The jobs are gone, and they are not coming back. What are Americans supposed to do?

[Hugabear]

I have a very sinking feeling that none of these jobs that we've lost are going to come back. It's far cheaper for companies to manufacture their goods overseas. Education spending is being slashed to the bone. Unemployment can't last forever, eventually it's going to run out. What then? What happens when tens of millions of Americans are completely flat on their asses, unable to afford to pay their mortgage, rent, utilities, food, clothing, medical costs, etc?

Capitalism has failed, utterly and completely. I fear that we are going to wind up slipping back into feudalism, with almost all wealth concentrated in the hands of the elite. Actually it might even be worse than that. At least under the feudal system, the rich needed the serfs as labor. They do not need us. They look down on us with disdain, spit on us, wishing that we would just disappear and quit bothering them.

Seriously, what will happen after the next economic crash, which by all accounts will make the last one look like child's play? What happens when the average American's way of life falls completely apart?

[anonymous171]

1. We won't fall apart that much. The elites still need our military and our government

But yeah, things are going to get a lot shittier.

[SammyWinstonJack]

94. Well the elite won't tax themselves and without a solid middle class tax base where

are the tax $$$ coming from to fund the military and the government and the tax breaks for the elite? :shrug: Poor planning and to much greed and short sightedness from the greedy Multinational Corps...oops. :evilgrin:

[dkf]

2. Yup do what it takes to keep your job and spend wisely.

[Hugabear]

3. And what about those who can't get a job? Or who will lose their jobs?

Because we haven't seen anything yet in terms of job layoffs. It's just going to continue getting worse, especially when the next big economic crash happens. Our economy is a house of cards that is on the verge of collapse. People who don't have jobs are already finding it next to impossible to find new jobs. What happens when their unemployment runs out?

[amborin]

38. possibly things will get a lot more overtly authoritarian

the one thing that concerns elites about rising unemployment and inequality is the potential for domestic instability; otherwise they don't give a rats

[j420norcal]

70. Groups like Blackwater/Xe ease their concerns about instability

[dkf]

57. There are only some things we can control.

Discretionary spending is one. Not quitting is another one

[riderinthestorm]

100. Do you really think the massive unemployment numbers are from people quitting?!

And that things like rent/mortgage, health care expenses, food etc. are "discretionary"? There are certain fixed daily costs that aren't subject to "control" that require income and a job.

[LoKnLoD]

78. We will become like the rest of the third world countries

My fiancee is a filipina, I went to the Philippines in September. There is 20+ percent unemployment there, 16 people live in a two bedroom home, 3 of them in their household have jobs, that has to support everyone in the family. They make $4 a day in American dollars. That is what life is like in 3rd world countries. They sleep on the floor on foam mats. That is where America will be in 20 years

[begin_within]

4. They do need us as consumers

Who is going to buy their products and services if we don't?

[Juche]

6. They don't really plan that far ahead

Capitalism is based on instant supply and demand.

For example, factories are moved to China. Then in 2008 oil goes to $150 a barrel and when you add in shipping, it is cheaper to do some manufacturing here. So the Chinese factories get shut down. Then oil goes back down, and the factories have to go back.

These people don't think things through since market forces are not as determined by long term consequences as quarterly outcomes. I was watching a PBS documentary that said the global economy almost collapsed in 1999. A company called LTCM almost collapsed, and it would've taken tons of derivatives down with it. So the Clinton economic team forced banks to buy up LTCM and shore it up.

Then the same thing happened in 2008, except with the mortgage industry.

So we have had 2 near global economic meltdowns in 10 years (1999 and 2008). Shit.

[begin_within]

9. I don't trust bankers or any private industry to manage the economy.

Capitalism is killing itself by killing off its consumers. Michael Moore made a very good point when he said that the ruling class really blew it by killing off the middle class. A large middle class was the one thing that stabilized the capitalist economic system.

[Juche]

18. Seriously, think about that

Had we had:

Rising wages for the middle class
A reliable health care system
Consumer protection agencies
Mild financial regulation

The economy would not have collapsed. The reason is fewer people would be trapped in bad loans. Those trapped in bad loans would have more income to weather uncertainty. Regulations would've stopped the worst abuses and worst codependencies in the financial system, and a decent health care system would slow personal bankruptcies (something like 50-70% of bankruptcy and foreclosure is tied to health problems).



The economic collapse destroyed tons of wealth, and a lot of that wealth belonged to the wealthy. It wasn't just boomers who lost their retirement and home equity. The wealthy lost trillions. I think I read that all wealth created in the last 20 years was destroyed.

http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2008/10/09/losses_drive_titans_of_finance_to_therapy/


These people destroyed themselves in the process. Lenin said a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with, and he was right. There is no long range thinking.

They attacked us and ended up destroying themselves in the process. Now they are lobbying to stop regulation from preventing it from happening again.

