Computers, Unemployment and Wealth Creation

Andy Oram writes "Anyone who writes programs or plans system deployment should start thinking, "What can I do to bring average people back into the process of wealth creation?" A few suggestions."

Comments

wealth creation

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a printer with very good resolution for that.

Re:wealth creation

[B'Trey]

Actually, printing money is the only way that the suggestions in the article are going to work. Given that you accept all of the premises, the suggested solutions are likely to prove counter-productive:

Write free software for individual industries

The increased productivity caused by computers is one of the reasons cited for rising unemployment rates. Isn't this new software likely to replace efforts now being done by hand and make the situation worse, not better?

Create a truly public key infrastructure ... People have been trying to get corporate communications and negotiations online for years, and probably the biggest beneficiaries of such a move would be small businesses and individual contractors. After all, who finds it hardest to pay travel costs and conference room fees for expensive legal help?

Assuming that we did manage to get corporate communications online, what happens to the current infrastructure that grew up to support widespread business travel? Airlines, hotels, etc.

The argument is that increased productivity causes unemployment, therefore we need to increase productivity so that small businesses can function more efficiently and cut costs, thus paving the way for more small businesses. I don't think you can have it both ways. Increased productivity can't be both our bane and our salvation.

Re:wealth creation

[mengel]

Well, take for example the fact that most restaurants go out of business in the first few months. Often this isn't because the food is so bad at the restaurant, it's because the folks running the restaurant know how to cook, but not how to do accounting and run a business.

If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right, that would keep more waiters, cooks, etc. employed more of the time.

This is probably true for lots of small businesses; if there was an open-source software solution that helped you run the business effectively, lots more people could get a business of that type up and running, and keep it running.

Re:wealth creation

[B'Trey]

If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right...

There are. A great many of them. And yes, they're somewhat expensive but they aren't a significant percentage of the start-up cost of a restaurant - the real estate, the appliances and the supplies cost much more. Restaurants are high turn-over businesses. Most of them will fail, and no amount of software will change that.

Re:wealth creation

[cybermage]

Often this isn't because the food is so bad at the restaurant, it's because the folks running the restaurant know how to cook, but not how to do accounting and run a business.

This is true of most businesses. People start businesses because they know how to produce whatever the business produces. The reason they fail is that many of them don't know how to run a business.

While tools could be created to help people run a business, if they don't know how, they don't know how.

Also, keep in mind that most businesses fail in the planning stages before they ever open. That's not to say they don't open, just that they are so poorly planned that they cannot succeed. People regularly start businesses with a poor understanding of cash flow or unrealistic expectations of revenue or expenses. They being with too little capital to ride out initial losses and then crash and burn when the money runs out.

If you want to help small businesses, provide software that helps them write a business plan and then provide a mechanism for peer review of the plan.

Re:wealth creation

[astar]

A lot of people have a real fuzzy idea about what wealth is. They usually start by equating it with money. After all, that is what financial economics deals with. On the other hand, physical economy, not much taught, needs to deal with wealth or its actual source. Indeed, the nature of wealth is the question I submit as the fundamental question of economics. In this society we equate wealth with share-holders value, which in practice is not much different than slave-holders value.

Here a few things that do not create wealth:

casinos
school teachers
stock brokering

Here are a few things that create wealth:

farms
residential housing construction
manufacturing of machine tools
transportation of industrial materials

These lists will perhaps enrage many, but then many think that money is wealth, even knowing about the Weimar republic. I submit that the current economic crisis is because the society is wired to sabotage real wealth production.

Re:wealth creation

[nelsonal]

One of the big reasons is portion control. That and finding the right balance of what to make from scratch and what to buy prepared. Can you tell by looking what 4 oz (or 150 g) of aspaugus looks like? Neither can I, new resturants should invest in a kitchen scale until they really nail portion control. All those things starup costs are high, but you only have to buy them occasionally, the food goes out on each plate. If you don't make enough per plate, either prices too low or cost too high, you will go broke quickly. Another important one is what you mentioned train your staff to turn the tables over quickly. Get people in and out as soon as possible, (without the customer feeling rushed) and the resturant has a good chance of survival. The software can show you which dishes you make money on, and which you don't or which server gets 4 tops a night vs 2-3. This sort of informaiton would be quite useful to a failing resturant that's owner has no idea why it doesn't make any money, even though it's always booked solid. Most small businesses would benefit from better informaiton systems. This would also be a place that could provide a ton of work for all the people customizing and integrating the software package for each small business.

Jobs instead of efficiency?

[NineNine]

This seems like a ridiculous suggestion. This is essentially backwards capitalism, which quite simply, doesn't work. I could create plenty of jobs... I could throw out my business' computers and instead hire a few people to track inventory by hand and place orders by manually counting inventory. Sure, I'd create more jobs, but those jobs would be very short lived, ebcause I'd quickly go out of business. Efficiency, in the long run, *does* produce wealth. That's how capitalism works. We may not see "wealth" growing in the US, but in the economy (which is now a world economy), wealth is most definitely being created. Standards of living are rising exponentially around the globe, even as they slip in the US. Nothing's broken. Nothing to see here. Go back to work.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[ninthwave]

Know the point isn't replacing current business it is augmenting them. Wealth creation by having more processes active.
In a global economy should there be an industrial approach for all markets.
Is it McDonalds world wide
or is it each local restaurant having the technology to minimise its costs to compete with the industrial produced goods. To have communication systems to purchase at best cost up to the minute. To have the accounting and in house automation to reduce its staff to lesson its cost and increase its profits. To create many companies in the many markets that exist in a global economy, instead of trying to shape the global economy around the markets of already existing businesses.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[hardpack]

It might work; it might not. Neither model--capitalism or any kind of backward capitalism--has been proven to work, but capitalism is the rules of the system we're currently in. An issue is that it *is* the survival of the fittest, and in a capitalist world those who care and are willing to sacrifice their own needs-fulfillment for the needs-fulfillment of another should lose and die. They don't deserve, by the rules of the game, to pass on their genes.

But it's a healthy dynamic to have those who buck the system. Everyone can't be a winner. Maybe the non-capitalists *will* survive as the fittest; maybe capitalism is here to stay and the wealthy will live at the top of the heap. I've made the decision that my time and resources are best served helping other help themselves (not *just* helping others); others should and will make their own personal decisions about the resources appropriately. I can generate sufficient wealth to succeed in the system, but I can also generate sufficient (unquantifiable) personal wealth in terms of goodwill, friendship, gratitude, and loyalty through my sacrifice--and these are elements of a "morality" that makes me happy. Perhaps this morality is weak, and so I'll die off and my genes will disappear. But it doesn't hurt to try.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[sql*kitten]

in a capitalist world those who care and are willing to sacrifice their own needs-fulfillment for the needs-fulfillment of another should lose and die.

What are you talking about? In capitalism the only way to get ahead is to fulfill the needs of others, by selling them goods and services. They'll do the same for you.

Why do you think that famine is practically unheard of in capitalist countries? It's because the farmers want to make MONEY! Why do you think that in non-capitalist countries starvation is widespread - like say North Korea? Because their farmers work for "the good of society".

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[micromoog]

Efficiency, in the long run, *does* produce wealth. That's how capitalism works.

You oversimplify quite a bit . . . capitalism by its nature requires competition, which means massive duplication of effort. Additionally, it requires both "winners" and "losers" . . . the "winners" experience the wealth creation you're tooting about, and the "losers" do not.

Another unfortunate consequence of capitalism: since it uses "creating wealth" as a proxy for "productivity", you end up with lots and lots of people "creating wealth" from dubious or useless endeavors (Internet porn link farmers come to mind), then tooting about how they're somehow improving society through this "wealth creation".

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[qtp]

There is no suggestion in the article that suggests that the decision is between jobs and efficiencey. The article is suggesting that the tools necessary for efficiency be made available to those who have the ideas and abilities to create wealth but do not currently have access to the neccessary wealth to access the tools neccessary for thier business to efficiently compete in the market place.

The current mode of our capitolism (in the US and most likely elsewhere) does not place the advantage in the hands of those who possess the intelligence, skills, and ideas, but rather favors those who either have inhirited the capitol from previous generations (Gates, Perot, Walton, Bush, Allen, etc) or those who were lucky enough to befriend those who already posessed that wealth (Can't think of any off hand). Even then you have situations where the cost for these "deals" is rather high in terms of personal integrity, as demonstrated by Mr Dan Greer's co-founders at @stake who have been mysteriously silent about his firing despite being well aware of the correctness of the research that got him fired.

The truth of the matter about wealth production is that efficiency does not crate wealth, it retains it. One of our famous Republican presidents summed it up very well when he was asked to outlaw strikes in industries that were supportin the ciountry at war by answering that "All capital is the product of labor." (If you know who that was you get biscuit).

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[hardpack]

The argument is in the context of the article, asking whether you, as an individual, should prioritize helping out others in a manner that doesn't provide for your own personal needs-fulfillment.

In modern capitalism, most people profit from fulfilling needs of others--that's how demand is created. But there's an understanding that no *sacrifice* is made--it's a generalized quid pro quo. In the context of the article, there is no quid pro quo.

Famine is usually not caused by your economic system. It's usually environmental. In America, we don't have famine, but we do have people starving--in large percentages--due to the dog-eat-dog criteria of capitalism. There are many artifical methods that our govenment still employees to ensure that the capitalism around farming stays alive: such as government subsidies, which work into the capitalistic model, but muck around with the basic supply/demand model. They're props and kludges because the capitalism *didn't work*.

Pure-bred capitalism is also a cultural thing. We're good at it--others are not. Look at the history of economic bubbles and see how they almost destroyed nations. It's arguable whether capitalism is working in Southeast Asia or in regions of Africa. Our hope is that after time, things will "even out" and things will start working, but we're not sure because we actually haven't seen anything that has lived up to what our ideal as to how capitalism should be--yet.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[radish]

Famine is very common in many parts of the world, including (as an example) Africa. As far as I know, every country in Africa (bar one or two small ones, I forget which) is capitalist. So your assertion that "famine is practically unheard of in capitalist countries" is patently absurd. What you meant to say was "Why do you think that famine is practically unheard of developed western countries like the USA and UK?", the answer is that they use their world influence (obtained historically by slavery and imperialism amongst other means) to exploit other countries and thus secure cheap food supplies. They are also blessed with ample fertile land and moderate climates. You take your wonderful american farmer and dump him in the middle of the Sahara with nothing but 3 half dead cows and a sack of grain, and see how long he lasts.

