Robots Will Create 'Permanently Unemployable Underclass'

[santafe2]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

You and a few other fringe folks may want to go back to the bad old Lochner Era days from the turn of the 20th century full of child labor and long, barely compensated work in dangerous conditions, no recourse for employees, and bloody battles between workers and Pinkertons.

I happened to be watching "The Roosevelts" tonight and Ken Burns used this image from tenement life in NYC. I think it makes the point well. If a person has the "right" to work at $5 an hour, then logically they have the right to work for $4 or $2 and hour. They have the right to work in conditions we would recognize as slavery. The theoretical bottom for this sort of system is starvation or another such end.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

We have absolutely no right to make it illegal for people to agree to a job at $5 an hour.

We have every right to elect representatives who make the law. And they have every right to legislate.

The Supreme Court already settled this matter in regard to the minimum wage and "freedom" to contract for less in West Coast Hotel v. Parish.

Although I'd question what kind of "freedom" it is to forcefully subject people to the will of their employers in company towns or on company boats paid in scrip.

You and a few other fringe folks may want to go back to the bad old Lochner Era days from the turn of the 20th century full of child labor and long, barely compensated work in dangerous conditions, no recourse for employees, and bloody battles between workers and Pinkertons.

But the rest of America clearly doesn't agree.

And God Bless the Republic of the United States of America for giving her people a voice in the matter, and not simply subjecting them as servants to the unbridled will of their employers.

Work environments are clearly better today than 100 years ago.

And I think that probably anybody who reads history or who has bothered to have long talks with their grandfather while he was alive thinks likewise.

I learned my lesson - this time I'll use the Tennessee Ernie Ford version...

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

[/COLOR][/FONT]Day laborers go for about $10/hr where I live and they need transportation. (Probably more per hour. I'm out of touch.) That's more than the minimum wage -- more than a fast food worker and untaxed. How will scrapping the minimum wage laws reduce this? When McDonalds pays $3/hr, do you see many McDonalds workers picking up shovels and competing with the current day laborers?

Again, there are 10s of millions of unemployed. How many holes do you need? Tell me about some industries or areas that will explode with cheaper labor.


Exactly what jobs wait for the teenagers at $5 and $6 an hour? Are they new jobs?


Is there a historical source for the ideas that (U.S.) minimum wage laws were to keep people out of the labor market?

If the "floor" is removed, labor prices generally will inevitably trend downward (or at least less upward than their present trend) because of the unleashed competition. While you can find people illegally working at higher than the minimum wage, their pool of competition is generally limited to those who meet the criteria of, say, a day laborer--one who is willing to work illegally and one who is willing to actually complete the work. The employer, in that case, has his/her own concerns which are plainly visible if you look up how much to hire a day laborer online and read the comments: pay them enough so that they don't come back and rob you, etc. Why should work be illegal in the first place? If it were legal to hire people at any wage, you might indeed see more teenagers or others of limited skill sets wielding hammers to support their XBox Gold Membership or whatever else is important to them. If you want to think in broad terms, there is a wide gap between the current minimum wage and zero dollars per hour; sources to fill that gap will come from the current unemployed and from the current employed, as those are the only two sources of labor.

I don't think most McDonald's will be able to keep a sufficient staff of high enough quality workers at $3 an hour, but perhaps some might. Well, that is only my assessment of their current positions. Perhaps there is room for additional employees when all the wage rates below the minimum wage become legal, and maybe the Play Place at McDonald's won't reek of ketchup and dozens of feet because the store and its employees can decide for themselves what is worth doing and at what price, rather than making it illegal to hire people for racist or altruistic reasons. We can dream, can't we?

We can't be certain what jobs will exist if and when minimum wage laws are either repealed or become voluntary (my preference is for a $25 voluntary minimum wage). We know that many jobs do not exist which used to exist, and other jobs have ceased to exist except where it is illegal for them to not exist (gas station attendants, although they don't pop your hood and check your tire pressure like the eager beaver teenagers who had those jobs before that "career" became a political football in a couple of states). The only certainty we can have is that more jobs will exist than at present, outside circumstances discounted. We can be certain of this because those who enact the minimum wage are themselves quite certain of it; the exceptions for minimum wage for restaurant staff are not the only ones.

