The Atlantic and Gulf strike halts about 50% of US container trade. This is serious.
Tweet of the Day
“They were offered a 50% pay increase. They were offered tripling the company match on their retirement and an increase in health benefits. They were offered to keep the same language on automation. Can someone tell me why this hasn’t been accepted? Oh yea, he’s Trump’s buddy.”
Link to Above Tweet plus video of the union leader.
Responses
Pay for Longshoremen
White House and Trump Echo Dockworkers in Blaming Shipping Lines
Bloomberg reports White House and Trump Echo Dockworkers in Blaming Shipping Lines
The Biden administration and former President Donald Trump lined up behind the dockworkers who walked out of every major East and Gulf coast port on Tuesday, each accusing the ocean carriers of exploiting workers during the pandemic.
The White House is also calling on the carriers to withdraw any surcharges related to the strike — which halted about 50% of US container trade — and warning them not to exploit any emergencies for profit. The two largest carriers have already announced plans to impose extra fees tied to the work stoppage if it continues more than a few weeks.
President Joe Biden “and Vice President Harris are closely monitoring any attempts by companies to opportunistically raise prices, including ocean shippers or others, during the labor dispute,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said a statement Tuesday.
The International Longshoremen’s Association — the 47,000-member labor organization that represents workers in every major port on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts — went on strike after their contract with the US Maritime Alliance, which represents ocean carriers and terminal operators, expired.
The USMX, as the group is known, maintains that the union hasn’t bargained in good faith since calling off negotiations back in June. Hours before the midnight deadline, and with urging from the White House, the USMX extended an offer that would increase dockworker wages by nearly 50% over the new six-year contract, up from a previous offer of almost 40%.
“Our current offer of a nearly 50% wage increase exceeds every other recent union settlement, while addressing inflation, and recognizing the ILA’s hard work to keep the global economy running,” the USMX said Tuesday.
So far, Biden, who considers himself the most pro-union president in American history, has defied calls from various industry and trade groups to intervene, first to prevent the strike, and now to end it using his authority under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Instead, Biden has echoed Daggett’s position that dockworkers deserve a larger share of profits won by foreign-owned container liners during the trade boom — and supply chain crisis — of the pandemic.
“Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits,” Biden said, adding his administration was watching for any price gouging activity that benefits the companies — including those on the USMX board.
“American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign flag vessels, including the largest consortium One,” Trump said, referring to Ocean Network Express. At an event in Wisconsin later on, the Republican nominee said the dockworkers “also don’t want to see certain new technologies, which in many cases don’t work very well.”
The Harris campaign referred a question about the strike to the White House.
Sickening Vote Pandering
Trump is now acting like a pro-union luddite. There s no better way to describe it when the union does not want more automation and Trump agrees.
He is trying to out-do the most pro-union president in history.
A third of the union members already make $200,000 per year or more with overtime, and now they balk at a 50 percent raise and massive increases in pension funding.
It is guaranteed costs will soar on this contract, no matter the final result.
Estimates for strike related costs are $3 to $5 billion per day for the first week. Things accelerate after that. I recall reading that Anna Wong at Bloomberg estimated the hit to GDP at 0.3 percentage points and I believe that was for a short strike.
I fully support hiring anyone who will cross the picket line to bust the union totally.
Trump vs Frederic Bastiat: Who Is Right About Tariffs?
In case you missed it, please see Trump vs Frederic Bastiat: Who Is Right About Tariffs?
The Republican party has gone apesheet nuts.
When Americans can’t compete they cheat.
Public sentiment against the ocean liners has been stoked by all the demonization of Chinese and foreign lands generally.
Something tells me Americans are going to discover the true level of their standard of living without imports sooner or later.
Outsized wages increase the likelihood of automation. It’s coming, in the meantime replacement workers should be an option.
Considering the gravy train the average government employee is on
AND
The amount of money the FED printed to hand off to private equity to go to casinos AND
the amount of billionaires who had access to free money to make more billions
AND
the amount of money elected officials make getting bribed in office(average is 2 mill)
demonizing these union guys for getting their share of loot is a little like crocodile tears.
