Ponderable

Bruddah IZ said:
Individual workers have individual needs, circumstances and, skill levels. Employers have individual needs, circumstances and, skill requirements. Negotiation is a good skill.
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So the squeaky wheel gets the grease? The golden tongued ones get more of the gold? What about Boxer, works harder than anyone, never questions or complains about a thing, how will he be compensated in your every man for himself conservative wonderland?
 
xav10 said:
Bad law. Long irrelevant. But citing a 1905 case shows how modern your argument is.
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Okay, sure. First of all, I think the first thing to note about this case is its title. It's Lochner--he was the employer of a bunch of workers in some kind of a factory, baking bread, I think it was. And then on the other side, it's New York. That's the State. This is a criminal case. And what they are doing is they are suing Mr. Lochner for either a fine or perhaps a jail sentence. And his crime is to essentially employ his bakers with their consent for more than 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week. And so these are maximum hour laws. And the progressives love these laws. They were championed by people like Felix Frankfurter with a passion which is almost hard to imagine today on the grounds that they are protecting [?] workers from exploitations by their employer. Now, the first piece about the story which is a little bit odd is it turns out none of the employees are protesting. They'd worked under these arrangements for a long time with Mr. Lochner and are apparently happy with their lot. If you then start looking at macro-data to see what happens with this exploitation, it's exactly what the competitive economist will tell you, is that these wages tended to rise slowly with productivity; nothing fancy, but steady and sure. And that the number of hours worked, ironically, during this period started to drop down because as the wages got higher, the workers decided that they would prefer a little more time and leisure; and they and their employers can make bargains for this. So if you actually look at this as a market phenomenon, there is tremendous social progress in the very period for which the progressives are claiming exploitation is the norm. And my favorite measure on this, Russ, is life expectancy. In 1900, about 46 years, 47 years, for men and for women, roughly the same. By 1920 it was up to 54. Now you don't get that by exploiting workers. The only way you can move those aggregates up is to also move people at the bottom. And what drives it is in effect higher incomes, which allow you to get better food, and huge technical advances--in that period chiefly with the discovery of the various vitamin deficiency diseases like pellagra and beriberi. And the simple cures from them that don't require an FDA (Food and Drug Administration) or anybody in order to do something. So the picture on the ground is pretty good. But now what happens is: Why do you bring this suit? And the reason it was brought was that these particular bakers were in competition with union bakers. And union bakers in fact had different modes of production. They had a crew that came in the afternoon and baked the bread and went home; and then they had a crew in the morning that came in and packaged the bread and distributed it to their customers. But what Lochner's bakers did, was essentially they slept on the job. So they got in, did some work, went to sleep, got up again; and if you count the sleepless part of the work period they are always in violation, comfortably, of the maximum hour laws. So what you do is you have one mode of production which is differentially impacted by neutral, [?] neutral set of laws that are passed to drive them out of business. And Peckham, who came from New York State sort of understood all of this as part of the political economy.--Dick Epstein
 
Hüsker Dü said:
So the squeaky wheel gets the grease? The golden tongued ones get more of the gold? What about Boxer, works harder than anyone, never questions or complains about a thing, how will he be compensated in your every man for himself conservative wonderland?
Click to expand...
Individual workers have individual needs, circumstances and, skill levels. Employers have individual needs, circumstances and, skill requirements. Compensation calculated by considering the aforementioned.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
So the squeaky wheel gets the grease? The golden tongued ones get more of the gold? What about Boxer, works harder than anyone, never questions or complains about a thing, how will he be compensated in your every man for himself conservative wonderland?
Click to expand...
Doesn't ca have an assisted suicide law?
 
A 15-hour work week. That's what influential economist John Maynard Keynes prophesied in his famous 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," forecasting that in the next century technology would make us so productive we wouldn't know what to do with all our free time.
This is not the future Keynes imagined.

Many higher income workers put in 50 or more hours per week, according to an NPR/Harvard/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll. Meanwhile, lower-income workers are fighting to get enough hours to pay the bills, as shown in a University of Washington report on Seattle's $15 minimum wage publicized this week.

Yet some of today's best minds are making Keynes-like predictions. This month, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said robots will one day replace us — but we needn't worry for a few hundred years.

In May, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Harvard's 2017 class that increased automation would strip us not only of our jobs but also of our sense of purpose.
Special report:Automation puts jobs in peril

The problem: Skills gap
Automation. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Many experts disagree on what these new technologies will mean for the workforce, the economy and our quality of life. But where they do agree is that technology will change (or completely take over) tasks that humans do now. The most pressing question, many economists and labor historians say, is whether people will have the skills to perform the jobs that are left.

