Very hopeful but low on facts. The largest corporations aren't based on innovation but energy and that is exploitation and the largest is a family corporation. The Scientists in the market created the big crash we had. Basically they are experts in one area but arrogant incompetents with a bonus. As for the rest. It runs totally contrary to my experience here on all of the levels of the society both professionally and with family. What can I say except, you're just wrong about this Keith.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 4:24 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Beware the Machines and the Future of Social Mobility Arthur, "Technology is eliminating steps on the social mobility ladder." If that is what Andrew McAfee is saying then I won't waste my time watching his videos. The historical fact is that as innovations and new specializations arise then more new strata are inserted into the social ladder and, as always, one or more of them jockey for top position. At the very least, new and old social layers shuffle around to new positions in the hierarchy. Of course, innovations are not always beneficial -- far from it. Even flawed ones can produce new top dogs. The flawed innovation that we happen to be suffering from at present originated when governments decided to permanently manufacture money at a rate that exceeds normal economic productivity. They did this by going into debt, instructing their central banks to print more money, and then recouping the money as their electorates entered higher tax bands as well as a multitude of stealth taxes. Easy-peasy. But then, by about the 1970s, banks started getting into the same sort of act by issuing credit far beyond normal economic productivity in all sorts of wonderful new ways -- personal credit cards (cleverly marketed to those of questionable financial discipline). off-balance sheet 'vehicles', teaser mortgages, collateralized debt obligations (very sloppily collateralized at that), credit default swaps (far beyond, and far removed from the original basis of the credit). But now the whole house of cards built by governments and banks is falling down and we are entering what will probably be a very long depression. (6-10 years in the view of the OECD and many other forecasters; 20 years in my view) The value of real money -- stuff like gold, copper, fossil fuels, phosphate fertilizer -- is now reasserting itself. Government treasury officials, politicians and bankers are already shuffling downwards in the social scheme of things -- that is, losing their political power and credibility. And what entities are taking their place? Firms like Apple, of course. Ever since we left hunting-gathering behind us 11,000 years ago, value-adding industry of various sorts has been the very foundation on which subsequent despots, governments, and more latterly banks, have depended. Highly specialized industries, often transnational in scope, are still doing very nicely with large cash balances despite the technically bankrupt governments and banks of the Western world which can only cover up their real nakedness with yet more billions and trillions of paper or digital tokens and conning their creduluous public. (At least, they are credulous up to a point. We are already glimpsing the first intimations of vast social unrest and revolutions to come in the next 20 years or so.) And within specialized industry, the scientific class is quietly diffusing to the top. Indeed as never before, a higher proportion of our largest industries has been founded not on the basis of inherited wealth or the at-school-together act or clever accounting tricks but of a specific new scientific innovation. And there have never been so much scientific research and potential innovations as now. I can't see much scope for anything uniquely new in the consumer goods field apart from modest improvements, but in producer goods (and services such as health and education), there are vast opportunities for improving efficiency even in a 'no-growth economy' as defined in money aggregate terms. Keith At 21:17 28/11/2011, you wrote: From: TVO [ mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 1:58 PM To: Subject: Beware the Machines and the Future of Social Mobility <http://support.tvo.org/site/R?i=g_-UwuUgmuZ35iJ2U6DO2g> The Agenda with Steve Paikin Beware the Machines and the Future of Social Mobility 1X1: Andrew McAfee: The Machines Are Coming Strides in technological innovation are causing more and more jobs to disappear. Machines are increasingly able to perform tasks in which humans were once unquestioned masters. Debate: Reworking the World of Work Technology is eliminating steps on the social mobility ladder. Will liberal capitalism survive without a better system of social mobility? All episodes of The Agenda with Steve Paikin are available on-demand in streaming video and audio and video podcasts at: theagenda.tvo.org/podcasts <http://support.tvo.org/site/R?i=DX6FcT0FhXWlAiKi9VMjbA> . dot divider <http://support.tvo.org/images/content/pagebuilder/divider.gif> The Agenda with Steve Paikin <http://support.tvo.org/site/R?i=rbpTSYcwzNhy9jqwkSmiug> airs weeknights at 8:00 and 11:00 PM ET on TVO. Program information is subject to change. You received this email because you signed up to receive email alerts from The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Unsubscribe <http://support.tvo.org/site/CO?i=NpKw_jS9f0QVzO9XTIv5uuGTFjR_tKFQ&cid=1021> <http://support.tvo.org/site/R?i=g1jX-ImFmAkgtzFJdh-oiA> powered by CONVIO nonprofit software <http://support.tvo.org/site/R?i=EP8OGLQVOe-WMXDhu515oA> _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
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