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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the more-or-less-getting-more-done-with-less-people dept.

Having underemployed workers can lead to two outcomes that benefit an organization—creativity and commitment to the organization—according to a new study by management experts at Rice University, Chinese University of Hong Kong at Shenzhen and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Statistics have shown that a significant proportion of workers worldwide are underemployed or working at jobs that are below their capacity. Researchers have estimated that underemployment ranges from 17 percent to two-thirds of the workforce in Asia, Europe and North America, according to the study.

"Our results have important implications for managers," said study co-author Jing Zhou, the Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "Managers should not assume that employees will always respond negatively to their perception of being underemployed. Our results suggest that managers need to be vigilant in detecting perceptions of underemployment among employees.

"When managers notice that their employees feel underemployed, they should support employees' efforts to proactively change the boundaries or formal descriptions of their work tasks, such as changing the sequencing of the tasks, increasing the number of tasks that they do or enlarging the scope of the tasks," she said. "Because the perception of underemployment may be experienced by many employees, managers should provide support to sustain positive outcomes in these situations."

Not getting enough hours to qualify for benefits is a good thing?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday September 21 2016, @08:08PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday September 21 2016, @08:08PM (#404901)

    Underemployment could be a society-side solution to class disparity caused by systemic unemployment. Think about mechanization especially: a single factory may have had 100x as many workers before robots, but all the remaining workers are still working full hours. Perhaps instead of concentrating that wealth in the investors, we could keep more like 1/2 of the workers earning the same wages for fewer hours. That way we could maintain a wider income distribution while improving overall quality of life. But there is a fundamental problem that may be intractable: human greed. The investors want the maximum return on investment for the robots they bought, whether or not that return comes at somebody else's expense. And the individual worker, with the opportunity to work 30 hrs/week for the same wage as their former 40 hrs/week, would usually rather keep their hours and earn 33% more.

    We can't expect to solve these problems head on. We must instead remove the underlying incentives. Investors should be investing in the fringe benefits of having a strong local community, not the direct benefits of stock appreciation and dividends. The individual worker should find themselves under less pressure to pay off debts and buy nicer things their neighbors.

    We can get there. Economists know how to optimize for a well-defined metric. We just need to define the right metrics to favor overall quality of life instead of abstract economic indicators like growth and GDP. Then we will see the economy move in a more individually creative and committed direction.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 21 2016, @10:22PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 21 2016, @10:22PM (#404934) Journal

    Think about mechanization especially: a single factory may have had 100x as many workers before robots, but all the remaining workers are still working full hours. Perhaps instead of concentrating that wealth in the investors, we could keep more like 1/2 of the workers earning the same wages for fewer hours.

    Why would that be better? How about instead create new businesses to employ the people who are not employed currently? There isn't a fixed amount of work to be done. Removing obstructions to business creation would help more than misusing the most valuable resource we have.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday September 21 2016, @10:43PM

      by Francis (5544) on Wednesday September 21 2016, @10:43PM (#404941)

      Because there's effectively a fixed amount of work that needs doing. Basically if the work doesn't provide for the needs people have, it's busy work and we shouldn't be encouraging it as a profession. Once you've got food, shelter and medical care provided for, everything else is about enjoying life more. Working extra hours just for the sake of working extra hours is not something that adds to the value of life.

      The problem here is this notion that people need to be working a ton of hours. There's no reason why people should be working 40+ hours a week so some rich kleptocrat can avoid working. Productivity is up, so workers should be spending less time working and more of their time enjoying the fruits of their labor. In fact, without income redistribution, people would be working a ton less. They'd be taking their sick days and vacation days when they were available. They wouldn't be working multiple jobs and would probably be much more productive at their jobs as they wouldn't be constantly overworked.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:06AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:06AM (#404960) Journal

        Because there's effectively a fixed amount of work that needs doing.

        The obvious rebuttal here is that there is no evidence for your assertion. For example, a lot of developed world work was moved overseas without a huge permanent creation of unemployment anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, we saw over the past few decades the creation of something like two or three developing world jobs for every person who lives in the developed world. And of course, we have huge unmet needs like living longer that still aren't met with current labor.

        The problem here is this notion that people need to be working a ton of hours. There's no reason why people should be working 40+ hours a week so some rich kleptocrat can avoid working.

        Why is that a problem? And those "rich kleptocrats" often work harder than anyone else in their organization, even when they are really are real kleptocrats.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:59AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:59AM (#404974)

          Because not everyone is a soulless automaton such as yourself.

          Seriously. If you cannot work out what the problem with Wage Slavery is then you are 100 years behind the times. (even Lincoln lamented this situation)

          When I was a kid in the 80's they showed us pictures of how robots would mean we all get to work only a few days a week and be free for the rest.

