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Business news summarized a MarketWatch article thusly: "One reason growth is not faster is because technology is helping customers more than companies." As a technocrat, I thought that was the whole idea.
"Two roads diverged," Robert Frost wrote in what is perhaps the most popular poem of all time, "The Road Not Taken." Frost's opening words keep playing in my head every time an economic indicator is released, a global macro forecast is revised, or financial markets take a tumble. In all cases, the bulls and the bears find enough ammunition to support their diametrically opposed views on the U.S. economy.
Rarely have two roads diverged so dramatically for so long. It took six years for mainstream economists to come around to the notion that no, this is not your grandfather's economy; and no, real economic growth isn't going to accelerate to 3% next year, the perennial forecast. Trend economic growth of 3% or 4% is a thing of the past, constrained as it is right now by anemic productivity and labor-force growth.
Even the 2.1% average growth [in] real gross domestic product since the Great Recession ended in June 2009 is a source of controversy. The economic bulls maintain that the price of information technology is being overstated, which means real GDP and productivity growth are being understated. For this group, the low level of both jobless claims and the unemployment rate is telling the true story of a robust economy that isn't being captured by the statisticians.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:42AM
not to have to endure "the daily grind" that is working on crap you don't really care about
Sorry to drop reality on your dreams kid but until we have real robots that ain't happening. There is always going to be a lot of jobs that have to be done but nobody is going to want to do because they are following their dream or something hipster like that. Sewer systems are going to need maintaining so somebody gets to wade off into the shit. They are only going to be doing that sort of crappy job because somebody else is trading them something they really want. Same for guard duty, filling potholes in roads, butchering meat, grinding out mindless Javascript code, etc.
society would have to adapt to a world where money has no sway over other people but i think we would be better off for it.
Says somebody else educated beyond their intelligence or deliberately miseducated by Marxists. You need to read some actual economics before opening your mouth again and embarrassing yourself in public. The first thing you need to understand is what money is. Then you will realize it can't be eliminated and retain civilization. The only reason we can have a civilization is because we all benefit from the social division of labor, and anything but the most rudimentary tribal social organization means barter has to be replaced with a monetary unit, i.e. money.
Go. Now. www.mises.org and begin your education for free.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:12AM
not to have to endure "the daily grind" that is working on crap you don't really care about
Sorry to drop reality on your dreams kid but until we have real robots that ain't happening.
And you know, that isn't always a bad thing.
When I was working in a mill, I walked out of that place every end-of-shift, and I was done. Done Done Done. I didn't carry that job home with me, worry about it, think about it. I was free of it. I didn't hate mill work. Some days I could complete my shift without paying much attention.
Then in college, I got into programming, and made a career out it, and I never get a day off. Mind is always grinding on it. It takes a week of vacation just to forget about the mountain of work and the intricate problems embedded there in. And I like programming.
I'm not sure even fleets of robots are going to provide ENJOYABLE free time that all the Utopians around here seem to thing. Because what ever hobby you turn your idle hands to will become a drudge after a while.
And any nation with large percentages of their people unemployed, and somehow fed, will be in constant turmoil, constant gang violence, and wars. Look to the Middle East where the unemployment rate is 60% in technically advanced countries like Egypt, and places like the oil states where nobody goes hungry, and you find an awfully large number of unemployed young men with nothing better to do than go off to war.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:57AM
Right. Look to technically advanced countries like Portugal or Spain, with up to 50% young people unemployed [tradingeconomics.com] and global unemployment rate almost 30% but where nobody gets hungry. And even then on the top of the list of the safest places of the known world [worldatlas.com].
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:53AM
I guess how people are raised to treat other people matters..
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday May 02 2016, @01:08AM
Both those countries are PIIGS, meaning they are already dead men walking, surviving for a moment on the charity of the rest of the world. Unless they manage to quickly turn their economy around they are going to wake up one fine day and discover they are living in the zombie apocalypse. Nobody can say when it happens, none can say what event will be the trigger for the collapse but tick tock.
And yea, the rest of the world is about to have the same problems, perhaps at the same time the PIIGS collapse and put pressure on everyone else... fear of which is why the world keeps dumping money into them to avert the crisis another day. Things are going to reboot into a more sane configuration and it ain't going to be fun living through the transition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @04:42AM
[...]surviving for a moment on the charity of the rest of the world.
Please, explain. Last time I checked at least Spain wasn't bailed out [wikipedia.org] by anyone's charity but only the banks at the expense of their own citizens.