Technology becomes more complex and probably more expensive. Automation can not go on forever.
Human labor is dropping in cost. it is under relentless pressure from corporation and countries who work cheaper. It is not just menial labor . It is IT, computer, math and any technical field. You can get graduate engineers in India and China for 1/3rd the cost or less than here. How do we win?
This claim is contrary to all of human history.
My example? The computer. I have a device in my pocket that has more power than all the computers in the world in 1950 put together, at a cost several orders of magnatude less.
What is your counter-example?
See what I posted about Foxconn. Chinese factories are having to increase wages because they have driven human being to the breaking point. Sustaining a human life has minimum requirement of food, water and sleep that cannot be denied (the Nazis did the pioneering work in this field), while technology can always be improved.
Define “new”. Web based jobs didn’t even exist 20 years ago.
Please tell me why you are asking these questions and why you think there is a simple yes or no response.
Right. But the work being accomplished via the web is work that was otherwise done in person.
Amazon is not a new, web-based thing. Amazon is a replacement for a physical store. I would agree that, in almost every way from the consumer’s perspective, it is a better store. It has a vastly larger selection than any other store. But Amazon employs a tiny fraction of the number of people who were previously required to sell that amount of product.
The future is one in which web-based stores will do to their physical counterparts what iTunes did to the record store.
You can’t answer these two very simple questions? My answer, to both, is yes. I think it is plain enough, the cost of technology tends to become cheaper. Do you disagree? The cost of human labor tends to either remain the same or become more expensive. Again, feel free to show me that my claim is incorrect. Do you believe I am incorrect?
You mean you were asking a question you already had an answer for? What the hell kind of quesiton is that?
These are two things I believe are true. I’m curious if John Mace agrees or disagrees. Feel free to answer as well.
ETA: Gonzomax answered “no” to both but so far has offered nothing to support his answer.
Call centers (tech support). What do I win?
And I don’t just mean for electronics, Butterball has a 1-800 hot line to help people cook turkeys. I was putting together a tv-stand and noticed on the instructions in large print was a 1-800 to help walk me though assembly. Sadly, call centers are now the dominant industry in the area I grew up.
Chinese workers are even unionizing. They are going to fight against exploitation, but as long as another country with no rules against corporations raping the environment and de -regulation, it will continue. Chinese labor costs are still a fraction of building in America.
Like Welch said when he was head of GE, “ideally you would have every plant on a barge.That way you could throw the workers overboard and head for cheaper workers at a minutes notice.”.
By the way, China has lots of places corporations can move to .All the Cheap labor has not been fully exploited yet.
They still have Indonesia to run through. The era of chasing cheap labor is long from finished.
Apparently some of you believe that since technology keeps changing, that a new technology will step in and employ all the unemployed. But, we have had a permanent unemployed class in the inner cities and rural towns for a long time. That class will get a lot bigger and envelop more educated workers . When Cisco said they were in the process of becoming a Chinese corporation, it should have rung a bell for Americans. China is cranking out educated workers at their universities far faster than we are. IT, programming and other technological fields are being met in China and India. They work much cheaper.
Technology did not displace all the farm workers. We have thousands cross the border to plant and pick crops every year. The
The challenge was:
Call centers are one of the most thoroughly automated and outsourced businesses one can encounter. When you call one, what percentage of the time do you either:
[ul]
[li]Complete the entire call without speaking to a human?[/li][li]Speak to someone in another country?[/li][/ul]
The call center is a way of aggregating all the phone calls a company may receive into one low wage area. Cheap long distance has made it possible to place a call center in any country. The Bangalore call center is a cliche.
The precursor to the Butterball Hot Line was a small army of Butterball turkey experts who used to do demonstrations in grocery stores around the country - I remember seeing one at the A&P when I was a kid. Presumably these people received a wage comparable to other people in the area they were working. According to Butterball’s web site, fifty experts handle 200,000 calls - I suspect there were a lot more Butterball Turkey Experts who each handled a lot fewer questions.
What you think is a new source of jobs is an artifact of eliminating a huge number of jobs.
Feel free to try again
If amazon were the entirety of the internet, you’d be right. But it isn’t, and you aren’t. There are whole business running on e-bay that would not have existed without the web. That’s just one example, not to mention the people making and laying all the high speed fiber optic cable needed to support the internet. And of course the thousands (millions?) of people employed by companies supporting internet applications weren’t doing the same thing in 1990.
