
The devalued American worker - petethomas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/14/the-devalued-american-worker/
======
Htsthbjig
"That’s what happens in recessions. But for decades after World War II, lost
jobs came back when the economy picked up again."

Before WWII there was 1930s depression(stock crash). In the WAR ALL CAPITAL
was destroyed outside the US, making US to become the ruler of the world.

Today there has not been depression yet, the stock crash or hyperinflation or
whatever happens is not here yet.

Bailouts, QE, Keynesianism, stock pumping means those that have created the
crisis have not paid for it, but the people.

Everything else is just noise and confusion. The people that are controlling
more and more wealth also control the media.

They are really scared about the future. They prefer to confront each other
against each other("they are taking your jobs"), or against an external
enemy(Russia, China) that to lose their current status quo.

You see all those articles about automation or immigration taking people's
jobs, but in reality is as simple as those controlling the wealth's
representation(money) giving it all to themselves first with the geometric,
not algebraic methods of redistribution printing money gives them.

I have actually earned hundreds of times what I "invested" on the stock
market. It is not because I am smarter, but because I understood the game. I
have a company in the real world in which a 10% profit per year is great news.
In the stock I have won 200% profit rates!! on recent years. This is
unsustainable.

------
caniscrator
With great power comes great responsibility. With the help of technology,
despite our plans of paving ways to make this world a better place to live.
The future still tends to be scary for many.

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fred_is_fred
Green made a bunch of mistakes. Drop out of school. Leave a job with a pension
when instead he could have moved his mother to New York. It sounds like he
just moved without a job or a plan. I know the economy is changing but anyone
who just bails on a decent paying job and moves with a family and no job
prospects would be in the same situation. There's obviously more behind this
story.

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alvarosm
This is logical. Engineers sell their talent for peanuts to technology
companies, who then own all their work that automates tasks, which makes
unqualified workers worthless. A lot of you might bitch and moan about it
(you're "socially conscious", a socialist or whatever)... well, you're
enabling this, so know your responsibility in it.

The big problem with this trend in the long term is that big masses of
uneducated people might take control eventually; populist revolutions and
communist-like rule of a Stalin-like redneck dictator is not at all out of the
question. They may confiscate the technology, but they can't simply make a
worthless worker do worthy work so they might be paid barely enough, for doing
nothing worthy, an aberrant lifestyle anyway. And we may very well get there
without a bloody revolution too, with most oblivious to the slow shift even.

~~~
logn
Engineers are subject to the same problems of labor scarcity (or lack thereof)
as the people whose jobs are automated. Engineers are also automating their
own jobs. If they could sell their talents for more than peanuts, they would;
many try and fail ("striking out on their own").

I think a social awakening is more likely than a populist revolt. Simple
solutions such as raising effective corporate tax rates, banning money from
politics, and minimum wage reforms could avert revolution.

> might be paid barely enough, for doing nothing worthy, an aberrant lifestyle
> anyway

I don't agree this is the direction. And if we do head there, it's more likely
due to total automation and AI (rather than a Stalin-like ruler). In that
future, people won't starve in the streets, they'll be working subsidized
jobs. And that sounds a lot like today's reality anyway (not a sci-fi
dystopia).

~~~
alvarosm
I'm thinking more of those who make, say $200k, and are content with solving
puzzles all day long without caring for much else. Those who can make a
difference who don't care what difference they're making.

Awakening is the opposite term for what that is. Rising the corporate tax
until when? until businesses are barely profitable? that's effectively
confiscating the technology and letting them run it more efficiently than the
state can, that's the road to the new communism. Minimum wage reform, same
thing. Plus, this is all economic suicide if we look at the rest of the
economy, not just the automation-enablers, but that would be going too off-
topic here.

Yes, this all sounds like today because we're on our way to that dark future.
And we're calling it awakening apparently, see why I said people would be
oblivious to the shift?

~~~
logn
Many tech companies pay 0% in taxes. Some pay a negative tax rate. The wealthy
pay about 10-20% effective taxes. The tax burden has been shifted to the
middle class. And this isn't considering inflation, which taxes everyone
except those on the inside (basically, banks and owners of gov't contracting
companies).

Fixing these problems isn't communism. It's a return to mid-20th century
American policies.

With this type of reform in place, it's a lot easier to envision a nice future
where some people get $200K/yr to solve puzzles, and others get a $40K/yr
minimum wage to blog about their day. Edit: and aside from basic income or
minimum wage, this is how I think a lot of people should be paid ->
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708820](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708820)

~~~
jerf
"The tax burden has been shifted to the middle class."

