Did anyone else see this Forbes article about JOBS HEADED for the "dust-bin" in 2012?
One of the jobs was, Electrical and Electronic Assembly Jobs.
Most home hobby-hackers do this on their "free" time. This may become some people's full time passion.
I thought the US was going to bring jobs BACK to the US from China ? (Democrat, Republican, or Independent)
What is your opinion ?
It's not just a matter of outsourcing Vs in-sourcing. Modern assembly of electronics equipment, esp consumer devices, relies on more and more robotics in the assembly processes as time goes on. Taking labor costs out of manufacturing and assembly is one of the reasons consumer prices for electronic items has gone way down in inflation adjusted costs over the years.
Lefty
retrolefty:
It's not just a matter of outsourcing Vs in-sourcing. Modern assembly of electronics equipment, esp consumer devices, relies on more and more robotics in the assembly processes as time goes on. Taking labor costs out of manufacturing and assembly is one of the reasons consumer prices for electronic items has gone way down in inflation adjusted costs over the years.Lefty
...and if America was smart, we'd be investing in more robotics assembly for anything and everything; the days of blue collar manufacturing in this country are pretty much gone. That should've been apparent in the 1980s (when everyone was screaming about Japan taking over, and about robots "taking" jobs - maybe some of those guys should've complained less, and studied more - somebody's got to design and program the robots - for now at least).
As far as employment is concerned - well, not everybody can be a service sector employee or a robot programmer or designer; so why not set the companies up to pay dividends to the population as a whole in some manner (similar to how Alaska and oil work)? This isn't my idea:
Cr0sh,
Which America do you want to be smart, the rich and powerful people and their puppet American government, or the accumulated wisdom of the American people minus the people in the first case? In the first case, nothing really needs to be done. Big corps are making money and average Americans can blame China or immigrants for stealing their jobs while overlooking what their government has done to them, with their money. If the latter is the case, then spend some damn money and revamp STEM education so in 20 years there will be enough engineers made in America to take back the leading position in those profitable sectors. Do you think a technologically advanced country should have high school graduation requirement in par with third world countries or keep these standards below these third world countries and instead use force and politics to get a better hand in the market? High school students (mentioned in the job requirement) should have a hard time to find jobs in 20 years anyway, am I wrong?!
Did you know that the US spends more money on the Military Budget than we spend on Education.
In the 1940's and 1950's the American saw Japan as the "copier" of American Manufacturing.
Then in 1950's to 1980's the Japanese surpassed America in Quality.
From 1990 to 2010 China, India, and other "Third World" countries like Singapore passed Japan.
Today I think that America has lost the drive to be a "power house" in the world. The US debt is now a "trillion" dollars. Taxpayers are going to revolt if Congress continues to spend more than it brings in from Taxes.
My suggestion is to MOVE the election date closer to April 15th.
Teachers' need more respect than DOCTORS who are over charging Medicare Patients. (Not to mention the poor quality in Health Care.)
My prediction is that President Obama will NOT be re-elected because of the economy.
I do NOT agree with the "OCCUPY" movement when they start damaging property paid for by the tax payers.
I do NOT know what the immediate solution is for "...Electrical and Electronic Assembly jobs..."
I do know that SPORT stars are over paid for their "entertainment value". So are movie stars...(over paid...)
What was the last movie ticket you paid for with Imax, and 3D technology.
Where does America go from here ?
@liudr, @nihonjin:
Without going into deep detail, I pretty much agree with what both of you are pointing to:
This is where we may differ:
For our schools, we need to get back to the basics, while having a heavy focus on STEM. In addition, we need to instill both a love of learning in our children and adults, while also instilling the concepts of critical thought, logic, and rationality.
For our political process - first and foremost we need to get rid of this mentality of "I'm religious and I am being repressed" while wearing religion on their shoulders and enjoying the whole privilege of it. These politicians - if they really want to try being repressed on for a day, should try being an atheist in today's America; if you're lucky, you'll only be shunned (or kicked out of your house if you are a kid in an ultra-religious family). Atheists are despised in America today. Indeed, a recent bus ad was rejected because it was deemed "too controversial" by the bus company. The ad had one word on it: "Atheists." - however, the bus company has no problems with constantly displaying on its ticker boards "In God We Trust" - as if somehow that's representative of the entire population who rides the bus.
