The people making the decisions to cut breathing employees in favor of mechanical ones are only concerned about quarterly profits and their bonuses. They don't consider the broader ramifications of what will happen to their revenue streams or market shares once there is nobody left to buy their products. They don't care, it is all about what can I do to make more money right now. Therein lies the true problem we are faced with; maybe not now or 5 years from now but this is going to blow up in our faces. This isn't going to stop, I don't see how this is going to reverse course either. We are going to live in a world where children grow up, become adults and then potentially have no way of ever supporting themselves. What will a world look like where people have no means to make a living and supporting themselves on a massive scale? That basically puts Capitalism, even Globalism on it's ear.
Isn't that the point of capitalism though? Fuck you, whatever makes me money is what I'll do, right? That is a cold, harsh reality of capitalism. Jobs will be available, just not where they are today. Just like they'll get machines to deliver goods; someone has to build and maintain those, someone has to design them or update them. Others will have to build the new drones and computers of the future. It's not that jobs will disappear, it's that they'll be different. Look at factories and how many people shit themselves when assembly lines became more automated. Everyone panicked that unemployment would skyrocket, but it didn't happen, it only shifted. Assembly line workers lost their jobs, while the demand for mechanical engineers and computer programmers went up. Sure, some people lost jobs, but the capitalist in me just says that's because they weren't prepared. The writing was on the wall, but they either didn't see it or ignored it, and in either case, their bad planning shouldn't be my, or their bosses, problem. Markets shift and flux all the time. One product replaces another, and in economics, labor is a product. Demand for one kind of labor falls, while demand for another kind goes up.
Yeah, the GOP is Trump's party now. Unless there's some sort of coup, he has voters on the right from every demographic voting for him. He's winning all the time. They want the Jack-in-the-box for President.
Here's another interesting article: http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/03/05/trump-supporters-in-their-own-words/ You see and hear lot's of this: This article talks to people of very different backgrounds in terms of race, age, sex, party affiliation, lifestyle, income, you name it. Now, this is a small sampling of people and it is far off from the general election but it's fair to say that the sentiment is real. If you read through the quotes, it seems like there are a lot of people out there who want anything other than the establishment at any cost.
So Clinton takes Lousiana, Sanders takes Kansas and Nebraska. Next up Maine, Puerto Rico, Idaho, Hawaii, and Michigan. Get your popcorn ready, this is about to get interesting. Cruz also gaining ground on Trump.
The idea that there will always be other jobs doing something else is a lie we tell ourselves so that we can sleep at night, like whistling past a graveyard. Technology (and no, I'm not a Luddite, but I slept at a Holiday Inn last night) has ensured that, even for existing jobs, we need far less people to do them. Manufacturing has left our shores. I see it every single day, wrapping up the cleaning and closing of abandoned factories and offices. In dozens of the small towns I've been in where the downtown is empty because everyone left after the factories closed or they just have no money to spend. "Well hey the factories closed, they should all go into IT!" - It jobs are outsourced by the thousands to India and Eastern Europe. "Well they can work in call centers for insurance, banks, etc.!" - See above, and automation. "Well they can go work on a farm picking almonds or grapes or corn!" - immigrant labor and mass automation of the farming industry sunk that idea years ago. The obvious truth is that the jobs just are not there. The new technologies that will replace the old factory jobs? Tesla Motors employs 6,000 people and a new factory may one day employ another 6,000. So maybe, one day, 12,000 jobs. That is nothing, completely insignificant. Google has over 50,000, which is a great start. But we need 100 more Googles. Let's look at the largest employers in the U.S. Five of the top six are retail, or McDonalds, and Wal Mart is far and away the highest with about 2.2M employees. Most retail jobs, and certainly McDonalds, do not pay wages high enough to live on. Everyone's happy to say "We'll they're not supposed to, people should move to jobs that do pay a living wage!" Really? What jobs are those? Read the above paragraph again. The largest employers in this country provide jobs that most of us consider transitional or starter jobs.
The problem isn't new technology, it's moving the jobs overseas because there's simply no way for an industrialized nation to compete with LDCs on cost for unskilled labor. More jobs will continue to be created and it's because of the most basic economic principle. Unlimited demand vs limited supply. That will never change, and greater efficiency means more wealth, more discretionary income, and more demand. The real question is what form is the demand going to take as the jobs disappear? It won't be Wal-mart and Mcdonalds. The trend over the last two decades has been a steady increase in the service sector of the economy. Sometimes that means improving an experience. Other times it means saving time when it's now affordable to not do it yourself. If wealth continues to rise before the crumbling ecosystem annihilates us, I would expect demand for quality to go up. True, technology will eliminate manual labor, but the need for inputs, quality assurance, tech support, R&D, and expedited shipping will go up. That's going to be the case in many industries. To what extent this is going to divide or close the income gap will depend largely on policy and culture, but there will be jobs, and the smart entrepreneurs are always going to find ways to profit off their creation.
