I’m thinking of a productivity increase. Like the one that exploded in the 1920s. Everyone was going to get rich from it. Instead the huge increase in farming productivity put millions out of work. Everybody wedded to the old supply chain. And a lot of people collateral to them.
We are in the middle of another huge productivity jump and just like the farming revolution – it is a job killer.
The epicenter this time is China where the productivity increases have been huge. But they over did it to keep things going. The usual. And now they have a LOT of adjusting to do.
Just about all the chatter on the ‘net expects a crash in September. Prepare. As best as you can.
Update: 18 August 2015 1144z
This comment (in an article about the demise of mass retailers) sums it up:
Centralization and Tech have massively reduced the need for people.
Comments
4 responses to “Another Productivity Crash”
A stopped clock is right twice a day. I have heard about the coming crash from someone every day for 50 years! If you can get financial radio listen to the mo ansari show he knows what is going on and will tell you why you should be very wary of the doom and gloomers.
Is that going to be a good thing or a bad thing, or some of both. The percentage of labor devoted to food production went from 80% of the population ca. 1800 to more like 5% today. That freed up a lot of labor to move to the cities and man the production lines. If you listen the Bernie Sanders the goal is still to have a life-long job turning bolts on an assembly line.
I don’t know what replaces manufacturing jobs as they become obsolete. Finding something useful for the left half of the bell curve to do is a problem. I’ve suggested elsewhere that if machines are going to replace labor, tax the machines. Use the revenue to fund the dole the bulk of the population is going to be on.
man the republiscum would rather put them in private prisions as slave labor or shoot them if they are black.
MMM,
No one knew what was going to replace farming jobs either. Most of FDR’s “work” was an effort to prop up the farming sector.
It didn’t work.
And of course the Austrian Corporal had a similar but grander vision. He just needed more land.