Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?
My article for Harvard Business Review:
Robert J. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University, has recently published an important new book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which argues that the U.S. has entered a new age of stagnation in which our hopes for an ever more prosperous future will largely evaporate. While Gordon’s argument is often characterized as being the opposite of the one I have made in my two books about the impact of advancing automation technology on the job market (most recently, Rise of the Robots), there are many areas in which I think we would agree.
Martin Ford 
Dear Martin, I would greatly appreciate if you could get in touch I work for the Uk’s largest trade union, Unite, and would like to link up.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-restaurant-automation-is-on-the-menu-1458857730
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/item/22857-will-the-robotic-revolution-make-your-job-obsolete
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11422266/automation-starbucks-job-loss
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/15/robots-will-replace-customer-service-agents–thank-god-for-that/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/robots-at-work-will-mean-higher-pay-and-more-skills-for-you-2016-04-21
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/
http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/c2dc047a-5527-49be-a1c4-b3b418dade9d.html
Seems that a lot of work still needs to be done including retrofitting,forest fire fighting, emergency flood relief, elder care. With that said, a profit system with units competing against each other to expand or go bankrupt demands non-stop growth. That puts a lot of pressure on the system to reinvest each years surplus at a profit. Is this environmentally sustainable? Club of Rome. And, is it necessary?
Planned obsolescence is a form of make work and the equivalent of Keynes’s idea that to keep the circulation of goods and services going and avoid a depression it would be of benefit to have people paid to dig holes and then fill them up. With proper organization,the problem of scarcity is solved. (Yet, we move to catastrophe as we ignore carbon pollution.)