As for your North Korea example, you seem to be getting things confused again. The number of truly non-capitalist countries in the world is very small, almost vanishingly so. They have a hard time of it, partly due to bad government (a bad politician is a bad politician regardless of his leanings), partly because of being isolated within the wider world and so not being able to trade, and partly due to a whole number of other things (like getting the crap bombed out of them every few years). Whilst the economic system may be a factor (I'm no economist, I can't say) you are inferring a causal link where there is no evidence of one. Just because a country has food problems, and is communist, does not imply that it has food problems because it is communist. Logic 101.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[christophersaul]

I live and work in the Middle East, where the way things work in general astonished me when I first arrived from the UK - in the West it's efficient to introduce automated procedures and use computers. In many cases here, it's actually far cheaper to use people for jobs that computers would do in the West. In many cases computers would actually do the job far better, but when a year's salary is less than the price of a computer solution, things will stay as they are! At some point it'll become more profitable to buy a PC with an accounting and inventory package, but for now most small businesses are far better off, at least on paper, looking at the short term, by sticking with manual processes and lots of people. It can make selling IT systems quite hard :)

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[xenocide2]

I'm hardly an expert at this, but my understanding is that many of the African famine countries are manufactured. Its far easier to maintain a dormant populace when you control the food. If a dictatorship that hoards all the food can be called capitalist, then at the very least we should need to include the notion of a democratic capitalist society.

The Sahara is gradually shrinking as vegitation grows. Advances in technology and just general luck of weather over climate are likely causes. If your hypothetical farmer is allowed to have one of those Genetically Modified sacks of grain, that are designed to grow in harsh conditions (something most dictators are afraid of), then your American might stand a chance. Most African leaders who ban the GM foods repeat that the foods could be dangerous for human consuption. Perhaps its a possibility, but as long as the grains don't produce any chemicals that react in the blood stream into precpitate, the danger is very unlikely. The real and uncited danger is dependence on Monsanto grains that do not produce offspring.

In short, famine is the result of human considerations, not a matter of the land.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[jamesangel]

From my understanding, famines are almost always caused by political factors. Not necessarily communist vs. capitalist, but famine as a tool of control over the population. Stalin starved people to death not because he was a communist, but because he was a murderous maniac. There is famine in Zimbabwe not because of a lack of food, but because Mugabe is using it to control his people.

If you read PJ O'Rourke's 'All the trouble in the world', he quotes serveral economists to make the case that there is no real link between shortages of food and famine. Rather, the problems are almost always those of distribution, often caused politically.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[pangian]

It's worth noting that there has never been a famine in a democracy.
[source: Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom]

Correlation or causation? You be the judge, but Sen makes a pretty good case for the latter.

Re:Jobs instead of efficiency?

[johnnyb]

"Economy is a zero sum game when you take natural resources into account."

There _may_ be a limit, but it's likely far beyond what we are at now.

"This means it's impossible for everybody in the world to have the same standard of living as the US because there are not enough trees, water, and oil to accomplish such a thing."

Based on what data? History has shown us that technology can account for a dramatic increase in the usability of existing resources.

Most projections along these lines assume that there is no advancing technology, and everything stays at the same price. For example, the estimates of the supplies of oil usually have the following incorrect assumptions:

1) The current wells won't refill (we've found that many in fact, do)

2) We don't ever find any new reserves (in fact the ocean contains a vast supply, and we continually find new reserves)

3) The price of oil stays the same (there are considerable resources that are available that we simply don't dig up because it's not profitable at the _current price_, but will be if the price would increase)

The same kind of assumptions are in most of these "we're going to drain the planet" type of predictions.

The same thing everybody else should do

[stomv]

Make as much money as you can*, and then use it to do some of:

(a) Buy stuff. Other folks are employed making it or serving it.

(b) Invest. This results in capital for businesses to hire more people employed making or serving stuff.

This method works. Simple, really.

* Within ethical and/or legal standards, of course.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[Bull999999]

After close to 15,000 deaths due to the heat wave in France, the government admitted that their health care system is overly complex and is in need a overhaul. Is this the model we are supposed to follow?

People complain that politicians are evil and corrupt, yet want them to run everything? Only people who'll benefit are the ones with ties to the government officials.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[*weasel]

America's privatized health care has created the world's leading health care industry. Why do you think every foreigner who can afford to, comes to US clinics for surgeries or treatments?

Yes, americans don't all have the best insurance, or any at all for that matter - but the care you get uninsured for $40 at the outpatient clinic down the street is vastly better than what most of the world gets.

Competitive privatized industries have -never- been a disaster.

The simplest example, is comparing price/performance and advancement of the rail industry (government sanctioned monopolies) with the airline industry (competitive free market).

the 'disasters' you must be referring to regarding privatized prisons and energy production are not examples of privatized industry at all. They are the examples of a private company operating in a government funded monopoly. Privatized power generation in California hasn't hit a snag since the conversion was completed (which was caused by government imposed limits on power generation which were enacted before sufficient alternative companies had their generation online).

And while the bulk of the military itself has never been privatized (for the same reason the government hasn't - to keep policy decisions out of the hands of private industry and to keep soldier loyalty directly under the decision-makers), you would probably be amazed at how much -has- been privatized. The government hasn't made its own weapons (or commandeered industry to do it) since WWI - and the improvements in weapons and decreases in cost have been astronomical. Compare american military technological advancements to that of any other nation on the planet. These are all due to private industry research and development.
Private industry air and ship capacity is also used to transfer military personnel and equipment overseas in times of high need. Then there's military body armor, telecommunications gear, medecine, reconnaissance, etc.

Contrary to your claim, free-market privatization has proven to be the biggest asset of every American endeavor it has been a part of.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[Bull999999]

I may go for public health care if the government officials who run them are not corrupt, it is run efficiently, and no one abuses the system. The problem is that;

1. Most government officials are known for giving preferred treatment to people with ties, which means that you still cannot guarantee equal care for everyone. Let's say that Joe and John both need a new liver. Joe is a huge contributor to several government officals. I'm willing to bet that Joe will get the liver before John.

2. From serving as an intern for a state rep, I can tell you that the government has a huge overhead and good chunk of tax dollars for the healthcare will be wasted.

3. There will be a large amount of people who abuse the system (such as hypochondriacs) at everyone else's expense.

Not to mention that while I am willing to give a hand to people who are in the bad situations due to circumstances out of their control (like being born disabled), I am against giving help to people who put themselves in a bad situation (like frying their brains due to drug use).

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[sapped]

Why do you think every foreigner who can afford to...

How much have you actually sampled the health industried in other countries? I have had the misfortune to sample it in 4 countries. Sad to say but the US was not at the top of my list. A third world country was able to give the broadest base of its citizens a reasonable level of health care that I have not seen in the USA.

However, the interesting thing to note is that the bulk of that care was not given via the government, but via private care.

So, what is the difference you ask? Here in the US, the doctors don't seem to care about you. They would rather pack the next patient in rather than spend an additional 10 minutes talking to you - higher profits you see. This means they rely on lab tests too much and don't build up any decent history of the patient. This third world country's doctors by and large appeared to have the primary aim of actually wanting to help their patients rather than becoming rich overnight.

My summary: The health system in the USA is the most expensive system that I have come across and on average does not deliver what you pay for. (Compare: 1 child born outside USA $3200, 1 child born in USA $14500. Oh and my wife got to spend more time in hospital with the 1st child.)

Sure, capilitalism is good, but as with most things it has been taken to the extreme here in the US.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[Daniel Dvorkin]

1. Most corporate executives are known for giving preferred treatment to people with ties.

2. From working in the private healthcare industry, I can tell you that it has a huge overhead and a good chunk of your insurance premiums are wasted.

3. There are a large number of hypochondriacs who abuse every health care system at everyone else's expense.

I've worked in Federal government health care, city government health care, and private health care. The quality of service, overall, was about the same in all three. But IMO, overall efficiency declined in the order I've listed them.

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[MKalus]

(a) Buy stuff. Other folks are employed making it or serving it.

This is a very popular thing to say / do. On the same reasoning the governments are proposing "tax cuts" hoping / thinking that this money will make people go out and spend it.

In reality? I doubt it, most people are in debt, they want to get out of debt (if they are sane) and thus they will use any tax credit they get to pay back the money they owe (one might hope at least).

This method works. Simple, really.

Maybe, but I am just going the other way, I am trying to determine what do I really need and lately I am not buying much but some clothes, food and occasionally I do buy a book (libraries are great) mainly because I am not interrested in the rat race, nor do I believe in this "common good" like "buy buy buy, be happy, help others." that is so prevailant in todays society.

But that's of course everybodys choice, I just would like to point out that the world has no infinit resources and thus "shop 'till you drop" could mean you drop because you don't have any air to breath left (as an extreme example).

Michael

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[jslag]

Minimum wage may be vastly less than you or I currently earn, but the fact that one can afford luxuries such as consumer electronics, broadband, automobiles, their own living space, etc - on that wage, is remarkable.

It's so remarkable, it's not even close to true. Look at Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed; it's not even possible to afford housing and food on minimum wage, much less "luxuries such as consumer electronics, broadband. . ."

Re:The same thing everybody else should do

[Hentai]

Unfortunately, whenever you privatize, you provide corporations with the opportunity to grab the power that you supposedly intended to go to the people. Whenever you subsidize, you provide the government with the opportunity to grab the power that you supposedly intended to go to the people. In EITHER CASE - "private" or "public" control - those with more power will invariably use their power to ensure that they get the lion's share of the new power to be had. The little guy can't get anything BUT screwed, because he simply doesn't have the resources to compete.

If you want to "level the playing field" and let people get what they actually need, rather than what their social ties will let them get away with, you need to kill off the top 10% every 5 years and let the proletariat scramble to fill the power vacuum. Anything else is a recipe for oligarchy.

The problem is not with "lack of wealth"

[karji]

...as it is in its distribution.

Techies ought to focus on how to take money from the wealthy and decrease the world's dependency on corporations, or even private companies (that later become corporations), by building cooperatives and collectives.

Re:The problem is not with "lack of wealth"

[icebones]

Techies ought to focus on how to take money from the wealthy and decrease the world's dependency on corporations

Hacking bank accounts comes to mind

Very true

[Blaine Hilton]

I believe this article is extremely relevant today. People need to understand that you can't just expect a job to come falling into your lap, you have to get up and find it. If there is no job, create the job you want yourself. Don't just wait and say how bad the economy is, do something about it.

Easy..

[Anonymous Coward]

education. It used to be that a four year diploma got you a good steady job for the rest of your life. Look what it gives you now: a chance to hop between jobs every two years, and a chance to compete with people who will work without airconditioning and shit in an outhouse. You gotta stay one step ahead of the competition, so I'd say education is one of them.

Basic economics

[sql*kitten]

As the wealth of nations increases, those who have lost jobs or had to accept menial ones over the past three years are left with only a wealth of culprits to blame: financial scandals, wars, tax cuts, stagnation, etc.

For a start, a 3-year sample isn't big enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. We're just in the down phase of the economic cycle, that's all. Smart people salted away some of the high salaries and bonuses that were easy to come by in the recent boom years, when shortness of staff drove up the price of labour. Now, some people look for blame - but it's hard to see how some of these can be blamed. Wars and conflict drive up employment in the engineering and aerospace sectors. Tax cuts can't increase unemployment except amongst government workers, and there have been no reports of government layoffs - if anything, the government is busily hiring.

