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In the past 15 years, the labor force participation rate has dropped 4%. I would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing jobs to

In the past 15 years, the labor force participation rate has dropped 4%. I would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing jobs to automation, and this trend will rapidly increase going forward, as automation gains momentum. I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, but I am adamant that we're going to need a "living wage" stipend for the people who simply don't have enough skills to participate in the future job market. I would further argue that unemployment and various entitlements are bridging the gap for now, but what's happening will become explicit in the near future, because it will soon be too obvious to hide. For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care, so why should we let a budget hold us back from things like a living wage and free higher education and a single-payer insurance system and any other entitlement you want to tack on?

erikpukinskis 9y ago
> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, but I am adamant that we're going to need a "living wage" stipend for the people who simply don't have enough skills to participate in the future job market It's funny, because I lean liberal and I don't. I think there will be plenty of jobs for a long time. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it possible what you're saying reflects some sort of bias you have about the inherent value of people who are less _____ than you? Can you say a little bit about what these supposedly useless/unmarketable people are like, what they have spent their time doing and why their skills have no value? My hypothesis is different than yours: The pendulum in the employer class has swung towards authoritarian control over the last 50 years. Employers have tried to organize both their business and society so that employees either have fewer choices, or believe they have fewer choices. Employers have organized things such that people are afraid to leave their jobs, through norms like employer-provided health insurance. They have pushed important work like customer service into an "hourly" category, which is considered unskilled, where wages can remain stagnant. These norms benefit all employers, and can't easily be "shorted" by a single organization paying their employees their true value. To extract the true value from those workers you'd need to have a continually expanding management apparatus to provide space for those employees to grow into, and you run into scaling issues. Therefore the mispriced labor can only be "shorted" by a federated system of many businesses making the play together. But the pendulum is swinging back. People are waking up to the idea that if they can contract themselves out to multiple clients, they can have leverage to extract their actual market rate from employers. And software will eventually provide the market for the federated play I describe.
- jpm_sd 9y ago
  > People are waking up to the idea that if they can contract themselves out to multiple clients, they can have leverage to extract their actual market rate from employers. The people who are living this lifestyle ("gig"-only, or multiple part time jobs) seem to dislike it. Their income is unpredictable and highly variable, while their expenses are consistent and difficult to meet. Please note that I'm not talking about software development consultants - I'm talking about Uber drivers and service industry hourly workers.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    I agree there's not enough infrastructure yet to make it comfortable.
    - SapphireSun 9y ago
      The entire idea of a gig economy is that you get random low paying clients. How could infrastructure ever make this any different from what it is?
- TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
  > is it possible what you're saying reflects some sort of bias you have about the inherent value of people who are less _____ than you? I'm puzzled by the question. Aren't we already seeing it? When it takes a 4-year degree to do an office clerk's job, doesn't this already indicate that people who can't get a degree are being phased out of the job market? If the employers with menial positions have enough selectivity in the job pool to weed out people without a degree -- for jobs that do NOT require them -- doesn't that, in itself, show that we're running out of jobs for people? I'm being simplistic for the sake of brevity, but it seems to me that there's a whole class of people (non-college-grads) that are being weeded out of the job market as we speak.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    I see it as a failure to capture value. Your belief is based on the perfect market hypothesis ("If there were a way to capture value from those employees someone would be doing it") but the landscape is changing so fast due to software, I just don't think you can make that claim. I think the old systems of employment have mostly run their course and are on the decline, but new systems based on loosely federated networks of independent contractors will replace them. Right now the tools are weak, but will get better. So we're in a kind of gap right now, where the old system has optimized on a local maximum that is leading to unemployment, but the new system hasn't quite formed to take over those employees. Increased unemployment will increase the pressure for the tools to stand up.
crdoconnor 9y ago
"I would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing jobs to automation" I'd argue outsourcing and austerity are to blame. Take a look at your infrastructure once in a while. It's crumbling and it's not robots who are rebuilding it, it's nobody. And that company that builds that iPhone of yours? Uses a LOT of very fleshy robots.
- TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
  > And that company that builds that iPhone of yours? Uses a LOT of very fleshy robots. And Tesla, which just built a single factory designed to produce 500,000 vehicles a year with ONLY robots? People are watching. If this succeeds (and I suspect it will), there's going to be a LOT more attempts at such a thing.
  - rgbrenner 9y ago
    That factory is already out of space, with production far below 500k. In fact, it's less efficient and employs more people than it did before Tesla bought it. Tesla uses far more workers than NUMMI employed to build far fewer cars. In 1985, its first full year of production, NUMMI had 2,470 employees and produced 64,764 vehicles — about 26 vehicles per worker per year. By 1997, it had 4,844 workers and produced 357,809 vehicles — about 74 vehicles per worker per year. Tesla, on the other hand, had between 6,000 and 10,000 workers in 2016 and manufactured 83,922 vehicles. That puts its vehicle-per-worker number between 8 and 14, about one-seventh the efficiency of NUMMI at its peak. http://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/teslas-real-capacity-problem%3A-too-many-people http://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/tes... I like Tesla, but Elon often talks about the future like it exists today. One day they'll be able to completely automate that factory, but first they need to become as efficient as the other auto manufacturers that already exist today. Automation of production is something that all of auto manufacturers have pushed... and Tesla is far behind on that metric. I would not assume they get to full automation before Ford, GM, Toyota, etc.
isostatic 9y ago
> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, Aren't they opposites? > For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care, One mistake that people make is believing that no deficit is a good thing. Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college. Another is that money is worth something. If as a generation all the wealth was owned by rich retired unproductive people, but the only way that food is generated is from poor working people, the elderly are screwed. Savings are not value, they are a hope that the future generations as a whole will be kind enough to work for old people based only on how much old people did when they were productive. If future generations decide they will not pay any attention to old people's money, what happens then? What do I care that in 1960 you worked 60 hour weeks saving $500,000 in assets. Why shouldn't my generation decide "lets reduce the value of the dollar to 10% of it's current value, and lets put a massive tax on assets to redistribute to working people (say swapping income tax for an asset tax). That way I only owe rich people 1 year's salary in debt, not 10, my wage would simply have a zero added to the end (as would prices). The tax relief would mean a real wage increase too.
- SonOfKyuss 9y ago
  > > I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, > Aren't they opposites? Not OP, but not necessarily. Basically, Libertarians strongly support civil liberties in many forms. That can mean supporting drug legalization (liberal) and also gun rights (conservative). It can also mean supporting an individual's right to discriminate in private business transactions (men's or all-white golf clubs, hetero-only bakeries) which would likely be viewed as a really conservative social stance. Many Libertarians also strongly support States' Rights, which tend to lean conservative.
- TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
  >> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, >Aren't they opposites? It's sad that everything about American politics casts every issue in black and white, either/or, polar-opposites mentality, and must be labelled. I was just trying to "get on paper" for context with my post. > Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college. That may have been the most unfortunate example you could have used, since so many people are not seeing the value of their education in the marketplace pay off that investment in a reasonable period. Regardless, I understand what you're saying, but if you're trying to tell me that the deficit that the US federal government consistently runs is a planned, strategic effort, I'm not buying it. ;-)
snowwrestler 9y ago
The last 15 years has also seen an economy that has underperformed on GDP and wage growth. And while labor force participation has dropped, the unemployment rate is below historical average. That's not an economy that looks like it has permanently automated away net 4% jobs. That's an economy that looks like it automated away some jobs, created more new jobs, but companies can't find workers to fill them.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, but I am adamant that we're going to need a "living wage" stipend for the people who simply don't have enough skills to participate in the future job market It's funny, because I lean liberal and I don't. I think there will be plenty of jobs for a long time. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it possible what you're saying reflects some sort of bias you have about the inherent value of people who are less _____ than you? Can you say a little bit about what these supposedly useless/unmarketable people are like, what they have spent their time doing and why their skills have no value? My hypothesis is different than yours: The pendulum in the employer class has swung towards authoritarian control over the last 50 years. Employers have tried to organize both their business and society so that employees either have fewer choices, or believe they have fewer choices. Employers have organized things such that people are afraid to leave their jobs, through norms like employer-provided health insurance. They have pushed important work like customer service into an "hourly" category, which is considered unskilled, where wages can remain stagnant. These norms benefit all employers, and can't easily be "shorted" by a single organization paying their employees their true value. To extract the true value from those workers you'd need to have a continually expanding management apparatus to provide space for those employees to grow into, and you run into scaling issues. Therefore the mispriced labor can only be "shorted" by a federated system of many businesses making the play together. But the pendulum is swinging back. People are waking up to the idea that if they can contract themselves out to multiple clients, they can have leverage to extract their actual market rate from employers. And software will eventually provide the market for the federated play I describe.

