the future of the new economy

Hi Odahh,

I think your assertions may be a bit inaccurate.

120 years ago slavery had already been outlawed for several decades in the US, so there were no slaves within the US. And while there were many Farmers that were self employed back then, the majority of the population in the US were employed workers. Industrial factories had not really taken off yet at that point so the railroad, textiles, and the agriculture industry employed the greatest number of workers back in those days.

With each new wave of technology some jobs become obsolete and are eliminated, while other new technical jobs are created. New technologies lead to higher productivity levels which produces prosperity, which in turn generates higher demand for employment.

When demands for technical workers shift rapidly we often see a major imbalance, too many workers with the wrong skills and not enough with the right skills, this condition leads to higher than usual unemployment rates, and as you implied in your OP, this condition tends to lead to a spate of increased entrepreneurship.

As factory automation, robots, and drones slowly take over many manual labor tasks, there are a whole new generation of high tech jobs created to design, engineer, and maintain these new high tech tools. Many more associated jobs get created in the process, including advertising, marketing, sales, legal council, HR, managers, customer service representatives, sales engineers, technical support, quality assurance, and so and and so forth. An army of new highly skilled workers are going to be needed to reach and maintain the level of automation businesses are aiming for.

Ironically we seem to have come full circle. Farming in the US is now a high tech job that is currently in high demand. There is a shortage of highly skilled agricultural engineers and as a result the salaries are well into the 6 figure range for modern day high tech farm workers. That demand is likely to increase as more and more robotics and software technologies are adapted to the agriculture industry.

The bottom line is that yes, automation does eliminate some jobs, but it has also generates far more high tech jobs in the process. Take the Pony Express, one of the only available methods of communicating across country 150 years ago, as an example. It was made obsolete by the railroad, which generated far more jobs in it's place. Fast forward to today, and you have an army of scientist, engineers, IT workers and massive amounts of other associated support jobs all to make the simple act of sending a message across country possible using a extremely automated, highly efficient, and low cost method. Something that used to be done with a relatively small group of young men and a few dozen horses, now takes an army of hundreds of thousands of high tech workers to maintain, and so it will be with robots, self-driving vehicles, and drones.

That's the great thing about Free enterprise, it is a self-balancing system. it can get a little out of balance at times, but if you prevent excessive interference from governmental systems it will always adjusts and correct imbalances automatically.

Wow,this was really nice to read from both of you guys,I agree with dburk your assertation is a little bit inaccurate but still great.

in 1910 .. the earliest data i can find farm laborers where the biggest place of employement at about 18 percent of the population ..it now less than one and mostly migrant workers very low paid ..

farmers where 15 percent of the workforce in 1910..today its 1 percent with the age of your average farmer between 55 and 60 ..and most farmers depebing on government subsidies to survive ..

private household workers where 6 percent of the population in 1910 .. less than 1 percent now ..most of that work replaced by dishwashers washing machines ..vacuum cleaners

now this was 1910 not 1896 .. and there alread had been major changes ..

as far as the poney express it was the telegraph not the railroad that made them obsolete ..

it is going to be rather imposible to turn the large numbers of people who will be displaced into tech workers and easier just to train younger people or import trained people from around the world ..

it takes years of education and training and a good amount of cost .. to survive most of the displaced will have to run their own small business ..weather it be on the books or not ..

employing american workers is costly and risky even the stock and comodity exchanges have gon mostly computerized ..so there is almost non of the traditional pit trading you see in older movies ..

there is not going to be a new boom industry that creates a huge number of jobs.. most everything tht is happening is making it much easier to start and un a small business at little cost ..with low fixed infrastructure costs ..

let me try and say this another way because people are already doing it.. as the cost of robots drop .. and people are able to buy them like you buy a car .. or lease them..as people are able to afford ..

if we went back 20 years and i tried to explain online businesses or people selling through amazon or ebay..facebook or youtube ..if i told you 20 years ago people would be able to play video games do this thing called streaming where hundreds or thousand of people watched them play video game.. and they would earn a living... you would have called it crazy talk ..

how about self publishing through kindel or other ebook readers ..

