The Top Earners in America should be embarrassed.

Started by Brian37, February 19, 2013, 07:14:47 AM

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Plu

QuoteWhy do you think I don't fly airplanes for a living anymore? The pay sucked and the working conditions sucked.

This surprised me. Dutch airline pilots earn huge amounts of money because they have a very demanding job.

Also, this is how it is, but it's fairly new (megacorps haven't been around that long) and it's going away soon. Technology will obsolete many more jobs the coming few decades. It has to change, or we'll end up with 50% of the population being unemployed, which will inevitably generate a huge mess.

The whole "you could always flip burgers" argument against unemployment has already died now that even burger-flipping joints have an overflow of people and don't need any more. It's a matter of time before the burger-flipper will also be replaced by a machine, like the assembly line worker, and the box-packer, and many other people. It's easy to say "there'll always be jobs" but reality says otherwise. There doesn't appear to be a growing need for employees. There's mostly a growing market in obsoleting jobs, but that's not sustainable.

It's interesting to see where it goes, but I don't buy "it'll never change". I obsolete far too many people in my line of work to believe that.

Nonsensei

Its true that our current economic model is not compatible with the march of advancing technology. After all, technology is created by man so that man no longer has to personally do things or do them the hard way. Taken to its logical and ultimate conclusion technology will make money unnecessary as our needs will be met by a self sustaining infrastructure that fulfills all our needs and wants.

Thats why every small step we take toward that far-off goal sees the loss of an old vocation without necessarily replacing it with a new one.
And on the wings of a dream so far beyond reality
All alone in desperation now the time has come
Lost inside you\'ll never find, lost within my own mind
Day after day this misery must go on

Brian37

I don't give a shit if one flips burgers. I really do get tired of "low pay means no skill". Bullshit.

And as far as everything replacing humans, that will never happen. First off you have more mom and pop shops than you do mega corps with the money to make machines. Secondly humans, especially when dining out have a variety of tastes and are not always going to want to get their food from a machine. Sit down places with wait staff will always be in demand.

Plus whatever machines replace humans still have to be maintained. Some would argue machines will police the machines, but you still need to police those machines too.

I think whatever technology we come up with you will still have a need for the human touch in that process.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37

Nonsensei

So food service and maintenance will be the only professions left. Thats not enough to either sustain or justify any sort of economic model or form of currency.
And on the wings of a dream so far beyond reality
All alone in desperation now the time has come
Lost inside you\'ll never find, lost within my own mind
Day after day this misery must go on

Plu

Yeah. There will always be some jobs. But there won't be enough. When you only have a few million jobs for a few billion people, the current economic model will completely collapse in on itself.

Mister Agenda

I agree, Plu. The trend toward increasing automation will continue. LOTS of jobs that are now being done by people will be done by machines in the next ten years, including jobs we once thought robots would never be able to do. I manage a data entry department, it would already be obsolete if the State required providers to submit electronically, but even if they never do, Optical Character Reading technology will advance enough that you won't need human verifiers anymore. Migrant workers watch out, fruit-picking robots are on the way. I don't know how long Moore's Law will hold at the current doubling of power every 12 months, but if it lasts to 2023, a computer chip's capacity per $1000 will be equal to the human brain. Even if it stops there, it would take decades to figure out how to take advantage of that much processing power. It's hard to imagine a mundane job done by humans now that can't be done by a robot with that much processing power. If it doesn't stop there, that much capacity will cost a penny by 2036.

The optimist in me says humans are creative enough to find ways to use that capacity to increase their own economic power, that we can use that kind of power to build a world free from want of basic necessities. The pessimist in me says: be afraid.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Nonsensei

The pessimist in you is actually the realist. Power is concentrated in a few. Once those few cease to see what the rest of us can do for them they will also cease to see the reason for us being around.