Let me make this clear: wealth is not created by governments. It's created by risk-taking entrepreneurs. Right now, the markets need to recover from excessive risk-taking in the late 90s. This is perfectly natural. When sufficient capital has become amassed, the cycle will begin again and there will be another boom.

But capitalism is atrocious at distributing the fruits of innovation

I was in a store the other day, I saw a 3-megapixel digital camera for GBP 99, a DVD players for GBP 49. 5 years ago, these products cost hundreds of pounds. That's what capitalism delivers: more and better for everyone. The "poor" in a capitalist society are far better off than the "poor" in any other system - and capitalism generates the surpluses that fund the entire welfare system.

Each labor-saving device means the idling of thousands of people, wasting their years of experience, rigorous training, and practical insights.

Yawn, they said exactly the same things when the car started to replace the horse drawn carriage, when mechanical looms replaced hand-operated looms, when automation was introduced to farming, in fact whenever any technology has revolutionized an industry. Getting laid off is always a little disconcerting (yes, it has happened to me so I know what I'm talking about) but unemployment is what you make of it.

And meanwhile governments, businesses, venture capitalists (what are you doing with all that money your pets in Congress and the White House brought you, tails all awagging?),

Ah, now we see the author's real agenda - I should have realized when I saw the words "tax cuts". I will merely point out that the dotcom bubble economy was created under a Democrat president and began declining in mid 2000 - there is nothing Bush or Greenspan could have done to prevent it bursting.

Re:Basic economics

[CowBovNeal]

This was a reply to the article(http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_ msg/24782)

"the vast majority of those folks that lost their jobs over the past three years shouldn't have had a job doing what they were doing in the first place and the (lack of) success of the companies that they worked for and the "products" they produced showed that.

The amount of fly-by-night IT "professionals" that were born in the dot-com days was retarded. And now that companies are no longer hiring just to fill slots so that their company could break the 1000 employee mark in 30 days or less or so that the manager above them would be happy that they filled a position with "someone", people are looking for answers.

As with any bad situation, there has been plenty of collatoral damage, with good IT folks getting the boot. But the vast majority of so called "technolgists" that are out of work really don't belong in the industry in the first place.

Your article trying to "find a new place" for these folks is a sad attempt at trying to make them feel good about their situation. Maybe if they really want a job in the IT industry, they should build some real skills." -anonymous

Re:Basic economics

[Cyphertube]

Granted, though, Greenspan played a hand in creating the bubble in the first place. When you see high purchase levels of stock with P/E ratios of 200+, it's time to bump UP the interest rate.

Tax cuts now will not solve the problem, except to create a larger debt burden. This country, both government and populace, is debt-strapped. Also tax-cuts at the federal level often affect more directly porrer states, since federal aid tends to drop and either services drop, local taxes go up, or both. Look at how well Alabama's educational system is faring under the current federal schema. That's selling the future short, and education is a key infrastructure for a functioning capitalist society that is orienting itself more around knowledge workers than manufacturing.

While the author may have political motivation, the premise that helping small business is good is still true. If we had more small businesses, we might have a more stable economy in the long run, with people less tied to major corporations in dependency.

Re:Basic economics

[bombadillo]

Ah, now we see the author's real agenda - I should have realized when I saw the words "tax cuts". I will merely point out that the dotcom bubble economy was created under a Democrat president and began declining in mid 2000 - there is nothing Bush or Greenspan could have done to prevent it bursting.

True, there is nothing that they could have done to prevent the bubble from bursting. However, they could have prevented it from sliding as much as it did. Bush's misserable foreign policy is to blame. Interesting to look back at 2000-2001 when Bush was pushing isolationalism and condeming nation building activties. Then 9/11 comes along and he sees that we have to be involved in the world community. Unfortunately he mistook involvment with imperialism.... If the global community does not respect the president of the US. Do you think that the global economy will do well? First step to a good recovery is to get a president that can be respected by the community. Bush's role in the White House is questionable. Who is really in charge in the White House? Rumsfeild or Rove??? The rest of the world is asking theses questions. Why aren't the people of the US???

Wealth creation is overrated

[Ikeya]

I tried creating wealth with my scanner and ink-jet printer once, but the government didn't like that very much.

Or....

[crumbz]

How about reducing the population? The Economist magazine had an apropo cover story a few months ago entitles, "Can the World Afford 500 Million Americans?" The article went on to explain that by 2060, the U.S. population would exceed 500 million and given current consumption trends, what that would mean for the rest of the world. Not to bash Americans, but what is the optimal population (or carrying capacity) for the Earth? A rhetorical question, sure, but one that needs more serious study than the oft neglected WHO reports.

Re:Or....

[Doom Ihl' Varia]

The carrying capacity of the Earth changes with technology. However, I remeber a few years back reading that based on the technology then the world could support 25 billion people. Anybody who says we are going to run out of room in the US needs to leave the city for a weekend and go for a long drive.

Re:Or....

[Xerithane]

Not to bash Americans, but what is the optimal population (or carrying capacity) for the Earth? A rhetorical question, sure, but one that needs more serious study than the oft neglected WHO reports.

You could fit 6 billion people into Texas, and it would be less densly packed than Tokyo, Japan.

Re:Or....

[Alric]

I don't want to be melodramatic, but how happy do you think those six billion people would be.

Take NYC, an environment more familiar to most slashdotters than Tokyo, and apply that landscape to the entire state of Texas. Maybe I'm just not a city boy, but that scenario sounds miserably depressing to me. I like being in incredibly urban environments, but only if I can get when I need to. As the urban sprawl spreads, those places of sancutary will only become more exclusive, affordable only to those with abundant resources.

Capitalism is good, but IMO, it depends on there being somewhat at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Capitalism is a system based on inequality, and I think that's okay for a temporary system for the human civilization. It only works on with a civilization in rapid growth (techonologically, culturally, etc.); when our civilization begins to stabilize in 300 or so years, I just don't think capitalism is going to be satisfactory.

There is a long precedent supporting my opinion. Look at the history of nations. In chaos, a dictator rises and creates order. After the chaos has settled, the people are no longer happy with the dictator. The dictator either subdues the populace with force or gets replaced with democracy or some semblance thereof. Obviously, I believe capitalism is that authoritarian system useful in a time of chaos, and I don't think humanity has discovered the correct economic system for the plateau. Maybe it's some form of socialism or communism, but I don't really know.

Re:Or....

[doktor-hladnjak]

I believe that the native-born population of the United States is shrinking (though not by much!). The current population increase is due to net immigration. And that Europe is experiencing the same phenomenon.

Believe it or not the native born population of the US is still increasing. Here it gives the following statistics (estimated for 2003) for the US:
- birth rate: 14.14
- death rate: 8.44
- migration rate: 3.52
- fertility rate: 2.07 children per woman

In much of Europe though, things really are much different. In Italy and Germany the death rate is higher than the birth rate, while the average woman has much less than two children. Some countries like Bulgaria have it even worse with a death rate almost twice the birth rate in addition to a net negative migration. The populations of all of these countries look like they will either drop or remain stable for the foreseeable future.

Even from just my personal observations (I grew up in California, but live in Germany), it's noticable that there are a lot more elderly people here. In the US, it's not unusual at all to see families with 3 kids. Here, it's rare for anybody to have more than 2 and I would guess it's most common to just have 1 child now.

I've heard different reactions to this from all sorts of different people. Several Germans told me it's expensive to have kids or that a lot of people feel they have to either choose a career or a family. I remember this Pakistani guy saying something like "You know, they must really not like children in Germany. In Pakistan, everybody loves kids; they're everywhere". I don't think that Germans hate kids, but I think his comments show that the perception of children and their role in life is different in Europe than in North America or the rest of the world.

Complete rubbish

[pubjames]

It is just me, or is that article rubbish?

It is not my goal to place restrictions on investment or innovation; it is only to present a new way of thinking that some people may find stimulating.

Here's looking forward to some creative new thinking...

Write free software for individual industries

What the f***? How is that supposed to help reverse falling unemployment?

Slashdot - if you're going to post links to economics related subjects, can you please make sure it is written by someone with a clue about economics?

Re:Complete rubbish

[BiggerIsBetter]

What the f***? How is that supposed to help reverse falling unemployment?

Most businesses are small businesses that can't afford (until very recently) SAP and similar software, so creating free systems that target their needs is a way of lowering the bar to increased effiency and productivity, therefore helping them grow.

Or it could be bollocks. I don't know, I'm just a clueless programmer.

Good grief...

[CommieLib]

Yet another cry out that changes in technology are going to "historically" destroy jobs.

I'm too bored with this line of thinking to even trot out the buggy whip analogy. Please save me the effort and just read this:

Creative Destruction, again

This has happened a thousand times before, but somehow, this time is different. Whatever.

Re:Good grief...

[pdbogen]

Yeah, and I forgot; Just because it's always been this way means its the best way.

Re:Average people?

[Dutchmaan]

Because average people are the mass of this nation.. a wealth creating population is a wealth creating nation. Money needs to circulate.. money is the lifeblood of a nation.

A wealth hoarding population creates a lack of wealth a creation of classes and ultimately a failure of the system.

earn more money by clicking these links!

[I8TheWorm]

Seriously, I'm not sure imnproving efficiency will help the unemployment rate, at least not in the short term. Generally, improved efficiency means fewer jobs. Of course, the idea is that the company makes more money, and there is more wealth to spread around.

Corporations, though, don't spend in the short term on warm bodies. They are cautious about economy fluctuations. They do love to take advantage of cost cutting benefits though. It just seems to the pencil pushers that cutting costs starts with eliminating workforce.

Does he not undersand??

[Mrs. Grundy]

which systems will save the most money. I find this battle increasingly tiresome. I'm more interested in finding the systems that will put more people to work.

Putting more people to work means paying more people which means lower profits unless those people are able to increase efficiency or sell more product. How can you expect any business to strive to spend more money if there is an alternative? It may work for the government, but if businesses go out to their way to use more workers and pay more people they won't be around very long. There needs to be an economic reason (aka an incentive) for businesses to hire people. They are not going to, and can't, do it out of the kindness of their heart.

This article scares me...

[malakai]

This article scares me...

It's a plea to socialize the software industry. Don't work on what you want to work on, work on what society NEEDS you to work on. But do it for SOCIETY, that is, do it for FREE. This will allegedly help a struggling 'cutting-edge' business grow. Give them free software, and all will work out.

This is hogwash. And the article goes all over the place. It starts off with blaming "financial scandals, wars, tax cuts, stagnation" on why people have lost jobs "or had to accept menial ones". But then concludes "there is little doubt that a large contributor to rising unemployment is rising productivity". We see this every new age. This guy is bordering on a Luddite. He's also overly dramatic which makes me dislike him even more "I can no longer avert my eyes from the consequences of the field I have chosen" so noble. "... and no one else who programs, administers, or promotes the use of computers can morally avert their eyes either" oh jeez.

It gets worse, "The gigantic combine of capitalism has always obsessively pursued effiencey..." yeah, that's the point. That's why it works.

