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Buddhist Economics: Economics as if People Mattered

Buddhist Economics: Economics as if People Mattered

Economics Should Be About People, Not About Wall Street

By John Lawrence In Buddhist economics there is the concept of “right livelihood.” Work is considered an essential component of human life just as play and leisure. Work of a craftsmanlike nature, work which is satisfying–not work that is stultifying, of an assembly-line nature. Work that nourishes the soul; this kind of work results in right livelihood.

By the same token, there is “right consumption.” This is as contrasted with the unlimited consumption advanced Western societies and pushed on their citizens through advertising and other means in order to have […]

Study says 63% of Indian employees believe automation will take over process-based work

NEW DELHI: Indian workplaces seem to have woken up to the reality called automation. According to a study by US-based HR firm ADP, nearly 63% of employees in Indian offices believe automation and artificial intelligence will eventually replace people doing process-based, repetitive work.

But that does not deter them because around 61 per cent of those surveyed welcome the automation trend. Employees in India, in fact, were more positive than their counterparts from across Asia in terms of automation, says the ADP survey.

It is no surprise that employees are already thinking about their future in the workplace. Indian employees were […]

Study says 63% of Indian employees believe automation will take over process-based work

Study says 63% of Indian employees believe automation will take over process-based work

"Employees in India, and China, are more likely than workers in Australia and Singapore believe that trends will impact them," says John Antos, VP Marketing, APAC for ADP. NEW DELHI: Indian workplaces seem to have woken up to the reality called automation. According to a study by US-based HR firm ADP, nearly 63% of employees in Indian offices believe automation and artificial intelligence will eventually replace people doing process-based, repetitive work.

But that does not deter them because around 61 per cent of those surveyed welcome the automation trend. Employees in India, in fact, were more positive than their counterparts […]

Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza

Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Did robots help make your pizza?

If you ordered it from Silicon Valley’s Zume Pizza, the answer is yes.

The startup, which began delivery in April, is using intelligent machines to grab a slice of the multibillion-dollar pizza delivery market.Zume is one of a growing number of food-tech firms seeking to disrupt the restaurant industry with software and robots."We’re going to eliminate boring, repetitive, dangerous jobs, and we’re going to free up people to do things that are higher value," said co-founder Alex Garden, a former Microsoft manager and president of mobile game maker Zynga Studios.Inside […]

Econometer: Will robots take SD jobs?

Econometer: Will robots take SD jobs?

New recruit "Pepper" the robot, a humanoid robot designed to welcome and take care of visitors and patients, holds the hand of a new born baby at AZ Damiaan hospital in Ostend, Belgium. Q: Given the trend toward more automated technologies, like self-driving Uber cars , do you think unskilled San Diegans will struggle to find work in the future? Phil Blair, Manpower

Answer: Yes

The lower your skill levels, the more prone you are to be laid off from your jobs due to automation/technology, outsourcing and irrelevant work. We all have a career manager, and it is us. […]

Selling free trade is a tall order. But Chris Bowen is doing better than Scott Morrison

Selling free trade is a tall order. But Chris Bowen is doing better than Scott Morrison

‘Arguing for more free trade while also pledging a crackdown on welfare and bemoaning the “taxed-nots”, as Morrison did, is just self-defeating.’ Photograph: Mal Fairclough/EPA Chris Bowen this week set out his plans for winning the fight against the rise of protectionism. It’s a fight in which those in favour of free trade have been shown over the past year – whether in the Brexit vote or the inability to counter Donald Trump – to have been completely inept. Among the best aspect of Bowen’s plan of attack is that he has realised one of the reasons for this […]

Uber will wipe out skills not jobs

Uber will wipe out skills not jobs

Uber’s announcement to add self-driving cars to its usual taxi services in the United States is as unexpected as it is indicative of the automated future of the sharing economy. Governments should limit their efforts to regulate the rapidly-evolving sharing economy and instead focus on developing relevant skills. Ride-hailing app Uber recently announced a pilot project testing the use of self-driving cars in the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The announcement was quite unexpected since the technology of automated passenger cars is not even close to hitting the markets. There are major technological flaws to be resolved and regulators have […]

McRobots Coming to a Restaurant Near You

McRobots Coming to a Restaurant Near You

Oh the elusive perfect employee!

That employee who is never late, and doesn’t take bathroom or cigarette breaks.

That employee who is never sick, and doesn’t take vacations.That employee who doesn’t have family, and is committed to the job.That employee who is always consistent, and doesn’t make mistakes.And best of all, that employee who works 24 hours a day, for free.With rising minimum wage, fast food chains in the United States are looking to replace human employees — and their wages — with robots . McDonalds [NYSE:MCD] , Panera [NASDAQ:PNRA] and Wendy’s [NASDAQ:WEN] have already implemented some automation into their restaurants. […]

Automation Technologies and the Future of Work

Last year, McKinsey launched a multi-year study to explore the potential impact of automation technologies on jobs, organizations and the future of work.“Can we look forward to vast improvements in productivity, freedom from boring work, and improved quality of life?,” its initial article on the study asked, or “Should we fear threats to jobs, disruptions to organizations, and strains on the social fabric?”

Most jobs involve a number of different tasks or activities.Some of these activities are more amenable to automation than others.But just because some of the activities have been automated, does not imply that the whole job has […]

The Next Industrial Revolution

The Next Industrial Revolution

A “crisis of abundance” initially seems like a paradox. After all, abundance is the ultimate goal of technology and economics. But consider the early history of the electric washing machine. In the 1920s, factories churned them out in droves. (With the average output of manufacturing workers rising by a third between 1923 and 1929, making more washing machines was relatively cheap.) But as the decade ended, factories saw they were making many more than American households demanded. Companies cut back their output and laid off workers even before the stock market crashed in 1929. Indeed, some economists have said […]