- Each participant creates the work and owns the value proposition
- Innovation and collaboration are paramount
Innovation, blah, blah, blah, right? Yes, the word is terribly over-used, but the point is to avoid commodification. Whatever tasks can be reduced to input, processes and output can be automated or done anywhere, i.e. the task is a commodity that can be performed by interchangeable workers.
If the work can be performed by interchangeable workers, why pay a premium for labor in the U.S. Japan and Europe?
The only sustainable way to avoid being commoditized is to learn to create value in ways that cannot be commoditized. That's the point of collaboration, accountability and innovation: software and robots are superb at repeating specified processes. Figuring out human emotions and markets and combining insights from different fields--not so much. Those still require human learning, communication, collaboration and ingenuity.
Try programming a robot to navigate a flower bed on uneven ground, remove the rotten boards in a staircase and replace them with the appropriate type of lumber.Perhaps a robot will be able to do this cheaper than a human some day, but that day is not yet here. Being able to apply a variety of skills to ambiguous real-world problems is another set of skills that cannot be commoditized.
It's tempting to pine for the days when just showing up and doing routine work was enough to earn a middle-class paycheck, but that's no different than sighing wistfully for the days when making buggy whips and shoveling horse manure off the streets were common jobs: those days are gone.
Any employer who pays humans to do work that can be automated or performed elsewhere for a fraction of the cost will soon go broke as competitors eat his/her lunch. Employers that want to survive recessions and competition can only pay for the value their employees create in the marketplace. Consumers don't pay for blue sky, and so neither can employers.
The government is currently immune to such pressures, but since the state is itself dependent on taxes skimmed from profits and wages, the erosion of the old model means the state's revenues are doomed to shrink right along with profits and wages.
No sector will be immune to the changing nature of work and value creation.
There is much more on the topic in the video program (31:55):
I've adapted. Work is a 4 letter word.
Work is the curse of the drinking class
That's "Money Chaser" class, the drinking class is being relegated to the "Haves"...
The only way to avoid being commoditized in today's corrupt government environment is to form a guild, group, or association and:
1) Restrict membership by ridiculous licensing and certification requirements,
2) Form a lobbying group to pay off the clowns in government to grant absolute cartel status to your group,
3) Buy media time to promote your group as composed of caring, concerned, competent and describe all foes as evil.
Your plan sounds viable until you see the price controls go volatile...
It's always viable if you own enough politicians.
or the MSM............
“Rev. Billy Graham openly voiced a belief that Jews control the American media, calling it a "stranglehold" during a 1972 conversation with President Richard Nixon, according to a tape of the Oval Office meeting released Thursday by the National Archives.
"This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain," the nation's best-known preacher declared as he agreed with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews and their perceived influence in American life.
"You believe that?" Nixon says after the "stranglehold" comment.
"Yes, sir," Graham says.
"Oh, boy," replies Nixon. "So do I. I can't ever say that but I believe it."
"No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something," Graham replies.
http://www.jewishmag.com/167mag/kissinger-nixon-war-watergate/kissinger-...
The Fed and by extension the US Treasury are proving daily that NO work is required for value creation. In fact no human effort or productivity of any kind is required. All that is required is to create more money and debt until everyone is able to live a life of leisure without a care in the world.
GordonTLong sounds confused in his mind. He talks about having "Responsibility for yourself, responsibility for your family and responsibility for YOUR NEIGHBOURS". Well we all know that the responsibility is synonimous with AUTHORITY (you can't make someone responsible for something and deny him the authority to be responsible)- therefore he is advocating that we all HAVE AUTHORITY OVER OUR NEIGHBOURS. This is disgraceful.
Plus I didn't like the part where he was talking about WE NEED MORE POLICE OFFICERS. WHAT THE FUCK MAN. He's obviously confused and hasn't lived in the real world.
Plus, GordonTLong is a MICROPHONE HOG. He spoke about 90% of the time. Just listen to the video... on second thought's, don't. Don't pollute your mind with his drivel.
I couldn't listen past the first 8 minutes - agree, it was bad.
That sounds quite a lot like what we have now....
But I don't wanna be a lawyer or politician!!!!
GordonTLong says that's ok, you can be a POLICE MAN instead. I kid you not!
Look for the Union label! ... /sarc
'The only sustainable way to avoid being commoditized is to learn to create value in ways that cannot be commoditized.'
Tells you everything you need to know.
Replacing stairway boards?
I’ve got a team of Mexicans – yes, illegals – that can build a staircase for less than what most oldstock Americans will charge for replacing a step.
The answer is obvious: become Mexican.
Sure is, if you want to work.
So I only have to work if I want to?
You mean to say I only have to become Mexican if I want to?
Relief.
