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Thursday, September 28, 2017

Robots are Coming for Your Job…What Will You Do?


Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 


The Robots are Coming for Your Job…

   In 1986 I wrote a widely quoted column titled Burger Flippers Can’t Afford Your $40,000 Auto which was in response to an announcement by General Electric of further off-shoring of US jobs.  Responses in the Wall Street Journal and other business media suggested this was just a passing fad, it wouldn’t last, the American worker was not in danger.

As we all know, that was not true.  NAFTA and other so-called world trade policies have hurt middle class jobs and our standard of living while Wall Street has profited…leading to perpetual financial insecurity for many citizens.

As has been said, change is inevitable but progress is not.  The next round of change which has been taking place and one that has been stabbing the worker in the back is the growth of robotics.

According to a detailed study in 2017 by MIT and Boston University economists, between 1990 and 2007, robots displaced some 670,000 industrial workers and precipitated a drastic decline in wages…automation is predicted to quadruple by 2025 fueled by military and defense research, Silicon Valley and University researchers and other government-funded research all designed to replace humans in the name of making things more efficient and safe – just like ‘driverless cars.’ 

I find it ironic, for example, that fast food workers strike for higher pay…yet, they too are being replaced by robotic self-serve counters and kiosks which do not require human workers.  Eventually, we won’t need humans to serve food or to drive taxis or for bus service…that eliminate a lot of jobs.

   After studying the amazing strength of ants working in cooperation, Stanford University’s Dexterous Manipulation Lab built a team of six, 3.5-ounce microbots that can pull a 3,900-pound car.  Amazon is developing a fleet of robotic warehouses and convenience stores which will lower prices by replacing clerks and stockers with robots.  They have started testing delivery of packages using drones instead of humans.

AI systems via Google are now poised to replace jobs transporting products on our highways via prototypes of tractor-trailer fleets, replacing 1.8 million human truckers. These automated systems never need time off, never need to eat and eventually, the workers who load and unload these trucks will be replaced by robots as well.

Think about your local bank…many of them use fewer tellers, instead encouraging online banking via smart phones or through an ATM.  The Washington Post reported this new “automation bomb” could destroy 45 percent of US work activities causing $2 trillion in lost annual wages!

Given the decline in intelligence and motivation among young people that we see, this portends a very troubling future.  As physicist, Stephen Hawking warns “AI could spell the end of the human race…it could take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate.”

Once again, the Wall Street Journal happily assures us not to worry…all of this will lead to happy, productive workers and more profitable companies.  That is there are any citizens with a job or money left to spend!  The Middle Class has rapidly turning into the begging class in recent decades from what I can see.




The 9-to-5 job has disappeared

The way we work and our relationship to our jobs has changed dramatically over the last few decades. A report in the Wall Street Journal outlines how work has become more time-consuming, less stable but also more flexible. In 1973, 6% of Americans complained of working excessive hours, according to a report based on government data. In 2016, 26% of workers said they usually worked more than 48 hours a week. Workers act increasingly like free agents in the job market but a lack of planning for the future will put retirement for many in doubt. Companies have also become more focused on the needs of shareholders rather than workers.

The United States has seen a rise of part time jobs and the so-called “Gig” economy among its labor force as corporations shed many full time jobs in order to avoid paying full time wages and benefits.  Some folks are now forced to work two, three, even four jobs in order to survive, often foregoing their roles of positive parenting.  Nearly 79% of workers had a high school degree in 2012 vs. 48% in 1968…but their wages have declined by 23% when inflation is factored in!


So-Will Robots Buy Wall Street Products?

There is already more income inequality in America than any other developed democratic country along with declining wages and increasing costs as corporations have dumped pensions and other benefits and the government has eliminated many safety nets in hopes more churches and non-profits assume that role.  Despite that, during the Obama years the United States set a record for the number of people using food stamps.

As the wealth gap grows it is important to learn a new skill.  I’ve always suggested that people learn a skilled trade such as plumber, electrician, carpentry, nursing, network security, etc.  I’ll discuss other ways to stay ahead of the curve in future issues.