Such blind privilege these people have (and it just might win them a lawsuit).
Anyhow - you'll probably never see either happening; apparently, in today's America, if you are educated, if you think critically, if you have a rational thought, or logical arguments (and especially any which question the concept of a $DEITY) - you are considered to be distrusted and hated (Romney thinks he has problems being a Mormon - he should try running for POTUS as an atheist; how long do you think he'd last?); more so than any other group (indeed, according to one poll, people would trust an admitted rapist more than an atheist).
@nihonjin:
I don't support everything Obama stands for, but I believe that if any other candidate out there becomes POTUS - this country (and indeed, atheists like me, as well as - maybe especially - GLBT citizens) are likely F***ED (especially with frothy mix at the helm).
I'm a progressive; I want the government to let me live my life as best as I see it, and not let anyone infringe on what I do to my body, or with others (provided they are consenting adults, of course). I want this to apply to me, a white male heterosexual, as well as to all women, all gays, all lesbians, all bisexuals, all transgendered people. I want the hate to stop. I want the high schoolers out there to stop killing themselves (and/or others - I'm willing to bet that what has recently transpired in Ohio probably has some kind of bullying link) because of others hating on them for being "different".
I want this nation to grow up, grow out of its delusions, and move forward as a country intent on becoming a 21st century and beyond leader in technology, education, healthcare, and justice.
If we don't - someone will. The first country to fully automate their systems, with a citizenry that has the skills to keep the system moving, unhindered by superstitious bronze-age baggage - will make the Chinese "toy factory" system look quaint. When that happens (note that I don't say "if") - it is probably game over for the world.
It can either be "game over" by a country with a sane and freedom loving system (for EVERYONE - not just "god's chosen people" or whatever claptrap), or it can be "game over" by some other country with "who-knows-what" system, ethics and principles. It doesn't matter to me whether it is America or not (I would like to see it so), so long as it has the other sane qualities (and if America continues down it's seemingly insane slide - I would rather it NOT be us).
I'll say no more on this topic in this thread.
/rant over
At my work we are about to decommission a robotic relay assembly line, it cost 2$ per unit when we can buy them for 20 cents. The net effect on jobs is a positive gain, cause the 25 year old chunk of crap is on the edge of functioning as it is and 1 mechanical engineer has to spend all his free time on it!
whats replacing it is (our 5th) robotic pick n place + solder line, which will require at least 4 new people to feed, QA and pack it's output, so yes electronic assembly jobs in this case will be going down, but we are still adding 4 new jobs in its place vs freeing up one mechanical engineer to babysit the thing.
besides its not like it takes the best of the breed to do these things, just some competent, hard working people who know how to tell time
I was recently proud by the fact we got a new contract by beating china by 2.5 CENTS per unit (oh about 4 million units) , so its not all grim, just being redefined
so why not set the companies up to pay dividends to the population as a whole in some manner
They already do, it's called taxes. Or did you have some other additional redistribution of wealth in mind?
I recall a great saying from Russia during their grand social experiment. "They pretend to pays us, so we pretend to work".
Not too many political posts on this forum, and that's probably a good thing.
Lefty
Not to drag this post into politics but I hope some of you can get elected as representatives to speak your mind. I can't.
BTW, for assembly work, I'm pretty sure some sub-sectors of the electronics industry would require assembly work, such as high-power equipment that can't be printed on circuit boards. You need thick wires to carry large currents and panel mount connectors for their strength against insertion forces. I think insertion forces to newer and newer connectors have dropped quite a lot over the last 3 decades. All you have are USB/firewire/other very easy connectors compared with DIN and Dsubs.
USB 2.0 35 N max insertion force
For DIN-5 pin, IEC 60130-9 is the standard and I don't have money to look it up. But I do have a force gauge 
I can see smaller electronics assembly to go completely automatic soon. All humans have to do is to make some specialty things such as putting a part not electrical on PCB (donno what but say a wheel) that placement machines can't do. Too much money to get these specialty requirement than generic reel parts.
Even a hobby circuit designer like myself is trying to learn surface mount parts now.
If you have been following this thread. I mentioned partially about the Medical Community. I know that there is FRAUD in the current Medicare System in the US.
