[monkeynotes]

This takeover will be basically like the Great Depression where big farm came in and swiped all the land and mechanized it so one large corporation can farm thousands of acres of land with no care for those they displaced. Jobs all over the economic spectrum are going to be automated, and rapidly. Vast amounts of people are going to be jobless until we somehow figure out our next move. You can bet regular lives won't be improved by any of these technological gains. A toaster makes making toast easier, but automated burger flipping won't make anything easier for anyone other than the franchise owner and the parent corp.

The 50s sold us on industrialized farming as making food cheaper, we'd work less, and have more free time. This sort of worked for the middle class suburbanites (single income earner, two cars, and leisure time), but over the next two decades all that went away.

Today you can't hope to make it through a middle class family life without both parents working, and prices of food, housing, energy all represent that. Meanwhile energy, pharma, commerce, tech are all making billions in surplus profit. Two incomes have replaced one, double the workforce but economically rewarded with half the mobility. Wages have not had to go up because we just added another earner to the picture.

[UncleOxidant]

> Today you can't hope to make it through a middle class family life without both parents working, and prices of food, housing, energy all represent that.

It's primarily the cost of housing that necessitates two earner households. Yes, food is up a good bit in the last couple of years, but food & energy are pretty small when compared to cost of housing. Some of high housing costs are on loose monetary policy and some on restrictive zoning.

[IdiocyInAction]

On the other hand more people are retired and in schooling than ever. Someone also has to produce the surplus for those people.