 

Yours for better living,

Bruce, the Poor Man

 


Free Resources

 

Maybe you’re a mom with a little one at home and you want to make some extra cash - working from home has never been easier. Thank you, technology!



Super Frugal vs. Just Trying to Save a Buck

If you're just getting started with a thrifty lifestyle, you'll want to learn these 5 basic rules of frugality.

 




How to Survive the War on the Middle Class

14 of the best reports I’ve assembled on protecting your freedom…Here is the download link.

http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.

>>Want to improve your brain?  Learn how here:

 

You Have a 16-Cylinder Brain-Learn How to Use it & Re-Awaken the Genius Inside You!

 


I know everyone is short on time in this hectic world so I’ve kept this PDF short and to the point with links to expert how-to articles and guides including:

 

·         How to Increase Your Intelligence

·         6 Step Brain Exercise Steve Jobs Used to Boost Creativity

·         6 Simple Habits to Boost Your Intelligence

·         The Best Vitamins to Increase Brain Function

·         How a Harvard Brain Specialist Keeps Her Brain Healthy

·         A Review of the Top 10 Brain [Limitless] Pills

·         How to Protect Your Cognitive Function

 


 

Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…


 

 


 A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

You're Likely A Lot Less Prepared For a Crisis Than You Realize


Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

You're Likely A Lot Less Prepared For Crisis Than You Realize


Lessons from the recent rash of natural disasters

 
I have never been more excited… and more fearful. For the first time in American history, we have a President who is a true Washington outsider. Tax cuts… draining the swamp, school choice, common-sense immigration reform… you name it.

It’s not just an ambitious agenda… it may prove impossible.

It may be music to the ears of real Americans and businesses that have been hurting, but I am afraid it may never happen. Washington elites (including Republicans) do not surrender power and influence willingly.

Make NO mistake, Trump is a direct threat to every last encrusted bureaucrat, paid-for politician, and far-left idealogue hidden inside his own administration. It’s not a matter of draining the swamp… it’s a matter of making
it disappear…

They will do anything, I repeat ANYTHING to stop Trump. That includes: Fake news stories unlike anything we have ever seen, collapsing the banking system from within, and then, in 2018, taking BACK Congress from sissy Republicans with a veto-proof majority.

Just another conspiracy theory? I wish it was…The rug is being pulled out from under him [and from the voter].

Since January I have written that when our new President was sworn in the Deep State would do everything it could to stab him in the back…I even went so far as to suggest they might arrange to have him killed some time in his third year.

 

·         Obama’s Shadow Government, prodded by Global Elites, will continue to sabotage Trump with daily leaks from INSIDE the bureaucracy.

·         The Obama wiretaps and surveillance of the Trump cabinet will be used to frighten weak-kneed Republicans into abandoning his agenda — led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

·         Janet Yellen and the FED will pull the plug on ANY Trump economic progress — right before the 2018 mid-terms. The Democrats will cash in with dozens of new seats… maybe even veto-proof CONTROL of one or both Houses.

·         IF THAT HAPPENS, the Evil Empire will return. And this time, there’s NO stopping them.

But how is this even remotely possible?

The answer takes us to the heart of America’s, secret, shadow government or what is better known as the Deep State

Through a tightening circle of taxes, rising prices, regulations, and restrictions, the American people will be “herded” into pens, and become utterly dependent on the largesse of the arrogant Elite.

LOOK at your own life. 
The SIGNS are everywhere.

You see it at the checkout counter in the supermarket.  You look at groceries on the conveyor and your head says “…about $50 or so.” Then the cashier asks for $85.

You’ll see it in the rising cost of commuting through tolls, taxes, and gas (which is due to skyrocket very soon).

You see it in your children as they are indoctrinated to believe that climate change is the greatest threat to humanity, and socialism is actually OK.

You see it in popular media and culture as the United States, the only hope for liberty on the planet, is diminished, demeaned, and quietly erased from the history books to make room for a new global order.

The Revisionists have already begun by tearing down statues of Confederate war leaders [just as totalitarian regimes have done for centuries and even ISIS has blasted centuries old religious icons in the far east].

