Why Us??

[issatree]

Hi to you all,
I might get into a bit of hot water here for what I wood like to say.
I see these Adds on TV for us to donate money to these Overseas People who look after all these Starving Children. I think there are 2 of them.
Now I'm not saying don't, but why us.
Meaning, what about all those Billionaires, Millionaires, and the like, who have more than I think, wood know what to do with it.
If most of them give 1 Million each, then to my way of thinking that should solve the problem.
Unbeknown to me of course, that many of them do so, so why these Adds on TV.
Has been said, that if you gave $1, the Children concerned get approx. 20 cents.
Maybe I'm a touch ignorant of the situation, and don't get me wrong I really feel for these People & Children, but I think these Money People could do far more than we could.

[woodPixel]

I've had the pleasure of working with/for 4 different people who are the wealthiest in the country for almost 17 years. 2 names you will know, two, I doubt (privacy and anonymity is #1, always)

They wouldn't have given a dry meatless boiled sucked bone to a starving dog.

Generous to those who make them money - absolutely - but to others? You are but a consumer to take every single last cent off. Bees. Cattle. Ants.

The way they think is so different it is impossible to put down in a short space. They are highly abnormal. The way they see people is alien.

Charity is used as a humble-brag. It is always done to make them money.

They pay no tax. Ever.

[China]

I can't speak for the people you speak of wooPixel, although I have known many people in the same wealth bracket who give away more than most of us earn in a life time with no expectation of anything in return they just don't put adverts in the pres when they do so

[ian]

I wish I knew and could give credit to the person responsible for the following definition

"Foreign aid is poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries."

[rustynail]

I've had the pleasure of working with/for 4 different people who are the wealthiest in the country for almost 17 years. 2 names you will know, two, I doubt (privacy and anonymity is #1, always)

They wouldn't have given a dry meatless boiled sucked bone to a starving dog.

Generous to those who make them money - absolutely - but to others? You are but a consumer to take every single last cent off. Bees. Cattle. Ants.

The way they think is so different it is impossible to put down in a short space. They are highly abnormal. The way they see people is alien.

Charity is used as a humble-brag. It is always done to make them money.

They pay no tax. Ever.
Interesting generalisation. Why would one spend 17 years with folk like that?

[dai sensei]

....f you gave $1, the Children concerned get approx. 20 cents....

If you are lucky, sometimes it is as little as 2c. Unfortunately some people who set up these charity sort of thing is just looking at ways to earn themselves a wage

[Dibbers]

I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that with all of it's wealth, the Vatican could essentially end world hunger... And i'm pretty sure they aren't the only religious institution that has money either...

I don't generally make donations to "Charities" at least not significant ones, because i know that only a small fraction of my money actually goes to the cause... I'll donate food and clothing and the like, but i won't give the Cancer Council any cash... I had a mate that used to be one of those annoying a-holes that stops you on the street to get you to sign up to donate to them every month, the money and bonuses he got was criminal!

[Chris Parks]

Philanthropy amongst the wealthy in the US is a bit of a competition to see who can give how much, in Oz it is hardly done at all apart from a few notable exceptions such as the recent announcement by one of our mining magnates. There are schemes where any donation can be directed to individuals or even loans can be arranged for start up businesses in very poor regions which then has the knock on effect of employing people if the business grows enough. The following link is how to do this..https://www.kiva.org

[KBs PensNmore]

I've been emailed lists of the money that Australia donates to "poorer" countries, it comes to thousands of millions of Dollars. Yet we have to borrow the money to give away???? Is there something wrong with my thoughts on this. What ever happened to the saying Charity begins at home, with the donations to other countries, we should be living in the land of plenty, no homelessness, pensions that are of a standard that people can afford to have the heater/cooling on, have a decent meal. Yes, some of the community squander their money on gambling, booze, smokes etc, but a lot pay a lot of money in rents just to have a roof over their heads, yet others are given a nice house, at minimal costs, which they abuse, destroy almost, leave in squalor, then expect to be given another one at Tax payers expense, just to do the same all over again. If they want to trash the "house" that's given to them, let them live in it, the more the destroy it, let them live in it, it's their problem NOT ours, maybe then, they might learn acceptable behavior.
It's our Great Grandchildren that will be paying off the monies that's borrowed today.
Kryn

[ian]

yet others are given a nice house, at minimal costs, which they abuse, destroy almost, leave in squalor, then expect to be given another one at Tax payers expense, just to do the same all over again. If they want to trash the "house" that's given to them, let them live in it, the more the destroy it, let them live in it, it's their problem NOT ours, maybe then, they might learn acceptable behavior.