[Mimosa]

115. ^ AMEN! Read Begin's post above^ n/t

[Hugabear]

8. They have each other

Plus several billion people living in China and India.

I do see what you're saying, but how can we buy their products if we don't have jobs? They keep taking our jobs away and sending them overseas, or replacing us with automated processes.

[begin_within]

17. They want the pseudo-capitalist economic apparatus to keep running,

because they use that as their profit making machine. The goal is to distort and manipulate the system to maximize profits for them while still making just enough concessions to keep the system running. And if profits are lost or huge losses occur, there's the public sector to bail them out, either with cash, reduction or elimination of regulations, or some other incentives such as tax cuts or subsidies. I say "pseudo-capitalist" apparatus because that's what they are running. They privatize the profits but socialize the risks. It's not real capitalism if they can't privatize their own losses as well as their profits.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

27. No, not true. The amassed wealth of the top 5% does NOT need us.

They have enough to last several lifetimes.

[earth mom]

32. They don't need us anymore. They can sell their crap to the people of China and India

where they sent OUR JOBS and where there are OVER A BILLION people in EACH country!

We are so totally screwed it ain't funny.

[BuelahWitch]

49. I don't think the Chinese and Indians can purchase goods on the scale that we do

Will they buy the $150 gym shoes and $200 handbags Americans have been suckered into buying for the past 25 to 30 years? I don't think they make enough of the shit wages the owners are paying...

[newthinking]

96. You haven't traveled much, they do

The developing world has many consumers, many with much more than us. The reason that statistics don't yet reflect that is because they have a much deeper inequality of income. But there is plenty of room for corporations to grow without even selling in America. 2cd world markets are not really even developed yet.

[Yavin4]

99. Not True

I have been to Bangalore, India, the heart of IT outsourcing, and most of the population does not buy a lot of consumer goods other than our fast food. Most of the consumption is done by Western execs and tourists.

A perfect example is Cricket, a sport that has a fanatical following in India much like the NFL has here. Here, NFL fans buy tons of merchandise to wear. In India, no one buys anything that the team wears, and I even went looking for some gear to buy to no avail.

[girl gone mad]

75. But here's the rub:

They own the government and they have full access to our tax dollars and printing presses. If we stop buying or borrowing, they simply sell more debt to foreign countries and use the capital to shore up their casinos, loot the treasury through backdoor bailout schemes and deflate the value of our savings in the process.

[Toots]

83. What Products?

What is made in America any more? We have become a Service Provider nation and when fewer and fewer people need Service which will be the case as the wealth ends up in fewer and fewer hands. Without equity we really are not much of a nation.

[True_Blue]

111. A domino effect

Then they'll have to layoff their workers also.

[Juche]

5. Lots of people living together

That is my estimate. Here in the midwest, if you buy a 3 bedroom mobile home and have 4-5 people living in it you can cover rent & utilities for about $150 a person.

So I predict more stuff like that. More people sharing bunk beds in mobile homes, more people living with siblings, kids or parents. More people living in cars and tents.

Actually, I'd be open to living in a tent. However I don't know where I can legally set one up. The places that do let you set one up are so expensive I might as well get an apartment with a roommate (roughly $250/month where I am).

[ddeclue]

7. We are going to have to pull out of NAFTA and GATT and demand that if you want to sell it here you

must make it here. International trade be damned.

That's the only way we can solve the problem. Other countries have basically been double dealing for years through currency manipulation, oppressing their workers, ignoring the environment, and creating trade barriers to protect their own markets and exploit and gut ours.

[gimama]

10. goood time for some innovative ideas

entrepreneurial or lifestyle..
what would YOU do,
if YOU KNEW
You couldn't fail?
What is/was Your Dream?
Maybe a goood time to look at
self-sustaining Work, like Gardening,
or carpentry..these things will always be needed,
& just knowing how will provide for YOU & Yours,
will give YOU confidence & JOY.

Do NOT give power to fear. Things MAY get much worse..
but may NOT!
People thrived for centuries without "modern conveniences"..
With thought,intellect,preparation we could again.
Mostly, though, do not be afraid.. be thank-FULL for what IS, right now,
for the positive things & People('specially them!) in Your Life, today.
Do not empower the fear. Empower YourSELF..PEACE~===]

[latebloomer]

11. +1

Keep the faith and don't give in to fear.

[Hugabear]

22. Platitudes won't do much good when there aren't any jobs to be had

I can tell myself not to give in to fear every day, but it's not going to do much good when the reality of the next economic disaster hits.

Our country needs to be taking decisive action now, but the politicians aren't in any big hurry to do what needs to be done.

[KittyWampus]

85. Have you ever worked for yourself?

[cameozalaznick]

97. Yes, because none of it is real anyway...

Don't take my word for it, listen to Professor Einstein.

"Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one."

