Dias&posel_dpru_2006.doc - diasposel_dpru_2006.pdf. 5571. Why Workers Are Losing the War Against Machines - Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. In the 21st century war of man vs. machine in the workplace, what if man isn't supposed to prevail? At least since the followers of Ned Ludd smashed mechanized looms in 1811, workers have worried about automation destroying jobs.
Economists have reassured them that new jobs would be created even as old ones were eliminated. For over 200 years, the economists were right. Despite massive automation of millions of jobs, more Americans had jobs at the end of each decade up through the end of the 20th century. However, this empirical fact conceals a dirty secret.
People with little economics training intuitively grasp this point. If wages can freely adjust, then the losers keep their jobs in exchange for accepting ever-lower compensation as technology continues to improve. Of course, this was only an abstract model. There was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. 1. 2. 3. Why Has Wage Growth Stayed Strong? (2012-10, 4/2/2012) Mary Daly, Bart Hobijn, and Brian Lucking Why Has Wage Growth Stayed Strong? Despite a severe recession and modest recovery, real wage growth has stayed relatively solid.
A key reason seems to be downward nominal wage rigidities, that is, the tendency of employers to avoid cutting the dollar value of wages. This phenomenon means that, in nominal terms, wages tend not to adjust downward when economic conditions are poor. With inflation relatively low in recent years, these rigidities have limited reductions in the real wages of a large fraction of U.S. workers.
Figure 1 Inflation and wage growth through business cycles Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics and authors calculations. Real wage growth, that is, wage growth after accounting for inflation, has held up surprisingly well in the recent recession and recovery. The inability or unwillingness of employers to reduce nominal pay is known as downward wage rigidity.
Data and methods Measuring nominal wage rigidities Conclusion Mary C. For richer, for poorer. Apple staff raking in the cash: $419,528 profit per head. Posted in Tech blog on May 17th, 2011 by Pingdom Apple earned a massive profit of $419,528 per employee in the past 12 months. That beats Google, Microsoft, Intel and a bunch of other big tech companies by quite some margin. One reason (of several) that profit per employee is such an interesting metric is because it gives you a number that doesn’t depend so much on the size of the company. In other words, it becomes easy to compare companies of different sizes. We have calculated the yearly profit per employee for a selection of big tech companies that are publicly traded on NYSE and NASDAQ: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Adobe, Yahoo, Oracle, IBM, Amazon, HP, Dell. In this article we look both at the current situation and compare it with the very different situation back in 2008.
Profit per employee for the past 12 months We’ve already revealed the number for Apple, but here are the rest: Apple is not only in the lead, it is in the lead by quite some margin. Employee growth. Baby-Sitting the Economy. Twenty years ago I read a story that changed my life. I think about that story often; it helps me to stay calm in the face of crisis, to remain hopeful in times of depression, and to resist the pull of fatalism and pessimism. At this gloomy moment, when Asia's woes seem to threaten the world economy as a whole, the lessons of that inspirational tale are more important than ever. The story is told in an article titled "Monetary Theory and the Great Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Co-op Crisis.
" Joan and Richard Sweeney published it in the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking in 1978. I've used their story in two of my books, Peddling Prosperity and The Accidental Theorist, but it bears retelling, this time with an Asian twist. The Sweeneys tell the story of—you guessed it—a baby-sitting co-op, one to which they belonged in the early 1970s. The Capitol Hill co-op adopted one fairly natural solution. Well, it turned out that there was a small technical problem. Why power generators are terrified of solar. Here is a pair of graphs that demonstrate most vividly the merit order effect and the impact that solar is having on electricity prices in Germany; and why utilities there and elsewhere are desperate to try to rein in the growth of solar PV in Europe. It may also explain why Australian generators are fighting so hard against the extension of feed-in tariffs in this country.
The first graph illustrates what a typical day on the electricity market in Germany looked like in March four years ago; the second illustrates what is happening now, with 25GW of solar PV installed across the country. Essentially, it means that solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil fuel generators — as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of PV — it is in fact eating their entire cake. Both graphs were published last week on the website Renewables International, and were sourced from EPEX, the European power price exchange. Components of average retail bill 2011-2012. Kremer_oring.pdf (application/pdf Object) Factchecker: Romney’s ’12 million jobs’ promise. “And unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.” -- Mitt Romney This sounds like a pretty bold statement, especially considering that only two presidents—Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton—created more than 12 million jobs. Romney, in fact, says he can reach this same goal, in just four years, though the policy paper issued by his campaign contains few details.
It is mostly a collection of policy assertions, such as such as reducing debt, overhauling the tax code, fostering free trade and so forth. But, in fact, the number is less impressive than it sounds. This pledge amounts to an average of 250,000 jobs a month, a far cry from the 500,000 jobs a month that Romney claimed would be created in a “normal recovery.”
In recent months, the economy has averaged about 150,000 jobs a month. But Moody’s Analytics, in an August forecast, predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president. Strauss-Howe generational theory. Theory of generational cycles The Strauss–Howe generational theory, devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American and Western history in which historical events are associated with recurring generational personas called archetypes. Each generational persona unleashes a new era (called a "turning") lasting around 21 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate ("mood") exists. They are part of a larger cyclical "saeculum", a long human life, which usually spans around 85 years, although some saecula have lasted longer.
