Engineers

Originally posted by WoodPush
Millions of people just got their cookies at a lower price, allowing them to use their new-found savings to buy luxury homemade quilts from a start-up company of retired grandmothers.

Productivity improvements present opportunities to spend time elsewhere. Yes, there's short term structural unemployment, but a long term gain. As you say, society must be (and is) structured to support the unemployed and elderly.

The Bachelors class of educated people are next on the chopping block...soon it will become an obsolete degree, just as a highschool education is becoming today...I'm not saying its a bad thing necessarily, that is the goal ( to increase education standards)but it too will have side effects.

And in response to your response....you must be living in a dreamland if you think thats what actually happened.

Originally posted by joe shmo
And in response to your response....you must be living in a dreamland if you think thats what actually happened.

Oh for crying out loud, spend a little time thinking. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Not me, not you. We both have illustrations of the dynamic.

In mine, I illustrate that opportunity didn't disappear - it shifted.

In yours, where you say the boss captured all of the profits and that saved effort somehow disappeared entirely, you fail to wrap your mind around the concept that increased productivity doesn't destroy opportunity. What did the boss do with the money, did it evaporate?

Understand yet?

Originally posted by WoodPush
Oh for crying out loud, spend a little time thinking. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Not me, not you. We both have illustrations of the dynamic.

In mine, I illustrate that opportunity didn't disappear - it shifted.

In yours, where you say the boss captured all of the profits and that saved effort somehow disappeared entirely, you fail to wr ...[text shortened]... estroy opportunity. What did the boss do with the money, did it evaporate?

Understand yet?

I'm failing to see why what our hypothetical boss did with the money is relevant? I know they dont say " ok, we layed off 100's of people, I'm going to divy up their combined salary and distribute it amongst the remaining employes". Removing employees is advantagious to the company if production remains unaffected, and the advantage is owned by the person that controls the money. Regardless of what he does with the money, its his, he alone acrued the wealth, while the total tax contribution from his corporation to support the unemployment that he created cannot not be anywhere near that of the total publics tax contribution, otherwise it wouldn't be benificial to replace employees with technology to make money, and being the greedy calculating individuals that we are, we wouldn't make that decision.

Originally posted by joe shmo
I'm failing to see why what our hypothetical boss did with the money is relevant? I know they dont say " ok, we layed off 100's of people, I'm going to divy up their combined salary and distribute it amongst the remaining employes". Removing employees is advantagious to the company if production remains unaffected, and the advantage is owned by the person ...[text shortened]... and being the greedy calculating individuals that we are, we wouldn't make that decision.

Because that money gets spent on something.

Your situation is unrealistic. First of all, in general, its not "The Boss" that gets the money. It's the corporation. Corporations use free cash flow to grow the business, spend on advertising, invest in research... these things all result in jobs.

And even if the company did give it all in one big bonus to the CEO, which is totally unrealistic, that CEO himself will ultimately spend that money on something - which also results in jobs.

The money doesn't disappear.

Originally posted by WoodPush
Because that money gets spent on something.

Your situation is unrealistic. First of all, in general, its not "The Boss" that gets the money. It's the corporation. Corporations use free cash flow to grow the business, spend on advertising, invest in research... these things all result in jobs.

And even if the company did give it all in one big bonus ...[text shortened]... end that money on something - which also results in jobs.

The money doesn't disappear.

Ok, here is a hypothetical loop...

let say he puts the the recovered money back into R&D, they inturn find and erraticate more inefficiencies in the company ( ie jobs ). However, the newly found inefficiencies must be a tier above the previously deleted jobs. It makes no difference, inefficiencies are inefficiencies are inefficiencies... so the next tier is deleted, ect... and this process continues until all possible inefficiencies in the corporation have been removed. Each one of these tier deletions removes more people from the low teir working polulation, than it replaces in the upper tier( ie money is recovered). This has to be the case otherwise finding enifficiecies and removing them with technology would not be benificial. The end result is either that a small producer can sustain a large population, or a small population can sustain a large producer. At this point we know that the dynamics of the consumer/producer system have attined a state of equilibrum, becuause no more efficiencies can be removed.

Originally posted by joe shmo
Are we/they resonsible for creating unemployment. I wouldn't generally limit the crisis to this feild alone, but it serves as an obvious target...perhaps we can explore other fields that affect this phenomenon as well.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: hell no.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Short answer: no.

Long answer: hell no.

Quite to the point indeed, but content would be appriciated?

Originally posted by joe shmo
Quite to the point indeed, but content would be appriciated?

There is full employment in any society because there is always something more useful to do than sitting around doing nothing. Unemployment is caused by the way society is structured, not by some inevitable law of nature. Saying "engineers" cause unemployment is like saying farmers cause unemployment because they have made hunter-gatherers redundant.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
There is full employment in any society because there is always something more useful to do than sitting around doing nothing. Unemployment is caused by the way society is structured, not by some inevitable law of nature. Saying "engineers" cause unemployment is like saying farmers cause unemployment because they have made hunter-gatherers redundant.

Did you mean "There is [potential for] full employment..."?

I ask because it doesn't make sense to me as it stands atm.

Otherwise I agree with your position.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
There is full employment in any society because there is always something more useful to do than sitting around doing nothing. Unemployment is caused by the way society is structured, not by some inevitable law of nature. Saying "engineers" cause unemployment is like saying farmers cause unemployment because they have made hunter-gatherers redundant.

What makes you think the structures we create in society aren't governed by the laws of nature?

Originally posted by googlefudge
Did you mean "There is [potential for] full employment..."?

I ask because it doesn't make sense to me as it stands atm.

Otherwise I agree with your position.

Yes, of course I wouldn't deny there are people out of work.

Originally posted by joe shmo
What makes you think the structures we create in society aren't governed by the laws of nature?

I guess that boils down to a determinism vs. non-determinism-question, but I don't think that is a relevant issue here. Suppose we could make the macro-scale decisions that would create full employment, then we could (see what I did there?).

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Yes, of course I wouldn't deny there are people out of work.

Just checking.