That does not correspond with the latest news I've seen:
[http://www.aei.org/publication/new-cbo-study-shows-rich-
dont...](http://www.aei.org/publication/new-cbo-study-shows-rich-dont-just-
pay-fair-share-pay-almost-everybodys-share/)

~~~
logn
I wouldn't expect a conservative think tank to frame the issue any other way.
He's an alternate take: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/chart-shows-
corp-ta...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/chart-shows-corp-taxes-
grossly-unfair_n_3321737.html)

 _Payroll taxes now make up 35 percent of all federal government tax receipts,
up from 11 percent in 1950. Corporate income taxes, meanwhile, now make up
less than 10 percent of federal revenue, down from about 26 percent in 1950._

Keep in mind, your article and mine are only counting federal taxes. The
middle class pay a higher proportion of their income buying things than the
rich, so they're hit harder by sales taxes. Same goes for property taxes. And
many states tax low income workers on income even though the IRS cuts them a
break. One should also factor in court costs and fines for petty crimes.
There's gasoline tax and toll roads as well. These are all regressive.

Edit: the shift I mean is from corporations and super wealthy to the middle
class generally. I would agree that upper middle class (doctors, lawyers, etc)
probably carry most of the weight on taxes and the lower middle class gets
many breaks (for good reason, though).

~~~
jerf
"I wouldn't expect a conservative think tank to frame the issue any other
way."

You _do_ realize that's a symmetric slur, right?

Besides, from what I've seen in general the US is already the most progressive
taxing country in the world. Like so many other "liberal" issues, there's
never any stopping point, never enough, which is an incredibly dangerous way
to operate (and is a great deal of the reason why we're in the final 10 years
of liberal dominance as it is now tearing itself apart, because there is
_never_ enough, there _can 't_ be enough, there _mustn 't_ be enough, and if
that means it must push beyond all bounds of reason or rationality, so be
it...). And also, if the taxation level is a problem, given that our
government spends radically more than it is taking in on taxes as well, maybe
the government shouldn't be spending so much? Maybe the reason we are in such
an economic funk is that we route too much wealth to the government, for it to
expensively and poorly try to figure out what to do with it for us? Here's the
symmetry: But of course I wouldn't expect a liberal source to even _consider_
the possibility that handing all the money over to a centralized entity to
disburse remains something that we have neither evidence nor experience to
suggest is a particularly fantastic way to get things done at this scale.

I'd also observe the numbers are from the CBO, not the think-tank in question.

~~~
logn
I disagree with the premise of this argument.

First, regarding sources: all I was pointing out is that there are multiple
ways to frame the statistics, and that the framing is predictable based on the
political bias of the source.

Second, liberals are fine routing less money to the government. The solution
would be less DHS/war spending, less welfare for banks/corporations, and also
re-balancing the tax burden of individuals vs. corporations and investors.

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nchelluri
Is this paper taking a significantly more left-leaning direction over the past
couple of years?

That's my perception, just curious if anyone else thinks so as well.

~~~
nchelluri
Though this post was from a while ago, I now realize I was confusing The
Washington Post with The Wall Street Journal.

Not sure how I made that mistake, but that would explain the "change in
viewpoint"...

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binarymax
Its going to get worse. When cars and trucks drive themselves we'll see the
loss of millions of jobs.

~~~
walterbell
That may take a while,
[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html)

 _" But the maps have problems, starting with the fact that the car can’t
travel a single inch without one ... all 4 million miles of U.S. public roads
will be need to be mapped, plus driveways, off-road trails, and everywhere
else you'd ever want to take the car. So far, only a few thousand miles of
road have gotten the treatment .., The company frequently says that its car
has driven more than 700,000 miles safely, but those are the same few thousand
mapped miles, driven over and over again."_

~~~
nl
The vast majority of professional driving is done on predictable routes, from
a port to a warehouse or from one warehouse to another.

~~~
tomarr
Routes aren't infallible though, diversions occur because of predicable
(planned maintenance) and unpredictable (crashes or weather incidents), and
diversion routes may vary significantly.

Not an insurmountable problem - may even just be able to park the vehicle
where a diversion route is unknown and wait for it to clear, but still an
issue to deal with.

------
cowardlydragon
Demand starved economy is starved of demand...

NO WAY

Minimum Wage leads to inflation, but printing money to bail out banks
doesn't...