It will be unbelievably bad for a long, long time because people refuse to give a fuck about each other. That trait is what will kill us. Not our fucking pollution or overpopulation or any other mundane symptom. People refusing to see other people as having any inherent worth is what will shuffle us into the dustbin of history.
And on the wings of a dream so far beyond reality
All alone in desperation now the time has come
Lost inside you\'ll never find, lost within my own mind
Day after day this misery must go on

Nonsensei

I wanted to mention that  the turn this thread has taken has given me an idea on a story to write. Not sure how well it will turn out but the plot idea is fairly unique I think. These forums do that for me from time to time which is one of the many reasons I've been around so long.
And on the wings of a dream so far beyond reality
All alone in desperation now the time has come
Lost inside you\'ll never find, lost within my own mind
Day after day this misery must go on

Mathias

Quote from: "Johan"Jobs are worth what they're worth.
Supply and demand and greed are ultimately what sets prices on the retail side. Sell for the highest price the market will allow. Supply and demand and greed are also what set the price on the wage side. Pay your labor the lowest price possible to maintain productivity and an acceptable employee turnover rate.
Says who? To me seems a fallacy of appeal to authority.
The market isn't that simple and I'm sure that a economist will tell you. The stipulation of the price and value of goods are very important and are not guaranteed simply by supply. There are advertising, sales strategies, etc..

QuoteThis is how it has always been. And yes, paying more in wages then the lowest rate the job pool will allow is the same as giving a handout. If you feel you're being paid a wage that exploits you, then you have two fixes. One is near term, the other is long term. The near term fix is to move. Get out of the business (whatever business that is) and find another. Why do you think I don't fly airplanes for a living anymore? The pay sucked and the working conditions sucked. So I moved on and found something else.
If you think there are no differences between the market and the economy now and 100 years ago, I advise you to read a bit more about it. I did not know it was so easy for the U.S. working population out of a business to another. Why Bush Jr. and Obama has not said yet this brilliant idea?


QuoteAnd the long term fix? The only part of the job pool supply and demand equation we have any control over is supply. Keep it in your pants and encourage everyone you know to do the same and eventually, demand will outgrow supply in more industries and wages will therefore go up.

And the winner was Max Weber, with its Protestant ethic ... misunderstood!!

QuoteBut you're not going to change what motivates decisions of large corporations.

Good thing the founding fathers didn't think this way, or the U.S. would be the "fourth world"


QuoteIf you're more rational and proactive than the potheads and hippies you might even be able to persuade our government to change some laws which govern what large corporations do.

I could swear that many of the hippies of the 70s were the yuppies of the 80s, but I could be wrong ...


QuoteI doubt anyone would be able to pull this off, but its at least possible in theory. But even if you did get the laws changed so as to require corporations to pay more and/or 'be interested in improving education and reducing crime' as Brian seems to thing they should in the OP, you still wouldn't be able to make them want to do those things. They would do it because the law says so. But you're not going to change their culture. And since we now live in a world market, I would suspect the net effect of such laws would simply be for more and more of those corporations to board up the windows and move their operations to other countries where the laws are more to their liking. Choose your actions carefully would be takeaway from that I suppose.

I suppose the people in countries that have less access to culture and information, where there who think the laws of the market as you, the megacorporations are even more dishonest and immoral. Because greed is not something that can be considered good, unless there is a very active moral filter. This filter is manufactured by the company itself. So when we see a president be elected fraudulently, we see that it is not so simple.


QuoteWhich brings me back to what I said earlier. The rules of the game do indeed change a bit over time. But the rules were never fair and they never will be and with extremely rare exceptions, neither you nor I will ever change them. Learn accept the cards you've been dealt in life and find way to work those cards so as to make yourself sufficiently happy.

To me this is pure fundamentalism!
Learn to understand the situation and use their citizenship with civility. There are priests who are pedophiles and should not do anything, since the church does not punishes them for centuries. It has always been so and always will be!
Hello!!
"There is no logic in the existence of any god".
Myself.

