Obsolete Industries

[Phoenix84]

"I'd gladly take the drop in my standard of living to have my Fantasy House Husband and Kids that 4 people (and 2 cats) living on my wages would require. It would be a valuable tradeoff to me... I'd have more time for non-work/non-life maintenance stuff..."

At least it's my understanding we weren't talking about families in this "highly technological future" we were talking about communities of unrelated people. Would you be willing to work and support 4 grown adults (of either gender) and 8 kids as part of this "community living."

[midjd]

Living in a "community" where I was a "stay at home" and take care of a bunch of little drooling babies sounds to me like the seventh circle of hell.

Me too, but apparently... at least judging from other threads... some people prefer that to working

[phil5185]

surprised to not see on the list was travel agencies

In AZ we've seen quite a few of the small travel agencies fail.
And the usual video rentals and book stores are closing.

Got a dental crown last week - our dentist now has an inhouse CAM milling machine. scans your tooth before & after drilling, then has the computer digitize the difference between the two. Sends the data to the milling machine, it makes your crown in about 15 minutes. So, that eliminates the 'temp' that you wear for a couple weeks & another visit to get the real crown installed.
And it probably eliminates 1000's of Crown Manufacturing shops across the US.

[phil5185]

The sharpest quickest demise of an industry that I was a part of was Sliderules. In 1972 the scientific handheld calculator was invented. Every engineer and every engineering student got the News - so K&E and Post probably never sold another Sliderule. We had to wait a few months for the Calculator supply to catch up with demand - but I doubt that anyone bought a new Sliderule while they waited for their new Calculator.
About 70,000 freshman start engineering each yr - each one bought a new Sliderule. And most engineers had several - one at home, one at work, one in the briefcase, a couple pocket sliderules.

[Tiny]

ATS - I find it funny that you don't understand why everyone isn't jumping on the bandwagon for having one income, but in your scenario, you aren't the one giving up your income, your job, or your security. You get a career and your mythical husband is the one that has to be idealistic enough to trust that you would never, ever let him fall.

LOL! I understand perfectly well why no one's jumping on the bandwagon. I was just tossing out an opinion/idea and seeing where it went. There are modern places where there's one 'bread winner' supporting a family (most likely wife(s), kids, grandparents, single siblings) - I'd guesstimate that this occurs in places that are mostly supported by agriculture so the non breadwinners are still working and not hanging out on the couch surfing the net, playing WoW, and getting drunk/high.
I'm wondering how something like that would translate to a technologically advanced society - where there wasn't alot of manual labor involved in everyday life (you go down to the store to get a gallon of milk and some eggs - versus having to deal with goats/cows/chickens). What would a single bread winner type group look like? How would it function?

[Tiny]

You get a career and your mythical husband is the one that has to be idealistic enough to trust that you would never, ever let him fall.

Hey, women have dealt with this problem for thousands of years (and they still do). I'm sure a man could figure out how to cope with the problem.

[Tiny]

ThymeforChange: I work because I want to work.
But, what if you lived in a mythical future where you the job you enjoy/know is obsolete and because of technological advancement (fewer jobs) you are the odd person out who can't find a job... How would 'work' then? That's an offshoot from where this topic seems to be going. What would your living conditions be if you couldn't support yourself AND if there was little or no Government help? Would you choose to live on the street (or build yourself a cardboard shack down in the newly created shanty town of the jobless/homeless) or might you try to pool your resources with some other like minded people and see if you could get an apartment or some other shelter?
Ok, that's probably not gonna happen (the shanty towns)... but hopefully you see what I'm going for...

[Phoenix84]

"The sharpest quickest demise of an industry that I was a part of was Sliderules."

I don't even know what a sliderule looks like, or how you would use one. I know they were used prior to calculators and they were used like we use calculators today.

But Phil brings up a good point, this is nothing new. There's not much of a market for blacksmiths or boilermakers anymore. The automobile killed the horse and buggy industry. I don't think we should let unemployment stand in the way of progress.

Another industry that's long gone is TV/Radio repair. People used to pay to have things repaired, now it's often cheaper to replace devices that no longer work. I think a lot of this has to do with devices being more complex today.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2011 14:06:59 GMT -5 midjd said:

I have a very silly fantasy about my Stay At Home Husband and the 2 kids we have (probably his from a previous marriage cause I ain't popping out a kid!!). He keeps the house and kids and persues whatever hobby or volunteering he wants. There's a hot homecooked meal on the table when I come home from work and he often greets me with a Martini (the way I like it) in hand and a twinkle in his eye when I get home from work. I have no idea what the kids do-- play in the yard I guess...

Get outta my brain! ;D

Crap - now we've got find three of these elusive creatures - I want one too!

[Deleted]

Back to the original article - I didn't understand their definition of dying industry. Some industries are dying in the U.S. but show no sign of going away - someone is always going to mill fabric, we just might not do it here. But others are becoming obsolete - the blacksmiths - because they just aren't needed anywhere.

I realize the impact on U.S. workers is the same, but they seem like very different scenarios.

