Happy Wrestling day.....
Andrew it sure would be nice to keep our heavy industry all cleaned up and profitable but I don't think its going t happen. We may keep the bricks and mortar but we won't keep the jobs.
The machine the little guy from Shawinigan was supposedly operating was actually have a nervous break down that day. A chum of mioe retired now was actually hiding around a pillar out of sight running it manually. Eventually the machine did run sort of but this particular scoop now rests comfortably in the garage at 6000 level only ever run with an operator.
The promiss of new technology to create jobs making these machines never happened. Much of the work was out sourced, most of the technology was shelved.
http://www.republicofmining.com/2009/07/06/sudburys-high-tech-mining-mania-by-stan-sudol/"Prime Minister Chretien is no stranger to the region’s high-tech mining industry. In a 1994 visit, he was photographed operating an underground robotic scoop tram at Inco’s North Mine while on the surface many kilometres away."
But the promiss of a machine smart enough to do a man's job with a minimum of supervision from an unskilled ( low wage ) operator at a remote location ( could be a telemarketer skill level in a Toronto or even Rio ) has not been forgotten.
There is little or no justification for high wage jobs in the new economy I the technology exists to automate and outsource them. This is something I just can't drill into people's heads.....
I built the control package for that Scoop!
The technology was not ready however because a Pentium 1 processor running the crude and clumsy software of the day would fail at some point in a shift.
But we are so close now....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wgyGglytKg&feature=relatedThese play a dull game of soccor but they have the technological sophistication to muck a round. I wonder how long before they have the sophistication to do other things like clean a road, move suplies, scale, drill and bolt a heading ect.
Just one example but we don't make this type of technology here in the nickel city or Canada for that matter and even if we did it will not offset the numbers of workers it displaces. We all know technology drop's in costs every year right so how can people performing a task in competition with technology ever expect anything but less and less wages and a lower standard of living. The fellow in the third world will also face the same challenges how can he ever rise above the level of a disposable implement if his wages increase to the point he must compete with automation.
How will government respond?
Loosen the rules health, safety, job security and pollution to keep out brick and mortar competitive with the 3rd world?
Here is the facts there is not enough of anything to go around for 6 billion people
The only way to compete in the new economy is slash the costs you can control such as wages.
So our jobs are disappearing and I challenge you to show me any signs of new growth in the past 20 years that has stopped the slow rot in our economies as our good jobs disappear. We can't keep the wealth here without fixing the game to exploit workers in the third world by shipping them our dirty jobs at poverty wages. We can't stem the tide of wealth fleeing the country to invest in low wage countries. We have no way to produce enough energy and raw materials to raise 6 billion people to our standard of living even if we burned out and ripped up every scrap we have in the world to make enough widgets.
And if all that was not enough we have the spector of technology producing more than we can buy but no system in place that can evenly distribute the necessities of life even if we all accepted the idea of a 2/3 decline in our western standard of living in order to raise everyone else up to our level. By that I mean we have no economic system in place that can redistribute the wealth in a society where we have more have nots than haves that is fair.