I think it's called called mental illness, and in a way it is "our" problem.

[Lyle]

My opinion is that there should be nothing for 'free' when it comes to Govt $$ (it came from taxpayers remember). You need house/food/etc, then you need to work for it, even menial labour like picking up rubbish, volunteering in nursing homes, rural fire services, SES etc. A social shift in the entitled society needs to be brought about. I am not saying that one size fits all, there will always be exceptions, but pleeease the welfare system is way to easy in these tough times.
I'll duck down low now as I am sure this will stir up debate.
But remember I said it is my opinion.
Lyle.

[Dibbers]

My opinion is that there should be nothing for 'free' when it comes to Govt $$ (it came from taxpayers remember). You need house/food/etc, then you need to work for it, even menial labour like picking up rubbish, volunteering in nursing homes, rural fire services, SES etc. A social shift in the entitled society needs to be brought about. I am not saying that one size fits all, there will always be exceptions, but pleeease the welfare system is way to easy in these tough times.
I'll duck down low now as I am sure this will stir up debate.
But remember I said it is my opinion.
Lyle.

I agree with you in general. I think that some people on welfare abuse it massively and there isn't enough deterrents to stop them from doing that.

I also think however, that this as a broader problem is one of the governments & businesses making.

Fact is, most of the able bodied, mentally sound welfare recipients are unskilled... and with the advent of globalisation, there just aren't many (if any) jobs for an unskilled worker. I hate it when the whole "we need to teach them skills" schtick gets banied about too, you haven't been able to get them to apply for a job at woolies for 4 years, but yes, I'm sure they'll attend Uni and complete a bachelors degree in civil engineering and assist in building the next wave of dodgy apartments. Not going to happen unfortunately. And while manufacturing is a truckload cheaper overseas than it is here, it won't change.

Funnily enough, i don't think there's enough technology being developed/utilised to combat this problem. All jobs these days have an online application process, no one walks into somewhere and says "Can i have a job please" anymore. So if you're on welfare, you need to register thought the government, have a unique "welfare ID" or whatever, and that ties in with your profile on Seek.com or Indeed.com or whatever. The government should get a report from those companies with a dump of all the jobs they've applied for. If the applications don't meet the criteria (e.g. they've not completed year 10 but keep applying for the CFO job going at the bank), then they get their cash payments cut and replaced with store cards or something not redeemable for cash.

I think the biggest issue is that there's no disincentive for being on welfare. And when you look at the battle people on welfare face in getting a half decent job, it just gets put in the too hard basket and perpetuates the cycle...

[FenceFurniture]

rural fire services, SESThese both require training, and are spasmodic or on demand, so I'll leave them out, but I would certainly never categorise them as menial.



even menial labour like picking up rubbish, volunteering in nursing homes,Ok, so which do you choose to do, and for how often/long? Or would you prefer a spot of Public Dunny cleaning? This sort of thing is very easy to say when there is no danger of having to do them yourself.

Just a way of putting already disadvantaged people (mostly, or to some extent) on the lowest rung you can think of, and keeping them there.

[tonzeyd]

Just my 2c,

Yes i completely agree the wealthy can eliminate world poverty many times over, a recent study claims that world poverty could be ended with $175 billion per year. Which does sound like alot, but in reality this sum of money can be easily made up by asking OECD countries to give up 1 minor or part of a luxury. For example, Americans spend twice this much on coffee per year and thats just one country and one luxury.

So yes the "rich" of the world can end world poverty, but the fact of the matter is that the majority of us are considered rich, although it may not always feel that way.

I'll just leave this here for those who haven't seen it yet..

Global Rich List (http://www.globalrichlist.com/)

[woodPixel]

As technology removes jobs there will be fewer to go around. I was previously working on three projects in vague AI that could easily have been modified to remove stock brokers, accountants and lawyers.

The black boxed HFT was easiest and is now a reality. HFT was a killer of jobs. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of financial analysts now longer exist. These were the biggest pay packets in the industry - Gone. Google "UBS trading floor".....

My last job was CTO of a credit card processing and risk profiling business. Billions in profits. Billions. I reduced a worldwide business down to 8 people in one large room in North Sydney. EIGHT. It previously had thousands in (if I remember right) eight countries. 99.98% of them were terminated. It was entirely replaced with 3 massively redundant data centres: Sydney and two in The Netherlands. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Sydney office is now gone.

Every process was automated and it took only one year to do it. Profits remained however....

Manufacturing needs fewer people. What a factory of 50 people could now be done with 5. LEGOs massive production facilities are entirely devoid of people (I was invited to view some a decade ago)... Trucks one end - trucks the other end. Zero people in between. Zero.

