Maggie's Farm

IS: These IS stories are so grotesque and beyond the pale, to my world, that I admit to sometimes wondering, if they are propaganda, made up by MI6.

The videos are allegedly recruitment tools. I doubt even the Reich produced the equivalent of propaganda along the lines of “Come, lets destroy, rape, enslave, and murder babies together. If you join us, you can be a depraved perv(pedaphile), too.”
Contrast that with Western recruitment which is about service, character, and humanitarianism.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=israeli+defense+force+recruitment+commercial&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=14530A17F0912DBED18614530A17F0912DBED186
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbfPj00pTNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeJFHuEt8fA
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=go+army+recruiting+commercial&FORM=VIRE1#view=detail&mid=9DDFBF2E1F4D6C87C3819DDFBF2E1F4D6C87C381
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=royal+canadian+recruiting+commercial&FORM=VIRE3#view=detail&mid=0DE9688448B2B79A28400DE9688448B2B79A2840
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=australian+defense+forces+recruitment+video&FORM=VIRE14#view=detail&mid=F5BBFD0DF746F87447F2F5BBFD0DF746F87447F2

There is automation and then there is digital automation. Of course, we expect churn and in the past it has been a good thing ; we certainly don’t want stasis. That said, it’s not a guarantee it will be in the future. I just don’t know, maybe what we are seeing in this morphing economy is just growing pains and will get worked out.
The information revolution ( meta data), instant global communication, the explosion in digital automation, and logistics are all very disruptive. We are all still trying to come to grips with what it portends for the relationship between individuals and employers, community, government and the economic well being of what we used to identify as the middle class, and not just the American middle class. I have yet to hear a public figure attempt to discuss it with fresh insights as opposed to 19th century ideologies.
Walter Russel Mead: “We instinctively understand that the higher productivity of the information revolution ought to transform the daily lives of ordinary people in a host of beneficial ways, and that a richer and more productive society ought to mean wealthier and more secure middle class families, but we don’t yet understand the mix of political policies, economic techniques, social values and individual habits and choices that can make the revolution pay off. We see an explosive rise in great fortunes, and we see glittering towers of corporate and individual success, but we don’t see that prosperity spreading out the way we’d like it to. In the meantime, the insidious consequences of the rise of super-empowered fortunes and individuals with hundreds of millions to throw into political and social campaigns make us uneasy, and rightly so.”

Good for you that you don’t have to worry about the future or whether your great grand children will have jobs. I apparently lack vision because I just don’t get how flea markets, beaders, and aroma therapy candle shops will make up for the jobs that generate “real wealth”. Maybe we could stand around all day working for the government, giving each other flu shots? I just don’t see how dead end service jobs, stoop labor, or government jobs are going to make up for the significant revenues or drive the need for infrastructure or provide the resources for infrastructure.
Many of the most profitable companies don’t employ many people compared to what we used to see in the past. Google for example generates a lot of revenue but not a lot of jobs($1M/ per employee in 2010) https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2283-ranking-tech-companies-by-revenue-per-employee . Did you know that the technology exists for… CREWLESS 13,000,000 cu ft ….container cargo ships? Lots of jobs are endangered species.

The economy seems to be two sectors: the one where small, midsize, and regional businesses engage in something akin to capitalism and the one that is corporatist, sectors that are subsidized and or protected by government (bailouts, the revolving door between regulators and corporations) or who often benefit from government imposed high fixed costs that undermine smaller competitors.
The NY Times divides it up this way:
“A rift is opening up. The first, globalized sector is producing a lot of the productivity gains, …….but it is not producing a lot of the jobs………… The second more protected sector is producing more (dead end service) jobs, but not as many productivity gains. The hypercompetitive globalized economy generates enormous profits, while the second, less tradable economy is where more Americans actually live.”

Apologies, I wasn't wearing my readers. This post should have been in reply to #3.