Here is Good Morning American and ABC News confirming what I said in my last posting.
Have a nice day.
This discussion recalls a vid I saw some 5 years ago called: SHIFT HAPPENS - Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age - YouTube -
The answer is not complicated imho. Anything you spend time or energy on will grow, the good the bad and the ugly. Hapiness is a choice...
So Watson was predicted
Best regards
Jantje
So Watson was predicted
Yes, I think by Vannevar Bush in his famous "As we may think" essay (July 1945) in which he also spelled out (invented?) the web. His theory in one line: Machines augment human capabilities so why not augment human thinking by machines?
The original(?) essay - As We May Think - The Atlantic -
Here is a lottery winner "STILL" collecting food stamps.
Why, you may ask....because she has not been caught !
Michigan tax payers are still paying for this lottery winner's Laundry Soap.
nihonjin:
Here is a lottery winner "STILL" collecting food stamps.Why, you may ask....because she has not been caught !
Michigan tax payers are still paying for this lottery winner's Laundry Soap.
I saw that on yahoo news. Seems it's not in direct violation of their state law as there seems to be no means testing to qualify for food stamps as it seems to be based on income only not assets held. Of course the state legislature is scrambling to change the laws in the case of state lottery winnings, but that seems a little too focused in my mind. See a real 'means test' would take effort and expense on the states side and they much more like giving out taxpayer's money with as little effort as possible on their part.
Lefty
Well, just ask yourself how this is possible:
I live on Social Security Disability Insurance, well below poverty income level. When I became sick I was working for a company with over six trillion dollars in assets, one of the largest investment companies in the world. I had just been named a 'Most Valued Employee' and had been written about in the corporate newspaper for having overseen the response to the 'love bug' email worm. They are a self insured company, and I had opted in for extra disability and life insurance, as I had lost my own parents young and wanted to protect my own family. They were staring at what may be as long as thirty years of disability for me. This disease is horrible, no cure, a genetic foulup I never knew I had.. but it can take decades to actually kill you (though it can also take you out very quickly, or open the doors to something that will). The scum that run the company had plenty of motivation to do what they did. Self insured companies have a vested interest in mishandling, which is why they are rapidly being made illegal, and must carry insurance administered by an external company. Fraud in self insured companies is basically a given, as I was to find out far too late. If you are ever in the position of needing to use disability insurance, no matter how sick you are, you need an attorney. The sicker you are, the harder they are going to look for a way to get away from their responsibility. To give you an idea of the level of the illness, SSDI approved my case the first time, in two weeks. That NEVER happens. Sad to say, but I really am THAT screwed. That being said, I had insurance to protect me and my family.. Or so I thought.
You see, what they CAN do if you are out on medical leave is at the last minute add your job to jobs being outsourced, and then place you in the LAYOFF bin. Six months of medical insurance, obfuscate with attorneys to push paperwork past a deadline, and voila.. I am the problem of the taxpayer and not the company.
This is what you are up against. Pure evil. Take my advice on this, NEVER trust your employer to be looking out for your interests.. Especially if they swear up and down they are. The point is that now GREED at any cost is not only allowed, it is championed. It took conscious actions and decisions of several people to do this. It's a societal disease, a social issue of the grandest scale. I can only offer the defense that my previous employer was DIGITAL, which actually was one of the 'paternal' companies that wasn't just about the executive equity and nothing else. I was naive enough to believe that the predatory companies that are investment firms were willing to stick with employees in crisis also. How many times do we save Wall Street? How many times do we need to save Detroit? Maybe we needed to consider saving Maynard and Silicon Valley instead. The whole point of my ramble and cautionary tale is that were it not for the public safety net, the actions of that private company would have made my family homeless and unfed. Thank goodness my wife makes a decent enough income these days that we do okay, and I make a bit of cash here and there doing some photos and such, because these companies that don't need oversight and the benevolent uber wealthy are precisely who threw me to the wolves. These folks care about a half percent only. I don't stay down, never did, but it certainly isn't due to the benevolence of overpaid and overpriveleged I ever got anywhere..
Last but not least.. I accepted food stamps for two months at the worst of it, back in 2005. Though we live check to check, we donate to food pantries, and I do extensive volunteer work.. because I feel I should give back. Matter of pride for me.
