Prepare for Change

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/china-sets-up-first-unmanned-factory-all-processes-are-operated-by-robots/articleshow/48238331.cms So this factory will go from 650 workers down to 20. What happens as this rolls across China to all those workers? When I was growing up, the promise of automation was that it would give workers more leisure time. Fewer hours of work for the same pay, was the promise.  What has happened instead is just more people out of work.  Companies pocket the money in savings rather than the employees.  I guess we should have seen this coming. And we'd better figure out what to do with those unemployed.  Data at the Dongguan factory show that since the robots came to the plant the defect rate of products has dropped from over 25 per cent to less than 5 per cent and the production capacity from more than 8,000 pieces per person per month increased to 21,000 pieces. The company is only a microcosm of Dongg...

h ttp://qz.com/437088/utrecht-will-give-money-for-free-to-its-citizens-will-it-make-them-lazier/ "A group of people already receiving welfare will get monthly checks ranging from around €900 ($1,000) for an adult to €1,300 ($ 1,450) for a couple or family per month. Out of the estimated 300 people participating, a group of at least 50 people will receive the unconditional basic income and won’t be subject to any regulation, so even if they get a job or find another source of income, they will still get their disbursement, explained Nienke Horst, a project manager for the Utrecht city government. There will be three other groups with different levels of rules, and a control group that will follow the current welfare law, with its requirements around job-seeking and qualifying income. The experiment seeks to challenge the notion that people who receive public money need to be patrolled and punished, said Horst. The traditional criticism of basic income is that it does...