Tag: conservative

GOP senator suggests we need fewer immigrants because robots are coming

GOP senator suggests we need fewer immigrants because robots are coming

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) arrives for a weekly Republican Party luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 17. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters). Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) last week helped kill the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress. He didn’t think the bill went far enough in transforming the U.S. immigration system. Like President Trump, Cotton thinks the United States should cut legal immigration. The senator’s reasoning?

Well, part of it seems to be that robots are coming for our jobs.

“It can’t simultaneously be true that robots will take all the jobs & that the West needs millions of new immigrants to do the […]

Will SkillSET address Workism?

Will SkillSET address Workism?

Work-life balance? Like Stuart Lauchlan, I like the ideas and sentiments behind the WEF announced SkillSET initiative. But I wonder whether it will be enough in a world where the concept of work is becoming increasingly fractured.

Let’s start with the ambition, summed up in the words of Bill McDermott, CEO SAP: In the economy, we’re in the middle of a customer-driven growth revolution. There have never been opportunities in the entire world like there are today. The consumer is on the move, is in multiple channels. Data has become the new steel with which you can build new business […]

Technology takes the wheel

Technology takes the wheel

The autonomous vehicles seem to promise a bright future. With software on wheels we will drive into an eco friendly, space saving and time efficient world. However, is the idea economically as beneficial as it seems on the technical front?

In 2015, 15.5 million workers were employed in occupations that would be affected (to different degrees) by the introduction of automated vehicles. However, our primary focus revolves around the motor vehicle operators. 3.1 million in number, truck drivers will face the bulk of the job loss caused due to automation.

According to a Goldsman Sachs Economic Research, “when autonomous vehicle saturation […]

How Robots Helped Elect Trump

How Robots Helped Elect Trump

Experts argue that technological developments, especially in the manufacturing industry, have helped drive voters towards the right. The introduction of robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in modern manufacturing has had its share of both negative and positive effects. While robots have increased efficiency in production, they have taken away jobs in most parts of the world. The US is one of the countries that have been adopting robotics in manufacturing.

But automated machines in manufacturing have taken away jobs in America and when you assess where this has had the biggest impact, you will clearly see that central states […]

Robots Can’t Vote, but They Helped Elect Trump

Robots Can’t Vote, but They Helped Elect Trump

Robotic welders working at the Nissan manufacturing plant in Canton, Miss. When you look across America to see where jobs and wages have been lost to robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and automation, it is the middle of the country that stands apart from the rest.

The accompanying map, which was produced by Daron Acemoglu of M.I.T. and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University, shows the size and scope of the region that has borne the brunt of postindustrial modernization.

It is not a coincidence that this map sheds light on President Trump’s Electoral College victory in 2016.“My take is that grievances, […]

Against the Universal Basic Income

Against the Universal Basic Income

Last month, Canada became the latest country to experiment with a “basic income,” offering up to $13,000 to selected low- and middle-income citizens with no strings attached. These trials have spread as developed nations search for ways to cope with stagnant wages and joblessness—problems likely to worsen as globalization and automation increase over the coming decades.

While writing my most recent book, which examines poverty in the twenty-first century, I consulted the work of Charles Murray. For decades, Murray has blazed a trail for thoughtful commentary on poverty, beginning in 1984 with Losing Ground , an early critique of the […]

Rise of the robots: Automation risk to more jobs as minimum wage increases warns IFS

Rise of the robots: Automation risk to more jobs as minimum wage increases warns IFS

Restaurant waiters are actually at lower risk from automation than some other occupations, the IFS said (Source: Getty) Higher minimum wage levels could tempt British employers to automate more jobs, risking a rise in unemployment, respected economists at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) will today warn.

In research to be published today, the IFS will call for “extremely careful monitoring” of the effects of government increases to the minimum wage as more jobs which could be replaced by machines fall into the law’s scope.

The proportion of over-25 employees on the minimum wage will have tripled between 2015 and 2020 […]

The failures of the $15 minimum wage

The failures of the $15 minimum wage

Politicians have well-documented problems when it comes to maintaining a budget. At least 31 states (including West Virginia) faced a budget shortfall this fiscal year. The federal government is much worse. The debt is over $20 trillion and Washington cannot pass a balanced budget.

However, that does not stop politicians from exerting their will on the budgets of private sector employers by, among other things, determining the value of labor. Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., raised their minimum wage this year and 15 more states will impose an increase January 1. (The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.)

Senator Bernie […]

‘Automation replaces human jobs, so should we be taxing robots?’

‘Automation replaces human jobs, so should we be taxing robots?’

© UNIDO/flickr BY ROHIT TALWAR
FAST FUTURE

Unfettered automation could have a seismic impact on jobs in the food industry, and hence unemployment, tax revenues, and the provision of public services. Most do not want to stop innovation or the pursuit of business efficiency. But a growing number – such as leaders in Silicon Valley – also understand that, if the robots are doing the farming and manufacturing, cooking the meals, and serving the drinks, then the money must come from somewhere for former employees to buy what they’re making. One idea is using robot taxes to fund the cost […]

Minimum wage hike will axe 400k jobs in California – study

Minimum wage hike will axe 400k jobs in California – study

A study conducted by the Employment Policies Institute states that a hike to a $15/hr minimum wage will cost California 400,000 private sector jobs. Workers in two industries in particular are purportedly the most vulnerable.

On January 1, California’s minimum wage will increase to $11 per hour, up from the current level of $10.50 per hour for businesses with 26 employees or more. After 2018, the Golden State will increase the minimum wage by $1 every year until 2022, when it will reach $15 per hour.

A new study , conducted by EPI, a fiscally conservative group, analyzed employment trends from […]