The real losers are private sector schmucks like me with 401k. We have no recourse except to join the criminal class(see above)
This is rich. For you unlimited “free” trade with China people, perhaps being held hostage by the dockworkers is the wake up call you need. Imagine being totally dependent on a foreign country, living high on cheap labor and then suddenly having the rug pulled out from underneath you.
A 50% pay increase sounds high when taken out of context, but you need to consider what they are making now, what they would be making if they accepted the deal, and all the inflation that has occurred since 2000.
If I offered you a 300% pay increase to mow my lawn, would you take it? It depends on what I am paying you now. If I am only paying you $5 then 300% is a pittance.
Citing how much the union leaders make is as irrelevant as citing how much management makes. Management will grab all that it can, so the workers should do so too, and let the chips fall where they may.
I noted that 1/3 of them make $200,000 a year
And these jackasses demand either no more automation or to be paid for not working if there is more automation
Both sides start with absurd demands, then work their way to reasonable.
If Mish has proof of qualification to operate those rather large cranes he’s free to go there and offer his services.
In other news, Washington’s minimum wage will climb to $16.66 an hour next year, a 38-cent-an-hour increase, the state Department of Labor and Industries announced Monday.
thats from the Seattle Times.
Robotics companies have proof of qualification to operate those rather large cranes. They are eager to offer their services, as they do in civilized ports in Asia.
On the surface these demands seem absurd, but let’s reflect:
Inflation has consequences. Everyone should be expecting to see wage gains between 50 and 100% over the next 5 years, or we’ll all be heading to poverty through inflation. The money just isn’t worth what it once was.
And when you pay everyone 50 to 100% more than the cost of everything will increase 50 to 100% plus more. The cycle will never end.
No. Wages do not even amount to half of income in the US, let alone costs.
According to the government, private unions constitute only 6% of the workforce but they sure making a disproportionate amount of noise and similarly, get a disproportionate amount of attention from politicians and the media.
As the ex-air traffic controllers learned, everybody is expendable. This strike will increase the rate of automation. And cut costs.
So how fast can they get 44000 replacements in there and trained?
the dockworkers and their leaders have the same attitude as public employee union workers. They believe they are entitled. They are what made so many people anti-union.
I’m not a fan of unions protecting the lazy, but i am a fan of their wage demands.
I am a fan of automation.
I suppose if one absolutely have to have tariffs on inbound goods: The effectively flat rate per container that this works out to, is at least guaranteed to be a vast improvement on anything anyone even remotely associated with any idiot administration in DC could ever come up with…..
And; the tariff rake at least goes to someone who does “some” work; no matter how overpaid they may be.
…
.
Yes, We have no bananas…..they don’t hoard well, but I’m well stocked up on coffee and just got my car in good repair. Bring it.
autos are an indulgence for pretty boys and softies.
walking for daily goods and services is much more conservative and healthy. the boomers and millenial sissies, who must virtue signal with their fancy autos ought to look at my boots……….to see a real man………
If all you need is a caffeine hit, you can buy caffeine pills in any drug/grocery store. Usually about $3 for a box/container. Much cheaper than coffee!
espresso at home, at 25 cents a shot. i even give em out to neighbors and visitors……..
The International Longshoremen Union endorsed Biden in 2020. So their rank and file voted for the highest inflation in 40 years, doubled down by endorsing all-blue tickets in the midterms, and are now complaining their wages haven’t kept up with all the money printing.
“Behold, my field of *****, and the barrenness thereof.”
So here’s some money to get you back to shuffling boxes around, and serious people will get busy building a shiny new port run by robots.
Trump wants to stir troubles in the US economy along with the ME crisis. Higher oil ==> good for Trump.
Are you that clueless? That biased?
Sorry, we must be confusing Trump with the guy who told the GOP to nix the border deal that the GOP wrote, and got 100% of their concessions on, just so Trump’s ego could have another campaign issue to run on.
OUR BAD
Hope they get replaced by robots (made in China)
stomp the poor.
Right. Because that 33% of longshoremen that makes over $200k a year doing “skilled labor” is definitely hurting. SMH
Or as the Richard Nixon character so wryly put it in Where the Buffalo Roam when speaking to Hunter Thompson at the urinal “F*** the doomed”
It seems to me like Trump is more likely to be taking advantage of the situation for campaign reasons. If Trump ran on breaking up unions and taking away free sh!t would he even have a chance? Would any politician for that matter?
