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Foxconn Cuts 60,000 Jobs, Replaces With Robots (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In a bid to accelerate growth and reduce labor costs, Apple supplier Foxconn cut 60,000 jobs at a single factory, work that is now being completed by robots. As many as 600 companies in the Chinese manufacturing hub of Kunshan may have similar plans to automate their workforce, according to a government survey. Foxconn spokesperson Xu Yulian said, "The Foxconn factory has reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. It has tasted success in reduction of labor costs." He added, "More companies are likely to follow suit."
These changes are spurred in part by a desire to reduce labor costs, but have also been made in response to an explosion at a Kunshan factory in 2014 that killed 146 people. The explosion was attributed to unsafe working conditions in the Taiwanese-owned metal polishing factory, which were recognized and documented. After the explosion, the local government pledged 2 billion yuan per year in subsidies to support companies that install industrial robots on their production lines.
These changes are spurred in part by a desire to reduce labor costs, but have also been made in response to an explosion at a Kunshan factory in 2014 that killed 146 people. The explosion was attributed to unsafe working conditions in the Taiwanese-owned metal polishing factory, which were recognized and documented. After the explosion, the local government pledged 2 billion yuan per year in subsidies to support companies that install industrial robots on their production lines.
China workforce to be hardest hit by automation. After all, even they aren't paid 1-2 cents per hour. That's what happens when focusing on lowest cost. Never low enough.
Do it means all this Chinese unemployed manpower is back to writing fake reviews on the web and clicking links to generate revenue?
That sucks...
Those who say "we're going to build our economy by bringing back manufacturing" are deluding themselves. Those who vote for those people are also deluding themselves. (yes, this is a not so veiled Trump reference)
Robots are cheaper than Chinese labor now?
So wait, the local government is providing subsidies so the company can cut jobs to save on labor cost.
Having a bad job in an unsafe factory? Or having no job?
And sadly this will make the workers more desperate, the owners will hold even more power of them, and the conditions for the remaining jobs will get worse.
"And so it begins"
robots will just push the manufacturing back to us where they get faster and cheaper shipping.
That doesn't mean there'll be anyone working in the factories!
You really haven't thought this thing through.
You are welcome on my lawn.
. . . .the trend to automation of mass manufacturing has been accelerating for decades. The REAL question is, what do we do with the displaced manufacturing workers, who are becoming increasingly replaced by robots? And the "service sector" does not have jobs for them, either.
There is a rather ominous trend when you have a surplus of workers, especially young male workers without prospects. The long term solution is fewer children, as is happening in the West. But all too often, the short-term result is war.
I'm sure someone will start suggesting "basic income", and as automation increases to the point where we transition to "prosperity economics", that may well be the long-term solution. But getting through the short term is likely to be worrisome. . .
Maybe, but probably not as much as you think. The environmental issues surrounding the plants are not solved by the robots.
End good sure, anything thats messy and dirty will stay there due to epa regs. Or more correctly shift to whatever country has lax regs at the time.
No sir I dont like it.
On the plus side, there's probably less need for railings on the rooftops and pavement cleaning/repair services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
I've been telling people essentially the same thing. When jobs come back to the us they will be jobs for robots.
made in china
Robot suicides.
Hey, remember all the crap that was going on about automating the ordering process at Wendy's? Wah wah the job losses? Robots are getting cheaper and humans more expensive. Even China is now automating to save on labor. Sure there's a few countries left, but as jobs go there soon enough they'll earn their way out of poverty too.
If your job could be done by a robot, it's time to start thinking about a new job. And also time to start thinking about what to do when most jobs are done by robots (owned by rich people or corporations) and almost everyone is unemployed.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
You think we can do robotics cheaper than China? That is a laugh...... All the new robotics equipment is made in China.
love is just extroverted narcissism
That sucks for those people, but it was kinda inevitable.
As progress marches on, demand for unskilled labour gets lower and lower. In fact, one could argue that the demand for ANY labour at all gets lower and lower, as many tasks that used to be done by people are now done by robots or other automated systems.
This is going to cause problems in the near future: You can't simply fire thousands and thousands of people an not expect people to revolt.
How to solve this? I have no idea, but if we can make basic income work, that's one step in the right direction.
This has been a global trend of reducing the headcount of manufacturing workers as their jobs get done more safely/efficiently/precisely by automation/robots. It doesn't matter where in the world the factory is, it will have some level of automation moving forward to produce its widgets with higher reliability and cheaper overhead. The NY Times had a good article talking about this worldwide trend and how these 'lost' manufacturing jobs will never be regained (and the trend will accelerate). This has put developing nations in a bind since they won't see a rise of a middle class like the US and other first world nations did in the 20th century with good paying jobs in manufacturing for medium to low skilled labor. It will be of interest where these workers will migrate to when factories throughout the world make due with less employment, and as automation invades previously safe industries like transportation.
