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How Screwed is the World Economy?

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How bad will the economy get?
Great Depression Bad 37%  37%  [ 13 ]
Moderate Depression Bad 23%  23%  [ 8 ]
Mild Depression/Severe Recession 20%  20%  [ 7 ]
Moderate Recession 17%  17%  [ 6 ]
This is as bad as it gets, next month everything turns back 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 35

twoshots
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09 Mar 2009, 4:40 pm

I figure the resulting collapse of the world's economy will trigger WWIII (or 4 or 5 depending on your count), and the resulting nuclear explosions will trigger a vacuum metastability event resulting in the destruction of the entire universe.


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alba
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09 Mar 2009, 5:16 pm

Sand wrote:
This is only a vague guess but I suspect the problem has deeper roots than the thuggish behavior of the financial sector of the developed nations. What is going on is a total re-alignment of human labor management throughout the world. The developing world led by China and India are taking over both production of manufactured goods and science and design and development and the work force in developed countries suddenly are forced to compete with cheap labor which is just as competent as they are. There seems to be a fundamental blindness in developed countries that does not recognize that the market consists of well paid labor and when labor cannot purchase what industry produces the system collapses. This is a major change and may take decades to resolve.

Brilliant.



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09 Mar 2009, 6:59 pm

alba wrote:
Sand wrote:
This is only a vague guess but I suspect the problem has deeper roots than the thuggish behavior of the financial sector of the developed nations. What is going on is a total re-alignment of human labor management throughout the world. The developing world led by China and India are taking over both production of manufactured goods and science and design and development and the work force in developed countries suddenly are forced to compete with cheap labor which is just as competent as they are. There seems to be a fundamental blindness in developed countries that does not recognize that the market consists of well paid labor and when labor cannot purchase what industry produces the system collapses. This is a major change and may take decades to resolve.

Brilliant.


That is a good analysis, and often what is said about the Great Depression.



Sand
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09 Mar 2009, 11:12 pm

The seeds of even a more radical change in human society are now under development. Traditionally the working populace manufactures salable goods and is rewarded with a salary with which to purchase the goods. But robotics, which is still in a very primitive state, is advancing extremely quickly and the time may come in decades when no human labor is required to manufacture useful goods. Then manufacturing will attain the status of agriculture where no actual human labor is required to produce a salable good. Human labor is required in agriculture for plants to have an environment where they can produce goods and labor is required to gather and prepare and transport the goods for sale but the goods themselves are an automatic product of biology. Robotic manufacture will, in the end, eliminate all necessity for human participation of production. How then will humans get the goods produced and indicate which goods it needs? People will have to negotiate with intelligent factories and these artificial intelligences will negotiate amongst themselves for raw materials and final output of their production. They will be alien intelligences of our own creation and the problems of human survival in this new complex are not even visualized or discussed today. It may take centuries for the problems to be resolved, if ever and this, in combination with the implications of genetic engineering will create something quite alien and perhaps finally eliminate human and organic life altogether. Most likely the integration of organic and inorganic life will be so complete that there will no longer be a considered difference, much in the same way people with eyeglasses, hearing aids, cell phones, or even false teeth never consider themselves as cyborgs.



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10 Mar 2009, 12:01 am

That sounds a bit too sci-fi for a humanitarian such as me. <.<



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10 Mar 2009, 12:32 am

phil777 wrote:
That sounds a bit too sci-fi for a humanitarian such as me. <.<


It's merely a logical extrapolation of current trends.



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10 Mar 2009, 4:27 am

Sand wrote:
This is only a vague guess but I suspect the problem has deeper roots than the thuggish behavior of the financial sector of the developed nations. What is going on is a total re-alignment of human labor management throughout the world. The developing world led by China and India are taking over both production of manufactured goods and science and design and development and the work force in developed countries suddenly are forced to compete with cheap labor which is just as competent as they are.


This is may be the case with the USA, but not in this extent in Europe. Even countries with very high costs of labour, like the Scandinavian ones or German, Switzerland and other, do compete quite well with China in manufacturing sector, by moving into a high-price , top-quality sector with specialized experiences.

China and India still have the problem of a weak law enforcement. You should not underestimate the importance of a well working legal system for the functioning of a capitalist economy.



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10 Mar 2009, 4:37 am

Dussel wrote:
Sand wrote:
This is only a vague guess but I suspect the problem has deeper roots than the thuggish behavior of the financial sector of the developed nations. What is going on is a total re-alignment of human labor management throughout the world. The developing world led by China and India are taking over both production of manufactured goods and science and design and development and the work force in developed countries suddenly are forced to compete with cheap labor which is just as competent as they are.


This is may be the case with the USA, but not in this extent in Europe. Even countries with very high costs of labour, like the Scandinavian ones or German, Switzerland and other, do compete quite well with China in manufacturing sector, by moving into a high-price , top-quality sector with specialized experiences.

China and India still have the problem of a weak law enforcement. You should not underestimate the importance of a well working legal system for the functioning of a capitalist economy.


My son, who works for the firm Nokia here (which is an original Finnish firm) and many of his co-workers are losing their jobs in the next few weeks as the firm move a good deal of its production to a lower labor cost area. I cannot say if this is a general condition.



