Globotics: You Heard It Here First

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According to economist Richard Baldwin, "Globalization and AI are primed to disrupt tomorrow’s workplace."  Baldwin's thesis is:

... that globalization and AI robots constitute a “globotics” tidal wave that will shake the foundation of middle-class prosperity in wealthy nations. This, he [Baldwin] argues, will lead to social upheaval, just as 19th-century steam engines and mechanical looms created workplace disruptions that brought workers to the streets in sometimes violent protest.

Learn more about Baldwin's new book, The Globotics Upheaval, published by Oxford University Press, which provides a compelling analysis how a new form of globalization will combine with software robots to disrupt service-sector and professional jobs in the same way automation and trade disrupted manufacturing jobs in the past.

Global Economy Is No Longer U.S.-Centric

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Is the U.S. housing blowout going to hurt the rest of the world? Certainly, a major slowdown in the planet's biggest economy would cause some countries pain.

But much of the globe will likely shrug off the worst effects of any American slump. "The global economy is no longer U.S.-centric," says Ed Yardeni, an economist who heads Yardeni Research in New York. "We may find that the global economic boom continues, notwithstanding the slowdown in the U.S."

The old theory is that when America sneezes the rest of the world gets sick (hence, the photo of an American girl sneezing) but it may not apply these days.

More here.