my assertion ..is that what indusrtry there will be what employment there will be will be those businesses that will create develope and improve the tool robots and systems..that will be used by armies of small businesses who are self employed..

big corporations do not want to employ that many human beings any more ..

if it was not already happening where year by year more people make the shift to running a business by choice ..or they have no other way to pay the ren or put food onm the table but to start a small business with very low start up cost ..

maybe you missed the small army of scrappers that rose a few years ago then dispanded when prices fell

"Robots and drones will indeed better mankind's living conditions, however I doubt that they will change the nature of humans, or the desire by many to be part of an organization led by someone with more vision and drive than they themselves possess. Not everybody was borne to be a leader, many cannot handle the stress and challenges that come from entrepreneurship, those folks will remain workers not business owners, in my opinion."

no most workers think the places they work for are greedy and evil and take advantage of them..thats why uninions exist in most large manufacturing companies ..or existed in almost every place 40 years ago..

not all business owners are entrepreneurs ..they are not the same thing ..

in any case most people will not have a choice because they will not have skills for the jobs available ..

so your say if people can't get jobs ..they are just going to roll over and starve to death ..instead of figuring out some way to earn money in some kind of business ..

so what there are no people making money in online businesses..selling stuff on ebay or amazon.. with their youtube chanes ..face book..and thats just online ..there are more and more ways to start and run small micro businesses ..that are easier to figure out than going back to school and getting into debt to get some skills to get a job ..

more and more people every year ..do it ..and that is in the US economy..hell most of the world has to skip right to the new economy ..china is already massively implementing automation ..

i have had jobs where i saw the use of tech..require fewer jobs that last job i had as a tem..they where getting the fully automated systems so they no longer needed temps ..

most people may still have jobs..and run a micro business..on the side untill they get fired or laid off ..

we are in a transition period over the next 15-20 years ..

the most people being employees thing ..was a blib ib the Usa that lasted 30 years after ww2 ..while the USA had the only functioning infrastructure and economy in the world..and for that time it was the father working the mother at home taking care of kids ..living in a 1000 square foot house in 1500..then a 1500 sqrae foot house..and it think still driving 1 car ..and 1 black and white tv with what 3-5 channels ..

golden age of the middle class my butt ..

the starting pay form most jobs i can get today .. is less than what i was getting 20 years ago ..and everything .. i need on a daily weekly basis costs 3 times more ..

there are tens of millions of people in my boat and ..a lot more will be in it ..do you really think..people in their 40's and 50s will go back to school and become tech workers ..getting in student debt on the way ..or curl up and die ..because they can't find jobs for the skills they have had..

or out of a basic need to survive .. get into a small business to support themselves ..that may not look like a traditional business .. and probaly will not be something they can sell ..

your right human nature is human nature .. and we are programed to do what we need to survive

now there may be more jobs than now..but .. spread over the 7 or 8 billion people ..not just spread over a few hundred million in the USA

now technically if the business is valid and supports someone .. the smart thing to do is incorperate ..so people will both own and be employed by the business they start ..

at about 13 or 14 minutes in the discussion turns to part of what i am saying ..in fact both presenter go into what i am talking about ..

there will be jobs at the top end for quite some time and crap load of low wage work ..for people who want jobs ..

but there are an increasing number of ways for individual producers to gain acces to end users ..and the tool of production are either getting cheaper ..or they are thing people already have..like with airbnb.. there are people making good living renting out houses on air bnb..and you have uber and lyft..and etsy ..in china alibaba..

in india the rise of entrepreneurs and small businesses is destroyinh the cast system that go back thousands of years

well i had a bigger post .. but i guess maybee most american are to stupid to run a small business or do what most people around the world do to survive ..

this is what you are saying..thisis what most people are saying and thinking ..they see what is happening and do not grasp what is happening ..

Hi Odahh,

Sorry that you had a bad experience working for an employer that abused you. Not all employers are like that. I believe the majority of businesses in America treat their employees well.

Here's one example of a guy that started a little Internet company called Zip2, sold it to Compaq computer, and then parlayed that investment into another little website startup called Paypal, which he later sold to another website called Ebay.

