
A disaster is looming for American men - zonotope
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/26/larry-summers-a-disaster-is-looming-for-american-men/
======
hrgeek
Disaster is already here. In the 1950's you could raise a family with 2.3
children on a 40 hour work week. Today, families are struggling to make ends
meet with 60-70+ hour work weeks. Technology was supposed to have made things
more efficient. It seems to have had the opposite effect.

~~~
jewel
The average home size in the 1950s was just 953 square feet. Now it's 2500
square feet. You likely would have a single car. Your utility bill would be a
lot lower (no internet, no cable, no air conditioning). You'd eat a lot of
home-cooked meals, have a serious vegetable garden, would sew and mend your
own clothes, etc. You wouldn't need to pay for your own clothes.

I suspect it's quite possible to raise a family on a single income if you're
willing to live like it was the 1950s.

~~~
tetraodonpuffer
talking about the home size is disingenuous, you might want to look at the lot
size, not the home size, for example. Or do you think you would be able to
have a 'serious vegetable garden' on today's postage stamp lots?

Schooling costs are also way, way, way higher than they were in the 50s, and
there are no well paying manufacturing jobs to do if you aren't inclined to go
to college.

I really doubt that you would be able to raise a family on a single income
these days with the same standard of living you could have back then.

------
bbig3831
This article is built on sand. First off, Summers doesn't provide any evidence
that his linear trend is a valid predictor. Coupled with his history of
predictions, that should be a red flag to anyone reading this. If you're
interested, you should read about his suggestion that California deregulate
its energy market during the rolling blackouts caused by Enron's manipulation
of the energy supply. Similarly, he supported the rapid privatization of
former Soviet bloc countries in the 1990s without considering that former
party members would consolidate resources and wealth among themselves. Lo and
behold, Russia is now ruled by an oligarchy.

Second, not even the links he provides support his points. The one to the BLS
shows the number of cashiers is expected to grow by 2%, not decline as he
states.

Third, "to the extent that non-work is contagious, it is likely to grow
exponentially rather than at a linear rate." No citation given. Nothing to
substantiate this claim. Again, given Larry's history, I'd advise against
taking him at his word. He also cites falling marriage rates as contributors,
but only links to evidence of the rates falling, NOT to evidence of a causal
effect of declining marriage rates on employment.

Finally, seeing as this [1] was posted on HN today, Larry seems to be living
in a world where he doesn't read the news. Companies still need workers.

It's drivel like this written by people like Larry that erode my trust in the
media.

[1]U.S. Companies Turn to German Vocational Training Model to Fill Jobs Gap:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12584606)

------
bargl
Here is what I don't understand about this argument. When the USA first
started we lived in a very agricultural society.

[https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-
employment/](https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-employment/)

You would think by this logic that removing these jobs would have caused a
MASSIVE unemployment issue in the USA. Which it did to some degree. I mean
farmers were pushed off their land by bigger farmers, and other groups and
they went out to find other jobs.

If you look at the Great Depression there were a lot of similar things going
on to what is going on now. The wealth is sitting at the top 1%, people end up
working crazy hours to make it. Skyrocketing property costs.

The recession was an indicator of this and my question is, where we able to
divert disaster or did we just kick the disaster down to the next decade? What
political movement will help turn around the disaster that we are currently
facing (if we are facing a disaster)? I don't know the answer to this but I
personally see that there are a few economic bubbles we're sitting on tech,
real estate, government employment. Any one could pop and cause a massive
problem.

Does anyone have a place I can go to learn more about this? Specific books,
blogs, podcasts or sites that talk about these issues?

~~~
jsteinbeck
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

[https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John-
Steinbeck/dp/014303...](https://www.amazon.com/Grapes-Wrath-John-
Steinbeck/dp/0143039431)

“The Western States nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma,
Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved
from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the
land. The land company--that's the bank when it has land \--wants tractors,
not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long
furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours it would be good--not mine, but ours.
If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my
land, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land
when it was ours. But the tractor does two things--it turns the land and turns
us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank.
The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the
highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone
and bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another
family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and
the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear
revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect
each other. Here is the anlarge of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For
here "I lost my land" is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows
the thing you hate--"We lost our land." The danger is here, for two men are
not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first "we" there grows a
still more dangerous thing: "I have a little food" plus "I have none." If from
this problem the sum is "We have a little food," the thing is on its way, the
movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this
tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-
meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the
children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand.
The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool.
It was my mother's blanket--take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb.
This is the beginning--from "I" to "we."

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might
preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could
know Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might
survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you
forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

The Western States are nervous under the begining change. Need is the stimulus
to concept, concept to action. A half-million people moving over the country;
a million more restive, ready to move; ten million more feeling the first
nervousness.

And tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land.”