Johan

Quote from: "Plu"
QuoteWhy do you think I don't fly airplanes for a living anymore? The pay sucked and the working conditions sucked.

This surprised me. Dutch airline pilots earn huge amounts of money because they have a very demanding job.
Well you'll note that I didn't say its why I don't fly airliners for a living. I never flew for the airlines and never wanted to. But yeah even still the story wouldn't have been much different either way. The days of airline pilots making six figure incomes for the bulk of their careers and then enjoying six figure retirement incomes are over in this country. You can still make a living at the airlines. But you need to be able to survive on poverty wages for the first ten years or so and lots of guys will probably never see six fighters at any point in their career. The point is it ain't like it used to be.

But what I was getting at its that I was min the business and recognized that there were always far more qualified applicants than available jobs. And it was clear to me that this had a lot to do with way most jobs paid so little and treated employees with so little respect. It was also clear to me that there was nothing I could do to change it so I got of of the business.

QuoteAlso, this is how it is, but it's fairly new (megacorps haven't been around that long) and it's going away soon. Technology will obsolete many more jobs the coming few decades. It has to change, or we'll end up with 50% of the population being unemployed, which will inevitably generate a huge mess.
Well I agree with you on this. But I don't think that's really what the op was thinking about when he started the thread.


QuoteIt's interesting to see where it goes, but I don't buy "it'll never change". I obsolete far too many people in my line of work to believe that.
What I meant by that comment was that the 'rules of the game' have almost never favored the little guy and I think is unlikely that they ever will. But lots of people have made themselves successful despite that ave I don't think many of them did it by complaining that the rules aren't fair and changes need to be made so is easier for me to get ahead.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful

Jason Harvestdancer

Quote from: "Mathias"The so-called "first world" needs a peaceful revolution (new paradigm) against this irresponsible and predatory capitalism whose advent, in my opinion, came from the 80's. Communism is too utopian and unnatural and the "invisible hand" fills the pockets of a small and irresponsible portion that don't give a damn about the poors. Not to mention the corruption that is spreading like a weed (the bad one :))all over the world, without exception.

Write "Corporatism is not Capitalism" 1000 times.

Also, we've had predatory corporatism since long before the 1980s.
White privilege is being a lifelong racist, then being sent to the White House twice because your running mate is a minority.<br /><br />No Biden, no KKK, no Fascist USA!

Rejak

I'd  say mathias has it about right

Capitalism if not properly regulated will become corporatism in time. Corporate money corrupts the regulators then the whole system collapses. This has already happened.  What we need is a new deal!

Brian37

Quote from: "Nonsensei"So food service and maintenance will be the only professions left. Thats not enough to either sustain or justify any sort of economic model or form of currency.

Still does not change that ANY job as a human you do, takes skill. Machines can replace lots of things but not humans or the skill they use every day no matter their class.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37

Jason Harvestdancer

Quote from: "Rejak"I'd  say mathias has it about right

Capitalism if not properly regulated will become corporatism in time. Corporate money corrupts the regulators then the whole system collapses. This has already happened.  What we need is a new deal!

Regulation is exactly what turns capitalism into corporatism, such as what happened during the New Deal.
White privilege is being a lifelong racist, then being sent to the White House twice because your running mate is a minority.<br /><br />No Biden, no KKK, no Fascist USA!

Brian37

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"
Quote from: "Rejak"I'd  say mathias has it about right

Capitalism if not properly regulated will become corporatism in time. Corporate money corrupts the regulators then the whole system collapses. This has already happened.  What we need is a new deal!

Regulation is exactly what turns capitalism into corporatism, such as what happened during the New Deal.

Bullshit! That is like saying speed limits cause speeding.

No it is greed and narcissism, nothing else.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers." Obama
Poetry By Brian37 Like my poetry on Facebook Under BrianJames Rational Poet and also at twitter under Brianrrs37