          Your dystopian dreams disgust me.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:08AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:08AM (#404987) Journal

            Seriously. If you cannot work out what the problem with Wage Slavery is then you are 100 years behind the times. (even Lincoln lamented this situation)

            Perhaps instead of dialing some straw man up to 11, we could discuss the topic at hand? I have yet to advocate wage slavery.

            When I was a kid in the 80's they showed us pictures of how robots would mean we all get to work only a few days a week and be free for the rest.

            So we should starve a few billion people just because you saw pictures when you were young? There's isn't a magic wand that gets you from seven billion people with most in some degree of poverty to everyone working a few days a week. A lot of people need to work a long time to make that possible.

            Your dystopian dreams disgust me.

            And your detachment from reality bores me. It's been done better by other small-minded people.

            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:58AM

              by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:58AM (#405005)

              Why would anybody starve? We just cut everybody's hours and give them a raise in pay to ensure they've got the money necessary to pay for things like food and board. It's not rocket science and we've got more than enough money and production capacity to make it happen. As it stands more than half of the profits go to a small percentage of the population. Taking even half that money would easily allow people to cut back on their hours substantially without going hungry or lacking housing.

              As it stands now, fewer and fewer people are actually involved in the agriculture necessary to support us. None of them would be going out of business, as it is we have to pay large sums of money to ensure that they don't overproduce their produce and tank the price.

              The only other thing that would change would be that the mega-wealthy would only be super-wealthy. They might have to make hard decisions like whether to have a second yacht or that house in the Hamptons, but not both. The world would hardly come crashing to a halt.

              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:17AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:17AM (#405022) Journal

                We just cut everybody's hours and give them a raise in pay to ensure they've got the money necessary to pay for things like food and board.

                I find it interesting how the solution here to automation and global poverty is "let's make everyone useless". This is a small-minded person with ambition! I'm not as bored now.

                As it stands now, fewer and fewer people are actually involved in the agriculture necessary to support us. None of them would be going out of business, as it is we have to pay large sums of money to ensure that they don't overproduce their produce and tank the price.

                We want more than just some food.

                The only other thing that would change would be that the mega-wealthy would only be super-wealthy. They might have to make hard decisions like whether to have a second yacht or that house in the Hamptons, but not both. The world would hardly come crashing to a halt.

                You've just made capital far more valuable than labor with your scheme. Why would the mega-wealthy, whose wealth is tied up in capital and similar assets become less wealthy relative to laborers whose value you forcibly reduced?

                • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:27PM

                  by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:27PM (#405159)

                  You sir, are a dumbass.

                  With the productivity gains of the last century in particular, there's no need to have everybody working 40 hour work weeks with no sick leave or vacation time. The work that you're advocating for is mostly busy work. At some point, productivity will reach a point where the only way to have full employment will be to either pay people to move boxes from one side of the warehouse and back over and over again or cut people's hours down to something that reflects the time necessary to do the work.

                  Personally, I think it makes a ton sense to just let people have the time off that they've earned.

                  And BTW, food, shelter, clothing, transportation and medical care is most of what most people actually want. Everything else is more or less entertainment and leisure time. There's absolutely no reason why we can't provide people with that with a 20 hour work week. It would just require the rich to only be very wealthy rather than mega-wealthy.

                  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:29PM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:29PM (#405177) Journal

                    With the productivity gains of the last century in particular, there's no need to have everybody working 40 hour work weeks with no sick leave or vacation time. The work that you're advocating for is mostly busy work. At some point, productivity will reach a point where the only way to have full employment will be to either pay people to move boxes from one side of the warehouse and back over and over again or cut people's hours down to something that reflects the time necessary to do the work.

                    If it's all "busy work", then you don't have productivity gains by definition. I find this cognitive dissonance intriguing where the more useless we make people's labor somehow the more useful work they do! Maybe we should reconsider who is the "dumbass" here?

                    And of course, you gloss over my quite relevant observation that devaluing human labor is just going to shift the wealth of society even further to the people whose wealth is not dependent on labor, namely, those mega-wealthy.

                    And BTW, food, shelter, clothing, transportation and medical care is most of what most people actually want. Everything else is more or less entertainment and leisure time. There's absolutely no reason why we can't provide people with that with a 20 hour work week. It would just require the rich to only be very wealthy rather than mega-wealthy.

                    If only we didn't have behavior of real people to sully your worldview!

                • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:56PM

                  by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:56PM (#405167) Journal

                  I really think a profound change in work culture is in our near future. We're still on the Protestant Work Ethic. It is strange how our technological advances were fondly imagined as eventually making our children's lives easier, but it never seems to work out that way. In the 18th century people worked their butts off on the damnedest chores. People made their own clothes, "homespun", and that took incredible amounts of very boring work to do. First, needed a suitable crop, which might be flax, or might be cotton. The work of planting and harvesting was done by hand, horse, and oxen. The harvest had to be worked into threads, which was done with a human powered mechanical aide, a spinning wheel. After that, the threads had to be woven into cloth with another human powered device, a loom, then finally the cloth was cut and sewn into clothing. The Industrial Revolution ended all that. Freed an awful lot of hours, and what was done with that free time? Went straight into factory work.

