Robots are taking our jobs says the Brookings Institute.
This causes “Robot Anxiety“, but not everywhere, just in the Red states that swung the election to Trump.
Robots, it turns out, are congregating densely in some places but are hardly found in others. Specifically, the map makes clear that while industrial robots are by no means everywhere, they are clustered heavily in a short list of Midwestern and Southern manufacturing states, especially the upper Midwest.
More than half of the nation’s 233,305 industrial robots are burning welds, painting cars, assembling products, handling materials, or packaging things in just 10 Midwestern and Southern states, led by Michigan (which accounts for nearly 28,000 robots, 12 percent of the nation’s total), Ohio (20,400, 8.7 percent), and Indiana (19,400, 8.3 percent), followed closely by Tennessee. By contrast, the entire West accounts for just 13 percent of the nation’s industrial bots.
Focusing on the largest metros along the Interstate corridor from Indiana to Alabama, auto-intense metro Detroit—with more than 15,000 industrial robots in place or 8.5 per 1,000 workers—dominates the map with more than three times the number of installed robots of other metros. Other major manufacturing centers like Toledo, Grand Rapids, Louisville, and Nashville also loom large. Each of these metros saw a tripling of the number of their robots in operation during the post-crisis auto boom between 2010 and 2015.
The uneven map of industrial robotics makes a simple point about technology change. Automation—like so many other economic trends—won’t occur in the same way everywhere.
Anxiety about robots — like their physical distribution — will also likely have its own geography. On this point, while the nation’s anxiety about automation appears broad and diffuse, the specific facts of robot use suggest that the most significant social impacts of at least this form of automation remain concentrated. Specifically, the robots map suggests that robot and broader economic anxiety (along with associated labor market stresses) may also max out in the industrial Midwest—particularly in such robot-exposed “red” states as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania where the election’s outcome was determined.
It is telling that the robot incidence in red states that voted for President Trump in November is more than twice that in the blue states that voted for Hillary Clinton, according to our
analysis of the IFR data (a finding that parallels an earlier analysis by economist Jed Kolko of the geography of the “routine” jobs deemed vulnerable to automation).
Red State Robots
Top and Bottom 10
Those darn Russians infiltrated the US and planted enough robots in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Wisconsin to steal the election from Hillary.
Mercy!
The beehive of Russian activity is centered around Elkhart, Indiana, with an amazing 35.9 robots per 1,000 workers.
More seriously, Trump knew how to tap worker discontent and so did Bernie Sanders. Hillary blames Russia.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
In the Blue States, where welfare recipients, illegals, and dead people provided much of Hillary’s vote, robots were clearly irrelevant….
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Aren’t you special…..
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In many California voting districts, where Hilary had her biggest margin of “victory” — the number of people who’s votes were counted numbered 144% of the voting population, even though actual voter turnout was pretty low nationwide. It varies from state to state, but actual voter turnout was around 55% of eligible voters (55% of people eligible to vote, voted for any candidate not necessarily the “winner” in their district).
And for those who can do math, if votes in California counted numbered 144% of eligible voters — it means a lot of people (or robots?) voted more than once.
Without that California voter fraud, Hilary didn’t even win the popular vote never mind the electoral college.
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Medex Man may be referring to recent articles about more people being on the roles than there are in many districts. Memory says “144%” comes from such an article.
“On the roles” is not “voted”. You move from Timbuktu to Kalamazoo and you *could* still vote in Timbuktu. But you don’t. Some places have a lot of people moving in and out.
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There were more votes than people, so many of them DID vote twice… or just as likely many unregistered voters / illegal aliens voted under someone else’s name.
Its still voter fraud, even if you use your lawyer-like hairsplitting
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Hmmm. Have a link for that?
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Some top Google hits for me are:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450413/election-fraud-registered-voters-outnumber-eligible-voters-462-counties
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-more-voters-than-eligible-adults-claim-20170809-htmlstory.html
http://www.abc2news.com/newsy/11-california-counties-might-have-more-registered-voters-than-eligible
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/08/06/nearly-a-dozen-calif-counties-had-more-registered-voters-than-eligible-voters-in-2016-election/
All of which say the people are listed, not that they voted. Twice. Or in the wrong place.