Mexican immigration has supplied more than workers. It has supplied unsustainable debt. It has brought a threat to American free enterprise because the Mexican workers with their expanded families on welfare and their increasing burden on the system are costing more than they produce.
In short, you as an American taxpayer must work even harder to provide the transfer of wealth that supports the liabilities brought with the tsunami of Mexican immigration. Think EBT cards, ninja loans, crime and Obamacare.
Mexican immigration?
Last I saw - Apr 17, 2015 – Ford is building an engine plant right in Mexico. The value of the plant is $2,500,000,000.
That’s a lot of money down in old Mexico.
But who is going to mow my lawn?
The answer is obviouser .. work for free .. slave labor . its whats on the agenda.
Vote up!
15Vote down!
0The answer is obvious: become Mexican.
I've got another idea. My solution I think is being carried out all over this country and certainly around the world. First, go ahead and get as many generations to live in the same house as possible. Then pull together and network as much as you can, barter as much as you can, farm, garden, fish do whatever you can to deal in other than cash transfer so that your income can go to as close to zero as possible. Stop paying on unsecured debt and cut up all credit cards. Pay down all debt. Go off the grid. Hook up solar, wind and hydro. Dig a well. Interact with government as seldom as you can get away with. This is the only way forward. If you don't have a large family then you adopt one. Let the system burn. I can't do the worthless paper shuffling for some government job............ although to my shame I certainly tried. I also can't go on being productive and producing jobs etc. when my labor is being stolen as slave labor and handed to the non-productive people. In the meantime, non-materialism is the way, just take pride and comfort and status from your relationships and your experiences that you share with loved ones. Forget the second house, second car, boat, fashion trends and keeping up with the Joneses. That is so 20th century. Consumerism is dead.Gee, I wonder what you will do when your workers turn to you for pay after cash becomes trash & cashless societies are instituted.
Oh that's right, you will be shifted, like the middleclass, into nothingness...
(Don't you see, it's all about control for the elite, control over EVERYTHING, especially the outlaw & cartel classes.)
Now here's a true Murican doing what Muricans do best.
Your mammy and pappy raised you right. Proud of ya.
Now here's a true Murican doing what Muricans do best.
I thought that was killing brown people overseas.
"The only sustainable way to avoid being commoditized is to learn to create value in ways that cannot be commoditized."
ehem, like a ZH poster
We always have rotten stair replacement to fall back on.
Campaign slogan - 2040 - "Full employment - one flight of stairs at a time."
They say if a man does not work, he should not eat, I'd say the elite have other plans for the entire world.... (Can I get two gallons of inflation please?)
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/below-normal...
Big companies can pass along compliance cost while little companies are being driven out. That is bad for competition and the morale and overall development of American workers.
Shit, look at India and China. Do things get innovated there? No, they just copy off of other's ideas for bigger corporations that save money on labor costs through "free" trade agreements.
Small businesses generally take better care of their employees. Wall St has slowly destroyed small biz because it wants to demoralize the labor base. The economy has been slow to improve and the blame is *solely* on increased government burden on small guys and more favoritism and deregulation for big guys (like McD's employee being exempt from ACA, for example).
When you pile on Obamacare, sales tax regs, higher pay, increased regulation compliance you are affecting small biz ability to compete.
Unfortunately, big companies have the eyes and ears of government because the bring the money to The Party (which is BOTH of them).
great post
The problem with trickledown economics and austerity is, it threatens the stabilization of humanity, and once a depression sets in, OH BOY.....
Sadly what you say is true .. sooner or later . I can hope .. the cancer of monopoly and oligarchy .. will kill the host .. the USSA fascistic system and we can start over.. at least in come regions of the country .. I will make sure my son learns a couple of languages.. including his mother's Vietnamese .. because eventually he may have to move there in order to have a job or even a chance at starting a small business .. here .. people have just given up . between govt. regulation and taxes.. its killing the small businessman .. the sad fact is our technology has been sold to China or given to China .. and our leaders did it in the name of 'free market' capitalism .. there are times when 'free trade' is a national security issue.. LIKE NOW.
working is so 1990's
You mean 1930s?
Hey - where is the:
"end of part 1. Part 2 is avialable, $enrollment required for access..."
What - CHS is giving away free doom-porn & life-coaching...?
Yes, but he accepts donations.
So I checked out Udacity yesterday... OK, very intriguing...
And then they get around to asking for your credit card like everyone else! LOL
Charles:
I agree with your assessment 100%...it seems like we are in a transition phase that will challenge the income expectations of the middle-class. Continuing downward pressure on wages from global labor competition is going to have very significant impact especially in places like here in the Northeast. For example, as the baby-boomers are retiring/dying their houses will be for sale but who will buy them at the current prices ? What jobs will people have in the NYC suburbs that will justify a salary to afford $1m house in Scarsdale ?