"Capitalism has succeeded in sowing a cornucopia of innovation up and down society. But capitalism is atrocious at distributing the fruits of innovation"

No, Capitalism is atrocious at GIVING AWAY the fruits of innovation. It doesn't reward people who don't partake in it. That is why it's so efficient. Add _YOUR_ efficiency to the overall efficiency and you will be paid for its value.

This really frightens me:

"People who work with computers remain fixated on efficiency. Every week I hear the debates over whether businesses should use Linux or Windows, the commentators always wrangling over which systems will save the most money. I find this battle increasingly tiresome. I'm more interested in finding the systems that will put more people to work."

Great, lets all make inefficient processes and software to run those processes so that costs will skyrockets, and we'll be beat by someone with a more efficient process. You can't do that in a free market. It's the whole point of the free market. The market balances between efficiency, cost, and quality. If you artificially try to create more jobs by making it take 5x as many more people to assemble a car, you will collapse that business.

"I have a sinking feeling that we can't wait for the next upturn in the employment cycle, as optimists would have us do"

gut instinct huh? Thanks for sharing that. I'm sure we can all base decisions on your gut instincts.

So his solution boils down to three ideas:
1. Write free software for individual industries (ie, give custom built small business software away for free). His thinking is this will help the small business get started and they will in turn hire more people. But damn the person who wrote the software, he's SOL. But it was for the 'good' of the 'people'.
2. "Make devices more responsive and easy to customize", he request: "I would like a computer to plan ahead for me, track things that are too much trouble for me to remember, and combine inputs to suggest efficient courses of action" OK so he wants smart agents. What this has to do with this article is beyond me. I think he just threw it in there because he wanted to.
3. "Create a truly public key infrastructure" I don't understand why he feels the need for a 'truly PKI is so important. It seems to go along with his socialist viewpoint. I guess it would make on line filing of unemployment that much easier when he plans leads to the failing of a nations economy.

He ends it with more FUD: "We don't have all the time in the world. And meanwhile governments, businesses, venture capitalists (what are you doing with all that money your pets in Congress and the White House brought you, tails all awagging?), universities, and NGOs seem paralyzed in the face of this economic disaster"

Overtime

[Councilor Hart]

Want to give more people a job. Then stop forcing them to work overtime. That way, more people will have jobs and more time can be spend with the family, or doing a hobby.

"Investing" rarely is

[ThosLives]

Investing doesn't really give money to companies unless you:
a) Participate in the IPO
b) Buy bonds directly from the company during its offering

Trading stocks with other stockholders doesn't give any money to the company. It's like trading baseball cards. Sure there are some side effects of having stock prices go up for a company, but usually a high stock price doesn't give any financial benefit to a company (except for subsequent stock issues, which don't happen that often).

If you really want to invest in a company, buy bonds when they are issued (don't trade bonds, because trading them just gives money to the bond holder - not the company whose bond it is!).

That said, the best form of investing in a company is to purchase their product.

Re:"Investing" rarely is

[ThosLives]

Yes, being a "valued comanpy" has an effect on the cost of capital - but investing in the company does not affect credit ratings. And if you look, stock price does not determine credit ratings; credit ratings are usually determined by performance (well, expectations of future performance, really). Stock price and credit ratings are supposedly indicators of the same thing, but nobody ever raised the credit rating on a company simply because its stock price went up (at least not that I have observed). So I would have to disagree with you there; buying stocks does not help a company's credit rating. Purchasing goods or services, however, will affect credit ratings: - if I buy a company's product, it gets more revenue, which analysts like. Buying more product will reduce the cost of capital and increase the stock price. Of course, buying a company's product does not always guarantee anything; sometimes companies that post profits with high revenues even get downgraded because analysts typically have depth-perception issues when it comes to analyzing companies' performance.

Of course, stocks and credit ratings hardly behave in a logical, rational, deterministic manner; they behave the way they do in a disturbingly self-fullfilling and self-realizing fashion. (loosely tied to the performance of a given company or industry).

Hrm. Actually, it's funny that solid companies are required to pay less return on bonds, since that return is guaranteed; you'd think [investors] would want to extract a higher rate from companies with better profits. Ah, wait; didn't I already say that it wasn't rational?

Re:"Investing" rarely is

[GoofyBoy]

>but usually a high stock price doesn't give any financial benefit to a company

The shares floating around on the market are a percentage of the total shares. The company (and insiders) keeps/holds the majority of the shares and can later use this as "cash" to buy other things. And so thats why you get companies buy other companies through stock.

But you mostly are correct.

Re:"Investing" rarely is

[cyril3]

Trading stocks with other stockholders doesn't give any money to the company

Couldn't be more wrong. The concept of a share market is based on trading in shares to allow investors to realize their investment without taking their money out of the company.

Consider the correct alternatives.

If I want to get out of Company X (assume I was in the IPO) I have two possible alternatives.

I can ask the company for the money back. Of course I will want to cash out the $1.00 which is the current value, not just the 10c I paid for the share. Then Company X has to go out and find someone like you to put more money in. And they will want the $1.00 per share that they are worth. Before stock markets this is what happened as a matter of course.

Now I only need to go to the exchange and sell you the share for $1.00 and the company doesn't get involved.

Do you not see that as the equivalent of the buyer putting their money into the company. After all if the aompany is liquidated the buyer expects to get the cash out. It's certainly not going to the IPO investor.

Same thing for Bonds.

That said, the best form of investing in a company is to purchase their product.

If you are going to talk about investing you should look up what it means. I cannot think of an example where buying something from someone else can be classified as an investment in the seller. It may be an investment of yours in the thing you purchased but not in the seller (not even colloquially)

Urrr....but, but...

[GeneralEmergency]

"People who work with computers remain fixated on efficiency. Every week I hear the debates over whether businesses should use Linux or Windows, the commentators always wrangling over which systems will save the most money. I find this battle increasingly tiresome. I'm more interested in finding the systems that will put more people to work." ...more people just muck things up!

Seriously, if competition is the engine of capitalism, then surely efficiency is the fuel.

Editor Mod -1(Off Planet)

It's never about computers

[teutonic_leech]

.... it's all about 'people using computers' to increase productivity and shift their daily tasks from repetitive grunt work to intelligent information management. Also, let's factor in that in this brave new world of computers how much time is actually being spent on battling viruses, appying patches, re-installing new operating systems, learning applications, etc.. We are in some ways more productive, but we also pay a certain price for being able to instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the planet. One can debate this issue to death, but I personally feel that I'm a lot more powerful in my capabilities and my creativity than I was just 10 years ago. Some of that can be attributed to my own growth, but a lot of it is based on me being able to write a Java servlet for a form, open an illustration in Illustrator, work with my spreadsheet on some business projections, download movies with Kazaa (oooops ;-) - anyway, you get the drift. The current cycle is exactly just that: a cycle - and it will swing back up again in its due time (when, if I just knew I would live on my own island and charge a lot of money for that info). Of course the world has changed and the new EC, NAFTA, terrorist attacks, corporate greed and corruption, Microsoft, George Bush, Bill Gates, you picks it, all have an hand in the current economic situation. So do you and I - who knows any one of us might come up with this amazing new idea that gives IT a renewed boost and changes things to some extend.
I personally don't focus my attention on 'computers' or any other tool I work with. It's all about creativity and good ideas - getting the job done. Has the computer changed my way of doing things? Yes, and so did the invention of the gun powder - we use what we can - but in the end wealth creation depends on people not tools.

Rubbish

[DOsinga]

The article is typical example of the lump of labour fallacy, which usually goes something like this: we produce all this stuff to make society run. Now, if we find a way to make the same amount of stuff with less people (using computers), we'll end up with less employment.

If this was true, almost everybody would have been out of work by now. 2000 years ago the work of almost everybody was needed just to grow enough food for everybody. The truth is, that there is no limit to the amount of possible work. What matters is total production of society and how we divide it. Computes will raise total production of society, so it could make us all richer. If we succeed in distributing the wealth in any kind of just way, employment could rise. Or we could choose for a society where the rich have a lot and the poor are unemployed. But that choice does not have anything to do with the amount of efficiency improving computers do.

- - - - towards a lawyer free interent

Wealth creation?

[winkydink]

The only person I'm interested in creating wealth for is yours truly. If others get wealthy in the process, good for them.

Over 50% of my income goes to taxes of one form or another. I'd say that's subsidy enough for the other guy.

Commie bastards. 1/2:)

Re:Wealth creation?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Over 50% of my income goes to taxes of one form or another.

Are you counting the upstream burden that's built into the price of the consumer goods you purchase? (e.g. the portion of the cost of that loaf of bread that the farmer had to charge to pay the sales taxes on his tractor and the property tax paid on the factory where the bread was baked, and the payroll, social security, and medicaid taxes of the guy who delivered the bread to the store)

Just curious, because it's probably more than 50% - didn't want to depress you further.

...what planet is he from?

[Artful Codger]

wealth does not equal jobs, and good jobs is what the world lacks.

There's alot of wealth, but at present the western system is optimised to cause wealth to drift up and get locked-up in the economic upper-crust.

There's tons of work that needs to be done! Examples - teaching arts and music, daycare, senior care, cleaning and renovating neighbourhoods, rehabilitation of ecological damage... but the powers refuse to see these as priorities or raise the minimum wage so that a person can actually make a living at one of these jobs.

The author first slams us for being clever and writing efficient stuff, then tells us the answer is to just run out and program more/ charge less. Oh, and let's run everything on scripting languages too. That'll help...

Re:...what planet is he from?

[smack.addict]

Your assessment is ignorant. Capitalism is the most efficient economic system for creating new wealth. You should think of capitalism like an accelerating train. As the train accelerates, the front car becomes increasingly distant from the back car. Nevertheless, the entire train manages to move forward.

In other words, under capitalism, the rich get richer faster than the poor get less poor. But it does enable the poor to escape poverty much quicker than any other economic system. Thus, your choices are to: a) Be really poor just like everyone else b) Be not so poor bu significantly disadvantaged compared to some others.

As a poor person, I would certainly pick B. As a rich person, of course, I would most definitely pick B.

+5: Socialism Advocate

[goldspider]

Not surprised to see this one modded up, given the prevailing sentiments here...

How sad is it when people are encouraged to take other people's wealth instead of create their own?

Why beat around the bush and just come out and suggest that everyone forks their paycheck over to the government so that they can give everyone an equal share (minus whatever government believes it is entitled to)? That's really what you're advocating, so why not come out and say it?

It's easy, become a conservative.

[dankdirk77]

The more you learn about creating wealth, the more you realize that the tax code is designed to enslave the middle and lower classes. Become a good conservative and fight the liberals who put big government over freedom.

Re:It's easy, become a conservative.

[Un pobre guey]

Become a good conservative and fight the liberals who put big government over freedom.

Under the tutelage of presumably "good conservatives," we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing the "defense" industry and using it to conquer a major Third World petroleum producer. The latter not only also a multi-hundred billion dollar subsidy for the energy trading industry, but also one of blood. Nearly 200 American soldiers dead, and over 1500 wounded, to say nothing of the thousands of dead Iraqis and tens of thousands of wounded. How you see this as being against big government eludes me completely.