You can’t tell me why you are trying to take the debate in that direction? Just because you want to lead the discussion somewhere doesn’t mean I’m going to go there without knowing why.
Oh, my mistake, now let me present a challenge: Name a new product that was developed without the use of electricity!
You asked for a new service, and the call center is your answer. I’ve got 24 hour a day live support for about 22 different things in my home, what were all those people doing before the invention of smart phones, dvrs, and press-board furniture?
Of course they’re going to automate the centers as much as possible, you’d have to be retarded not to. And that guy giving demos at the A&P didn’t just lose his job, he’s the guy training the little drones on what to say.
And personally, I don’t give a shit where the call centers are. Sure lots are in India, but are you suggesting there are none in the US? You mentioned that they aggregate into one low wage area, sounds great, I know a lot of low wage areas that could use some jobs.
You asked, I answered, sorry your theory fell apart. Feel free to come up with a new challenge, these are fun.
Let’s see if I can hand wave this away:
- Amazon uses automation AND outsourcing!
And 2. all those guys laying fiber optic (using automation btw) were the ones that got laid off when everyone stopped putting land lines in their house. I suppose next you’ll tell me all those people putting up cell phone towers, then retrofitting them with 4G, are somehow “new jobs.” They’re just the guys that got laid off when people switched to satellite radio. And don’t bother dragging out the tired old cliche about how satellites are “new jobs.”
I want to add that sometimes automation does not spring from high wages, it springs from the laziness and poor working ethic of the workers, as well as fighting criminal unions. My story of the first real engineering job I worked at, which I posted before, is a prime example of this - the wages and benefit costs didn’t matter, as the company made such a huge profit that the labor cost was very minor.
Lazy workers? Criminal unions? Sweet bleeding Og, what in the Hell are you talking about?
The CEO of Greedco has the option of introducing automation, which would drastically lower labor costs by lowering the number of workers. Despite the fact that such a move would heartily boost his bottom line, and result in extravagant salary and bonus for himself, he refrains due to his concern for the well-being of his employees. Until he discovers, to his horror, that his employees are lazy and unethical, and prone to enlist the support of the criminal unions. The grasping, greedy labor unions, which stand in stark comparison to his deeply held compassion and generosity. Reluctantly, with grave reservation, he moves to implement automation. Didn’t really want to, mind, but was compelled by the laziness of the workers and the greed of the unions.
What kind of Grim Fairy Tale is that!?
You’re absolutely right. The CEO should have forgone his salary, and continued to let his product quality suffer, while fostering an unproductive work environment. Because in the real world his competitors would have felt bad for him and decided not to produce a superior and consistent product at a lower price. I bet at least one round of kumbaya would have been sung.
Oh, we don’t sing “Kumbaya” any more. Mostly, we just sit around discussing the relative merits of Bakunin and Kropotkin, and what names to add to the Straight To The Wall Come the Revolution List.
ExportLawBlog » Two Californians Charged With Illegal Export of ADC Technology to China It still goes on kiddies. Not all technology is allowed to be moved to China. But a lot that we moved was illegal not long ago.
http://www.orange.mu/kinews/afp/business/156929/itt-to-pay-100-million-dollar-fine-for-illegal-china-sales.html here is ITT a defense contractor getting a 100 million dollar fine for selling China military technology.
Am I on that list???
First off, I said sometimes. Not always, not mostly, but sometimes.
I tried searching for what I wrote before. I’ll summarize.
My first real engineering job was at a manufacturing company which had about…I forget, roughly about 100 workers doing highly unskilled jobs. As in, “pick up Box A and walk over 50 feet and set on Rack 1” type of work. Some subset of these could have been classified as “mildly skilled”, as in “take the part from the press and do not stick your anatomy inside the press while it is running”, etc.
These unskilled or mildly skilled employees had a union. A union which was run by a family of about 8 people (I’m vague because everyone seemed to be someone’s “cousin”), and this family made a lot of extra money dealing drugs to the line workers. On the clock. Right in front of the management and the engineers (who were management, but in a different branch). OK, dealing drugs is bad, mmmkay, but using them on the job, while working around large, heavy, deadly pieces of machinery was even worse.