                  Will the same thing happen this time? I doubt it. As robots take over blue collar jobs, we'll just find other ways to sink our time into different work, and feel all smug and virtuous about it? Except the people who don't have the skills and imagination to do white collar work, what will they do? And don't feel that white collar jobs are much safer, not with computers now able to do a lot of the heavy lifting there. When computers and robots can do everything we now do, better than our best people can do it, then what? Computers can whip us at chess, and recently did the same in go, they're getting better at driving cars, and there are plenty of gadgets such as the Roomba. I don't see that happening in the next 20 years, I think many people are overly optimistic about the speed of progress. But it will come, perhaps by 2100. How about a computer politician for president?

                  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @01:18AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @01:18AM (#405369) Journal

                    As robots take over blue collar jobs, we'll just find other ways to sink our time into different work, and feel all smug and virtuous about it?

                    Why do you think work is about feelings?

                    Frankly, there is too much terrible argument in this discussion about humanity's supposed future labor obsolescence. Francis complains that we're too productive giving "busy work" (which by definition is near completely unproductive) as an example. meustrus thinks we should optimize for better metrics. But his emphasis on things like income inequality and paying more for less labor (which is great if you're the worker and not great if you're the employer getting less as a result) indicates to me that he's thinking about the wrong metrics (which are just as bad as GDP and official unemployment rate).

                    Then we get to the counterproductive measures. When you make labor far less valuable (keep in mind that employers pay you for the value you generate - less hours means for the majority of jobs, less value generated and hence, less wealth generation to share with you in the form of wages), then anything else such as capital becomes more valuable in comparison. For all the people paying lip service to income inequality, crippling our ability to earn more will just make that income inequality much worse.

                    For example, I put more than half my income into stocks in large part because that's a better wealth generator in today's dysfunctional employment climate than working. If someone like Francis gets a clueless law dropping the hours I can work (and of course, assuming I can't get around that law by working two jobs or simply breaking the law and not reporting income), then what am I going to do that's going to justify the income I was getting? It's a two way street. My employer pays me because I generate more than I cost. Work less and I generate less in my job. But on the other hand, my stocks will do better relative to my income. That might be sufficient to avoid a huge decline in standard of living, assuming of course, that the cost of living collapses too in this brave new world.

                    Also let us note the two economic effects that have so far prevented humanity's labor from declining in value: comparative advantage [wikipedia.org] and Jevons paradox [wikipedia.org]. There remains stuff that is better for humans to do, even stuff that can be done better by robotics, because robotics is better used elsewhere. And when you make human labor more efficient and hence, more valuable, you increase demand for it. Automation is a huge way human labor, even of the relatively unskilled sort, can be made more efficient and valuable.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2016, @07:48PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 22 2016, @07:48PM (#405247)

              So we should starve a few billion people

              Billions aren't starving because they aren't working, billions are starving because the food isn't available to them.

              Arbeit Macht Frei has been touted forever, and it has been a lie ever since men started "owning the land." Work keeps you busy, it doesn't make you free, or get you the things you need.

              If all the poor had more money, whether they got it from working, or had it given to them, that money wouldn't help them out of poverty, it would just increase the price of the things they need. Making the resources they need available to them will help them out of poverty. Reasonably clean water, food, shelter from the elements, safety from crime, education, medical care. Given that, the poor can get past the major problems of poverty, and put more of their time and effort into providing these same things for themselves and others, rather than just surviving whatever crisis they are currently having, or about to have.

              Crisis is very inefficient, people in crisis are not good members of society - they are a burden to everyone else. People who "work all the time" are more apt to end up in a crisis, and sometimes it takes more time than money to handle a crisis.

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              • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @09:48PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @09:48PM (#405295) Journal

                If all the poor had more money, whether they got it from working, or had it given to them, that money wouldn't help them out of poverty, it would just increase the price of the things they need. Making the resources they need available to them will help them out of poverty. Reasonably clean water, food, shelter from the elements, safety from crime, education, medical care. Given that, the poor can get past the major problems of poverty, and put more of their time and effort into providing these same things for themselves and others, rather than just surviving whatever crisis they are currently having, or about to have.

                No that would be false because if they're working, then their labor created things of value which money would be spent on. That's a deflationary effect. And we already have reasonably priced stuff (aside from the things that we're inflated the price of, like education and medical care, in a counterproductive attempt to make them better, more accessible, or more affordable). They're still poor.