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10 Mar 2009, 4:43 am

Sand wrote:
The seeds of even a more radical change in human society are now under development. Traditionally the working populace manufactures salable goods and is rewarded with a salary with which to purchase the goods. But robotics, which is still in a very primitive state, is advancing extremely quickly and the time may come in decades when no human labor is required to manufacture useful goods. Then manufacturing will attain the status of agriculture where no actual human labor is required to produce a salable good. Human labor is required in agriculture for plants to have an environment where they can produce goods and labor is required to gather and prepare and transport the goods for sale but the goods themselves are an automatic product of biology. Robotic manufacture will, in the end, eliminate all necessity for human participation of production. How then will humans get the goods produced and indicate which goods it needs? People will have to negotiate with intelligent factories and these artificial intelligences will negotiate amongst themselves for raw materials and final output of their production. They will be alien intelligences of our own creation and the problems of human survival in this new complex are not even visualized or discussed today. It may take centuries for the problems to be resolved, if ever and this, in combination with the implications of genetic engineering will create something quite alien and perhaps finally eliminate human and organic life altogether. Most likely the integration of organic and inorganic life will be so complete that there will no longer be a considered difference, much in the same way people with eyeglasses, hearing aids, cell phones, or even false teeth never consider themselves as cyborgs.



Right now there is not a robot on the market that can do a decent job of housecleaning. That is why housecleaners can make a pretty fair living. In the area of services, robots are so far from competent that we can safely say they will not be a factor compared to human labor. In repetitive manufacturing processes robots are fine and they are well used.

ruveyn



Sand
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10 Mar 2009, 5:37 am

ruveyn wrote:
Sand wrote:
The seeds of even a more radical change in human society are now under development. Traditionally the working populace manufactures salable goods and is rewarded with a salary with which to purchase the goods. But robotics, which is still in a very primitive state, is advancing extremely quickly and the time may come in decades when no human labor is required to manufacture useful goods. Then manufacturing will attain the status of agriculture where no actual human labor is required to produce a salable good. Human labor is required in agriculture for plants to have an environment where they can produce goods and labor is required to gather and prepare and transport the goods for sale but the goods themselves are an automatic product of biology. Robotic manufacture will, in the end, eliminate all necessity for human participation of production. How then will humans get the goods produced and indicate which goods it needs? People will have to negotiate with intelligent factories and these artificial intelligences will negotiate amongst themselves for raw materials and final output of their production. They will be alien intelligences of our own creation and the problems of human survival in this new complex are not even visualized or discussed today. It may take centuries for the problems to be resolved, if ever and this, in combination with the implications of genetic engineering will create something quite alien and perhaps finally eliminate human and organic life altogether. Most likely the integration of organic and inorganic life will be so complete that there will no longer be a considered difference, much in the same way people with eyeglasses, hearing aids, cell phones, or even false teeth never consider themselves as cyborgs.


Exactly. Right now. In 1978 when I first bought an Apple II the function of something called the internet was inconceivable. Some people have no imagination whatsoever.


Right now there is not a robot on the market that can do a decent job of housecleaning. That is why housecleaners can make a pretty fair living. In the area of services, robots are so far from competent that we can safely say they will not be a factor compared to human labor. In repetitive manufacturing processes robots are fine and they are well used.

ruveyn



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10 Mar 2009, 5:39 am

Sand wrote:
This is may be the case with the USA, but not in this extent in Europe. Even countries with very high costs of labour, like the Scandinavian ones or German, Switzerland and other, do compete quite well with China in manufacturing sector, by moving into a high-price , top-quality sector with specialized experiences.

China and India still have the problem of a weak law enforcement. You should not underestimate the importance of a well working legal system for the functioning of a capitalist economy.


My son, who works for the firm Nokia here (which is an original Finnish firm) and many of his co-workers are losing their jobs in the next few weeks as the firm move a good deal of its production to a lower labor cost area. I cannot say if this is a general condition.[/quote]

It is a process of specialisation: There were in the past significant job losses in other areas: Steel production, coal mining, textile industry, etc. pp.

This process has a very strong impact on the lower qualified segments of the labour force, which have to struggle with high rates of unemployment, even the economy as a whole benefits.



Sand
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10 Mar 2009, 5:43 am

Dussel wrote:
Sand wrote:
This is may be the case with the USA, but not in this extent in Europe. Even countries with very high costs of labour, like the Scandinavian ones or German, Switzerland and other, do compete quite well with China in manufacturing sector, by moving into a high-price , top-quality sector with specialized experiences.

China and India still have the problem of a weak law enforcement. You should not underestimate the importance of a well working legal system for the functioning of a capitalist economy.


My son, who works for the firm Nokia here (which is an original Finnish firm) and many of his co-workers are losing their jobs in the next few weeks as the firm move a good deal of its production to a lower labor cost area. I cannot say if this is a general condition.


It is a process of specialisation: There were in the past significant job losses in other areas: Steel production, coal mining, textile industry, etc. pp.

This process has a very strong impact on the lower qualified segments of the labour force, which have to struggle with high rates of unemployment, even the economy as a whole benefits.[/quote]

Well, I suppose engineers and technicians are pretty poorly qualified. Perhaps you are right.



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10 Mar 2009, 9:29 am

Sand wrote:
Dussel wrote:
Sand wrote:
This is may be the case with the USA, but not in this extent in Europe. Even countries with very high costs of labour, like the Scandinavian ones or German, Switzerland and other, do compete quite well with China in manufacturing sector, by moving into a high-price , top-quality sector with specialized experiences.

China and India still have the problem of a weak law enforcement. You should not underestimate the importance of a well working legal system for the functioning of a capitalist economy.


My son, who works for the firm Nokia here (which is an original Finnish firm) and many of his co-workers are losing their jobs in the next few weeks as the firm move a good deal of its production to a lower labor cost area. I cannot say if this is a general condition.


It is a process of specialisation: There were in the past significant job losses in other areas: Steel production, coal mining, textile industry, etc. pp.

This process has a very strong impact on the lower qualified segments of the labour force, which have to struggle with high rates of unemployment, even the economy as a whole benefits.


Well, I suppose engineers and technicians are pretty poorly qualified. Perhaps you are right.[/quote]

You have to retain the workers.