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Brexit, the economy and house prices (Part 3)
Comments
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Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »...
Disruption because of progress isn't a bad thing. it's just how we handle it.
I was with one company who adopted pretty advanced manufacturing.
They recognised the competition threat, and had this plan called project 2000, a ten year project to address the challenges.
The situation changed so quickly they had implemented what they could in just 3 years.
The accountants came along, the tax breaks for moving the operation offshore were clear, and the place is now a housing estate.
As you say, it's how we handle disruption...hmm.0 -
A_Medium_Size_Jock wrote: »Because of one story about a supposedly leaked immigration police - which was no more than a draft in the first place?
Righty ho.
A touch of desperation there methinks.
Hardly....stories are all over the place regarding the Brexit process and likely outcome. In fact it's very depressing. I'm saying it is significant when the Torygraph runs with this stuff as well.0 -
Nice try at a play on wording.HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »We have record high employment in the UK today.
Everyone throughout history, without exception, who argued that automation would reduce the number of jobs in Britain has been categorically proven wrong.
Fixed that for you...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemploymentThat technological change can cause short-term job losses is widely accepted. The view that it can lead to lasting increases in unemployment has long been controversial.
We could both go on at length trying to argue the point but the fact is that there is no right or wrong regarding automation and number of jobs.
But there are other considerations regarding increased automation:
Working hours have reduced from an average of around 60 per week in the 1880' until after WW1, to the current 37.5 for full time workers; the true average is around 31 per week. (*1) In real terms then, average hours worked have approximately halved in a century!
Wages too are affected. As once-specialised and highly-paid work is performed by machinery the opportunity for these specialized tasks is reduced, leading workers to seek less well-paid work.
It also increases the divide between wealthy business owners and workers, as we have seen happen here in the UK. For example, last year "The wealth of the UK’s 1,000 richest people rose by 14%".
http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/07/more-billionaires-than-ever-before-on-uk-rich-list-as-super-rich-get-richer-6620450/
How much did wages of workers increase in the same period?
So, don't less hours worked and at lower wages mean less taxes?
:whistle:
*1 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/six-hour-work-day-charts-working-week-getting-shorter-a6850926.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/18/britons-working-one-week-less-per-year-two-decades-ago/0 -
I suppose it is depressing if you're a "glass half empty" type.Hardly....stories are all over the place regarding the Brexit process and likely outcome. In fact it's very depressing. I'm saying it is significant when the Torygraph runs with this stuff as well.
Those of us with a "glass half full" disposition can see the positives too.
You're allegedly surprised by the Telegraph's TM story because you have an anti-Brexit agenda, no more than that.
Just because they are pro-Tory does not necessarily mean pro-TM.
They similarly reported upon Osborne's anti-May front pages; published criticism of her "plans to fine online companies over extremist material" etc. etc. etc.
I wonder why you did not comment upon the "significance" of any of these?
Regardless, it is no surprise to me; I did say that I expected media nonsense around the time the repeal bill was debated.
Oh and BTW - no, I am not a fan of Theresa May.0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »The problem with this argument is that it has been proven false throughout all of history.
People said the same thing with the industrial revolution, the advent of assembly line manufacturing, and it's been said regularly since the advent of computers.
I remember watching Tomorrow's World as a child and being told that robots would do all the work in the very near future. That was decades ago...
I also remember having near identical conversations on forums almost 10 years ago, where people claimed in a decade we'd have far fewer jobs as they were being automated so rapidly.
And yet today employment has grown to record highs while unemployment and the economically inactive is at near record lows.
What has actually happened throughout history with automation is not that the economy and labour market stays the same, leading to mass unemployment, but the exact opposite where the economy evolves and finds new jobs for all the humans.
There is little reason to believe that this time will be any different.
This time it is different because if AI comes to being it will literally do EVERYTHING better than humans. It will be smarter than the sum of humanity. It wont just make repetitive tasks obsolete like stacking shelves it will make scientists engineers bankers doctors teachers everything unnecessary. At that point we have utopia if we can control this AI or hell if we cant
Like yourself I do not fear the robots just yet. When self drive cars come in, just 1-2 years later in the UK some 3 million who drive for a living will be made redundant. However I can see the government just expanding the state by 3 million or people who now have cheaper goods (lower transport costs) have more money to spend on other goods and services.
Once general AI comes into existence then we begin a new chapter in human evolutoion0 -
Hehe. Well, the taxes conundrum is indeed a good one.
I don't know anybody who has the answer to that yet..
I think it depends on how you view the concept of an economy.
Ultimately it's people that consume everything which is produced, either by machines or other people, therefore people need to be able to pay for everything consumed, therefore people must have an income... and that means people must work.
Wholesale replacement of people by machines has proven to be a myth precisely because machines don't consume their own output - economically producers need consumers to survive - so consumers must be able to pay for that production - therefore they need a job.
Humanity has proven to be remarkably successful at evolving the nature of the workplace to ensure continued employment.
Take the example of ATM machines... They were invented in the 1970's and today there are more bank tellers in employment than there were then.
In the 1980's scanning technology was introduced to supermarkets, yet today we have more supermarket cashiers than we did then.
And in the 1990's law firms started using electronic document systems, but the number of paralegals has actually increased.
The nature of the role may change, the level of skills to do the role may increase, the working hours may vary, but other than some relatively short term displacement effects there is simply no historical evidence that increasing automation has reduced the number of people in employment or the need for people to be employed.“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »I agree technological progress is disruptive... I would say it's so almost by definition, improved efficiency always produces winners and losers. I just think society should make a real effort to support the losers of progression though re-training and encouraging new jobs in the areas where old jobs have been lost. These are two areas which the UK has historically been rather poor at, I happen to think Thatcher was right in terms of getting rid of coal mining for example (especially, in retrospect, given the environmental situation), but to abandon the affected communities was gross negligence on the part of the government.
Disruption because of progress isn't a bad thing. it's just how we handle it.
and how do you suppose the government should intervene exactly?
theres no point creating jobs for the sake of it.
typically the ones who lost their jobs due to innovation are low skilled workers. they can move onto other low skilled work quite easily if they really wanted to without needed any sort of government assistance.
if there is a demand for a certain skill in the economy and a lack of supply of the same skill, the free market would eventually fix this issue by provding courses etc. shouldnt just be for the unemployed low skilled people who lost their job due to innovation. it should and of course would be marketted for anyone who wants to do it.
in a fair economy, the people who would lose their job due to innovation should do something about it themselves.0 -
You kind of need employees not to be smart, just for human interaction? There are also a number of creative occupations which can't be done effectively better than AI.Advent Challenge: Money made: £0. Days to Christmas: 59.0
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Once general AI comes into existence then we begin a new chapter in human evolutoion
I worked with AI for a few years, and it was at the time a series of false dawns.
To describe it as a singular thing would be incorrect. It was a mishmash of technologies under a collective label. Some have become mainstream since.
The teasing one we had in the labs which offered much promise was neural networks. The tools were primitive but the potential was evident.
I read with interest those simulated trials between a combat AI fighter plane and human pilot opponents. That used neural networks and the technology exceeded expectation.
It might be that AI starts on the battle field and migrates to domestic use.0 -
HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »I think it depends on how you view the concept of an economy.
...
Truthfully, I'm on the wrong forum.
Economics and the view of the UK as an aggregate whole obviously fit together.
I'm more interested in the process of change, and how we deal with it on a much smaller scale than national level.
Maybe the Brexit vote was a mismatch between local expectations and national interest.0
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