What It Takes to Be in the 1% Around the World

[danstanford]

As automation in my industry has grown I have invested as quickly as I could in the relevant technologies. Employment has changed as a result of this but has definitely not shrunk. We shifted jobs from one area to another as the machines need to be supported in different ways with design, engineering, programming and special maintenance taking a higher priority. If society should be concerned about anything, it should be concerned that we took a generally high skill work force and divided it into much higher skilled and significantly lower skilled workers.

As for the idea that we won't need workers out there, I believe that the future is bright for people prepared to add value and do work others cannot or will not do. There will be more older people with money willing to pay for things and far less younger people to support them.

There are two significant drivers to this challenge. Demographics show us that we will have more retired boomers living longer for quite a few years to come. This will create some other challenges in the pension and tax fronts as well. The other significant problem is the way our young people see the work world and their reluctance to learn the skills some have taken a lifetime to learn. They want to come and be the strategic thinkers and not have to lift anything or be in any situation where they are the low person getting the low profile jobs. We have our radar up for young people prepared to work their way up and we grab on to them as pure gold to the organization.

Where I live, PSW's rightly claim they don't get paid enough or get enough respect for the job they do. Most of us wouldn't trade our job for theirs no matter what they paid us.

[belizesailor]

Mike, Im just going to let this pass...so we dont decend into a political debate.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Mike, Im just going to let this pass...so we dont decend into a political debate.

Sounds good. But I honestly have no idea how your post connects to what was said. None of what I've said is intended to be political.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes indeed, very interesting. The original Star Trek model is a good one. But we don't have to get that starry, nor do we have to look far to know how this could work. The examples are all around us.

First off, the notion that we need "a job" for people to be active and productive is not supported by any evidence. If fact, a large portion of the people reading this right now actually understand this intimately. Heck, they currently live it. We call them "retired."

Do most retired people you know (or are) sit on their butts all day and do nothing? Again... rhetorical question. We all know most are active and engaged in whatever turns their crank.

People don't need to be told how to spend their time. We've been trained to think this way by our society, and indeed some people struggle when they don't have this kind of external stricture on them. But most figure it out pretty easily -- and the smart one's go cruising .

So retired means no income? Maybe not a job but surely you don’t mean the average person can live with no income?

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So retired means no income? Maybe not a job but surely you don’t mean the average person can live with no income?

You're correct. I don't mean that. People still have income. It comes in some version of a guaranteed annual income.

One could conceive of a society where this is not necessary, and here again, we don't have to look far to see examples. How much income does a child bring in? Yet it still manages to have its needs fulfilled (most do anyhow). But I understand this is far too radical an idea to even present.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes indeed, very interesting. The original Star Trek model is a good one. But we don't have to get that starry, nor do we have to look far to know how this could work. The examples are all around us.

Early Star Trek largely ignored economics. It simply wasn't a key part of the stories. There are a few that consider it in small ways at the ship or federation level but generally not a key consideration in the stories.

More recent shows have incorporated capitalism (ferengi). Of course, they use caricatures of capitalists rather than intelligent well fleshed out characters.

[Uricanejack]

A motorcycle.
Healthy disregard for law and order, And a leather vest with a little 1% patch.

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Actually, my real point isn't about equity. It's that we are headed to an economy largely without jobs. Since "the job" is the primary mechanism for distributing resources in our capitalist societies, my claim is that we will need to find a new way to do this.

You could be overestimating how "jobs" will evolve. I'm old enough to remember all the expert WSJ articles in the early 1990's about the fallacy of the emerging "information economy". The thought was that Western economies were doomed because only THINGS had enough real value to drive economies. The concept of millions of people earning a living by pushing around digital data was very foreign. What a quaint misconception that was, in retrospect; a terribly erroneous prediction.

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I don't think anyone would claim innovators that create new things which better the lives of others aren't deserving of monetary praise. But this represents a tiny fraction of the people who reside near the top of our economic pyramid. Has the stock broker, corporate lawyer or cosmetic surgeon "given society innovations that represent advances in quality of life"? It's a rhetorical question, of course, but you get my point.