Are you really willing to bet your financial future on the politicians in Washington D.C.?  The spirit of self-reliance is being driven out of Americans beginning with our youth via indoctrination at schools and peer pressure.

If you’re like me, you’re sick and tired of broken promises, greedy Wall Street insiders, billionaires, and bureaucrats.  Progressive policies have bankrupted the nation and are decimating the Middle Class while the power elite continually chip away at our liberties with idiot laws like the so-called misnamed Patriot Act.

You're Likely A Lot Less Prepared For a Crisis Than You Realize


Lessons from the recent rash of natural disasters

by Chris Martenson

It seems as if Mother Nature is waking up. Either she's trying to send humans an important warning, or perhaps she's just out to kill us all.

Massive storms across the globe, earthquakes, and collapsing ecosystems all combine to remind us that we are indeed intimately connected to our planet's natural systems. And that our well-being rests on staying on Mother Nature's good side.

Well, Mother Nature has seemed pretty pissed at us of late. Her recent punishments should be taken as a disciplinary wake-up call: It's time.

It’s time to prepare, everyone. Way past time.

And it’s time to recognize that there are multiplying failure points across the many systems we depend on for our way of life -- both natural and man-made. For example:

·         The wealth gap between the rich and the poor is now grossly obscene and yet still growing wider.

·         Our industrially-farmed soils are being depleted of their nutrients.

·         Species are going extinct every single day.

·         Global oil consumption ticks higher every year.

·         Stock price overvaluation is about the highest it's ever been.

·         Bonds have never been more expensive (i.e. yields have never been lower) in all of recorded history.

·         Debt levels have never been higher (both globally and, in most cases, locally).

·         The planet's population continues to explode (7.5 billion today, 10 billion by 2050) while key resources deplete at accelerating rates.

Only the foolish, or the seriously self-deluded, would think that these observations and trends will be consequence-free. 

Which means we have to begin doing things very differently. We have to change who we are, the actions we take, the investments we prioritize, and even our most fundamental values and priorities.

However most people simply will not prepare, not notice, and not change anything until they are forced to by crisis. And even then, some will resist any notion of change until they’ve lost everything.  More here:


 


In its latest report, “The 2017 Long-Term Budget Outlook,” the CBO admits the problem … sort of.

If current laws remained generally unchanged,” their officials write, “the United States would face steadily increasing federal budget deficits and debt over the next 30 years — reaching the highest level of debt relative to GDP ever experienced in this country.”

True … except for the fact that, with honest accounting, it has already reached the highest level relative to GDP ever experienced in this country

The Root of Hyperinflation:  Massive Debt

Michael Hudson explains in his book The Super Imperialism that the U.S. is able to control the world’s finances not through being the world’s creditor, but as its debtor.

Convincing you that debt = money is now the foundation of the world’s monetary system.

But this can’t last forever. America salvaged the dollar’s role as reserve currency after Nixon took us off the gold standard by agreeing with Saudi Arabia that all oil and gas would be priced in dollars. So the rest of the world had to use dollars for most transactions.

Willem Middlekoop explains in his book The Big Reset: The War on Gold and the Financial

Endgame, “Only when dollar-holding nations decide to buy natural resources instead of U.S. treasuries is the dollar’s reserve status in danger. This is exactly the exit strategy China and Russia seem to be playing right now. In recent years, the Russians have sold most of their dollar holdings, while they tripled their gold position. The Chinese have stopped buying extra U.S. treasuries since 2010 while they have imported and invested in huge amounts of gold and other hard assets.”

Russia and China have agreed to oil deals worth billions, where China will buy huge quantities of Russian oil and gas—not priced in dollars.

Did you think China’s vast accumulation of commodities was about infrastructure and building those “ghost cities” you’ve seen photos of on the Internet?

Forbes reports that, “All that metal China is mining isn’t really designed for job creation and dumping steel into the world, it’s for building oil storage tanks.”

China and Russia are doing everything they can to get out from under the dollar’s domination while the U.S. will use its military power to defend the dollar’s hegemony and reserve status anywhere around the world.

It must, with current Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hovering around $17 trillion and our debts

and unfunded liabilities amounting to more than $77 trillion.