The fact of the matter is --it doesn't matter. Matter is just energy. Focus your energies on the things you can actually control. Feed the good stuff and let the bad stuff shrivel away.

Case in point:
My theme for 2009 was to not listen to any of the bad news. I'm self-employed and my business increased 18 percent over 2008. A double-digit increase in a hellacious year. I just put my head down and focused on the good stuff.

We are not omniscient. We don't know what any of this means in the cosmic scheme of things. We must become good at asking good questions. Such as "What's good about this that I'm not getting?" "What's one thing I can do today to make a contribution?" How can I help?" I've stayed up all night before and believe me, it really is darkest before the dawn. You know, those moments when the moon goes away, but the sun isn't up yet.

And here's another thing that's cool to think about. The moon is always full. Yep. It only looks like a sliver sometimes because of the Earth's shadow in front of it. But it's always up there just shining away.

I know I'm going to get flamed as some sort of pollyanna, but I don't care. One person will read what I've written and will begin to feel better and then I will have succeeded.

Focus on the good stuff. Pet your dog, hug your children and remember: It could be worse. It could be raining.

[KittyWampus]

84. I applaud your post. My issue is that small businesses are handicapped from the get-go

We have to meet same legal requirements as large corporations and have no leverage.

[Raineyb]

88. That's by design. The corporations deliberately go to their bought off

politicians and deliberately put regulations in place designed to squash smaller competitors.

[HeresyLives]

12. Move to the knowledge economy.

Natural resources and stackable plastic aren't an economy anymore.

[anonymous171]

16. That doesn't exist and will never exist. Star Trek was fiction. nt

[HeresyLives]

19. Oh but it does exist, you're living it everyday.

And the world you live in right now was science-fiction to the Victorians.

[anonymous171]

23. 100 years ago, engineers existed just as they do today.

Sure their knowledge has expanded, but their fundamental task in society has not changed at all. The same thing has happened to basically every field in existence. Nothing fundamental has changed.

[HeresyLives]

26. Engineers existed at the time of the pyramids.

But we have all different kinds of engineers now.

Society operates on knowledge...that is what has changed.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

21. too many stupid people for that to work

we would call it socialize and shot you if you tryed it

[HeresyLives]

24. I doubt the ratio of smart to stupid has changed

at any time in history.

Perhaps you mean educated to uneducated.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

37. Yes, i am. Further, when the first thing we cut is education, it gets worse

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

56. No, it really is "smart" unfortunately. But not because the ratio has changed.

The reality is that simply being warm meat has decreasing value. Brains have far more value, but even that is depreciating as time goes on. Education does not make you smarter, it only increases the value of what you have. It is a stopgap measure. Globalization isn't really changing things that much, it is just tweaking the timeline for bigger problems.

What we are seeing is that a shrinking percentage of the population is capable of generating sufficient value to be worth hiring. Not because people are changing but because the bar is necessarily getting higher. In the not too distant future we will be at the point where most people are incapable of generating much of real value; anything you could give them to do would be make-work. Shorting of burning the tractors -- which has been catastrophic every time it was tried -- there will be shrinking opportunities for most people to contribute something of value to the economy.

As a society, we are completely unprepared to deal with this and there are no good answers to the problem. Not only is the default path ugly, most of the alternatives are even worse.

[HeresyLives]

59. Education makes the difference.

And that's what's important in the knowledge age.

I really doubt you mean to say most people are too stupid to live. Education has shown us there are intelligent people everywhere. People of average intelligence, with education, can do amazing things.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

67. Education helps, it doesn't solve.

Even extremely smart and well-educated people are being marginalized. The reality is that computers can increasingly do things better than humans can. No amount of education will fix that. Computers are even making serious in-roads into what is called "inductive" applications, which used to be the domain that really separated the humans from the machines.

Education maximizes the value of native assets, it doesn't increase your native intelligence. The value of people is increasingly dependent on their intelligence in the abstract, the need for warm meat is declining fast.

We are all facing obsolescence, but it is occurring for some before others. When we get to the point where the economy only has room for geniuses, well, we will be in a weird place.

[HeresyLives]

72. Knowledge grows, intelligence grows,

widgets do not. And eventually the world doesn't want any more widgets.

Computers will turn into AI, and the world will change again...for the better.

Every change in history has been for the better...the people who lived thru it probably didn't think so tho. ;)

[Go2Peace]

92. I wish it were so

You sound like you work on your computer and never get out. Productivity is exponentially higher than it has ever been, our populace is more educated than it has ever been, yet as long as the productivity gains are hoarded and monopolized our standard of living continues to go down.

The Utopia you dream of will never happen unless you fight for it to happen. Technology and computers will never solve our problems, and the key is not "Knowlege", it's "Values". I know incredibly intelligent people who place little value on others.

[HeresyLives]

102. We know it happens.

And the knowledge age...and economy... is already here.

