Were the Luddites right, after all?
http://j.mp/sgINv2 (The Economist) "But here is the question: if the pace of technological progress is accelerating faster than ever, as all the evidence indicates it is, why has unemployment remained so stubbornly high-despite the rebound in business profits to record levels? Two-and-a-half years after the Great Recession officially ended, unemployment has remained above 9% in America. That is only one percentage point better than the country's joblessness three years ago at the depths of the recession." - - - Unless we find a way to deal with this situation quickly, the ability of the economy to eventually equalize may be largely or entirely academic. So many people jobless or underemployed, without adequate or any health care, and so on -- watching the 1% suck up ever more for themselves, is a recipe for social upheaval and -- yes -- revolution -- that will likely be enormously damaging if history is our guide. One would hope our leaders understand this before significant amounts of blood spill in this context. I would not bet the farm on that optimistic outcome, however. Actually, you probably already lost the farm. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org Founder: - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com _______________________________________________ pfir mailing list http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
