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hgvtrainingnearme · 3 years ago

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Top Benefits of Acquiring HGV Training Courses For Drivers

Becoming an HGV driver can be a very rewarding career choice. Not only do you get to travel and see new places, but you also have the satisfaction of knowing that you are performing a vital role in society. However, it is not an easy job and requires a great deal of training and skill. That's why acquiring HGV training is so important if you want to become an HGV driver.

Here are the benefits of getting that training.

Freedom

While some people may enjoy being confined to an office job that demands them to remain still for long periods, others may find it confining. HGV driving gives you a lot more liberty and flexibility. Everyone has different duties they must fulfil. You will be glad to know that you have the freedom to choose when you work as an HGV driver. However, to become an HGV driver, you need HGV courses. Moreover, keep in mind that you should always take steps to maintain a healthy work-life balance. This sort of profession allows you to meet new individuals, visit new locations, and listen to your favourite music while working.

Lots of work available

A major question for every occupation is whether it will provide enough work to live on. Don't worry; after you've obtained your lorry drive training, you'll be able to do a variety of driving tasks. Furthermore, people are looking at a future-proof profession because the demand for an HGV driver isn't going away anytime soon! The digital age may have had some unknown influence; more customers are ordering online, necessitating more deliveries!

Choice of hours

Everyone has a unique lifestyle and different responsibilities that they must accommodate. As a result, the traditional 9-to-5 schedule does not work for everyone. HGV drivers benefit because they are able to select hours that work around their other obligations - it's a really flexible job, especially in the United Kingdom. All you need to do is get HGV training.

Job security

The driving profession will continue to exist for a long time. A competent, licensed, and professional HGV driver that has completed HGV courses will always be in demand. Some industries may not be said with as much confidence in this ever-changing world, so it's nice and a good idea to get involved with one that provides job security. This is also an industry that doesn't move nearly as much as others when it comes to the demands of the service-HGV sector, so being involved with a job security role holds significant appeal.

Flexibility

A career as a trucker is a fantastic way to be your own employer and schedule, providing an entrepreneurial sense of freedom. The flexibility of hours provided by driving as a profession is one of the most significant advantages. It's possible to arrange shifts that work with your other commitments and create a healthy work-life balance by picking from several shifts accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Thus, if you want flexibility, all you need to do is get a lorry drive training.

A valuable role

According to experts, the impact of the backlog on supply chains will likely be felt for months. This emphasises the crucial importance of carefully balanced supply networks in fueling international trade. The trucking industry is as vital as ever. If truck drivers stopped, businesses would collapse, and the economy would come to a halt. Being a lorry driver gives you fulfilment knowing that you are helping to maintain that important ecosystem by transporting products like food, drink, housing, work, and survival.

Life on the road

For others, there is nothing greater than being out on the open road for a 9-5 job. A career as a motorist allows you to travel throughout the country and even beyond while earning money by seeing places you may otherwise never see and meeting new people every day. Not only that, but driving also offers a lot of freedom and independence that few other professions can match. Many drivers enjoy being alone in their cars with their thoughts or listening to their own music or audiobooks while driving.

HGV training from companies like HGVTrainingNetwork is important for a number of reasons. Not only will it give you the skills and knowledge necessary to operate an HGV safely, but it will also help prepare you for the challenges and responsibilities that come with the job. Obtaining HGV training is the best way to ensure that you are qualified to work as an HGV driver and have the tools you need to be successful in this career field.

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truckflows · 3 years ago

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Is Trucking the Career For You?

Trucking has lengthy hours, is physically draining, and, at times, can preserve you a long way from domestic and circle of relatives. There are manifestly exceptions, such as Fedex and UPS drivers who power regionally, or flat-bedders that run statewide. For the most part, you will be on the mercy of dispatchers and cargo forums, visiting to anyplace the work takes you.

The greater tricky answer is trucking can be a satisfying route and might create monetary security for each person struggling in cutting-edge process marketplace. There is not any educational requirement for starting. There are schools so that it will finance your training and exam but they tend to have very high hobby fees on the ones not able to pay coins. They can fee everywhere from $3000 to $6500 greenbacks. We wouldn't endorse paying any greater than that until you are one hundred% certain it's far a good program. The opportunity to a using college is to get your license via a community college. Most offer a course in commercial Truck Dispatch in USA driving. This will still be an investment however you could utilize such things as nearby scholarships, Pell Grants or a GI Bill. The related website offers extra statistics for returning infantrymen who have no longer but applied the training options of their settlement. Interestingly enough, you may use your GI bill to fund your schooling via some of the CDL education agencies. Werner is one agency that involves thoughts as a huge supporting of returning soldiers.

