By: Mark Hanna
Posted on: January 18, 2012 at 10:45 am
More on this topic that we've been circling around a lot of late – that of automation and the rise of the robot class. (hopefully a "people" that the Supreme Court can bless in time so they too, can contribute to SuperPACs) Ironically I watched an episode of the Twilight Zone this past weekend entitled 'The Brain Center at Mr. Whipple's" which actually was right up this alley.
In the year 1967, Wallace V. Whipple, owner of a vast manufacturing corporation, decides to upgrade his plant to increase output by installing a machine named the "X109B14 modified transistorized totally automated machine," which leads to layoffs. Some former employees try to convince him that the value of a man outweighs the value of a machine, but their protests fall on deaf ears. Eventually, the board of directors find him neurotically obsessed with machines and retire him. Whipple joins his former plant manager at the bar opposite his factory and expresses deep sorrow at his misfortune ("It isn't fair, Hanley! It isn't fair the way they…diminish us"). A robot now runs his office.
This time we head over to the WSJ:
In no other U.S. recovery since World War II have companies been simultaneously faster to boost spending on machines and software, while slower to add people to run them. Part of this is the old story of substituting capital for labor. But a comb
http://marketmontage.com/2012/01/18/man-v-machine-redux/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marketmontage%2Fxyz+%28Market+Montage%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
| 