"We are moving into an era of extensive automation and a period in which capitalism is just simply not going to need as many workers," said Jennifer Klein, a Yale University professor who focuses on labor history. "It's not just automating in manufacturing but anything with a service counter: grocery stores, movie theaters, car rentals ... and this is now going to move into food service, too.

"What are we going to do in an era that doesn't need as many people? It's not a social question we've seriously addressed."

Instead of worrying about the mass unemployment a robot Armageddon could bring, we should instead shift our attention to making sure workers — particularly low-wage workers — have the skills they need to compete in an automated era, says James Bessen, an economist, Boston University law lecturer, and author of the book Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth.

"The problem is people are losing jobs and we're not doing a good job of getting them the skills and knowledge they need to work for the new jobs," Bessen said.

Addressing this skills gap will require a paradigm shift both in the way we approach job training and in the way we approach education, he said.

"Technology is very disruptive. It is destroying jobs. And while it is creating others, because we don’t have an easy way to transition people from one occupation to another, we’re going to face increased social disruption," he said.

In this new age, Bessen said, we can't treat learning as finite.

"We need to move to a world where there is lifelong learning," he said. "You have to get rid of this idea that we go to school once when we’re young and that covers us for our career. ... Schools need to teach people how to learn, how to teach themselves if necessary."


http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...about-this-is/ar-BBDrWDv?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=iehp
 
A 15 hour work week.....continued

Universal basic income
A universal basic income (UBI) has been proposed as one possible solution to the loss of jobs caused by automation. A UBI would give everyone a fixed amount of money, regularly, no matter what. Proponents say not only would it help eradicate poverty, but it would be especially useful for people whose jobs are eliminated by automation, giving them the flexibility to learn new skills required in a new job or industry, without having to worry about how they'd eat or pay rent.

Some also suggest it would breed innovation. In his Harvard speech, Zuckerberg told the audience: "We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things."

Several countries are exploring or experimenting with a UBI, including Kenya, Finland, the Netherlands and Canada.

Concerns about automation aren't new
Americans have been worrying about automation wiping out jobs for centuries, and in some occupations, automation has drastically reduced the need for human labor.

  • In 1900, 41% of American workers were employed in agriculture, but by 2000, automated machinery brought that number down to just 2%, MIT professor David Autor wrote in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2015.
  • The arrival of the automobile ushered out horses, reducing the need for blacksmiths and stable hands.
  • In the 21st century, computers are increasingly performing tasks humans once did.
But the relationship between automation and employment is complex. When automation replaces human labor, it can also reduce cost and improve quality, which, in turn, increases demand.

Such was the case in textiles. In the early 19th century, 98% of the work of a weaver became automated, but the number of textile workers actually grew.

"At the beginning of the 19th century, it was so expensive that ... a typical person had one set of clothing," Bessen said. "As the price started dropping because of automation, people started buying more and more, so that by the 1920s the average person was consuming 10 times as much cloth per capita per year."

More demand for cloth meant a greater need for textile workers. But that demand, eventually, was satisfied.

When ATMs were introduced in the 1970s, people thought they would be a death knell for bank tellers. The number of tellers per bank did fall, but because ATMs reduced the cost of operating a bank branch, more branches opened, which in turn hired more tellers. U.S. bank teller employment rose by 50,000 between 1980 and 2010. But the tasks of those tellers evolved from simply dispensing cash to selling other things the banks provided, like credit cards and loans. And the skills those tellers had that the ATMs didn't — like problem solving — became more valuable.

When computers take over some human tasks within an occupation, Bessen's research shows those occupations grow faster, not slower.

"AI is coming in and it’s going to make accountants that much better, it’s going to make financial advisers that much better, it’s going to make health care providers that much more effective, so we’re going to be using more of their services at least for the next 10 or 20 years," Bessen said.

These examples, though, are of occupations where automation replaces some part of human labor. What about when automation completely replaces the humans in an entire occupation? So far, that's been pretty rare. In a 2016 paper, Bessen looked at 271 detailed occupations used in the 1950 Census and found that while many occupations no longer exist, in only one case was the demise of an occupation attributed mostly to automation: the elevator operator.

A 2017 report from the McKinsey Global Institute found that less than 5% of occupations can be completely automated.

What's in store
History has taught us a lot about how automation disrupts industries, though economists admit they can't account for the infinite ways technology may unsettle work in the future.

When a new era of automation does usher in major economic and social disruption — which Bessen doesn't predict will happen for at least another 30 to 50 years — it's humans that will ultimately decide the ways in which robots get to change the world.

"It's not a threat as much as an opportunity," he said. "It’s how we take advantage of it as individuals and a society that will determine the outcome."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...about-this-is/ar-BBDrWDv?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=iehp
 
Lion Eyes said:
A 15 hour work week.....continued

Universal basic income
A universal basic income (UBI) has been proposed as one possible solution to the loss of jobs caused by automation. A UBI would give everyone a fixed amount of money, regularly, no matter what. Proponents say not only would it help eradicate poverty, but it would be especially useful for people whose jobs are eliminated by automation, giving them the flexibility to learn new skills required in a new job or industry, without having to worry about how they'd eat or pay rent.

