2011-08-18, 07:04 | Link #15882 | |
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
Quote:
Besides the first thing we would do in space is start fighting over the best mining spots and silly stuff like that. |
|
2011-08-18, 08:32 | Link #15884 | ||
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
|
Quote:
Quote:
Without an absolutely massive stimulus project (I mean something bigger than FDR's New Deal and WW2), you are not going to "fix" unemployment. Can you get more people working? Yes. But there will still be many out of work or underemployed, and after you are done building all of that infrastructure (the easiest and most benefit from an investment/return analysis), keeping all those newly employed people from going back out of work will be a challenge. Although austerity isn't smart either (it's one of those "sounds good, but in practice hasn't worked out so great" things), we've reached the peak of the modern Capitalist economic system. Now we're just hitting the bumpy plateau where finite resources (people and earth) clash with infinite growth expectations. The bubbles get bigger, the crashes get worse, until you have nothing left.
__________________
|
||
2011-08-18, 10:22 | Link #15887 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
|
Quote:
They calculate unemployment rate by asking a series of questions, and determining from your answers your status under their system. Unemployed are (understandably) only those who are currently seeking employment, and if you have searched in the past 4 weeks for work, and not engaged in work for the previous week that person is considered unemployed in the survey. They don't count jobs, they count people. And they make explicity mention of eliminating overlap It makes sense to exclude people who have not engaged in paid work, and not searched for employment because then you'd end out including housewives, people who can't work due to disability and people working on family farms into unemployment statistics, which would make things absurd. There is no other real way to distinguish someone being "not in the labour force" (those not searching for work) and those who are, in fact, unemployed. And the seasonal adjustment thing is fine as well, otherwise we'd have difficulty interpreting the statistics due to actual seasonal fluctuations, mainly the cessation of farm work in winter, and the large number of former students entering the labour pool every may on graduation. Finally, it's not their job to say whether someone is underemployed. They're just reporting the unemployment rates. Janitorial work may be unpleasant and poorly paid, but it still counts as work. There's another department that reports detailed employment statistics. Furthermore they can make more accurate assessments after the census, which does report labour status/occupation. And my point is that there hasn't been any historical rise in the unemployment rates, and considering they've been using the same methodology to calculate labour statistics since the 40s, it's reasonable to say that increased industrialization has not lead to more unemployment. And it's difficult to make a judgement as to whether people are worse off now compared to 50 years ago. For one thing, we now all possess computers, which would have been considered an absurdly expensive luxury in 1960 |
|
2011-08-18, 10:48 | Link #15888 | |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
|
Quote:
http://portalseven.com/employment/un...nt_rate_u6.jsp
__________________
|
|
2011-08-18, 11:14 | Link #15890 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
N.Korea 'Wanted to Shoot Down S.Korean Defense Chief's Chopper'
"North Korean military units talked about the possibility of shooting down a
helicopter carrying Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin during his visit to a frontline unit in July, officials here said Monday. Intelligence agencies have started investigating whether the North Koreans actually tried to shoot down Kim's helicopter and how they got hold of his frontline tour schedule." See: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...081600941.html Are the N. Koreans that eager for another Korean War? |
2011-08-18, 11:50 | Link #15891 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
|
Quote:
|
|
2011-08-18, 12:18 | Link #15892 | |
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2006
|
Quote:
My argument is that as technology has automated each sector, those sectors have shifted the jobs to new sectors. But the last remaining sector where you can employ massive amounts of people, the service sector, is also increasingly automating as well. This recession, the one we're in right now, is more difficult to "fix" because sectors where you could previously grow jobs, like manufacturing, are being outsourced to cheap labor in foreign countries, and heavily automated whenever possible. There are not enough McJobs to go around unless you increase the amount of pointless "filler" jobs that automation is used to cut down on anyway, and there are only so many "high skill" jobs to fill because (to use an analogy) you can't throw more mechanics in a room and expect your car to be fixed faster. 80% of the labor force in the US is service based (the so called tertiary economy). When that gives way to mass automation, where do the people go? Back to farming? Can't. Back to manufacturing? Can't. Even if you stopped outsourcing somehow, you'd still bleed jobs because of automation.
__________________
|
|
2011-08-18, 12:52 | Link #15893 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
|
We simply provide more services. Also, people will do less work. Right now people have to work about 10 hours per day. A lot of people who are already earning enough for their own needs are choosing to work less. I think among young employees the top work desires are flexi time and work sharing. It's the way of the future.
Also, more people will be engaged in creative work rather then mindless repetitive tasks. I for one won't lament the loss of menial service jobs that no one really wants to do. I'm not a crystal ball peerer, but I'm sure enterprising fellows will figure out what to do with all the cheap avaliable labour. Perhaps we'll reach a stage where we won't need to depend on employers, and we can work for ourselves, as in time of old. |
2011-08-18, 13:03 | Link #15895 | |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2011-08-18, 13:04 | Link #15896 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Australia
Age: 41
|
Israel pounds Gaza after deadly attacks near Eilat
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2011-08-18, 13:13 | Link #15897 | ||
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 35
|
That's Japan, and you can see how it weights down the recovery efforts for two decades going.
Though to be fair it is more of a symptom than a cause. Quote:
Or you could become a stockbroker or something and get your share of empty-air money. You either give people welfare or give them jobs (and actually most people -- despite all the whining about welfare coddling and all the slander -- would rather be happier with jobs, especially substantive jobs). If you aren't willing to have welfare and you're bleeding jobs to give, it's a bit of a problem getting the cycle running again. The spice must flow, except it doesn't flow. You also have the choice of destroying the cycle and inventing it anew, flood Arrakis and make a paradise of it, the spice be damned. If the trend of increasing efficiency continues, sustainability increased, and/or new resources can be accessed, the abundance provided by technology could ensure a high quality of life for anyone, provided there is a means of distributing this abundance outside of a wage economy. But good luck selling that anywhere. Quote:
Just how many webcomics do you read a day? |
||
2011-08-18, 13:51 | Link #15898 | |||
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
|
Quote:
In Ireland maybe ^^'- I work my 7 hours a day (then again, as a software developer it is hard to concentrate much longer anyway). I think in Germany the norm was 40 hours a week, but that was turned into flexible models where workers typically work less hours a week most of the time. With one exception, the low skilled workforce. They can be easily exploited by employers because there are so many of them in the job market. The employers reasoning goes like this: You don't want to loose your job and the little you have, then work extra shifts or I get someone of those 100 other candidates that gladly make your job instead of you. Thats the capitalist reality Quote:
Quote:
Actually you can use them to fight useless wars... or as audience in afternoon talk shows... or you buy yourself some angry voters who in turn vote for your candidates that will implement your policies as laws. There are many ways to use these folks, unfortunately a lot of not so nice ones too.
__________________
|
|||
2011-08-18, 13:54 | Link #15899 | ||||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 36
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Consider games. A great example is Paradox Interactive. They make games I absolutely love, and they also make games that are only popular with a small number of people. Most people would find their games dull at best (why am I spending so much time looking at spreadsheets?), I don't know what their sales are, but they have only 12 employees (very small for a game developer) and probably sell in the range of 50,000 copies per game. The last century was the century of mass market entertainment. Blockbusters, entertainment that had to cater to everyone's taste. The next century will see a flowering of more and more niche interests being able to stand on their own. Entertainment has already grown a lot in the last decade, look at how much more anime is produced now compared to 10 years ago. Look at Video games. I don't see that growth slowing down any time soon. People still have lots of free time, and still are trying to find ways to fill it up. |
||||
Tags |
current affairs, discussion, international |
|
|