Welcome to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Section 14(c) AdvisorThis Advisor provides guidance on Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which authorizes employers, after receiving a certificate from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD), to pay special minimum wages—wages less than the federal minimum wage—to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed. The certificate also allows the payment of wages that are less than the prevailing wage to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed on contracts subject to the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act (SCA) and the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act (PCA). The Regulations applicable to FLSA Section 14(c) are contained at 29 CFR Part 525.

As for which jobs await at $5 per hour, that is not for me or you to decide. I will defer to the people who have created and agreed upon the jobs at $7.25 an hour, $9.25 an hour, $15.75 an hour, and all the rest. We have absolutely no right to make it illegal for people to agree to a job at $5 an hour.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

As an example of the threat posed to highly-skilled workers by low-skilled ones, if you need a good-sized hole dug then you can hire a highly-skilled machine operator who is licensed, bonded, insured, and pays his dues to the local union chapter. Alternatively, if we were to scrap the laws originally designed to keep black and Polish people out of the labor market (namely the minimum wage laws), you could hire a dozen very low-skilled workers with shovels for probably less than half the price.

Day laborers go for about $10/hr where I live and they need transportation. (Probably more per hour. I'm out of touch.) That's more than the minimum wage -- more than a fast food worker and untaxed. How will scrapping the minimum wage laws reduce this? When McDonalds pays $3/hr, do you see many McDonalds workers picking up shovels and competing with the current day laborers?

Again, there are 10s of millions of unemployed. How many holes do you need? Tell me about some industries or areas that will explode with cheaper labor.

As a more concrete example, ask yourself what a poor black family of four (a mother and three children ages 5, 15, and 17) could do with an extra $2200 (pre-tax) a year. That's how much is being kept from them purely and exclusively by minimum wage and child labor laws when their 15-year-old and 17-year-old can't find work for 10 weeks during the summer earning $5 and $6 an hour, respectively, for 20 hours a week. That's a slightly bigger apartment, a second (quite used) car, a tutor, a babysitter for the youngest, healthier food, or any number of other things which that family (or more likely the mother) decides might improve their lot in life.

Exactly what jobs wait for the teenagers at $5 and $6 an hour? Are they new jobs?


Is there a historical source for the ideas that (U.S.) minimum wage laws were to keep people out of the labor market?

[lektrode]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

..... Again I'll have to expound more later.

+1

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

Ghent12: I agree with you generally that IP protections go on for too long. But I don't see another practical way to do it just yet other than to keep IP law, but shorten the timeframe. Otherwise, what's to prevent you from copying Star Wars, changing one scene slightly, and selling it for $1 per copy the day after it comes out? What's to stop you from taking all of the Windows code and putting out an operating system that's identical with a line or two different in the background and selling it to IBM clones for cut rate prices? Or what's to stop Dell from copying it and just putting it out as it's own? Clearly there needs to be something there. It's not fair otherwise.

I will have to address this when I can devote more time to a post, but the direct answers to your questions are, in order: no legal force but there's still plenty of economic inertia to overcome, the same answer, and again the same answer. And in response to your last two sentences: "fairness" and justice cannot truly come from arbitrary standards, but rather only from stern application of a systematic method to promote a particular and consistent set of values (i.e. life, quality of life, enlightenment, etc.). I'll have to expound more on that later.

This was the same argument that Marxism used. And so I'm very, very wary of it.

Well all of economics requires some smoothing for its basic premises to make sense. Does the model of "Perfect Competition" make you wary too?

I'll say it for the third time: Name a market you think exists without the aid of some law which protects private property and establishes relevant markets, and anyone will likely be able to point towards the law that allows free market competition.

In a roundabout way, every black market fits this example, and every "No Man's Land" in history provides a sort of case study. This isn't to say that these are ideal situations or even what a transformation into an idealized unfettered free market would look like since those real world examples are typically the "leftovers" of already established legal frameworks and there was an artificial pressure on "the bad guys" to move from civil society into the "No Man's Land" areas. Again I'll have to expound more later.

