The lilies grow before our eyes

An article in the Economist, On "bullshit jobs", refers to  On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs .  Getting past the commentary on current jobs, the issue is a future defined by the rise of sophisticated automation ... eliminating whole categories of jobs and leading to significant pressures on existing social structure.  I found a new concept  ...  "capital-biased technological change" Some of the other links mentioned and worth a look are Inequality in the Robot Future and  Welcome, Robot Overlords.  Please don't Fire Us? .

Maybe best summed up in a supposed exchange between Henry Ford II and Walter Reuther, referenced in another Economist article, Difference Engine: Luddite Legacy

Henry Ford II: Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?

Walter Reuther: Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?




* The lily reference is all about the difficulties humans and thus societies have in understanding and dealing with exponential growth.

That's one ugly map

An article in the Economist shows a pretty ugly map about pension obligations of the US states (those of the federal government have been pretty well chronicled).

A thoughtful article by a New York teacher is a sober, personal view of the problem.  One wonders how the politicians, unions, retirees and tax-payers/residents are going to solve the mess at scale ... or just wait for the train wreck to force them a) to the negotiating table b) court c) all of the above.

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This lack of legislation is also starting to hurt Chicago, the state’s biggest city. By 2015 the payments the city must make will spike dramatically—a forecast that caused Moody’s to downgrade its rating by three notches, to A3, last month. On July 31st the mayor, Rahm Emanuel, warned that next year’s $339m budget deficit will yawn to $995m in 2015 and to $1.15 billion by 2016. Revenues are around $3 billion annually.

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