Your "tiny fraction" sounds very subjective. Almost every super-wealthy person I have met has created such wealth by innovation in in my field of technology. Call me subjective, too.
While I might have disdain for a stock broker collecting monstrous rewards, I also accept that my own investments need such services to be successful.
The corporate lawyer that defends millions of dollars of assets in legal contests is no doubt worth large compensation from the perspective of the corporation. No gripe there.
The cosmetic surgeon probably could also study how to repair defective heart valves, and then we would probably offer more respect. However, a nose job is just a luxury that is a side effect of important modern medicine IMO. Some humans with wealth will no doubt give in to such vanity, but what a small price to pay as a side effect of truly noble medicine.

Clearly this economic pyramid is not perfect, but there are no doubt a handful of wildly compensated folks who innovated enough to allow you and I to instantly debate ideas on magical machines, thousands of miles apart. In a sense, the pyramid works very well for society at large. I'm willing to accept a few Ferrari-driving cosmetic surgeons and useless trust-fund babies along the way. A few undeserving characters do not negate the up-side of allowing the truly worthy to become billionaires. I'm not jealous of Steve Job's billions or Elon Musk's billions or Bill Gate's billions. I'm simply grateful to live in a place where such personal wealth is the reward for world-changing innovation.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

If the Bezo's and Musks were paid in wages would they take the same risks and create the thousands of jobs that they do ?

Of course they would. They always tell us there not in it for the money.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

This is the key take-away, though with all due respect it's not a fresh idea. In USA, at least, it is still promoted, though the ones that need it most elect to not participate.



Pensions, now mostly a thing of the past, were held in- you guessed it- shares. Sometimes this was good, sometimes bad. Many of my friends who worked for NorTel went from millionaires dreaming of retiring at 40 YO to having zero savings. All in all, the problems with pensions are related to mismanagement of the accounts. That said, there are still plenty of pensions (shares) which some of my retired friends are really enjoying.



Many publicly held (and some privately held) companies have long either given away shares, or allowed employees to buy shares/options.



The US govt 401k program is all in shares. That's tax free, and tax free growth, until it's used. Those who invested in 401k wisely can often live off the annual growth.



As Valhalla mentioned, USA is a free economy and anyone is allowed to invest in the stock market (= shares.)



So the concept of untaxed money growth isn't new, and it certainly is promoted in USA. The big problem is that it's often optional- those who need it most don't invest. I have to be clear here: those lower paid workers who have the option to invest in 401k ELECT to not do so. And it's often not for lack of funds to do so- they spent the money instead. The president of the company I worked for would regularly appeal to the workforce to put money into 401k; he'd cite the proportion of blue collar vs white collar who were investing; he'd come right out and say that those who most needed to invest were not. And, for whatever reason, they'd instead spend the money on TVs, and vacations, and cars.

The problem is the rich ( wealthy ) have disposable income after buying TVs cars etc. The less well off do not. Having to live in penury to afford to invest in a pension is simply a ridiculous assumption. People have to live

That’s why blue collar people don’t invest. ( also they don’t understand investing )

In my experience the minute a blue collar worker gains enough income they buy property as this is an investment they understand.

[goboatingnow]

By the way as a company owner, I pay more tax percentage wise then my secretary** ( if I had One) as PAYE earners get allowances company owners do not. Any income I receive is taxed , hence paying me in shares is of no advantage over wages. In fact shares are worse because I will pay income tax on unrealised gains. Ie a big cash flow hit , the only way around that is via ESOP style share schemes but that’s entirely different.

( ** and they get social protection measures like unemployment benefits that I don’t , yet I make similar levels of social insurance payments )

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by cyan

You could be overestimating how "jobs" will evolve. I'm old enough to remember all the expert WSJ articles in the early 1990's about the fallacy of the emerging "information economy". The thought was that Western economies were doomed because only THINGS had enough real value to drive economies. The concept of millions of people earning a living by pushing around digital data was very foreign. What a quaint misconception that was, in retrospect; a terribly erroneous prediction.


Your "tiny fraction" sounds very subjective. Almost every super-wealthy person I have met has created such wealth by innovation in in my field of technology. Call me subjective, too.
While I might have disdain for a stock broker collecting monstrous rewards, I also accept that my own investments need such services to be successful.
The corporate lawyer that defends millions of dollars of assets in legal contests is no doubt worth large compensation from the perspective of the corporation. No gripe there.
The cosmetic surgeon probably could also study how to repair defective heart valves, and then we would probably offer more respect. However, a nose job is just a luxury that is a side effect of important modern medicine IMO. Some humans with wealth will no doubt give in to such vanity, but what a small price to pay as a side effect of truly noble medicine.