It is entirely foreseeable that entire industries that employed hundreds of thousands will employ a handful: steel, trucking, taxis, shopping itself. AutoCars will destroy them.

Lets blame these "bludgers" for not getting off their arses and scrubbing toilets - or picking up rubbish.

We have never lived in a more wealthy time - never. The real issue is income distribution.

A universal basic income is coming. It does not matter if you like it or not, nor what your political or economic opinions might be. The reality is that a massive swathe of people will never have a full time career. Perhaps a series of ever demoralising part-time-casual jobs (and three of them!) will become an increasing reality - Bachelor or masters degrees and resultant debt included.

Lose a job at 50? Hmmmm? Are you 25 and tried to get a real job? Hmmmm? How many 50+ years olds are here that have applied for 300 jobs in the last 3 years without a single phone call back? Plenty, I'd wager.

The economic picture and income division needs to change - radically. The existing models of one-eyed-capitalism are dysfunctional and has becoming an ever stiffening corpse.

AI is coming. It will terminate 90% of everyone's jobs.

There aren't enough toilets to scrub.

We need to rethink it - its important.

[Chris Parks]

The reason why 50 year olds can't get jobs? Because all the people doing the employing are younger and will not employ anyone not in their age group or younger.

[Dibbers]

Partly true, I also think the wages are a factor as well. A 50 year old will have a wealth of experience compared to someone straight out of uni, so i'd imagine they'd be commanding a significantly larger salary.

Plus i also think another reason is the rapid pace of technological advancement. I think there is a perception out there (not one that I subscribe to mind you) that older people aren't "With it" and the time and resources to train them in newer technology is too great an expense.

While technology has made our lives significantly easier/better etc it has also eroded the need for human intervention in a lot of things. Look at furniture making as an example, you could argue that today's society in the current economic climate with none to negative wage growth and cost of living expenses asking "Why would i pay an expert craftsman thousands to make me custom furniture when i can get a combination of flat packs from ikea that'll do the job at a fraction of the cost?"

Even houses are going to go down the line of flat pack. I'm actually surprised that the huf haus model hasn't exploded in Australia (probably the regulatory requirements are a nightmare to navigate) but for those not familiar with it, its essentially a prefabricated house that has EVERYTHING pre-assembled or prepped in a factory and assembled on site. Average house takes 2 weeks to assemble apparently (although thats with a German construction team, gotta love that German efficiency!)... That's the world we're moving to unfortunately.

[Sturdee]

I see these Adds on TV for us to donate money to these Overseas People who look after all these Starving Children. I think there are 2 of them.
Now I'm not saying don't, but why us.


Lets get away from the normal diatribe against our own poor and not well off people and get back to the original question why are there so many TV ads to donate money to overseas starving multitude.

Most of them are starving displaced persons because of religious intolerance and power struggles in their own countries by those that couldn't give a damn about individual people.

So they appeal to the western world whose Christian ethics normally care about individuals. Thus we are supposed to fix all the ails in the world whilst their own religious based system of governments don't give a damn.

Interesting that Saudi Arabia, with all its oil based wealth, doesn't help at all to solve these problems.

I personally believe that charity begins at home, so I would prefer it that we all, government included, help our own poor instead of foreign problems.

Peter.

[A Duke]

Hi,
I blame it all on decolonization.
But then I am prejudiced.
Regards

[woodPixel]

Aduke, what an interesting comment. Only yesterday I was talking to an Economist friend (who came over to look at my new work) and he discussed exactly the same thing - Decolonization. An interesting read.

[cava]

I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that with all of it's wealth, the Vatican could essentially end world hunger...
I used to work for two (2) vatican influenced/owned/controlled companies, and they were very profitable - you honestly have no idea how wealthy the vatican is.

They would clearly be the largest/valuable land owner in Australia.

[ian]

Lets get away from the normal diatribe against our own poor and not well off people and get back to the original question why are there so many TV ads to donate money to overseas starving multitude.
Perhaps because Australians are seen as a soft touch.

There's enough people well enough off to afford to give $10 or more dollars per week to a "deserving" cause.

Likewise, have you noticed the adds for funeral "insurance"? and locally (Canada) I'm seeing adds encouraging the elderly to adjust their wills to leave a substantial amount to "charity"

[Sturdee]

Likewise, have you noticed the adds for funeral "insurance"?

Yes, especially during the afternoon TV there is a glut of them from a number of outfits with so called free gifts if you take them out immediately but the actual insurer is the same for all.




I'm seeing adds encouraging the elderly to adjust their wills to leave a substantial amount to "charity"

Yes, mainly on the daytime radio, especially in favour of the Salvo's.

