Psychologist On Workaholism

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 876-879

Mr. Romney doesn’t understand the double standard where government checks, whether already paid for or not, to people are called “entitlements” while far bigger checks to corporations are called “incentives.”
Ralph Nader
Not a gaffe, but the real Romney

The rich got richer and the poor got poorer in New York City last year as the poverty rate reached its highest point in more than a decade, and the income gap in Manhattan, already wider than almost anywhere else in the country, rivaled disparities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Income Data Shows Widening Gap Between New York City’s Richest and Poorest
By SAM ROBERTS
New York Times
Published: September 20, 2012

The number of unemployed people in France has surpassed three million for the first time since 1999…
France: Unemployment Rises
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 3, 2012

No feast but the eternal retch of human surfeit
No drink but dregs of reckoning of loss and profit
Wole Soyinka

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 872-875

In Friday’s jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.
Why Men Fail
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times
Published: September 10, 2012

As a younger scientist I foresee a very bright future. Of course there will be a painful transition , but were a in the midst of reshaping our society entirely. Every institution that has brought us this far will be radically reshaped or completely done away with , work , politics , finance are all age old institutions that will be reinvented in the coming years. Robotics will put us all out of work , but who needs a job when all your needs are catered for. The scarcity that we live with now will be a thing of the past and humankind will be free to colonize the galaxy. Who will pay for it ? We will have an abundance of resources that are all around us in the galaxy , and robots will fetch all the resources we need , for no cost. ...bring it on.
Stephen Willemse
comment
Kurzweil site
Skilled work, without the worker
August 19, 2012

Robot manufacturers in the United States say that in many applications, robots are already more cost-effective than humans.
Skilled Work, Without the Worker
By JOHN MARKOFF
New York Times
Published: August 18, 2012

Think of Dorothy. When she pulled back the curtain, she found not a wizard, but a funny little guy pushing buttons. That's it in a nutshell.
Lorri Neilsen Glenn
believe you me
Dropped Threads 3

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 869-871

At the Philips Electronics factory on the coast of China, hundreds of workers use their hands and specialized tools to assemble electric shavers. That is the old way.

At a sister factory here in the Dutch countryside, 128 robot arms do the same work with yoga-like flexibility. Video cameras guide them through feats well beyond the capability of the most dexterous human.

...

And they do it all without a coffee break — three shifts a day, 365 days a year.

...

This is the future. A new wave of robots, far more adept than those now commonly used by automakers and other heavy manufacturers, are replacing workers around the world in both manufacturing and distribution.

..

“With these machines, we can make any consumer device in the world,” said Binne Visser, an electrical engineer who manages the Philips assembly line in Drachten.

Skilled Work, Without the Worker

By JOHN MARKOFF

New York Times

Published: August 18, 2012
[emphasis JS]

"You go into an Apple store and you see the future," Faux said. "The future's not in the technology -- the future of the labor force is all in those smart college-educated people with the T-shirts whose job is to be a retail clerk for Chinese goods."

Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America

Dan Froomkin

08/28/2012

Huffpost Blog

The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown.

…

China is likely to buy fewer goods and services from abroad when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is already hurting demand, raising the prospect of a global glut of goods….

China Confronts Mounting Piles of Unsold Goods

By KEITH BRADSHER

New York Times

Published: August 23, 2012

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 866-868

Consider animals: how just they are, how well-behaved, how they keep to the time-honored, how loyal they are to the land that bears them, how they hold to their accustomed routes, how they care for their young, how they go together to pasture, and how they draw one another to the spring. There is not one that conceals its overabundance of prey and lets its brother starve as a result. There is not one that tries to enforce its will on those of its own kind. Not a one mistakenly imagines that it is an elephant when it is a mosquito. The animal lives fittingly and true to the life of its species, neither exceeding nor falling short of it.

He who never lives his animal must treat his brother like an animal. Abase yourself and live your animal so that you will be able to treat your brother correctly.

C.G. Jung,

Red Book

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

Ron Koertge

from Fever, 2006

Red Hen Press

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave

 your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap

 one is best, with pages the color of weak tea

 and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than

 three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware

 any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks

 across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.

 And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle

 where a child a year or two old is playing as his

 mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.

 The title, the author's name, the brooding photo

 on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray

 book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher

 it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower

 falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody

 in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

 

Better to be stoned in the plaza than to turn

The mill that squeezes out the juice of life,

That turns eternity into empty hours,

Minutes into prisons, and time into

Copper coins and abstract shit

Octavio Paz