advanced machines...... fall of man?

Congradulations, you realized something that has been going on since the Industrial Revolution. For that matter, how many accountants did Quicken put out of work?

Of course, this can also be seen as a good thing in many cases. For instance, we now have these cool mechanical gizmos for picking cotton - a job we used slave labor to do for us before these gizmos became available. Some people might see that as progress.

I had a friend of mine loose his job to one of those machines. The irony is that they only rent out a dozen or so films, so now people can only rent the new releases and not the entire library that the video store had.

1. Those people "out of work" are probably not. They most likely got another job where they are actually needed, and possibly even happier at the new job.

2. Those 5 jobs that were "lost" to humans aren't really lost. They are just replaced by something else. When that Big Red Machine breaks, there is now a mechanic who has a job fixing it, and a stocker who job it is to put movies in it, and someone else who collects and counts the money. And the construction workers who BUILD the machines you rent those movies from, the list goes on and on.

Like the person above mentioned, these types of advances aren't leading to loss of work force or computers taking over the world. For every computer or Quicken software made, there's dozens of idiots who dont know how to use them, or break them. And guess what? That creates a job for someone to come and fix it or teach you to use it!

Even cars are made by machines, but I believe that is because machines are cheaper and aren't controlled by a union. Heck I don't even use bank machines.

Cars are built by people who are assisted by machines. It is not a totally automated process.

No. Jobs cannot be created or lost. This has been happening FOREVER! When these machines cause downsizing, these people go on to work at places where they are needed now: hospitals, research firms, etc... These machines are not destroying jobs, they are allowing people to do other things while their previous job is still done! It's a great thing!

It's gas prices that will kill us all and not to mention George Bush's stupidity!

Go live in Europe for a while, then complain about gas prices here. Somehow their economies haven't collapsed from high fuel prices. The reality is that Americans take artificially low fuel prices for granted, then whine when reality starts showing through. Twenty years from now $3 gas will seem dirt cheap - assuming we still use gas at all.

I won't speak to the stupidity part, except to note that there are 535 other idiots sharing responsibility, even if Bush is the most visible :NOTSURE: 

I've done some basic study of economics, so let me break it down for you.

Wealth basically = work. The more work an average person can get done, through machines, automations, and whatever, the more average wealth there is per person. When people first began being replace by machines well over a century ago, a lot of people lost work. Yet compare early industrial revolution and before, where a day's work was sundown to sunup 6 days a week and sometime seven, no free time and likely just hovel to live in. Now those same countries the mandatory work week is 40 hours a week and people spend a lot of their money trying to fill up all the extra time they have. The poorest today have luxuries the riches would have given great wealth to possess back then.

Why? Because a single person working through machines can simply accomplish a lot more than a single person could back then. Hence there are more good and services available, hence the average person has more now than he had then.

So yeah, those five folks losing their jobs may be tough for them, but it actually helps the economy as a whole.

Imagine being born 500 years ago.. what a nightmare

Its horrible machine and gas people like mangers like make them bad

so its total nightmare

I hate this. People say, "Oh, it's this guy who owns oil, or this manager, who sets the high prices. *!*! him!"

No. Nobody sets prices. The market sets prices, and the market sets correct prices. It can't help itself!

When government sets prices, thing only get worse.

not always. Prices are often set on speculation and projection. Take for example, the housing market bubble, Tech bubble, stock market crash of 1929. We don't operate on a pure supply/demand economy. There is a lot more to the modern economy - credit, investment, foreign events, speculation.

Here's an example: I moved from a rural area to a city, and my car insurance went down by nearly 1/2. It defies market logic, but it fits into a more complicated formula arbitrarily created by the insurance company.

Speculation and projection are often what causes demand curves to move. In fact, the 1929 crash was very similar to the tech bubble in the 1990s - even to the point that it was high-tech stocks that led the collapse. Demand for high-yielding stocks far outstripped the supply, causing massive price inflation far above what the stocks were actually worth. Likewise, the housing bubble was caused by an imbalanced supply/demand curve.

