In order to find common Nafta ground, US, Canada and Mexico must begin by clearing for robots and automation

Shawn Donnan and Jude Webber quote Robert Lighthizer, US trade representative, having told negotiators. “Thousands of American factory workers have lost their jobs because of these provisions.” “Canada and Mexico rebuke US as Nafta renegotiation starts” August 17.

If Nafta members take notice of what robots and automation has done to manufacturing jobs, in all of their nations, then instead of facing each other as enemies they would be sharing a challenge.

It still amazes me how the recent American elections failed to recognize the job opportunities lost to automation. Had that not happened, Donald Trump would have had to speak about a Wall against robots instead, and would not have become president… not that that would have solved much either.

Jobs lost to robots and automation is not an easy problem to handle as it does produce good results too. If I was Nafta I would begin by asking my partners: “How do we make sure our grandchildren will be able to live surrounded by 1st class robots and smart artificial intelligence and not end up with 3rd class ones and dumb AI? That would be a real positive and constructive challenge for it.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2017/02/here-some-disorderly-lose-cannon.html

@PerKurowski

What’s wrong with having the best robots work for you, if you know how to tax them correctly?

Sir, Gillian Tett writes: “Robots will be the real winners if US president goes ahead with curbs on steel imports” June 30. Of course! As I wrote to her and you in January “does Ms. Tett really need researchers from McKinsey to wake her up on what robots or automation could signify to jobs in general… is this really new news?”

And with respect to Trump’s announcement on tariffs, in January I tweeted “Beware robot manufacturers might lobby President Trump for higher tariffs and minimum wages” and linked there to a letter to you titled “The real winners of President Trump’s animosity towards cars built in Mexico could be robot manufacturers”

But, on the other hand, what’s wrong with having the best robots working for you, taxing these, and paying out a universal basic income to all? Because what we do need though, in time, before social cohesion breaks down, are some worthy and decent unemployments.

Now, if end up with 3rd class robots and dumb artificial intelligence doing most work, then we would really be in deep shit.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2017/02/here-some-disorderly-lose-cannon.html

PS. Would the recent US election have taken the same route if that “fascinating recent paper by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo shows, American industry has been replacing workers with robots on a startling scale in recent years, particularly in sectors such as car manufacturing” had appeared in 2016 or earlier instead of in March 2017.

PS. Sir, do you really think you are behaving appropriately shutting me up, just because you have to be careful with some big-weak-egos of some prima donnas?

@PerKurowski

If a manufacturing trade deficit leads to deficits of skills, then that can be something truly serious.

Sir, Professor Robert H Wade when commenting on Martin Sandbu’s “Trump’s love of manufacturing is misguided” of February 15 writes: “manufacturing typically has strongly positive “externalities”, especially in innovation, and that the innovation intensity of manufacturing depends on close, physical links between production and innovation (“learning while doing”).” “Manufacturing has positive externalities” February 17.

Indeed, just think of where you, I and we all would have been, if America had not had that manufacturing capabilities and those skills that allowed it to build up what Franklin Roosevelt called “The Arsenal of Democracy”, and which allowed for the defeat of Germany’s impressive war machinery during World-War-II.

And currently, the possibility of some other nation ending up with 1st class robots, and your own with 2nd or even the 3rd class robots should clearly be a source of much concern to everyone.

My current pray is “God save my grandchildren from being surrounded by dumb artificial intelligence and 2nd class robots”. But that said perhaps intelligent artificial intelligence could be worse, since then we humans might turn into having to be its obedient servers. Who really knows?

​PS. Here is what I commented previously​ on Sandbu's article

PS. This is personal. Without “The Arsenal of Democracy” I would not be.

@PerKurowski

The fiercest manufacturing competition will be for the most capable robots, and there you never want to fall behind

Sir, Martin Sandbu writes “The economic nationalism of President Trump and Messrs Navarro and Bannon can be described as Germany-envy…Like so often with machismo, the envy is rooted in insecurity — a feeling of inadequacy compared with the perceived strength sported by these economies” “Trump’s love of manufacturing is misguided” February 15.

I can agree with much of Sandbu’s arguments, but that part of his article is simply under the belt out of place Trump bashing, which leads to nothing constructive at all. But, having gotten that out of my system, let me refer to another more vital issue.

When you lose manufacturing jobs, you do not only lose jobs, you lose skill-building opportunities; and to be able to retain some of the manufacturing skills in your country could also be part of your national security needs.

To understand that argument it suffices to read A.J. Baines “The Arsenal of Democracy”. Had America’s manufacturing capacity not existed in America, Sandbu would have lived under German rule, and I would not exists, since it was Americans that rescued my polish father from a German concentration camp… so perhaps we should both thank God for American “machismo”, and fret its possible disappearance.