Clearly this economic pyramid is not perfect, but there are no doubt a handful of wildly compensated folks who innovated enough to allow you and I to instantly debate ideas on magical machines, thousands of miles apart. In a sense, the pyramid works very well for society at large. I'm willing to accept a few Ferrari-driving cosmetic surgeons and useless trust-fund babies along the way. A few undeserving characters do not negate the up-side of allowing the truly worthy to become billionaires. I'm not jealous of Steve Job's billions or Elon Musk's billions or Bill Gate's billions. I'm simply grateful to live in a place where such personal wealth is the reward for world-changing innovation.

As long as one is a member of that privledged 'society'; i.e., a 'rich' human with the means to (temporarily) disregard the environment that allows the existance of the (highly corrupt) system that supports their depredations.

How interesting that the line of thinking most striking


"The thought was that Western economies were doomed because only THINGS had enough real value to drive economies. The concept of millions of people earning a living by pushing around digital data was very foreign."


so well illustrates the myopia of it's assumption.


Only 'things' actually do have "enough real value" to support economies. "Pushing around digital data" does not contribute anything to a real economy.

It turns out 'market forces', finally, do have a role to play, at least on a global scale. The perpetual 'bubble economies', driven by artificial conceptions of 'need' (thanks to the advertising world's manipulation of human nature) are finally resolving (have finally resolved?) into an single, giant, imaginary world 'economy' whose founding mantra is 'perpetual growth', which, as any economist will tell you, is impossible to sustain in an environment that has finite resources.

Like all such 'bubbles', it will eventually pop when the capital artificially supporting it, in this case the functioning global biosphere, is either used up or is bankrupted --- which is, I suppose, the same thing.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by cyan

You could be overestimating how "jobs" will evolve. I'm old enough to remember all the expert WSJ articles in the early 1990's about the fallacy of the emerging "information economy". The thought was that Western economies were doomed because only THINGS had enough real value to drive economies. The concept of millions of people earning a living by pushing around digital data was very foreign. What a quaint misconception that was, in retrospect; a terribly erroneous prediction.

Lets set aside the subjective nature of who is monetarily valued in our societies. As you say, it is subjective. And it's not really relevant to the more interesting (to me) thesis regarding the evolution of our economies.

I know well how the notion I'm presenting: 'the end of human jobs' can look just like all the other past predictions around "progress." And I acknowledge that this might be the case. I could definitely be wrong.

That said, I think anyone who is following the development of robotics, and even more importantly, the exponential advances in AI, will appreciate how far and how fast things have progressed. Things that were said to be the sole domain of the human mind are easily falling to AI. And I'm not just talking about the more mundane and methodical tasks like diagnosic medicine or stock market trading or legal strategy. These are already well within the capability of targetted AI systems. I'm not refering to what we generally call "creative activities." Music, poetry, engineering innovation... we're seeing AI systems sucessfully move into these areas as well.

Almost any task with relies on accessing and assessing data can now, or soon will be, done better, fast and cheaper by an AI. Your stock broker, your lawyer, your specialized doctor will all soon be replaceable. Meanwhile, robots that have all the dexterity and physical capabilities of humans now exist. But again, they are stronger, faster, more efficient, and in some cases cheaper.

These two are coming together, and will soon be able to do most "jobs" better, and cheaper, than they are done today. Faced with this kind of opportunity, businesses have no choice but to take them up.

Automation, robotics and offshoring have already decimated blue collar employment in developed countries. This trend will continue and accelerate. And now AI is gunning for most white collar jobs.

I'm not saying everything will disappear. And of course there will be some new jobs created that humans must do. But there is no necessity for enough new jobs to magically appear. Not unless we embrace Jim's "Bullshyte" jobs model.

This is why I say we must understand, and then disassociate, the two functions that "the job" plays in our societies. The first function is to do a task that is (hopefully) useful and necessary. But the second function -- arguably the more important one -- is to distribute resources (wealth). We've intertwined these two functions in "the job", but it doesn't have to be this way.

