On Sat, 12 May 2018 11:55:34 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgOn Sat, 12 May 2018 02:12:17 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgOn Fri, 11 May 2018 22:59:01 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgOn Fri, 11 May 2018 18:16:08 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgOn Fri, 11 May 2018 12:46:01 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgOn Thu, 10 May 2018 23:26:54 -0700, El Castor
Post by El CastorPost by mgWhy should a company have to move its facilities to a
foreign country to get lower employee costs when it's so
much easier just to import third-world immigrants to the
U.S.?
Companies "offshore" administration to avoid state and federal taxes,
labor laws, and regulation, and in some cases get access to a higher
quality work force. That will probably decline in view of Trump's tax
cuts. Farming out manufacturing to foreign sources, like Foxconn, is
often the only way a company can compete in terms of product price
with foreign competition. Importing foreign factory workers won't
work. Foxconn, Apple's subcontractor that assembles iPhones, pays
Chinese workers $2.50 an hour, and they put in 60 hours a week. We
have laws. That couldn't happen here. But, Foxconn recently replaced
60,000 workers with robots. Maybe that could happen here.
Imagine if every single country in the world had a Foxconn-type of
manufacturing plant, or perhaps a many of them, what would that do to
wages? Or if every person on the planet had to compete with people all
over the world for a job, how low would world-wide wages be?
In the US, is the only reason that people like you and me and many
people on this newsgroup were able to live the good life was that we
didn't have to compete worldwide?
Problem is, we don't live in isolation. Apple sells more than half of
it's iphones overseas. If Apple had to make them here they would cost
far more, most Americans couldn't afford one, and Apple couldn't sell
overseas because Samsung and Chinese companies would price them out of
the water. Result -- there would be no Apple. We need robots.
I think that one could probably divide wage earners in the US into two
types; those who have to compete against foreign competition of one
sort or another and those who don't. Manufacturing has been one type
of work in which American workers have had to compete for a long time
now, since at least the mid-70s, I suppose.
However, there are other types of work, besides manufacturing, where
Americans have to compete and there are types where they don't, or at
least not very much. In general, I suppose government jobs, for
example, have traditionally been one type of work in which Americans
haven't had to compete with foreign workers.
If you were advising a grand child in high school on career choices,
now days, how would you advise him?
The threat isn't cheap foreign labor, it's even cheaper robot labor.
So, tech if he had the brains for it, and was so inclined -- otherwise
any robot resistant occupation like electrician, plumber, or ...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/these-are-the-robot-proof-jobs-of-the-future-pew-research.html
The above site seems to be recommending STEM jobs which are not the
kind of jobs that I would recommend to a grand child of mine. Here's
"H-1B visas make STEM careers unattractive to American students
http://www.machinedesign.com/blog/h-1b-visas-make-stem-careers-unattractive-american-students
"How H-1B Visas Are Screwing Tech Workers"
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers/
"The STEM Crisis Is a Myth"
https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth
"What STEM shortage? Electrical engineering lost 35,000 jobs last
year"
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2487847/it-careers/what-stem-shortage--electrical-engineering-lost-35-000-jobs-last-year.html
Post by El Castorhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/jobs-future-automation-robots-skills-creative-health
http://www.businessinsider.com/careers-that-are-safe-from-automation-2017-5
https://www.ft.com/content/0c7906d6-be89-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2
http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/skills-gap-automation/
You asked me a question, and I answered it as best as I could. Where
did MotherJones, Spectrum, and Computerworld come from? Here, again
was, and is, my answer.
The threat isn't cheap foreign labor, it's even cheaper robot labor.
So, tech if he had the brains for it, and was so inclined -- otherwise
any robot resistant occupation like electrician, plumber, or ...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/these-are-the-robot-proof-jobs-of-the-future-pew-research.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/26/jobs-future-automation-robots-skills-creative-health
http://www.businessinsider.com/careers-that-are-safe-from-automation-2017-5
https://www.ft.com/content/0c7906d6-be89-11e5-9fdb-87b8d15baec2
http://fortune.com/2016/07/11/skills-gap-automation/
The subject of this thread was competition from foreign workers which
I see as currently the biggest threat to American wage earners. If you
prefer to talk about the threat from factory automation, or even
individual robots, that's fine.
However, with Chinese workers making $2.50 an hour and with the
government importing foreign workers on H1B visas, and with
immigration from third-world countries, at high levels, I personally
see foreign competition as the biggest problem for the American
worker.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Robots are rapidly replacing human labor all
over the world. For instance, the single commonest manual labor job in
the US is truck driver. Within 10 years, those jobs will be gone, and
so will many white collar jobs. What will remain will be manual labor
requiring adaptation to an unpredictable variety of situations, like
electricians and plumbers. The world is changing.
I agree that computers and automation will continue to replace many
jobs, but so does offshoring, immigration, and temporary foreign
-----------
"STEM Grads Are at a Loss
Those who claim there's a STEM skills shortage are ignoring the
evidence."
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-graduates-cant-find-jobs
Post by El CastorPost by mgWhen the day comes that they do invent individual robots, btw, I doubt
if corporations will even be able to keep one of them running for
$2.50/hr. The power consumption alone would probably be more than
that.
You're out of touch. Take a look
http://youtu.be/sjAZGUcjrP8
http://youtu.be/UtBa9yVZBJM
Similar operation in China ...
http://youtu.be/FBl4Y55V2Z4
It's a matter of semantics I suppose, and we've talked about this
before, I call that sort of thing "industrial automation", or "factory
automation", or "material handling automation", etc. I, personally,
don't call it "robots", or "robotics", but some people do. This sort
of automation is advancing rapidly, but it dates back hundreds of
years, or more. The waterwheel is one example that comes to mind.
As a steel worker who lost his job after 20 years due to the plant I
worked for being antiquated and lacking "continuous casting", among
other things, I'm very familiar with what effect automation (and the
lack of it) can have on jobs.
Automation, robots, or whatever you want to call it, is not just about
manufacturing. Remember the record store and book store? The local
Sears is closing. JC Penny's and electronics stores are long gone, and
strip malls all over the country are in trouble. They weren't put out
of business by H1B workers. It's technology, technology, technology!
Where does it all end? I have no idea, but I suspect that despite dire
predictions, the population is going to decline, along with already
plummeting fertility rates. There is no unwritten law that requires a
a 5 day, 40 hour work week. That is going to change. AI is becoming
increasingly important -- and smarter by the day. Maybe in a couple of
hiundred years we will begin o look like the Borg, or become little
more than zoo animals. (-8
I picture humans living in high-rise buildings, in cheap apartments,
owned by the company store (like the John Henry song), or owned by the
government, where husbands and wives work 8-12 hours a day and are
treated very much like zoo animals. In other words, things will be
similar to what they are now, but a lot worse.
However, what I was wondering about when I started this thread is
right now, at the current time, what would be a good occupation for a
young person to enter and I can't think of very many answers. The
medical field is good, I think, because of the lack of competition and
union jobs, like in the government are probably good, but might not
last very long. Jobs in public universities seem to be really good. It
looks like those people pretty much write their own ticket with the
legislatures giving them a blank check.
Probably the best answer, I suppose, is for husband and wife to both
get two or three degrees before they have children and then hope for
the best.