You know, if you plan to compete with robots for jobs, it usually involves whips and people singing funny-sad songs...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, all the new robotics equipment will be made in the U.S. by robots.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
Bring the those high paying engineering jobs home and build the robot manufacturing facilities in America.
If a factory in north america can make the same product with the same robots as one in china, then shipping costs become an unneeded expense.
However that leaves other costs for: remaining workforce, labor, enviromental and tax laws that may be favorable elsewhere, capital expenditure to build new factories, etc.
Silence is a state of mime.
After the explosion, the local government pledged 2 billion yuan per year in subsidies to support companies that install industrial robots on their production lines.
what this effectively says is that "workers paid companies to replace them with robots" which is only a good idea if the companies in turn pay to take care of those who lost their jobs. don't get me wrong, full automation is the [inevitable] future and it should be embraced but it will only be sustainable if the benefits of automation are shared rather than consolidated. this is the basis of a post-scarcity world.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Yeah he has. the biggest discrepancy in manufacturing is workforce labor and meeting regulations
-Robots don't need a salary, so that advantage goes away. You may be able to make arguments about robot maintenance and retraining, but education and efficiency of that employee will make a bigger contribution when you are affecting 100's of production units (robots) vs. one (human worker), and may justify more salary as a result.
-Regulations are usually not a recurring cost, and have positive selling points (melanin in baby formula, nonstandard metal alloys in construction, etc. air pollution control). Some have a direct effect on sales (poisoning babies), some have a partial affect (under-spec materials), and some will no have an effect until the distant future (air pollution will eventually get controls as the effect becomes worse and worse). The last two are the only real advantages left, and the last reaches a tipping point eventually. This leaves you with crappier-but-cheaper as the sole advantage, which is an older economic factor than global outsourcing.
-there are also some disruptive events in the pipeline, like 3D printing. How long until you just buy the components you need and make the rest? Imagine what would happen to Ikea if someone just sold electronic blueprints for localized print shops to make you what you needed? As soon as a 3D printer that can print high strength high weight (metal) and low-medium strength low weight (plastic) with a m^3 build volume for ~$1k-$5k the definition of manufacturing will have permanently changed (assuming continued cheap feedstock).
Ya, the US kinda shot itself in the foot. In a race for cheaper labor, it moved all that manufacturing infrastructure and expertise to China. The US government refused to spend while the Chinese poured billions into transportation and seed money to kickstart their world-class manufacturing industry.
It's no longer the case that China is just cheaper -- they simply do it better and on a more massive scale than anything the US could hope to do. The supply chain and business logistics alone is a nightmare to try to start from the ground up. That kinda thing takes decades. Good they China has been doing it for decades....
those robots can't be operated in America? There is now no price differential in labor..
Why should they? All the electronics engineers and component suppliers are in China, not US. You can't bring anything to empty place, you need to have whole ecosystem and it is long gone.
Jails and prisons fill up and in the usa do to stuff like cruel and unusual punishment they have better doctors then Medicaid. Room and board and so on.
Dear companies,
While you might save money and have lowers costs to make your products, who the fuck is going to buy your stuff?
Certainly not the people you laid off.
Apple is not going to exploit that 60,000 of poor and underpaid workers anymore. Happy?
that automation is a good thing.
> We need to lose this mentality of selling our time and labor to make a living.
> and when I have an answer, I'll be sure to first make my billions off of it before I share with the World.
My company is pretty much fully automated from the customer's perspective. Our automated systems provide the service to the customer. One of the first things I did when I got hired was I analyzed the code and made the automated system run 30% faster, and more reliably. Because the changes which I did once were deployed to dozens of servers servicing thousands of customers, it was very valuable to the business. It basically multiplies my value by thousands of times - I improve the code once, thousands of customers benefit forever.
It's been true for a while and I think it will become more true - for a good income it's best to provide knowledge and skill rather than basic labor. I study about 6 hours per week, and will continue doing that. That might be a new frame of mind for many, that your job is to a) improve your skills and knowledge and b) apply that immense knowledge. Also, for ling term financial stability you've got to invest the 10%-15% of your income in income-generating assets, so you become a part-owner (shareholder) of the robots and other equipment through the businesses that own them.
China still has a quality issue. Yes, stuff is cheaper. Yes, quality is still suffering.
Mass automation of grunt work and more free time because of it should be a good thing. But, we don't know how to distribute the resulting goods and wealth. We seem to be entering a new phase of history and economics with different rules. It's both exciting and frustrating.
The economies of "mature" nations are not behaving normally:
1. The "recovery" is slower than past patterns.
2. Inflation is too low. Economies tend to do best with inflation around 2.2% (annual), but we've been hovering around 1.7% for a while.
3. Low interest rates are not triggering investments.
4. Investors and companies prefer sitting on cash instead of investing.
Taxing the wealthy heavily is one common suggestion for distributing this "jammed" wealth, but this rubs many people wrong.
