Robert Lord: Automation Kills Jobs and Brings Mass Poverty. Call That Progress?
“Throughout America’s small towns and suburbs, you can see the ominous markers of a coming sea change. Empty storefronts. Gutted strip malls. Vacant shopping complexes. Indeed, nothing captures America’s perverse economic picture better than the transformation happening in the retail sector. Brick-and-mortar retailers are hemorrhaging jobs: 90,000 since last October. That’s 15,000 lost jobs per month. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, the founder of online retailer Amazon, has become the nation’s second richest man—and a virtual lock to be No. 1 within a few years, if not months. Bezos’s wealth has tripled in just over two years, a tidy $50 billion increase. That’s over $1.5 billion per month.”