What about expanding ports in Mexico & shipping via rail into the US?
I found the source for the crazy assertion that a third of the striking dockworkers are making “over 200,000” a year:
Over $450,000 18
$400,000 to $450,000 41
$350,000 to $400,000 82
$300,000 to $350,000 177
First, this is for ALL port workers in NYC. Not just the ones on strike. Highly doubtful the top rate of $39 an hour would result in these crazy high figures.
Further, they throw in the value of every benefit. Workman’s comp, unemployment insurance, employer social security contributions, etc. Companies always try to make it look like they are paying their workers as much as possible.
I call for a ‘fact check’ from the media who are reporting this “story”.
I don’t see the problem w/including the value of non-wage benefits when citing a total compensation figure. It’s helpful to have such a figure when one is making a comparison with other lines of work.
pro tip. own your own media. write what you want. like Mish does. i owned 10% of a newspaper in my 30s in charleston SC. learned how the game is played. pro tip. Boeing advertises to control the message. none of the readers are gonna buy a 747
mish ain’t dumb. in nyc construction mob controlled unions get the cement delivered in a timely matter. cheaper then paying the bankers……….see Zeckendorf documentary from 30 years ago to explain to the nit witterry out there. we drove cement trucks with no licenses as kids………..
Trump negotiated with, and achieved detente’ with labor unions most of his adult life.
Mish didn’t.
Mish has never sat down with a union leader, or a group of rank and file members.
Mish is dumb.
Don’t be like Mish.
All unions are not equal. Some deserve criticism and some don’t.
Mish you are spot on! There is a circle jerk going on. I spent a weekend with this guy who is a painting contractor. He was very revealing. He adds on an extra 1000-2000 for jobs because he gets away with it. People don’t question. Then he complained about rates charged at the auto dealership to fix something on his car.
People have to start saying “No!!!” This system will collapse under the weight of all this deception and greed.
amerikans are grifters. why. we elect grifters. it ain’t old southern europe……….
This true of almost every business. How do you think Wall Street firms pay such high bonuses? IMagine how much doctors would charge if insurance companies and Medicare let them get away with it?
It’s illustrative to look at your Medicare EoB’s and note the price that an MD/hospital wanted to charge for its services compared to the amount that Medicare approved. It’s usually something like 12-16% or what they asked for!
Trump is not pandering. He is just encouraging the dockworkers to extend the strike without appearing to encourage the workers to extend the strike.
Very Stable Genius
OK, no matter how badly you want to blame Trump for something out of his control, don’t drag him into it. He’s not the sitting president. Dementia guy and his prostitute VP are.
Thank you
I am starting to take a liking to the prostitute’s husband, though. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13898791/Kamala-Harris-husband-Doug-Emhoff-accused-ex-girlfriend-slap.html
One month to presidential elections. Dockworkers are americans. Shipping companies are foreigners so…pay 200% wage increases and shut up, think Trump and Harris.
Every politician would do the same.
Please think before typing idiocy.
I agree, I am shocked at why people are pissed at the workers. They have a perverted way of reality that assumes fights like these are not worth it. You have to take a stand at how your countries money moves around.
If it ain’t moving through your pockets, it certainly will others, so pay the local grift, at least the money stays local.
I can certainly understand the importance of this matter to the Democrats. They have a boat load of filled in mail in ballots that they need to get unloaded now.
ha ha ha
That’s why there was no mandate for USPS to be vaxed. Buying their complicity and silence.
I’ve been UNION member all my life
ME, MYSELF and I
always got what I asked for – Y2K was big one
however I was also highly skilled programmer who automated assembly lines/MRP/ERP systems for companies
making them more efficient with FEWER workers
Really? I was in technology all my life and worked at a variety of companies. I never encountered a white-collar programmers union.
So what company did you work for and what was the union name?
That flew right by Jojo’s ear.
Yeah, I see it now. What we have here is a failure to communicate. But if you have a special skill that is needed, clear communication isn’t so important.
This is what peak energy looks like… NZ is dying
The regions are in the brace position as Air New Zealand cuts more flights and capacity on routes.
