Larry Gude
Strung Out
...read an interesting article about a company that is testing automating trucks a la self driving cars. Won't bother with the link because the ability to do it and how aren't of any interest to me. The simple fact is that soon, very soon, it will be MUCH cheaper and MUCH safer for vehicles to be controlled by machines. What interests me is the economic impact of it, yet more jobs wiped out by our never even slowing down desire to choose profit over people.
There are about 3.5 million long haul truckers and another 5-6 million local drivers in the US, call it 10 million. Call it, at $50,000 a year each, very conservative number, something like $500 billion in driving wages on the table to be snatched up in the desire for more productivity. Cabs are right behind, maybe ahead of that. What else? Equipment operators, pilots? How many of you actually do something a machine can't do? I made two phone calls to gummint entities today and both were taking care of very professionally, pleasantly, not too terrible of a wait but the information I needed could have, easily, been a few mouse clicks away on a web site.
I'm back on my soap box, folks. We're heading, lighting speed, to a new world order, one where there really aren't many jobs, at all, and most of you tend towards the 'anyone can make it and do well' mindset from the 'Great America' era when all you had to do was work hard, be reliable and you could own a home and see your way to a better life for your kids. No more. Now, you will HAVE to have special skills and talents to even get a job. As always, yes, the better of us WILL find a way but this is musical chairs and we're not talking 200 million people and 199 million chairs. We're talking 200 million people and, as of today, something like 110 million chairs. It's coming folks, and soon, where half of us won't have jobs that will pay as much as it costs to get to and from them day to day.
There are about 3.5 million long haul truckers and another 5-6 million local drivers in the US, call it 10 million. Call it, at $50,000 a year each, very conservative number, something like $500 billion in driving wages on the table to be snatched up in the desire for more productivity. Cabs are right behind, maybe ahead of that. What else? Equipment operators, pilots? How many of you actually do something a machine can't do? I made two phone calls to gummint entities today and both were taking care of very professionally, pleasantly, not too terrible of a wait but the information I needed could have, easily, been a few mouse clicks away on a web site.
I'm back on my soap box, folks. We're heading, lighting speed, to a new world order, one where there really aren't many jobs, at all, and most of you tend towards the 'anyone can make it and do well' mindset from the 'Great America' era when all you had to do was work hard, be reliable and you could own a home and see your way to a better life for your kids. No more. Now, you will HAVE to have special skills and talents to even get a job. As always, yes, the better of us WILL find a way but this is musical chairs and we're not talking 200 million people and 199 million chairs. We're talking 200 million people and, as of today, something like 110 million chairs. It's coming folks, and soon, where half of us won't have jobs that will pay as much as it costs to get to and from them day to day.
It seems to me that 'phase 1', so to speak, might be pier to pier automated trucks that are on there own from one dock to the next and then get taken over by a person in a city or for local distribution. What's the point of having an automated truck if a human is still going to be in it and not sleeping?
