Relax, You're Future is Secure, LOL
Posted: Thursday, January 26, 2012
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
"India has more honor students, right now, than America has kids. The top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 were not even invented yet in 2004. Most people today will have between 10 and 14 jobs by the time they are 38. One in four workers has been on the job for less than a year.
"The amount of unique information generated next year alone will be more than has been generated in the last 5,000 years. What technical students learn today will be outdated in three years. By 2049, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the brains of the entire collective human species.
American workers were never geniuses nor have they had access to stellar educations. Most were retail clerks, service employees, or small scale entrepreneurs (shop keepers) trained on the job and making an average wage with an average life style and an average standard of living.
That was then, this is now. Computers have wreaked havoc on the average American. People are rapidly being replaced by technology. Fifty percent of the old jobs will no longer be around.
At one time banks bustled with people – file clerks, switchboards and phone operators, numerous tellers, loan officers, you name it. Today, walk into a bank and notice the quiet. Computers and technology has replaced just about everybody. You pay your bills online, manage your accounts online, use automated ATMs - why would you need to go to a bank?
This is happening in all industries. There is even technology available right now to eliminate waiters and waitresses – an ipod at each table that not only provides an interactive menu, but an automated payment method as well. No more tips. No more jobs for food service workers. And Computer programmers? Enjoy it while you can.
The malls themselves are slowly being antiquated with fast, up to date humongous online selections right from one’s own recliner. The retail clerk’s days are numbered, as are the small mom and pop shops.
Even the supermarkets and discount stores will have no checkouts in the near future- all automated.
And who wants to go through the gauntlet of being victimized by a car dealership with its henchmen of sales pushers and finance crooks, when one can order a car online cheaper, more reliably, and with a larger selection?
By the way, who needs mechanics anymore? Computerized automobiles are getting close to being problem free. Technology in the next ten years will do away with tune ups, oil changes and just about everything else.
This is all great for the consumer, but what about the wage earner? Houston, we got a problem!
The unemployment rate as published is not correct. It is much higher than the figures indicate. It is closer to 16%. In Spain, it is closer to 30%. Why do you think this is? It’s because of two things – globalization and technology, both of which is not going to go away. They will both increase the rate of job losses worldwide.
This will play out initially as class warfare, inequality, etc. But eventually, after the smoke clears and it becomes obvious that regardless of who is president or what party takes over, the reality will set in that a large portion of the American population will have nothing to do.
This is the case in many third world countries now, and when this happens, when people are put out into the streets with no recourse, there is always anarchy. How could there not be? People become cornered, and like any cornered animal will react violently.
This has led to civil wars all over the world, even here in America when we were initially figuring out whether the rule of law would prevail or the rule of money. And this leads one to ponder what will result when there is no longer any money for a great number of Americans, and where the rule of law can no longer provide for their sustenance.
If the politicians are clever enough, they will direct (misdirect) the people’s attention from their domestic problems to an international problem. In other words, we will go to war to get people employed again in the war industry and or fighting.
This will be, however, a temporary fix unless we can annihilate our global competitors, which will be a better solution than a civil war where all our problems will come home to roost after the war anyhow.
I wish that I had an answer to this dilemma, but barring an unforeseen world tragedy where just about everything gets wiped out, I don’t see things getting any better for the working man and woman, and a lot worse.
We are printing money here and in Europe to temporarily make up for the fundamental problem – that being the takeover of jobs by technology and cheap wages overseas – but that cannot continue for long. Eventually the cheap printing press money will become worthless and a real depression will ensue. Kicking this can down the road is like getting temporary relief from cancer by taking more and more aspirin.
So what is the answer? I really would like to hear an answer, anyone’s answer. How can we put people to work in jobs that no longer require people? Or what can we do with people who are no longer of any value to a technological society, or worse yet, what do we do with poor, old people who are a drag on an upscale society that would like to deport every poor person to Siberia?
The Buddha once said that a human birth involves suffering. Even the wealthy who think only of themselves cannot escape this because when they die, as David said, they will take not their riches, their status, nor their power with them. They will lose everything, even the grace of God.
Life is short. So what is the answer? Is the answer tied up completely in material gain and survival, or does the answer involve a deeper aspect of life? Do we all have to live either as kings or paupers? Is there a middle way where we all take care of each other at a sustainable level? Is this possible when a small percentage of people take all of the resources?
These are questions that are now just surfacing, and the answers will determine what becomes of the human race.
