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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: benwood who wrote (128056)	1/10/2017 3:41:21 PM
From: Horgad	1 Recommendation Recommended By marcher Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 220400

We need to rethink society, economics, wealth dispersal, etc from the ground-up to adjust to the coming robotic age. Until then, things will just keep getting uglier from here out for the non robot owners. At least until robots are so easy and cheap to use that everyone has them and can operate them and use them to create wealth...but that is a ways off. Robots will eventually (seems soon) make the game of running around the globe chasing the lowest wage earners obsolete. That will be a good thing in the long run, but in the short run blood in the streets.

To: benwood who wrote (128056)	1/10/2017 4:30:13 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	1 Recommendation Recommended By Snowshoe Respond to of 220400

Amazon already has several shipping companies, and an interest in new delivery companies they helped get started like OnTrac which began life as California Overnight. in 1991. Amazon is basically a logistics company which is hugely automated. Other retailers like Macy's and Ralph Lauen who formerly used the same Kiva robots as Amazon turned to other vendors after Amazon bought Kiva. Ralph Lauren uses an interesting company called Newgistics for returns. I drop off clothes I want to return at the Post Office and they're picked-up by Newgistics the next day, scan everything in and dump them in bins to be taken back to warehouses to be repackaged and restocked. It's incredibly efficient, particularly for someone like myself who wears tall sizes brick and mortar stores have rarely ever sold - but online, niche markets like myself are all easily possible, available and very inexpensive. I buy a lot of things to try on and return 2/3 typically, ordering two different sizes and different colors. This is the future. As with Macy's, there will be fewer brick and mortar and more automated online warehouse sales.

To: benwood who wrote (128056)	1/10/2017 4:30:22 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 220400

Automation is the biggest change in the labor marketplace. Yet most Americans are focused on manufacturing jobs, less than 10% of the US economy, which might be sent off shore. Focusing on the wrong issue is not going to be productive. Robots are not the problem. When they left Serv-a-Portion, the industry leader making single portion items like jam and ketchup, in a dispute with DiGiorgio management, my uncle and others started three different companies in the same field. My Uncle took McDonalds with him, a very high volume but low-profit customer, to his new company Portions Inc. which operated in a warehouse owned by a golf cart distributor who was only using half of the space. A self-taught engineer who went with my Uncle built all of the processing and packaging machines for Portions Inc. Two years later, way back in 1972, when they faced a strike at their Cincinnati plant over higher wages. Due to their large low-margin customer making up 2/3 of their business my Uncle and the engineer decided to close for three months and automate as much as they could at that time, and hired back only 40% of the people who worked there with a wage increase. This was was 45 years ago! Portions Inc. became increasingly automated after that point while remaining in Cincinnati. No jobs were ever sent to Mexico or China, they were simply replaced by machinery and later more jobs were replaced with robots. They sold Portions, Inc. firm more than 20 years ago and I'm sure their employee to sale ration has continued to decline. This is the number one jobs issue, and it can't be solved by demanding that automation be halted, which would merely make US companies non-competitive with firms in other nations while at the same time drive down wages, Folks like Sdgla who are excited and jumping up and down that Sprint's Japanese owner is bringing back 5,000 part-time telephone support staff from the Philippines, like their competitors did several years ago, completely misunderstand what's happening and what the solution is.

To: benwood who wrote (128056)	1/10/2017 4:30:30 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	2 Recommendations Recommended By benwood RJA_ Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 220400

1.) Laws which allowed employers to give benefits only to those who work more than 30 hours a week created an economy where most people work less than 30 hours a week. This is a really simple change which can be made almost overnight - yet you'll never hear about this from Trump. Automation has occurred at the same pace in German and Australia, yet neither country has developed the huge income and wealth inequality the United States developed after Reagan reduced income taxes on top incomes by 2/3. This income and wealth inequality has nothing to do with robots, automation, or lower wages in China, Mexico, Vietnam or Pakistan. 2. ) Increasing income tax rates back to where they remained in Germany and Australia will eliminate the inequality which has developed over the past 35 years - and it will likely take 35 years to adjust back. Laws which require benefits for part-time workers would create full-time jobs, and raising income tax rate back to where they are in Germany and Australia would eliminate the income and wealth inequality and increase economic growth, just as Reagan's policies slowed economic growth. But instead of making these two simple changes to restore the Middle Class, people complain about Amazon and other efficient companies. It's madness.

To: benwood who wrote (128056)	1/10/2017 7:11:54 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	3 Recommendations Recommended By benwood GPS Info John Pitera Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 220400

We need industries providing full-time jobs for Americans with a more progressive income tax rate like we had prior to 1980. Trying to reclaim factory jobs from robots, or from workers paid so little they're still cheaper than robots is a dead-end. Companies who outsourced these jobs rather than using robots were very short-sighted as they lost much of their intellectual property in the process. Foxconn which makes most laptops and phones could have been, and should have been, a company in America rather than China. Foxconn will still move toward full automation regardless of where they're located. Businesses which have resorted to illegal workers to avoid automation have done so because they're businesses being operated by ignorant people who don't understand what can be done to provide fewer but much better paying jobs. Lets look at the service sector - in America people who work in restaurants and hotels are paid very little because by default this has become our social choice. Americans see only a low-paid future with a new labor secretary who ran the fast-food joint Carl's Jr. who thinks he knows the way to succeed is to reduce wages even further. This is not an acceptable answer. But these jobs are not badly paid in Germany or Australia. Because of our collective choices we have chosen them to be badly paying here in America. Some say this is because of "competitive pressure" but restaurants and hotels in America don't compete with restaurants and hotels in Mexico or China - or Germany or Australia. These jobs are low-paying because we've decided they should be - or to be more specific people like Donald Trump and his Labor Secretary have decided they need to be low-paid. Trump's new Labor Secretary, Pudzer, doesn't think workers should even have breaks - that would be laughable in Germany or Australia. - motherjones.com - Pudzer has always been opposed to minimum wage laws and has been sued repeatedly for failing to pay over-time to workers required to work longer than normal hours. Well that's revolutionary change which will improve our economy! Electing ignorant and kleptocratic people who gain popularity by demonizing weak people is never the answer. It's the problem. There's far more entrepreneurs running their own businesses in Germany and Australia. Why? In New Zealand Maurice runs his own business but years ago he worked for BP. In America healthcare coverage is not always available and it's extremely costly when businesses provide coverage. I know two business owners who will have to close their construction businesses and work for someone else if they lose their Obamacare coverage, because they have preexisting medical conditions, heart disease and the other diabetes. So these two men aren't fit to run a business in Trump's America. But they'd continue growing their business if they were in Germany or Australia. We need to take the burden of healthcare off of business owners and individual citizens and focus on making our economy more entrepreneurial which pays well. Trump and his cronies talk about the cost of "regulations" but healthcare is a cost which makes regulatory cost a trifle. I'm not talking about being a part-time contract driver for Uber at a wage which will have to decline quickly to compete with self-driving cars. These drivers are not entrepreneurs, they're modern day slaves. Ultimately these are all choices which we can decide differently to restore the Middle Class and rebuild the economy and opportunities for entrepreneurs. But voters have chosen a President who wants more of the same choices against 99% of Americans.