All I can say is that I am glad that I was born in 1935 and not 2005 because the future does not look very rosy as we head into the next depression.
There is no God to save us either.

David

All the labour saving changes we have become used to will be steadily lost when we drop off the other side of the energy cliff. http://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/tverberg-estimate-of-future-energy-production.png

The underlying reason we can't come to grips with population growth is because we are a species, like any other species, which expands due to certain conditions, in this case population growth has mirrored the growth of cheap fossil fuels. There is a shadowing effect which translates to a delay - http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/predation/tmp26.gif

Individuals may clearly see that there is a problem with overpopulation but collectively, we haven't been able to get our act together.

We are to some extent in collusion with politicians to maintain our way of life as long as possible.

It's all a question of timing. I expect the process to be quite drawn out with occasional peaks and troughs. But economically the overall direction will be downward.

Our world without cheap fossil fuels will not be able to support about the same populations it supported prior to their discovery. It is a very different world now than then however, with failing infrastructure, Climate Change, species loss, tapped out soils, pollution and environmental destruction to cope with.

So who knows how long automation will last. Obviously, we are using up the earth's resources at a steady and unrelenting rate - http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/

with all the frothing at the mouth from the tax payer funded abc you can see why youth unemployment is only going to continue. Overpaid public servants who somehow manage to convince the gullible that they are the ones who care and yet are really just about self interest. Yep the unions will continue to force Labour to increase wages for already overpaid and often lazy Government workers and people will be dumb enough to question the reason their are no jobs for kids. Well just like Greece selfishness is the obvious answer. Does anyone but the abc luvies really believe Tony Jones is worth $300,000 plus to sprout his propaganda.

This very article could have been written a couple of hundred years ago by a Luddite, seeing all their handwork being sacrificed to new technology!
Even so, it was this very technological change that dragged billions out of endless endemic generational poverty.

Computers are useful tools/slaves not original thinkers! And we will always need those!
Yes we are heading for another Great Depression, and not because our jobs are being replaced by machines that work day and night.
These machines have a flaw, they all need cheaper energy and lots of it; and can do absolutely nothing without it!

Things we can and should do!
Stop growing the population as are only ACCEPTED method of growing the economy, but instead concentrate on ending poverty in all its forms and guises, wherever we find it.
Even if that means unemployment benefits/pensions at least 80% of an average male wage; and or, people paid to just consume!
One of the very obvious flaws in the author's thinking is the absolute link between work,(wages)and consumption.

During the last Great Depression people made do, tied it up with wire to keep it going.
During the next one people will need to be paid to consume, but only if we would keep this highly automated system alive and running!

And we will need to bring the cost of energy way down, rather than make it ever increasingly expensive, just so some mindless profit graph can just keep growing!
Or automated factories that roll day and night without more than half a dozen technicians employed to keep the whole thing running, making products only the techs can afford!

With many following the metals industries and steam to their own (too few customers, the life blood of all private enterprise) ultimate end!

By which time people, (survivors) will have to learn all over again how to make things and hand produce their own sustenance, cooperate for the common good; build their own mud brick huts and hand made tools/weapons!
Rhrosty.

"One thing the IT industry does well is to enable efficiency. I have on my mantle piece a 400 Megabyte drive that cost me $2,800. That was $7.00 per megabyte in 1991. Last week, at Officeworks you could get 4 terabytes (that's 4,000 megabytes) for $199.00. That's $0.05 cents per megabyte. Now, that's efficiency."

No, it's miscalculation!

4000 megabytes is 4 gigabytes.
4 terabytes is 4000 000 megabytes.

Your hard drive cost $0.00004975 per megabyte, or about 0.005 cents.
Or to put it another way... each cent buys 201 megabytes, or just over half your 1991 purchase.

But this efficiency increase is enabling people to do a lot more. The age of BIG DATA has already begun, even if you haven't noticed it yet.

You dismiss growth because the world is finite, but you've failed to comprehend that the world is enormous. And anyway, growth in economic value doesn't equate to growth in resource use. Compare those hard drives: which do you think took more resources to make? Which one would use more electricity to run?

Your key point that "Australians are too expensive to employ and be globally competitive" fails to take into account that many Australians are highly educated and skilled, and we are globally competitive because of that. Plus our primary industries are very productive.

As long as employers (including the government) are willing to spend money, there will be jobs. All these efficiency gains enable the money supply to be increased without a corresponding increase in inflation, so there should not be a problem providing enough jobs. The problem at the moment is that politicians are obsessed with trying to run a surplus instead of doing what's really needed.

Joske, your claim that "All the labour saving changes we have become used to will be steadily lost when we drop off the other side of the energy cliff" assumes there will be an energy cliff.

There won't. It's hard to believe that anyone could take a prediction like http://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/tverberg-estimate-of-future-energy-production.png seriously; in reality renewables are rapidly expanding, yet Tverberg forecasts a decline in their use. He also forecasts a decline in nuclear power production concurrent with a sharp decline in fossil fuel production.

I found his explanation in the comments at http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/01/29/a-forecast-of-our-energy-future-why-common-solutions-dont-work/#more-38772 : he thinks governments of countries producing the nuclear fuel will collapse. He also vastly overestimates the difficulty of wind turbine maintenance, and he doesn't seem to realise most solar cells are made of silicon rather than expensive exotic materials.