Changes include swapping out larger jets for much smaller twin engine turboprop planes on some Queenstown and Dunedin flights: That means more than a hundred fewer seats on a flight.
“This is definitely a challenging situation, we care because we continue to operate those services and this isn’t about profits, this is about actually stemming significant losses we make in those markets,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interests that Air New Zealand is losing money flying markets like this.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/529692/air-new-zealand-defends-cuts-to-flight-routes-and-capacity
New Zealand killed the golden goose by prohibiting foreign ownership of real estate. This was done to “help” the little guy be able to afford homes because the evil rich people were all going in and snapping up property.
Well there’s no point in traveling there now if you can’t buy real estate. NZ is nice but it’s an island and you get trapped there so the rich would come and go, not so much anymore.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-23/new-zealand-foreign-buyer-ban-keeps-luxury-home-on-market-for-18-months
I understand this and I have to agree. You cannot have the rich buy everything up and then say “Oh, that’s just capitalism.” Bullsh!t! There’s a game called monopoly and if you’ve ever been on the winning side of this game then you know everybody gets dragged down by the winner and he controls the game. You can’t have that if you want to have a normal bell curve in society. Otherwise the hump is skewed to the right on the bell curve and everyone is a peasant.
Sorry rich guys. Enjoy your wealth and don’t be a pig or you’re head will come off eventually.
the highest and best use of capitalism is feudalism. always has been.
china would buy the whole joint. ti’s a lovely place to holiday
Walk around in downtown Aukland and you’ll feel like you’re in hong kong.
What does property have to do with the fact that the country’s industries are shuttering due to a lack of affordable energy?
The government’s solution is to build LNG terminals (takes years) and import LNG… that is hardly affordable.
This country is f789ed. Doomed
BTW – loads of countries ban foreign property ownership https://worldcrunch.com/business-finance/foreigners-ban-buying-homes
Shale is has been the only growing oil source since conventional peaked in 2008…
Guess what is going to happen to energy prices and supply in the US now that shale is peaking?
The Precarious State of the Shale Oil Industry:
Try to get your head around the idea that by 2027, US tight oil production might be 12 MM BOPD, not the 9 MM it is now, which is what cheerleaders say it will be, and that means we’ll actually have to find and extract 12 MM BOPD… before we can ever grow the new 3 MM. Man, that is a slew of new wells!
Thats gonna take like…four times the HZ wells we’ve already drilled in the US.
Where? Read More
And no … adding more pipelines will not solve the problem.
What does property have to do with NZ de-industrializing because they no longer have access to sufficient affordable energy?
If they decided to open the market to foreigners (other than Australians and Singaporeans as it is currently) only a total f789ing fool would buy a property in NZ… (Jeff Green likely would go all in)
I exited a Queenstown property a year ago knowing this country was f789ed.. but I had no idea it was THIS f789ed.
Mish,
I’ve been a Rush Limbaugh conservative my entire life, but I’m siding with unions today. ILA, Boeing, Cargill, all of them.
Why?
Simply because the imbalance of corporate greed has reach critical mass. It’s time for people to fight back, and demand higher wages that won’t hurt their precious profits even that much. They will still have plenty.
These strikes should be putting all companies on notice, that the tide rises and falls together. In order to remain completive in attracting talent, and to avoid their own disruptions, all companies should be giving more than their paltry 2 to 3% raises.
I LOVE my job, but when they talk about having millions left in profit, then spoonfeed us a bunch of bullshit at raise time that “oh this division had a problem so we’re going light on the merits this year”, that’s infuriating.
It’s no secret we are about to experience a market melt up in 25 and 26, with interest rate decreases and QE coming back. The gov will choose inflation instead of a recession. Locking in significant raises is important, as people will not be wanting a 3% increase when inflation is running 5+ %.
Am I not correct?
If the company you work for is public then you should be buying shares in that company so you are now the “owner” and not the “worker” that is unhappy with wages.
It is the job of the leader(s) of your firm to reward shareholders (i.e “Owners”) not workers. Just like you work for your boss, the ultimate boss (CEO) works for the owners and they want to get paid higher wages/returns too.
