[ksk]

Well, nobody is "owed" a job. Markets transform and respond to pressures. When you operate in a saturated market like the US the only line item on the balance sheet that is easy to tackle is labor costs, not revenue or profit. Your customers aren't going to buy products from you because you gave a raise to your janitor instead of replacing them with a roomba (relax, its a joke :P). The China/Walmart economy is here to stay. For retail companies, the only growth markets that you can sell into are the developing world markets around the world. These are also the companies your retirement funds are invested in, unless you don't want your savings to grow. If every country turned protectionist, it will trigger a massive economic depression. I suppose we'd come out of it eventually, if global warming doesn't kill us first :)

[cmxch]

So what do you do for those that end up on the wrong side of the equation, especially those who have been there for a long time?

[thephyber]

I don't understand why some HNer is expected to have an answer for this because no part of US society does.

We've underfunded career counseling in public schools for generations. We don't have any healthy career retraining system like other OECD countries do. Unemployment systems in the USA are nearly useless when it comes to retraining employees -- they really just act as job boards. Most states don't seem capable of attracting different industries, so when a batch of jobs leave a region, those employees struggle to find a near replacement. We have massive mental health and addiction problems so companies spend a lot of effort to avoid hiring anyone who might raise these costs for the company.

US society doesn't actually care about employees who don't take care of themselves. It's time we stop pretending like we do and call a spade a spade.

[mbrodersen]

Yep agree. At least be honest about not giving a s* about other people. That would be a small improvement.

[nine_zeros]

> So what do you do for those that end up on the wrong side of the equation, especially those who have been there for a long time?

Tax the capitalists to reduce inequality and also fully fund better programs like healthcare, education? This funding is wages for workers and as a society we remain developed?

The only problem with all our systems is disproportionate gains at the top.

[gurumeditations]

Everyone in western society is owed a good well-paying job so long as they’re also willing to work for it. It’s our birthright and expectation. You can believe that no one is owed that and that everyone can just work for pennies from Walmart as America and the Western world continues to go down in flames.

[ksk]

Well, that is certainly a major difference between our points of view. I'm not going to say that you're wrong. Global labor arbitrage is an expected byproduct of Capitalism. There is no easy fix for that. Economies will have to transform as the requirements of the workforce change. The trend is certainly towards more automation and off-shoring, and just like we don't expect people to be ditch-diggers anymore, maybe we won't expect them to do menial jobs too. And on top of that the current population of the world is simply not sustainable, doesn't matter where you live.