Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The Single Most Important Issue Facing the World that the Media Will Not Address

We, the western world, is quickly approaching a period where we will not need many manual laborers. While think tanks such as the Brookings Institute are willing to discuss the issue, there is little if anything said by the mass media or even the alternative media. As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increases, even jobs that were thought to be white collar, decision making jobs will disappear at a faster and faster pace.

The reality is that in the future the way to get out of poverty will be in the arts or a highly skilled and technological job. IBM has a computer called Watson and it beat Jeopardy. There is a belief among it's makers that it could do a better job at decision making than humans. You may laugh; but, I want you to follow this link.

Watson2016 - Watson for President 2016

No, IBM isn't serious about having a computer run for President. It is researching people's reactions to the idea of important decisions being made by computers rather than people. Having said all that, this post is about jobs and people and how we will live in the future.

YouTube - Jim Mellon ** Human redundancy, what happens? Permanent unemployment? ** 2013

Now, we are constantly told that there just isn't enough money to pay to take care of people and the word used in Europe is austerity. We are told we cannot afford healthcare, pensions, social security, disability, food stamps or welfare. We are told that so much by the six media conglomerates that you might actually believe it; but, the real issue is slightly different.

Trading Economics - United States GDP.  The chart shows U.S. GDP since 2006 when the economy was barreling along prior to the crash. In 2006 the GDP was at 13,855 billion dollars for the year and it has gone up every years since except one. Today the GDP is at 17,947 billion dollars. That means the United States has actually increased it's GDP; but, we have not seen this result in higher paying jobs or more spending on public services. There is a reason for this, most of the money that has been made since the crash went only to the top 1% with the greatest majority of it going to the top.01% and their tax rates have been going down by a lot.

The facts are why the rich are panicking. What they really fear is that they have sent jobs overseas and now the only way to pay for services in this country is to tax them. Their choice is to instead hide profit overseas and call for the elimination of public services other than the police, fire and the military who they believe are needed to protect them. This is also why the same is going on in Europe.