If your company is private then I don’t know what to tell you, I stopped working for private companies for that reason. The best part is that as an insider you know when your firm is doing well and when it’s not so you have an inside track on when to buy or when to sell following all the SEC rules of course 😉
I didn’t say I was unhappy with my wage, I also never said I didn’t own some stocks. What I said is that they are taking too much from labor. “Shareholder value” has become codeword for greed, and it’s time to exercise the power that we have as employees and demand more for us and less for the ultra rich. Nothing wrong with being rich but too much is too much.
I’m all for eduction and increasing ones value, and hard work. What I’m against is being told they don’t have the money, and they do because when the mood is right they brag about it.
I see nothing wrong with these unions demanding more at this current juncture. It won’t always be a sign of the times but today it is.
you lost me as soon as you say “corporate greed”
Change my mind.
How about John Deere laying off hundreds of workers and sending those jobs to Mexico
How about we also send the executive jobs to Mexico too?
I agree…. And maybe Mish should do an expose on how CEOs and high executives make a million in stock options, inflated stock prices because they buy back their stock but lay off the lower level men and woman.
As bad as this looks for the union, it looks 10 times worse what the other side is doing
Quite frankly, I see this as a way for people to STOP Spending! Albeit forced so to speak, the fulfilled purpose is the same.
Cars not coming for a bit, is a good thing. Let’s drive what we have for a bit shall we? Clothes not coming for a bit, is another good thing. Wear what we have for a bit longer shall we?
Maybe we can afford to buy food, if we don’t owe so much for cars and clothing. Don’t get me started on Hi-Tech Gear, which everyone seems to have to have Now!!
Maybe the throw away society change wasn’t such a smart thing after all. Our quality has suffered, Our Manufacturing has suffered, Our want for flashy things has far outpaced our want for needed things by a long shot!!!
exactly. this is a blessing. like the plague was in 2020
Mish, you are a true conservative; but more importantly, you are a truly honest conservative.
I support the union’s right to strike and the companies’ right to hire replacement workers. It’s a power struggle. We’ll see what happens.
Agree. I support both sides quest for profits. It’s what I’d do no matter which side I was on.
Will I run out of toilet paper?
Leaves worked just fine, all the times I went camping…
poison oak, the leaf of choice
This happened to me once. Quite unpleasant.
You better go buy a few pallets today! (Please tell me we’re not importing toilet paper from China.)
I like my women like my bowels. Irritable
Don’t need it, use a damp washcloth instead.
Build your own backyard bidet 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/TheOwnerBuilderNetwork/posts/no-toilet-paper-build-a-backyard-bidet/2778759448845698/?_rdr
get a japanese toilet. be a kennedy. hat tip southpark. they are divine contraptions.
How about some actual figures? They always leave those out.
The starting wage of $20 an hour hasn’t increased in 6 years and there is no raise until 2 years of service. So the “almost 50% raise” propaganda surely applies to the $20 rate and not the top $39 rate.
And the “almost 50%” is the cumulative amount over the length of the future contract. The $20 rate since 2018 has lost about 26% of its purchasing power. Another 5 years from now how much more will the purchasing power erode?
I call B.S. on the crazy claims of $200,000 per year. Like those wal-mart truckers making six figures and driving around in limos and flying private jets.
Only a third of ILA workers get full time hours. The rest are ‘on call’ workers. Benefits are based on hours worked and are not guaranteed.
To make $200,000 in wages alone at $39 an hour would require working 79 hours per week.
The job is to literally move containers around a big parking lot. The $20/hr people are low skill laborers. The $200k/yr people are the large crane operators unloading ships who require many certs and years of experience. They do make that much and more.
used to love being on docks in charleston watching workers drive the SC made BMW sports models by the hundreds onto the ships………fun to watch in the shade……..
Where exactly are you getting this information to explain away the $200K? Making it up because it sounds good? All of the striking workers earn the same pay based on years of service with a starting rate of $20 and a final top rate of $39.
I suggest you get a job as a reporter with the MSM so you can invent explanations instead of finding out what the facts are (!)
It’s politics. What else would you expect?
