Aidan,"The problem at the moment is that politicians are obsessed with trying to run a surplus instead of doing what's really needed."

So what is needed Aidan ? More debt ? Total debt of Australia is $5 trillion which is $ 217,000.00 for every person in this country.

The solution is going back to Govt banks that can create new money debt free. You cannot be this stupid and be able to write sentences.

Even 100 years ago, economists were warning that unless the working week was reduced in line with technology-driven improvements to productivity, widespread unemployment would become long-term, irreversible and intractable.

Of course, the warnings went unheeded and, when the totally predictable unemployment rot started to seriously set in throughout the West during the late 70s, all the usual suspects got the blame, except the real culprit - the length of the working week.

Unfortunately, it costs business less to employ one person on a $100,000 salary than two people on $50,000 salaries - so higher wages for fewer people, rather than a reduced working week, became the entrenched paradigm. On that, both trade unionism and big business were in total agreement.

Had common sense prevailed by reducing the working week but leaving wages the same, the average Westerner would now be working an average 20 hour week, there would be full employment and the relocation of First World industries offshore to Third World sweatshops may never have happened.

aussieboy

'Wouldn't we be better off retiring some older people to free up some jobs or at least do an apprenticeship type training rather then raising the retirement age and FORCING both parents to working just to survive'

Nah ... it would never work, mate. Far too sensible.

This argument has been put forward since at least the 19th century, notably by Karl Marx. Yet human society has continued to innovate with major industries that would have not have been comprehended 30 years ago. Service industries have become the major employment sector and has employed those displaced from manufacturing and agricultural industries. Finance, health, IT, communications are all examples of sectors that have grown significantly in recent decades.
The writer also doesn't acknowledge the impact of the ageing of our society will have on our employment market over the next few decades. There will be a much larger part of our population who won't be part of the labor market but will still be consumers of goods and services. There will be large part of our job market who will be meeting the needs of the retired

Yes, people have been (wrongly) predicting for years that technology will kill jobs. But there is a fundamental difference now.

All jobs created have relied on humans being better or cheaper than the equivalent machine. Historically machines have been extremely limited in what they have been able to do. Initially they have been great only where they can replace repetitive, predictable, manual labour. More recently they have been also been used for doing straightforward, predictable mental calculations.

But what's changing is that computer technology is becoming more and more autonomous - using neural techniques to learn tasks as they go rather than having to be programmed. And to add to that, robotic technology is providing much greater dexterity and mobility. We now have driverless cars (something seen inconceivable only a few years ago). In Japan robots are being used to provide care for the elderly. And they've even invented a machine for burger flipping.

As soon as you start paying attention to the massive and rapid increases in technological knowhow (at an unprecedented rate that makes previous improvements seem laughable), you realise we are entering a completely different paradigm.

So the only opening for human employment will be in those areas that machines can't (yet) do well (e.g. creativity), or where they'd be too expensive.

Geoff is absolutely right to highlight the problem.

If we, as a society, continue to bury our heads in the sand and fail to adapt our economic system to a world where unemployment will be getting to 30%, it won't be pretty.

James Rickards ,the author of the death of money says, get ready for a 25yr Depression.$1 of debt used to create $2.40 of growth in the 1960's.Today $1 of debt creates 3 cents of growth and soon it will be negative growth of each $1 of debt.Japan has been QE as debt, money printing, call it what you will for over 20 yrs and their economy continues to get worse as they up the levels of QE as debt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYW5OGWfqJc

"So what is needed Aidan ? More debt ? Total debt of Australia is $5 trillion which is $ 217,000.00 for every person in this country."
Or $69375 for every sheep in this country. Which is far less misleading, as it avoids the misleading impression that the sheep somehow have to pay it off.

But most of the money is money that Australians owe to other Australians. It's not a problem at all.

"The solution is going back to Govt banks that can create new money debt free."
Whether or not debt is always created makes very little difference.

"James Rickards ,the author of the death of money says, get ready for a 25yr Depression"
Of course he does; it helps to sell his book!

"$1 of debt used to create $2.40 of growth in the 1960's.Today $1 of debt creates 3 cents of growth"
Debt was in much shorter supply in the 1960s than it now is.

"and soon it will be negative growth of each $1 of debt"
Baseless claim.

"Japan has been QE as debt, money printing, call it what you will for over 20 yrs and their economy continues to get worse as they up the levels of QE as debt."
Japan's growth is being held back by its sales tax and by high electricity costs (due to the nuclear shutdown).