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Automation bad for economy?

PearlWatson

PearlWatson

Well-Known Member
Save the Economy: Ban ATMs

When we went out on the street and started asking people to sign a petition to ban ATM machines, we expected most of them to call us crazy or to simply ignore us. But in Barack Obama's America, banning cash machines as economic stimulus actually seems like a fairly reasonable idea to many folks.
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https://www.mrctv.org/videos/save-economy-ban-atms

This funny video is in response to Obama's silly remarks:

Barack Obama tells Ann Curry of NBC News that ATMs are playing a part in the high unemployment.

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
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There is something to be said about automation playing a part in it. How many factory jobs have been lost due to automation?
 
It's a traveshamockery that businesses are still allowed to implement processes and equipment that make them efficient and profitable!

I'm also lobbying for the full on criminalization of jackhammers, backhoes, excavators, and dump trucks. Do you have any idea how many people could be employed to dig a foundation by hand?

Up with Humans! Now please excuse me while I go listen to "Mr. Roboto".
 
My grandpa hated adding machines. He was a bank employee famed for his ability to quickly add up a long list of numbers. When the bank was being sold its first adding machine he challenged the salesperson. . . . well, actually. . . . he challenged the adding machine saying he could do the job faster. He won the race, but the bank bought the adding machine anyway. So the other employees could do other stuff.

Like talk to customers about car loans and mortgages.

I remember an old version of an emission spectrometer. You had to run several standards quite frequently and it took half an hour to analyze a chunk of metal for twenty elements. But in college I had studied how to do all the analyses for those elements using chemical methods like titrations with various reagents. That would have taken several days, or several chemists some hours each even if they were working in a coordinated Henry Ford type of production system.

I don't have that old job because the company spent a hundred thousand plus on a computerized/robotized assembly of equipment and one fourth of the lab got "downsized"/replaced by the machine. Even though the lab had had a couple of newer emission spectrometers that could do about ten times the analyses of the old analog type, and required standardization only every four hours, and I was very proficient at operating them, and could do the work of nearly a hundred "wet chemists."

That plant is one of a very few producers of metals still operating in this country. The rest have gone to China where they can pay people practically nothing and work them under slave labor conditions for a hundreth of our wages/benefits, with replacements waiting in the front office eager for the work. But the Chinese metal product is not produced under the same "quality control" and doesn't last as well as the American product. And the Chinese workers die doing the production because there's little concern for worker safety.

I have my own business now, and I buy machines to help me do the work because it's too much bother to hire illegals or pay all those government-mandated insurance benefits and payroll taxes.

Obama is just too stupid for words, and so are a lot of lazy folks who think they're entitled to have the government or somebody else just give them a place to "work" that's secure so they don't have to learn to be efficient or actually do things other people will willingly pay them to do because the product is worth what it takes to make it.
 
This is nothing new... jobs have been replaced by efficient technology since the industrial revolution. You people need to quit bitching about these things that make life awesome. Now, we should not be outsourcing to China as much as we do... and I'm all for controlled capitalism, but are these people really going to pin the toils of innovation and technology on Obama???
 
The-Joker said:
This is nothing new... jobs have been replaced by efficient technology since the industrial revolution. You people need to quit bitching about these things that make life awesome. Now, we should not be outsourcing to China as much as we do... and I'm all for controlled capitalism, but are these people really going to pin the toils of innovation and technology on Obama???
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You did read the quote right? And listen to the interview? What I heard was Obama basically called innovation an "issue with our economy". He is not being blamed, but it is certainly a strange thing to rail against. Does he want American business to stop progressing, stop improving? What is the agenda?

If anything he should be pushing for more innovation and efficiency of American business. I can tell you from experience that the companies that cannot innovate well enough to fight a down economy are the ones most likely to ship jobs overseas or over the border. The company that laid me off was a prime example. They were just not agile and lean enough in their operations to weather the storm. Their cost structures were too fixed-cost heavy. and they faced too many barriers to improvement, and their solution was to close plants and move the operation to Mexico. Not surprisingly, it was also a major player in a heavily union-controlled industry, so there was definitely reduced flexibility to make improvements, or the unions threaten to walk out. It is so short-sighted it isn't funny.

But in the business world it is survival of the fittest. The companies that make the best improvements, that innovate the best, are the companies that can survive a downturn, and that is where jobs are kept or even created.

Obama's implication that innovation was in any way a catalyst of the economic downturn is ludicrous and smacks of special-interest coddling.

If you listen to the interview he says something else a little concerning. He says part of the goal of his jobs council is to ensure that capital is flowing into those places with the "greatest opportunity". How is that defined? It comes right on the heels of his comment about innovation being a problem. Again, sounds like building a foundation to start throwing money at his special-interest supporters.

Here is the whole interview as aired on the Today show:

https://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43385259
 
I think the point is that it is great for business/the economy in the long run, but tough for the individual in the short term. He isn't saying "let's do away with innovation." He's saying "Listen, I get that innovation makes things seem really hard for some individuals that have been impacted, and a problem with our economy is that we are not able to get those displaced/redundant workers back to work at something else(most likely do to lack of education)."

