant remember the last time I seen a nigger in the Cotton Belt. Rich white boys pick the cotton with air conditioned combines then gin it at automated mills.