Domo Arigato Mr Roboto - Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

[Andreas Lilja]

On 5/13/2019 at 5:38 PM, Trik'Stari said:

Sooner or later it will be "why is no one buying our products?" and the answer will be "because no one has a job you fucking morons".

Plenty of jobs out there.

 

I don't know about the U.S. but over here they talk about a scarcity of employees. Government just allowed further tax relief for people continuing to work after 60. 

 

Employers are a bit at fault thought; can you start tomorrow for 50 cents more than the $12.50 minimum wage? 10 years experience and Master's degree pls. 

[DeScruff]

11 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Plenty of jobs out there.

 

I don't know about the U.S. but over here they talk about a scarcity of employees. Government just allowed further tax relief for people continuing to work after 60. 

 

Employers are a bit at fault thought; can you start tomorrow for 50 cents more than the $12.50 minimum wage? 10 years experience and Master's degree pls. 

Problem is that those jobs have to be where the people who need them are.

And a lot of jobs are not worth the investment of moving.

Im not gonna move to a different state for a just above minimum wage job ya know?

[Trik'Stari]

On 5/15/2019 at 8:03 PM, Andreas Lilja said:

Plenty of jobs out there.

 

I don't know about the U.S. but over here they talk about a scarcity of employees. Government just allowed further tax relief for people continuing to work after 60. 

 

Employers are a bit at fault thought; can you start tomorrow for 50 cents more than the $12.50 minimum wage? 10 years experience and Master's degree pls. 

The problem is two-fold.

 

One part, is the stock market. People expect to get rich from buying and selling, which is not how it should work. You make an investment, and profit from the dividends. End of fucking story. If we want to fix that, we need a hard, resolute, global initiative to pass legislation that states you have to sit on purchased shares/stock for a period of at least 2-3 years. 

 

This will cause a massive economic slowdown, obviously. The correct response by governments is "deal with it." and the passing of further legislation that allows them to strip corporations of copyrights and patents for certain abusive behaviors. No more currency based fines, anti-trust behavior? Lose your most recent 5 patents, permanently. Those will be sold to the highest bidder that cannot in anyway be linked directly to the original company (shareholders and subsidiaries included). The correct response in the US, to Apple's absolute monopoly in regards to the iStore, should be a complete loss of the patents/copyrights in regards to the iPhone.

 

The reason for this is to serve as a way out for consumers. Suddenly a product they need/want wouldn't be available. Selling off the patents/copyrights to the highest bidder would guarantee a way for things to quickly resume as they were. At a higher price? Maybe. Depends on whether or not the next company is willing to accept a lower profit margin. Corporations seem to be willing to sink the ship if they don't get "all of the money, all of the time" (to use a Jim Sterling quote).

 

We could also consider some sort of bracketed mandatory profit sharing system. The most extreme bracket of which I will now entail.

 

Apple, once again will be the focus, as last I checked they set the record for "most profitable company in the entire history of humanity". 50% of their profit margin, should be divided among their employees (contractors included), evenly. This works better than minimum wage because if the company increases prices, they only end up increasing the amount they pay to their employees. This would be in the form of a non-taxable yearly bonus. The other reason being that hey, the company making more money now means you, as a lowly employee, now actually make MORE MONEY. Not to mention that the people at the bottom of the totem pole doing the lions share of the work actually do have a legitimate argument for having some right to the profit the company makes. Without them, the company doesn't exist.

 

What follows, is something of a rant. If it's too political for the forum I will understand to some extent. I am trying to keep this non-political and more "logic" based. If the thread gets locked, please leave this post undeleted, unedited, and unhidden. If anyone wants to discuss it further please respond to my most recent status update.

 

I've seen at least one semi-large company function without  "middle management". It is possible. Usually the most experienced "base level" person already knows what needs to be done. And this company is one that switches gears on a week by week basis. Working on one massive project or another, with little projects inbetween. The person at the top is a complete fucking moron (and I will absolutely argue this point until I am blue in the face, to him and anyone who wants to discuss it) that should have been fired 10 years ago. He knows little to nothing about the business he is in (Information technology as a service) and his idiot of a son is the primary sales person. His son fucked up recently, and as a result we have lost at least 10 people as a result. I'll give you one guess as to why he's still employed and those 10 are not.

 

The problem, as I see it, is a lack of equal control between "management" and "staff". This belief is predicated upon a small idea I have cultivated over the years, which is as follows:

 

"In any organization of human beings, be it corporate, government, or corporate, those charged with organizing the organization will almost automatically benefit themselves above the rest of the organization, regardless of actual value or work done."

 

I'm struggling with how to add shareholders to that idea. They do deserve something for being the providers of startup capitol, but not everything. Nor should they have complete and total control over a company. Because we end up in the situation we are in now, where they demand all of the money all of the time, not for dividends, but because they want the share price to increase infinitely allowing them to sell out and come away richer than is actually fucking possible.

 

The second is how to run a democratic (no association with the incorrectly named political party) government, whilst preventing that government tending towards incompetence, as well as preventing the issue where a government never solves a problem because it would put itself out of a job.