...the more you realize that the tax code is designed to enslave the middle and lower classes

You are right, but for the wrong reasons. You, like most, have fallen into the trap. It is not about liberals or conservatives, Republicans vs. Democrats, Hawks vs. Doves, Right to Life vs. Freedom of Choice, etc. It is about the actual day to day mechanisms of political action. Who do politicians pay attention to? To whom are they beholden? What segment of society drives political action in our country? Do they represent your interests, or do they consider you an expendable "Human Resource"? Is your employment status of any significance to them, or is it at best figured into some large-scale economic indicator? Wake up, my friend, we are all in the same boat.

Today's stolen sig:
The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging.

Re:Anyone who writes programs or plans system ..

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

As if you don't live in an economic ecology. It is unfortunely a product of the ME generation, I belive,
that you only need to think of yourself. That you make money in a vacumn. That is the central problem with the current conservative movement. You can see how they are taking the money and running. From the head of the New York Stock Exchange to World Com, to Enron. Its all part of the same irresponsible attitude. And its killing us.

The latest, I'll take my money and run" trend is to move all the jobs offshore. Good for them but not good for us. Where are those Republican patriots? I guess they figure why not ME why can't I just pull the plug on all the jobs in a town. Let them find another job somewhere else, I'm going to make a bundle shipping computer work to India. So what if you worked for me for 20 years, and have a house and children to take care of. So what if you can't find a job because all my other CEO buddies at the country club are doing the same thing. We laugh about how much we are making over golf. So what if you end up on welfare and homeless. And Oh Yes I'm going to work real hard to market the idea to you that we should get rid of welfare and social security. Why should I pay for that. Thats your problem.

exhale...

Having worked for several family run business I know there is another way to run a company. Another way to make money with a community of people working together. This cras objectifiction of business has got to stop before our whole economy colapses under the weight of the weathy company owners. Let start teaching real ethics and morality in the schools again. We may have to start it in the kindegartens and work forward, because I think most of those comming out of business school today are a lost cause when it comes to community responsibility. (some notable exceptions)

How do you make more jobs?

[DaveHowe]

As far as I can tell, the usual pattern is

1. Companies invest in computers
   This incurs an immediate cost that the company has to recoop somehow
2. Company Automates one or more tasks
   As automation makes tasks either easier or faster, this leads to
3. Company downsizes part or all of skilled workforce
   part if the new job still requires skill, all if replacement with the same or lesser number of semi-skilled (cheaper) workers is possible.

I have noticed that, given the choice of a small number of skilled workers or a larger pool of unskilled, most companies tend to go for the unskilled - they may even cost slightly more (in aggregate) than the skilled workers would, but each individual is more easily replacable, and at much shorter notice, so that they can't leverage their company's dependence on them to get higher wages.

Changing the "loss and deskilling" trend would take changing the attitude of big corporations (particularly those currently "outsourcing" remaining technical jobs to the far east) who don't seem to realise that the pay they give skilled workers today is what is used to buy these largely luxury items tomorrow.....

Jobs and efficiency: cause/effect?

[tessaiga]

I also found it strange that the author was so sure that today's job market problems were entirely caused by efficiency increases:

The gigantic combine of capitalism has always obsessively pursued efficiency, and computers make the pursuit almost child play. Capitalism has succeeded in sowing a cornucopia of innovation up and down society. But capitalism is atrocious at distributing the fruits of innovation. Each labor-saving device means the idling of thousands of people, wasting their years of experience, rigorous training, and practical insights

Essentially the author argues that efficiency increases have resulted in job losses and the downturn going on in today's economy. The corollary is that computers increase efficiency, so computers bad also.

However, I'd argue that there's some causality going in the other direction too. The lousy economy has caused plenty of companies to cut back on their workforce through layoffs, and typically they've just forced the survivors to pick up the slack by working harder and for longer hours. In this sense, it's the loss of jobs that's forcing an "increase" in productivity, if you can call it that. People just grin and bear it, because no one wants to lose their job in today's economy. However, I'd hardly call working longer hours to cover your former coworkers' job responsabilities as well as your own the fault of computers; rather, it's a byproduct of the market downturn. Once companies start hiring again and work is more evenly distributed, you'll see this effect go back down again.

Word of advice...

[16K Ram Pack]

I once got very worried about this too, when I built a system for a financial institution that reduced headcount of a team from 60 to 15.

A manager sat me down and explained that the company had had software for 20 years, and throughout that time the headcount had grown, because extra technology across the market had meant that companies launched more and more different and diverse products, and more people had been needed to support them.

If the world stood still, this would be a problem. Instead, people are needed for the new jobs and a myriad of support jobs. Think of mobile phones - how many people are involved in support, development, sales and marketing of phones and the infrastructure of phones, the legislating of phone companies, the sales of pointless clipons.

The more serious problem is that (in the UK) there are areas of deprivation where there is now generational unemployment - children grow up without working parents and see no opportunity. Where areas of central Wales are like deserts - because companies won't move in there.

Cut taxes on labor

[urbazewski]

To encourage more employment in the US we should cut our extremely high payroll taxes (taxes that employers pay when they hire/pay someone) and replace them with taxes on resource use, for example, petroleum and other raw materials. This would not only help correct the "negative externality" of pollution, it would encourage the development and use of labor intensive rather than capital intensive technologies.

Nope...

[Newer Guy]

Problem is, they don't replace you. Instead, they give your job to someone else who now has two jobs to do. I saw the prefect example this weekend. A friend of mine works as an engineer for Clear Channel. Three months ago, his assistant quit. He was forbidden to replace him, even though he's already doing two jobs (He's doing his regular job and being project engineer for a big build out). Now he has three jobs to do. Last weekend he visited a transmitter site for the first time in a month and found some equipment badly damaged. The pattern of the AM radio station was far out of FCC tolerances. Problem is, his logging system broke last month and he hasn't had the time to fix it yet. He doesn't even know how long ago this happened. He planned to hire a contractor to help, but his bookkeeper told him NO CONTRACTORS. So, he struggles to do three jobs, none of them well. At the same time, his bosses get HUGE bonuses for cutting expenses so well. THIS is the rebublican economy at work! It ain't 'trickle down' it's TINKLE DOWN...and we all know what they're tinkling...all over us!

Productivity Software

[fadethepolice]

One of the big hurdles in most engineering fields today after getting your degree and licensure - is the cost of software. Your looking at from $7500 $6000 per station for drafting or civil engineering. There is some available here

http://www.freegis.org/

but nothing approaching what open-office.org does for office software as far as cross-platform deployment, usabitlity and compatibility. A lot of the mathematics for all engineering fields are similar. Excluding Boolian Logic. A universal engineering software platform would do wonders for everyone from your home engineer building his own off- the grid power system, to an Architect trying junp-start his career.

HUMOR: Steps techies can take in job creation

[crazyphilman]

Step 1: Wealthy techies start using deep-sea robots purchased with their stock-options money to cut the trans-pacific and trans-atlantic data cables at random times and random locations, approximately once a week. This in turn prevents the offshoring/outsourcing industry from communicating with their sweatshops overseas, resulting in the hiring of thousands of local programmers to pick up the slack. The economy sees a slight rebound. Some companies continue to offshore using satellite technology. So...

2. Even wealthier techies finish designing a space plane which can cheaply get up into orbit and back down to earth. They build a fleet of twenty, hide them in widely-spaced mountain retreats staffed with Linux geeks, stock them with thousands of pounds of ramen noodles, coffee, videogames, and porno, and start sending missions up into orbit to de-orbit satellites used by offshoring companies. Bored teenagers pilot the space planes, marvelling that "Man, it's even better than Descent -- Freespace!" The economy rebounds a little more. But, then -- damnnit! -- the offshoring companies start using sneakernet and mules to courier work back and forth. So...

3. The two groups of techies, determined to save the economy, begin to resort to black-bag techniques to foil the mule's attempts. Some switch bags on the couriers, replacing the suitcases full of cd-roms with suitcases full of scat-fetish pr0n. Others simply mug the couriers, dragging them into the airport restrooms for a quick beating and a swirly. Some, truly getting carried away, have a Quake III flashback and detonate the couriers. This, unfortunately, is misinterpereted by the Office of Homeland Security and all hell breaks loose. America declares war on France. By the time it is revealed that the Quake III fanatic was actually Belgian, it is too late... Paris is in ruins, its people reduced to eating air-dropped big macs. Millions commit suicide. So then...

Despondent at having caused the big-mac-induced suicides of millions of people and wishing for some good to come out of it, the belgian Quake III fanatic issues a statement that he did it all for the MPAA/RIAA. The remaining French declare war on those two organizations and send the French Foreign legion to the U.S. to retaliate. They infiltrate coffee shops throughout L.A. It becomes impossible for record-company execs to get a decent cup of coffee without a heaping helping of attitude. Unable to understand why the waitstaff isn't nice to them anymore, the entire recording industry commits suicide en mass. LA is briefly caught in a panic, but when they realize just what has happened, ten million people shrug and go about their business.

End result: things are kinda cool again! Hooray!

So get busy, techie geeks! We're counting on you!

Not so fast pal.

[ahfoo]

Okay, I'm an American born and raised. Grew up with full insurance and as I got into my twenties I worked overseas.
Well, you know as you get older you start to fall apart in little ways and I had a bad tooth upon coming back to the States one year from where I lived in this little country called Taiwan that has socialized medicine.
I didn't have insurance and my tooth was hurting while I was in the States on vacation. So wanting to take care of my own affairs, I told my Dad I was going to wait and have my tooth done in Taiwan. But both of us were a bit concerned about how safe it really was. The ol' man insisted I go to my childhood dentist and ask him what he thought first.
So, I go in and this good ol' American dentist says yep you waitied too long. It looks like you're going to need a root canal. It'll cost about $1300. I can do it this week.
I told him my plan to go back and have it done in Taiwan and boy oh boy did he tell me some horror stories. Well, I don't remember all the exact details, but the sum of the story was that I was risking my life. If I insisted on doing this insane suicidal act, the least he would insist on is giving me clean needles because it was well known that those Taiwan doctors were notorious for re-using their needles to save costs!
Dear God. My father was so depressed that his son insisted on certain death, but after hearing that line of crap coming out of that old fucker's mouth, I was determined to see how bad it really was.
Well sure enough, I went back to Taiwan and had my root canal for thirty bucks. I got the same titanium post they use in the States. I got the same artsy fartsy thing where they send out the blank to be custom sculpted to match your other teeth and best of all it was almost completely painless. This is contrast to a root canal ol Dr. Lying bastard had given me as a kid when I busted one on the sidewalk. That sonofabitch let my novacaine wear off and gave me the ol Dustin Hoffman treatment.
The moral of the story is, you're full of shit. I'm an American and I can testify that I've gotten way better medical service outside of the US and was lied to by American physicians when I suggested I would try such a thing.
I also happen to know that the people struggling to get to American often ARE doctors. They're dying to get on the goddam gracy train.
You are misinformed.

Re:Not so fast pal.