Peter.

[rustynail]

There are many ways of being charitable without lining the nests of the large organizations.
There is nothing nicer than seeing your efforts rewarded first hand, yet nothing more frustrating than seeing good money squandered.
A couple of examples: Upon completing her uni degree, my daughter decided a trip to Africa was in order. She found a local school in an underprivileged area of South Africa, contacted the head and scored a voluntary position as a teacher aid. She felt this better than a full teaching roll as her time was limited. On her arrival she was given the job of assisting the under achievers class teacher. End result; the under achievers out performed the regular class in the end of year exams. The teacher was delighted. The students were delighted and the parents were delighted. My daughter was over the moon.
My uncle's next door neightbour had an argument with his wife and jumped on his motor bike to go and cool off. He hit an electricity pole and was rendered a quadriplegic. The following Christmas my uncle slipped a Christmas card under his door. An unusual thing for my uncle as he didn't believe in Christmas cards or Christmas for that matter. Inside was a cheque for $50K. My uncle would neither confirm nor deny this and always maintained he had no idea where the rumour started. Easy, the guy in the wheelchair, with tears running down his face, told me.
So what say we stop bellyaching about charity and justifying our niggardly attitudes and get on with life the way it was intended?

[woodPixel]

Rustynail - your daughters story is fantastic. What a truly life altering story. Profoundly so.

[Chris Parks]

In my experience a lot of the poor and homeless in this country is self inflicted with a lot of them having no intention of working. I would rather fund a poor person overseas trying to achieve something by direct means as my link above showed then give the local bludgers anything. I know at least three people who have the no work philosophy, one a family member and they will go to any length to avoid trying to earn a wage.

[rustynail]

Rustynail - your daughters story is fantastic. What a truly life altering story. Profoundly so.
Yes, I dont know who got the most out of it...my daughter or the kids.

[ian]

There are many ways of being charitable without lining the nests of the large organizations.

So what say we stop bellyaching about charity and justifying our niggardly attitudes and get on with life the way it was intended?Here here

now back to the shed :)

[MAPLEMAN]

In my experience a lot of the poor and homeless in this country is self inflicted with a lot of them having no intention of working.:no::~...MM

[rustynail]

There are many reasons why people have difficulty holding down jobs. Laziness is only one of them.

[Chris Parks]

:no::~...MM

You think not, please explain? I guess the total crap comment is indicative that you don't agree.

[ian]

reasons I know of include:
lack of transport -- jobs in many parts of Sydney require that the potential worker own a car. Something that the social housing suppliers in Sydney seem to regularly ignore. (There's a notorious suburb not that far from fletty that is a public transport "black hole". And to walk to a potential employer would take upwards of 1-1/2 hours.)

mental illness.

The places where the unemployed can afford to subsist have very few jobs, or the jobs are seasonal -- like a few weeks during the harvest season, then nothing till the same time next year.

lack of education. As reported by SMH, "46 per cent of us don't have the literacy and numeracy skills required to participate effectively in modern Australia." http://www.smh.com.au/national/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-20100508-ul30.html

[Chris Parks]

As I said, my direct experience and I speak for no others. Extrapolation of that leads me to think the problem exists, if it didn't there would be no attempts to address it by the government and they have done that quite a lot. If it is hard to get to work then there is no need to have a job? I would be part of that 46%, my literacy in maths is primary school standard and no higher.

[ian]

As I said, my direct experience and I speak for no others. Extrapolation of that leads me to think the problem exists, if it didn't there would be no attempts to address it by the government and they have done that quite a lot. If it is hard to get to work then there is no need to have a job?
If government policy is to encourage all working age people to contribute to the economy, then access to transport (to get to a job) is a powerful enabler.

back before I retired I had access to small area census data (small area data typically represents less than 100 houses) and one of my interests was understanding the distribution of motor vehicles across Sydney vs household income vs where jobs were located.
When the small area data is plotted and correlated, you can readily see that many low income households have one or no cars and are located well away from public transport. Drill a little deeper and you find that most of these locations are social housing.

[rustynail]

Let's face it, the disincentive to work is huge. Young people are limited by the lack of on the job training opportunities that once abounded, every one wants experienced people. A university education is no longer a job guarantee. Rent is so expensive a kid has to stay at home with mum and dad, so job seeking is often limited to the home town.
Even if you have a good work ethic, these factors can often be sole destroying.
When I was a young bloke, just about every job I applied for I got. Today, my own kids, who are way better educated than me, have had knock back after knock back before they have eventually slipped into something more comfortable. Why? Was I smarter? No. Was I better prepared? No? Better looking? I wish. Just less jobs and too many people looking.
I'd much rather be 60 than 16 these days.