Outright printing money and distributing it to regular consumers is another suggestion (AKA "helicopter money"), but nobody is sure of the side-effects.
Reducing regulations is another suggestion, but most federal regulations were put in place because one or more organization were doing sleazy things. We don't want to become a 3rd-world dump in order to compete with the 3rd world by polluting more and having abusive working conditions. State-level regulations, which are often passed with less scrutiny, are possibly a better place to clean up bad laws, but require state governments to act.
What are the other options? We may have to just experiment with one or more of the above, but admitting you are experimenting looks bad, politically.
Table-ized A.I.
This is a GREAT move for the 60,000 workers! No longer will they be tied down to these menial jobs. Now they will be free to pursue higher-value work and really gain some upward economic mobility. It'll be great when we can stop holding people back with menial work so they can finally do great things and get paid more!
Sincerely,
The Republicans
Cost of labor only applies to humans. Far into the future, where robots with advanced enough AI to build other robots, their labor will effectively be FREE. Meaning, wealth is a human social construct not applicable to machines with AI. So that said, what I see in the market is mass labor deflation couple with excessive spending to prop up those that are unemployed. What we have here is a wicked case of stagflation that's redefining the importance of "wealth".
Life is not for the lazy.
Humans are too expensive to keep, so they should be killed. Except for the rich ones, who can keep themselves and won't share their mountains of cash with the rest. They agree with the robots: "kill them! nobody touches my money!", especially in the light of the fact that "get a fucking job you lazy human" doesn't actually make sense anymore.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
>> 1. The "recovery" is slower than past patterns. ... because of the constant threat of government intervention and punitive regulation that punishes growth and the creation of wealth
2. Inflation is too low. Economies tend to do best with inflation around 2.2% (annual), but we've been hovering around 1.7% for a while.
Reverse that. The inflation rate of a healthy economy tends to be around 2.2%, but it is the economy that drives the inflation rate, not the other way around.
3. Low interest rates are not triggering investments. ... because of the constant threat of government intervention, punitive regulation, and barriers to entry that prevent investments realistically bearing fruit
4. Investors and companies prefer sitting on cash instead of investing.
Same as #3.
When Obama goes on TV and promises to punish the accumulation of wealth, shut down entire industrial sectors (like coal and oil), and arbitrarily set the rules of economics, it is no wonder everyone just stops what they are doing. When you have no idea what policy is going to be one day to the next, it is hard to make long term financial investments, investing in capital to start a business.
One basic problem of our economy is that unskilled labor is perfectly competitive, meaning that the price of unskilled labor is always driven down to the cost of subsistence. Combined with high structural unemployment, this also means that bosses can treat workers ever worse, because the workers have ever fewer options. As technology improves faster, automation becomes more frequent and things look even worse for the unskilled laborer because there are not even enough unskilled jobs to go around. We have historically solved this problem by making it more attractive to hire unskilled laborers rather than replace them with automation, but this has a trade-off: it retards technological progress, and we end up with a bunch of people doing terrible jobs that could easily be replaced by robots, just because we have a moral preference for work. We could, however, give an incentive to innovation and automation while also avoiding the problems of mass poverty. If everyone received a basic income just sufficient for subsistence, then workers could quit their terrible jobs without starving, and a large portion of these jobs could be automated without leading to any social crisis. We could also do away with restrictions on the labor market that make it difficult to hire and fire unskilled workers (such as the minimum wage), because losing your job would not put you in danger of starvation. Technology could finally spring ahead unimpeded by politicians distorting the labor market in order to save obsolete jobs. There would be large efficiency gains in society as a whole, as we could eliminate complex welfare schemes, and probably a lot of employment litigation as well. It is not a perfect system, since much of the gains would be redistributed from the owners of capital (who will benefit from the automation) to our unskilled laborers. This is, of course, a massive distortion in the labor market, but I would argue that it is a better distortion than the complex system we have now, which hinders technological progress. Instead of forcing companies to keep people in obsolete jobs, these workers would have time and opportunity for re-training, increasing the pool of skilled laborers and making technological investment easier. If someone is really unable to learn any useful skills, they might just receive the basic income and remain unemployed, but this is already what happens in our current economy; we just have a gigantic welfare bureaucracy designed to pretend that we're not already doing this. A basic income would streamline welfare and shrink all levels of government massively, leading to further savings.
You might say that it's immoral to give millions of people a living wage for nothing, and that it will ruin the country, but we actually already do this: it's called "inherited wealth." Many millions of Americans inherit enough wealth that they would never have to work if they didn't want to, and yet they are still in the labor force. Humans have worked for millions of years. Each generation has left something lasting for the following generations to build upon, and we're finally reaching a point whereby we can successfully automate most unskilled labor. By instituting a basic income, we would simply acknowledge that the world's capital stock is, to a certain extent, the common heritage of mankind. We would also get a lot of awesome robots.
