| | Is our economy based on manufactured insecurity? In this New York Times op-ed, Astra Taylor argues that capitalism thrives on bad feelings because discontented people buy more stuff. To understand our current economic situation, she says, we must look beyond wealth inequality—we need to consider insecurity. In the United States today, all it takes is a devastating enough crisis to reduce the once fortunate to a state of precarity or poverty: business could suddenly drop; a job could be automated or offshored; the stock in a retirement account could crash; home values could plummet; a family member could be diagnosed with a serious illness (something that, in the United States, can eviscerate the economic security of a middle-class household overnight); a storm could wreak havoc; another, more deadly pandemic could hit.... The dysphoria of feeling you don't have enough, even when you objectively have a lot, is not simply a spontaneous reaction to seeing others with more, a kind of lizard-brained lust, but rather the consequence of living in an insecure and risk-filled world in which there are no upper or lower limits on wealth and poverty.... ...The ways we structure our societies could make us more secure; the way we structure it now makes us less so...."Manufactured insecurity" facilitates exploitation and profit by waging a near-constant assault on our self-esteem and well-being....Our economic system capitalizes on the insecurities it produces, which it then prods and perpetuates, making us all insecure by design....Only by reckoning with how deep manufactured insecurity runs will it become possible to envision something different. + The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart by Astra Taylor (due out in September) | | | | | How will generative AI affect jobs? AI has long spawned fear of job loss. A recent McKinsey report, Generative AI and the Future of Work in America , which looks at generative AI's effect on jobs, estimates that 12 million occupational transitions may be needed by 2030—with workers in lower-wage jobs up to 14 times more likely to need to change occupations than those in highest-wage positions. These changes could require employers to hire for skills and competencies rather than credentials, recruit from overlooked and underrepresented populations, and deliver training to keep pace with their evolving needs. But transition is not necessarily loss. The report makes clear that while most of those who need to change occupations will need additional skills, as people leave the shrinking occupations, the economy could reweight toward higher-wage jobs. Some of us are old enough to remember that when the internet began to disrupt the comfortable monopolies of telco and big media there was a lot of hand-wringing about the downside, but in the end, the innovations of the internet made our society far richer. We expect the same from AI, but you’d never think it from the constant drumbeat of manufactured insecurity. + "The Next Generation of Developer Productivity" + If you’re a business or team leader looking to deliver training to help employees meet these evolving needs, check out the O'Reilly learning platform (and some of our generative AI content). | | | | | It's not so bad in America right now Some of the leading economic indicators point to the US economy humming along pretty well. Unemployment is as low as it's been in 70 years. Real wages have increased (slightly). Economic growth has been at 2% or higher for the past four quarters, and the unofficial GDPNow forecast from the Atlanta Federal Reserve expects economic growth in the third quarter to rise 5.8% on an annualized basis (double the rate of GDP growth from the same period last year). Inflation, though still a concern, is dropping. But insecurity has crept into Americans' perception of the economy —71% describe the current economy as “not so good” or “poor.” Why? Politics, rather than economic indicators, may be one of the factors tainting America's optimism. A CNN poll found 54% of Republicans describe the economy as “very poor,” compared to just 15% of Democrats. A recent study shows that partisan bias exerts a significant influence on respondents' perception of economic conditions, and it's increasing substantially over time. In fact, the study shows that this partisan bias increased fourfold between the George W. Bush administration and the Trump administration. As James Pethokoukis writes in "C'mon, Republicans, This Isn't a 'Dark Moment' for an America 'in Decline'," America is currently leading in the fields of computer science, biotechnology, energy, and space, which "could constitute the next phase of the Industrial Revolution that began a quarter millennium ago….If it's indeed a sort of 'dark moment' in America, it's also one pregnant with potential." + "Americans Are Shopping Less. But the US Economic Engine Is Still Humming." + "GDP: US Economy Grows at a Faster Pace Than Expected in Q2" | | | |
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