According to this article, there are tons of trucking jobs accessible that nobody desires! In a difficult job marketplace, trucking is a sure-fireplace manner to get lower back into the group of workers. The pay is very first rate; Truckers earn an average annual wage of $37,930, which is $four,000 extra than the median salary for all jobs, in step with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The pinnacle 10% of truck drivers make more than $fifty eight,000 according to year and specialised drivers can earn six figures. This does not consist of truckers who've moved into leasing and managing small fleets. Experienced proprietor/operators and fleet owners can make plenty more in the long run than individual drivers. Trucking is a totally big enterprise and there is plenty of opportunity to grow for absolutely everyone with an entrepreneurial spirit.

There isn't any denying that trucking is a hard task. The turnover charge may be very high, fitness is continually an difficulty and inclement climate and avenue conditions may be hazardous. But, it can be one of the most rewarding careers obtainable with plenty of opportunity and possibilities to see these top notch United States of America. You'll see new paces and meet new human beings; with plenty of diners, power-ins and dives thrown into the mix.

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thevividgreenmoss · 4 years ago

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The Republican Party in Texas is highly mobilized, one might say even militarized, to prevent or postpone the transformation of this new demography into a Democratic majority. Its odd ally has been the Democratic National Committee, which for years has ignored Texas despite appeals from local Democrats that major investments in voter registration and community organization could shift the balance of power in the state and thus in the country. Their argument was fortified by Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign against Ted Cruz which made up in grassroots energy much of what it lacked in cash. (Beto, following the Sanders example in 2016, rejected pac contributions.) Republicans laughed off the challenge in the beginning but sweated heavily in the homestretch when polls showed the candidates neck and neck. A large injection of cash from energy industry pacs ultimately saved the day for Cruz, but Democrats reveled in the closeness of the outcome, 50.9 to 48.3 per cent.

This year national Democratic money, much of it from Michael Bloomberg, arrived at the last minute to support a Beto-designed campaign that focused on ten heavily-gerrymandered Republican districts, mainly in the suburbs of metropolitan Dallas–Fort Worth, that he had won in 2018. Flipping nine of them would give Democrats control of the Texas House for the first time in nearly a generation. Misleading polls in October stoked optimism, even suggesting that Biden might win the state. In the event Republicans retained all the seats and Trump, although his margin was reduced, easily won. The Texas Observer, the state’s unique progressive magazine, concluded that ‘one of the biggest takeaways from the election is that there is a clear ceiling for Democrats in the growing suburbs . . . Now, Republican dominance of state government remains unfettered, as is the gop’s ability to lock in their majorities for years to come in the next redistricting cycle.’

The one-size-fits-all suburban template that was used by the Biden campaign in Texas and almost everywhere else ignored the consensus view of veteran campaign strategists from both parties that the real key to swinging the state is the mobilization of the ‘sleeping’ Latino majority in South Texas, especially in the seven major border counties where 90 per cent of the population is of Mexican origin. This was acknowledged two days before the election when Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez made a last-minute visit to the McAllen area. ‘The road to the White House’, he declared, ‘goes through South Texas. Remember, Beto lost by about 200,000 votes in 2018. We can make up these votes alone in the [Rio Grande] Valley. If we take Latino turnout from 40 per cent to 50 per cent, that’s enough to flip Texas.’ The strongly Democratic border is one of the poorest regions in the country, heavily dependent upon agriculture and nafta trade with Mexico, with a population routinely vilified by Republican propaganda as aliens and rapists. The Biden campaign seems to have believed that anti-Trump sentiment alone would add another 100,000 votes along the border without having to divert resources from the suburban battlefields. A blue wave along the Rio Grande from El Paso to Brownsville was taken for granted.

However when the fog of battle dissipated, Democrats were stunned to discover that a high turnout had instead propelled a Trump surge along the border. In the three Rio Grande Valley counties (the agricultural corridor from Brownsville to Rio Grande City) which Clinton had carried by 40 per cent, Biden harvested a margin of only 15 per cent. More than half of the population of Starr County, an ancient battlefield of the Texas farmworkers movement, lives in poverty yet Trump won 47 per cent of the vote, an incredible gain of 28 per cent since 2016. Further up river he actually flipped 82 per cent Latino Val Verde County (Del Rio) as well as Zapata County, which no Republican has won since the end of Reconstruction. In addition he increased his vote in Maverick County (Eagle Pass) by 24 per cent and Webb County (Laredo) by 15 per cent. Rep. Vincente Gonzalez (D-McAllen) had to fight down to the wire to save the seat he won by 21 per cent in 2018. Even in El Paso, a hotbed of Democratic activism, Trump made a 6 per cent gain. Considering South Texas as a whole, Democrats had great hopes of winning the 21st congressional district which connects San Antonio and Austin, as well as the 78 per cent Latino 23rd, which is anchored in the western suburbs of San Antonio but encompasses a vast swathe of southwestern Texas. In both cases, Republicans easily won.

