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Bain consultants' macro trends department have released a report examining trends in demographics, automation and inequality to produce a set of predictions.
This kind of report seems to be all over the place these days, but this one seems more detailed and perhaps a little less optimistic than most.
In the US, a new wave of investment in automation could stimulate as much as $8 trillion in incremental investments and abruptly lift interest rates. By the end of the 2020s, automation may eliminate 20% to 25% of current jobs, hitting middle- to low-income workers the hardest. As investments peak and then decline—probably around the end of the 2020s to the start of the 2030s—anemic demand growth is likely to constrain economic expansion, and global interest rates may again test zero percent. Faced with market imbalances and growth-stifling levels of inequality, many societies may reset the government's role in the marketplace.
They predict that governments will assume a larger role in markets to combat inequality and boost demand, but will our corporate overlords decide that's in their interests, or continue to squeeze the lower and middle classes forever?
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by ewk on Wednesday February 14 2018, @01:35PM (7 children)
"your standard of living is massively higher than your grandparents"
Now try that again with your parents... Not so much eh?
Where my parents (high school education) managed to raise 3 kids from one (somewhat less than average) income from my dad, my wife and I (both university education) need both our incomes (somewhat above average).
Same thing I see with the other couples in our social and physical surroundings. At the moment one income just isn't enough anymore to do anything more than just "surviving".
This standard of living you mention surely does not equate to more freely expendable income (a.k.a. choices).
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday February 14 2018, @02:58PM (6 children)
Yeah, you notices that I said "grandparents" and not "parents. In the course of history, one generation is nothing. But it's definitely true: we don't really want to compare ourselves to our parents.
I have a lot more education, and in raw currency I earn a lot more than my Dad did. Yet he managed to support our family on a single income, and we had a comfortable middle-class life. Same for my wife's parents - heck, her dad even managed to put aside a good-sized college fund for every kid. Whereas both my wife and I work, to achieve the same qualitative standard of living. We seem to be more stressed and less happy as well, though it's hard to really know how our parents felt, since we saw them through the eyes of children.
But that's not important, in the big picture. Overall, human standards of living are increasing. If this generation, in a few countries, is slightly different - that's small change compared to the overall picture. Plus, we have access to things (the Internet, for example), that our parents couldn't even dream of.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by ewk on Wednesday February 14 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)
In the (really) big picture nothing is important...
We (as a species) are not going to leave this rock anyway, so this is where we (as a species) will end.
That some of us might enjoy (or not) their individual moves on the board does not make it a zero-sum game any less.
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 15 2018, @01:35AM
Unless, of course, we do.
Actually, it does. It is fulfilling a want that doesn't require someone else to lose something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @04:16PM
Amazing. This is so many of my neighbors. Stressed to the max. And two trying to make what one used to make.
And if the reports on higher credit card debt are true and it is deeper debt in the south then it will hit that region like a ton of bricks
On top of that the psychological battle of work gives makes you valuable. Work gives meaning. You are worthless if you don’t work. Unemployment is bad. Only the worst would be on welfare. This is a powder keg. High debt as the robots come and the wrong story to prop up you already stressed out life. Oh and kids moving out?
There will be blood. Who knows maybe Jim Morrison was right. There’s blood in the streets it’s up to my ankles.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)
Well great! So long as we're slightly better off than the depths of the Great Depression I guess we're totally fine.
Here I was worrying about nothing!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 15 2018, @01:36AM
Is that a problem? I'm not even close to Great Depression levels myself.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 14 2018, @07:10PM
I have a lot more education, and in raw currency I earn a lot more than my Dad did.
Yep, countries that embrace the good parts of socialism can brag about that. From what I recall Bradley lives in one of those.
We're talking about the US though.