Guaranteed Minimum What?
That is a pretty well presented argument for mass unemployment. But it suffers from all such arguments in that is extrapolates &quot;today&quot; into &quot;tomorrow&quot; without acknowledging that there are literally billions of variables at work.<p>A simple example of the challenges this sort of reasoning present; assume you&#x27;re a being that  perceives time very slowly, perhaps your lifetime is a mere 100 milliseconds rather than 100 years. But your perception is fairly good and you can observe and measure things several yards away in all direction. And you&#x27;re living in seawater near the beach. Through out your entire life, and for several generations, the amount of seawater above your head has been growing and growing. You believe that eventually there will be sea water &quot;as far as you can observe&quot; above your head.<p>As an outside observer with a different time scale and perception, we &quot;see&quot; that this being is part of an ocean wave that once the mass of water above the center of gravity moves ahead of it because of water below being slowed by the the beach, the wave will &#x27;crash&#x27; and fall into foam.<p>Now if we could explain this to the creature in the wave, or if the creatures there had some sort of stored history, they might know that in the past there have been waves and the waves have crashed and that the seawater never extended so far into the sky. And there might be debates because <i>some</i> waves reached a height that was higher than any other wave in recorded history and so maybe this time, this time the wave would grow forever.<p>Except from our time spanning view we realize that all of those fears and understandings arise from the the short lifetimes of the creatures versus the longer time of a wave cycle, and so few creatures will ever encounter another who has experienced &quot;the crash&quot;.<p>These unemployment doomsday articles suffer from a similar myopia. Yes, technology does advance, and yes, it changes how people are employed and what it takes to be employed. <i>Technology</i> shifts however have not resulted in a &#x27;net loss&#x27; of employment opportunities when looked at in the full view, ever.<p>So rather than focus on the &#x27;loss of jobs&#x27; let us focus on &quot;transition&quot; support. I point out to people all of the time that we have tremendous gaps between supply and demand in what have historically been called &quot;the trades.&quot;<p>The reality of that was brought home to me when I started a bathroom remodeling project in Las Vegas. For that project I need a plumber, an electrician, and a mason. Three classic &#x27;trades&#x27;. I <i>cannot</i> find three people that I can schedule who are licensed contractors, any sooner than 6 months from now. They are all booked up, and as a result leaving money on the table from unfilled demand.<p>What is more, Las Vegas has very affordable housing. It was hit hard by the mortgage crisis and house prices have still not recovered in large parts of the city. So it isn&#x27;t like a plumber can&#x27;t afford to live in the city.<p>I really think we need to stop stressing out that the number of retail cashier jobs are going away and start figuring out why people aren&#x27;t able to train for the jobs that are available and going unfilled.