Australia G20 Meeting - The World Is Facing A Global Job Crisis

From the G20 Labour and Employment Ministerial Meeting in Australia: A global jobs crisis is looming with an extra 600 million positions needed to be created within 16 years, the World Bank has warned.

 

They should tap into the central banks to increase minimum wages to $50/hr globally to help all of those "working poor". The higher incomes and resulting taxes will create a big multiplier effect which will solve the unemployment problems. Taxing and spending the world toward prosperity. Maybe throw in a few massive public works programs where we build railways across the Himalayas and bridges to Tasmania and Indonesia (will stimulate world trade doncha know). Problem solved.

 

Its going to get nasty. Expanding populations, lack of jobs, and increasing energy and food costs will ensure a steady stream of converts to extremist ideologies.

 

We need a <sarcasm> tag because some people might believe you

On the other side, we could massively increase CEO compensation, support our oligarchs and eliminate taxation for multinational corporations so that trickle down economics will lead us a new golden age of radical abundance and puppies for everyone.

 

Hello!! World Bank??. Is anybody home?? Debt? Lots of it. Needs to be serviced. Means less money can be spent on products and services. Ya, know??? The things that result in people having jobs. Huge tax burdens. Again. Suppresses spending. Tons of rules and regulations. Results in companies not being able to get off the ground. More jobs not being created.

Nope. Guess all the little Lenin's and Stalin's at the WB are too busy creating their socialist new world order paradise.

There's going to be some serious accounting when this is all over and the world actually adopts economic theories that are based on reality. On facts and evidence. Rather than moronic central planning ideology.

But you are right, until that happens people will continue to suffer at these people's hands. We've seen it right throughout the 20th century.

 

Here's a good read on what the future may hold. The article discusses 'Basic Income', including the concepts of negative taxation

I contrast these ideas with the simplicity of something like the SE Asia model - minimal government involvement and taxes, shops, stalls and vendors all over every street doing whatever is necessary to make the day's profit - an almost purely laissez-faire economy. BUT I can't see the West either embracing this concept or allowing something like it to grow. We don't have the acceptance of 'poverty' nor family networks to support the framework it operates within. I think in the West, a variation of the 'basic income' model will win out - with that basic being inadequate for more than subsistence, rather than a positive model.

 

The idea of robotics does not destroy jobs, it merely alters the skills base.
It takes an extraordinary amount of time and skill to develop robots.
Metallurgy, programming, technicians, electronics, process engineers, computers etc, etc.
The employment is in the manufacturing and maintenance of these machines and not so much in the processes they are involved in.
We are well behind Asia when it comes to realising this fact and we will suffer as a consequence.
It is a national problem. Finger pointing is useless because we don't have enough fingers.

 

Things can be automated a lot beyond robotic vacuum cleaners. 50 years ago, it would take over a year to process and visualise the data which now takes a week worth of writing scripts, and a couple of days to let the cpu process. Developing robots takes time, but they can be developed to produce and fix other robots. Look at the IT industry - how many people need to be on site to run a business network? You're right that there will be a large shift toward robotic related employment, but eventually they will outperform us in all unskilled and many skilled jobs.

Robo-labour empires will be on level ground with the companies that provide the energy to keep them running. With the right support, the unemployed will be free to return to a feudal lifestyle or seek enlightenment in a new renaissance of science and culture. Instead of working on repetitive tasks that are now automated, we can follow our dreams.
If the government administers this grand charity it would be less restrictive than if it falls to religious organisations to pick up the slack potentially leading to increased fundamentalism within the underclass.

A more likely option would be to tie the basic wage to basic service with on the job training to provide and administer services which used to be government controlled, then were privatized, and will now be subsidized for a massive "work for the dole" style scheme. Keeps the hordes from revolting and mutes the cries of paying "free money to bums" from those who are taxed.

The choice of services will filter towards military eventually, cos it's profitable and the herd needs to be culled every now and then. Once the wars have gone on long enough, unemployment will fall even where no new jobs have been created.