[LurkerXXX]

Try reading the post next time. He said he LIVED in Taiwan and was just back in the states on vacation. He Lived there. You know, when you live some place, work there and pay taxes, your not 'leeching off thier system'. It's your system.

Rinse, Repeat

[soloport]

In the last recession, we had high unemployment, yadda, yadda, yadda...

What no one seems to remember was that very quickly there was a surge in self-employment (duh, what else are you gonna do with all that spare time?). Naturally, all those fledgeling companies grew and started hiring (well, some did and some died). The unemployment rate slowly fell and people stopped complaining.

My pet theory is that this is all a normal swing of the economic pendulum. High employment leads to low productivity (how many cumulative hours did you spend doing watering-hole-like things at the office, last time you were employed?). High unemployment just wakes people up and starts getting them motivated and productive again ("Oh, that's why I needed that 'paycheck' thingie [that was auto-deposited, out of sight and out of mind] to pay these 'bill' thingies [also auto-withdrawn].")

Bottom line: Get a job! Can't *get* a job? Make one up! We did, and we haven't missed a financial beat, yet. My spouse is also "unemployed", but works FT for our startup business. Recently we started outsourcing work to a couple of out-of-state freelance developers, part time. Soon we'll have more work for them than they can handle. If you're still employed, start a business anyway. You're just fooling yourself if you think it's "permanent" employment.

When I lost my cushy day job, three months ago, we had no spare cash reserve, either, no nest-egg (how completely American employee is that). What we did was just to scramble as fast as we could to get business. You really would be shocked at how much business there is in the SMB sector. Just dress up a bit business-like, read a good book on how to sell things (e.g. Socratic Selling by Kevin Daley comes to mind) and get out there and do what you used to do for "The Man", just do it for yourself, now.

Oh, and find the best attorney and accountant your money can buy, first! And by all means write those miles down (I still have a hard time with that, but they do add up so fast).

Re:Rinse, Repeat

[Entropy248]

YOUR pet theory?!?! It's called the business cycle, and every undergrad business student in the country hears about it their first semester! It's shape is an upside-down parabola with the first y intercept=first x intercept, with x measuring time and y measuring revenue, profit, or unemployment in its simplist form.

Why is everyone worrying about unemployment when talking about the economy? Unemployment figures are not the key to understanding true unemployment. True unemployment may be defined as the number of jobs permanently lost in the economy. For example, the horse and buggy industry's lost unemployment would NOT be included in true unemployment because those jobs will never reappear in the horse and buggy industry but the auto industry sure employs way more than the horse and buggy guys ever could. Jobs out-sourced to India are included in true unemployment because that work has been done already and does not need repeating.

The easiest way to estimate true unemployment is by taking the ratio GDP/GNP. Remember that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is only the value of the goods/services produced within the borders of the country; GNP (Gross National Product) is the value of all goods/services produced by companies who claim the nationality of the country. Happy economics lesson everyone! BTW, soloport, how can you possibly run a business without knowing this?

Re:Rinse, Repeat

[Entropy248]

Yes. Because this only represents one industry at a time, it is called the business cycle. Every industry has five stages of growth. Initially, most new industries grow quickly and lots of new companies jump in. In a new industry, there is the highest demand for your product. Front runners will not have resources to meet this demand yet so more and more competitors will dive into the industry, lowering profit margins for all. These falling profit margins will lead to a shakeout, the period of time when competition is beginning to heat up. Weak companies will fail; an oligarchy of powerful companies will begin to form as the industry enters maturity. Now, most people who want your product own it already; new features must be added rapidly. Competition enters its fiercest phase as companies must Adapt or Die(TM). Now marketing plays a huge roles as more and more promotional techniques are needed to continuously improve the product refining it into what will become its final form. Now even some of the strong companies will begin to collapse as demand for the product is either entirely met or shifted towards substitute or alternative products. Finally, the last company will fall. Note that at any time this cycle can begin again if a new feature or new development changes the role of the product in society.

Constructive Ideas

[avdi]

Having pointed out that Oram's economics are faulty, let me make a suggestion for fighting the REAL problem, which is not the loss of jobs, but the movement of jobs into new sectors.

If you want to help people cope with the fact that advances in technology have rendered them redundant, either supply or support education. If you have a valuable technical skill, look into opportunities for teaching it to others. If you're not the teacher type, find ways to support local technical education programs, especially those that target people who might not have the means to pay for a college education. The goal here is not to maintain the number jobs in any given field, but to make the transition from an old field to a new field as easy as possible.

The main current problem is distribution

[HiThere]

Currently wealth that is produced tends to be concentrated into a very few hands. Given this it almost doesn't matter how much is produced, since those who do the actual production only get dribbles.

Does it really seem fair to you that a PHB should be paid twice what you are paid? If so, then ignore what I say. My position is basically an anti-monopolist position, with the term "monopoly" significantly generalized. And it's not on an all or nothing basis.

The way in which wealth is distributed is basically determined by power politics. Fairness doesn't have very much to do with it. But even given this system, NOBODY should be able to earn over, say, 1,000 time what a minimum wage job earns. The 1,000 is an arbitrary number, and I know of no decent way to assign it a value. But the larger the value, the less democratic the society will be. When wealth is centralized, then power will be centralized with it. And the power will be used to ensure that the wealth remains where it is. Similarly when power is centralized, then wealth will be centralized. It's a simple feed back loop operating off of self-interest.

In Athens slightly before the time of Xerxes the factor of difference in income between the wealthiest citizen and the poorest was about 50. This is probably somewhat related to population size, so a significantly larger civilization should probably expect a larger difference in income. But the relation should be less than linear, as what we are dealing with here can be modeled as the ability of a hierarchical pyramid to structure the relative importance of people at various levels. The narrower the angle at the top, the more weight each individual at the bottom must support. (I.e., the greater the proportional difference in income.)

future utopia

[kisrael]

Ah, all those dreamers who saw a future with robots freeing us to a life of leisure and intellectual pursuits...guess that all depends a bit too much on the welfare state.

Frankly, I think it's health care that stops that vision from becoming reality. It seems like the best health care will always be expensive...I could almost see robots building me a humble paradise, but knowing by accepting a lowerbudget lifestyle I was denying myself the best in life preserving and extending technologies would be a fly in that ointment.

I won't shed a tear.

[Rahga]

Says the article: "I can no longer avert my eyes from the consequences of the field I have chosen, and no one else who programs, administers, or promotes the use of computers can morally avert their eyes either."

Sorry, folks, but I will avert my eyes. Histroy doesn't shed too many tears for those who lost transcription jobs after the invention of the printing press, nor the buggywhip manufactures during the dawn of the automodible. This equation gets it all wrong.... From the view of the recently unemployed, they lost a job where their role was easily and reliably replaced by technology. Looking at the big picture and the history of innovation, the world loses little when this happens, because the population as a whole can better utilize human resources whenever there is a surplus of unutilized people.

A simple example.... Without modern advances in farming, all of the great technologies and techniques that came about over the last 2 centuries, I think it is reasonable to say that billions of people would spend their lives working framland rather and that advances in education, medicine, and technology would not have been remotely as great as they are today.

It's going to get worse

[Animats]

I'm on record as having predicted the dot-com collapse and named which companies were going to tank and when. It was blindingly obvious if you knew any economic history.

We're still in very bad shape.

• Personal bankruptcies are up, way up. More people will go bankrupt this year than will graduate from college.
• The stock market is still far overpriced, by a factor of 2 to 3, based on historical price/earnings ratios. There isn't going to be a stock market recovery. Look at Japan. The bubble there peaked in 1989 and still hasn't recovered. It was at 39,000 then; it's around 10,000 now, fourteen years later.
• Manufacturing is only 12% of US employment. That number was 16% a decade ago, and around 35-40% half a century ago. Most of the high-paying jobs for low-skill people are in manufacturing. That's where the good working-class jobs went. Any job that involves large numbers of people doing the same thing repeatedly under direct supervision in a fixed location is a prime candidate for automation. Most of those jobs have already been automated. Technology continues to push manufacturing employment down.
• Median income per hour worked in the US peaked in 1973. Yes. 1973. Best year ever for the working class. For thirty years, things have been getting worse. Slowly enough that there haven't been riots.
• 30 years ago, housing ate up about a quarter of income. Now, it eats up about half. And not because the housing is better.
• Schooling is far more expensive than it used to be. The decline in the public school system means that people go to great lengths to move to areas with better schools, or put their kids in private schools. This is part of the driver behind housing costs. Higher education is also far more expensive, and less subsidized.
• The "race for the bottom" effect dominates public policy. Jurisdictions compete to offer lower taxes, and even lower wages.
• From a pure economic perspective, workers should be paid just enough to keep them alive and working. That's where we were around 1850 or so, and that's where we're going today. Most of the world lives just above the survival level. The Western world avoided that for much of a century, but now it's coming back.
• Technology won't help. This is a fundamental result of unrestrained capitalism. Increased productivity does not inherently increase wages. In a free market, wages will decline as productivity improves, because the labor pool will become bigger as more people are unemployed. Total buying power doesn't increase unless wages do, so there isn't inherently a market for more stuff. An economy with a big pool of permanently unemployed or underemployed people dragging wages down is economically stable. Most of the third world is stuck in that mode. THe US is headed there.

Zero-sum hand-wringing

[AkkarAnadyr]

Why shouldn't we put everyone out of work? We need neither the vindictiveness of mercantilist gouging under cover of the label 'capitalist', or the lazy poverty of diggers masquerading as 'socialist'. Both these factions are merely taking out their S&M neuroses on the rest of us. Like moths to the flame, both assume that the wealth they see is all that exists, and the game is thus zero-sum - what feeds the capitalist barracuda must bleed the poor children (won't someone please think .. never mind), and that what feeds the munching masses must bleed those who apply themselves and produce.

There's enough nuclear energy blasting down over time to support 100 billion spacefaring Earthlings (or to fry them all), and enough information in the planetary DNA library (5G years of research into no-holds-barred competition/collaboration) to keep us in Phd papers and lobster-flavored luaus indefinitely.

Halliburton /Brown & Root can drop a functioning military CCC outpost anywhere in the world in 5 containers and 24 hours. What if that horrid poison pill contained indefinite sustenance for 30 people instead? Most of the strife involved in our rich/poor dichotomy involves centralization that the Net has shown us we no longer need. Let's bag scarcity and concentrate on getting the robots to serve us properly, and stop creating piles of resources we don't know how to mine ("landfills" and "atmospheric CO2"). The greed and testosterone poisoning which suckers us into blood sports is a dead end; far better we raise a world of curious hackers who value the richness in material complexity that we call wealth (and eschew the gadgets of bullying that one might call "illth").

It all depends on what we want. Employment? What would a world of geeks do with the galaxy of hi-tech toys it would take to support the above, besides improve it all day for free, especially if it produced paradise in the process?

This post brought to you by some old hippies, Timothy Leary, and several thousand doses.

+5: Decrying Slashdot 'Unintelligentsia'

[Marc2k]

"How sad is it when people are encouraged to take other people's wealth instead of create their own?"