...First, NAFTA as well as the shale oil boom in the Laredo area has greatly expanded the entrepreneurial class in the border counties—independent truckers, shipping agents, warehouse foremen, oil and gas sub-contractors, car dealers, and the like—whose natural magnetic orientation is Republican. Since the border economy is capitalized on poverty and low wages, this group has a keen interest in opposing a higher minimum wage or a pro-union Labor Department. Republicans have avidly responded to new opportunities to recruit leadership from this dynamic stratum. In his 2014 campaign Republican Governor Greg Abbott made no less than 20 trips to the Valley.footnote7 Although Trump initially jeopardized their livelihoods with his threat to withdraw from nafta, the 2018 treaty revisions with Mexico left the status quo largely in place and freed the tejano business community to vote its wallet. (Nationally, the Latino share of the ‘middle class’, as the Brookings Institution defines it, has grown from 5 per cent in 1979 to 18 per cent last year. In contrast the Black share has only increased by 3 per cent in 40 years, from 9 per cent to 12 per cent.)footnote8

On the other side of the ledger, there was a spectacular wave of support in South Texas for Bernie Sanders during the March ‘Super-Tuesday’ primary. After the withdrawal of San Antonio’s favourite son Julián Castro from the race at the beginning of January (he immediately endorsed Elizabeth Warren), rank-and-file tejano Democrats rallied to Sanders. With 200 young Latino organizers working full-time for his national campaign and helping shape its strategy, Sanders was able to speak to the Valley communities with a passionately informed voice. As was the case with the Nevada caucuses in February, radicalized Latino youth and their working-class families embraced his platform of universal healthcare, free public higher education, a $15 minimum wage, and pathways to citizenship for undocumented populations. Sanders swept the entire border from Brownsville to El Paso as well as San Antonio and metro Austin, winning 626,000 votes, 99 convention delegates and 30 per cent of the votes cast, just 5 points behind Biden. (If the Warren vote is combined with Sanders, the left wing of the party outpolled Biden by 140,000 votes.)

The Sanders campaign was also an uprising against a conservative Democratic machine led by old pols like Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, a former customs broker who belongs to the Blue Dog caucus and frequently votes with Republicans. Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old human rights attorney backed by Sanders and the progressive organization Justice Democrats, came very close to beating him in March. Biden’s nomination and Cuellar’s narrow victory were twin disappointments that deflated the enthusiasm of Sanders’ voters, ratifying the widespread perception that centrist Democrats give no priority to fighting for the interests of the Border working class.footnote9

Spanish-surname people are the biggest minority in the United States and this year surpassed African-Americans as the second largest pool of eligible voters. Their electoral clout will only increase: amongst the first wave of GenZ eligible voters (age 18–23) Latinos constituted 22 per cent, Blacks 14 per cent.footnote10 In the Bush years many Republican strategists in the Sunbelt, having read the demographic tea leaves, argued that culturally conservative Latinos were the key to building a new and more durable Republican majority. Mainstream Democratic leadership, however, has never endorsed a similar vision and continues to treat Latinos as second-class citizens within the party hierarchy who will automatically vote for Democratic candidates. The exclusion of Julián Castro from the speakers’ platform at the virtual convention in August was interpreted in the Spanish-language media as salt rubbed in an old wound. The Democrats have other neglected or abandoned constituencies, including Puerto Rico and Appalachia, but South Texas has a unique strategic importance.footnote11

Mike Davis, Trench Warfare

#trends among victorious coalitions here and & in his obama post-mortem from 08 #essays #mike davis #*

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larixgirl · 4 years ago

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It’s a #ReppinBim day! Trucker Hat: @theodboihwayoflife @odboihthelifestyle Chain: “Bim Medallion” @shine.and.co Shirt: “BIM” @167apparel We have some amazing brands that rep our country and guess what, they are all young entrepreneurial minds! If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is! I love when “support local” still gets me dope gear! #frombouthey #localgear #brandsofBim https://www.instagram.com/p/CHf07uOA8J9/?igshid=9pttabipc5t3

#reppinbim #frombouthey #localgear #brandsofbim

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workfromhom · 5 years ago

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In the shadow of Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle startups are having a moment

Venture capital investment exploded across a number of geographies in 2019 despite the constant threat of an economic downturn.

San Francisco, of course, remains the startup epicenter of the world, shutting out all other geographies when it comes to capital invested. Still, other regions continue to grow, raking in more capital this year than ever.

In Utah, a new hotbed for startups, companies like Weave, Divvy and MX Technology raised a collective $370 million from private market investors. In the Northeast, New York City experienced record-breaking deal volume with median deal sizes climbing steadily. Boston is closing out the decade with at least 10 deals larger than $100 million announced this year alone. And in the lovely Pacific Northwest, home to tech heavyweights Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle is experiencing an uptick in VC interest in what could be a sign the town is finally reaching its full potential.

Seattle startups raised a total of $3.5 billion in VC funding across roughly 375 deals this year, according to data collected by PitchBook. That’s up from $3 billion in 2018 across 346 deals and a meager $1.7 billion in 2017 across 348 deals. Much of Seattle’s recent growth can be attributed to a few fast-growing businesses.

