Brave New World

Today 1 in 5 American households is multi-generational. The only segment of the new house market that is growing is the "accordion" home designed to accommodate several generations of a family living together in one structure. Parents with children under 21 are not included when counting multi-generational households in America.

You and I were born into a unique period of world history where there was immense growth in the middle class, for a period of 60 years, based on the emergence of automated manufacturing and the revolution of "technology" When I was a young child, plastic did not exist as a manufactured material. We have lived through an amazing period in human existence. Democracy and capitalism spread over the entire globe. Agricultural and medical science saved humanity from famine and disease while improving the human condition. Amazing times.

We are seeing, in this interminable national election cycle, the beginnings of a necessary reality adjustment in our country. We are beginning to accept the fact that blue collar manufacturing jobs have been largely replaced by numerically controlled machines and robots. The factories that produce Apple products will install 1 million additional robots in the next 3 years. We are not the only society that is entering the new technology age.

The manufacturing jobs are gone and it wasn't the result of "outsourcing". The jobs were gone 40 years ago with the advent of the semiconductor and cheap computing. In the 70's I started a company that automated several labor intensive aspects of the gaming industry. My company would charge unconscionable prices for our ideas and products, only to see them pay for themselves in a few months of reduced labor costs. We, my company, were the suckers, not the casino managers, who were usually pretty sharp business people.

I think we are all beginning to recognize that an economic colossus, the size of the American industrial base, took decades to be seriously affected by the new technology age, that has replaced hands and sweat with robots and automated machines.

Plastic and engineered materials have largely replaced metal. The pencil has been replaced by the computer. Vastly improved modes of transportation have ushered in the age of distributed manufacturing and assembly. The internet will soon marginalize national borders.

The manufacturing sector is not coming back. The brief period in history where a single society, representing less than 8% of the global population, was able to afford to consume 25% of the earth's resources, both natural and produced, has ended. Humanity is moving on. We, as a society, will necessarily begin the painful process of downsizing. American consumption and consumerism will have to come into line with the other peoples on earth. Nationalism is perhaps the first thing that will have to disappear for all countries. Global economics are out in front in this area. When I was a child, Americans would chuckle at the "made in Japan" label on imported products. Now we cannot get foreign made IPhones fast enough.

I do not know what will become of the blue collar segment of our society. I do know there are millions of clever people looking for a way to get rich by inventing something or some computer program that reduces costs for someone. If I worked in a Chinese IPhone/IPad factory, I would be looking for something else to do real soon. There is a robot in his/her immediate future.

Japan entered the global manufacturing market in the late 50's. American manufacturers underestimated the viability of a highly educated and organized industrial base. America lost market share and jobs. It took fewer than 35 years for Japan to enter permanent economic decline, as other countries entered the global marketplace, made possible by improved transportation technology including the jet plane. Now no one would dream of manufacturing something in Japan. It's too expensive. There too the Japanese laborer has been replaced by the robotic assembly line. China may well pass through its period of manufacturing expansion in fewer than 2 decades. Already some US manufactures are returning jobs to America, but not necessarily north America. Mexico may soon become the new China.

1 in 5 US households are multi-generational. This translates to a diminution of the American standard of living. We can elect whomever we want, but times have changed. There is no way to regain our golden age of the middle class. At least not as blue collar workers.

We as a nation need to "get real". We are just another society caught up in a world of too much violence (the result of too many people having too little), too many human beings, too much pollution, too little available water to support the global agricultural expansion that will be required to feed everyone and too much stuff. We need to start smelling the flowers instead of buying another flowerpot on the internet.

How did the mantra of "cheap goods" ever become the sacrament of American society? Do we all need all the stuff we posses? Look up "hedonic assimilation" as it relates to happiness. Basically, we all quickly get use to our new stuff and need more and better stuff to get another consumption high. America, and much of the modern world, is on a never-ending consumer treadmill.

The working class will have to find something else to do, since there is no longer an expanding need for their services or efforts. How's your robot today? Capitalism is based on an expanding market. Recent studies show Japan's population decreasing 30% by 2050. As societies industrialize their birth rates decline. Without 1 million illegals entering the US each year, we also would have a declining population growth rate.