You are right that the economy is not entirely supply/demand, but most of what you assume is not supply/demand actually IS, just in a different form. There are only three major forces in the economy: supply, demand, and government regulation. Almost any effect you can see is a direct result of one or more of these forces.



That's not really an arbitrary formula, there's an entire profession based around calculating risks for insurance like that. The odds of your car being involved in an accident are less out in the country compared to in a city, so the insurance rates should reflect this. However, the value of your car, your driving record, age, gender, etc are all invoved in those calculations. More importantly in your case, the distance of your daily commute probably changed enough to lower your rates.

Some times, too, the statistics themselves make no real sense. Sometimes they just happen that way rather than being any real cause and effect, but it effects the companies bottom line the same way in either case.

Which, by the way, brings up a forth market force that affects prices--operational expenses. Expenses for the insurance companies are more the higher the chances get they'll have to pay.

You all forgot to mention that now everyone renting those videos is saving money that can be spent on other things, or can be saved altogether.

Which means the avg joe doesn't have to work as much since things are cheaper.

You left out the fourth, most powerful force: Greed.

Greed pays the bribes to public officials who unfairly manipulate government regulations in favor of their corporate sugar daddies to damage the competition that would otherwise make a fair market more healthy than it is. Greed prompts executives to layoff American workers and hire offshore hellhole subcontractors so that they can pretend to shareholders that they're they're not wasting the air they breath in their huge corner offices. Greed causes soulless investors to make stock purchasing decisions that encourage companies to profit from the misfortune of others.

Greed has a higher body count than any other toxic meme, with the possible exception of Fanaticism.

Oh good. You mention outsourcing, the greatest thing in the world. One, it provides work for people in African and Asian countries, who, incidentally, are happy to work for the tiny prices that are a fraction of what we would be paid, and who hate the idiotic campaigners in rich countries like ours who don't understand what it is to be countries.

Also, outsourcing frees up jobs for people in our countries who can move on to better jobs.

I don't know if this was said yet, but no one was unemplyed. When you think about it, didn't the companies that created the machine need people, if not to assemble it, create the idea. Thinking creatively is something that no robot can replace, and creative thinking is the only thing you really need to keep a job...

The loss of jobs to machines has so far always been to the benefit of mankind in general. I am happy to see machines taking 'mundane' jobs from humans, but if machines ever start taking jobs related to things like art and literature - things that define us as human, it is then that you will have to worry!

Countries that enable the super-rich to steal jobs from Americans are our economic enemies. If the super-rich really want to help third world people, instead of exploiting cheap overseas labor, they should follow Warren Buffet's example and give a big chunk of their assets to charity. Outsourcing doesn't provide people who've had their jobs stolen better opportunities, it help them lose their houses to unpayable mortgages. More outsourcers should provide free education and training to the people they've hurt by stealing their jobs.

The country that does that is America! or any country with a stock exchange. Countries with stock exchanges mean that corporate loyalty is to the shareholders, not the citizens. If outsourcing benefits shareholders, then nothing more is of any importance.

If you don't like outsourcing, forget voting in elections, buy shares and vote with shareholders, that is where the real power is!

Too bad there isn't a game where you can control the economy at a global - no galactic level and pit yourself against other races and build things like stock markets and such. Things like research and exporation and expanding your influence would hinge on how you managed the economy of this Galactic Civilization....hmmm.... Naw, nevermind - it'd never work.

Ownership of stock in companies that encourage outsourcers to steal American jobs is economic treason. Greed is not good. Gordon Gekko is not God.

Just playing the devil's advocate here, but what makes a job "American"? You say that outsourcing is not good for Americans, but isn't outsourcing good for the people in other countries? Is it the business' fault that Americans (among other nations) has decided, via legislation concerning minimum wage, that they are unwilling and don't want jobs that pay less than $7.50? The most basic element of economics is trade; I have something you want, you have something I want, and we agree to exchange our goods in a way that is mutually beneficial, but why should citizens have the right to force a one-sided trade upon unwilling parties?