PS - I enjoyed reading "Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy". I've sent it to many colleagues who seem to be struggling to understand the new work reality.
"the new work reality"
yazza boss,,,, yazza boss...
"Build a Career"
yazza boss,,,, yazza boss...
"Defy a bewildering economy"
yazza boss,,,, yazza boss...
end, rewind, play.
Yes. there is curently downward pressure on wages from global labor competition, but that won't continue forever. Within two to three generations, China, India, and Southeast Asia will have wages that are fairly comparable to those in the U.S. and Europe. Whatever difference remains will not be significant enough to justify having the jobs overseas. At some point the world runs out of cheap labor. Africa would be the only other potential source. Saying that the wage playing field will level out in 50 years is probably not very comforting to Americans that need a job today, but it's the reality of the situation. That is the nature of capitalism. Certain people are always going to be victims of this shifting of resources. All the more reason to obtain skills that are in demand.
You miss the point, the only way that stabilizes things is if the third world upgrades to first world standards. That will never happen. Or it will happen if the first world deteriorates to third world standards. That may happen. But we won't like it.
Why can't third world incomes rise to near first world standards? It happened to Japan after WW2.
Per capita income for Chinese city residents has already risen to five figures. Sooner or later all manual labor will probably be done by robots, so the foreigners will be in the same boat as us. The solution is upgrading one's skills. Otherwise there are going to be billions of starving people. I know that paying $15/hr to a burger flipper is not the answer.
This kind of capitalism . destroys natons .. and unless we get over our love affair with Adam Smith and David Ricardo .. we are done for ... .or rather how their theories are used. the Founders of America KNEW this instinctively . that corporate control of America would bring it down .. remember what Lenin said . and he was right .. capitalists will give us the rope with which we will hang them .. dead on Vlad. The kind of capitalism you are talking about is not sustainable.. not for long . not before revolution brings it down . capitalists of the sort you talk about . have no loyalty to any nation . only to their bottom line . that is something the put upon Middle Class needs to remmber before it defends predatory capitalism like a bunch of suicidal sheep. Jefferson was for limited government . but he also had some sense as to the power struggle coming from the monied class particularly the foreign banking system and govt. arms like East India Trading Company .. and it was an arm of the govt. or the govt. was its arm . .. incestuous relationship . anyway .. Jefferson .. I hope we shall crush… in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. IT would seem in this day and age . the corporate oligarchy won . they OWN every politician .. they write our laws . including those that impact their industry or interests. its only FAIR the people of this country who work for a living should remember that .. they have no voice.. . they are subject to 'market forces' . screw that .. market forces in this age only mean . THEMS what knows better than the rest of us get to make the rules.. and if that means screwing over the vast majority of Americans.. so be it.. Fascists and communists come from the same place.. and the 'capitalist' in the West . .is a bad combo of both.
We haven't had real capitalism in a long time. We have crony capitalism, where the moneyed elites play by a different set of rules thanks to big government. I'm not sure what that has to do with the cost of labor. Why is it bad to move your manufacturing overseas, but it's ok to move your plant from N.Y. to South Carolina to reduce your labor costs?
Maybe this has a LITTLE something to do with it...
DICK MORRIS: Obama Sneaking in 'Unrestricted Immigration' in Trade Deal
Obama’s Republican Collaborators
By Patrick J. Buchanan April 21, 2015
Thank you . .. Pat has been beating this drum for decads..no one listened and we got the dog pile we have NOW.
Pat gets painted as a xenophobic rascist for his trouble (and he may very well be for all I know but I still agree with him on this and many issues). Being right is often times a curse.
Know of a number of laid off people trading stocks for 1/2 the day and enjoy the rest of the day while making as much as when they worked.
Is that the guy who keeps posting about the $7,000 per day working online?
"Figuring out human emotions and markets and combining insights from different fields--not so much. Those still require human learning, communication, collaboration and ingenuity."
Right. Take any teenager or 20-something that spends 18 hours a day with their nose in their smartphone. Do they LOOK like they care about human interactivity? Emotions? Innovation?
The problem isn't that computers can't grasp the "human" side of things, it's that we're going to turn people into computers. EVERYTHING will be commoditized, like it or not. And if you dare try to innovate, you will be shut down by the power of the state.
Maybe the Greeks have the right idea then. Rather than working out how to add value, they have worked out how to destroy more value than it costs to pay them not to destroy it. As long as that continues, then a rational player has to keep giving Greece money.
You see that's just what's wrong with ISIS, they just bash old stuff for free, too stupid to demand ransom money for it like good civilized folks and must therefore be destroyed.
I can program a Mexican to do that for $10/hr cash.
We are all Mexicans now.