[Go2Peace]

93. Exactly, We are already in an incredible age of productivity, and full

employment is further away than ever. Once computers have AI there we will all be fighting if it still requires a full time job to live. Knowledge won't fix that problem, only social values will. aka "sharing"

[HeresyLives]

103. Productivity is an industrial age measurement.

As in ...how many widgets per hour are produced?

[anonymous171]

25. Are you implying that malnurished chinese and indian workers are smarter than American ones?

It has nothing to do with intelligence. They don't employ the best and brightest. They employ only the fastest and cheapest. It's all about profit, nothing more.

[HeresyLives]

28. Well they're not malnourished and they're just as smart

as Americans. And just as well, or better, educated as Americans.

Kindly stop dragging outdated ideology into these conversations.

[anonymous171]

31. If they are at least 20 years old then odds are they grew up malnourished.

Also, who said anything about intelligence? All I said was that it really had nothing to do with the current situation. Business doesn't hire the smartest people, instead it hires those who are the cheapest.

[HeresyLives]

35. No, they're quite healthy.

And enough with the repetition of ideology.

[anonymous171]

41. Ideology is everywhere and all pervasive. It is the lense through which we view reality

You have an ideology just like I do. Your denial of its existence is in fact a manifestation of that ideology. The profit motive is basic economics and has little to do with ideology. Both capitalists and communists agree that the profit motive is what drives the capitalist (owner of capital) to produce things. Denying that is like denying the existence of the moon.

[HeresyLives]

43. Ideologies are just belief systems, & they become

outdated like everything else.

And kindly don't try the old 'you say you don't which just proves you do' gimmick. That went out with vaudeville.

Profit is big in capitalism, not in other systems.

[anonymous171]

47. So you do recognize the existence of ideology. That is good.

And they are not JUST belief systems but also attitudes and ideas. If you do agree with me that the profit motive is what drives capitalism, then how can you disagree with my earlier statement that business hires only the cheapest workers?

[HeresyLives]

51. They are dead.

Capitalism certainly works on the profit motive, but no business hires fast food workers to do engineering.

[anonymous171]

52. Of course worker ability plays some role in the process, but it is not the deciding factor.

If two equally qualified/intelligent engineers are competing for the same job, the business that is hiring them will ALWAYS pick the cheaper one. ALWAYS. It is in this way that globalization becomes a race to the bottom and lowers wages for everyone in the long run.

[HeresyLives]

54. It is when you need specific skills.

Globalization is a race to the top, and so far Americans seem to be tripping over old ideas.

[HeresyLives]

71. Well you go on believing that then.

It seems to give you comfort.

It's also a handy excuse.

[Raineyb]

73. THAT is not a handy excuse it is how business works. If you don't get that simple

fact of how business works then it's no wonder you can't understand anything else about economics.

[HeresyLives]

104. No, that's your ideology again.

[Elwood P Dowd]

113. Debating a fence post is fruitless Raineyb.

She is ............... :crazy:

[HeresyLives]

114. Go talk to Harvey

You'll discover he's Chinese.

[Elwood P Dowd]

116. Harvey died.

He took a swim in the Yangtze river, and that was the end of him.

[Go2Peace]

34. "knowlege economy", wow, that is so 90s. It's in India now

you've bought the kool aid. The only way to compete in the Global Economy" is to stand up for each other. The other way is just a fools lie.

[HeresyLives]

36. Wow that is so NOW.

And you apparently let it get away from you.

[Hannah Bell]

13. die quickly, if you believe our owners. but don't, they're lying. they're afraid of us, that's why

they lie.

[anonymous171]

20. EXACTLY. Americans, oddly enough, have our hand at their throat

One squeeze and they will die of suffocation. That's why they pump our airwaves full of their cultural values and ideas. Europe and other areas of the world are less effected not because they are more intelligent but because they are less important to the elites.

[lib2DaBone]

14. Once upon a time we had tariffs on foreign goods that protected workers

... and once-upon-a-time we had politicians that represented the people.. not the corporations.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

15. eventually the dollar will become worthless and it will be cheeper to employ

us then people in china or india. so let your house go. or trade it for a trailer on a big lot and raise a garden. babysit. clean houses. there will be lots of jobs in eldercare as the boomers age.

this is like a slow motion great depression. I do not know if it will get better or worse tomorrow. I am working as a contract employee but still secure for now.

[Hello_Kitty]

29. Develop clairvoyance and intuit what The Next Big Thing will be.

Or marry the heiress of a billionaire, like Tom Friedman did. Then you can while away your time writing idiotic articles admonishing Americans for not being as prescient as he is.

[Ardent15]

30. There will be a lot of mass protests...nt

[omega minimo]

33. What have they done for the 20 - 30 years this debacle has been approaching?

[Hugabear]

40. I don't think most people will realize there's a problem until it's too late

You're right, this has been approaching for awhile, but with unemployment being relatively low, most people didn't really seem to care. Even now, with unemployment between 10-12%, I think many Americans are still oblivious to what's still coming. After all, we have plenty of distractions - TV, movies, videogames, sports, music, etc. As long as people can afford to fill up their cars, put food on their tables, and entertain themselves, the problems in this country are simply problems that other people are facing; they see it on their news, but it doesn't directly affect them.