~~~
bargl
This is part of why I was able to pull my question together the way I did. I
read that book and I feel like it changed my perspective. It shows the damage
that happened to individuals but it doesn't stick with how people responded
after the depression.

------
Upvoter33
seems easy to deal with, but there is no political capital to do so. invest in
public infrastructure (roads, buildings, schools, health) and there will be
lots of jobs. no one is automating construction away any time too soon.

~~~
protomyth
Well, there is a small problem with that. Road projects on the eastern side of
North Dakota have been delayed because all the people capable of doing those
projects were on the western side making money in the oil fields. Vocational
education has for the most part been exiled from our high schools[1], and we
lack a lot of that expertise. Public infrastructure projects require people
trained to do them.

1) an interesting parallel to the decline of programming classes can be drawn
as both have specialized instructor and facility requirements

------
mohamedattahri
> "Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern. It is
> something we have been living with for two generations"

If American thought leaders such as Larry Summers think that technology
destroys jobs and that it's a relatively recent phenomenon, then America is
truly screwed.

~~~
tuna-piano
I'll leave this here for those making the "technical unemployment" argument.

After hundreds of years of virtually the same argument being made, I think the
burden is on you to say why this time is different.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre_16th_Century)

~~~
drewcrawford
It's not actually any different; "technical unemployment" has caused many
problems that are clearly visible from a cursory examination of the historical
record.

The obvious place to start is the horse: the horse population in the US peaked
at 26M in 1917 and had declined to 3M by 1960, almost 1/10th of its peak value
[0].

When those horses were unemployed by the automobile, we did not retrain them
in new lines of work. They just died. It got so bad that conversation
societies were established to protect endangered breeds.

Eventually we created a handful of new jobs in the recreational sector for
them, so the population of horses is rising now, but it is nowhere close to
the peak value, and of course we did not create those jobs within the lifetime
of any displaced horse.

In fact what the historical record shows is that massive technological shocks
produce long-term unemployment. It doesn't seem to matter if it's a horse,
because of course they're just resources to be exploited in the furtherance of
human goals. But then again, so are you.

[0]
[http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.p...](http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/hsp/soaiv_07_ch10.pdf)

~~~
mohamedattahri
I'm sorry, but the horses example is really terrible.

Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever. If your theory
stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy is growing?
Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've destroyed?

What about the other important element no one seems to care about in this
conversation: the jobs created - very often - require a higher level of skills
and specialization.

~~~
drewcrawford
> If your theory stands true, then how come that overall, the global economy
> is growing? Doesn't it mean that we've created more jobs that we've
> destroyed?

The number of jobs does not correlate to GDP growth [0]. So whether "the
economy is growing" is not terribly related to whether jobs are being created.
This is somewhat puzzling under Adam-Smith-Wealth-of-Nations ideas about
economics, but it's an empirical fact.

> Technological disruption is not new. It's been around forever.

You seem to be misunderstanding the argument; I'm not arguing for something
new. I'm arguing that negative effects of technological shock are well-
attested in the historical record: you can look back at historical data and
plainly see them.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-
growth...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/business/economy/us-growth-and-
employment-data-tell-different-stories.html?_r=0)

------
justinlardinois
Is this only a problem for men? And if so why?

I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than
fluff.

~~~
adventured
I can think of a few reasons.

1) Women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men.

2) Women are going to college at a higher rate than men.

3) Women have a higher literacy rate than men.

4) Women graduate from high school at a higher rate than men.

These trends are likely to continue. I don't see any possible scenario where
men are not worse off in 20 years than they are today, while the higher
educated women continue upwards. This is likely especially the case given that
trends in education are pointing drastically in favor of women.

If you examine men-heavy trades such as trucking, they are likely to almost
entirely disappear in regards to providing plentiful millions of moderate
paying jobs to fairly low skill blue collar workers. Nearly all taxi & Uber
type jobs will also disappear, those too are dominated by men. Manufacturing
will become even further automated by robotics + AI, those jobs are heavily
dominated by men. Even military jobs are likely to be meaningfully reduced by
leaps in automation and robotics.

~~~
jdhawk
And the "housewife" skew was probably pretty heavy in the 1970's, where his
data starts.

------
sp527
I love this version of Larry Summers effecting an air of concern for the
common man. It's almost like he never pushed for the deregulation of the
derivatives market. Magic!