                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @12:50PM

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 23 2016, @12:50PM (#405505)

                  that would be false because if they're working, then their labor created things of value which money would be spent on. That's a deflationary effect

                  That type of deflationary effect is very strong in a medieval kingdom where the king is benevolent and lets the peasants farm as much land as they are willing to work, in exchange for a "fair" tax. The effect is much more limited in a favela where there are more people than there are resources to work on/with.

                  A lot of what needs working on in today's world is not the production of stuff, we seem to have that one nailed - awesome brand new bicycles for under $100, tools that cost less than the raw materials you use them to work on, simple foods that cost next to nothing. In the US, you can buy and maintain a decent, running, air-conditioned car (that should last for 5 or more years) for less than it costs to insure and fuel it for a year. And, of course, the storage and communication of information has already passed a singularity event... it's so cheap that people are still trying to figure out what to do with it.

                  The "free market" is still flailing about, assigning higher value to things that people with money want. Mostly, people with money want: more money - there's been plenty of labor devoted to making money for people who already have more of it than they need, and those pursuits aren't helping poverty, or the ecology.

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                  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @01:21PM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @01:21PM (#405514) Journal

                    That type of deflationary effect is very strong in a medieval kingdom where the king is benevolent and lets the peasants farm as much land as they are willing to work, in exchange for a "fair" tax. The effect is much more limited in a favela where there are more people than there are resources to work on/with.

                    The effect has nothing to do with tax collection or medieval kingdoms though they too benefit from it. When your labor makes things that people spend money on, that creates a deflationary effect. And I disagree that it is diminished even a little by the existence of your favela. It's not a matter of resource scarcity.

                    The "free market" is still flailing about, assigning higher value to things that people with money want. Mostly, people with money want: more money - there's been plenty of labor devoted to making money for people who already have more of it than they need, and those pursuits aren't helping poverty, or the ecology.

                    So what? Your observation, the little of it which has any correlation with reality, just is irrelevant. It doesn't matter to me in the least that items rich people want are expensive. I don't go for ostentatious displays of wealth like fancy mansions or cars, for example (which incidentally are not "more money"). I certainly don't care that there's a bunch of rich people who want to get richer. And contrary to your assertion (which a key area you ignore reality here), those who enable such pursuits help both poverty and ecology (much of the latter just by virtue of the former) as well as income inequality (by pulling wealth away from those rich).

                    Broken economic models which find their way into public policy are a greater threat to us than rich people, and you have a great broken model here which would look magnificently ugly in law. One can't just say that wages are inflationary while ignoring that wages are payment for the creation of value which is deflationary, and generate public policy that isn't highly self-destructive.

                    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @01:52PM

                      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 23 2016, @01:52PM (#405526)

                      \It doesn't matter to me in the least that items rich people want are expensive.

                      The point you missed there isn't "things for the rich" it's "more money for the rich." Pursuits like flash trading, reverse shell merger acquisitions, legal maneuvers which are too expensive and complex for people with limited resources, but yield huge monetary returns for the people who already have enough money to do them.

                      I'm all for yachts, mansions, and $24K designer dresses - if the rich want to spend their money in large quantities, that's a good thing. When the rich use their money to corner the market on money, that becomes a problem.

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                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @02:27PM

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @02:27PM (#405546) Journal

                        The point you missed there isn't "things for the rich" it's "more money for the rich." Pursuits like flash trading, reverse shell merger acquisitions, legal maneuvers which are too expensive and complex for people with limited resources, but yield huge monetary returns for the people who already have enough money to do them.

                        Still don't care. We have better things to do with our society than take lollipops out of the hands of rich people.

                        When the rich use their money to corner the market on money, that becomes a problem.

                        Note that didn't happen in any example you've mentioned to date.

                        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @03:55PM

                          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 23 2016, @03:55PM (#405580)

                          When the rich use their money to corner the market on money, that becomes a problem.

                          Note that didn't happen in any example you've mentioned to date.

                          Wealth distribution in 2012:

                          According to the OECD in 2012 the top 0.6% of world population (consisting of adults with more than 1 million USD in assets) or the 42 million richest people in the world held 39.3% of world wealth. The next 4.4% (311 million people) held 32.3% of world wealth. The bottom 95% held 28.4% of world wealth.

                          Yes, this is how it has been since the times of slaves building pyramids. We can do better. As the population grows to a level that consumes more than half of all available resources, we need to do better.

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                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @05:02PM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @05:02PM (#405618) Journal

                            Yes, this is how it has been since the times of slaves building pyramids. We can do better. As the population grows to a level that consumes more than half of all available resources, we need to do better.

                            And we are doing better, but not because we supposedly care about wealth or income inequality. It turns out gainfully employing people leads to reduced income inequality globally. Who knew?

                            As to your rather irrelevant data about rich people owning a lot of stuff, most of that wealth is useless to you. The first thing you would probably do, if you got it would be to sell it significantly below its supposed value to one of the 0.6% for money you can use. That's the nature of the fantasy wealth that we supposedly should care about.