Once unemployment rises over 20% (1 out of every 5 American workers), and states can no longer afford to pay out unemployment benefits, things will start to get real ugly.

[omega minimo]

42. Yup, it's pretty clear how mindless and sheeplelike folks really are.

[The Midway Rebel]

39. Learn.

Learn how to garden, play banjo or guitar, dowse for water and cheat at cards.

[leftstreet]

44. LOL '...and cheat at cards'

:spray:

Thanks for that!

[omega minimo]

45. Your OP comments on serfdom reminded me of this

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-audacity-of-hype/id333519953

[leftstreet]

46. Why do people think work only has value if it creates profit for owners?

Pay janitors, call center workers and 'burger flippers' $20 an hour.

It's not brain surgery

[anonymous171]

48. Because the owners perpetuate their own beliefs about value through their media

Our millionaire press corps is killing democracy.

[upi402]

50. +1 ^ n/t

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

58. Economics still applies

You can't run an operation forever at a net loss. The aggregate value produced by all workers has to cover wages and overhead. This completely ignores the social impact of opportunity cost which we will pretend does not exist for the purposes here.

The real problem is that many people are incapable of generating enough value to be worth hiring. No one will hire employees at a steep loss, they will make a capital investment in automation.

Unfortunately, economics and thermodynamics are intimately intertwined. There are no perpetual motion machines, you always have to pay the piper eventually.

[anonymous171]

62. Economics is about the distribution of goods and services. Thermodynamics is about energy.

Apples and oranges. Economics is not a natural science.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

69. Nope, they are equivalent.

Both economics and thermodynamics are derived from algorithmic information theory. They are two manifestations of the same mathematical relationship in physical reality. Most graduate information theory textbooks spend a chapter proving the equivalence across those two practical domains. The equivalence is pretty intuitive if you think of an economic transaction in the abstract as heat transfer.


One of the reasons most economic models are so broken is that they were invented before we had the math to properly describe and analyze them. In other words, they were guesses. There is work being done by very smart economists on a new model grounded in real math but economics based on this mathematics is much more nuanced than the simplistic "team sport" approach we are used to -- the optimal policy implementation is highly contextual in the new mathematical framework. Free market zealots won't like the result, but then neither will most party line economists. Algorithmic information theory started in the 1990s and only really matured into unifying force in mathematics in the last ten years, yesterday on mathematics timeframes.

[Abq_Sarah]

68. I'd love to see everyone

Employed at a livable wage. The problem is, you can't have low prices and high wages in many industries. People want cheap, not expensive.

[Go2Peace]

95. Actually you *can* have high wages and cheap goods

That is what "Productivity gains" create. We are in an incredible age where productivity has lept by huge amounts, just in the last three years productivity, the amount of goods an average person produces, increased by 25%!

However, the elite class has been hoarding all of the gains to themselves and it will eventually result in mass unemployment and slavery for those who do have jobs. Knowlege will never fix that, only social values.

Imagine, nobody even talks about this yet.... With all of that intelligence and knowledge!

[Duer 157099]

53. Here's the most optimistic thought I can muster

And I'm usually very pessimistic, especially about the future of our country.

Do this thought experiment: imagine that you are one of the "haves" and that you see the same thing that you see now (imminent severe catastrophic collapse in this country and elsewhere). Think of the level of fear that you would be experiencing, because of all that you have to lose.

Now, compare that with the level of fear that you might actually have right now, if you truly have nothing to lose.

It sort of makes me feel better about having nothing right now. I'll be in the same boat with >90% of the population and won't be worried about what I'll lose next. It's already all gone.

[texanwitch]

55. This will be different from the 1930's.

There are more of us, and we live a different live style.

Either the economic crash will be fixed quickly or it will get nasty for those in power.

I can't see the majority of the people of this country going homeless for long.

There isn't enough police or military to keep down the population.

In the 1930's a lot of people could feed themselves, not so much now.

I hope it doesn't get so bad.

[imnKOgnito]

60. I'm very close to coming to the conclusion

that their end game is to thin the herd. The amassing of wealth and cutting everyone else out of it is simply to ensure that they're the last ones left standing. Granted, this wealth consolidation isn't a new idea, but I doubt that I'm so much smarter than these guys that I can see that we've far surpassed the threshold of long term sustainability and they can't. And climate change is only going to exacerbate that exponentially. I seriously doubt that the true puppetmasters don't understand what's unfolding. They've got their lackeys doing damage control in the press putting a far too rosy picture of the coming financial collapse and casting aspersions on the science behind climate change, but they know what's coming.