Actually, maybe I'm totally wrong and a basic income combined with eliminating a minimum wage would make it more attractive to hire humans, since you could pay them less. Who knows? What's the worst that could happen?
One hopes those 60k now unemployed take some time and read up on what Chairman Mao might advise in his Little Red Book - unless CentralParty Corporation has already banned it (along with Das Kapital).
Why though? Why post this shit?
This sort of automation only happens when a $15/hour minimum wage is introduced!!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
My point is that there isn't a good reason to bring back manufacturing if there aren't going to be any jobs coming with it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You've just put your finger on it.
3. How people will find purpose and happiness when AI and robots are better than them at most things needed in the economy.
Oh, that problem and
2. massive ecosystem and species loss and
1. global warming
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Well said, but you missed a big one: Goods that are imported are taxed at a much higher rate than materials that are imported. If we can make the same product with the same robots and not need to both ship and get import taxed on the final product, it likely makes it really cheap. And that is even if we still have to import the raw materials in bulk.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
are those robots under-aged?
This just supports what Trump has said all along about straight white males being discriminated against.
Who's going to buy those goods, given a robot workforce?
You are welcome on my lawn.
enough to try and kill themselves?
Foxconn replaces robot installers with robot installing robots
Will robot consumers come back with the factory?
Security alert! Don't be fooled by look-alikes! Despite appearances, this troll is not the GNAA you've known and trusted since 1998. Accept no substitutes!
something something natalie portman hot grits soviet russia beowulf cluster netcraft confirms it...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The US needs to bring these automated factories to the US. That will bring in taxes and some income taxes as not all jobs are going away. Our leaders are clueless at to what is happening in the world economy. Robots don't require OSHA protection.
It will probably involve a period where poor people kill rich people, similar to the olden days when the people revolted and killed their lords.
I'm looking forward to it.
Why did the author of the article single out Apple? Foxconn is *everybody's* subcontractor.
Kind of amateurish.
So-called 'Universal Basic Income' will not scale up; everyone points to small EU countries who are only talking about it, haven't actually done it, who don't have trillions in National Debt to deal with. It won't work here in the U.S and in any number of first-world countries.
You UBI people also make another fatal assumption: That people, not having to work, will 'find their purpose in life'. They will not. Most people have no clue, their entire lives, what their 'purpose' is, and never find one; these people need to be given a purpose; it's called 'earning a living and surviving', AKA 'having a job'. Most people will sit around, eat, have sex, get fat, litter the planet with their directionless offspring, and otherwise get in trouble out of utter boredom and too-much-time-on-their-hands, all on the government dole.
Okay, calm down.
You are predicting that something won't work based on little more than your opinion. Let's throw some facts into the mix.
POINT 1
Taking the US as an example, since you mentioned it specifically, note that the GDP per capita in the US is a little over $53K per person. If the productivity output of the US were evenly distributed, that means that every man, woman, and child could spend $53,000 on goods and services this year, and next year they would have another $53 to spend.
Count only the working adults (about half the population) and that number doubles.
POINT 2
Productivity has about doubled since 1970. That's only 40 years ago. If you believe the trend is linear, it will double again in another 40 years, but if it is exponential, then it will quadrouple in another 40 years.
POINT 3
A hypothetical $1,000,000 invested in an index fund is expected to return around 7% interest over the long term. You need to take the long view on this rate, and not cherry-pick individual past decades - it's been consistent with the rise of productivity. See point 2 above.
Given 1% for management fees and 2% to account for inflation, that $1 million would pay out $40,000 per year in perpetuity.
The US could start a process of putting $1 million deposits aside and awarding the payouts to working class people on some schedule. A lottery, for example. If you want to work, you don't have to enter the lottery.
Note that the cost of the Iraq war was $1.7 trillion dollars, spent over a decade. That amount of money awarded to worker annuities could have reduced the workforce by 1.7 million workers, making the remaining jobs easier to find.
POINT 4
Note that we are rapidly developing self-driving vehicles. The first self-driving semi is on the road right now!
Even if the self-driving vehicle isn't useful 100% of the time (snow, limited visibility), by my calculations this will dump 2.5 million into the labor force almost instantly.
Note that Amazon is experimenting with delivery by drone. This could potentially drop another million into the workforce almost overnight. (If you include postal workers and some others not accounted for in the previous link.)
POINT 5
Regardless of whether you think it will work or not, something has to change.
You either make it work, or try to survive the burning destruction of the US, a modern recast of the French Revolution.
Do you have kids? You might consider what type of world you want them to live in.
and then, the new robotics equipment will build a new middle class, of robots, who'll ride in self-driving cars to fully-automated WalMarts to buy all the shit the robot factories are producing. Joy! Self-sustaining economy achieved!