jpm_sd 9y ago
> People are waking up to the idea that if they can contract themselves out to multiple clients, they can have leverage to extract their actual market rate from employers. The people who are living this lifestyle ("gig"-only, or multiple part time jobs) seem to dislike it. Their income is unpredictable and highly variable, while their expenses are consistent and difficult to meet. Please note that I'm not talking about software development consultants - I'm talking about Uber drivers and service industry hourly workers.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  I agree there's not enough infrastructure yet to make it comfortable.
  - SapphireSun 9y ago
    The entire idea of a gig economy is that you get random low paying clients. How could infrastructure ever make this any different from what it is?
TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
> is it possible what you're saying reflects some sort of bias you have about the inherent value of people who are less _____ than you? I'm puzzled by the question. Aren't we already seeing it? When it takes a 4-year degree to do an office clerk's job, doesn't this already indicate that people who can't get a degree are being phased out of the job market? If the employers with menial positions have enough selectivity in the job pool to weed out people without a degree -- for jobs that do NOT require them -- doesn't that, in itself, show that we're running out of jobs for people? I'm being simplistic for the sake of brevity, but it seems to me that there's a whole class of people (non-college-grads) that are being weeded out of the job market as we speak.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  I see it as a failure to capture value. Your belief is based on the perfect market hypothesis ("If there were a way to capture value from those employees someone would be doing it") but the landscape is changing so fast due to software, I just don't think you can make that claim. I think the old systems of employment have mostly run their course and are on the decline, but new systems based on loosely federated networks of independent contractors will replace them. Right now the tools are weak, but will get better. So we're in a kind of gap right now, where the old system has optimized on a local maximum that is leading to unemployment, but the new system hasn't quite formed to take over those employees. Increased unemployment will increase the pressure for the tools to stand up.

