Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Economic Update: The End of the Megamachine" video.

  1. What you're forgetting is that Thatcherism and Reaganism smashed the power of the unions around the Western World. What you might not know or have forgotten is that a lot of people welcomed it. I'm Australian and we got tired of Unions holding society to ransom with opportunistic strikes. Every holiday at least one of the unions threatened some sort of industrial action. Baggage handlers, air refuelers, airline cabin crews were among the worst. Over in the building trades we used to have all sorts of actions. One year back in the 1970s the electricians simply went on strike and just waited until the power stations shut down.
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  2.  @blogintonblakley2708  I get your point up to a certain degree. I'm an engineer and work in automation - robots & production machinery are among what I have done for a significant part of my working life. I have had that bullshite line that people like me cost other people their jobs. At times YES, when you upgrade a production system there might fewer jobs, but that is not always true. WHEN companies do upgrade and INVEST its very rare that they then shut shop and go somewhere else. The jobs that remain actually become more secure. If you are a worker in any western company for the past 40 years and management DOES NOT upgrade. Then your job is at risk. if you are in a company where they are investing in new automated plant automation then your job is usually secure. Most job loses were through retirement or attrition (people who just moved on). Plus most of the tasks that get automated away are jobs people don't like doing. Tasks that get automated are tasks that are repetitive. Where there is a real problem with automation is the utterly false assumption by managers that workers need less skill. They actually need to LEARN more skills. The easiest example to give from my experience is welding robots. I can program robots to do almost anything. My grandfather taught me to arc weld when I was about 13. BUT I CAN'T out program a welding robot compared to someone who was formally trained as a welder. NONE of the robot engineers can. So what happens with robotic welding is that the welders have to learn the basics of programming or at leat how to adjust exisitng programs. They don't need to learn how the robots communicate with master control systems that's my job. The don't need to learn how to configure the robot to do welding - that's my job. But when it comes to getting the robot to weld parts together so that the new part is what its supposed to be - THAT'S THEIR JOB. So there's a lot of misunderstanding about manufacturing and jobs. There's also another aspect. When companies don't upgrade to maintain their production machinery, which accountants love to do because they just hate letting engineers spend money, one of 2 things eventually happens. 1) It breaks down and broken machinery costs money. Wages still have to be paid, bills still have to be paid and there's the cost of fixing things. And if companies are stupid enough (and many are) machinery eventually catastrophically fails and it can't be fixed. 2) Other manufacturers will simply pass you by with more efficient production and just as likely higher quality production. Its sounds obvious but you'd be amazed how many economists, accountants and business managers don't get is that newer, upgraded or well maintained machinery makes better parts.
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