[Deleted]

People love to blame companies for offshoring production, but people need to look at themselves in the mirror. These same people want the products they buy to be the cheapest. People have the power to stop this in its tracks - using their purchasing power. A big problem is no high level government official can publically ask people to do so while trying to get our trading partners to buy more of our goods. We need someone well known but outside of politics, or no longer desiring office, to go public with a buy American campaign. Not enough individuals will act if they feel their actions can't make a difference. Use pictures so it seeps in - buy chinese good at walmart, picture of child making it, picture of 6x6 room child lives in, picture of factory closing in US, picture of US family on the streets. Contrast with US made product, US family in a small house, unemployment line on downward trend.

[Apple]

Jun 24, 2011 13:59:46 GMT -5 Tiny said:

I have a very silly fantasy about my Stay At Home Husband and the 2 kids we have (probably his from a previous marriage cause I ain't popping out a kid!!). He keeps the house and kids and persues whatever hobby or volunteering he wants. There's a hot homecooked meal on the table when I come home from work and he often greets me with a Martini (the way I like it) in hand and a twinkle in his eye when I get home from work. I have no idea what the kids do-- play in the yard I guess...

Where do I fill out an application? Could you overlook the fact that I only have one child, not two? And that I'm female? After watching me use a drill one of my old coworkers told me I would "make someone a great husband someday"...

Oh, and I'm not into women, but I'm sure if I drank one of the martinis before you got home I could manage that twinkle.

[phil5185]

Use pictures so it seeps in - buy chinese good at walmart, picture of child making it, picture of 6x6 room child lives in, picture of factory closing in US, picture of US family on the streets.

That doesn't work for me - I am happy to buy from the good people of other countries who want work, appreciate jobs, and do good work. And educate themselves.
And I don't have much sympathy for greedy US auto workers or NLRB who whine about 'only' $50/hr for unskilled labor and strike because they want ever bigger pensions and more vacation.
As for your picture of a Chinese child working and living in a 6x6 room - picture that same child's family NOT working and being evicted from their 6x6 room - let's support those willing workers so that they can improve their situation, not kick them aside.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2011 10:45:09 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Use pictures so it seeps in - buy chinese good at walmart, picture of child making it, picture of 6x6 room child lives in, picture of factory closing in US, picture of US family on the streets.

That doesn't work for me - I am happy to buy from the good people of other countries who want work, appreciate jobs, and do good work. And educate themselves.
And I don't have much sympathy for greedy US auto workers or NLRB who whine about 'only' $50/hr for unskilled labor and strike because they want ever bigger pensions and more vacation.
As for your picture of a Chinese child working and living in a 6x6 room - picture that same child's family NOT working and being evicted from their 6x6 room - let's support those willing workers so that they can improve their situation, not kick them aside.

Chinese children don't built autos.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2011 10:45:09 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Use pictures so it seeps in - buy chinese good at walmart, picture of child making it, picture of 6x6 room child lives in, picture of factory closing in US, picture of US family on the streets.

That doesn't work for me - I am happy to buy from the good people of other countries who want work, appreciate jobs, and do good work. And educate themselves.
And I don't have much sympathy for greedy US auto workers or NLRB who whine about 'only' $50/hr for unskilled labor and strike because they want ever bigger pensions and more vacation.
As for your picture of a Chinese child working and living in a 6x6 room - picture that same child's family NOT working and being evicted from their 6x6 room - let's support those willing workers so that they can improve their situation, not kick them aside.

My post wasn't about protectionism, which I am against. It is much like organics - questionable benefit, but let people vote with their dollars.. But someone has to make it hip or at least show people the connection of their purchasing decisions to unemployment.

Or we can sit back for a decade and allow the average COL to drop in the US while it rises in other countries. Eventually creating widget XYZ in the US will be cost competitive and we can only hope that some of the work might return.

[phil5185]

Or we can sit back for a decade and allow the average COL to drop in the US while it rises in other countries. Eventually creating widget XYZ in the US will be cost competitive and we can only hope that some of the work might return.

No need to drop the COL, a better plan is to keep the intellectual property - perhaps the widget design is US property. We automate the manufacturing process so that one US machine operator can make 10,000 widgets per day - and we pay him $60/hr to run that machine. And laborers in other countries will make them by hand, about 100 per day, so that laborer gets <$1/hr. Based on that, our widgets will cost less than foreign widgets - so we can supply the 191 nations of the world with the lowest cost widgets - and we can hire jillions of $60/hr machine operators, plus a bunch of people to build & facilitate the automated factories.
The big stumbling block is our education system - the US no longer produces skilled machine operators - so we have to go offshore to hire people to fill our technical jobs. That is the problem that we must correct if we want to establish manufacturing superiority again one day.

[Deleted]

Jun 25, 2011 18:11:30 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Or we can sit back for a decade and allow the average COL to drop in the US while it rises in other countries. Eventually creating widget XYZ in the US will be cost competitive and we can only hope that some of the work might return.