[MAPLEMAN]

People don't choose to be homeless or poor...it isn't a vocation that one seeks out deliberately
Many reasons that create homelessness and poverty...a very complex dynamic
To say that homelessness and poverty is self inflicted shows a deep lack of empathy and understanding
Kick the poor and homeless in the guts and make them feel a little more unworthy :C
Charity should start at home...plenty of starving kids and adults in our 'lucky' country...MM

[Chris Parks]

For reasons of his own the person in the SMH article certainly did so I guess there are those who do decide to not have a fixed abode.

My main point was not the homeless aspect but those that choose not to work and reckon that CentreLink should provide them with everything they need and they work to maintain that support; professional bludgers I would call them. Then there are those who the government belts around the head and makes it very hard for them to get the needed help and there are plenty of those. I am sure a few on here would say that I have plenty of empathy and they have been the recipients of it.

[Dibbers]

While i agree that there are plenty of bludgers out there who should and could be working, I also think that there are a plenty of others who have just been dealt a pretty bad hand.

I think the bigger issue facing us as a society is the lack of unskilled employment currently on offer and the future prospects of a further reduction of unskilled labor in the future.

As much as the Government would like you to believe it, not everyone can be an accountant, or an architect, or a doctor. For a society & an economy to function productively, there needs to be jobs available for people from all walks of life to at least enable them to make a choice between working or bludging.

The current climate, particularly in Sydney, is not conducive to that. Everything is CBD centric, and property prices all across the Sydney Basin are unattainable for most. So even if you were willing to clean toilets in the Mac Bank offices in town, you can't afford to live anywhere within a 2 hour commute to do it... that's where its all falling over. There are no manufacturing jobs left, all the warehouses are moving further out due to the property boom... its all related.

If i'm a 25 year old living in Camden on the dole with no education, what are my realistic prospects for breaking out of the poverty cycle? I'd struggle to get an apprenticeship because tradies won't pay a mature wage when they can pay a 16 year old less, there are little to no factory jobs, no manufacturing jobs, and even if i could get a gig in an inner city cafe bussing table, i'd have to pay $70 a week to catch a train to work.

The problem is bigger than people not wanting to work. A lot of those people would actually be worse off financially if they did get a job. Now I'm not saying thats the case for all of them, but until the wider employment/transportation/social issues are resolved, than i don't think this isn't something that food stamps instead of cash is going to resolve.

My 2 cents anyway

[FenceFurniture]

There is an interesting situation brewing in the workforce, and I don't know how it will pan out. In my early days I started my career in IT as a Computer Operator (1976). The big fear then amongst the older population (anyone >25 :D ) was that computers were going to take everyone's jobs. Any job to do with numbers and calculations was thought to be under threat. It did mean that vast amount of people had to undergo some training so they could learn how to use computers in their jobs, but that was ok - everyone coped with that. Now of course those older timers can only wonder at how things got done at all, previously.

Whilst that has been true to a reasonable extent, computers have also led to their own huge industry. I'm not sure where IT & Related stands as an overall global numbers employer, but I should think it would be right up near the top. It seems that every 4th or 5th person is something to do with IT these days.

Now it's the advent of Robotics that has everyone concerned, but I have to wonder if it's not a repeat of the fear of the 70s? Certainly I understand that employment prospects are vastly different now to what they were at the start of my career, but I suspect that is probably less to do with technology and more to do with the moral compass of employers and our governors (embracing such fanciful ideas as Workchoices et al). Things seem to be skewing vastly in favour of employers these days.

Personally I think that the sooner robots take over the worst of the menial tasks the better. I have never understood how some of these dreadful jobs could be so poorly paid, regardless of the lack of necessary skills required.

[BobL]

Whilst that has been true to a reasonable extent, computers have also led to their own huge industry. I'm not sure where IT & Related stands as an overall global numbers employer, but I should think it would be right up near the top. It seems that every 4th or 5th person is something to do with IT these days.


A high proportion of the workforce are using ICT but jobs specific to IT in the US workforce are only ~3%

The ABS has a prediction that 90% of workers will need to be IT literate within 5 years but what that means is not clear.
Just because someone uses a computer or IT related device at work doesn't mean much in terms of IT literacy. e.g. a warehouse assistant operating a goods in/out data base.

In Australia the most numerous jobs are as follows.

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Research%20Papers/2015-16/QuickGuides/Industry.gif?la=en
Direct ICT jobs would be buried in the "Professional, Scientific and Technical Services" sector but I doubt they would form more than 50% of that group.