Startups Weekly: Will the Seattle tech scene ever reach its full potential?

Convoy, the digital freight network that connects truckers with shippers, closed a $400 million round last month bringing its valuation to $2.75 billion. The deal was remarkable for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was the largest venture round for a Seattle-based company in a decade, PitchBook claims. And it pushed Convoy to the top of the list of the most valuable companies in the city, surpassing OfferUp, which raised a sizable Series D in 2018 at a $1.4 billion valuation.

Convoy has managed to attract a slew of high-profile investors, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and even U2’s Bono and the Edge. Since it was founded in 2015, the business has raised a total of more than $668 million.

Remitly, another Seattle-headquartered business, has helped bolster Seattle’s startup ecosystem. The fintech company focused on international money transfer raised a $135 million Series E led by Generation Investment Management, and $85 million in debt from Barclays, Bridge Bank, Goldman Sachs and Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year. Owl Rock Capital, Princeville Global, Prudential Financial, Schroder & Co Bank AG and Top Tier Capital Partners, and previous investors DN Capital, Naspers’ PayU and Stripes Group also participated in the equity round, which valued Remitly at nearly $1 billion.

Up-and-coming startups, including co-working space provider The Riveter, real estate business Modus and same-day delivery service Dolly, have recently attracted investment too.

Pioneer Square Labs is invigorating Seattle’s startup ecosystem

A number of other factors have contributed to Seattle’s long-awaited rise in venture activity. Top-performing companies like Stripe, Airbnb and Dropbox have established engineering offices in Seattle, as has Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Disney and many others. This, of course, has attracted copious engineers, a key ingredient to building a successful tech hub. Plus, the pipeline of engineers provided by the nearby University of Washington (shout-out to my alma mater) means there’s no shortage of brainiacs.

There’s long been plenty of smart people in Seattle, mostly working at Microsoft and Amazon, however. The issue has been a shortage of entrepreneurs, or those willing to exit a well-paying gig in favor of a risky venture. Fortunately for Seattle venture capitalists, new efforts have been made to entice corporate workers to the startup universe. Pioneer Square Labs, which I profiled earlier this year, is a prime example of this movement. On a mission to champion Seattle’s unique entrepreneurial DNA, Pioneer Square Labs cropped up in 2015 to create, launch and fund technology companies headquartered in the Pacific Northwest.

Boundless CEO Xiao Wang at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017

Operating under the startup studio model, PSL’s team of former founders and venture capitalists, including Rover and Mighty AI founder Greg Gottesman, collaborate to craft and incubate startup ideas, then recruit a founding CEO from their network of entrepreneurs to lead the business. Seattle is home to two of the most valuable businesses in the world, but it has not created as many founders as anticipated. PSL hopes that by removing some of the risk, it can encourage prospective founders, like Boundless CEO Xiao Wang, a former senior product manager at Amazon, to build.

“The studio model lends itself really well to people who are 99% there, thinking ‘damn, I want to start a company,’ ” PSL co-founder Ben Gilbert said in March. “These are people that are incredible entrepreneurs but if not for the studio as a catalyst, they may not have [left].”

Boundless is one of several successful PSL spin-outs. The business, which helps families navigate the convoluted green card process, raised a $7.8 million Series A led by Foundry Group earlier this year, with participation from existing investors Trilogy Equity Partners, PSL, Two Sigma Ventures and Founders’ Co-Op.

Years-old institutional funds like Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group have done their part to bolster the Seattle startup community too. Madrona raised a $100 million Acceleration Fund earlier this year, and although it plans to look beyond its backyard for its newest deals, the firm continues to be one of the largest supporters of Pacific Northwest upstarts. Founded in 1995, Madrona’s portfolio includes Amazon, Mighty AI, UiPath, Branch and more.

Voyager Capital, another Seattle-based VC, also raised another $100 million this year to invest in the PNW. Maveron, a venture capital fund co-founded by Starbucks mastermind Howard Schultz, closed on another $180 million to invest in early-stage consumer startups in May. And new efforts like Flying Fish Partners have been busy deploying capital to promising local companies.

There’s a lot more to say about all this. Like the growing role of deep-pocketed angel investors in Seattle have in expanding the startup ecosystem, or the non-local investors, like Silicon Valley’s best, who’ve funneled cash into Seattle’s talent. In short, Seattle deal activity is finally climbing thanks to top talent, new accelerator models and several refueled venture funds. Now we wait to see how the Seattle startup community leverages this growth period and what startups emerge on top.

Startups Weekly: Will the Seattle tech scene ever reach its full potential?

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years ago

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In the shadow of Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle startups are having a moment

Venture capital investment exploded across a number of geographies in 2019 despite the constant threat of an economic downturn.

Startups Weekly: Will the Seattle tech scene ever reach its full potential?

