Where do lost jobs actually go?

Below is a lift of 3 related Belmont Club comments. They are off topic for the post and they pretty much stand alone.

Read ... and consider the possible economic futures for humanity.

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54. Tarnsman

Re: China and our “lost” jobs. Bottomline money flows to the lowest costs. If it is less cost to manufacture a widget in China when all the costs are added up then guess what? There are going to be factories manufacturing widgets in China. Seems to me the focus should be on “how do we lower the costs of making widgets in the USA”. Might take relaxing regulations and taxes on said activities. Might take labor realizing it can’t command $20 an hour to make a widget and stay competitive with the Chinese who are willing to do for less. Might take all of things. But more importantly we as American have to come to grips that we are not entitled to or owed our jobs and industry. That we have to earn them every single day. We taught the world how to build automobiles and now they school us on quality and cost. We taught the world many things and took it for granted that somehow we would always be first forgetting that the only reason we became first was because of the sacrifices our grandfathers and fathers to achieve that. We have as a nation have forgotten that prosperity is build on hard work and sacrifice. Instead we have is “Where’s mine?” attitude. Perhaps we need a good long depression where over 25% of the people are out of work and rest worry about the jobs. Maybe only then we will wake up that to fact that there is no easy way, no givens in life.
Re: Tuesday. Pray for an epic blow-out. Only way the Establishment will wake up.
October 30, 2010 - 9:19 pm
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61. blert

Tarnsman @ 54…
Our lost jobs disappeared into the integrated circuit.
Pop open your PC — if it’s not a laptop — and see how 45 chips have become ONE.
That’s where Silicon Valley high tech jobs went.
Once done: forever done.
As if that dynamic could go on and on and on….
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That vicious inhuman efficiency is ever with us.
The BIG PICTURE is hard to see when you’re in it’s frame.
Digital/logical control ultimately leads to MASS replacement of human labor.
Our polity has NOT come to grips with that.
Mass labor replacement means that not only ditch digging is lost as the bottom rung on the ladder, ( I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 1932 ) but that our very humanity as an economic lynch-pin is gone: an ‘intelligent’ device has ruined our economic merit even if we are willing to work at slave incomes.
Robotics means that that day really is at hand.
There are millions of humans supporting their families from efforts MUCH more easily provided by intelligent machines.
This reality will ONLY expand with time.
We ALREADY have dark factories that only turn the lights on for the programmers and repair crews! I’m NOT making that up.
HOW does our society deal with the REALITY of major segments of society being too dumb to economically have any merit?
This is the challenge of our era.
October 30, 2010 - 11:09 pm
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62. stoicheion

#61 Blert.There it is.My oldest is a veterinarian. Cows more then poodles. He is not going to be replaced by a computer, although he uses a laptop. He isn’t going to get rich but he’ll never have to worry about making the mortgage or eating.Those 35$hr. factory jobs are history. They have been replaced by 50$ hr computer related jobs. The problem for the unions is that it wasn’t a 1 to 1 replacement. Now you have 5 techs replacing 100 non-skilled labor jobs. So those 95 unskilled workers either get re-trained or flip burgers. Just how many burgers does a modern economy need?Some think that unemployment is a by-product of the industrial age, based on the fact that back when everybody was either a farm worker or artificer unemployment was zero, or so close as to be unmeasurable. I don’t agree and I sure don’t agree that high unemployment is a by-product of the Information age.I think that the free market just hasn’t found a way to put the unskilled to work. It will.The RPV (remote piloted vehicle) campaign in Afghanistan will help a lot. In theory there isn’t that much difference between some teenager hunting terrs with a remote controlled robot and some teenager mining ore with a remote controlled robot. It will certainly be easier on the miners when the inevitable cave-in occurs.I can see the manager at McDonalds controlling a robot wait staff. AS minimum wage goes up, it becomes inevitable. There go the burger flipping jobs.How do you say “Super size that?” in binary?

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If this doesnt lead to the welfare state (and I don't believe it does) then where does it go?