In case you didn’t already know, our Illustrious Potentate is actually an Ultra-Maroon. He believes that technological and productivity advances destroy jobs. Luddites of the world, unite!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070104576399704275939640.html
The thing with ATM’s in particular is that there are actually entire companies dedicated to monitoring ATMs for faults, technicians specially trained to fix the machines, and bank personnel who stock them with cash and review the items for fraud. I’m pretty sure ATM’s have increased employment (though it may have shifted from tellers to ATM techs and analysts).
double post
This is what happens when you get your news from the BLOODY OP-ED PAGE!
Here’s a fuller clip of the interview surrounding the quote in question:
http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/06/14/obama-blames-atms-high-unemployment
And here is a summary for those who can’t even spare 2 minutes to get their facts straight:
Obama was asked in an interview why he wasn’t able to “convince businesses to hire more workers”–as if he just didn’t talk to them persuasivley enough. He answered, rightfully so, that it wasn’t that he couldn’t “convince them” it was that there were legit business and economic reasons for why hiring has slowed in recent years. Labor-saving technological innovations was one of those reasons.
Honestly, I see nothing wrong with what Obama said. ATMs are great because you don’t have to go to a bank teller everytime you need money. But that also means banks need fewer tellers. And it will take some time for those former tellers to find new jobs.
Here’s a jolly tip, just from me: In Op-Ed Pieces Like This, COUNT THE WORDS!
Obama is called out in the headline for this piece. But oddly enough, he is only quoted once. In fact, his quote only takes up 64 out of an 888 word of Russel Robert’s rant. IOW: for every 1 word Obama said, Roberts spewed ~14 more words of BS. Not a very good ratio if you are expecting a fair hearing of Obama’s view contrasted with Robert’s.
heres a cool story from slate that is relevant. just another example of how fun it is to construct strawmen from out-of-context quotes.
To be honest, I not really sure all this backlash isn’t blown out of proportion. Here’s what he said:
Obama said nothing about machines causing unemployment and did not even imply they were bad.
All he said was basically “jobs people used to have aren’t necessarily going to exist in the future, so we need to 'make sure there’s a match between what people are getting trained for and the jobs that ARE going to be there.”
Of course that’s not the job of governmentt, but still…I didn’t hear him say “technology is bad because it kills jobs.”
This is what happens when you get your news from the BLOODY OP-ED PAGE!
Here’s a fuller clip of the interview surrounding the quote in question:
http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/06/14/obama-blames-atms-high-unemployment
And here is a summary for those who can’t even spare 2 minutes to get their facts straight:
Obama was asked in an interview why he wasn’t able to “convince businesses to hire more workers”–as if he just didn’t talk to them persuasivley enough. He answered, rightfully so, that it wasn’t that he couldn’t “convince them” it was that there were legit business and economic reasons for why hiring has slowed in recent years. Labor-saving technological innovations was one of those reasons.
Honestly, I see nothing wrong with what Obama said. ATMs are great because you don’t have to go to a bank teller everytime you need money. But that also means banks need fewer tellers. And it will take some time for those former tellers to find new jobs.
Here’s a jolly tip, just from me: In Op-Ed Pieces Like This, COUNT THE WORDS!
Obama is called out in the headline for this piece. But oddly enough, he is only quoted once. In fact, his quote only takes up 64 out of an 888 word of Russel Robert’s rant. IOW: for every 1 word Obama said, Roberts spewed ~14 more words of BS. Not a very good ratio if you are expecting a fair hearing of Obama’s view contrasted with Robert’s.
Reality is such a bitch when it gets in the way of an otherwise clean narrative!
The United States actually seems to be moving slower towards complete ATM banking. While there are many things that you can do with the ATM, that you can also do with a teller, many transactions are still being done with the teller. If you go to Brazil, for example, it isn’t uncommon to walk by a bank and see literally 15 ATMs in the room that handle all of your banking transactions.