There's always a market for catering to the hedonistic desires of the wealthy if you need money bad enough, but you'll be competing with robots there too. Unfortunately there will always be a job for lawyers.

 

Science can have a negative impact on people.
But it's worshipped , a sacred cow.

 

Fair point, it also has it's extremists.

 

Like the climate change babble. Consensus is not science. First it was global warming when the computer model for this was found wanting it was changed to climate change.

Kind Regards
non recourse

 

Science as religion. About as un-scientific as it can get.

 

Of course we all know that there always has to be a"crisis" for the men in suits to talk about and have meetings and justify their junkets. Throw another "crisis" into the media to keep the serfs fearful.

 

I could get used to travelling the world in 5 star luxury until my golden travel card arrived and I had to fly economy ( of course with the FF upgrades from points I gained when flying first class.

Elect me!

 

Maybe if every country gave a monetary tribute to an international scientific body the weather would be 25 and sunny every day

 

It's mainly that science applied to technology gives the rich and powerful more power and they use it to
further their own interests.
Against those less powerful.
Against the poor.

Scientific advancement should benefit all.
It turns out some very good things and some very bad.
More power in the hands of the few is bad.

Human chaos due to mass unemployment must be regulated against.
As should scientific research into germ warfare and new
Weaponry.
But you can't stop progress!

 

This from the Age may be of interest.
This of course points to a drop in real wages - as per in America = and the attendant pressures. Expect TVs and cars to get cheaper and food and heating to get more expensive.

 

The unions really have gone full retard. They only ever look at one side of the equation. Business profits are falling but they want to increase wages. This can only have one result. The majority of businesses in Australia are not mega-corps like CC Amatil. They are smaller Australian owned businesses that are struggling to make ends meet more and more in this economic climate and as Australians increasingly choose to bypass Australian businesses and spend their money overseas via the internet with businesses in countries that have FAR lower wages than Australia.

The unions of course don't give a toss about the welfare of their members, they simply lust for the increase in their takings each time there is a pay rise or an increase in super to feed their industry funds that they skim so heavily and of course their "income insurance" rackets. So businesses do what they have to do. Reduce staff numbers. The big businesses that can afford it move offshore. In boom times unions can get away with extortionate behaviour, in lean times they don't let up despite the absolute evidence before their faces that they are draining their host. Qantas. Toyota. Holden. Ford. Unions cannot see through their own greed.

And then of course there is the ultimate joke: The Unions are the most corrupt businesses in Australia but they continually revile all employers as greedy and heartless while they themselves mis-appropriate millions of dollars of workers money every year to set union bosses up with cushy political careers, buy houses, cars, prostitutes, holidays and engaging in bribery and extortion on an industrial scale.

Hawke understood that unions had to work with the businesses that the income of their members and the unions depended on. That outcomes needed to be balanced. The ACTU of current times is floundering around because they don't know how to deal with a world that has changed so radically based on the internet, the high Australian dollar and globalism. So they just suck harder at the neck of Australian businesses and ramp up their class war rhetoric. The result is bad for everyone. Just like the current crop of Federal MP's the ACTU is anachronistic and unable to understand and adapt to what is going on around them.

 

I'm no unionist, but if the workers didn't have bunch of pricks to counter the exploitative pricks running some businesses we wouldn't have balance. I feel for small business, myself included. Unions can go too far at times, but so can big business. Corruption is rife on both sides. Without unions, we'd have to rely on government to keep wages in line with the cost of living, which isn't happening. Though interest rates remain low, giving an overall advantage to property owners/investors, those at the lean end get squeezed the most. Saving a deposit (in cash) is uneconomical. Wage and staff cuts also benefit shareholders more than the employees.

Internationally, we are overpaid, but likewise, we pay more for goods and services. If the workforce lacks disposable income, there is less available to buy goods and services, and lower sales to business.

 

What the unions are now is nothing like what unions were formed for. They are now nothing more than Big Business themselves. I don't remember who said it but the statement "when your union rep shows up in a suit with a briefcase and an expensive car you know something is very wrong".