I just don't think anyone would argue that innovation is the problem, but how we handle the individuals that are laid off is a problem that could be better handled. If I were in charge I would solve this problem by increasing funding for education or else the problem will only get worse. We will end up with even more underqualified individuals without jobs, because machines are excellent at low skill jobs.
 
Agoxlea said:
I think the point is that it is great for business/the economy in the long run, but tough for the individual in the short term. He isn't saying "let's do away with innovation." He's saying "Listen, I get that innovation makes things seem really hard for some individuals that have been impacted, and a problem with our economy is that we are not able to get those displaced/redundant workers back to work at something else(most likely do to lack of education)."

I just don't think anyone would argue that innovation is the problem, but how we handle the individuals that are laid off is a problem that could be better handled. If I were in charge I would solve this problem by increasing funding for education or else the problem will only get worse. We will end up with even more underqualified individuals without jobs, because machines are excellent at low skill jobs.
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I'm convinced we need to quit outsourcing... and it needs to happen soon. and it's not because I don't think that an indian or chinese man is worse in stature than an American man. I think we shoot ourselves in the foot and the people of that country who are essentially subject to a government forcing that work upon them, when they could be strengthening their own country instead of weakening both countries for the sake of lower prices.

I mean what if those chinese and indians were building hospitals, schools, and roads instead of making sure my DirecTV works..
 
Yes, the almost forced labor does make it hard to compete on price. If we eliminated corporate tax loopholes I am convinced we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It is actually better for both countries to produce those goods in which they have the comparative advantage, then trade those goods.
 
I hate outsourcing with a passion. I work in a data entry warehouse. 90% of our work is done in India, where they pay their workers nothing. So many more jobs could be created if we would just let our own workers input the data, although I do realize that those costs would be passed on to the consumer at some point. Still, it's a troubling sign when there is competition for even our god awful jobs that nobody likes doing.
 
The-Joker said:
I'm convinced we need to quit outsourcing... and it needs to happen soon. and it's not because I don't think that an indian or chinese man is worse in stature than an American man. I think we shoot ourselves in the foot and the people of that country who are essentially subject to a government forcing that work upon them, when they could be strengthening their own country instead of weakening both countries for the sake of lower prices.

I mean what if those chinese and indians were building hospitals, schools, and roads instead of making sure my DirecTV works..
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Those people aren't forced to work at low paying jobs. They're low paying compared to what people in the U.S. expect to get paid for them. They are good jobs and good pay from their perspective and in 10-20 years the standard of living in those nations will be far greater than it is today because of all the jobs. As quality of life goes up the people's expectations will rise. They'll demand even better wages, etc.

To forcefully end outsourcing is to attempt to keep the third-world and developing countries in poverty forever. And people have accused me of hating or being insensitive to the needs of the poor...

Outsourcing may be bad for the U.S. economy, but it's very very good for humanity.
 
The-Joker said:
I'm convinced we need to quit outsourcing... and it needs to happen soon.
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I work for a clothing company. We have as much of our product as possible made in the USA. But some things we just can't. We could not survive, so it is either outsource or close down.

We use factories in China and India, and all are regularly audited for working conditions - age, hours, safety, etc. From our standpoint, we would much rather use domestic manufacturing - shorter lead times, better overall quality, better communication - but again, it just comes down to the finances.
 
I think it's important to keep in mind that more and more it's a global economy, and the more people in less developed areas are employed, the more money those people and those economies have to spend on US produced goods and expertise

https://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/top_us_exports.html

(from 2009, shows a variety of our trading partners, our primary exports to each, and what percent of our overall exports they receive)
 
moevillini said:
I think it's important to keep in mind that more and more it's a global economy, and the more people in less developed areas are employed, the more money those people and those economies have to spend on US produced goods and expertise

https://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/top_us_exports.html

(from 2009, shows a variety of our trading partners, our primary exports to each, and what percent of our overall exports they receive)
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This perfectly illustrates why trade is good even if it seems like outsourcing sucks. We produce and trade these goods because we have a comparative advantage, and nations such as India and China provide low cost goods and services. It is a win/win for both nations although to certain individual workers it can seem pretty terrible when you know someone is performing a job you like for a fraction of what you need to make. That job probably no longer exists here, and those workers need to find different jobs in sectors in which we (the usa) have a comparative advantage. A lot easier said than done.
 
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I think education is a huge issue that is almost never discussed in regards to the economy.

Had 20-30 years ago accounting and basic finance classes been required courses, could the meltdown been avoided? Had those very same people unable to make their house payments learned basic skills like "balancing a checkbook" could they have avoided all of this mess?

Had Americans been taught Spanish, Chinese, and maybe Portuguese (to do more business with Brazil), could Americans better compete with Asian and S. Americans?

Instead of learning about physics, biology, and how to build a rocket, we argue about whether the earth is 6,000 years old, if God created it, and if Adam and Eve were the first human beings. How much different would things be if we focused on the sciences rather than this endless pissing match between science and creationism?

If Americans focused on academics as much as being "like Mike" or today "like Lebron" would our economy be recovering much quicker?

We can blame automation, outsourcing, etc on a lot of things.

But I think one thing that should be in the discussion, is our current education system preparing Americans to compete at the global level? From Elementary School basic reading and writing, to being forced to fork over thousands of dollars to take stupid general classes at the college level.

Is our education system succeeding?
 
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