Or maybe I just need a good nights sleep.

[texanwitch]

61. I agree.

To many of us are seen as useless eaters.

The rich and powerful really have no use for us.

That is the reason behind the healthcare issue, not the money to pay for it.

Sometimes the powerful reach to far.

I won't go down easy.

[conscious evolution]

66. They are preparing

to turn the pyramid into an obelisk.

[Juche]

108. Humans don't need much to live

So I don't personally believe in the thinning the herd argument.

As long as humans have

1. Adequate nutrition
2. Protection from microbes
3. Protection from extreme environments (severe cold, heat, etc)

Generally most of us live to be 70 or older. Not all, but most. And those are dirt cheap. Protection from microbes only requires hygiene, sanitation, clean drinking water, vaccines and antibiotics. All can be done low cost.

Adequate nutrition is easy too. We (I believe) grow enough food to feed 2 planets, its just that we use a lot of our crops to raise livestock and eat that instead (it takes 5-10 calories of corn to create 1 calorie of beef), or use it for ethanol. After you subtract plant based ethanol and animal feed from agricultural yields, we could feed the world on about 1/2 the agriculture we already produce. Plus agricultural yields will supposedly double over the next 2 decades due to biotechnology advances. So by 2030, you could arguably feed the world on 1/4 or less of the agricultural yields being produced.

So humans won't be dying. We may be sleeping on foam mats, giving up all our luxuries and living 12 to a house, but we are pretty hard to kill off. We're the bedbugs of the universe.

[AdHocSolver]

63. Most Americans still believe in supply-side, trickle-down economics.

Most Americans still believe the stock market IS the "real" economy.

Many Americans who still have some income are propping up the Ponzi schemes of the stock market by buying and selling stocks, either directly or through pension funds or shares in mutual funds.

Most Americans are still spending most of their money buying imported crap, rather than buying American, or demanding that retailers support American labor. By their purchasing habits, most Americans are supporting companies who offshore jobs. The corporations do it ONLY because it is profitable thanks to the American consumer.

Most Americans are invested in mutual funds, stocks, venture capital firms, and other corporations which increase profits by offshoring jobs and eliminating American workers.

There is a direct correlation between loss of jobs and Americans who eagerly shop at Wal-Mart and companies of that ilk just to save a couple of dollars.

The corporations could not get away with it without the implicit or explicit aid of the American consumer and investor.

You want to save the economy? Use your money to support companies who employ Americans. The only important criterion is who gets paid to do the work, not who gets the profits. Only the rich people get the profits, and more often than not, they will use their profits to build factories offshore.

If anyone thinks that our federal or state governments will do anything to help the American economy by reining in the excesses of the corporations, you are delusional. Our governments are bought and paid for by the corporations.

It is up to the American people to understand that we cannot win at this game, and stop playing it. To get change, the American people will have to vote with their dollars. That is the only way to implement change.

[texanwitch]

65. Mike Malloy said the other night almost the same thing.

Just stop playing the game and stay home.

Don't do any thing, just sit down.

Voting with their dollars is right.

[Golden Raisin]

64. Eat cake?

[brentspeak]

74. Self-deleted

I wrote a long, despairing response to your legitimate questions. I deleted it because I realized it didn't provide the kind of positive reassurance your post deserves. As a nation, we simply have to take our political system back to get our previously-prosperous economic system back.

[okie]

76. I think you're right

Those jobs are not coming back. What's worse, there appears to be nothing on the horizon to fill this void. 'Green' jobs, the knowledge economy - it's all hype and wishful thinking.

I disagree that the state of the economy is necessarily a sign that capitalism has failed. That's too easy, I think. Capitalism is just prone to crisis, and the majority are always the ones picking up the tab. This is just how the system works. A tiny minority rakes in enormous amounts of wealth, the rest of us suffer. If this tiny minority stands to lose anything, it has the state to support it. Now it's tempting to take a simplistic view in light of all this and say, 'well, we just need to take our country back.' We have to ask ourselves when this was ever 'our' country in the first place? What golden age are we looking back to? The immediate post-war decades? Sure, many working class folks were reasonably well-off then, but what was this degree of prosperity based on?

Do we demand New Deal-style reforms? Okay, what made those reforms possible? Why were they implemented in the 1930s? Were they for the benefit of working men and women, or were they implemented to prop up a crisis prone system that many were becoming fed up with? We have to move past nostalgic reminisces to FDR. The 1930s were a profound failure for the left.

More to the point, we have to ask ourselves why the reforms that came about in the 1930s have been torn down over the past 40 years or so. We can't fall prey to simplistic explanations for this. We can't just say, 'well, the New Deal has been scrapped because bankers are greedy, and things would be right again if we got back Glass-Steagall or something.' This is wrong. There is no going back. There is no wall of regulation to be built, or re-built. The system is utterly incapable or dealing with any of this outside of financialization, financialization, and even more financialization.