Up-and-coming startups, including co-working space provider The Riveter, real estate business Modus and same-day delivery service Dolly, have recently attracted investment too.

Pioneer Square Labs is invigorating Seattle’s startup ecosystem

Boundless CEO Xiao Wang at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017

Startups Weekly: Will the Seattle tech scene ever reach its full potential?

#TechCrunch

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magzoso-tech · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/in-the-shadow-of-amazon-and-microsoft-seattle-startups-are-having-a-moment/

In the shadow of Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle startups are having a moment

Venture capital investment exploded across a number of geographies in 2019 despite the constant threat of an economic downturn.

Up-and-coming startups, including co-working space provider The Riveter, real estate business Modus and same-day delivery service Dolly, have recently attracted investment too.

Boundless CEO Xiao Wang at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017

#Miscellaneous

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workfromhomeyoutuber · 5 years ago

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Dray Alliance: Senior Software Engineer

Headquarters: Los Angeles, CA URL: https://www.drayalliance.com

Dray Alliance is a venture-backed company on a mission to transform the trucking and logistics industry, starting with drayage. Our technology simplifies the antiquated process of moving containers across short distances, with focus on port and rail moves. We are on an exciting journey to modernize the logistics and trucking industry, and we are looking for humble, analytical, and passionate people to join us.

Our business grew at a rapid pace in 2019, and we are searching for a Senior Software Engineer to build and scale product offerings (for truckers, shippers, and other stakeholders). You have a learners mindset and a passion for high-quality, reliable, and maintainable code. You prioritize team success over individual success and believe the ultimate success metric is the happiness of our users.

Who You Are

Experienced and Meticulous | You have a solid understanding of service oriented architecture, object oriented design, and common design patterns. You believe in automatic testing, hold pragmatic code coverage in high regard, and can explore and propose ways to incrementally improve code quality.

Curious and Passionate | You are a continuous learner who are passionate to change the world and improve people’s lives. You do not simply accept the ways things are, but live to tackle interesting and challenging problems for a more honest, efficient, and transparent world.

Entrepreneurial and Persistent | You know what it’s like to grow at rocket-ship velocity, and thrive in the ambiguity of a fast-paced startup. You are thrilled about building scalable software that solves real-world problems. You understand the importance of mentorship and are willing to seek help when needed, and be helpful to others on the team.

Responsibilities

Build highly performant Backend APIs and Integrations using JavaScript

Use React to build and improve user facing interface

Architect, write, and review highly testable code

Design and implement cloud architecture on AWS

Translate product requirements to technical solutions

Mentor junior engineers and provide feedback on how they can grow

Build monitoring for all services to ensure their reliability

Need-to-have

BA/BS in computer science or equivalent

5+ years of software engineering experience building products used by thousands of users

Wrote idiomatic JavaScript/Node.js, Golang, Java, Python, Scala, or Ruby

Experience with a modern UI framework (Angular, React, Vue)

Experience in Test Driven Development (TDD)

Ability to research, compare, and choose technologies to use such as choosing a database system

Nice-to-Have

High growth startup experience

Experience with databases systems and data model design

Experience with cloud-based infrastructure

Experience in DevOps

Advanced programming skills in Javascript

Our Tech Stack

UI/Mobile: React, React Native, React Hooks, PostCSS

API Services: Node.js, hapi.js, Docker, MySQL, Redis

Infrastructure: AWS, EC2, RDS, ElastiCache, Lambda, S3

Devops: Jenkins, Grafana, Graylog, Docker, Kubernetes, Github,

Agile processes: Scrum on Jira

Perks

Remote friendly

Competitive Salary, Bonus, and Equity

Full Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits

Flexible vacations and holidays

Be involved with shaping our organization from the ground up

To apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/cap/view/1650239074/?pathWildcard=1650239074&trk=mcm

from We Work Remotely: Remote jobs in design, programming, marketing and more https://ift.tt/35q1JFu from Work From Home YouTuber Job Board Blog https://ift.tt/34vqU81

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johnmauldin · 8 years ago

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Robots May Perform Half The Jobs In The US Within 20 Years: Here's What That Could Mean

Perhaps you don’t think the change that is upon us is a profound one. But consider this: Within two decades, half the jobs in this country may be performed by robots. What then of our unemployment rate? And what of our social safety net?

Opinion is divided. Will the next technological wave further skew the wealth distribution toward the uber-rich? Or will it ultimately create more entrepreneurial and job opportunities than it destroys?

There is an interesting historical precedent for our situation. It was an era during which the technological firmament shifted just as abruptly as it is here and now.

The Industrial Revolution Makes Waves

In the UK in the year 1800, the textile industry dominated economic life. Particularly in Northern England and Scotland. Cotton-spinners, weavers (mostly of stockings), and croppers (who trimmed large sheets of woven wool) worked from home. They were well compensated and enjoyed ample leisure time.