Politicians lie. "Mitt Romney said Sunday that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz winning two primary states this weekend proves the Texas senator can stop front-runner Donald Trump, but declined to rule out his own White House scenario. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and the Republicans' 2012 presidential nominee, repeated remarks from last week, telling “Fox News Sunday” that he wouldn’t launch an eleventh-hour campaign for president. But he declined to reject being “drafted” at the GOP convention in July to be the party’s general election candidate." I'll admit it's a long shot that it'll happen, but he didn't file with the FEC to definitely not run. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...od-if-drafted-at-convention.html?intcmp=hpbt3
How the fuck is he going to run when nearly half the primaries are finished? If he runs based on a GOP insider decision at the convention that would be the stupidest thing in American political history and would ensure the end of the Republican party as we know it. Really. I hope this happens. Hey Washington, want to know why it's possible that people who support Trump could have Sanders as a second choice and vice versa? It's because you're fucking clowns who come up with shit like this, that's why.
Here we go again. N. Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strike on South, US https://www.yahoo.com/news/n-korea-threatens-pre-emptive-nuclear-strike-south-221951719.html
This shit always makes me laugh. Assuming they even had the technology to even get it off the ground, those missiles would be shot out of the sky like clay pigeons with a sawed off shotgun. And then the real fun would start. It'll be interesting which country finally decides they've had enough of NK's shit and starts some strategic fish in a barrel shooting of military bases and the like.
The real issue is any fallout over South Korea. Shit is bad enough that even Chinese banks have stopped the flow of cash to North Korea. https://www.rt.com/business/334540-china-cashflow-north-korea/ The big fear has always been China and their response because Best Korea has always been like their retarded little brother that they've always looked out for. Now that they seem to be somewhat onboard with reining them in, and aren't fighting the seizures of North Korean ships in the Philippine ports, and killing cash flow into the country, etc.
Seems like it's not a matter of if but when NK gets blasted. They keep increasing their talk year after year and now they actually have some weapons. Assuming they don't do something stupid like use civilians as human shields around everything (and that's a big assumption), those people are gonna try to evacuate somewhere. Anyone have a clue if there are any plans in place to accept the refugees or what the fallout would be from a mass exodus of NK?
I feel bad for the North Korean people. They would all love nothing more than to see that fat fucking retard take a dirt nap. Every government official he has working for him lives in constant fear. It's too bad that per international law, you can't really assassinate other heads of state. He would be one of the most worthy candidates.
I'm legitimately surprised that no one has done it yet. I mean all it takes is for one dude in the military over there to realize that the lives of millions of people are worth more than his own, then he points a gun to the guy's head. If he didn't wanna deal with the fallout he could take the gun and swallow a bullet himself. It'd take a second and a half and change history.
I actually think they should do just that. I know most people wouldn't agree, and the risks are frightening, but then so are the risks of them dumping every scrounged dollar into their nuclear program and actually being capable of carrying out a wide scale attack in the future. SK also has a substantial military that would need only our support, an economy to afford rebuilding, and the desire for unification meaning we won't have bear the cost of the fall out for decades. No, it won't happen, but as dangerous as it is I think it should. They already have plans and do accept refugees from NK. In the scenario of a mass exodus, SK has enormous shelters that could harbor them for a time. Seoul alone has an underground shelter capable of holding 20 million. Of course, that's not really the long term plan in the event of reunification. Like anybody actually gives a shit about international law when it comes to war, or that we cared when we tried to assassinate Castro. They'll do the same thing they do with every world leader who's government gets overthrown. Declare him a criminal and cut his head off. They'd try to get him alive for the trial and whatnot. I'm fairly certain that if overthrowing the North Korean regime was as simple as putting a bullet in one man's head they would have already done it by now. Although it's possible that fear of pissing off China and undoing 30 years of improving relations have prevented that.
You think Kim Jong Un is that dumb? I promise you he keeps the people around him very wealthy and happy, and if there is even the slightest hint of a possibility that someone might do something against him, he has them killed. He has purged many of his top people, including relatives. He makes it known not to fuck with him, and I'm betting those on his good side are living a pretty good life while the rest of his nation suffers. On top of all of that is the propaganda and rhetoric they throw out there. He doesn't say that shit to say it. He's trying to keep his people in line, and getting them to buy in. It is a cult-like nation. From the outside it looks batshit insane, but on the inside it makes a perfect amount of perverse sense. They don't kill Un for the same reason no one killed Manson, or cult members didn't kill David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite. Cults are a fucked up thing.
The only thing I really standing in the way is china. But how hard could it really be to get them agree to let someone else pop what is, essentially, a blister for the entire world? Maybe there's just a snake in the room and I'm about to be bitten, but I don't really see what the "risk" is you speak of?
Large numbers of civilians killed on the NK side. They sneak a nuke across the border and detonate it in a city. The war drags on due to fanatical followers launching a guerrilla campaign. The rebuilding goes poorly and NK is just a resource vacuum on the south. And so on. There's risks involved in any military action, much more a full scale invasion and regime overhaul. Yeah, I think it could work in the long run too, but it's not without cost and not quite a given.
For China, they fear unrest along their border with North Korea, and floods of refugees coming into their nation. They fear Kim Jong Un actually using a nuke, even if he just sets it off over his own nation out of spite, and the resulting fallout fucking shit up for China for a very long time. It's easy for us to call for someone to kill Kim Jong Un and end North Korea's bullshit, but China is still their neighbor while we are safely a full Pacific Ocean away. Any resulting fallout (both physical and metaphorical) would hit China much harder than anyone else besides South Korea.