[santafe2]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

the phrase 'plantation of voterstock' did raise an eyebrow on this reader but ghent explained he did not intend to say anything about race & dcarrigg accepted this... so what's the beef?

dcarrigg is one of the most if not the most articulate 'liberal' voice here & ghent an equally high quality 'conservative' voice here... put those terms in quotes... not to say these 2 gentlemen can be so crudely summarized but the distinction is roughly true. the fact that they coexist in one community like this is a marvel & what makes this place special to me. kinda sad when they start calling each other names but looks as though they got past it. glad the tulip isn't taking the censorship direction... that'd ruin everything.

Fair enough MM, thanks for your feedback. I may still disagree but the overall discourse on this thread is more important than my opinion on this point.

[Ghent12]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I'm not calling you racist. I'm not calling you anything. Don't take it personally.

I just think you could choose your words better.

When you talk about Democrats "owning" "plantations worth" of "voting-stock," you do realize it sounds like a bad old reference to slavery, don't you? You have the word "plantation" right in there with the word "own" and you're implying something maybe you didn't mean. But you're it's certainly not what Michael Dawson is talking about in "Behind the Mule."

You could choose your words more carefully if you don't want people thinking you mean anything nefarious about race.

Otherwise, you might sound like you were criticizing an entire race of people for being unthinking morons who are hoodwinked into voting against their own personal interests and incapable of independent critical thought.

And if that's not what you meant, then there had to be a better way to have expressed what you actually did mean.

Your point is well taken, and I should have been more careful. Thank you.

[lektrode]

Re: labor's plight

.... becomes "technological innovation." GQ did an article on what it's like to drive for them.
..........
....
How many other tech startups are doing the same thing and just using technology as a gimmick to otherwise break the law but claim because there's an app involved it's new or 'innovative' when really it's just skirting law and regulation for the sake of it with technology as legal cover?

And then there's the even darker tech apps that we can regulate out of existence and probably should. Techcrunch did a good piece on them called #Jerktech. .....

+1
EXCELLENT summation of the 'disruption syndrome', dc
my motto on a lot of this stuff thats popped up the past 15years or so is:

"just because they can, doesnt mean they oughta..."
(with about 90% of the 'features' on most of microsquish's 'apps' in this category = 90% of users will NEVER even know exist, never mind actually USE - it just sounds good to the marketing types when they pitch it all to corp amerika...)

[lektrode]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

the phrase 'plantation of voterstock' did raise an eyebrow on this reader but ghent explained he did not intend to say anything about race & dcarrigg accepted this... so what's the beef?

dcarrigg is one of the most if not the most articulate 'liberal' voice here & ghent an equally high quality 'conservative' voice here... put those terms in quotes... not to say these 2 gentlemen can be so crudely summarized but the distinction is roughly true. the fact that they coexist in one community like this is a marvel & what makes this place special to me. kinda sad when they start calling each other names but looks as though they got past it. glad the tulip isn't taking the censorship direction... that'd ruin everything.

+1
its VERY illuminating to see BOTH POV's and dc's is MOST APPRECIATED in that he at least acknowledges the issues of the opposition

and good to see you mm.

[dcarrigg]

Re: labor's plight

Very thoughtful post, and I wish I could read some of the references you quoted.

I have to disagree about controlling technology. It would not be easy to control, and nations that tried to limit technology usually did not end up very well. If you outlaw a particular machine, it will go underground, or offshore.

I do agree that blaming labors plight primarily on technology is premature. You did not mention immigration, which is really "worker trade policy". The US immigration policy is much more liberal than most other OECD nations.

One way to look at the effect of technology is the attitude towards education. As late as 1980, many thought anything past high school to be superfluous, and to some extent they were right. Now we have a national obsession with trying to get everyone into a 4 year college, clearly a practical impossibility if academic standards are to be at all maintained.

Thanks! But I think maybe you misunderstand me somewhat here. I'm not talking about limiting or banning technology in the way it seems to me you might be thinking about it. I'm talking about regulating technology. We have the power to regulate technology, and we do it all the time.