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
The choice in the 90s was to sink capital into automated factories or turn the capital over to investors and offshore.... they picked the latter.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Obama and his greens will soon drive energy prices up.
Soon that advantage will be gone.
We can build consumer robots programmed to buy the products built by the robots.
2. People will, due to a lot of time, a need for work and that creativity humans are known for, create more stuff that only humans can create. One obvious area is art and personal services. We saw the shift from physical labor to factory labor when agricultural technology improved. We're now seeing the shift from factory labor to office and household labor due to manufacturing technology improvements. In the future, gadgets may be what food is like now: something only ~5% of the population needs to work on and is universally supplied to all. People will spend ~10% of their income on it just like they do clothes and the majority of spending will be on "touchy feely" objects like "artesian, infused craft beer".
Sadly, as many have found out, the future has not resulted in 15 minutes of fame, or long tail for people's creative outlet... Inter-connectivity of modern social networks only seem to amplify the hit-miss of creative outlets making the block busters bigger and the long tail languish in obscurity. We have morphed into a winner-take-all blockbuster society (not respective of the actual financial returns).
As a specific example, a 2006 study on the Rhapsody all-you-can-eat music services, the top 10% of tracks (of millions), got 76% of all plays, and the top 1% got 30% of all plays. On the bottom end, the growth of the number of tracks with no plays at all in a week is growing almost at the same rate as the number of tracks, but over time the zero plays/week tracks were growing at an exponential rate. On the studies that have examined the viability of the "long tail", the general conclusion is that only the people that have the interest/capacity/time to explore any catalog in-depth even venture to the tail. The sad fact is that populations that venture into the tail don't appear to grow at the same rate as the population and thus are not a fraction of the population, and not even a power function.
Maybe when we have a huge population of your so-called "dilettantes" that create an audience for creativity, but the sad truth may be that when we get there, we will find out that there just aren't many creative people out there, and we will still have blockbusters, and dust collectors.
I predict the extra time we have simply won't be for anything at all except for social bonding (e.g., BS-ing sessions, etc), as we simultaneously don't create, not consume any broad creative outlets of our fellow human beings because they are inferior to not really even novel. Maybe we can just concentrate walking on improving ourselves by retracing the footsteps of the illuminati of the past like star trek TNG claimed we will do (notice how they all play old classical music and read old books as part of their self-improvement process)...
Welcome to the future, reliving the past...
If the floor jobs where reduced from 110,000 to 50,000 floor workers and each American has 8 bosses that's 450,000 jobs, Bob.
Nobody is starving in the US -- the rest is goalpost shifting by whiners.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
one factory with 60,000 workers... assuming humane shift times(hah), you could run 3 shifts, so... 20,000 people per shift. That is a HUGE freaking factory... like a basketball stadium full of workers, every shift, in one factory.
Same was said with assembly lines and mass production over craftsmen, and farm machinery over oxes and farmhands.
Did you know almost everyone lived on a farm 200 years ago, and now just 2% of the population works one?
All you guys, 200 years ago: Oh my god! Farms only need 2% of the work force? Everyone will starve with no jobs!
Machines tookerjerbs!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Nor is the dirt floor existence these jobs, and environmental laxity, provided.
One way or another, union opposition in the wealthy west was opposed to them peasants.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Autarky is a very good reason, but of course that's not a word which is allowed to be used (outside of Israel).
"...After the explosion, the local government pledged 2 billion yuan per year in subsidies to support companies that install industrial robots on their production lines..."
Hey, worrying that your job might get you killed? Sure, let's kill your job instead! And you know what, we're also using your tax money to pay them to get you fired. Now you won't get killed or ever need to pay tax again! Aren't you thankful!?
These changes are spurred in part by a desire to reduce labor costs, but have also been made in response to an explosion at a Kunshan factory in 2014 that killed 146 people. The explosion was attributed to unsafe working conditions in the Taiwanese-owned metal polishing factory, which were recognized and documented. After the explosion, the local government pledged 2 billion yuan per year in subsidies to support companies that install industrial robots on their production lines.
An explosion happens at an industrial site due to unsafe working conditions. Instead of pledging 2 bil yuan of taxpayer money for, I dunno, better safety code enforcement, they give the company money to help them get rid of the workers and put in robots.
LOL. The "People's Party" indeed!
Worker exploitation has ended for 60,000 workers at this greedy corporation!
but a factory in china can make them even cheaper with more pollution. robots + pollution == $profit$
Motorola made phones just fine in America and they were plenty profitable. It's just that they were _more_ profitable when they didn't have to clean up their mess. The solution if tariffs. If countries want to brutally oppress their citizens then I can't compete unless I'm being oppressed to. You know that, you're just uncomfortable with the implications.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How is a consumer economy supposed to work given a robotic workforce?