                            It also just isn't that much wealth inequality. The bottom 95% owning 25% of asset wealth is pretty high IMHO. I just don't see what the problem is supposed to be.

                            And I notice yet again that you have yet to show an example of rich people "cornering" money with money in markets, not that your babblegook has anything to do with markets or how they get used. Maybe you need to hit the market on the side a few times until an example falls out? It works for TVs and ice trays. Markets can't be that different, amirite?

                            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @06:16PM

                              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 23 2016, @06:16PM (#405645)

                              you have yet to show an example of rich people "cornering" money with money

                              You don't like high frequency trading as an example? Or international tax evasion? - it takes a considerable amount of wealth to make that one feasible, but once you're there, you drop your percentage tax paid considerably. Then we get right to the crux of the matter with political bribery. Enrich a politician with $100,000 under the table and you can get millions, either in grants, contracts, or favorable business regulation changes, often at the expense of the environment - not to mention protection from competition from people with less resources who can't afford to buy more influential politicians. And, whether we're talking about bribing politicians, or negotiating in the open market with kickbacks and favorable deals to big/influential business partners - whoever starts with the biggest pile of money can grow it the fastest. Productivity, employment for the masses, protection of the environment are all irrelevant in that equation.

                              The only "advantages" that small players have in the market is relative lack of regulatory oversight, and the agility that comes from not having a huge organization to coordinate, much of which size comes from regulatory compliance activities. Give a small player the big pile of cash and 1) they attract regulatory oversight, and 2) they tend to "scale the organization" with lots of people, damping down that agility that comes from a whole team that can have a meaningful conversation over lunch.

                              I "get it" that you either a) are one of the 0.6% and see nothing wrong with the way things are, or b) love to dream about you, or maybe your children, becoming one of them someday. Simply having a decent job in the U.S. usually puts you close to the top 5%, globally. Personally, I'd rather not live in a world where "loss of job" presents the opportunity to fall so far. In my experience, these great jobs we have today aren't as secure as my parent's generation's less great jobs were, and that security seems to be getting worse as the decades roll on.

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                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @07:02PM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @07:02PM (#405661) Journal

                                You don't like high frequency trading as an example? Or international tax evasion?

                                Indeed, because they aren't examples of whatever "cornering money" is supposed to be. And frankly, unless you computer trade, HFT means nothing to you. As to legal international tax avoidance, change the rules if you don't like the game. Just keep in mind that all those entitlements you get are the price you paid for going alone with the huge variety of these games. You probably will end up losing most of those as well, assuming you don't blink first.

                                I "get it" that you either a) are one of the 0.6% and see nothing wrong with the way things are, or b) love to dream about you, or maybe your children, becoming one of them someday. Simply having a decent job in the U.S. usually puts you close to the top 5%, globally. Personally, I'd rather not live in a world where "loss of job" presents the opportunity to fall so far. In my experience, these great jobs we have today aren't as secure as my parent's generation's less great jobs were, and that security seems to be getting worse as the decades roll on.

                                And we see you don't "get it". I don't care about the 0.6%. They're actually carrying their load pretty well. Your concerns are due to a temporary effect of labor competition with the developing world combined with a variety of short-sighted labor and protectionist policies in the developed world.

                                When the developing world gets to near parity with your society by 2050 I think, then the pressure will go away. Of course, the regulatory mess won't and that might be enough to drive your society to subpar employment and living standards. But you will no doubt continue to transfer blame elsewhere.

                                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @07:19PM

                                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 23 2016, @07:19PM (#405666)

                                  Your concerns are due to a temporary effect of labor competition

                                  No, actually, my concerns are mostly centered on my children, who are not likely to be competitive, or even capable, in the job market when they get to the age where they are "expected to work." And so they will stay home with us, until we are unable to provide a home for them, either before or maybe a few years after we die. As long as I can work, I should be able to provide a decent home for the family, and the system as it is will do O.K. for us as long as we manage our situation wisely.

                                  Assuming 30% of our home state isn't underwater by 2050.

                                  --
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                                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @08:06PM

                                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 23 2016, @08:06PM (#405698) Journal

                                    No, actually, my concerns are mostly centered on my children, who are not likely to be competitive, or even capable, in the job market when they get to the age where they are "expected to work."

                                    Sorry about your bad luck with the kids. But for parents who don't have developmentally disabled kids, they just won't have those problems in 35 years.

                                    Assuming 30% of our home state isn't underwater by 2050.

                                    You are speaking of 15 centimeters of sea level gain here. Sorry about your bad luck with your runt of a state. Maybe someone in your family will figure out how to move by the time it matters.