Ten years later, that had all changed. Clive Thompson tells us what happened:

(I)n the first decade of the 1800s, the textile economy went into a tailspin.… The merchant class—the overlords who paid hosiers and croppers and weavers for the work—began looking for ways to shrink their costs.

That meant reducing wages—and bringing in more technology to improve efficiency… They also began to build huge factories where coal-burning engines would propel dozens of automated cotton-weaving machines….

The workers were livid. Factory work was miserable, with brutal 14-hour days that left workers—as one doctor noted—‘stunted, enfeebled, and depraved.’… Poverty rose as wages plummeted.

Workers Fight Back

Enter the notorious Luddites. Angry workers began to fight back. They destroyed the hated wide stocking frames and cotton-spinning machinery. They even killed factory owners.

Soon, they were breaking at least 175 machines per month. And within months, they had destroyed some 800, worth £25,000—the equivalent of nearly $2 million today.

Source: Wikimedia

As we know, the owners retaliated. The English government intervened decisively. The Luddite rebellion was crushed. However, says Thompson,

At heart, the fight was not really about technology. The Luddites were happy to use machinery—indeed, weavers had used smaller frames for decades. What galled them was the new logic of industrial capitalism, where the productivity gains from new technology enriched only the machines’ owners and weren’t shared with the workers.

The owners had taken to heart Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. The book was published a few decades earlier. In it, Smith makes the case for a laissez-faire, free-market economy.

In the ensuing centuries we have seen a seesaw battle between labor and capital. It certainly appears that capital now has the upper hand. But clearly, the Industrial Revolution did lift all boats.

Can you imagine trying to support our present global population without our machines?

What About Our Future?

The Information Revolution gave us computers, the Internet, and social media. The AI Revolution is about to give us self-driving taxis and trucks and robot baristas.

Will these continue to lift our lower and middle classes? Or will they further disempower and impoverish them? Here’s what Clive Thompson thinks.

When Robots Take All Of Our Jobs, Remember The Luddites

By Clive Thompson

What a 19th-century rebellion against automation can teach us about the coming war in the job market

Is a robot coming for your job?

The odds are high, according to recent economic analyses. Indeed, fully 47 percent of all US jobs will be automated “in a decade or two,” as the tech-employment scholars Carl Frey and Michael Osborne have predicted. That’s because artificial intelligence and robotics are becoming so good that nearly any routine task could soon be automated. Robots and AI are already whisking products around Amazon’s huge shipping centers, diagnosing lung cancer more accurately than humans, and writing sports stories for newspapers.

They’re even replacing cabdrivers. Last year in Pittsburgh, Uber put its first-ever self-driving cars into its fleet: Order an Uber and the one that rolls up might have no human hands on the wheel at all. Meanwhile, Uber’s “Otto” program is installing AI in 16-wheeler trucks—a trend that could eventually replace most or all 1.7 million drivers, an enormous employment category. Those jobless truckers will be joined by millions more telemarketers, insurance underwriters, tax preparers, and library technicians—all jobs that Frey and Osborne predicted have a 99 percent chance of vanishing in a decade or two.

What happens then? If this vision is even halfway correct, it’ll be a vertiginous pace of change, upending work as we know it. As the last election amply illustrated, a big chunk of Americans already hotly blame foreigners and immigrants for taking their jobs. How will Americans react to robots and computers taking even more?

One clue might lie in the early 19th century. That’s when the first generation of workers had the experience of being suddenly thrown out of their jobs by automation. But rather than accept it, they fought back—calling themselves the “Luddites,” and staging an audacious attack against the machines.

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At the turn of 1800, the textile industry in the United Kingdom was an economic juggernaut that employed the vast majority of workers in the North. Working from home, weavers produced stockings using frames, while cotton-spinners created yarn. “Croppers” would take large sheets of woven wool fabric and trim the rough surface off, making it smooth to the touch.

These workers had great control over when and how they worked—and plenty of leisure. “The year was checkered with holidays, wakes, and fairs; it was not one dull round of labor,” as the stocking-maker William Gardiner noted gaily at the time. Indeed, some “seldom worked more than three days a week.” Not only was the weekend a holiday, but they took Monday off too, celebrating it as a drunken “St. Monday.”

Croppers in particular were a force to be reckoned with. They were well-off—their pay was three times that of stocking-makers—and their work required them to pass heavy cropping tools across the wool, making them muscular, brawny men who were fiercely independent. In the textile world, the croppers were, as one observer noted at the time, “notoriously the least manageable of any persons employed.”

But in the first decade of the 1800s, the textile economy went into a tailspin. A decade of war with Napoleon had halted trade and driven up the cost of food and everyday goods. Fashions changed, too: Men began wearing “trousers,” so the demand for stockings plummeted. The merchant class—the overlords who paid hosiers and croppers and weavers for the work—began looking for ways to shrink their costs.

