Half the World's Jobs Disappear due to Rich Millionare and their Robots

<p style="text-align: justify;">Two hugely important statistics concerning the future of employment as we know it made waves recently:</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">1. 85 people alone command as much wealth as <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world?CMP=twt_gu" target="_blank">the poorest half of the world</a>.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">2. <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf" target="_blank">47 percent</a> of the world's currently existing jobs are likely to be automated over the next two decades.</p><br/><a href="http://technogain.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/unnamed.png"><img alt="robots" class="size-full wp-image-142 aligncenter" height="514" src="http://technogain.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/unnamed.png" width="630" /></a><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">That's according to a 2013 <a href="http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf" target="_blank">Oxford study</a>, which was highlighted in this week's <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709" target="_blank"><em>Economist</em> cover story</a>. That study attempted to tally up the number of jobs that were susceptible to automization, and, surprise, a huge number were. Creative and skilled jobs done by humans were the most secure—think pastors, editors, and dentists—but just about any rote task at all is now up for automation. Machinists, typists, even retail jobs, are predicted to disappear.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">And, as is historically the case, the capitalists eat the benefits. The <em>Economist</em> explains:</p><br/><br/><blockquote>The prosperity unleashed by the digital revolution has gone overwhelmingly to the owners of capital and the highest-skilled workers. Over the past three decades, labour’s share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9% in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="First World">rich world</a>, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.</blockquote><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">Those trends aren't just occurring in <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&spn=10.0,10.0&q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667 (United%20States)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank" title="United States">the US</a>, either. That second stat up there is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world?CMP=twt_gu" target="_blank">from an Oxfam report</a> entitled <em><a href="http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-summ-en.pdf" target="_blank">Working for the Few</a>,</em> just out this week. It was launched in tandem with the beginning of the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGrOAyvjMWI" rel="youtube" target="_blank" title="David Aikman explains about the Young Global Leaders">World Economic Forum</a> in <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=46.8,9.83333333333&spn=0.1,0.1&q=46.8,9.83333333333 (Davos)&t=h" rel="geolocation" target="_blank" title="Davos">Davos</a>, in an effort to get the gazillionaires attending it to consider the gravity of their wealth. It finds that "those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1 [trillion], as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="World population">world's population</a>." Yes, you read that correctly: The 85 richest people have $1.64 trillion between them, the same amount of money as 3.5 billion of the world's less fortunate souls.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">The trend extends beyond a few handfuls of the planet's most mega-tycoons, of course: "The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world." And they and their corporations are building robots that will have the net effect of letting them keep even more of that capital concentrated in their hands.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">As the <em>Economist</em> piece notes, there's typically a disruptive cycle when new technologies displace old ones, and replace old jobs with new ones. But this time, that cycle is one-sided—so far, there are a lot fewer jobs being created in the new information-based economy than the old manufacturing-based one: Last year, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://https://www.google.com" rel="homepage" target="_blank" title="Google">Google</a>, <a class="zem_slink" href="http://twitter.com/apple_com" rel="twitter" target="_blank" title="Apple Inc.">Apple</a>, Amazon, and Facebook were worth over $1 trillion combined, but <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/apple-google-facebook-and-amazon-are-worth-1-trillion-but-only-15000-jobs-its-time-to-reexamine-the-future-of-work" target="_blank">employed just 150,000 people</a>.</p><br/><p style="text-align: justify;">All of this points towards an uncomfortable prospect: in our globalizing, technologically advanced, and inequality-laden world, we risk becoming the cyber-peasants tending (or loitering on, more likely) the feudal lawn of the machine-owning rich. Oxfam predicts incoming class struggles and social strife, and it's not hard to see why—to ensure that the 99 percent of tomorrow benefit from still-accelerating technology, we're going to have to push for policy adjustments that adapt to our mechanized world. Radical <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistribution_of_wealth" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Redistribution of wealth">income redistribution</a> is probably in order, even <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/guaranteeing-a-minimum-income-has-been-a-utopian-dream-for-centuries" target="_blank">a minimum guaranteed income</a>; ideas unlikely to prove popular to the corporate titans used to reaping outsized rewards.</p>

Half the World's Jobs Disappear due to Rich Millionare and their Robots

Two hugely important statistics concerning the future of employment as we know it made waves recently: 1. 85 people alone command as much we...

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LG launches new mobile LG G Flex Model In February 2014

Following the recent news of a U.S launch, LG has today announced the LG G Flex will be released in over 20 European countries in February. The European launch will include larger countries such as Austria, France, Italy and the U.K. Dr. Jong-seok Park, president and CEO of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phones.lg.html" rel="tmobile" target="_blank" title="Cell Phones LG">LG Mobile</a> said “The introduction of the LG G Flex in <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.cruisesalefinder.com.au/cruises/europe-cruises" rel="cruisesalefinder" target="_blank" title="Europe Cruises">Europe</a> demonstrates our confidence in the global marketplace for a curved smartphone. As a premium smartphone, the G Flex will further establish LG as a brand that offers something unique for every consumer segment. This is a device that is guaranteed to start a conversation wherever it goes”.<br/><br/><a href="http://technogain.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LG-G-Flex.jpg"><img alt="LG-G-Flex" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-141" height="541" src="http://technogain.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LG-G-Flex.jpg" width="722" /></a><br/><br/>No carriers for the phone have been confirmed by LG so far.<br/><br/><strong>Phone specifications:</strong><br/>- Chipset: 2.26 <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Hertz">GHz</a> Quad-Core Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 800 (MSM 8974) / GPU: Adreno 330, 450MHz<br/>- Display: 6-inch HD (1280 x 720), Curved <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="OLED">P-OLED</a> (Real <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_model" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="RGB color model">RGB</a>)<br/>- Memory: 2GB LP <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR3_SDRAM" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="DDR3 SDRAM">DDR3 RAM</a> / 32GB eMMc<br/>- Camera: Rear 13.0MP / Front 2.1MP<br/>- Battery: 3,500mAh (embedded)<br/>- Operating System: Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2<br/>- Size: 160.5 x 81.6 x 7.9 – 8.7mm<br/>- Weight: 177g<br/>- Network: LTE / <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_HSPA" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Evolved HSPA">HSPA+</a> / <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="GSM">GSM</a><br/>- Connectivity: BT 4.0 / <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Wi-Fi">WiFi</a> (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) / NFC<br/>- Color: Titan Silver<br/>- Other: Hi-Fi 24bit, 192kHz Playback

LG launches new mobile LG G Flex Model In February 2014

Following the recent news of a U.S launch, LG has today announced the LG G Flex will be released in over 20 European countries in February. ...

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