Very keen & accurate assessment, aye.
James Baldwin: "I ain't the nigger; *you* are the one who is the nigger"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0L5fciA6AU
Did you miss the "Niggerization of America"? https://youtu.be/bEScONfKqFk
I'm glad CHS (or anybody) is addressing these issues, but I'm not sure he's really glomming onto anything very insightful. Part of it is technology, part of it is economic, but much more of it is social and political. It's basically short-sighted society not working in its own enlightened self-interest. It's the capture of institutions by moneyed interests. Is it "capitalism gone wild"? That's a tougher one.
But the toughest question of all is, what should we be doing instead?
Cuz the forces of globalization and automation are not supposed to be bad, taken in smaller doses. Where, exactly, are we going wrong?
That's not quite what CHS is managing to write about.
Work is for losers...
What galaxy are you contacting us from?
The FSA in in complete agreement.
In terms of generating “income” all there is, folks,
1 Wages; 2 Rent; 3 Interest; 4 Profit;
I’d suggest getting out of the wages column as fast as you can.
Your column headings seem a bit obscure, could you be more elaborate?
Nevertheless, are you sure that those columns will even exist in the future?
(I mean the banks have all of the wealth & power, so where does that leave the 99.9%?)
In regards to #2: Have fun whan the local taxing authority decides you need to pay more property tax, require manditory "green" upgrades and then increases your property value for more taxes, etc.
This list is straight from the 80s. Today it is convert paper wealth to tangible wealth (food, booze, PM) you can hide and ride out the turmoil until the new monetary regime takes hold.
Detroit 2.0? :D
Well, that's the real crux of the problem isn't it? Myself and numerous likeminded, heavily armed, and well-trained former military personnel know exactly who those "local authorities" are, where they live, where their chilrden live, where they work or go to school...
tick tock motherfucker...
The interest column is not looking too healthy these days either.
Indeed, get out of the wage game fast. The surest way to gain this wisdom is to play the wage game early and often, i.e., the high school/college years. The greatest education of all: Working For Wages Suck, and There Has To Be a Better Way.
This wisdom is of not much value later in life, when yer deeply vested in the work/wages combine.
The K-12/Higher Ed cartel isn't helping much. Dream your dreams! Reach for the stars! and don't forget to punch in/out.
The Fed and by extension the US Treasury are proving daily that NO work is required for value creation. In fact no human effort or productivity of any kind is required. All that is required is to create more money and debt until everyone is able to live a life of leisure without a care in the world.
"The only sustainable way to avoid being commoditized is to learn to create value in ways that cannot be commoditized."
Man,,, talk about mumbo jumbo!
And every time I see the word 'sustainable' I want to vomit.
"Sustainable" is the obligatory nod to the all-powerful Church of Environmentalism.
I've been told if I am sustainable for more than 4 hours - I should seek medical attention.
hold that thought
My daughter works for a big telecom co. She says she's thankful she works with idiots who can't do their jobs correctly, because if they could, then she wouldn't have hers.
I said welcome to the blessing and the curse of middle management. Maybe eventually, you'll end up in the upper tier where the real cluelessness begins, but by that time you'll be so far removed from the actual 'work' process that you'll become just like them.
But your office will be nicer.
"Gee, thanks Dad."
We can always rob banks.
The Fed and by extension the US Treasury are proving daily that NO work is required for value creation. In fact no human effort or productivity of any kind is required. All that is required is to create more money and debt until everyone is able to live a life of leisure without a care in the world.
Extremely important point. But that is know and we have to move beyond that.
The question becomes "what is their penalty / jail sentence" for their socio-economic policy failures?
As I explain in my new book: "If you can't find work, buy my book."
Books are soooo 1990...
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and like me on FB.
Pushing digital paper is not work, not by a long shot motherfucker.
Try programming a robot to navigate a flower bed on uneven ground, remove the rotten boards in a staircase and replace them with the appropriate type of lumber.
Don't worry. Our masters have thought of that too. Driving wages of plumbers and gardeners down to substitence levels is what uncontrolled immigration is for. Even switching to non-routine manual labour won't save most people.
Our masters are determined that the breeds of humanity who created and conceived everything that makes industrial civilization possible are to be euthanized, now that they have become too smart, proud and willful to be useful as slaves, and replaced with a proletariat, robotic or sub-humanoid, much too stupid to pose a serious threat to the rule of the elect. If they don't acquiesce to euthanasia, the proles are to be liquidated without mercy.
Marx's class war is real, and the bad guys are winning.
Work is "alienated" due to the government enforced monopoly of fiat fractional reserve illusion of money. AKA theft. The illusion, and therefore the theft, is very great. It's a mistake to ascribe ancillary phenomena as necessary fact.
My ass kinda hurts