We're in a tough spot, to say the least. Change won't come from within. Sorry if I ramble. Here's a quote I quite like

"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it." - I.F. Stone

[JCMach1]

77. The biggest challenge of the 21st century is how to organize a world that no longer needs work...

Both capitalism and communism were organized on the notion of labor.

That's fast flying out the door. Simply, the more and more efficient machines you have the less labor needs to be done. It is also becoming harder and harder to monetize the so-called knowledge economy largely because of the net.

So, modern economic theory on the right and the left gives no instructions as to what to do...

Whoever figures out the answer will probably be the most important person of this century... i.e. the 21st century equivalent of Marx.

[HeresyLives]

105. YES! YES! YES!

Labor...physical work...was the basis of the industrial age, and both capitalism and communism.

It is no longer a factor.

[JCMach1]

106. This is the 500lb gorilla no one talks about... no, it doesn't mean work disappears

Work will always happen. However, because of the factors listed above, it is going to become less and less important to how we organize our society. If the economic system and the society do not mesh, there will be a revolution.

[HeresyLives]

107. NO! NO! NO!

What is it with people on here and revolution anyway??

You think revolutions are fun??

Fercrissakes, use a ballot box!

[JCMach1]

118. it's a paradigm shift... and honestly I mean revolution in the sociological sense

... not necessarily involving violence.

The system cannot stitch everything together for another 100yrs. Before then, things are going to break.

[AdHocSolver]

109. The capitalists designed a system where profits are made precisely by eliminating labor.

There is nothing inevitable about it. There is no conflict between labor and technology.

Consider agriculture. At one time, our food production was based on large numbers of family farms disbursed around the country. Farm families had several children as farming at one time was labor intensive, so having a lot of kids was possible and economical.

With the advent of mechanical farm equipment, farm families could afford to farm their acreage with fewer kids. Farm families could adjust their size to the fact of less labor intensive farming. So, even with mechanization, a large number of small- to medium-sized farms could be profitable. Improving technology was not a problem.

The problem with agriculture came about when capitalists bought out a group of family farms and converted them to factory farms. Farm owners were then absentee landlords controlling huge acreages and employing seasonal low-wage labor. Hiring local labor and providing local residents with jobs didn't provide enough profit for these industrial "farmers". They brought in even lower wage labor from other countries, and then down-graded to even lower-wage illegal aliens.

In effect, the "northern" industrialists reincarnated the "southern" plantation system operated with de facto "slave" labor. Small to medium size family farms could no longer profitably compete.

In the industrial factories, the goal of the capitalists in automating work was never to improve product quality or job quality, but to increase profits through planned "obsolescence" and eliminating people in the production process. In the 1970's and 1980's, large corporations like General Motors invested heavily in Artificial Intelligence technology with the idea of replacing skilled workers with unskilled workers, by capturing the skills and expertise of the skilled worker and incorporating that expertise into a computer program.

That effort was only marginally successful as they overestimated what could be achieved. The corporations then switched from Artificial Intelligence techniques for eliminating labor to offshoring jobs to low-wage countries to eliminate good-paying jobs. Those good-paying jobs still exist (in foreign, low-wage countries), and could be returned to America. However, the profit has to be taken out of offshoring, not eliminating automation.

Another technique for eliminating jobs is to make products unrepairable. Many people used to be employed fixing things, such as radios, TV sets, and shoes. Radios and TV sets used to be very "modular". They were made of discrete components or modular subassemblies that a moderately skilled technician could repair with affordable tools and test equipment. Schematic circuit diagrams were easily and inexpensively obtained from the manufacturer or third party publishers such as Howard W. Sams Photofacts.

This is no longer the case. Nowadays, all circuit functions are placed on one specially designed integrated circuit chip that is manufactured in limited quantities with the expectation that if it fails, it will be too difficult and expensive to replace, if you could even buy a replacement part. In other words, buy another one and throw the old one away. Not only is this wasteful of resources, but it eliminates jobs that people could have -- used to have -- repairing these things.

In the good old days, you could buy a pair of good looking, comfortable leather shoes that you could wear for years. When the heals wore down, you took them to a shoe repair shop, and for a few dollars, they were replaced. The soles get worn? For a few dollars more, they could be replaced as well. Buy a tin or bottle of shoe polish, and with fifteen or twenty minutes of effort, the shoes looked like brand new.

Nowadays, an "affordable" pair of shoes are made of "plastic" and they are ready for the garbage can in less than a year. Repair them? How? Another large number of jobs done away with by the capitalists.

One of my biggest gripes is how large corporations use computers as gate keepers to make sure that they avoid providing you any meaningful service. Call their number and a computer answers the phone with a long-winded message about how wonderful the company is and how much they want to serve you. Then they give you a list of options for getting any useful assistance...maybe.