Moreover, since “automation is reducing the need for manufacturing jobs everywhere” one can wonder if the dwindling manufacturing is not a great learning ground for robot and automation development. If so, giving up on that, one could face the serious problem of not ending up with the absolutely best robots.

Sir, I have tweeted: “God, please save my grandchildren from being dependent on dumb artificial intelligence and 2nd class robots”

PS. Of course there is also the great race for the most intelligent artificial intelligence.

PS. But what if we have the best robots?

@PerKurowski

When will the competitiveness of your robots be more important to your real economy than that of your human workers?

Sir, if worker productivity had remained as 1950 levels, how many humans workers would have been needed in the world to deliver the 2016 manufacturing production, compared to those 43m who, according to Martin Wolf, were worldwide employed in 1950? I have no idea but definitely many times more than those 145m Wolf indicates as currently employed in 2016. “Tough talk on trade will not bring jobs back” February 1.

Set in this perspective “The main explanation for the longterm decline in the share of manufacturing employment in the US (and other high-income economies)” is not so much what Wolf states “the rise in employment elsewhere”, but the increased productivity of which Wolf also writes.

So, what do we want, the higher productivity that generates “sustained improvement in living standards”, or some lower productivity that could generate more jobs for humans?

Wolf, like most of us, perhaps with exception of those who might still dream of some 60s’ hippie-solutions, rightly prefers the first; and therefore his concern with that in the “US manufacturing employment rose a little… as a result… of productivity’s recent stagnation: in manufacturing, output per hour rose only 1 per cent between the first quarters of 2012 and 2016.”

The crudest implication of this is: do we need humans more capable to work or better robots? That question naturally leads to: will the competitiveness of the robots they possess, define the strength of future human groupings?

Sir, for me these are much more fundamental questions than that of: how can we save jobs for [our] manufacturer workers from being taken away by [their] workers?

In 2012 I wrote an Op-Ed titled “We need decent and worthy unemployments”. Perhaps within the application of a Universal Basic Income scheme, lies part of the solution to the enormous societal challenges automation causes.

But, no matter what we do, let us get rid of those dangerous distortions of the allocation of bank credit, because, whatever the future needs, how on earth are you suppose to give it to the future, if one is not willing for banks to take risks. Again, as a minimum minimorum, we must save ourselves from regulators so dumb they assign a 20% risk weight to that so dangerous to the bank system as the AAA rated, while hitting the innocuous below BB- rated, with a 150% risk weight.

Sir, I want my grandchildren to be able to develop themselves the most they can, as humans. That will require them being surrounded by content and happily unemployed humans, as well as possessing savagely efficient (and obedient) robots.

PS. The absence of statistical information on how much robots and other automation have substituted for human salaries and jobs, is baffling, especially in these data days. No wonder we might be in sore need of some artificial intelligence assistance, like from for instance IBM’s Watson.

@PerKurowski

To promote “the march of the makers” nothing like capital requirements for banks based on “makers ratings”

Sir you write “What underpins the significance of British manufacturing is [that] it embodies the sort of open, innovative economy that Britain needs to be to prosper in the global age” “Britain never lost the knack for making things” September 5.

But when your bank regulators accepted the credit risk weighted capital requirements for bank, they implicitly accepted that much more important than financing the “innovative economy that Britain needs to be to prosper in the global age”, was for banks to avoid taking any credit risks.

If Osborne really wanted “the march of the makers” he would ask regulators to set their capital requirements for banks based on makers ratings, instead of credit ratings.

But Sir, your continuous silence on this issue, is clear evidence that FT has also signed up on the baby-boomers’ motto… après nous le deluge… and so please spare us any crocodile tears.

By the way, since you mention “Dyson as Britain’s most celebrated manufacturing success story” you might be interested in that I once suggested: “If I were a bank regulator I would at least give Dyson’s engineering group a call to see what they would think I should do”

http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2014/09/more-than-voice-and-american-idol-we.html

@PerKurowski

Last miles and gene pools should be considered when discussing manufacturing jobs.

Sir, John Kay writes about “Our fetish for making things fails to understand ‘realwork’” November 14. Of course, services is as real as any manufacturing job, but, as an economist, I still want to see some solid real assembly line manufacturing jobs close to me, for two reasons: 

First, the just in case; I do not want the last mile for delivering me ploughs, cloth, guns and batteries, to have to go over enemy land. 

Second, manufacturing is part of the biodiversity of a strong economy, and so I would like to keep some good solid real jobs for manufacturing workers, just like you would like to keep some heavy horses, “the Suffolk, the Clydesdale and the Percheron vie”, for your nations’ diversified gene pool reserve. 

Does that make me a manufacturing fetishist? I do not think so. The fact that I can get all on the web, does not mean I can get it all when the web is out.