                                    I'm sorry, but when I hear concerns like you describe, I have trouble taking them seriously. Scientists have done research on the climate and we're just not seeing the degree of melting now that would lead to significant sea level rise in a human lifetime.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13AM

          by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:13AM (#404990)

          For example, a lot of developed world work was moved overseas without a huge permanent creation of unemployment anywhere in the world.

          Not even remotely close to true. Moving developed-world work overseas caused massive unemployment in the entire region now known as the "Rust Belt". Which got its name because the once-mighty industrial areas now lie in ruins, exposed to the elements, and quite literally rusting apart. Some parts of this region have partially recovered, many (e.g. Flint MI) still haven't.

          There's no reason why people should be working 40+ hours a week so some rich kleptocrat can avoid working.

          Why is that a problem?

          Because working does real harm to real people. The longer that coal miners are underground, the faster they get black lung disease. The longer that coders code, the more likely they are to get carpel tunnel and eye problems. The longer that managers are at work, the more likely they are to develop ulcers and other stress-related disorders. Why should we inflict that on people when the only advantage of doing so is that people who already have more money than they could ever need get even more money? This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:20AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:20AM (#404994) Journal

            Not even remotely close to true. Moving developed-world work overseas caused massive unemployment in the entire region now known as the "Rust Belt". Which got its name because the once-mighty industrial areas now lie in ruins, exposed to the elements, and quite literally rusting apart. Some parts of this region have partially recovered, many (e.g. Flint MI) still haven't.

            A region isn't a worker. Workers readily moved out of those regions and found work elsewhere. For example, in the early to mid 80s, a number of people moved to Texas to take advantage of the oil boom at the time. For another example, Detroit in the 50s peaked at just under 2 million people, now it's somewhere around 700k. Those people who are no longer there didn't evaporate. They moved on to regions where their work was desired.

            Because working does real harm to real people. The longer that coal miners are underground, the faster they get black lung disease. The longer that coders code, the more likely they are to get carpel tunnel and eye problems. The longer that managers are at work, the more likely they are to develop ulcers and other stress-related disorders. Why should we inflict that on people when the only advantage of doing so is that people who already have more money than they could ever need get even more money? This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy.

            Because everyone chooses to do that. Why interfere in mutually beneficial agreements?

            • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:41AM

              by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:41AM (#404999)

              A region isn't a worker. Workers readily moved out of those regions and found work elsewhere.

              Then how come unemployment in Detroit climbed from a modest 7% in 2001 to a whopping 28% in 2009, and now is still at 10%, over 5% higher than the nation at large? Your theories suggest that this would be an impossibility, as all those people left for greener pastures, but there they are, desperately looking for work. I can think of a lot of reasons for that: Moving elsewhere isn't free, being married to somebody with a job in the area that they can't afford to leave, having to stay to take care of aging parents, etc.

              Because everyone chooses to do that. Why interfere in mutually beneficial agreements?

              Because when the alternative to "choosing to do that" is starvation, homelessness, an endless cycle of debt, or other financial catastrophes, how much of a choice is it, really?

              --
              The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:57PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:57PM (#405107) Journal

                Then how come unemployment in Detroit climbed from a modest 7% in 2001 to a whopping 28% in 2009, and now is still at 10%, over 5% higher than the nation at large?

                [...]

                Your theories suggest that this would be an impossibility, as all those people left for greener pastures, but there they are, desperately looking for work.

                They did. Note that Detroit's population in 2000 was 951,270 and was estimated to be 677,116 [freep.com] in 2015. That's almost three hundred thousand people seeking greener pastures just since the dotcom era.

                Because when the alternative to "choosing to do that" is starvation, homelessness, an endless cycle of debt, or other financial catastrophes, how much of a choice is it, really?

                It sure is, since they have a choice of jobs. There isn't a single employer, but instead a large number of employers and hence, competition for workers.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @10:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @10:49PM (#405323)

            "This goal makes no sense, and doesn't even make the super-rich happy."

            See: http://www.livableincome.org/amillionairegli.htm [livableincome.org]

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:25PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:25PM (#405140)

          I worked for a kleptocrat for a couple of years, he was manic-depressive... "missed seeing his son's first steps" because he was doing interviews with CNBC in New York, but still had time to play Paul Newman and personally drive most of a professional auto racing season. We don't know what he did in depressive mode, but he would disappear for weeks or even months at a time. He seemed to work hardest at giving the company directional whiplash - hired me, a patent attorney and a bunch of other people with a stated direction "to beef up the company's IP portfolio" - then proceeded to be distracted by other things for almost 2 years. One day, he got a memo that our competitors had 68 patents issued in the last couple of years while we had 6 - his great insight to his leadership team? "Do you know what that means?" repeated, shouting across the table directly at 3 different people in-turn, then louder to the whole group: "That means we're 62 behind!!! Let's go get some patents." After the first 6 invention disclosures I submitted to the company process went ignored, I focused on other things. Suddenly, we were all in meetings discussing them, writing new ones, getting $1000 bonuses left and right for patent filings.