He then started a few more companies that now employ tens of thousands of employees. One of his startups Tesla, currently employs over 14,000 workers, is building a new Gigafactory that will employee an additional 6500 workers. That's the kind of job creation that I'm talking about and there are many other stories of small Internet Marketers becoming huge employers.

New technologies are driving job creation while making workers far more efficient through automation. That's all I'm trying to say.

uber has 6700 employees ..but has about 167,000 active drivers completing 4 or more trips a month..and earning more per hour than many taxi drivers ,

hey i love Elon musk ,, how many people work for amazon or ebay ..verse how many small businesses can only exist because of that..

jack ma is the Chinese billionaire founder of alibaba ..which has 36000 employes ..but again propable creates millions of small businesses ..

back yo ..Elon Musk ..just wait untill that giga factory is pumping out large numbers of affordable batteries for storeing power at home .. solar city already help 300000 thousand customers save on their power bills or even earn a little money if they generate extra ..

people can and will buy batteries and either charge the in the early morning off peak hours ..then sell back to the grid at peak hours ..or charge them with solar panels in the the noon sun and sell that power during later peak hours ..

things tht need to be produced at a mass scale like the tech the drones the robots .. will be sold to small business that can operate at micro scale ..

if people have the intelligence to develop the tech skills that will be needed ..great but most people who are not able to get that education ..will need to use the tools to create and run small micro businesses ..in order to survive ..

its a process that been going on 20 years ..and only gaining momentum

without paypal how much harder would it be for most people who have online businesses to get paid ..

those visionary leader who are still rare verse the norm .. create platforms that empower large numbers of small businesses..and the more platforms..the more small businesses

wait till paypal freeze your funds then you will run out of nice things to say about them

Yes, for every one major success story like Elon Musk there are a million small business owners that employ 5 or more employees, Those are real jobs, and many are the direct result of automation and nearly all owe their current level of productivity to some form of automation.

While it is essential for a business to generate a profit if it is to survive, a great economist once said the primary role of a business in a free enterprise economy is to generate jobs. Even if you are a sole proprietor you are attempting to create a job for yourself, right? If your are especially successful in your business you will likely create multiple jobs.

Automation will serve to make you more efficient and more productive in your job. Due to the higher productivity that a single employee can generate, you are more likely, and certainly more able to hire employees due to the higher productivity achievable through implementing automation.

I do agree that an accelerated rate of implementing automation is disruptive to the job market. However, if this disruption were to become too much for the economy as a whole to absorb, the effect would naturally hinder the rate of adoption. There are self-balancing forces that will regulate the rate of adoption so long as there is no excessive interference from government intervention. Sadly, the government tends to use every available opportunity to interfere with the freedom of workers and employers.

We already have a high rate of unemployment (real unemployment) and it isn't due to the automation, but due to government interference in free enterprise. Workers should be free to change jobs, retrain themselves, or refuse to retrain themselves, or choose self-employment. In essence, we create our own opportunities for employment whether it be in a job or as an entrepreneur. Businesses should also be free to hire, train and incentivize workers as they see fit. If entrepreneurs were unrestricted in this endeavor there would be far less unemployment.

Just as horseless carriages disrupted the job market for whip makers and stable hands, yet created millions of new jobs, so will robots and drones. The stable hands and whip makers had to learn new job skills to survive. Perhaps they were able to start a new business on their own making buggy whips, but most that tried that failed because of the shrinking demand. The majority were forced to move on to new enterprises and required to learn a new craft to survive.The same is true today.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that it is our productivity level that determines our value as a worker. Automation allows us to become more productive, not less. Automation is good to those that welcome and adapt to changing conditions, and bad for those that refuse to adapt. Those that refuse to adapt become less valuable, and due to a minimum wage, they may even become unemployable.

