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Previous technology based labor disruptions have been countered largely by economic expansions. At least until recently economic expansion required labor. If a new technology put people out of work, there was another growing area to get work in.

But we have kind of hit a tipping point though. Both in technology getting more efficient at automating even difficult work. As well as economic growth at least domestically is no longer as strong as it has been in the past.



Every time these disruptions happen people said we had hit a tipping point and it was going to be different this time. Not sure how this time is different.


Look out the window. Dow at a record high. Unemployment in recession territory. Labor demand and economic growth are decoupled.


The stock market is not economic growth. A far simpler explanation is that investors simply expect things like the labor market to recover, which is exactly why the markets react dramatically when the monthly jobs numbers are released.


Those historical economic expansions occurred precisely because of those labor saving technologies. It was not mere coincidence.




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