No need to drop the COL, a better plan is to keep the intellectual property - perhaps the widget design is US property. We automate the manufacturing process so that one US machine operator can make 10,000 widgets per day - and we pay him $60/hr to run that machine. And laborers in other countries will make them by hand, about 100 per day, so that laborer gets <$1/hr. Based on that, our widgets will cost less than foreign widgets - so we can supply the 191 nations of the world with the lowest cost widgets - and we can hire jillions of $60/hr machine operators, plus a bunch of people to build & facilitate the automated factories.
The big stumbling block is our education system - the US no longer produces skilled machine operators - so we have to go offshore to hire people to fill our technical jobs. That is the problem that we must correct if we want to establish manufacturing superiority again one day.

We see the problem with this idea every day when some business wants to enter the Chinese market. They have to partner with a Chinese company and "give away the farm" for the business opportunity. I know it seems to fly in the face of public belief right now, but businesses exist to reward share holders. To do that, they need top line growth and billions of potential new customers are hard to resist. When Mao passes over the crack pipe, most US companies take the hit.

I do often wonder when I hear "free trade" - free for who?

[phil5185]

I know it seems to fly in the face of public belief right now, but businesses exist to reward share holders.

To my knowledge that has been true since the beginning of time. Hopefully. Whenever family or a group of people incorporate and form a business, the point of the corporation is to earn money for the Pele that invested their capital in the business.

[thyme4change]

But, what if you lived in a mythical future where you the job you enjoy/know is obsolete and because of technological advancement (fewer jobs) you are the odd person out who can't find a job... How would 'work' then?

I guess I don't see how we are actually going to eliminate jobs - I just think the work product and skill sets will shift. Technology has shiftly a great deal in the past 100 years and it INCREASED the number of jobs and the number of people working. No matter how much we want to believe that there will be magic that will make our lives work free, there always has to be a magician - and that magician usually has several assistants, plus the guy who makes the hat and the cape and the magic wand, and the guy who builds the set, and the guy who works the curtain, and pulls the strings, and the guy who runs the fog machine, and the guy who manufactures the fog machine, and on and on.

Someone has to design the technology. Someone has to build the technology. Someone has to maintain the technology. If my job goes away, I'll get a new job designing or building or maintaining, or selling or buying or implementing the technology that replaces me.

[thyme4change]

I'm also not sure why you see this as some mytical fantasy. A lot of families live on one income. You don't need a magical, mytical future where everything is different to do the same - just the right husband.

[cronewitch]

The govenment will remove people from the workforce when we need fewer better trained people. Marginal people will do work like mowing lawns and roofing houses but we will have a larger group of unemployed. The government already makes the handicapped and elderly able to not work with SS, SSDI and SSI. We allow unemployed to stay on compensation 2 years and don't force new mothers to work but give them welfare and WIC.

It wouldn't take much to have the government make even more people stay out of the workforce. Free medical care, food stamps and cheap housing will encourage people who don't mind not having much if they don't have to work to live cheap. Free medical alone would get many of us to retire before 65 and live off savings or take SS at 62 especially if we were married to a worker.

We could keep kids in school until they are 22 or more and if we gave more grants and loans they might not even work part time. Then if they retire at 52 they only have a job for 30 years. Where a hundred years ago they go to work at 18 and work to 65 so more like 47 years.

People who can't learn enough for the living wage jobs can still do many things like selling things or daycare worker that don't require tech skills.

[Clever Username]

Jun 25, 2011 9:22:02 GMT -5 @craftysarah said:

But others are becoming obsolete - the blacksmiths - because they just aren't needed anywhere.

My sister in law works at an industrial supply company.

She cracked up laughing when she got an order for an anvil.
When she filled the order, she doubled over.... that anvil soooooo looks just like an anvil.

Too curious, she asked around, found that they sell 2-3 per year.
She promptly lost a bet from the old pro that he could pinpoint the mailing address within a 20 mile radius.

Hollywood.

[jkapp]

Jun 24, 2011 13:23:32 GMT -5 midjd said:

My mom is an insurance agent for a small agency, and she's been feeling the pressure from sites like Progressive, Geico, etc. Kind of like Dunder Mifflin vs. Office Max.

We watched a video in one of my sociology classes called "The Future Of Work", IIRC... the message was essentially that in another 20-30 years, technology will have evolved such that only about half the population will be able to find a job. One example is the automatic checkouts at grocery stores. Interesting to think about... especially since the jobs left aren't necessarily high-paying enough to support a family (assuming it would be rare for both spouses to be able to find a job).

I also read that Best Buy is planning to sublease space in most of the larger stores. I think the advent of the internet has really crippled big box stores - the article joked that Best Buy was "Amazon's Showroom".

I can see the internet taking over the retail industry...and I won't bat an eye, as I hate going to stores these days - you can never find what you're looking for and when you do find it, they are sold out of it.

I was reminded of why I shop online just this weekend...I went to a hardware/fleet store for four things - one of the things I couldn't find and found out they don't carry it (although they do on the website!), and another item they had but it was sold out. So, IMO I just wasted time and gas to go to a store to only get half the things I needed. I could have spent 5 minutes online and gotten those two items (and probably the third one they didn't carry in-store) and if they were sold out on the fourth item on the website then so be it, very little time and money wasted.

Internet for me, thanks! ;D