[FenceFurniture]

Back when I started my career there was another guy I knew from school who decided to go on the dole, rather than work. He is still a lazy to this day, but at least is now self employed. He went on the dole in November 1973 (straight after the HSC finished), and was on it for the next 15 and more years except for one or two very short periods (of a few months each).

I heard that at one point he was collecting two doles with a false name and bank account, and the co-operation of a family member.

In 1974 he travelled up and down the coast to Qld on an extended surfing holiday, living off the dole. I don't know all this was able to be managed, but there were obviously some loopholes that were heavily exploited.

There were plenty more people doing similar things in those times (mid 70s to early 90s), and just as easily rorting the system.


but pleeease the welfare system is way to easy in these tough times.Clearly nowhere near as easy-peasy as described above. How quickly some people can forget the mantra of the 2014 horror budget which was going to make a whole new generation of super-poor youths who were going to have to wait for 6(?) months to get any financial assistance and with a whole bunch of other onerous and rigorous hoops to jump through. Those measures were justifiably stopped in their tracks by the Senate, but is still not easy to get (and stay on) the dole. It is even harder to get a Disability Support Pension.

[FenceFurniture]

A high proportion of the workforce are using ICT but jobs specific to IT in the US workforce are only ~3%

The ABS has a prediction that 90% of workers will need to be IT literate within 5 years but what that means is not clear.
Just because someone uses a computer or IT related device at work doesn't mean much in terms of IT literacy. e.g. a warehouse assistant operating a goods in/out data base.

In Australia the most numerous jobs are as follows.

http://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/05%20About%20Parliament/54%20Parliamentary%20Depts/544%20Parliamentary%20Library/Research%20Papers/2015-16/QuickGuides/Industry.gif?la=en
Direct ICT jobs would be buried in the "Professional, Scientific and Technical Services" sector but I doubt they would form more than 50% of that group.I take your point Bob, but heh heh we can make numbers tell us whatever we want really. To me, "IT & Related" has places in manufacturing (not here though), edu & training, Retail. May be not so much bricks and mortar retail in the coming years, as online selling completes its take over of that industry (which will create even more IT related jobs).

[Dibbers]

I take your point Bob, but heh heh we can make numbers tell us whatever we want really. To me, "IT & Related" has places in manufacturing (not here though), edu & training, Retail. May be not so much bricks and mortar retail in the coming years, as online selling completes its take over of that industry (which will create even more IT related jobs).

While what you say is true, it's only to a point.

As technology increases, the need for manual input decreases. So what used to take a team of 10 people a month, takes 1 person a week. And anything that still takes 10 people a month to do, will be offshored until they find a solution to cut it back down to 1 person (and usually its still offshored).

Look at designing a webpage. Used to take a designer ages to get one up and running. I can pay a small fee to use an online tool and do it myself in a couple of days.

Manufacturing is another example. Used to have a factory full of people building things, now its a series of robotic arms with maybe 4 or 5 people programming, maintaining and overseeing it all. And those 4 or 5 people competed with 4 or 5 thousand for those jobs.

[rustynail]

Some of the biggest bludgers I know have jobs. The public service is full of them.
Mr and Mrs Doolittle are alive and well in this country.
Every one looks for the cushy job. Bugger that. Give me the interesting job any day.
Paper shuffling....Yuk.
A good work ethic never hurt anybody.

[woodPixel]

Technological unemployment is a reality.

If Amazon Takes Over The World... | Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-24/if-amazon-takes-over-world)

In early Scifi the machines did everything and we are given more time for relaxing, socialisation, personal pursuits and art - not the drudgery of work.

Isn't this the very reason we invent machines?

Seems to me we are achieving these goals - and society still has the attitude is of "hard work is good".

Yesterday I read a long article on the Russian Gulags of the 50's and 60's. They had this attitude. Hard work is good! I'd wager many of its occupants thought otherwise.

Universal basic income will become a reality. Take the time to remove the right wing blinkers and Arbeit Macht Frei mindset and read a bit about its arguments, reasons and inevitabilities.

Technology will wipe out 90% of all occupations. It is time to consider what we value more: work or free time.

[Dibbers]

Some of the biggest bludgers I know have jobs. The public service is full of them.
Mr and Mrs Doolittle are alive and well in this country.
Every one looks for the cushy job. Bugger that. Give me the interesting job any day.
Paper shuffling....Yuk.
A good work ethic never hurt anybody.

You have no idea. I currently work in a paper (virtual paper anyway) pushing job where I manage to do all my work in about 2 and a half hours (previous person in my role took a week to do it all) and i can feel the brain cells dying.