The ILA leadership has said they won’t even come to the table unless a 77% wage increase is agreed to. Then they’d negotiate over benefits, automation, and work rules that would no doubt lessen the required hours worked before overtime wages set in and increase the number of unionized workers needed to handle the container cargo. Effectively, they are wanting to increase the container terminal labor costs by about 100%.
I read that the other day, something like 4-5 years of $5 hour raises each year. Sounds like we might be due for a strike. It’s idiotic to think they deserve such a massive pay increase. Again, this is the very reason why unions are bad. The UAW labor costs have made cars too expensive. There’s only one direction that prices can go and that’s down.
I would hate to be JPowell right now. He knows good & well how out of whack everything in the US has gotten. From housing, cars, wages in a lot of cases, and the stock market. It’s all due for a massive reset.
Rest assured though, they’ll keep printing helicopter money to keep all of these bubbles inflated to the hilt. They’ve even said so, paraphrased: We’ll do whatever is necessary to keep the labor market from falling too far.
I don’t know the legal protections for the unions. Can they just be fired and then you hire individuals?
No, that’s not legal.
kidding?
This is a test.
Possibly, but where do these workers come from? What is their rate? How quickly can they be trained? If this strike hits the 3 week mark it’s serious shit for the supply chain.
“where do these workers come from?”
Haiti perhaps
a chimp could do their jobs.
taft hartley. and biden could can them all. but won’t
This “Give me everything I want, whether it’s reasonable or not, and I couldn’t care less about everyone else” attitude is exactly why this country is eroding so rapidly. This is just throwing more gasoline on the fires of inflation. Every other American will pay the price for the dock worker’s greed.
Those greedy dock workers, who have lost at least 14% of their purchasing power since 2018. They should be happy with their pay cut. How dare they ask for a raise!
I don’t care what they get paid, but the demand to cease automation is a deal killer.
That’s like a farmer in the early 1900 demanding that tractors stop being produced.
Automation is good for the country and stopping it is insanity.
If there were replacements, I’d say fire every one of them, kill, the union and automate everything you could.
This union demand needs to be killed.
I’ve heard it described as automated (computerized) control of the cranes. Like self-driving cars. It’s not like they want to unload ships by hand. I’m not sure I’d want a self-driving crane handling 30 ton containers either.
idiots since beginning of inventions have resisted these things.
It’s similar to what the actors and writers asked for and got a portion of after their strike was resolved. See:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-protections-against-ai-di-gEIO95qKRtSjCyo9a.pvRQ#0
Here in San Mateo county, CA, our Board of Supervisors, which governs the county, passed a new employee protection law earlier this year that guareent workers whose job were replaced by AI would not be laid off. Guaranteed employment courtesy of the taxpayers!.
Both campaigns have abandoned truth and honesty all together and are just focused on winning. Dockworkers and other unions have a lot more votes than the shipping companies. Trump has no choice but to support the ILA in this particular instance. Right now he has the support of many of the rank and file of all union members. He is saying what he needs to say.
Just to be clear, though, I 100% believe Haitians in Ohio have eaten pets.
Who is running the country? The mumbler and the cackler or Trump?
the deep state
..As in: Both of the above.
Excellent post and if I may add my own analysis with some key points in the article because people are getting lost in the trees and missing the forest.
“The International Longshoremen’s Association — the 47,000-member labor organization that represents workers in every major port on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts…”
“Estimates for strike related costs are $3 to $5 billion per day for the first week. Things accelerate after that.”
So if 47,000 people can cause $3 to $5 billion per day in losses what do you think will happen when 40 million people retire over the next 5 to 7 years?
If you’ve watched any of the news clips of the striking workers, they all look like they are in their late 40’s or 50’s. Perhaps they want to squeeze the max amount of juice out of the lemon before they all retire in 2030. I’d love to see median age statistics of those 47,000 workers.
News clip – pay attention to the demographics – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3lF5r3EL44
And as you point out, neither Trump or Biden or Harris is the solution because there is no way to fix 80m socialists leeching off of the remaining 140m workers.
Maximize profits and plan accordingly.
There is a vast difference between all commerce at ports being suddenly halted, and the gradual retirement of older workers. One can be planned for, and the other can’t. Economic shocks are not remotely the same thing as long term demographic trends. That isn’t to say there aren’t impacts from retirees, but the comparison is silly.