          He "retired" after his great directional strategy didn't pan out, got 10% growth instead of 10x growth. Claimed it was the "options pricing scandal" - took a "reduced" exit package of only $5M, could have been a lot more if things had been different.

          $5M as an exit package for 8 years of jerking a company around (while drawing huge salary, options and bonuses the whole time), not bad.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:27AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:27AM (#404964) Journal
        And your assertion that there's a fixed amount of work falls flat just on a modest examination of history. We've gone from prehistoric to current era with no change in the amount of work? Really? I guess it was just as hard and labor intensive to build out a fiber optic network as it is now.
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:51AM

          by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:51AM (#405002)

          If by modest examination, you mean no thought of any sort, then maybe.

          Humans don't really do any more work now than in the past, we just get a lot more done with the time. Back in the prehistoric era, you'd expect to spend nearly all day every day looking for food and the necessities of life. If you were doing well, you might be able to knock off a bit early and enjoy the sunset, but without refrigeration technology or a reliable source of food you spent a ton of time just making sure that you got enough to eat.

          But, we hit the point where we could cut back on the labor decades ago. First with the 40 hour work week and we'd be down to probably a 20 hour work week or less by now if the rich weren't stealing the proceeds of our labor. At this point the same automation that's being used to depress wages could just as easily be used to allow people to spend less time at work and get more time to enjoy away from work.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:05AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:05AM (#405021) Journal

            Humans don't really do any more work now than in the past, we just get a lot more done with the time.

            The word you are looking for is "effort" not "work". We don't exert much more effort than we used to, but we get a lot more work done as a result of that effort due to technology, infrastructure, and organization.

            But, we hit the point where we could cut back on the labor decades ago. First with the 40 hour work week and we'd be down to probably a 20 hour work week or less by now if the rich weren't stealing the proceeds of our labor.

            There's always some excuse why your unicorn fantasy hasn't yet been realized. Here, the real reason is called Jevons paradox [wikipedia.org].

            In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand.

            This is also one of the reasons we still have jobs despite automating so many of our jobs in the past.

            • (Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:38PM

              by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:38PM (#405163)

              That's a load of bullshit right there. I'm not surprised, mediocre minds will resort to word games because they're not able to form a cogent argument.

              Whether you want to use the term work or effort, the answer is the same. Humans get more done now than they did back then, hence why we can afford to have a 40 hour work week and could probably cut that down to 20 hours without having people starving or being deprived of things they really needed. Sure, they might have less useless crap, but how many of them even had time to use the things they were buying in the first place.

              Do you even know what Jevons paradox is? Because from your post, it's pretty freaking clear that you don't. The paradox is specifically why this hasn't changed. The wealthy have bought enough politicians that the government hasn't stepped in and taken away the incentive to amass huge sums of money. The sums are so large that nobody can even spend all the money that they've accumulated.

              No, the reason why we still have jobs is because most of the real jobs have been eliminated and replaced with pointless service sector jobs. The jobs themselves exist mainly in doing things for people that they could or would do for themselves if they weren't required to report to work for so many hours. Honestly, I don't think that most people would have any issue cooking for themselves most meals if they weren't spending 8 hours at work plus an extra hour or 2 commuting each day. When you factor in time for sleeping, that leaves a rather small amount of time to get anything done.

              Also, if you cut jobs too far without providing for some sort of activity, you wind up with a bunch of listless people with tons of time and nothing to do with it.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:34PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:34PM (#405179) Journal

                Whether you want to use the term work or effort, the answer is the same.

                That's quite the bit of stupidity there. Words have meaning and work is not just doing stuff, it's also output, the productivity of the stuff that you do. But given that you think productive work is make-work, it's not surprising that you are as clueless about this as everything you've posted on in this thread.

                If a crew digs a ditch with spoons, that's probably about the same amount of man-years of effort as designing and building a rocket engine. That's the difference between effort and work.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:28AM

        by butthurt (6141) on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:28AM (#405044) Journal

        Basically if the work doesn't provide for the needs people have, it's busy work and we shouldn't be encouraging it as a profession. Once you've got food, shelter and medical care provided for, everything else is about enjoying life more. [...] workers should be spending less time working and more of their time enjoying the fruits of their labor.

        Leisure time brings about the desire for goods and services beyond the most basic physical necessities--entertainment, sport, hobbies, and travel for example. Providing those isn't mere busy-work. Juvenal noted that both "bread and circuses" were needed to please the populace.

        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:41PM

          by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:41PM (#405165)

          It does, however, there is a limit to that. People aren't going to buy more and more leisure goods just because they're no longer filling time at work. At some point you have enough of those things that you haven't got the time to use what you have.

