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posted by janrinok on Monday October 17 2016, @09:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the where's-the-good-news? dept.

The technology revolution has delivered Google searches, Facebook friends, iPhone apps, Twitter rants and shopping for almost anything on Amazon, all in the past decade and a half.

What it hasn't delivered are many jobs. Google's Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. had at the end of last year a total of 74,505 employees, about one-third fewer than Microsoft Corp. even though their combined stock-market value is twice as big. Photo-sharing service Instagram had 13 employees when it was acquired for $1 billion by Facebook in 2012.

Hiring in the computer and chip sectors dove after companies shifted hardware production outside the U.S., and the newest tech giants needed relatively few workers. The number of technology startups fizzled. Growth in productivity and wages slowed, and income inequality rose as machines replaced routine, low- and middle-income, human-powered work.

This outcome is a far cry from what many political leaders, tech entrepreneurs and economists predicted about a generation ago. In 2000, President Bill Clinton said in his last State of the Union address: "America will lead the world toward shared peace and prosperity and the far frontiers of science and technology." His economic team trumpeted "the ferment of rapid technological change" as one of the U.S. economy's "principal engines" of growth.

The gap between what the tech boom promised and then delivered is another source of the rumbling national discontent that powered the rise this year of political outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

[...]

Eventually there'll be only decent jobs for maybe 20% of the population:  What economic system is needed for that??


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Monday October 17 2016, @09:54AM

    by MostCynical (2589) on Monday October 17 2016, @09:54AM (#415149) Journal

    wasn't the answer to the posed question given in the last story?
    The 80% will have to each other.
    https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/10/16/1522223 [soylentnews.org]

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday October 17 2016, @03:28PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday October 17 2016, @03:28PM (#415218)

    See? This is why neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are the party for modern times. The Donner Party is the only political approach that provides a modest proposal for solving such thorny problems.

    And yes, I've had my sig for a while.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 17 2016, @04:23PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday October 17 2016, @04:23PM (#415244)

    Have to each other? I tried that once but then I accidentally.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"