In Oregon and New Jersey, people can't pump their own gas. In even sub-acute medical environments there are minimum staffing requirements for RNs and CNAs California and other states. Fire stations have minimum staffing requirements in all 50 states. Advanced military technology is kept from civilian hands all the time and in all nations. Machine operators have licenses in many states and countries. Electricians are supposed to be licensed and insured. In fact, licensing for occupations is pretty widespread. Certification is ever more widespread still. You can think of a million more examples with pharmaceutical drugs and agriculture/food and everything else under the sun.

We regulate the use of technology all the time. Sometimes for health and safety, sometimes just for make-work programs, and sometimes for other reasons in between. But if a technology comes along and really messes up everybody's life, there are democratic ways we can regulate the use of it so that it becomes less "disruptive" (to take a valley term and throw it on its head).

What I'm saying is just that there are plenty of ways to regulate technology - from gas pumps to medical devices to modern fire engines to F-35s to new circuit-breakers and backhoes to whatever - and use these things in a controlled and realistic way. If anything, we might even get rid of a lot of the more dangerous hospital / firefighting / construction / etc. scenarios we run into today in the process.

Half of the 'disruption' of new technology is just finding legal loopholes around what we already built. Uber gets away operating what used to be called an illegal taxi service by calling it a rideshare and funneling the taxi-cab hail through an iPhone app. Driving a cab - a formerly middle class job that required a hack license - now becomes a below-minimum-wage contract opportunity through Uber. But we had these in Boston before - people just called them 'gypsy cabs' or 'illegal cabs' instead of 'uber,' you waved your hand on the street or called from a payphone instead of waved your hand on a screen or called from a cell phone, and not a single venture capitalist or tech geek in San Francisco made billions off it by skimming 20%.

Just imagine the pitch without the app: "I'm going to start a nationwide taxi cab business. I'm going to pay workers as contractors - less than minimum wage on average. I'm going to make them use their own cars. And I'm going to have them circling around the city all the time so they can get to any point within three minutes of a call." They'd tell you you were crazy. But if you say: "I'm going to make an app. It allows me to start a nationwide taxi cab business. I'm going to pay workers as contractors - less than minimum wage on average. I'm going to make them use their own cars and circle the city all day." It becomes "technological innovation." GQ did an article on what it's like to drive for them.

And guess what? Just today Uber was banned in Germany by a Frankfurt court. How many other countries/states will follow? Technology doesn't control people. People control technology and decide what behaviors/transactions they want in their communities.

We also had AirBnB back in the day too. It was called an illegal boarding house. You can find illegal past analogues to a lot of these new tech companies. Not all of them. But a fair number of them.

How many other tech startups are doing the same thing and just using technology as a gimmick to otherwise break the law but claim because there's an app involved it's new or 'innovative' when really it's just skirting law and regulation for the sake of it with technology as legal cover?

And then there's the even darker tech apps that we can regulate out of existence and probably should. Techcrunch did a good piece on them called #Jerktech. Some of them let you resell city parking spaces that don't belong to you or automatically dial and make reservations on restaurants you don't intend to hold just so the place is booked up solid with fake patrons and you can sell reservations off for higher money later. It's just crap that verges on criminal. Check the piece out.

There are always ways to set standards around the use of any given technology. This idea of technology running wild with nobody at the switch whatsoever is crazy to me. Even in little ways we always have to power to regulate how technology is used in our communities. That's one of the key things about local democratic control.

Plus I think a lot of this technology talk is overblown anyways - and purposefully so - to prop up stocks that aren't worth anything close to their current valuations. Do you know what percentage of total retail sales happen online? In Q2 2014 it was still less than 6% of all retail sales. It has been growing slowly, surely, and it will probably be 12% somewhere down the line in the 2020s.

But if you listen to the techno-chicken-littles and the buy-a-share-of-amazon-at-any-price crowd, brick and mortar retail is already dead. Even though it's over 90% of the entire retail market.



So far as immigration goes, you're right, it counts, and it didn't play a big role in that UN report. My guess would be it is a similar but more muted effect as globalization/trade policy - with capital flows moving faster and harder than labor flows - but I don't have any hard numbers on it to speak of.

[metalman]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

That may be true but you read my post so I can only assume you read dcarrigg's response as well as the original post. In any event, the original post is now well known to the Fred community and apparently, it's OK for the OP to continue his racist comments as long as the OP is clever enough pretend he doesn't understand the historical context of his comments and the Freds are free to pretend this is 1920 and we have a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding.