Its times like this i wish i'd ignored my father and gone into a trade.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it) the perks are pretty good, so it'd take a pretty damn good pay increase to warrant me leaving (i have a mortgage to pay after all).

At least i have a lot of time to frequent this forum and concoct weird and wonderful designs for my shed when I finally get the funds together to buy some proper kit...

[BobL]

I take your point Bob, but heh heh we can make numbers tell us whatever we want really. To me, "IT & Related" has places in manufacturing (not here though), edu & training, Retail. May be not so much bricks and mortar retail in the coming years, as online selling completes its take over of that industry (which will create even more IT related jobs).

I wouldn't be banking on too many jobs being available long term from on-line retail. Amazon does has ~ 300,0000 full time employees and hires around 100,00 extra around Xmas but the majority of these are repetitive mind numbing tasks like sorting stuff into boxes, or driving forklifts etc. All of these processes including the delivery are eventually going to be automated so the total numbers of folks employed in on-line retail will be less than comparable volume bricks and mortar stores.

I also don't think there's ever going to be a high demand for hard core IT people because the jobs they do are also increasingly automated.

[BobL]

Retail as we know (even the on-line version) could change significantly with the advent of self driving vehicles.

Here's an interesting quote from a US newspaper (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/retail-meltdown-of-2017/522384/)


Finally, a brief prediction. One of the mistakes people make when thinking about the future is to think that they are watching the final act of the play. Mobile shopping might be the most transformative force in retail—today. But self-driving cars could change retail as much as smartphones.
Once autonomous vehicles are cheap, safe, and plentiful, retail and logistics companies could buy up millions, seeing that cars can be stores and streets are the ultimate real estate. In fact, self-driving cars could make shopping space nearly obsolete in some areas. CVS could have hundreds of self-driving minivans stocked with merchandise roving the suburbs all day and night, ready to be summoned to somebody’s home by smartphone. A new luxury-watch brand in 2025 might not spring for an Upper East Side storefront, but maybe its autonomous showroom vehicle could circle the neighborhood, waiting to be summoned to the doorstep of a tony apartment building. Autonomous retail will create new conveniences and traffic headaches, require new regulations, and inspire new business strategies that could take even more businesses out of commercial real estate. The future of retail could be even weirder yet.

[Dibbers]

Retail as we know (even the on-line version) could change significantly with the advent of self driving vehicles.

Here's an interesting quote from a US newspaper (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/retail-meltdown-of-2017/522384/)

They'd need to make sure they have top notch security to come driving around my neighbourhood! haha. I'd half expect to wake up in the morning and have 47 Mobile Retailers on bricks and gutted of everything that isn't welded down

[BobL]

They'd need to make sure they have top notch security to come driving around my neighbourhood! haha. I'd half expect to wake up in the morning and have 47 Mobile Retailers on bricks and gutted of everything that isn't welded down

We could start placing bets on when the first delivery drone will be brought down by some projectile or other.

[Dibbers]

I think the location would impact the odds. Over here in yagoona.... id give it 30 seconds

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[Cal]

As a postie I don't see the delivery of goods by drones becoming a reality in the near future. CASA for one won't let it happen, security of the goods is at high risk, the shear volume of goods being delivered by AP alone would mean the sky's would be black with swarms of drones in the sky to meet demand on a daily basis. The public would be outraged at the noise. Not to mention weather conditions hampering the operation. Trees are another major issue to navigate. It's a nice dream but the reality is a technical and logistical nightmare.


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[woodPixel]

Drone deliveries are happening right now.


https://youtu.be/u0XP2pH9UfE


https://youtu.be/2la4pIyXOEQ

and military applications where they released 1000 drones to acts as an attack mega-swarm.


https://youtu.be/CGAk5gRD-t0

Delivering the post/parcels or dropping things over prison fences is trivial.

Autonomous spying????

[BobL]

As a postie I don't see the delivery of goods by drones becoming a reality in the near future. CASA for one won't let it happen, security of the goods is at high risk, the shear volume of goods being delivered by AP alone would mean the sky's would be black with swarms of drones in the sky to meet demand on a daily basis. The public would be outraged at the noise. Not to mention weather conditions hampering the operation. Trees are another major issue to navigate. It's a nice dream but the reality is a technical and logistical nightmare.
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I agree, as usual it will take Australia and the US a long time to get their red tape sorted. Amazon and Google are investing in drone delivery in a huge way so it will probably be faster than we think. In less red tape areas like Iceland it's already happening. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/22/worlds-first-drone-delivery-service-launches-in-iceland.html

[Cal]

AP can't even bring themselves to get customers to put up decent letterboxes in fear of upsetting them or getting customers to move their flaming bins away from the letterbox, how are parcel drops from drones going to work? Are they going to force customers to buy specific parcel lockers at home that suit drone drops? AP is useless at getting people to conform for safe and efficient delivery. Still can't see it happening any time soon.