The incentive is to adapt, those that do are likely to become more productive, and prosper.

ok we are in agreement ..

to a point ..

with these smaller business or micro businesses that at most will have 10 employees .. at the same time it may not be the traditional employee .. 40 hour full time ..it will generally be flex scedualing as needs arise .. and most of the time under 30 hours ..

as much as the government hinders..it is still a hell of a lot easier to start a business in much of the US ..or move from a state where it is tought to a state where it is real easy ..

again the real unemployment figure is not telling the whole story .. otherwise there would be rioting in the street ..if people where really not getting income from some where for many years ..

there are 93 million people out of the workforce ..and under 1 million homeless ..and there are millions of full and part time rvers .. homesteaders who make a living off the land they live on ..

when you get away from the concept of the middle clasee job treadmill .. and the debt slavery model ..that the go to school.. get good grade get a degree or many ..got job .. buy house and car ..

uber , lyft .. not only allow people with cars to make extra money or a full time income..they remove the nedd the users of the service have to own there own..meaning 1 less expense ..

a lot of the people who have left the workforce may actually be in a relationship..so they might be doing the tradition..cooking taking care of the house and kids .. and doing a small business to make a little extra money ..

there is a lot going on that is just not seen ..fast food places around the country are running into the painfull reality..that it is now cheaper for people to buy food and prepare it at home .. or just go to a real resteraunt..than go to many fast food place and easily pay over 10 buck for a value meal ..

hell its cheaper to pay 7 buck a dozen for free range eggs you buy at the farmers market .. that it is to buy 12 1 egg sandwiches

as tech continues to advance and the tool for home production and small scale low infrastructure businesses ..just keep expanding .. so to thing will keep changing..

yes there are small scale farmers able to make some of their living selling free range chicken eggs .. using cheap portable electic fences to keep birds in an area and predators out

I think the vast majority are on EBT cards. And whenever those card don't work for any reason for more than a few days you will see rioting.

well dbunk.. 190 $ a month..does not buy a lot of food.. men dont have near the access to the welfare system as women do

about 6 $ a day does not help much..

Hi Odahm,

It apparently is enough to keep the masses from rioting (most days).

It seems many people have figured out how to get multiple EBT cards using fake identities, Some have so many spare EBT cards that they sell them in great quantities on street corners. Combine the multiple identities, section 8 housing, Obama phones, and the many other freebies offered by government programs and the incentive to get a job has been radically reduced for those that prefer to milk the system.

The bottom line is that the federal government has invested heavily in creating a dependent society with an entitlement mentality. This government agenda is often referred to as the cradle-to-grave socialist agenda that puts the government in charge of every aspect of your life.


Just as a business wants to grow and prosper, government agencies also want to grow and prosper. The problem is that government agencies do not produce wealth building goods and services, businesses do. For a society to prosper as a whole we must find a way to limit the growth of government and allow free enterprise to flourish.

Spreading the myth that companies as a whole don't care about their employees is just fueling the fire for more government intervention. Sure, companies are ran by people and not angels. Some people care more than others. But, you have a choice to quit your job and go work for another.

Once the socialist government takes over, you will no longer have a choice. Those same people (not angels) that treated you so badly at your previous job will now be your bureaucratic task masters. They will own you. You will have no say in your job, no choice, not even the choice of quitting your job, much less starting your own business.

All I'm saying is lets not kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

No other economic system has raised more people out of poverty than free enterprise. Jobs are what creates prosperity at the societal level. But not just any job, only jobs that provide valuable goods and services will contribute to the overall wealth of a society. Those jobs are provided primarily by small businesses engaged in private free enterprise.

Government bureaucratic jobs, welfare benefits, entitlement programs, and the like, all take workers out of the of jobs that produce wealth and into systems that dissipate wealth. Some of these things are necessary services, none of them directly contribute to the production of wealth.

We benefit everyone by limiting those non-wealth producing services to a level that helps improves the overall productivity of wealth generating jobs, which is the level that facilitates the highest level of private enterprise wealth producing jobs. Too little government services can invite highly disruptive anarchy. But going overboard on government services has a devastating effect on a nation's prosperity. The optimal level of government is one that is just big enough to prevent anarchy, or other highly disruptive events, but none bigger.

So how does automation effect economic output?

Automation improves productivity, increasing the overall wealth produced for the society at large. The highly automated worker produces more goods and services per employee, not less. Increased wealth production will increase the demand for more highly productive workers. It will produce more job opportunities, not less. Higher demand for workers will raise the average wages, not lower them.

Increased government services, beyond the minimum required to prevent anarchy, crimes, and other disruptive activities serves only to reduce the prosperity of a nation.