Some also suggest it would breed innovation. In his Harvard speech, Zuckerberg told the audience: "We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things."

Several countries are exploring or experimenting with a UBI, including Kenya, Finland, the Netherlands and Canada.

Concerns about automation aren't new
Americans have been worrying about automation wiping out jobs for centuries, and in some occupations, automation has drastically reduced the need for human labor.

  • In 1900, 41% of American workers were employed in agriculture, but by 2000, automated machinery brought that number down to just 2%, MIT professor David Autor wrote in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2015.
  • The arrival of the automobile ushered out horses, reducing the need for blacksmiths and stable hands.
  • In the 21st century, computers are increasingly performing tasks humans once did.
But the relationship between automation and employment is complex. When automation replaces human labor, it can also reduce cost and improve quality, which, in turn, increases demand.

Such was the case in textiles. In the early 19th century, 98% of the work of a weaver became automated, but the number of textile workers actually grew.

"At the beginning of the 19th century, it was so expensive that ... a typical person had one set of clothing," Bessen said. "As the price started dropping because of automation, people started buying more and more, so that by the 1920s the average person was consuming 10 times as much cloth per capita per year."

More demand for cloth meant a greater need for textile workers. But that demand, eventually, was satisfied.

When ATMs were introduced in the 1970s, people thought they would be a death knell for bank tellers. The number of tellers per bank did fall, but because ATMs reduced the cost of operating a bank branch, more branches opened, which in turn hired more tellers. U.S. bank teller employment rose by 50,000 between 1980 and 2010. But the tasks of those tellers evolved from simply dispensing cash to selling other things the banks provided, like credit cards and loans. And the skills those tellers had that the ATMs didn't — like problem solving — became more valuable.

When computers take over some human tasks within an occupation, Bessen's research shows those occupations grow faster, not slower.

"AI is coming in and it’s going to make accountants that much better, it’s going to make financial advisers that much better, it’s going to make health care providers that much more effective, so we’re going to be using more of their services at least for the next 10 or 20 years," Bessen said.

These examples, though, are of occupations where automation replaces some part of human labor. What about when automation completely replaces the humans in an entire occupation? So far, that's been pretty rare. In a 2016 paper, Bessen looked at 271 detailed occupations used in the 1950 Census and found that while many occupations no longer exist, in only one case was the demise of an occupation attributed mostly to automation: the elevator operator.

A 2017 report from the McKinsey Global Institute found that less than 5% of occupations can be completely automated.

What's in store
History has taught us a lot about how automation disrupts industries, though economists admit they can't account for the infinite ways technology may unsettle work in the future.

When a new era of automation does usher in major economic and social disruption — which Bessen doesn't predict will happen for at least another 30 to 50 years — it's humans that will ultimately decide the ways in which robots get to change the world.

"It's not a threat as much as an opportunity," he said. "It’s how we take advantage of it as individuals and a society that will determine the outcome."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...about-this-is/ar-BBDrWDv?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=iehp
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Great article. Thanks for posting.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
Ah yes another idiot who thinks they know all about "union workers" ask Bernie the plumber, he has a union employee in his house. Ask if she is a slacker? I doubt she is.
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Wasn't America at its greatest when unions were strongest? I mean non-public unions...isn't that when he had a strong middle class?
 
xav10 said:
Wasn't America at its greatest when unions were strongest? I mean non-public unions...isn't that when he had a strong middle class?
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Yep, everyone's wages and work conditions got better the stronger unions grew. The war on non-public unions, as you put it, is basically the war on the middle class. Production based incentives (having and keeping a job in my case) are what makes companies money. Non-union companies never keep up with safety and production advancements and when they do (due to trying to keep up with union production) they soon fall off. They can attempt to mimic union safety and production, and that is fine, but once the union is gone all standards fall. The cooperation I work for is international, the only union branch is here on the west coast SD, LA, SF areas, and also are the companies most profitable. You pay for what you get as a consumer and as as industry. Low pay, unsafe conditions, lack of benefits lead to a lot of employee turnover and retraining costs. The best always want to be where their compensation is greatest, that is the American way, that is capitalism.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
Ah yes another idiot who thinks they know all about "union workers" ask Bernie the plumber, he has a union employee in his house. Ask if she is a slacker? I doubt she is.
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I am sure she is not, Bernie wouldn't have it. You on the other hand obviously didn't enough male guidance growing up, I am here for you. All you have to do is drive through any city and check out the city workers, 1 working and 3 watching. Not all union workers are slackers but the vast majority are. Especially you.
My son is in a union.
 
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