That meant reducing wages—and bringing in more technology to improve efficiency. A new form of shearer and “gig mill” let one person crop wool much more quickly. An innovative, “wide” stocking frame allowed weavers to produce stockings six times faster than before: Instead of weaving the entire stocking around, they’d produce a big sheet of hosiery and cut it up into several stockings. “Cut-ups” were shoddy and fell apart quickly, and could be made by untrained workers who hadn’t done apprenticeships, but the merchants didn’t care. They also began to build huge factories where coal-burning engines would propel dozens of automated cotton-weaving machines.

“They were obsessed with keeping their factories going, so they were introducing machines wherever they might help,” says Jenny Uglow, a historian and author of In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793-1815.

The workers were livid. Factory work was miserable, with brutal 14-hour days that left workers—as one doctor noted—“stunted, enfeebled, and depraved.” Stocking-weavers were particularly incensed at the move toward cut-ups. It produced stockings of such low quality that they were “pregnant with the seeds of its own destruction,” as one hosier put it. Pretty soon people wouldn’t buy any stockings if they were this shoddy. Poverty rose as wages plummeted.

The workers tried bargaining. They weren’t opposed to machinery, they said, if the profits from increased productivity were shared. The croppers suggested taxing cloth to make a fund for those unemployed by machines. Others argued that industrialists should introduce machinery more gradually, to allow workers more time to adapt to new trades.

The plight of the unemployed workers even attracted the attention of Charlotte Brontë, who wrote them into her novel Shirley. “The throes of a sort of moral earthquake,” she noted, “were felt heaving under the hills of the northern counties.”

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In mid-November 1811, that earthquake began to rumble. That evening, according to a report at the time, half a dozen men—with faces blackened to obscure their identities, and carrying “swords, firelocks, and other offensive weapons”—marched into the house of master-weaver Edward Hollingsworth in the village of Bulwell. They destroyed six of his frames for making cut-ups. A week later, more men came back and this time they burned Hollingsworth’s house to the ground. Within weeks, attacks spread to other towns. When panicked industrialists tried moving their frames to a new location to hide them, the attackers would find the carts and destroy them en route.

A modus operandi emerged: The machine-breakers would usually disguise their identities and attack the machines with massive metal sledgehammers. The hammers were made by Enoch Taylor, a local blacksmith; since Taylor himself was also famous for making the cropping and weaving machines, the breakers noted the poetic irony with a chant: “Enoch made them, Enoch shall break them!”

Most notably, the attackers gave themselves a name: the Luddites.

Before an attack, they’d send a letter to manufacturers, warning them to stop using their “obnoxious frames” or face destruction. The letters were signed by “General Ludd,” “King Ludd” or perhaps by someone writing “from Ludd Hall”—an acerbic joke, pretending the Luddites had an actual organization.

Despite their violence, “they had a sense of humor” about their own image, notes Steven Jones, author of Against Technology and a professor of English and digital humanities at the University of South Florida. An actual person Ludd did not exist; probably the name was inspired by the mythic tale of “Ned Ludd,” an apprentice who was beaten by his master and retaliated by destroying his frame.

Ludd was, in essence, a useful meme—one the Luddites carefully cultivated, like modern activists posting images to Twitter and Tumblr. They wrote songs about Ludd, styling him as a Robin Hood-like figure: “No General But Ludd / Means the Poor Any Good,” as one rhyme went. In one attack, two men dressed as women, calling themselves “General Ludd’s wives.” “They were engaged in a kind of semiotics,” Jones notes. “They took a lot of time with the costumes, with the songs.”

And “Ludd” itself! “It’s a catchy name,” says Kevin Binfield, author of Writings of the Luddites. “The phonic register, the phonic impact.”

As a form of economic protest, machine-breaking wasn’t new. There were probably 35 examples of it in the previous 100 years, as the author Kirkpatrick Sale found in his seminal history Rebels Against the Future. But the Luddites, well organized and tactical, brought a ruthless efficiency to the technique: Barely a few days went by without another attack, and they were soon breaking at least 175 machines per month. Within months they had destroyed probably 800, worth £25,000—the equivalent of $1.97 million, today.

“It seemed too many people in the South like the whole of the North was sort of going up in flames,” Uglow notes. “In terms of industrial history, it was a small industrial civil war.”

Factory owners began to fight back. In April 1812, 120 Luddites descended upon Rawfolds Mill just after midnight, smashing down the doors “with a fearful crash” that was “like the felling of great trees.” But the mill owner was prepared: His men threw huge stones off the roof, and shot and killed four Luddites. The government tried to infiltrate Luddite groups to figure out the identities of these mysterious men, but to little avail. Much as in today’s fractured political climate, the poor despised the elites—and favored the Luddites. “Almost every creature of the lower order both in town & country are on their side,” as one local official noted morosely.

