Tag: inequality

CNN Host’s Attempt to Explain the U.S. Economy Was So Bad I Started Yelling at the TV

CNN Host's Attempt to Explain the U.S. Economy Was So Bad I Started Yelling at the TV

Young technician checking solar panels on factory roof Photo Credit: zstock/Shutterstock Honestly, I don’t usually talk back to the TV. But I couldn’t contain myself during Poppy Harlow’s December 10 interview with John Feltner, the United Steelworkers vice president of the Rexnord local union where 300 jobs are moving from Indianapolis to Mexico.

In discussing the move, Harlow twice resorted to the much repeated trope that the loss of American manufacturing jobs is really about automation and technology.

HARLOW: What is the number-one thing you would like to see the incoming administration do that you think will help people in […]

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

The despicable inequality and cruel egalitarianism of wealth: towards a draft wealth tax to fund a basic income

Part 3 of a series. To those who have, more shall be given. Cities get more investment. From those who have little, more shall be taken. Small towns are finding that they are excluded from the excitement happening everywhere else and little investment goes their way.

The idea of capitalism – that goods should bear market prices, that justly acquired property is yours, and exchange between willing participants be free of encumbrances – is everywhere under threat.

There is, however, little policy difference between the extreme-left and extreme-right populist response. Both demand a remarkably statist approach to government, and both are […]

Why Am I Yelling At CNN’s Poppy Harlow?

Why Am I Yelling At CNN’s Poppy Harlow?

Honestly, I don’t usually talk back to the TV. But I couldn’t contain myself during Poppy Harlow’s December 10 interview with John Feltner, the United Steelworkers vice president of the Rexnord local union where 300 jobs are moving from Indianapolis to Mexico.

In discussing the move, Ms. Harlow twice resorted to the much repeated trope that the loss of American manufacturing jobs is really about automation and technology.

HARLOW: …. What would you ― what is the number-one thing you would like to see the incoming administration do that you think will help people in your situation? Because, you know, […]

The answer to America’s working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

The answer to America's working class job crisis is hard, but not mysterious

View Caption Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File

Malden, Mass. — Antonio Blanc, a senior at Malden High School, knows the risk of being left behind.

He’s struggled to keep up at school, distracted by family instability and the part-time kitchen jobs he needs to pay the bills now he’s living alone. His plan after graduation is to enroll in a technical college and get a certificate in precision machinery.“I want to learn a skill, something I can do when I’m done with school,” he says.For students like Mr. Blanc, that step of education beyond high school holds the […]

job automation

job automation

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Albert Einstein , Bill Joy: nanobots , Black-Scholes formula , call centre , collateralized debt obligation , credit crunch , en.wikipedia.org , factory automation , full employment , income inequality , index card , industrial robot , inventory management , invisible hand , job automation , John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren , John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment , knowledge worker , low skilled workers , moral hazard , pattern recognition , prediction markets , Productivity paradox , Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence , Silicon Valley , Stephen Hawking , strong AI , superintelligent […]

Environment, Jobs, and President-Elect Trump

While many people around the world are concerned about President-elect Trump’s threat to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, I am far more concerned about the possible signal to American corporations and jurisdictions that enforcement of our air, water, and toxic rules would be relaxed under EPA’s new administrator. Take a trip to India or China if you want to breathe the air of a deregulated economy. China’s airports may look pretty and their trains may run fast, but their air and water are dangerous to breathe or drink.

America has a culture of environmental protection that took us decades […]

How robots are going to change our world for the better

How robots are going to change our world for the better

How artificial intelligence and robots will radically transform the global economy, writes Kevin Maney Humanoid robot bartender "Carl" prepares a drink for a guest at the Robots Bar and Lounge in the eastern German town of Ilmenau. NEXT time you stop for petrol at a self-serve pump, say hello to the robot in front of you. Its life story can tell you a lot about the robot economy roaring toward us like an EF5 tornado on the prairie.

Yeah, your automated petrol pump killed a lot of jobs over the years, but its biography might give you hope that the […]

Amazon is about to make groceries better but inequality far worse

When Amazon unveiled plans on Tuesday for grocery stores without cashiers, it seemed like an omen of the future: A store full of shoppers, with just a few workers in the background.

Are the robots coming for our jobs? (Some of them.) Is Amazon Go the future? (Probably.)

And yes: It could create some jobs, too. But as for the jobs it’ll leave behind, that’s where bad news gets worse. It’s not just that Amazon’s grocery-buying disruption will cost jobs—it’s that the people who rely on those jobs are already our country’s most economically vulnerable. It’s a bad situation made worse.In […]

How to support yourself after the robot revolution

How to support yourself after the robot revolution

Steve Gardner

Here’s a startling prediction: if current labor trends continue, one out of three American men, ages 25-54, will be out of work by mid-century.

That’s what former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers expects. “Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern,” Summers wrote this fall. “It is something we have been living with for two generations.”Contract jobs, gig work and robots have all made work more precarious. Silicon Valley pioneered many of the changes, and now some tech entrepreneurs believe they have a solution to the economic anxiety they’ve helped create.Put bluntly, it’s free money. […]

Will Trump Bring the Robot Apocalypse?

Will Trump Bring the Robot Apocalypse?

In which we learn that Trump may entrust the well-being of working Americans to someone who wants to eliminate them altogether. (Photo: Shutterstock) The future was supposed to bring prosperity and leisure to working people, not joblessness and misery. But that was before the money guys took over.

This week Amazon announced that it’s planning to open a grocery store that has no cashiers or checkout lines. The corporation said that customers would be able to download an app, link their phones to electronic shopping carts that track the items they take from the shelves, then simply walk out with […]