"If you want to talk to sales, press "1". If you want to open a new account, press "2". If you want help with an existing account, press "3". If you need technical assistance, press "4". If you want to talk to a customer representative, stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order that it was received."

Invariably, whatever you do, you will be given another set of options or, at least, asked to wait longer until someone (most likely, one overworked guy in India answering all of the calls no matter which button you pressed) decides to answer your call. Many times, especially to the wait-on-the-line option, after five or ten minutes of listening to some nerve shattering "music", you will hear the line go dead immediately followed by a dial tone. Depending on how desperate you are, you might call back and go through the same series of frustrations again -- or just give up.

My point is that automation does NOT automatically lead to poor quality, unrepairable products, and permanent loss of jobs. Capitalists designed and perpetuate a system of maximizing profits that merely happens to use automation as one method of implementing their objective. Eliminating and offshoring jobs is NOT an inevitable outcome of automation.

Eliminating NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF and all of the other cartel trade agreements that make offshoring jobs so profitable would go a long way toward helping the U.S. economy recover. Imposing tariffs and import quotas on everyday products imported from low wage countries to protect American jobs would NOT be against nature and the universe. This is what practically every country has done to build and protect its manufacturing base from unfair and destructive competition. Our problem is not the fear of supposed retaliation from other countries. If they refuse to buy our exports, which they aren't buying anyway, we have large enough markets within the U.S. (demand) that we can sustain our economy by producing and selling everyday goods here without exports.

[JCMach1]

119. You have definitely identified several other factors at play here

Specifically-

Mass consumption- will give way to sustainability as resources dwindle.

Given the current system, I wouldn't suggest pushing the capitalists to the wall on protectionism. We create a goods and services wall around the country then American companies will throw the doors open again to mass immigration. They will get their cheap labor by any means necessary.

When long-term endemic unemployment reaches critical mass, that's when the changes will start to come. I still believe that by the end of this century that labor as we know it will be essentially dead and that both capitalism and communism will be tombstones on the roadside of history.

What they would be replaced with is the big question...? Maybe it is something like you discussed... smaller scale protected local economies with work and distribution of resources re-defined. It's pure speculation at this point.

[AdHocSolver]

110. Edited to delete duplicate. n/t

[stray cat]

79. Protest and march and go on strike - LOL

Get creative and create jobs and innovative ideas and projects - for kids - get a real education so you can compete with Indian children who study and have to pass their exams or lose any chance at advancement

[Kablooie]

80. That's easy. Die. And decrease the surplus population. Natch.

[Odin2005]

81. Our civilization has become too productive via technology for Capitalism to work.

Ideally improvements in productivity should lead to people working less for the same amount of money.

[Tigermoose]

82. Get a grip.

We live in one of the richest and most affluent societies ever.

[brentspeak]

89. You mean we USED to live in one of the richest and most affluent societies ever

The wealth of the nation is rapidly dissipating (and being redistributed upwards to a very few).

[Hugabear]

112. Well I guess you just told me, didn't you

I'm sure that the Romans thought their empire would last forever as well.

Mind explaining just how we're going to maintain our status? Or will it just happen because "that's how it is"?

[Powerdot16]

86. Been asking

that same question.

[invictus]

87. Booming occupations for Americans: (1) soldier (2) mercenary (3) debt collector (4) prison guard

[Jim__]

90. Eat cake!

That attitude worked out so well for the French aristocracy.

[guitar man]

91. same thing we've been doing

sit around and bitch about it on the internet all day :P

:sarcasm:

[L0oniX]

98. Keep shopping.

http://www.revbilly.com/

[Yavin4]

101. Everyone, Here's The Bottom Line

Either things will get markedly better or there will be an economic Armageddon.

If things get better:

People will feel more secure in their jobs, and more jobs will become available. That means that people will start buying again, and thus creating even more jobs.


If there's an economic Armageddon:

Then we will probably become an openly right-wing, totalitarian state, which will be a living hell for all of us and the world.


Now, think about this. If we have an economic Armageddon, there's no planning for it, and there's no surviving it. It will probably destroy most of us. So, why even worry about it.

Instead, focus your energy and attention on the first scenario where things get better. You should be planning on how to take advantage of things when they get better. Use this time to develop new skills, meet new contacts, put together a business plan for a new venture, etc.

[LatteLibertine]

117. Not sure

Republicans are currently crying about wealth redistribution when 85% of our wealth is held by 20% of our population.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

No doubt the plight of the lower 80% of the nation is because they're lazy and stupid.

Our country is firmly in the grasp of crony capitalism and corporatism. Some of the wealthy who also happen to be sociopaths are doing great damage to this nation. Consequences to the economy or country, no matter how dire, don't seem to matter as long as they can score some manner of short term win. It's sad and unfortunate. Of course they can't do it alone. They need corrupt complicit government officials.

[B Calm]

120. We need to trash NAFTA and embrace tariffs!