~~~
blowski
It's possible to observe a trend without believing it should be prevented from
happening. His argument is that we need to deal with the consequences.

~~~
sp527
Sure. But pardon me for believing the only consequence he's liable to care
about is a pitchfork mob assembled outside his gates.

------
carsongross
Looming? Men now make up barely more than 1/3rd of all college students:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-gender-
fa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-gender-factor-in-
college-admissions/2014/03/26/4996e988-b4e6-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html)

The disaster is here, fam.

------
caublestone
"Second, the gains in average education and health of the workforce over the
last 50 years are unlikely to be repeated"

I'm cautious about arguments that rely on a pessimistic expectation that
progress will reverse because it's just never continued in the past. If the
argument identified some fundamental reasons why progress will slow instead of
drawing historical correlations then it would have merit. Then again if we
knew those principles then we could correct our society and avoid disaster.
Because this argument is flawed and human knowledge and understanding is the
only thing that solves human problems, the validity of the argument is lost.

------
koolba
Luddite arguments aside, why would anyone care what Larry Summers thinks? This
is the same guy that was a principal behind repealing Glass-Steagall. If
anything we should just do and think the opposite of whatever he says.

------
te
Without any evidence whatsoever, Larry Summers posits that the four-decade
long trend of an increasing share of young men not working implies "job
destruction caused by technology".

Instead, I think this trend is far more likely to be caused by an increasing
share of young women entering the workforce over the same timeframe.

------
ivanhoe
This will rise for a few more years and then will start to slowly fall off as
the old professions start to die, and more and more young people choose
professions still in demand. We are now simply in a transition period, both in
regard to the technology and the effects of the globalization.

------
methodover
I wonder if the employment rate would be different if the minimum wage were
zero.

~~~
c0nducktr
What good is employment when it doesn't pay enough to survive?

~~~
chumich1
nah man, everyone has the resources to turn down jobs which don't pay enough
/s

------
h4nkoslo
"Job destruction caused by technology" kind of begs the question, especially
when the US has an immigration policy that results in vast additions to the
labor supply that compete with natives.

~~~
whenwillitstop
Shhhh! There is a massive labor shortage dont you know?

~~~
dmode
Are you suggesting that US is importing a vast army of truckers from Asia ?

~~~
h4nkoslo
Summers is talking about hypothetical future job losses in, eg, trucking. I am
talking about present unemployment caused by excess labor in sectors like
agriculture, food processing, food service, nursing, construction, etc.

------
econner
I take pause when I see anything from Larry Summers. From his wikipedia page:

Summers's role in the deregulation of derivatives contracts

On May 7, 1998, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a
Concept Release soliciting input from regulators, academics, and practitioners
to determine "how best to maintain adequate regulatory safeguards without
impairing the ability of the OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives market to grow
and the ability of U.S. entities to remain competitive in the global financial
marketplace."[21] On July 30, 1998, then-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
Summers testified before the U.S. Congress that "the parties to these kinds of
contract are largely sophisticated financial institutions that would appear to
be eminently capable of protecting themselves from fraud and counterparty
insolvencies." At the time Summers stated that "to date there has been no
clear evidence of a need for additional regulation of the institutional OTC
derivatives market, and we would submit that proponents of such regulation
must bear the burden of demonstrating that need."[22] In 1999 Summers endorsed
the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and
commercial banks, saying "With this bill, the American financial system takes
a major step forward towards the 21st Century."[23]

When George Stephanopoulos asked Summers about the financial crisis in an ABC
interview on March 15, 2009, Summers replied that "there are a lot of terrible
things that have happened in the last eighteen months, but what's happened at
A.I.G. ... the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching ... is
outrageous."

At the 2005 Federal Reserve conference in Jackson Hole, Raghuram Rajan
presented a paper called "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?".
Rajan pointed to a number of potential problems with the financial
developments of the past thirty years.[24] The problems that Rajan considered
include skewed incentives of managers, herding behavior among traders,
investment bankers, and hedge fund operators who suffer withdrawals if they
under-perform the market. Rajan also discussed the problems associated with
firms that "goose up returns" by taking risky positions that yield a "positive
carry."[25] Justin Lahart, writing in the Wall Street Journal in January 2009
about the response to Rajan's paper at the conference recounts that "former
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, famous among economists for his
blistering attacks, told the audience he found 'the basic, slightly lead-eyed
premise of [Mr. Rajan's] paper to be largely misguided.'"[26]

In February 2009, Summers quoted John Maynard Keynes, saying "When
circumstances change, I change my opinion", reflecting both on the failures of
Wall Street deregulation and his new leadership role in the government
bailout.[27] On April 18, 2010, in an interview on ABC's "This Week" program,
Clinton said Summers was wrong in the advice he gave him not to regulate
derivatives.