crdoconnor 9y ago

"I would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing jobs to automation" I'd argue outsourcing and austerity are to blame. Take a look at your infrastructure once in a while. It's crumbling and it's not robots who are rebuilding it, it's nobody. And that company that builds that iPhone of yours? Uses a LOT of very fleshy robots.

TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
> And that company that builds that iPhone of yours? Uses a LOT of very fleshy robots. And Tesla, which just built a single factory designed to produce 500,000 vehicles a year with ONLY robots? People are watching. If this succeeds (and I suspect it will), there's going to be a LOT more attempts at such a thing.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  That factory is already out of space, with production far below 500k. In fact, it's less efficient and employs more people than it did before Tesla bought it. Tesla uses far more workers than NUMMI employed to build far fewer cars. In 1985, its first full year of production, NUMMI had 2,470 employees and produced 64,764 vehicles — about 26 vehicles per worker per year. By 1997, it had 4,844 workers and produced 357,809 vehicles — about 74 vehicles per worker per year. Tesla, on the other hand, had between 6,000 and 10,000 workers in 2016 and manufactured 83,922 vehicles. That puts its vehicle-per-worker number between 8 and 14, about one-seventh the efficiency of NUMMI at its peak. http://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/teslas-real-capacity-problem%3A-too-many-people http://www.autonews.com/article/20170611/OEM01/170619951/tes... I like Tesla, but Elon often talks about the future like it exists today. One day they'll be able to completely automate that factory, but first they need to become as efficient as the other auto manufacturers that already exist today. Automation of production is something that all of auto manufacturers have pushed... and Tesla is far behind on that metric. I would not assume they get to full automation before Ford, GM, Toyota, etc.

isostatic 9y ago

> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, Aren't they opposites? > For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care, One mistake that people make is believing that no deficit is a good thing. Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college. Another is that money is worth something. If as a generation all the wealth was owned by rich retired unproductive people, but the only way that food is generated is from poor working people, the elderly are screwed. Savings are not value, they are a hope that the future generations as a whole will be kind enough to work for old people based only on how much old people did when they were productive. If future generations decide they will not pay any attention to old people's money, what happens then? What do I care that in 1960 you worked 60 hour weeks saving $500,000 in assets. Why shouldn't my generation decide "lets reduce the value of the dollar to 10% of it's current value, and lets put a massive tax on assets to redistribute to working people (say swapping income tax for an asset tax). That way I only owe rich people 1 year's salary in debt, not 10, my wage would simply have a zero added to the end (as would prices). The tax relief would mean a real wage increase too.

SonOfKyuss 9y ago
> > I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, > Aren't they opposites? Not OP, but not necessarily. Basically, Libertarians strongly support civil liberties in many forms. That can mean supporting drug legalization (liberal) and also gun rights (conservative). It can also mean supporting an individual's right to discriminate in private business transactions (men's or all-white golf clubs, hetero-only bakeries) which would likely be viewed as a really conservative social stance. Many Libertarians also strongly support States' Rights, which tend to lean conservative.
TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
>> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, >Aren't they opposites? It's sad that everything about American politics casts every issue in black and white, either/or, polar-opposites mentality, and must be labelled. I was just trying to "get on paper" for context with my post. > Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college. That may have been the most unfortunate example you could have used, since so many people are not seeing the value of their education in the marketplace pay off that investment in a reasonable period. Regardless, I understand what you're saying, but if you're trying to tell me that the deficit that the US federal government consistently runs is a planned, strategic effort, I'm not buying it. ;-)

snowwrestler 9y ago

The last 15 years has also seen an economy that has underperformed on GDP and wage growth. And while labor force participation has dropped, the unemployment rate is below historical average. That's not an economy that looks like it has permanently automated away net 4% jobs. That's an economy that looks like it automated away some jobs, created more new jobs, but companies can't find workers to fill them.