The theory states that a crisis recurs in American history after every saeculum, which is followed by a recovery ("high"). During this recovery, institutions and communitarian values are strong. Strauss and Howe followed in 1993 with their second book 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? In 2000, they published Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. Defining a generation [edit] Arthur E. Toward achieving one million times increase in computing efficiency. Modern-day computers are based on logic circuits using semiconductor transistors.
To increase computing power, smaller transistors are required. Moore's Law states that the number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit should double every two years due to scaling. But as transistors reach atomic dimensions, achieving this feat is becoming increasingly difficult. Among the most significant challenges is heat dissipation from circuits created using today's standard semiconductor technology, complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS), which give off more heat as more transistors are added.
Engineers are therefore seeking alternatives to CMOS that would allow for highly efficient computer logic circuits that generate much less heat. "What we've developed is a device that can be configured in a logic circuit that is capable of performing all the necessary Boolean logic and can be cascaded to develop sophisticated function units," said Bruce W. How Do Couples Divide Their Money? Mahoro lab android automates dangerous lab work. Mahoro, co-developed by AIST and Yaskawa, is a general-purpose android for automating lab work that previously had to be done manually. The robot can do tasks, such as dispensing and culturing, faster and more precisely than people.
So, it can do clinical tests and work with biohazards efficiently. "For example, to develop influenza drugs, we do infection trials every day, using virulent strains of influenza. This work is very hazardous, so it should be done by robots. We also have to do lots of tests with radioactive materials. Those should also be done by robots. " "We've tried various robot systems. When work precision in genetic amplification trials was compared between Mahoro and people, Mahoro's precision was better than that of veteran technicians. "Mahoro's arm has seven joints. Previously, to teach a robot with this many joints, a huge amount of programming was required.
"First of all, we use a 3D scanner, to capture 3D CAD data for all the tools we want to use. Education stats: South Africa vs United States. Definitions Elementary school > Gender ratio: Ratio of female to male primary enrollment is the percentage of girls to boys enrolled at primary level in public and private schools. Elementary school repeaters > Female: Repeaters in primary school are the number of students enrolled in the same grade as in the previous year, as a percentage of all students enrolled in primary school. " Elementary school teachers: Primary education teachers includes full-time and part-time teachers. Enrolment ratio > Secondary level: Net enrolment ratio, secondary level, is the ratio of the number of children of official secondary school age enrolled in school to the number of children of official secondary school age in the population.
High school > Gender ratio: Ratio of female to male secondary enrollment is the percentage of girls to boys enrolled at secondary level in public and private schools. "Education: South Africa and United States compared", NationMaster. The Real Job Creators: Consumers. DEAR AMERICA: You Should Be Mad As Hell About This [CHARTS] Corporate_timeline.pdf (application/pdf Object) Infographic: Envisioning Emerging Technology for 2012 and Beyond. What developments will the next 30 years hold in the fields of AI, biotech, robotics, computing, the internet, materials science and more besides? That’s the question Michell Zappa, technology strategist and founder of trend forecasting firm Envisioning Technology, asked himself – and here is his response: a striking, concise infographic which outlines a range of probable developments, and their likely significance for society.
Synthetic blood, anyone? [Click image for hi-res version] 2012 vs. 1984: Young adults really do have it harder today. All young adults who think they’re getting a raw deal in today’s economy, let me tell you about how it was back in my day. In 1984, my final undergraduate year of university, tuition cost more or less $1,000. I earned that much in a summer without breaking a sweat. When I went looking for a new car in 1986, the average cost was roughly half of what it is now. It was totally affordable. The average price of a house in Toronto back in 1984 was just over $96,000. I wasn’t buying just then, but it’s worth noting that the average family after-tax income back then was close to $50,000.
Buy a first home? I had it easier than today’s twentysomethings, and I have no problem saying so. This became clear as responses poured in to last week’s column tying the Quebec student protests to the financial challenges faced by people who are trying to make the jump from college and university into the work force. My sense is that’s what they’re trying to do. In Ontario, the minimum wage is $10.25. IamA Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist. : IAmA. On Inequality. A student asks a broad question: I was wondering if you could offer your views on income inequality. Let me offer a few observations as broad as the question: 1. There is little doubt that U.S. income inequality has been increasing for the past three decades. (The trend in world inequality is very different.)
Most economists who study the topic attribute the trend primarily to changes in technology that reward skilled workers relative to unskilled workers. Education and other skills are more valuable now than they were in the past. 2. 3. 4. 5. Lazear vs Krugman. CEA Chair Eddie Lazear in May 2006: While there is no doubt that some people have been left behind, and that those left behind are certainly a major concern for all of us, there is some good news in this picture. The good new is that most of the inequality reflects an increase in returns to “investing in skills” – workers completing more school, getting more training, and acquiring new capabilities. NY Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday: There's a persistent myth, perpetuated by economists who should know better -- like Edward Lazear, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers -- that rising inequality in the United States is mainly a matter of a rising gap between those with a lot of education and those without.
The recent consensus is that technical change favors more skilled workers, replaces tasks previously performed by the unskilled, and exacerbates inequality. Source: Microeconomics, by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells, page 512. That's Why Carbon Is A Tramp: Biology #1. w13167.pdf (application/pdf Object)
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