However, I am in fact a public burden.. Because powerful companies can make their own rules. I hate seeing the system being gamed, but the dishonesty of the business world would have my family homeless.. A type of dishonesty which is championed by the current greed is good mentality.
retrolefty:
nihonjin:
Here is a lottery winner "STILL" collecting food stamps.Why, you may ask....because she has not been caught !
Michigan tax payers are still paying for this lottery winner's Laundry Soap.
I saw that on yahoo news. Seems it's not in direct violation of their state law as there seems to be no means testing to qualify for food stamps as it seems to be based on income only not assets held. Of course the state legislature is scrambling to change the laws in the case of state lottery winnings, but that seems a little too focused in my mind. See a real 'means test' would take effort and expense on the states side and they much more like giving out taxpayer's money with as little effort as possible on their part.
Lefty
As bad as this taxpayer looks in other taxpayers' eyes, I have to agree with Lefty over the cost to establish and enforce a few laws just for these instant riches, that only happen, say 100 times a year in a state with 10 million population. Anyway the woman paid huge tax ($500,000) that she had to leech 200+ years to get back, by which time a dollar would be enough for a smell of a hamburger, not a taste of it. Can't we make more public service TV ads to teach people moral values instead of paying the government to get these law enforced on us?
It would be a great place and a grand idea... Except for those pesky realities. You make the assumption that if given a choice, people will do the right and decent thing, if it's presented as an option. I am here to tell you those days are long gone, and that America will become even more irrelevant as the Greed at the top reduces everything to executive perks while shipping the labor, talent, money and technology to whichever country is most willing to sell out basic human rights at any given time. The idea of a socially responsible American company is nothing short of laughable.... The world knows that American companies these days won't even balk at bodybags, as long as the profit margin is right. I miss working and doing productive things since I became sick; I do not in any way miss the unclean feeling I got working for people who view the world that way. I don't miss corporate America in the least, it's disgusting that the idea of being a Company Man and having a career are lost concepts, traded for a couple tenths of a percent blip in a quarterly spreadsheet by people who care for nothing but their own greed.
A friend worked for Polaroid for twenty two years. Top brass declared chapter 11, and devalued to common stock to zero to maintain the preferred (executive issued, restricted) stock. The entire company's retirement funds were held in the common stock. He lost his entire 401k and retirement. Right now, Polaroid is back in business with the same theives at the helm, and they have established there is ZERO legal or financial responsibility to their former employees. Note the executive compensation stock (restricted, preferred stock) was not devalued, and they didn't lose a thing. It's worth mentioning that there are Polaroid retirees of decades of service, who paid their funds into those accounts.. And you as taxpayers now support them via social security and public programs due to this. Remember, this is considered to be OKAY for a business to act. The laws were created so things WOULD happen this way. The USA has the best government money can buy.
This is America now. You are correct however.. How can you legislate to plan for monsters like that? You have to assume worse actions than you would believe could be done.. And then protect against those acts. The weapon of the wealthy is the law.. You will find it hard to make the rich act decently, when they are literally above the law, an also devoid of basic humanity.
I guess people respond to others with the way they are treated in the first place. Too much greed corrupts the social moral values and enough people doing bad things to you and you eventually become one of them. I pity theoe corporate greeds that are thinking they are screwing the public while they themselves are tiny nuts of but a big machine that screws everyone. Things like you mentioned (Polaroid) happen on a daily basis. We should have a Land member to commemorate this genius that created the Polaroid. I'd be happy to work my way into a Land member on this forum:
This is what used to define the America, hard work and ingenuity.
Not to blab about things I've heard, but let's say, hypothetically, company X has two subsidiaries, X:A, and X:B. X:A goes bankrupt and is being sold in auction. Then X:B picks it up, clean of any debt and operates it as X:B:A. So in the end the debt is wiped clean and company X still has both A and B, just no debt.
or the accumulated wisdom of the American people
What?
Who are they and where have they been hiding all these years? I met wise people from time to time over my 6+ decades, but never in a collective group. I have little faith in the judgment of the collective people, and glad the founding fathers decided on a represented republic form of government rather then direct democracy by the 'accumulated wise' population.