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


To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (132102)3/15/2017 12:41:56 PM
From: Elroy Jetson  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217656
 
1.) The primary factor driving our low Labor Force Participation rate is the aging population, the baby boom, because the Labor Force is defined as all Americans older than the age of 17.

Until some time around 2036 or so, the percentage of the Labor Force older than 65 will continue to rise. Is it really a major social problem that few 85 year old Americans are not reporting to work every day? Republicans are concerned with this now only because the Baby Boom is making the percentage of over 65 year olds a bigger percentage of the population. Yes, eliminating Medicare and Social Security would increase the Labor Force Participation Rate as many would have no alternative but to find some type of job, but are we facing such desperate times as all that?

The US and Australia are in better shape than most because both countries accepted a large number of young immigrants, so our ratio of those under 65 to those over 65 is larger than other industrialized nations.

2.) Prosperity and success is another factor driving down labor force participation. Using myself as an example, I stopped participating in the labor force at the age of 44 only looking after my own investments since that time. This is probably more common than it was in the 1950s, but major social ill? I think not. This is not the Soviet Union.

3.) The third and far smaller force driving a decline in labor force participation is young people older than 17 obtaining more education. Using myself as an example again, I shamelessly remained out of the labor force for five years until the age of 23, only choosing to participate in the labor force during the summer. So in total I participated for only 22 years! And for some this type of success leaves them burning with anger.

Given your new understanding of the declining Labor Force Participation Rate, we can focus on jobs being lost to automation.

Some are jobs which required less intelligence and less education, but increasing specialization, better communication and AI systems are also allowing the very educated to do far more work than they could previously, reducing the number of people who would have been required to do those jobs.

Thirty years ago one Savings & Loan for sale had a very conservative balance sheet and a very low overhead. The CEO of the one office S&L was very proud of the fact he himself turned the sprinklers on and off, tended the garden around the building and many other jobs. Obviously when someone bought this S&L their overhead costs would rise and they'd also have a less conservative balance sheet as they spent more of their time making loans, perhaps even hiring a loan officer.

My own Father has tended to operate his real estate development and management company in a similar way. While he finds this "holistic approach", if we can call it that, very satisfying there were real costs to the business when he was hosing off a walkway. Today we're more specialized and more automated.

One thing I do know is people have no future trying to keep a job by being ever more willing to work for less and less so they can remain less expensive than automation. The future has to lie in new industries and new jobs which require a human.



To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (132102)3/15/2017 2:17:17 PM
From: Elroy Jetson  Respond to of 217656
 
Grandmother Wanda Holbrook, 57, was crushed to death by a robotic arm which erroneously entered her work area. She was working on the production line when the robotic arm crossed her work space and crushed her head against a hitch assembly it was working on, the lawsuit states.



Her husband William Holbrook has filed a wrongful death complaint against five robotic firms responsible for installing and testing the machinery that killed his wife.

The lawsuit states the failure of one or more safety system on the robot caused Wanda's death. The firms being sued are Lincoln Electric, Flex-N-Gate, Prodomax, FANUC and Nachi.

She had worked at the plant for 12 years, and her husband said she loved her job and told the Free Press she felt God meant for her to work at the factory.

Ventra Ionia Main auto parts plant in Michigan where Wanda Holbrook was killed by a rogue robot


The family is being represented by Matthew Wikander, an attorney from Grand Rapids.

He said the company has not allowed him access to Wanda's place of work and that the Holbrooks have been denied benefits while a compensation claim is in dispute.

Wikander told the Free Press: 'There may be other players involved. I think there's a lot more to this story.

We don't believe Wanda did anything wrong. Wanda was a very experienced professional. 'It's a catastrophic loss for the family.'

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The Univac Law 5000 defending the robotic firms sent out a press release describing humans as fragile weaklings who do not belong in the modern labor force.