Since Roman times it has been seen that an educated and well off population will have a lower rate of reproduction. Today all industrialized nations are having negative population growth and as education and standards of living spread the rest of the world is catching up. We will not overpopulate, we will hit a maximum around 2050 and start to naturally decline. We are not deer.

There are plenty of resources to provide a good standard of living to all approximately 9.5 billion people at the peak.

Now, as we automate and robotics becomes more capable we may be able to provide that standard of living to the entire planet without needing the labor of all of the people so there may not be productive jobs for all of them to do. This will cause us to reexamine our philosophies, possibly toward a baseline national income.

I am surprised more employers do not hire under a written contract instead of the default Federal/State/Municipal rules.

No, It's division of profit making units, ex. Mailing, marketing, manufacturing...within the same business and the people in those units at every stage, their own boss, mentored by the owner of the whole company. You would earn a large percentage of the profits you make; just like if you had a little business of your own. The benefit would be the support structure of the whole of all the profit making units of the Company. You would earn much more than todays top salaries.

I have taken many odd jobs.
It's a matter of going to a temp agency and testing for your strengths.
You also might have to move to a place where you can play to your strengths.
If you are an older adult the school systems offer nearly free classes to upgrade your skills.
Online education is also an option.
The really great thing about being my age is that we came out of high school with what would now be considered an advanced degree. You are smart...and it will pay off.

As knowledge increases, so does the production of resources.
The problem here lies in the fact that we have people in government deciding that this-or-that is bad for "the environment" and they tax and fine producers for minor infringements on their thoughts about how things should function.
(There isn't any science behind their excuses to interfere...there IS hyperbole, however and lots of it!)
If government would pursue a proper role as protector and stop regulating and punishing, the producers would not only provide ample resources but would have monetary incentive to do so.
The way that government will "thin" the populace is the same way NAZI Germany did...create a "problem population" through vilification then get rid of the "problem".

Freedom is the answer to all of these "problems".

Since I was born in 1945, you are right. Its been more than that. Since I have gotten out of college, I have seen prices rise by a factor of about 13. Its pure theft, and the politicians should be in jail, not in office

That got a thumbs up. I am in favor of being treated like a business because all my life my work skills were my business. If the system can refer to a corporation as a singular entity they can damn sure treat me as a corporation. No matter where and for whom I''m working. Unless I'm drafted in which case it isn't voluntary but something else quite different.

I have been thinking that the rise of automation on the one hand is reducing the worth of more jobs of ever increasing complexity- and the worldwide economy is exposing our people to others who will work for far less money than Americans. This all means lower wages for American workers- and at a time when inflation has decimated the value of those wages.

I would vote for 30% reduction in government expenditures for sure. I would get rid of prohibitions on drugs, the DEA, DOT, Department of Education, and many other agencies tomorrow if I had the powers, I would probably be killed within a few days too by either the DEA or the Cartel

The problem is that I dont think everyone has enough time at this point to learn skills that will be worth more. It will be a race just to sit in an available chair before the music stops. I agree we have all taken a pay cut as you say. Its going to require a lot of thought and action to pull through this one.

Automation has been slowly growing for hundreds of years really. Speed of automation has increased in the last few years as electronic storage and speed of processing has progressed. Now automation has moved from taking rote jobs from humans to taking jobs that actually require thinking. The call for $15 and hour minimum wage will result in faster movement towards automation for sure. The rise of China has slowed automation actually, as the chinese workers currently are cheaper than machines that could replace them. There are plenty of jobs that are still not suitable for automation, such as those where real human interaction makes a big difference (personal sales contact, doorman at a nightclub, people who design marketing campaigns). We have lost our manufacturing jobs to the chinese and then to robots if they ever come back to the US. The service jobs that we have taken will slowly disappear to automation also- maybe to china or india for awhile. Either we learn to be worth more in fact, or we have to just take a cut in pay. No other choices.

// Those that drift aimlessly with nothing they wish to do can be poor or rich, it makes no difference. //

You will get no dispute from me on that. These are however a small minority of misfits who need to be dealt with individually and appropriately by those affected. That a few sociopaths will always exist is no reason for organizing an entire society to account for this lowest of minority denominators.
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Hello XenokRoy
A self destructive policy is at work. A basic law of economics is at play. Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. Whatever you tax and regulate you get less of. The more people that are paid not to work the more of them you get. The more you tax and regulate the productive the fewer of them you get. The result is an economy without excess capital or incentive to create new jobs and increase the labor market. Innovation, invention and job creation suffer as a result. When more people work there are more consumers with expendable income to spread around and feed more jobs. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that when you cut welfare and other handouts people do find work and then a multiplier effect grows the economy and job market.

There are many factors at work here and government is behind the worst of them. We no longer stress teaching a man to fish. We just give him a fish. Trade, regulation and tax policies that encourage large corporations to outsource work are also at play. Another critical economic law: Capital will always seek the highest return.

The situation is dire, but it is not hopeless. If the wrong government policies can be destructive, the right ones can be constructive. It is the mindset of those that elect and those they elect which must learn the error of their ways. If this reality finally sinks in, things will change. Many in government are dependent upon their symbiotic relationship with voters that return the favor for the handout. To those of us that produce, both are parasitic. Technology is not the problem. Lack of incentive is the problem.
Respectfully,
O.A.

Well,

IF not now in time machines will make machines. I would wager that the robots used in the Phoenix McDonalds were likely built in a plant mostly made of robotic labor.

What the market will create is a good number of jobs maintaining the robots. Until Nanite (spelling?) technology evolves to where the highly portable microscopic robots can repair the larger productive robots in the field. Then those will be gone, but someone will have to design and program the nanites to do the work they will do, until artificial intellegence gets to where it does the programming....

Each iteration will provide some additional jobs that require a high level of education while eliminating 10 to 100s of jobs that do not. LIkely leaving two job markets, those of engineers, designers and researchers and those of the sales and services around automation the design teams make. With the exception of sales all other positions will require a higher level of education as time moves forward.

You can look over the history of the automotive industry to see this cycle there, other industries will follow the same cycle.