You better be prepared to have a much larger welfare state.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There's an enormous amount of power to be gained by deciding who does and doesn't get to eat. There's an entire class of individuals with a vested interest in seeing that the problems you described don't get solve. Their high social standing depends on it...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Since everyone on Slashdot is convinced that every Foxconn worker is a suicidal slave, it seems obvious the loss of 60,000 jobs will be received with cheers by those in China.
"At last, we are Free!" they will shout "Free of work, free of money that supported my whole extended family! Yay!"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is also one of the great contributors to the great depression, THE Chicago fire, and a great many other problems that we had to endure at the start of the 20th century.
While yes, society will adapt, that doesn't mean it won't be really painful in the meantime. You probably shouldn't mock people that wish to avoid the inevitable pain that will come with the shift in work force. The idea at the time was that you shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, now service is going away so what is left? Right now there is no where for these people to go except to the gutter since we don't take care of people anymore.
Through-out the 80s and 90's childhood poverty was largely a solved problem. Since the Bush tax cuts and an economic crash precipitated by deregulation of an industry already prone to crashing our economy the problem has come back in a big way. Problems we solved such as vaccination are becoming issues again as people choose to ignore history and think this time it will be different without understanding why it happened the way it did in the first place.
It is very frustrating all the people that hold Reagan as some prime example of a good President, he was corrupt, he pushed the economic agenda that started trickle down economics which is simply a disaster. The idea that businesses only hire employees because they can afford to was always absurd. You only hire new workers because you have to keep up with demand for your product. That would be the same case if corporate tax rate 10% or 50%.
and now the factories can come home...
Productivity per worker * workers = consumption.
The reason employment stayed up is because consumption went up ... how much further up do you think consumption can go?
How is a consumer economy supposed to work given a robotic workforce?
You better be prepared to have a much larger welfare state.
Honestly, I think we need a much smaller society. Big business (profits$$), left-wing groups (votes), and politicians of all stripes (easy economic growth) have pushed open borders and mass immigration for years. Immigration is easy economic growth. But what matters to most people is not aggregate economic growth, it's individual growth.
I view the US as being in a position like a high-end university. We can, in essence, take in anybody we want to. I remember you posted that you were a UC undergrad (I got a grad degree from UC). UC maintains its unique culture and high-degree of excellence because it can select who it wants. If UC suddenly allowed in hundreds of people for the wrong reason, UC would change for the worse. Well, I'm utterly convinced that a robotic future is coming. I'm convinced that within my lifetime, most farm harvesting will be done by robots. (As a side note, imagine a a swarm of tiny agricultural bots that could zap insects without widespread spraying of pesticides--talk about organic.) I thin a lot of driver/transportation jobs will disappear. We've already seen a lot of high-skill/high-training jobs like lawyers disappear over the last decade, though that owes more to sites like LegalZoom.com and RocketLawyers.com than robotics. Doctors are next.
The US does not need lots of low-skill, low-education workers. I fully admit to being purely a pragmatist and not very empathetic the others here, but I do worry about what happens when the need for a lot of low-skill labor dries up.
sure, they might save money by replacing all these workers with robots, but just think of all the extra money they're going to have to spend to upgrade and strengthen their nets so that they can safely catch the robots.
There's definitely a trend toward robots.
But I don't even have a robot to mow my lawn, one of the easier tasks to automate. There's a lot of physical work to do.
-Dave
2. Inflation is too low. Economies tend to do best with inflation around 2.2% (annual), but we've been hovering around 1.7% for a while.
You believe the government numbers? I don't, the price of stuff is rising, they are just being really selective about how they measure it.
3. Low interest rates are not triggering investments.
Blame Obama... I'm a business owner, I have money. I'm not investing it because I don't trust the Democrats. If Hillary wins, I still won't invest it (not here anyway). If Trump wins, I will.
I have other business owner friends who feel the same way.
Taxing the wealthy heavily is one common suggestion for distributing this "jammed" wealth, but this rubs many people wrong.
That doesn't work. France tried it by raising the top tax rate to 75%. Result? Tens of thousands of the wealthiest have left.
The US corporate tax rate is 35%, yet few large companies pay that. Raising it will just reduce what you collect, not increase it.
Outright printing money and distributing it to regular consumers is another suggestion (AKA "helicopter money"), but nobody is sure of the side-effects.
Bull crap, the side-effects are clear and obvious. 1930's Germany and 2000s Zimbabwe.
What are the other options?
Reduce the population, limit the birth of children, and probably war... the long run may well have a basic income and everything made by robots, but the transition from here to there will be very messy..
It will probably involve a period where poor people kill rich people, similar to the olden days when the people revolted and killed their lords.
I'm looking forward to it.
Spoken like a poor person...
The difference this time around is weapons are not equal between rich and poor, government and citizen, and the stupid liberals want to disarm themselves.
Take it one step further, watch the updated Atlas robot video walking outside on snow. Now advance that robot 10 years and give it a gun.
Now build 1 million of them.
Who is going to be killed again?