This distinction is pretty vast: Voting more than once or not, that is.
Anyway, it’s kinda funny to imagine millions of Californians driving around, voting at various place they’ve lived. Or mailing off multiple ballots from their mountaintop lairs at 49 cents a pop.
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Can you imagine DNC groups bussing in unregistered people and/or illegal aliens, “paying” them with a carton of cigarettes or some other token item, and having them vote under the name of someone else?
Because they have been caught doing that multiple times.
All the trouble makers in Charlottesville (both Soros’ social justice warriors AND the KKK types) were bussed in from far away. Many of the protestors that show up on the news around the country are being bussed in.
Since the DNC has been caught bussing in voters, and the antifa riots are mostly people bussed in to cause trouble… its not a big leap to think it happened during the election.
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This will change when robots get the vote.
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Then there is AI.
Some time ago there was a story about a fast food restaurant, where the manager was computer and the staff wore headsets, to receive work instructions.
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Manna by Marshall Brain
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I advocate for robot rights. One robot = one vote. Anything else is discriminatory. Also, any robot that chooses to pay into the social security system should be guaranteed the same screw-over that the humans get.
Seriously, EMP will reduce human productivity, but will eliminate robot productivity.
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Change in the mode of production will affect every human on the planet,question: will robots be the new consumers?
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Sounds deflationary …. naturally, Federal Reserve will go full tilt at, er, tilting-at-windmills.
Pssst … you folks at the Federal Reserve – QE/NIRP will do nothing … except exacerbate it.
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The robot thing may work if we can convince the robots to dine in restaurants, go to sporting events, shop at the mall, fly in airplanes, eat food for survival, drive cars (or be passengers in SD cars, etc….
Otherwise the robotic age will die a quick death.
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Skynet has other plans ….
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Farm tractors and combine machines displaced thousands of US farm workers a century ago, but the tractors did not get the right to vote or go shopping or dine out.
The US economy did just fine until Woodrow Wilson decided to ignore George Washington and to get involved in foreign wars.
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You are correct. I’m impressed.
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We’ve not had ethical finance in the US since the Founding since, for instance, no citizen should ever be forced to work through a checking account at a private bank or be limited to grubby, unsafe, inconvenient physical fiat, aka “cash”.
Since automation is among the most so-called credit-worthy endeavors of what is and has been since the Founding, in essence, the PUBLIC’S CREDIT but for private gain, I see no reason to assume, without evidence to the contrary in specific cases, that ANY significant automation in the US has been ethnically financed.
I believe Henry Ford said as much when he said “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henryford136294.html
Now automation is good but we had best figure out how to compensate those who were cheated to finance it.
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Make that “ethically”, not “ethnically”, please.
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And signed off on the first (permanent) income tax and the creation of that creature from Jekyll Island and all. Notice the income tax and and central bank come before the US entered WWI…and set into motion a “trend” for permanent war and permanent debt.
For the most part war could be funded with a new kind of debt that no longer required convincing large amount of people to buy bonds to wage it…and come 1971 all the chains came off.
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A century ago, my great grandfather lost his job when some miserable tech nerd invented a combine tractor.
About the same time, another tech nerd invented a steam powered hammer, putting the mighty John Henry out of work too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)
Despite all the hysteria of man being replaced by machines, humans found other more productive uses for their time.
Now our new robot overlords are taking over. This too shall pass.
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Despite all the hysteria of man being replaced by machines, humans found other more productive uses for their time. Medex Man
Automation is not the problem, unjust financing of automation is and has been the problem.
And sure, the rich have never had a problem finding productivity uses for the time so neither should the rest of us, given adequate resources including income security, a home, and some land etc.
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Farm workers of yesteryear — with little / no education, no union reps, commodity skill sets — found other uses for their time, but modern workers with high school or college education are helpless?