The President of the company tried firing the workers caught dealing drugs on the shop floor. Guess what happened - a strike would be organized, and the plant would be shut down until the fired drug dealers were rehired - with back pay. We tried firing workers who were clearly using drugs on the line - such as smoking a joint (in a non-smoking area filled with paint fumes). Guess what - a strike would be organized. Repeat as needed.
We tried several times to get the police involved, but really it didn’t make any difference. The police were not that interested because of the small amount of drugs involved, and the workers kept an eagle eye out for anyone entering the shop floor (it covered acres) and sent out the alert. I was told that they tried putting an undercover officer on the line, but since every new employee had to be personally vetted by the “family” who ran the union, it was fairly easy to screen out cops.
There were a couple of really bad accidents due to drug-using workers. To try to prevent tragedy, because as Engineers we have a duty to serve the public good, we designed outrageous amounts of safety equipment around the machines. This meant that a person blind drunk and falling off their feet could not get hurt (except for impacting the floor), but it also made the machines very hard to use. So guess what - the workers started sabotaging the machines, destroying the safety equipment with hammers, wrenches, whatever. Cutting wires, taping over sensors, etc. I took this very personally - my goal in designing a press “foreign object intrusion protection system” (meaning, keeping your fucking hand from being chopped off) was to save people from devastating and crippling injury. And to see the smirking workers standing there, with my safety device hanging in ruins after being beaten on with a hammer, saying “whoops, guess you aren’t so smart after all, thing just fell apart”, made my blood boil. I was trying to keep these ignorant fucks from losing a hand, and they stood there and laughed at me, and made sexual slurs at me when my back was turned.
I don’t want to get into the side-tangent of workers who would deliberately destroy expensive equipment WE made to shut the line down and go fishing, or drinking in the parking lot. It happened a lot. Yes, it still makes my blood boil today.
Finally, there was an incident - I’m not going to describe it in detail because it’s Googlable, but a life was lost. Due to a drugged-out employee. The President went ballistic and fired every employee known to deal drugs, and there was not only a strike, but someone started shooting at the President’s house with a high-powered rifle one night. So back to work they went, with full back pay.
The President resigned, over fear of the death threats the union was making towards him and his family, and a new President was appointed by the parent company. On his first day of work, having been fully briefed, he called the Engineering staff into his office. He said “my goal in life is to fire every single union person here who will not agree to a new contract which mandates zero tolerance for drug dealing and drug use, and replace them with machines. Can you help me do this?” So we started, and it was remarkably easy. I designed an optical measuring system which replaced one worker, then I designed a glue machine which replaced 4 more. I helped design an automated cart stacker which replaced 10 workers. We did this very rapidly, working paid overtime.
The union "family"started to get suspicious, but didn’t do much about it as the new President had had more luck working with the police to have about half the “family” arrested, along with a handful of employees, by the laughably simple process of a “random” traffic stop right outside the plant grounds. Finally, when the union was down to about 60 people, the President was feeling like things were more manageable. Then another drug-related accident - a forktruck driver who was so high he couldn’t walk drove into some poor guys loading a semi truck. No deaths, but severe injuries. It wasn’t surprising - the forktruck drivers were considered to be the “princes” of the floor, and were typically members of the drug-dealing “family.” I myself was almost killed by a forktruck driver who was spinning “doughnuts” on the floor, in violation of untold numbers of safety standards, to show off while people laughed and clapped.
Thanks to the incredible amount of automation we had put into place, the President then fired the entire union staff (right to work State), and hired in temp workers from an agency. There were some threats, and some pickets, but at the same time the police came and nabbed pretty much the rest of the drug-dealing “family” in connection to the forktruck accident, and the heart really wasn’t in it for the fired workers. There were a couple of cars vandalized and a few death threats made by these good, American flag-flying union workers, but really nothing much happened. Except we replaced 60 people with about 50 temp people, who didn’t use drugs, didn’t deliberately vandalize equipment, and worked their asses off - for the same pay that the union people were getting.
Our automation however had reached a point of no return, where we were now realizing some seriously cheap production costs. But this was good - demand went up for our product, and by the time I left to work at my second job, there were now about 100 temp workers at the plant - about the same as when I started - because we were running three full shifts to keep up with demand.
So yes, sometimes wages are not the reason for automation.
Disclaimer: I’ve altered a couple of facts to make this not Googlable, since I have a new stalker on this message board who has been asking off-board for “the skinny on that bitch” to “get me.” But I have not altered any key facts which substantively change the story.