Offshoring versus Offpeopling - why the latter is done in hushed tones:

[Deja Q]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9589_22-5611742.html

"It's happening every day, right before our eyes, but few notice," Samson said in a statement Friday. "A child born today will find very few of today's jobs in the want ads when graduating from college. Most work tasks done now by people will be done by smart technology within 20 or 30 years."

According to the EraNova Institute consulting organization Samson directs, he coined the term "offpeopling" several months ago. But he's not the first to predict the end of work as we know it. Such concerns surfaced during the Industrial Revolution as factory machinery replaced workers, and more recently, authors have published books with titles such as "The Jobless Future."

(snip)

Samson is confident that technology is the larger issue. He argues that automatic systems have eliminated most jobs in farming, helped cut manufacturing to less than 17 percent of the nonagricultural work force and are now displacing white-collar workers such as bank tellers. "Offpeopling has much more impact than offshoring or outsourcing," he said. "Yet it's not in the headlines or on TV."

And then a damning user review, from "No_Ax_To_Grind", as I'll relay momentarily... I hope every corporate CEO reads this one and realizes that he's choking his own neck while he chokes on ours:

As many here know, I do factory automation. Last year we took on a task to automate a plant of a regional dog food company. They employed around 120 factory workers with a burdened cost of around $23 an hour per person. (Burden costs include vacation, sick leave, insurance, taxes, employee building welfare, etc.)

After completing the project, the number fell to 32 factory people and that includes four techs. to keep it all humming along. No matter how you look at it, these folks are out of a job and their ability to find like work is some where between slim and none. After all, most factories are doing the same and are laying off people. (Or moving to low wage locations.)

The question that someone has to ask is, what happens when the general population can no longer find work, and make a wage to buy these products? So far I've not heard one reasonable answer. And no, go get more training is NOT an answer unless you can say specifically what it is they are to be trained in and what the job prospects are for them. (emphasis added, but at least I'm not alone in noticing the reality behind the rhetorical question: Our economy is based on consumption. If people cannot consume, our economy collapses. Finito economy. Everyone suffers. Corporate execs are not excepted.

It's SYMBIOSIS. Not "supply-side", you fuckers. Indeed, without the demand there'd be no supply so it's really DEMAND-SIDE economics that people need to worry about. Pro-worker. Pro-consumer. Reagan fucked it up. Bush even more so. And Clinton gave us NAFTA in signed form too. Didn't help either, and he's the meat sandwiched between the two limpy pieces of flatbread in this sandwich known as "exploitative economic decay".

In short, if something doesn't happen quickly, America's economy (and therefore corporate america) is finished. I'd feel bad except corporate america deserves the mid- to long-term agony it's been ignorant of all this time.

[Spinzonner]

1. See French Revolution

[H2O]

2. Revolt

I see that happening too, not to mention in such times of upheaval, there will be much chaos and a leadership will most likely form that will be even far worse than what we have now, unless we can stop this spiral.

Incidentally, I love those pix, hypnotoad

[Career Prole]

3. "I'd feel bad except corporate america deserves...

...the mid- to long-term agony it's been ignorant of all this time."

Amen to that, brother! I know one thing right off the top of my head that the poor can do far better than the rich, and that's doing without. It would be amusing to watch young Fauntleroy trying to figure out how seeds turn into food, and wood into heat.
Probably eat the seeds and then burn the house down.

[htuttle]

4. We're going to run out of fuel before we get there this time

But someday, we might make it to a 'Star Trek' future where machines do all our work -- at least most of it.

What do we call this economic system nowdays? Communism, basically. Except at Quarks...

You know, what strikes me about the current situation is that the Kapitalist class spends all their time and energy trying to collect the 'trading chits' from the rest of us. But they never put any thought into what would happen if they succeed and end up with ALL the chits (or way too many of them).

The whole system kind of grinds to a halt at that point, and the money that was worth so much would now be almost worthless (except as kindling).

Huh. Funny, that.

[Nay]

5. What corporations want to do is to ramp up consumer spending

in places like China so that their spending can replace our spending. They are facing mature markets in the US for everything -- but in china and India, there's plenty of room for blockbuster sales of nearly every product. They think they can make the jump without hurting themselves too much, and they may be right.

And I don't need to add that they don't give a rat's ass about us, do I? We're grumpy, we don't buy enough, we're fussy customers, etc. And we cost too much to hire.

Frankly, maybe we will ultimately be better off without those bastards. Maybe we can literally start over and build a people-centered economy this time. It won't be glitzy and it won't be based on oil, but maybe it will be sustainable.