A lot of the work in, say, construction or restaurants involves visual and motor flexibility. It also requires adaptability, in terms of answering questions, giving people directions, or taking orders.
There's never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value.
In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded and crashed down to Earth less than two minutes after takeoff. The cause of that crash, it turned out, was an inexpensive rubber O-ring in the booster rocket that had frozen on the launchpad the night before and failed catastrophically moments after takeoff.
I did a lot of blue collar work. I also worked as a temp. I did, you know, light construction and cleaning. I did clerical temping. I also fix cars and motorcycles and electronics.
The fact that a task cannot be computerized does not imply that computerization has no effect on that task. On the contrary, tasks that cannot be substituted by computerization are generally complemented by it. This point is as fundamental as it is overlooked.
China's rise is really a kind of a world historical event. This is the largest country in the world. It has caused a wholesale substantial contraction of U.S. manufacturing employment.
The long-term policies that will be most effective all have to do with investment: investing in ourselves, investing in opportunities, creating good schools, and creating situations where people can acquire skills that enable them to be successful.
While I can't tell you what people are going to do for work 100 years from now, the future doesn't hinge on my imagination.
Markets are, in many settings, self-organizing and 'efficient' in terms of maximizing the welfare of both buyers and sellers.
History has suggested that the pessimists have been wrong time and time again.
Our machines increasingly do our work for us. Why doesn't this make our labor redundant and our skills obsolete? Why are there still so many jobs?
Manufacturing value chains are global. Many U.S.-made goods have foreign components. Slapping on tariffs will raise prices and slow imports, but it will make us poorer and impede growth.
Economists have understood since the Victorian era that the main benefits of trade come from comparative advantage: the idea that people can specialize in what they're good at and then benefit from exchange. The principle is no more mysterious than specialization in the labor market.
Here's a startling fact: in the 45 years since the introduction of the automated teller machine, those vending machines that dispense cash, the number of human bank tellers employed in the United States has roughly doubled, from about a quarter of a million to a half a million.