Not sure the victim card plays well here.
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PS — per your point about financing…
How much of the problem do you blame on Janet Yellen (cheap financing) versus how much do you blame on Bernie Sanders ($15 minimum wage pricing humans out of the market)?
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Cheap financing is good if arrived at ethically; if not, it is a form of theft.
Yes, minimum wage laws do encourage further, unethically financed automation so they are self-defeating.
Instead, noting that the rich often work for free, i.e. volunteer, let’s make sure that no citizen ever need be a wage slave, including to government (i.e. a Job Guarantee), to live decently and let wages fall as they may.
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An older gentleman that I know, I think he might have finished high school but not sure, worked until recently as a lathe & drill press operator for a gun manufacturer. Thanks to CT’s governor attacking gun manufacturers, he was laid off in his 50s.
He found work (in another state, where he planned to retire) machining parts for “robots” (factory automation machinery). Turns out the robot parts require really high precision, similar to guns. New parts have blueprints and can be roughed out on a CNC machine, but final milling needs a skilled human. Repair parts often have no blueprints, and require someone who can eyeball a broken part and figure out how to mill it.
Being an old geezer, he knows a lot of stupid tricks that he learned over the years — the younger workers are in awe of tricks that people used yester-year to improve productivity and/or precision. His new job has him working machinery 3/4 time, and supervising younger workers the other 1/4… which fits nicely as he gets older.
Our new robot overlords are going to eliminate lots of jobs, but they will create a lot of new jobs too. This guy’s job was eliminated by an over-zealous politician, but his new job was “created” (demand was created) by heavy factory automation
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The difference is that in the olden times, the population was tiny, and changes came relatively slowly giving people to adapt to new jobs and skills. The tech revolution is happening at an exponential pace, so I doubt it is a simple matter of switching jobs.
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Very true. But since we are not going to be able to slow the pace of human ingenuity, we are going to have to learn to adapt faster. My charitable work is all about helping people learn new skills and adapt faster to the changes going on around us.
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Robots that build automobiles are not quite the same as “Bots” that are used to infiltrate systems to affect election results. That comment is either ignorant or deliberately misleading to the crowd. Mercy!! It is pretty well understood now that Russia influenced the result.
https://teiss.co.uk/news/russian-hackers-orchestrated-spear-phishing-campaign-ahead-of-us-elections-says-leaked-nsa-report/?getcat=141
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/06/intel-report-on-hacking-says-russian-interference-with-us-election-was-boldest-yet/
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It is well understood now that former DHS Jeh Johnson, and former CIA director John Brennan and former NSA director James Clapper all testified that Russia did NOT influence the results of the election. Hillary blaming her loss on Russian hacking is quite ignorant and misleading, Mercy! And by the way:
https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
Metadata is indicating the leak was from INSIDE the DNC and therefore impossible that Russia hacked their servers and leaked the info.
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Manufacturing is going the same way as agriculture, which went from 96% to 4% of the population producing all the food. Really quite amazing, and freed up workforce to go to cities and do factory work instead of farm work. Robotics is part of same general mechanization trend. Software and computer equipment do the same for business, and no one seems to miss telephone switchboard operators.
Factory work never was much fun, and a few months was enough to motivate me to hunker down and make the most of my university experience. I wonder if working in a factory with robots is a better experience than conveyor belts and assembly lines?
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“Elkhart, Indiana”?
I’d never heard of the place until I looked it up and found it to be a nondescript town in a nondescript backwater of a state.
But it is the “RV manufacturing capital if the world”.
Great stuff in economic bubble-land…bubble activities driving mechanization in the name of overproduction and overcapacity
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Perhaps a rating agency should assign a worker-replacement-index to each robot model (like mpg) and the index could be used to derive labor taxes like Social Security and Medicare for the bot. God knows those pools are drying up.
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A seriously misguided article for many reasons. Chief among them is the focus on industrial robots. I think more jobs are threatened by software automation, not physical robots. Hell, just using Microsoft Office products I have automated away a couple headcount.
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