This Article has been viewed 631 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Yeah it's a crazy world out there e, but I do believe conditions in the world are better today than they were in say 1971. Do you remember those days?Yeah, I agree Dave, things have gotten better in many other areas. In 1971 I was 30 years old and had no problem making ends meet with three kids, a house, a Porsche, almost free health care, and my wife didn't work. I didn't have a college degree either, I was just a sales rep for an oil company. Jobs were easy to find with great benefits. But now, for families in the 50 percentile which I was back then, their wages have not improved for 30 years and health care is pricing itself out of anyone's life. Ask almost any 30 year old now - it's tough out there.
The answer is simple although it will be far from easy and as I have warned many times before the longer we put it off the worse it will become, deadly. The redistribution of wealth from the 1% to the larger population just as has been done before with infrastructure projects that have been overlooked for decades now and development of new technologies particular in energy and space exploration because of our need to compete with extraterrestrial civilizations that can no longer be competently kept hidden from the general population, etc. Where there is a will there is a way. I know there are those that will say it's just not there, but it is there it's just accumulated in a few very deep pockets. They are counting on taking their money and running elsewhere before the $%&*@$%& hits the fan, but that can be prevented. Along with the fact that with today's social media a tool that was to be used to oppress populations can now be used against them giving them fewer places to run. That is why there is a strong push to outlaw the free distribution of information running through our congress now and other governments around the world. Like I say there is a way beyond the capitulation of the inevitable simply giving way to this realization because it won't be accepted easily but as an ol' Texas saying goes, " sometimes you just have to pry it from their cold dead fingers." Peace!Hey David! It will probably involve a revolution. Reagan and Greenspan knew what they were doing back in the eighties when they started their anti-worker revolution. As the budget became strained with more and more money going to the rich and to the military, social programs were cut. In other words, government, a long time protector of the working people which in the past shielded them from abusive tactics by corporations, was weakening. Their undying goal was to get rid of Medicare and Social Security completely, which is still the Republican goal.
This became the drum beat of Republicans – get rid of big government. In other words, get rid of the people’s voices. And it worked. The theory of trickledown economics or supply side economics even fooled the democrats for a while as regulations were relaxed and the money flowed like a torrent to the top.
Forcing the poor and middle class in America to fall behind was not enough to satisfy the insatiable appetite for wealth, so ways were thought up to make money even off of the workers whose lifestyles were falling behind and whose incomes were becoming more and more detached from the upper class.
So easy credit and high interest rates were made available by the bankers which gave the poor and middle classes a false sense of hope and security by artificially propping up their standard of living. Also, this ‘enjoy now and pay later’ scheme meant that the poor and middle class not only were making less and less in wages, now a large percentage of those wages were going to the banks in the form of interest payments, sometimes as high as 30% on credit cards.
And now, the coup d’tat against the middle class: As the middle class took on thirty year mortgages (where all of the interest is conveniently paid up front first before principle), bankers wanted more money than that. What better way than to bundle mortgages and sell them? That’s a quick turn over and a quick buck. And what the heck, if it all backfires, the government would be forced to back up the bankers, not the public, because the banks could fail and bring down the entire financial house of cards.
So the middle class, not only losing any increase in wages and benefits for thirty years, now lost up to 40% of their net worth that was invested in their homes, more if they were foreclosed.
The power structure is so embedded I'm not sure prying will suffice David. It might take more than that. By the way, as usual, I hope that I am wrong about all of this and that America gets on its feet again - peacefully.
Yes, yes, yes, and probably not. Maybe the more fitting title for the article would have been, "Relax, Your Future Is Secured, Not LOL." LOL
It was better if you mentioned IT workers are still in nearly 0 percent unemployment. i think it shows the way. even in Iran which unemployment is the norm. all of my classmates are working with God Salaries.IT is temporary. Agriculture will trump (become more important) everything shortly.The food shortages are just beginning. Can't eat oil! America's future is in food production, perfect climate and lots of land and water (If the shale oil development doesn't ruin that as well). Thank you for your comment Abolghasem.
Absolutely great article. I agree with you--this is the problem--all the changes in tech etc. and the huge changes just as you say. I believe your are dead on. And I also am with you as to not having the solution. I will say, and probably most will disagree with me, that the human race will positively rise to the occasion--the changes, one day...and probably after much pain.
Stay well.Thanks Steve, You a rare person these days - that doesn't have all the "answers."
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.