The thread is a good one. The thread does not deserve RnR ranking, the OP's post deserves a reprimand. There was a time on iTulip where that sort of race baiting, (definition: The act of using racially derisive language, actions, or other forms of communication in order to anger or intimidate or coerce a person or group of people), would not be tolerated. Now we have to be concerned that we're not creating too much divisiveness and assisting a good thread toward the iTulip bore hole.

I hope iTulip's standards of civility are based in the 21st Century. If so, you will censure overt racism from all posters and not require your subscribers to call it out.

the phrase 'plantation of voterstock' did raise an eyebrow on this reader but ghent explained he did not intend to say anything about race & dcarrigg accepted this... so what's the beef?

dcarrigg is one of the most if not the most articulate 'liberal' voice here & ghent an equally high quality 'conservative' voice here... put those terms in quotes... not to say these 2 gentlemen can be so crudely summarized but the distinction is roughly true. the fact that they coexist in one community like this is a marvel & what makes this place special to me. kinda sad when they start calling each other names but looks as though they got past it. glad the tulip isn't taking the censorship direction... that'd ruin everything.

[santafe2]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

We cannot moderate every post on every thread in the public forums nor do we feel that this is good policy. We allow community members to work through differences of opinion and misunderstandings. Unless a post is reported by multiple community members we will not intervene.

Threads that become overly divisive are moved to Rant and Rave where rules of conduct are less stringent. Members who do not appreciate that kind of environment can choose to stay away from Rant and Rave.

New members who are consistently hostile to management or to other members (aka trolls) are banned. We have had to do this only three times since 2006 when the forums opened.

We consider the banning of trolls, the moving of threads that do not adhere to iTulip standards of civility, and otherwise allowing community members to work through differences to be a successful policy to produce lively, varied, thoughtful and civil discussion.

That may be true but you read my post so I can only assume you read dcarrigg's response as well as the original post. In any event, the original post is now well known to the Fred community and apparently, it's OK for the OP to continue his racist comments as long as the OP is clever enough pretend he doesn't understand the historical context of his comments and the Freds are free to pretend this is 1920 and we have a difference of opinion or a misunderstanding.

The thread is a good one. The thread does not deserve RnR ranking, the OP's post deserves a reprimand. There was a time on iTulip where that sort of race baiting, (definition: The act of using racially derisive language, actions, or other forms of communication in order to anger or intimidate or coerce a person or group of people), would not be tolerated. Now we have to be concerned that we're not creating too much divisiveness and assisting a good thread toward the iTulip bore hole.

I hope iTulip's standards of civility are based in the 21st Century. If so, you will censure overt racism from all posters and not require your subscribers to call it out.

[Polish_Silver]

labor's plight

. . .

But the real issue (or scare) here isn't technology, is it? The real issue is jobs going away...a

So the way I see it, the problem here isn't technology. It's not really about more robots or whatever. The problem is labor's share of income. But look at the data. Labor's share of income only really hit its precipitous plunge after China's ascent to the WTO and during the last two financialization-inspired bubble collapses. Even if you believe the technology-only theory, the timing should make you pause and wonder.

. . . .

But I think that the problem with this argument is that: 1) there's pretty good data out there showing that it's not really technology that's the primary driver here, and 2) we have to power to regulate technology.

Very thoughtful post, and I wish I could read some of the references you quoted.

I have to disagree about controlling technology. It would not be easy to control, and nations that tried to limit technology usually did not end up very well. If you outlaw a particular machine, it will go underground, or offshore.

I do agree that blaming labors plight primarily on technology is premature. You did not mention immigration, which is really "worker trade policy". The US immigration policy is much more liberal than most other OECD nations.

One way to look at the effect of technology is the attitude towards education. As late as 1980, many thought anything past high school to be superfluous, and to some extent they were right. Now we have a national obsession with trying to get everyone into a 4 year college, clearly a practical impossibility if academic standards are to be at all maintained.

[don]

Re: Greenspan the Un-Rand

I don't understand your point. What does a person's skin color have to do with anything? Are you a racist?

senior white males

are not considered a voting cohort? Can't help you there, pal.