How do you suggest that we 'create' money? Hmm? Press our own? Make gold from lead? The invention of money and through it capitalism rests in the laws of scarcity, as someone said. There are inherent problems with any economic system, but in any one of them, it comes down to the idea of ownership (even the disallowing of ownership acknowledges the concept fo ownership). In the case of US capitalism, each dollar is owned by someone, the simple act of wealth creation dictates in and of itself that the source be from another individual or group capable of ownership.

Granted the original poster might have been zealous in his defamation of corporations, but when you have large groups capable of ownership, the capacity is there for them to hoard scarce resources (scarce as in limited), thus removing them from the total amount of recources available to the populace. That's bad enough, but if efficiency enables a corporation (or similarly large group) to simultaneously accumulate more resources and displace workers, you've just exacerbated the problem by increasing the pool of those in need, and decreased the pool of available resources. That can be reduced to simple algebra.

Cry all you might that corporations will not exploit that, but look back into history, it happens all the time. Company A might hold their moral ground, but if Company B does it, their pool of resources will grow beyond Company A's, and they will eventually surpass them, if not crushing them along the way. Note that I'm not an advocate of socialism, but I am quite fed up both with the opportunism of corporate policy and with those who defend it under flimsy or false pretenses.

Stand on Zanzibar

[cquark]

You could fit 6 billion people into Texas, and it would be less densly packed than Tokyo, Japan.

While this statement is true, it's disingenuous as a reply to population concerns. When people talk about population problems, they aren't worried about the amount of physical space each person takes up. After all, billions of people could fit on the small island of Zanzibar, as the classic SF novel Stand on Zanzibar points out.

The real issue is whether people consume resources faster than they can be replentished, which is an obvious problem in many areas ranging from water rights in the American West to the depletion of fisheries. Unfortunately, what's not obvious is precisely where those resource limits are in general. After all, you can build desalination plants to make more fresh water, but that diverts a substantial amount of energy and money from other areas. The Earth's biosystem and humanity's changing technological capabilities combine to create a complex system for which we cannot make certain predictions to the degree of precision we need to determine the planet's carrying capacity.

Dieting the business way.

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, I'd hardly call working longer hours to cover your former coworkers' job responsabilities as well as your own the fault of computers; rather, it's a byproduct of the market downturn. Once companies start hiring again and work is more evenly distributed, you'll see this effect go back down again."

And why would they do that? From their POV, they've reduced their labour costs (one of the biggest expenses a business has). Their efficiency has gone up, that plus the labour savings has generating bigger profits. Throw in outsourcing, and they have no reason to lower the US unemployment rate.

Free/OS Software and Complementary Currencies

[fmjrey]

Some of the post here talk about money, where to find it, how it is created, etc. I cannot prevent myself to mention again the existence of complimentary currencies. For the curious reader, here is an interesting page that explains how a complementary currency would make sense for F/OSS development. If you really want to know more about money in general, how it was in the past, how it works today, and how it can be, then read the excellent book from Bernard Lietaer entitled "The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity ".

Overall, Bernard Lietaer really convinced me that complementary currencies will provide valuable solutions to the ever pressing problems of jobless growth, monetary instability, aging population, and environment protection. The only problem: just like free and open source software is a challenge to the way software is currently owned and controlled, complementary currencies challenge the way money is owned and controlled. To me, CC are to finance what F/OSS is to the IT industry. Watch this space!

Software: Good and Bad Productivity

[G4from128k]

In the short-term, software creates two types of productivities. Good short-term productivity empowers people do something that they could not do before. Bad short-term productivity lets you do the same job with less labor. The problem is that most software does both -- desktop publishing software lets authors directly control page layout and throws a bunch of manual paste-up workers on the street.

The long-term impact of software is less clear. Software has the unqiue ability to replace human mental labor. All that ERP, supply chain, and workflow software means companies need a bunch fewer workers to crunch the numbers, keep all the customer orders straight, etc. Rather than hire or train a bunch of experienced people, you put in a software system that uses Ph.D level logistics algorithms to run your company. I'm not saying that the software is perfect, but then neither is the average middle manager.

The point is that software is helping to engineer humanity right out of its claim to fame -- the ability to perform mental labor. Nobody was too upset when horses replaced people for carrying stuff nor when motorized drills replaced hand drills. The automation of physical labor seems uplifting to all but a few die-hard communists. By contrast, the automation of mental labor has more sinister potential.

It all comes back to the two types of productivities. In the long-term does a particular bit of software enable people to really do something qualitatively better or different than they did before. Or does it merely help them do the same stuff, but with fewer people.

I'm not saying that companies should eschew software that lets the do the same job with fewer people. Companies that free up resources in one area (by firing workers) can apply the savings to other innovations or forms of competative advantage. But if all that software can do is provide efficiency, then I fear that this could lead to the further stratification of society.

If you really want to create software that makes a positive difference, then create software that helps people do something that they never could do before. Mere efficiency or cost improvements (i.e., free versions of existing software) are not going to lift people out of poverty -- giving them a new way to create new forms of value will.

THIRTY TWO HOUR WORK WEEK

[broward]

Gee whiz, why can't anyone figure this out?

Historically, industrial revolutions have reduced the average workweek by 15-20%. Damn, for the geeks here, you can model the macro-economy as two linear equations like this -

Each person has 112 waking hours ( 16 hours x 7 days ), on average.

That time is spent consuming (C) or producing (P) products. So C + P = 112.

Using the 40-hour workweek as a base, we have
40 X rateOfP = ( 112 - 40 ) X rateofC.

Got it?
What happens as rateofP increases?

As productivity increases....

You get more production, and your equations won't balance anymore, you get overproduction and falling prices.

The ONLY way to re-balance the equation is to shrink P and increase C.

Dad goes to Mexico for dental work

[swb]

My dad got a quote from our family dentist for a couple of crowns and it was like $4000. Many of his friends had been to Mexico for dental work and urged him to do the same. He went there, and the same work ended up costing like $1500 or something -- a dramatic price difference. Other than the relatively cramped offices, Dad said it was just like the dentist in the US -- same level of infection control, the treatments were the same, etc.

I think reality of medical care in the US is that outside of the realm of exotic disease treatment (oncology, hemotology, rheumatology, immunology, cardiology), your run of the mill medical care in most developed and many developing countries is about as good as it is here.

Also, I think that US doctors (dentists and other oral pros included) run the largest, best-financed protection scheme anywhere. You can't get most lab tests or medicines without seeing a doctor, who often has nothing to do with the lab work or the medicine.

Most of this could be done by a nurse or even self-done with the use of intelligent computer diagnoses, but these cost-saving advances are routinely blocked by doctors when they're not busy blocking liability or taking kickbacks from the pharmaceutical industry.

Re:It's a zero-sum game.

[thrillseeker]

Creating your own wealth means taking someone else's ... it's a zero-sum game

A remarkably blindered view. Wealth is only zero-sum at a given instant.

Wealth is properly measured by value - what is the value of a great medical system, a great transportation system, varied and efficient communications systems? What is the value of having the time to attend your daughter's soccer games? What is the value of a multitude of research efforts into extending life and making it healthier, or of a US infant mortality rate of 6 per 1000 compared to say Angola's 200 per 1000? Did the US somehow "steal" Angola's ability to produce healthy babies or did the people of the US slowly build their wealth to one that allowed the "purchase" of a society that could provide the lower rate?

Wealth is (to some degree) exponential and viral - it is used to create more wealth for others if applied in a free market system - one in which those who offer a service or product are free to charge what they can and the buyer is free to choose WWWWW to buy. When wealth is stolen by those-that-know-how-to-spend-your-money-better (that is, tax used for social purposes) then it takes longer for wealth to grow and spread - those who had wealth now have less of it to spread through their own acquisition of products and services, and there is tremendous waste and fraud because of a lack of personal interest in seeing that value is obtained for the expenditure.

The kid next door charges more every year to cut my grass - I could look for another grasscutter or I could make some lawnmower manufacturer happy by buying their product and using it instead of allowing this young fellow to practice capitalism, but I've chosen how I want to spend my wealth (my cash) and the kid's chosen how he want's to spend his (his time). I have the luxury and wealth (and gray hair) to be lazy, and the kid trades his time and effort for my cash. This is not a zero-sum game - the world had to invent the lawnmower for the kid and the plasma TV with Angelina Jolie on screen to interest me for this transaction to have occured - else I'd have more inclination to cut my own damn grass.

This kid is using his saved wealth to buy a car, so that he can get to "a real job", so that he can save money and go to school, so that he can invent bigger plasma screens or extend the average lifespan even more or eventually bring sanitation and sane government and decent health care to Angola, or free-market education to the masses, etc.

The ability to pursue happiness mean the number of people enjoying longer, healthier lives with more free-time increases continuously, as it has. That is not zero-sum - it is the growth of wealth.

Employment is soo blue collar

[Anonymous Coward]

Employment?? What are you, one of "those Democrats"? Stop complaining. There's PLENTY of people all over the world who would LOVE to take that job at Wal-Mart, that you are too proud/selfish to accept. Liberals are SUCH hypocrates.

Or.. shave your beard, get a bow-tie, and simply become a landlord, or an investor. You don't NEED manufacturing to participate in the New Economy.

You don't see anyone "outsourcing" CEO's, investors or landlords do you? The reason THEY are successful -- and you are not -- is because of your outdated ideals.

Government should be run like a business... into bankruptcy. Just make sure you have a golden parachute, so you are sufficently mobile. Mobility is very important in the New Economy. Just ask the management of Levis, who had a very nice announcement last week.

Fascinating

[Chris Johnson]

Reading Andy's article was a great surprise, for the following simple reason: I have never, in my life, seen anyone who used the term 'wealth creation' AND was seeing the real world.

I'm impressed. I'm not surprised that he doesn't have a bunch of pat answers- they don't exist within that context. But I'm impressed that he's asking the right questions, even if there aren't convenient answers.

There's no such thing as 'feed the world' under capitalism, or any social benefit from efficiency or technology: if you could generate a world-day of foodstuffs for 29 cents with a wonderful machine, capitalism is about seeing who gets to hoard as much money as possible from that situation, and politics is about controlling as many people as possible by exerting power over that cornucopia. The bounty won't feed anyone if you don't let them have it. If you have enough power to withhold that bounty, you can control the people you're depriving. That gives you more power, and you win.

This is not really very complicated or mysterious.

I guess it IS pretty cynical, but open your eyes.

The whole concept of making people better competers by giving them free software or whatever is within the context of raw capitalism- the idea is that they are then to beat up on the others who don't take advantage of these things. That's fine for the vicious and the tough and scrappy, but they would have won anyway with or without the tools- in capitalism it's not about the tools or even about the standard of living and least of all about 'wealth', it's about WHO you are as a personality. It's a structure decreeing certain social behavior. The idea is that it's less prone to being abused than a more nurturing social structure, because people will take advantage of anything nurturing. That may be true. People seem to take advantage of capitalism too, though. Pick your poison.