An 1812 handbill sought information about the armed men who destroyed five machines. (The National Archives, UK)

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The Luddites were often careful to spare employers who they felt dealt fairly. During one attack, Luddites broke into a house and destroyed four frames—but left two intact after determining that their owner hadn’t lowered wages for his weavers. (Some masters began posting signs on their machines, hoping to avoid destruction: “This Frame Is Making Full Fashioned Work, at the Full Price.”)

For the Luddites, “there was the concept of a ‘fair profit,’” says Adrian Randall, the author of Before the Luddites. In the past, the master would take a fair profit, but now he adds, “the industrial capitalist is someone who is seeking more and more of their share of the profit that they’re making.” Workers thought wages should be protected with minimum-wage laws. Industrialists didn’t: They’d been reading up on laissez-faire economic theory in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published a few decades earlier.

“The writings of Dr. Adam Smith have altered the opinion of the polished part of society,” as the author of a minimum wage proposal at the time noted. Now, the wealthy believed that attempting to regulate wages “would be as absurd as an attempt to regulate the winds.”

Six months after it began, though, Luddism became increasingly violent. In broad daylight, Luddites assassinated William Horsfall, a factory owner, and attempted to assassinate another. They also began to raid the houses of everyday citizens, taking every weapon they could find.

Parliament was now fully awakened, and began a ferocious crackdown. In March 1812, politicians passed a law that handed out the death penalty for anyone “destroying or injuring any Stocking or Lace Frames, or other Machines or Engines used in the Framework knitted Manufactory.” Meanwhile, London flooded the Luddite counties with 14,000 soldiers.

By winter of 1812, the government was winning. Informants and sleuthing finally tracked down the identities of a few dozen Luddites. Over a span of 15 months, 24 Luddites were hanged publicly, often after hasty trials, including a 16-year-old who cried out to his mother on the gallows, “thinking that she had the power to save him.” Another two dozen were sent to prison and 51 were sentenced to be shipped off to Australia.

“They were show trials,” says Katrina Navickas, a history professor at the University of Hertfordshire. “They were put on to show that [the government] took it seriously.” The hangings had the intended effect: Luddite activity more or less died out immediately.

It was a defeat not just of the Luddite movement, but in a grander sense, of the idea of “fair profit”—that the productivity gains from machinery should be shared widely. “By the 1830s, people had largely accepted that the free-market economy was here to stay,” Navickas notes.

A few years later, the once-mighty croppers were broken. Their trade destroyed, most eked out a living by carrying water, scavenging, or selling bits of lace or cakes on the streets.

“This was a sad end,” one observer noted, “to an honorable craft.”

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These days, Adrian Randall thinks technology is making cab-driving worse. Cabdrivers in London used to train for years to amass “the Knowledge,” a mental map of the city’s twisty streets. Now GPS has made it so that anyone can drive an Uber—so the job has become deskilled. Worse, he argues, the GPS doesn’t plot out the fiendishly clever routes that drivers used to. “It doesn’t know what the shortcuts are,” he complains. We are living, he says, through a shift in labor that’s precisely like that of the Luddites.

Economists are divided as to how profound the dis-employment will be. In his recent book Average Is Over, Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, argued that automation could produce profound inequality. A majority of people will find their jobs taken by robots and will be forced into low-paying service work; only a minority—those highly skilled, creative and lucky—will have lucrative jobs, which will be wildly better paid than the rest. Adaptation is possible, though, Cowen says, if society creates cheaper ways of living—“denser cities, more trailer parks.”

Erik Brynjolfsson is less pessimistic. An MIT economist who co-authored The Second Machine Age, he thinks automation won’t necessarily be so bad. The Luddites thought machines destroyed jobs, but they were only half right: They can also, eventually, create new ones. “A lot of skilled artisans did lose their jobs,” Brynjolfsson says, but several decades later demand for labor rose as new job categories emerged, like office work. “Average wages have been increasing for the past 200 years,” he notes. “The machines were creating wealth!”

The problem is that transition is rocky. In the short run, automation can destroy jobs more rapidly than it creates them—sure, things might be fine in a few decades, but that’s cold comfort to someone in, say, their 30s. Brynjolfsson thinks politicians should be adopting policies that ease the transition—much as in the past, when public education and progressive taxation and antitrust law helped prevent the 1 percent from hogging all the profits. “There’s a long list of ways we’ve tinkered with the economy to try and ensure shared prosperity,” he notes.

Will there be another Luddite uprising? Few of the historians thought that was likely. Still, they thought one could spy glimpses of Luddite-style analysis—questioning of whether the economy is fair—in the Occupy Wall Street protests, or even in the environmental movement. Others point to online activism, where hackers protest a company by hitting it with “denial of service” attacks by flooding it with so much traffic that it gets knocked offline.

Perhaps one day, when Uber starts rolling out its robot fleet in earnest, angry out-of-work cabdrivers will go online—and try to jam up Uber’s services in the digital world.

“As work becomes more automated, I think that’s the obvious direction,” as Uglow notes. “In the West, there’s no point in trying to shut down a factory.”

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