Which way is the economy heading?

Is our economy

  • Is about to boom

    Votes: 21 11.9%

  • or completely stuffed and worse to come

    Votes: 39 22.2%

  • Going to be as flat as anything

    Votes: 116 65.9%
  • Total voters
    176
Trippy said:
Some 47 per cent of jobs in industrialized nations like Australia are at risk of redundancy as automation outstrips job creation, according to an Australian professor involved in a British study. See link to ABC video on Robots replacing our workforce:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4014292.htm

Already we see this in our manufacturing and mining industries. I have been drumming into my son now for some time to get into robotics as a..:confused:
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That's going to be a very big problem for every Government in the modern world,Australia will be no different,and it won't only be the unskilled that will be in the minority do Banks need all the Staff they require,Do insurance companies need the numbers to run the Business model and everyone could be affected by a serious underestimation combined with compounding that the future strays away from what everyone has envisioned..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Merton
 
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joeExpat said:
These are everywhere in Spain and used by most people at McDonald's, except tourists who are not used to them. They take orders in at least a dozen languages, better than your average counter sales person. Doesn't really help the Spanish unemployment problem though...
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Having only observed this change at the restaurants, I did a small bit of research, it turns out the automated order entry at McDonalds was never intended to reduce jobs and has not, it has just decreased order processing time and made the places more efficient so they expect to be able to employ more people due to the automation and increased customer throughput.
 
joeExpat said:
Having only observed this change at the restaurants, I did a small bit of research, it turns out the automated order entry at McDonalds was never intended to reduce jobs and has not, it has just decreased order processing time and made the places more efficient so they expect to be able to employ more people due to the automation and increased customer throughput.
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I call BS on that. If you look at the banks, how many tellers are there now compared to 1980 when it was a manual cash economy? Fast food like McDonalds is rife for this disruption as the product is pretty commoditised. If you can commoditise a product then you can automate its manufacture and delivery, minimising human involvement. Think vending machine pizzas that are about now, but with a bigger scale.
 
Aus economy

100k wage husband&wife
1 home loan
car loan
credit card debt
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Agree. This would be a more realistic a scenario for the average household these days - that's even assuming the husband and wife are even still together.

Possibly; the wage may be higher if both parents are working full time, or the husband earns more than average and the wife has a higher paying part-time job.

Call it $130k gross, combined.

And add an "s" onto the end of car loan.



Heard an interesting discussion on ABC radio at work yesterday - John Faine session....

Apprenticeship take-ups at 10 year low, and youth unemployment in Frangkton estimated at 30% - as one example.
 
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im trying to get my head around the truth and reality of the situation,

the media (yes yes yes, we know how sensationalised they are) paint a quite rosy picture, property prices rising, wages increasing, mining has slowed down but its ok, rates at an all time low, even though unemployment rising

now in my books, with unemployment rising, retail spending still down, although I did see a report that there was a slight increase recently, USA still stuffed (i hear they are slowly recovering), europe still stuffed , mining stuffed, rates will probably rise eventually,

is a sign of a recession or a big down turn,

is the average joe just so unaware of whats going on? or am I missing something big time
 
TMNT said:
im trying to get my head around the truth and reality of the situation,

the media (yes yes yes, we know how sensationalised they are) paint a quite rosy picture, property prices rising, wages increasing, mining has slowed down but its ok, rates at an all time low, even though unemployment rising

now in my books, with unemployment rising, retail spending still down, although I did see a report that there was a slight increase recently, USA still stuffed (i hear they are slowly recovering), europe still stuffed , mining stuffed, rates will probably rise eventually,

is a sign of a recession or a big down turn,

is the average joe just so unaware of whats going on? or am I missing something big time
Click to expand...

I think its a hard one, the Economy really runs on sentiment. Positive sentiment means people & business open their wallets, this activity creates further activity and further improves positivity (Positive feedback loop).
However the opposite is also true, constantly reporting negative news will just further hurt the economy when you are trying to kickstart it.

Its similar to a work environment where it can only require one vocal negative person to completely infect the rest of the mood and productivity of everyone else.

The other issue is also how much commentary there is from vested interests.

Therefore its really important to get your information from a diversity of sources, and then make up your own mind.

It's often the smaller more nimble outlets reporting on information well before you see it in your mainstream press. Its like here you have people on the ground who witness changes on the ground before its being picked up in the mainstream.
When an area takes off, by the time mainstream media reports on it, its probably already to late to get in.

Short Version: If you get your information from mainstream media only, expect it to be lagging and have potentially conflicted commentary.
 
TMNT said:
im trying to get my head around the truth and reality of the situation,

the media (yes yes yes, we know how sensationalised they are) paint a quite rosy picture, property prices rising, wages increasing, mining has slowed down but its ok, rates at an all time low, even though unemployment rising

now in my books, with unemployment rising, retail spending still down, although I did see a report that there was a slight increase recently, USA still stuffed (i hear they are slowly recovering), europe still stuffed , mining stuffed, rates will probably rise eventually,

is a sign of a recession or a big down turn,

is the average joe just so unaware of whats going on? or am I missing something big time
Click to expand...
Bloody finally!

I've been saying all this for at least a year, but keep getting howled down - don't I, Sanj? :rolleyes:
 
Rates are not likely to rise for the medium term. The RBA governor has said so. The non resource economy is looking weak and, if anything, we could possibly expect one more cut before going sideways for a year or so afterwards.
 
BayView said:
One thing that Joe Hockey said on the news this morning is that the Paid Parental Leave Scheme will improve productivity. WTF?
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I think the lack of producitivity growth is the problem now/going forward. I agree the PPL probably isn't a shining example but if policy makers are thinking about ways to boost productivity growth I think they are at least looking at the right thing.
 
red liverbird said:
I think the lack of producitivity growth is the problem now/going forward. I agree the PPL probably isn't a shining example but if policy makers are thinking about ways to boost productivity growth I think they are at least looking at the right thing.
Click to expand...
I think that if they want to boost productivity, bring back a climate where you can actually sack a dud employee for being a dud.
 
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