I can think of reasons why robotics equipment would be made in China: cheap labour for the few things that robots cannot do, lax environmental laws and a very sales large market nearby. I can also see reasons why robotics equipment would be made in Japan or Europe: existing robotics facilities are already there, component and technology suppliers nearby, availability of highly skilled engineers and technicians, etc. However, I cannot think of a convincing argument to manufacture in the U.S., which doesn't really have any of the above advantages.
Human robots replaced by mechanical robots.
The big news here is, China's workforce isn't the low cost workforce any more. Now look to SE Asia and Indian subcontinent for that.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
So, we're going to jettison everything South of the Mason-Dixon?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sure, but the U.S. also does. At least China is cheap. The U.S. effectively delivers Chinese quality at European/Japanese prices.
Came to say the same thing. Stoooopid millennials.
I know you're just trying to be cutesy, but I'm always in favor of polities splitting up into the smallest units that people want.
Re believing gov't inflation statistics: I won't entertain conspiracy theories here. We can take that debate elsewhere.
Re: "I'm a business owner, I have money. I'm not investing it because I don't trust the Democrats" -- Why not? The best economy of recent years was under Bill. I don't count Reagan because he had a "stimulus" by jacking spending and debt way up.
Re: "Result? Tens of thousands of the wealthiest have left [France]" -- Where are they going? Let's punish tax heavens: they use gimmicks to suck away wealth and because we let them they keep doing it. Tell the WTO to go to hell: we negotiate on OUR terms.
Re: "[inflation] side-effects are clear and obvious. 1930's Germany and 2000s Zimbabwe" -- Different circumstances: apples to oranges. And, we can try it in increments so it's not an all-or-nothing thing.
Table-ized A.I.
Conservatives blame everything on regulation out of habit. Somalia hardly boomed when there was zero regulation, except the pirate biz.
And many of the economies with strong middle-classes, such as Canada, Germany, and the European countries Bernie talks about are not lightly-regulated.
I think the "threat" of alleged future regulation you talk about comes from Fox News, not the Democrats. Turn it off: it lies to you.
Re: "it is the economy that drives the inflation rate" -- They are related, but I disagree it's a one-way relationship.
Re: "When you have no idea what policy is going to be one day to the next" -- Nobody has a crystal ball, get over it: wars and change happen. Trump is not exactly a pillar of predictability either.
Table-ized A.I.
Tried that. Depending on which group you were in, it didn't work out so well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why not? The best economy of recent years was under Bill. I don't count Reagan because he had a "stimulus" by jacking spending and debt way up.
You don't have to understand, you just have to believe it.
Bill Clinton isn't why the 90s were great, the Republicans in the House are why the 90s were great. He was just along for the ride.
Where are they going? Let's punish tax heavens: they use gimmicks to suck away wealth and because we let them they keep doing it. Tell the WTO to go to hell: we negotiate on OUR terms.
No, you don't understand... They didn't send their money overseas to a tax haven, they physically left France. As in, moved to another country because no one is going to pay 75% of their income to the government.
Or do you plan to build a Berlin Wall around America to keep people in?
BTW, a lot of French went to the UK, which shockingly has better taxes than France does. Others went to Germany, Belgium, and the US.
The key word in his statement was "letting." There was no reason for the Northern States to force the CAS back into a union they didn't want to be a part of.
What made it run out so poorly for the South was being attacked by a different country. Don't you know about the War of Northern Aggression?
In all seriousness, slavery had to end and, IMHO it would have ended, if perhaps on a slightly longer timeframe, anyway--soon Slavery had ended pretty much everywhere else, and economic and political pressures would have forced it to end in the south. Maybe things would have been nicer for the South and the North if they had peacefully split. Maybe not. Hard to say.
It's a truism that statists and those whose well-being is embedded in the apparatus of the state will always favor expansive government power. It's why the elites always favor greater centralized authority and are anti Scottish independence, Catalonian independence, Brexit, etc. What skin does Obama have in the Brexit game?
Soylent Trump? Eewww
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder if the robots will need the jump nets.
Yeah right, you are cherry-picking combo's. Okay, I'll play this game: specifically what did GOP do then that made the econ take off?
Those 3 countries are more socialist leaning than USA, and arguably doing better per middle class.
There's often an optimum balancing point. France may have over-did it; I won't disagree there. Find the right balancing point like UK, Germany, Canada, and Belgium did.
You seem to be making Bernie's argument for him, without using the dreaded "S" word.
Table-ized A.I.
The only thing that will get a lot of people to figure out that mass immigration is a bad idea is when they can more directly see the costs. So for example allocate a pool of money for basic income. The more people you divide that over, the smaller the pool gets.
A little historical perspective: at the time of (and during) the Civil War, the Confederacy was expanding slavery and attempting to expand it to countries in Central and South America.