Few can imagine that America is not “rich,” that the system is not honest, that our military isn’t about “freedom,” that our monetary system is indeed very sophisticated fraud.

But the fraud has reached a point where the depreciation of this “money” is going to start to be noticeable.

It will spiral out of control because of terms you may have heard like “quantitative easing” and “helicopter money.” They are the same. It’s showering billions of dollars into our economic system to prop it up.

In the short term, printing billions and injecting it into the economy gives things a lift, but it doesn’t take very long for this massive devaluation of dollars by printing endless amounts to come back in the form of out of control inflation—hyperinflation.

How should you prepare for such hyperinflation? I gave you the full guide in my Ultimate “End of the Dollar” Defense Manual, but the three core principles are:

Accumulate Gold: While dollars can be printed freely, gold isn’t being manufactured. It is being

discovered and mined, true, but its supply is finite, while its demand is increasing.

Long after dollars have lost their value, gold will continue to have intrinsic value. Get it, and keep it with you, not in a safety deposit box.

Stockpile: The collapse of the dollar will mean shipments won’t move and products won’t be manufactured. Having at least a three-month supply of food, water, fuel and other necessities will help get you and your family through the initial shock of hyperinflation.

In addition to the standard staples of dried food and gasoline, consider what unique needs your family has. If you have pets, store food for them.  If you wear eyeglasses, put away an extra pair.

Invest Wisely Now: Wise use of your assets now allows you to take your profits and put them in gold. The better you stay abreast of financial issues, the more you can use that information for your benefit.

Remember that the crowd has a herd mentality.

The key to government power is gradualism. Anything can be accomplished by government over a long enough time period. People accept their conditioning over time no matter what it is. Even the most absurd of notions come to be accepted over a long enough time frame.

The principle of government is that political power is maximized by forcibly leveling every individual to the same status of conformity, collectivism, ecumenicalism and serfdom. And since that leveling cannot be accomplished by raising up the weakest, it must always be accomplished by reducing the strongest.




FINAL THOUGHTS….

Few people seem able to think for themselves…even university libraries such as the Univ. of CA-Berkeley recently removed 135,000 books from its Mofitt Library to make room for open meeting spaces and ‘nap pods’ for students.  The Univ. of Ca-Santa Cruz removed 60 percent of printed material [valued at between $2 and $6 million – destroyed or hauled off to storage] in the Science and Engineering library and never notified its teaching staff.

A proposal to remove 90 percent of written materials from the Cabot Science library at Harvard was scaled back slightly by the faculty…70,000 books were removed from UC Berkeley by students.  As one student noted “I’ve never needed a physical book and have never checked one out.  I can’t honestly say I even know how.”

This, despite dozens of studies which indicate that people who read, retain information for longer periods of time and most often wind up smarter than those who don’t read…it is no wonder to me why Americans continue to rank lower than students from other nations.

 

Yours for better living,

Bruce, the Poor Man

 


Free Resources

 

Super Frugal vs. Just Trying to Save a Buck

If you're just getting started with a thrifty lifestyle, you'll want to learn these 5 basic rules of frugality.

The Poor Man’s Essential Survival Package

The Doctors Protocol: Secrets of Survival

--How to Survive the Coming Economic Collapse

--Guide to Self Reliant Living

--Becoming Self Sufficient for Six Months

--How I Found Freedom in an Un-free World

Download link:

http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU

 

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.

>>Want to improve your brain?  Learn how here:

 

You Have a 16-Cylinder Brain-Learn How to Use it & Re-Awaken the Genius Inside You!

 

 
I know everyone is short on time in this hectic world so I’ve kept this PDF short and to the point with links to expert how-to articles and guides including:

 

·         How to Increase Your Intelligence

·         6 Step Brain Exercise Steve Jobs Used to Boost Creativity

·         6 Simple Habits to Boost Your Intelligence

·         The Best Vitamins to Increase Brain Function

·         How a Harvard Brain Specialist Keeps Her Brain Healthy

·         A Review of the Top 10 Brain [Limitless] Pills

·         How to Protect Your Cognitive Function

 


 

Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…


 

 

 

A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production