Moore's Law, less work

Moore's Law means less work. Okay, not really, but I thought that it would be a catchy title and was an easy way for me to remember the gist of this theme.

Computer power roughly doubles every eighteen months. Machines and software programs are displacing labor. In recent history we have seen several jobless economic recoveries. Productivity rises along with un- and under- employment. It's nothing new, ever since the industrial revolution and even somewhat before, human labor has been displaced with technology. It's just more of a crisis now than before.

What will be the future of work? Paul Krugman reports that the Fed expects the unemployment to remain about 8% until 2012. Krugman recommends "a small-scale version of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, one that would offer relatively low-paying (but much better than nothing) public-service employment".