          It happens more quickly than you might think. I've got a motorcycle and some photography gear. Those along with my computer are more than enough to fill all the hours I might care to fill. And that's fairly typical of most people, most people have a relatively limited set of interests and as such they tend to hit the point where they have what they need and want fairly quickly. I doubt if you asked most people seriously, that more than a fraction of what they own is comprised of things they use on a regular basis. I know just about everything I could possibly want would fit in the back of a relatively small truck.

    • (Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:11PM

      by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:11PM (#404948)

      There isn't a fixed amount of work to be done.

      It's not fixed, it's shrinking!

      More precisely, the amount of work suitable for the average person is shrinking as technology takes over jobs previously done by humans. No, the displaced fry cook will not become a programmer no matter how much money or time you invest in her training. She isn't going to start any businesses either.

      If you want a picture of how bad this gets imagine Uber in 50-100 years. Automated mines that employ no one produce raw materials that are fed into automated factories that employ no one which produce self-driving cars that employ no one which sit idle because no one has any money because the mine, the factory, and Uber automated their job away. Apply to every other business in the economy.

      The only market-based solution to this is soylent green or some other less subtle form of genocide.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:00AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:00AM (#404956) Journal

        More precisely, the amount of work suitable for the average person is shrinking as technology takes over jobs previously done by humans.

        It's never worked that way in the past and I don't think it's working that way at the present either. Instead, the work the average person does has increased in value.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:07AM

          by mhajicek (51) on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:07AM (#404978)

          The work that the average working person does is increasing in value, but fewer people are working. Workforce participation is at an all time low.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:25AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:25AM (#404984) Journal
            In the developed world. It's a different situation in the rest of the world. Labor force participation would be a lot better without the various obstructions that the developed world puts in the way.
            • (Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:44PM

              by Francis (5544) on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:44PM (#405166)

              And you think that the people who are in the developing world are going to be in the developing world forever?

              Here's a hint from somebody that's been to the developing world. They're developing. There's a tremendous amount of waste and corruption right now that's holding things back, but as they get things squared away, they're progressing to where we are now. We have more than enough resources for them to live a decent life without working full time as well.

              • (Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:37PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @04:37PM (#405182) Journal

                Here's a hint from somebody that's been to the developing world. They're developing. There's a tremendous amount of waste and corruption right now that's holding things back, but as they get things squared away, they're progressing to where we are now. We have more than enough resources for them to live a decent life without working full time as well.

                Then don't work full time. I'm not holding you back.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by julian on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:36AM

          by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:36AM (#404996)

          And the prime counting function never underestimates the number of primes below a given number...until you get to somewhere around 1.39×10^19 and it doesn't. The Internet didn't exist for billions of years...until it did. Something being true in the past is no guarantee it will always be true, that would be preposterous thinking. Sometimes it takes really big values of something to find a counter-example. Sometimes events are incredibly rare and don't happen very often. Some problems are exquisitely hard to solve and require the right mind to come on the scene at the right time.

          Work increasing in value means nothing if, at some point in the future, the opportunity to do any work at all drops to zero for some large fraction of the population because labor saving technology has been sufficiently developed. When only capital matters, people with only their labor to sell don't get to participate in the economy. There are plausible scenarios where this could happen, and they're looking more--not less--likely as time goes by. You're placing your bet on an outcome that is receding in probability. You're wagering against human ingenuity.

          Thankfully I also think human ingenuity will save us, but only if we can divorce puritan ethics from economic thinking. A tall order.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:02PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:02PM (#405112) Journal
            Show it's happening first. Don't just write endless bullshit. I can point to continued increases in global income and employment through the present.

            Thankfully I also think human ingenuity will save us, but only if we can divorce puritan ethics from economic thinking. A tall order.

            I think we have to ask who is the puritan here?

          • (Score: 1) by charon on Friday September 23 2016, @11:57PM

            by charon (5660) on Friday September 23 2016, @11:57PM (#405771) Journal

            Work increasing in value means nothing if, at some point in the future, the opportunity to do any work at all drops to zero for some large fraction of the population because labor saving technology has been sufficiently developed. When only capital matters, people with only their labor to sell don't get to participate in the economy.

            Beyond which, in the not-too-distant future where robots and weak AIs do most of the useful jobs, anyone lucky enough to have a job at all would be merely a bot wrangler. The capital will be juggling only two questions: How many bots can a single person supervise effectively? How few actual humans can the corporation get away with employing while catching an acceptable percentage of errors?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:59PM (#405110)

    Perhaps instead of concentrating that wealth in the investors, we could keep more like 1/2 of the workers earning the same wages for fewer hours. That way we could maintain a wider income distribution while improving overall quality of life. But there is a fundamental problem that may be intractable: human greed. The investors want the maximum return on investment for the robots they bought, whether or not that return comes at somebody else's expense.

    This wouldn't be a problem if the workers owned the means of production.
    Just saying.