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On Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:44:15 -0400, wrote:

On Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:21:23 -0400, Wayne B
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:26:51 -0400, wrote:

A significant part of the GDP is just "money making money" not people
making things. A lot more is "robots making things"

Whether we like it or not, "robots making things" is here to stay.
It's the logical extension of the industrial revolution and will have
just as many socio-economic impacts as the first. With increasing
miniaturization many of today's products could not be built without
robotic assembly.

The real question is who will design, build and service the robots.
That's where the economic power will be, and it will not be done by
the uneducated and technologically illiterate.

The real problem is that 3 or 4 guys can keep a factory full of robots
going that displaced 1000 assembly workers.

The robot itself will be built in Asia.

I got to watch a graphic example of this at the telephone office here
in Naples
There used to be 3 floors of clicky, clacky frames full of relays and
switches. There were a dozen "frame hops" running around stringing
wires to make changes and cleaning relays. There were wire trays
stuffed with copper coming through the wall. That also supported an
office floor of support people.
A month later it was a small console.with one guy sitting there with
his feet on the table drinking coffee. Over in one corner there were a
few racks with a small bundle of fibers coming in. Most of the
"support" was outsourced.

I saw the same thing in computer rooms all over town.
58 IBM employees an a 2 story office complex were reduced to 3 guys
working from home.

We are simply getting a lot more work done with fewer workers. That
does not bode well for "labor".

So, training people for the high-tech jobs, the green jobs, the
infrastructure jobs, that doesn't "bode well" for labor? Nonsense.