And what plans have been put in place? Please tell us all what the plan is to replace 40m workers. Post links here so we can all read about it.
The largest economic shock is coming in 2030 but you go ahead and believe whatever you want and when you’re caught ill prepared don’t whine about it or blame whoever is in office because the fool responsible is YOU.
“What plans?”
The printing presses are all fired up ready to send out the SS money en masse
plans where? Do you have a specific company in mind? I don’t know how it will play out in 5 years and neither do you however here are some possibilities
1. people don’t retire as expected and work longer. This is already happening, and given the state of our unfathomable unfunded entitlement liabilities it’s probably likely retirement ages get pushed out.
2. automation and ai. I’m not sure call centers will even be much of a thing in 6 years. The number of workers per unit of output may decrease significantly.
3. mass illegal immigration may continue at or above current levels or we may decide it’s a good idea to allow more skilled workers in.
This doesn’t negate the point that your comparison is idiotic even by your standards. These things are not the same, and the only people making firm predictions about the economy 6 years from now are snake oil salesmen.
What do you do for a living again, and do you offer bulk discounts if I buy a case of snake oil?
I profit for a living. Always have, always will. And your “solutions” are a joke.
Make older workers work longer? Lol.
Automation & AI? How is AI going to fix/install an electrical panel? Install plumbing? But even if it is magic to solve the problems it needs to be built, maintained, upgraded, etc. Who is going to do all that and when?
Illegal immigration? Well that helps with no/low-skilled work not for working professionals.
Like I said, people are lost in the trees and can’t see the forest.
I’m not suggesting any particular solution. I’m explaining why your simple minded carnival predictions about what may happen in 4 years may be incorrect.
Deployment of automation/robots is an ever expanding initiative. Each year more inroads are made into replacing human jobs.to automation. This doesn’t happen with the wave of a magic wand but like flowing water, the process is inexorable.
What really needs to happen is to get AI involved in developing workable automation solutions to replace humans because humans are too slow and lack motivation to work quickly enough.
Here’s an article on this:
AIs generate more novel and exciting research ideas than human experts
By Joe Salas
September 11, 2024
The first statistically significant results are in: not only can Large Language Model (LLM) AIs generate new expert-level scientific research ideas, but their ideas are more original and exciting than the best of ours – as judged by human experts.
Recent breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) have excited researchers about the potential to revolutionize scientific discovery, with models like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude showing an ability to autonomously generate and validate new research ideas.
This, of course, was one of the many things most people assumed AIs could never take over from humans; the ability to generate new knowledge and make new scientific discoveries, as opposed to stitching together existing knowledge from their training data.
But as with artistic expression, music composition, coding, understanding subtext and body language, and any number of other emergent abilities, today’s multimodal AIs do appear to be able to generate novel research – more novel on average than their human counterparts.
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https://newatlas.com/technology/llm-novel-research-ideas-vs-people/
greenspan in the 90s uttered the solution. let in millions of young folks from asia…………..problem solved.
the best plan is to just suck off the teat and don’t pay the piper. the us tax code is chocked filled with free money…………
Robots.
open border solves that issue
bingo. the southern border has been wide open for 400 years. it’s a great economic accelerator and brake. the folks come and go with the seasons and good times………..the typical amerikan boomer is too dumb to get this. hat tip dumpy for spoofing those morons.
this is how empires croak. under debt and stooopid war mongering and pissed off middlebrows…………
They prob are on the older side, age-wise.
Younger people tend not to regard automation as a threat.
This is more impactful then markets are pricing today
Trump can’t do anything about it at the moment anyway so it’s best to let the democrats deal with it and suffer any consequences from the damage. So he’s technically right, they have the right to strike but whether is makes sense or not for America, the American people will let the union know. It gets bad enough, American’s will become even more anti union then they are now.
I worked on the docks for years. These are two legal monopolies fighting with each other and the losers are the other port businesses and every company in well in the world. How anyone can allow parts of any nations infrastructure to be controlled by unaccountable monopolies is beyond reason
I guess we can’t mock the French anymore.
anyone who believed amerika was superior and super duper special and exceptional are most likely special needs