My own experience speaks to this whole situation. So you should make software to empower people? Andy, I've been doing that, in my field. I write CD mastering software- in some areas it is genuinely cutting-edge. I have a revolutionary approach to wordlength reduction and the redistribution of quantization error. I have various tone shaping adjustments that don't appear anywhere else. I've been GPLing this stuff for years now, for just the motivations you describe.

I'm starving and poor and have started dating a woman I cherish who has a 3-year-old kid and you know what, I'm sick of flushing my work. I'm sick of trying to be benevolent and being taken as useless because of my lack of greed. Nothing is going to make me a hardcore capitalist, but as far as this audio-domain program, I'm less and less motivated to help people have it for nothing. I'm not spending my own money to port it to more recent architectures, I'm not spending time and effort setting it up with a help system- by now I'm of a mind to still put it out, GPLed, make no fuss about that, but use this tool for ME and try to, basically, compete against anyone who might have picked it up but doesn't have the expertise with it. That, or not put it out at all- or put out only the source, maybe?

Capitalism means even I get beat down to the point where I can't stand trying to be benevolent or altruistic anymore. I'm unusually capable of being that, but it seems to be not even helping. The last time I talked with a GPLed audio project, they didn't even know what dither was or how it worked. We're sitting around trying to make tractors out of cabbage. It gets old.

I think as long as the context is free-market capitalism, society will be hopeless. There's no answer within the system. I'd prefer to ditch the raw capitalism. Something more like partly-cooked capitalism would suit me. Somehow manage some system where somebody does a reasonably okay job of finding people and projects that do benefit society and quality of life, and bankroll the buggers.

What's so wrong with that? That's just what happens right now, except it's Ken Lay of Enron who gets bankrolled and rew

The REAL Problem

[Dr. Transparent]

I think I know what the real problem is. But before we get to that let's talk about what the problem is not.

The problem is not captialism, not Western Culture, not HMOs, not PPOs, not private health care, not the military, not global warming, and not Microsoft.

The problem is that slashdot readers in general watch too much Star Trek

Do you remember the episode where the people from the past (20th century) show up on the Enterprise? (I think they were dethawed or something, but I don't remember exactly. It doesn't matter for this discussion anyway). Remember the cowboy-ish guy, who wants to know where his land is, where his money is, who works for him, etc. And Picard gives him the lecture about how "we're past all that now" and "it's about bettering yourself, etc.", essentially saying, "Stop being a greedy bastard."

The problem is that people really believe that can happen. You'd think after 10,000 years of recorded history people would figure it out, but then you would underestimate hope (that attribute the Architect aptly described as simultaneously the source of greatest strength and greatest weakness, but I digress).

Systems such as socialism/liberalism/etc. are all predicated on the belief that people will generally lookout for the good of the common man. And the proponents of these systems constantly tell everyone else that the reason they're poo-pooing these systems is because everyone is a bunch a greedy bastards. Well, I have news for you, YOUR ALL GREEDY BASTARDS YOURSELVES.

Face it, humans seek after their own interests first. You do it every day. Sure you go into work and bitch and moan about how Bush is screwing over the world and the captialist bastards are ruining your life and you're being held down by The Man, etc, etc. Then you drive home and you cut off the person you're pissed at on the Freeway. You gossip about your co-worker who's doing a better job than you, you keep the $20 bill you found in the bathroom at the movies, you steal towels from the hotel, you eat a dozen grapes at the grocery store you never pay for. Tomorrow you'll lie to your boss about why the report isn't done. You'll spend an hour surfing instead of writing code. And then you'll go home and bitch about how braces cost $3000 and how you can't afford it, all while sitting on your couch watching Monday Night Football on your big screen TV. I know you're selfish. And I am too.

Socialism puts all the power into the hands of a few good liars who are able to convince the masses that they will look out for their good. Simply bull. They'll be the same selfish, greedy, bastards you will be, but now they have permission to screw over more people.

Free-market captialism is the only system that can handle the selfishness of humanity in a way that gives the most people the most opportunity. Sure, capitalism will make a few people very rich this year. But you know what? Those people may be the very poor next year. And the very poor this year might be the very rich next year. Every day is a new opportunity. You're held back only by your own ambition (or lack thereof).

Do some people need an extra hand in life? Sure. And that's what charities are all about. Groups who get together specifically because they care about the interests of others. So give to charities. Or start one. But face it, at the end of the day, we're all selfish greedy bastards looking out for ourselves. No one owes you anything. Now get out of your holodeck and readjust your worldview.

Re:The REAL Problem

[Dr. Transparent]

Okay I'm stupid.

What I meant to say was, YOU'RE ALL GREEDY BASTARDS YOURSELVES.

The rest of this post is just extra text to get around the lameness filter encountered because of the all caps text. Please ignore.

Re:The REAL Problem

[Dr. Transparent]

Well I don't believe you.

But, for argument's sake, let's assume you really are a perfectly selfless, righteous individual looking out for your fellow man. The problem is there are still self-absorbed pricks like me in the world, and as long as there are no socialistic system can ever work.

Furthermore, everything you've just spoken of (food, home, leisure time) is a scare resource. That is, there is not enough to go around (demonstrated by the fact that not everyone has as much as they want). As long as a resource is scarce, some will have it, and some will not. In the whole history of civilization there has been one resource that hasn't been scarce: air (neglecting the obvious special circumstances of course).

"But food isn't scarce!" you cry. "Just look at those damn Americans. They have plenty of food!" Indeed we do. And we work for it. And we grow it, and we ship it to the highest bidder. And why do we ship it to the highest bidder? Because we're greedy, self-absorbed pricks who like to be able to provide the most food, shelter and leisure time for our families.

"So send some food to Africa" they say. So we send food. And what do the Africans do? They eat it. Do they grow more? Not usually. Do they try to use the 1st world soil-preservation methods to grow the best food? Not usually. So then what? They starve mostly, until more food comes their way.

So what's the motivation for the guy shipping his food to the hungry? Well in some cases it's the start those people need to get going, and they start farming and growing and bam! an economy emerges (hooray!). But too often the food is just eaten (and any other resource is just used up in the same manner), and the philanthropist is left with requests for more food, with a little less currency to acquire that food with the next time.

Basically in these cases it's coming down to the old "if you teach a man to fish...".

Which all comes back to motivation. Why give to someone else? Because it's the Right thing to do. Okay, I would usually agree with you. But how much should I give? Do I give to the detriment of my own family? If not, then who decides when "enough" is "enough." Who will decide what amount of food, home, and leisure is "fair"? You? Over my self-absorbed dead body.

How To Do It

[AkkarAnadyr]

Blockquoth the poster:

So on the one hand, get those with power to stop heightening their power by exploiting it- on the other, get those without power to learn to tolerate other people being wealthier than them.

Deal with exploiters in power by undercutting them, as Free Software does with the proprietary giants. Pharma companies will have a hard time if every Deadhead has the diabetes-cure microbe culture, etc....

Deal with the whiners by buying them off. The Berkeleyite diabetic needn't be preaching to Congress about their pathetic plight if they're cured and at home perfecting a cheaper, cleaner waste heat/electricity converter.

The emotional ones on either side will still cause a ruckus; we'll laugh at the White Wringers going purple over the happy hedonists, and weep at the RIAA^2 pogroms as the heavy pharma monoliths crash, countered by a samizdat of the descendants of meth labs in vans. We'll giggle at the tiresome leftie speechifiers bereft of an audience because the cookout started, and wince at having to police the ones who misuse the mobile labs for terror. Love it or hate it, we suffer with our delusion until we get bored and drop it (buddhism meets cognitive therapy on a grand scale, hated by the right and the left). History will still convulse, and brighten in the long run. The Vatican's fist cowed swaths of nations 400 years ago, but ultimately they did not age gracefully, whereas Galileo's work did, even if he was a pain in the ass personally.

Now back to work on that kitchen-table nanomachine fab .... (no, those little patterns, the paisley ones - oh they moved - uhh,....)

Lots of BS here - take my 2 cents:

[Qbertino]

One guy says war is the only way to fix things.
Thats utter rubbish. War is the only way to fix things *in this current system*, which isn't capitalisim, but more a pseudo capitalisim. If this system were to work right, we'd need a stronger degrading of moneyvalue than inflation offers.
The way it is now, all goods if not sold lose value, only money increases in amount more than it loses by inflation. That's what has to be _corrected_. Not changed or overthrown completely, but corrected.

Then further on:
Productivity has something like quadrupled in the last 100 years. Actually my very job is to increase productivity by an average of 20% in the information shifting business - I do lot's of data migration automation and stuff. While my job is just to find methods to cope with the plain pointless information overload (lucky me it's there) there is one thing that has to be done to cope with massively increased productivity:
Robot taxes. That's right: Robots paying taxes.
The other one is a society problem: We need to grasp the value of services and custom craftsmanship again. Which actually *does* have a real value. Actually OSS is all about moving Software development away from a 'childs game' to engineering to real solid traditional craftmanship. Just like the plumber that fixes your pipes when they've rotted after 20 years of use. You could do it yourself, but you pay the expierienced guy 'cause he does it faster and you've got less fuss. And Pipes and Putty are the least you pay for. Usually.

World Problem Solution (TM), Bottom Line:
1.) Turbine Tax and improved Money Rot for money just lying at the bank and not fed back into he money cycle. Yes folks, we've got to much of it and to few are getting more and more just by leaving the most universal good on the shelf. That is *NOT* the concept of capitalisim. Trust me.

2.) Robot Taxes. Robots paying taxes. It's really that simple. Make that Microtaxes, if that makes you feel better. BTW: Count computers doing automated tasks (and not acting as books or TVs or stuff) as robots.

3.) Society shifting to a 98% service orientation. And a 98% self-employed society, where required tasks can be dealt with in a flexible manner.
At least Germany still has a long way to go in both of these.

As I said: My 2 Eurocents.

What are you? Deficient?

[NDPTAL85]

Do you think the USA is some UNIQUE form of nation or world power? All empires fall but you think the one that replaces the US will be any better? And do you honestly think the US is so bad to begin with? Just what type of pampered college boybitch who's never had to experience real struggle and misery are you?

Re:Creating wealth is easy

[kfg]

Yeah, that's the tricky bit, isn't it?

You really don't need more than 10 acres and a chainsaw. 40 is wealth. 10 is a living.

You'll need to get your income up to $20k a year somehow. You can live on that if you rethink the way you live a bit and still save enough money to come up with a downpayment ( but it's really better to wait longer and pay outright. You don't want to end up being a "sharecropper" for your mortgage holder).

You need 10 acres of wooded land. It has to be wooded or it won't work. Wooded land can be had cheaper than cleared land because the owner thinks of it as "unimproved" and that it will cost a lot of money to clear it to make usable. He's forgetting that trees are a cash crop.

You're going to set aside 5 acres as a woodlot and then call in a lumber company to clear the other 5 for you. You aren't going to pay them. They're going to pay you. If you've picked the right plot you now have 10 grand cash in your pocket.

It's a start.

KFG