We can still have useful tasks done AND we can distribute wealth. My claim, which is far from original, is that we will have to find a way to do this. And we will have to do it quickly, because we are already well on the way to having an economy with few (good) jobs.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

As long as one is a member of that privledged 'society'; i.e., a 'rich' human with the means to (temporarily) disregard the environment that allows the existance of the (highly corrupt) system that supports their depredations.



How interesting that the line of thinking most striking





"The thought was that Western economies were doomed because only THINGS had enough real value to drive economies. The concept of millions of people earning a living by pushing around digital data was very foreign."





so well illustrates the myopia of it's assumption.





Only 'things' actually do have "enough real value" to support economies. "Pushing around digital data" does not contribute anything to a real economy.



It turns out 'market forces', finally, do have a role to play, at least on a global scale. The perpetual 'bubble economies', driven by artificial conceptions of 'need' (thanks to the advertising world's manipulation of human nature) are finally resolving (have finally resolved?) into an single, giant, imaginary world 'economy' whose founding mantra is 'perpetual growth', which, as any economist will tell you, is impossible to sustain in an environment that has finite resources.



Like all such 'bubbles', it will eventually pop when the capital artificially supporting it, in this case the functioning global biosphere, is either used up or is bankrupted --- which is, I suppose, the same thing.

Boom and bust are natural bed follows. Those either lucky or well positioned will of course make money on the way up and the way down. Billions will get written off , the system re-establishes itself and growth restarts

[cyan]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Lets set aside the subjective nature of who is monetarily valued in our societies. As you say, it is subjective. And it's not really relevant to the more interesting (to me) thesis regarding the evolution of our economies.

I know well how the notion I'm presenting: 'the end of human jobs' can look just like all the other past predictions around "progress." And I acknowledge that this might be the case. I could definitely be wrong.

That said, I think anyone who is following the development of robotics, and even more importantly, the exponential advances in AI, will appreciate how far and how fast things have progressed. Things that were said to be the sole domain of the human mind are easily falling to AI. And I'm not just talking about the more mundane and methodical tasks like diagnosic medicine or stock market trading or legal strategy. These are already well within the capability of targetted AI systems. I'm not refering to what we generally call "creative activities." Music, poetry, engineering innovation... we're seeing AI systems sucessfully move into these areas as well.

Almost any task with relies on accessing and assessing data can now, or soon will be, done better, fast and cheaper by an AI. Your stock broker, your lawyer, your specialized doctor will all soon be replaceable. Meanwhile, robots that have all the dexterity and physical capabilities of humans now exist. But again, they are stronger, faster, more efficient, and in some cases cheaper.

These two are coming together, and will soon be able to do most "jobs" better, and cheaper, than they are done today. Faced with this kind of opportunity, businesses have no choice but to take them up.

Automation, robotics and offshoring have already decimated blue collar employment in developed countries. This trend will continue and accelerate. And now AI is gunning for most white collar jobs.

I'm not saying everything will disappear. And of course there will be some new jobs created that humans must do. But there is no necessity for enough new jobs to magically appear. Not unless we embrace Jim's "Bullshyte" jobs model.

This is why I say we must understand, and then disassociate, the two functions that "the job" plays in our societies. The first function is to do a task that is (hopefully) useful and necessary. But the second function -- arguably the more important one -- is to distribute resources (wealth). We've intertwined these two functions in "the job", but it doesn't have to be this way.

We can still have useful tasks done AND we can distribute wealth. My claim, which is far from original, is that we will have to find a way to do this. And we will have to do it quickly, because we are already well on the way to having an economy with few (good) jobs.

While we may not agree entirely on the evolution of human jobs, I do think that those who contemplate a "post-work" society bring up fascinating questions that go far beyond resources. If modern humans humans largely derive their sense of self/worth from their jobs, then what does society look like without such endeavors?

I think the question is similar to concerns about those who approach retirement. My colleagues seem so concerned that my planned days of sailing and fishing and finally finishing writing that novel... will be enough to replace my working life on the leading edge of technology. (Hah! So far, so good.)

Perhaps the real challenge of a post-work society will not be resource distribution. The real challenge might be for people to simply find fulfillment in something other than just working to be in that 1%.