AllYorBaseRBelong2Us on 2011-10-03 14:36:22.000

"The world is going" towards the elimination of weekends and time off.

AYB works weekends and gets 4 days off Monday-thursday. how is that bad? Having the week off is great: easy dr appointments, uncrowded movie theaters, having to drive to work only three times....it's pretty good!

"The world is going" towards the destruction of worker’s rights.

Don't see how this is really happening in the industrialized world unless you mean the erosion of Union power.....which I personally have issues with.

"The world is going" towards the end of minimum wage.

Not that I can see, but the whole idea of minimum wage makes no economic sense given that there is no law dictating a "minimum talent floor" amongst the workforce. Minimum wage is an ideological and social justice apect and as such, is a luxury -one the West has afforded itself because of the extreme affluence and wealth it has produced.

If our wealth is decreasing, so will our ability to provide such "social justice".

"The world is going" towards 50% unemployment.

probably not, but possibly. it would be easy to reverse the course if we gave up on the notion that we have to keep spending to prop up the economy.

OscarWilde on 2011-10-03 20:04:09.000

The Communist Manifesto coming to life. Not sure if the world is heading towards 50% unemployment. I think it's more the world's employment might be shifting from one industry to another. What are the major industries right now? Manufacturing which most of it can be automated. Resource gathering which has it's specialized peeps.

Then there is the selling/services industry, selling manufactured goods and services to people. That is being taken over by the sites like Amazon. Not entirely, but the shift is there from a person behind a desk talking on the phone to clients to sitting behind a computer screen and doing the logistics of connecting sites and products under one banner, i.e. Amazon, etc.

It's coming down to content creation and content development. And then tech support. And manufactured goods: clothes, furniture, computers, tvs., etc. I think it's the content creation/development (iApps, Android Apps, etc) where the fundamental shift is happening.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us on 2011-10-03 22:54:50.000

"The Communist Manifesto coming to life. "

funny you say that since the NY anti-prosperity protesters seem to be throwing around Communist Manifesto talking points.

...mixed with blatant "the Jews controll everything" anti-semitism.

Jeremy Reimer on 2011-10-04 11:21:26.000

[quote]
It’s coming down to content creation and content development. And then tech support. And manufactured goods: clothes, furniture, computers, tvs., etc. I think it’s the content creation/development (iApps, Android Apps, etc) where the fundamental shift is happening.
[/quote]

While this is true, the unfortunate fact is that there just aren't enough jobs in content creation to replace all the jobs lost in manufacturing.

It takes a few hundred people to make a movie that the entire planet can consume. It took twenty people to write Angry Birds and the whole planet is playing that.

The scale is all thrown out of whack. Unless we somehow invent new jobs (and that could very well happen) the 50% unemployment is a very real thing. Right now the real unemployment (not the altered figures they give out) in the US is about 20%.

That's scary already. It may get much worse.

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us on 2011-10-04 12:56:57.000

[quote]The scale is all thrown out of whack. Unless we somehow invent new jobs (and that could very well happen) the 50% unemployment is a very real thing.[/quote]

That essentially sounds like how progress has allways been and probably will always be until Robots can think cognitively and dispose of all you silly humansez. manufacturing is constantly requiring less human intervention or has been being moved to cheaper labour locations to free up the more expensive workforce for more valuable things, like standing by the door waving at people as they come in to buy the robot-made crud in the shelves behind you.

Not joking. In a society as affluent as ours that literally has quite a bit of value, comparitively.

In an ideal world few humans would be involved in actual manufacturing. Just think of the things that could be created!

:)

[quote]Right now the real unemployment (not the altered figures they give out) in the US is about 20%.

That’s scary already. It may get much worse. [/quote]

Possibly, and in the short term it is very scary indeed.

:(

BTW, Gold is going to crash.