Automation increases the productivity of workers, not just private free enterprise workers, it can also improve the efficiency of government workers too. Image how much more wealth could be produced if, through automation, we reduced the need for government workers by the millions. Those millions of workers could be set free to get wealth producing jobs. Instead of draining the nations resources and tying up a huge pool of labor for non-wealth producing services, they could be converted into highly productive workers in jobs that generate wealth.

On a macroeconomic level the implementation of automation is both disruptive and beneficial. On a micro economic level there are definitely winners and losers, and hopefully we will remain free enough to make our own choices and enjoy the benefits, or suffer the consequences, of our own choices. Without that freedom we lose the self-balancing forces that help to keep productivity at near peak levels for society at large.

If we learn to embrace disruptive new technologies, rather than resist, we all prosper, if we resist individually we fall behind as an individual. If we resist in great numbers, especially through force of government, as a whole we suffer greatly.

The path to prosperity is clear, more automation, plus less government intervention, equals increasing prosperity for society as a whole. Individual rights and liberties that are guaranteed "equal protection under the law" provide the essential matrix for fairness. Automation is a prosperity multiplier, excess government a job killing productivity destroyer.

Your private free enterprise job providers (entrepreneurs) are not your enemy, they are your economic heroes. It's time that we recognize that truth. Corrupt politicians, journalists, educators and media moguls, along with the corrupt behavior they enable, are your true economic enemies.

Please support your true heroes (economically speaking), entrepreneurs, by fighting corruption in politics, education, and media. Get behind new disruptive technologies because they truly do improve our lot when all is said and done.

ill respond later.. time to leave and go work.. i run my own little gig .. but its the weekend.. and a holiday weeken ..so i need to work more hours this weeken.. to try to make the most money ..

this forum is set up to give resources to people running small scale businesses ..

and more and more people are doing something .. to earn money outside of a job..

Yes, I agree most people find working to make a living is hard work. Some dislike the work itself, some dislike the people they work with while loving the work, some dislike their boss and love their co-workers, or vice-versa. It's easy to find something you don't like about a job. Hell, some people seem to hate everything about their job. But, it is also easy to find something you do like about a job.

Take a gander at this video to see what I'm trying to say:


Whether you work for yourself, or a company, you have a job, even if it is to run your own business. Find out what it takes to be successful in your job and do it, but even more important, I believe, is find out what you love about your job and truly love your job, then you might not be in that 80% that hate their job.

growing government regulation makes it more and more expensive to hire people in the usa ..

falling prices and rapidly increasing performane .. make it more attractive to replace human workers with robots and automation ..

falling price of tech also make it more affordable to individuals ..who can and do use it to start small businesses ..

the bext companies now are producing the tech people use .. or building platform that make it easier and less expensive for someone who makes something .. to connect with ..sell to and deliver the things they make.. directly to the end user ..no need to get it on a physical shell or creat 10000 units .. people can produce on very small scale and operate with real good margins and be very profitable ..

yes the entilement minded or the profit hating socialits .. who are putting lot of effort into trying to get free stuff from the government..may not adapt unless the is a massive shrinkage of government ..

but there re still a huge chunk of people who have pride and want to work for the stuff they get .. but the jobs are harder to find and keep for a long time ..or they are well aware of the government raiding their pockets to give free stuff to others .. they see their insurance premiums exploding because of obama care ..

starting and running a small business will be a defencive move for most productive people .. it protects them from job loss from a corperating.. and put them in much more control of what the government can take from them ..

it also wakes people up to the level of intrusion from the government and how much harder the government makes it for people to survive ..

even China has started eliminating job and implementing automation on a large scale ..partly because they ran out of the worker young enough to work 12 hour days 6 days a week..that changes at about 30 i believe ..

Thank you for this reminder: "to win in this new economy you need to learn to use the tech being developed ..to be more productive and make more money."

A great example of people hustling in this new economy are the 'kindle gold publishers' who earn thousands of dollars a month selling e-books which they didn't even write themselves but outsource to ghostwriters. So even if you are not a programmer or a non-techie check out the economic platforms or e-market places (tech developed) where you can make more money! Start exercising your 'entrepreneurial' muscles so you can win in this new economy.