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[BobL]

I don't see it as any sort of a compulsory arrangement for a long time. Initially it will only be for rapid delivery to inner city addresses. The customer will have to request drone delivery AND make the necessary provision, and maybe even pay extra for the faster delivery. Most offices and apartments with open restricted access upper storey balconies won't need a secure parcel locker. Folks like me who already get most of their low value deliveries left out of direct sight from the road/footpath on their front veranda won't need one either. I've just looked up the number of items I've had delivered in the last 3 months and it comes to 63 and 60 of those I requested be left by the front door. I realise this doesn't work every where.

[Cal]

I hear what you are saying Bob, I am looking also at the reasoning of reducing workforce and relying on machines to do our work for us as has been mentioned in other posts. At the quantities of parcels delivered on a daily basis now by AP and not even projecting figures into the future or including deliveries from all other current or future logistics companies, there would be millions of individual flights per day per state if it was to happen tomorrow let alone into the future. I'm not saying it won't happen some time in the distant future but I do dread the day that it does, the world will be a sad noisy and ugly place.


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[BobL]

I'm not saying it won't happen some time in the distant future but I do dread the day that it does, the world will be a sad noisy and ugly place.

In the last few months because I have been working on electronics in my study at the front of the house. As soon as anyone pulls up in the drive the dogs let me know so I see most of the deliveries being made and as I said I have had 63 items delivered and SWMBO has probably around 30 and I reckon I have seen at least half of these. I've never seen an AP employee doing this but I have a seen some couriers being less than careful with deliveries. This varies from just dropping items onto the veranda floor, to a full lob over the veranda railings. One courier threw an electrical meter (box was clearly marked as fragile etc) over the railings, luckily the box was well padded and it landed in a pram which he would not have been able to see . By the time I went out to have a go at the courier he was gone - I did call the company and registered a complaint but it sounded like water off a ducks back. Apart from a few electronics components that suffered from bent connection pins all other parcels have survived. Following these experiences you can probably see why I am happy for drones to replace these drongos.

Youtube has plenty of examples of this sort of behaviour by couriers (look up UPS delivery fails).

Recently for higher value orders and pickups we have placed a large sturdy wooden blanket type box on the front veranda and we request (by written instruction on orders) that the items be picked up from or placed inside the box. It's early days yet , some couriers can seem to follow instructions - others not. have been meaning to bolt the box to the veranda floor and set the box up so that it is self locking which would work for the first but not subsequent deliveries of the day. It would not be too hard to set up something similar for drones to access.

[Cal]

I can sympathise with you there Bob, some contractors are just plain useless. Part of the issue is the low $$ and high volume they are expected to deliver in any given day, they do work for peanuts if they are a contractor working for a contractor, as low as a $1 per parcel. Not an easy way to make a living. I am not saying that it makes it an acceptable practice to lob parcels over a fence though, that's pretty poor form. I can see drones having their place, I just don't look forward to the buzz in the sky that will come with it. It also begs the question of how we will feel about our privacy, how will we know that the drone overhead is from a parcel company versus just someone spying on us??
I want to move further into the stocks before this happens [emoji53]


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[Picko]

Hi to you all,
I might get into a bit of hot water here for what I wood like to say.
I see these Adds on TV for us to donate money to these Overseas People who look after all these Starving Children. I think there are 2 of them.
Now I'm not saying don't, but why us.
Meaning, what about all those Billionaires, Millionaires, and the like, who have more than I think, wood know what to do with it.
If most of them give 1 Million each, then to my way of thinking that should solve the problem.
Unbeknown to me of course, that many of them do so, so why these Adds on TV.
Has been said, that if you gave $1, the Children concerned get approx. 20 cents.
Maybe I'm a touch ignorant of the situation, and don't get me wrong I really feel for these People & Children, but I think these Money People could do far more than we could.

Call the cops Lewis, your thread's been hijacked.

[Sturdee]

Call the cops Lewis, your thread's been hijacked.

Again.

[issatree]

Well, I thank you all for your replies, but it seems to me that somewhere along the way The Save The Children run off the rails, but that was your prerogative.
I haven't read all of the replies, but some were very interesting.
So do you think we could ask some of these really rich people to give a million or two & to get those dashed adds off the screen.
They sure do waste a lot of lolly on adds that are driving most of us crazy, & really wondering if they get any satisfaction from the adds.
Jusrmy2scentsworth.