I know it's conventional wisdom to say that "slavery would have ended anyway", but few people can say how it would have ended.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Okay, I'll play this game: specifically what did GOP do then that made the econ take off?
They balanced the budget, cut government spending, and promoted a business environment that encouraged investment by private companies.
The 2000s were doing just fine as well, until the Housing bubble happened (and all parties are responsible for that one, I don't blame anyone specifically).
Since Obama, nothing but crap and anti-business nonsense.
Take it one step further, watch the updated Atlas robot video walking outside on snow.
Damn hadn't seen that one! For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Enigma
Bullets are cheaper.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
The same way it ended everywhere else: it was no longer economically viable.
Seriously, do think it's cheaper to pay an employee minimum wage for manual labor for 8 hours a day, or do you think it's cheaper to be responsible for your employee's, food, housing and medical care? And if you do think so, that pretty much undermines your bullshit about "living wages" doesn't it?
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
but lyfts and uber idea of employment is that they have the control and the works are 1099's that take most of risk but don't have the control of an real 1099
And now you've accidentally discovered the truth about our "free market economy". Minimum wage workers cost less than slaves.
Isn't it grand?
You are welcome on my lawn.
And that brings us right back to the inevitable libertarian bottom line:
"Killing people is a solution".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Bring back my Natalie Portman, NAKED AND PETRIFIED, goddammit. And get off my lawn!
Until AI rebellion. End of flesh my friends, pray for us all
Due to political pressure from Ross Perot. I give that credit to Ross, not GOP. GOP didn't give a shit about debt under Reagan and Bush 1.
Please be more specific.
I'd like something specific there to analyze also. Many conservatives blame ACA, but other successful countries have HC systems in place that are not hurting them.
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder what the employees will do now.
Japan had a quality issue. Remember that? They fixed it. China can too. And if they don't, do you really expect the hordes at Walmart to complain? And it's not just Walmart; it's also all those people who look at the major price difference, see the smaller quality difference, and say, "Meh... good enough." Harbor Freight sells "junk" tools that no contractor would proudly carry, but they're more than sufficient for your average homeowner.
for stories of robots fatally self-harming rather than work for Foxconn...
Requiem for the American Dream
The same way it ended everywhere else: it was no longer economically viable.
Seriously, do think it's cheaper to pay an employee minimum wage for manual labor for 8 hours a day, or do you think it's cheaper to be responsible for your employee's, food, housing and medical care? And if you do think so, that pretty much undermines your bullshit about "living wages" doesn't it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery !Modern slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with estimates of up to $35 billion generated annually. The United Nations estimates that roughly 27 to 30 million individuals are currently caught in the slave trade industry."
Economically viable, shmeconomically shmiable.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I buy quite a lot of components from China, some are crap but an equal amount have quality and documentation way beyond the usual in North America, remember China manufactures iPhones and iPads and other high end equipment.
The 2000s appeared to go well because of large government deficits. Clinton wound up with a balanced budget (at least by the smoke-and-mirrors definition) along with prosperity. Bush didn't do nearly as well, despite having a Republican house for his first six years.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It hasn't been possible for a group of enthusiastic warriors with personal weapons to defeat a real military force for a long time now. The Reagan administration ensured that civilians can't buy even standard infantry rifles. What such people can do is make areas essentially ungovernable, and I don't see robot soldiers doing anything about that for a long time. People who have something significant to lose aren't going to revolt like that, and that's how we've been keeping what domestic peace we have.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
With layoffs of this nature becoming more commonplace there's going to be a huge amount of ill- or low-educated people with nothing but time on their hands.
This can only end well...
Same was said with assembly lines and mass production over craftsmen, and farm machinery over oxes and farmhands.
Did you know almost everyone lived on a farm 200 years ago, and now just 2% of the population works one?
All you guys, 200 years ago: Oh my god! Farms only need 2% of the work force? Everyone will starve with no jobs!
Ignoring that people left their jobs a the farms for much better paid jobs in the industry, instead of losing their jobs with no alternative - but hey, they can still compete with illegal Mexicans for farm jobs, right?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
What about the factory to build the robots.
What about robot repair and maintenance?
Whenever a task is automated with robots, jobs are created throughout the world to make this possible.
1. Design the robots
2. Build parts for the robots.
3. Improve the robots
4. Repair the robots
5. Paint (rust proof) the robots
6. Non-repair maintenance (grease gears, test quality, etc.)
7. Write code to interface with the robots
8. Document the robots (both the robots and the code API)
9. Market the robots
10. Sell the robots
11. Litigate all the robot related issues: patents, job loss, parts and price gouging, new laws, etc...
12. Build robots to build the robots (go back to #1)
Now, le'ts add to those jobs more jobs created when some of those who were laid off who start a new business.
After a significant innovation, the job market shifts labor forces from one place to another. It can take a few years but shifting jobs, not long-term job loss, is what happens.
It is usually only in the short term that job loss happens.