We will end this week's discussion on public transportation looking at the biggest project of global human transportation in world history------the Clinton era global human capital slave trading distribution system. Bigger than that during the 1500s colonization of the Americas---bigger than that OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE TRADE SYSTEM. We are aware of how slaves and indentured citizens were transported back in DARK AGES and before the revolutions ----ships carrying human cargo. Clinton Initiative rebuilt that global slave trade in 1990s bringing a new form of transporting indentured and enslaved workers. Below we see Brown University ----that university tied to the original colonial slave trade-----partnered with Hebrew University-----discussing the building of this global slave trade in the 1990s. We cannot copy this academic article but please Google it to understand when MOVING FORWARD went into high gear. Global Johns Hopkins and Brown University are the two institutions most tied to rebuilding this global human capital distribution system moving global labor pool to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES around the world. It is slave trading because these developing nation leaders were rewarded financially for throwing their citizens into these global corporate sweat shop labor systems.
These few decades of Clinton/Bush/Obama have been about identifying the most talented in communities around the world, tying them to global IVY LEAGUEs and through those GREEKS, AND FREEMASON ties sending our 99% talented citizens around the world leaving behind their communities like Baltimore----like Providence RI----with no leadership. These are what became those 5% to the 1%----dedicated to building Foreign Economic Zones overseas---knowing global citizens were being enslaved in these systems often setting the stage for those transported by this global human capital distribution system unable to return to their nations.
We are made to believe this is all great for America----I'm sure Hebrew University told their citizens it was great for Israel-----it is all simply those same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% who were involved in colonial slave trade----in Venetian Empire slave trade et al.
We allowed our highly trained US professionals to become literally human capital distribution system products as they were sent overseas to build economic structures that killed our US economy. They were no doubt paid well unlike those global labor pool 99% enslaved in global sweat shop factories.
THE LOGISTICS OF TRANSPORTING THESE LARGE NUMBERS OF HUMAN CAPITAL AROUND THE WORLD THESE FEW DECADES WAS A HUGE ENDEAVOR.
As we see today, the goal was in 1990s to end the status of high-skilled high wage status----and that is what MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE WAGE BASIC INCOME is doing now.
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Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
Global talent mobility and human capital agglomeration
Sari Pekkala Kerr, William Kerr, Çağlar Özden, Christopher Parsons 31 January 2017
The distribution of talent and human capital is highly skewed across the world. As high-income countries engage in a global race for talent, the resulting migration of high-skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further. This column draws upon newly available data to outline the patterns and implications of global talent mobility. Key results include recent dramatic increases in high-skilled migration flows, particularly in certain occupations, in certain countries, among those with higher skill levels, and from a wider range of origins.
High-skilled workers play a central and starring role in today’s knowledge economy. Workers with valuable and transferrable skills have a higher propensity to migrate both domestically and abroad. Yet, not all high-income destinations are equally attractive in the professional and social opportunities they present for immigrants. Countries differ in their geographic accessibility, professional attractiveness, and the degree to which they welcome foreigners. While there is a complex web of factors involved, the central outcome is clear – the flows of high-skilled migrants are very concentrated, both within and across national borders.
This agglomeration of talent has been documented by economists for the upper tail of the talent distribution (Stephan and Levin 2001, Wasmer et al. 2007, Stephan 2010, Weinberg 2011, Kerr 2016), but systematic progress on these important flows has consistently confronted data limitations. In two recent and complementary papers, we provide a systematic review of available global data sources, the observed patterns of high-skilled migration, the role of firms and national policies in shaping these flows, and the underlying agglomeration economies that produce these concentrations (Kerr et al. 2016, 2017). Here we go through some key examples from these findings.
Rapid increase
Overall levels of international migration have been hovering around 3% over the last 60 years. Beneath this perceived stability, global migration patterns have become increasingly asymmetric along several critical dimensions, especially human capital and skills. There were about 28 million high-skilled migrants (defined as at least one-year of tertiary education) residing in OECD countries in 2010, an increase of nearly 130% since 1990. This exceptional rise is the result of several forces – for example, increased efforts by policymakers as they recognise the central role of human capital in economic growth, positive spillovers generated by skill agglomeration, declines in transportation and communication costs, and the rise in the pursuit of foreign education by young people.
Concentration across destinations
While OECD countries constitute less than a fifth of the world’s population, they host two-thirds of high-skilled migrants (OECD 2013, Artuç et al. 2015). Among OECD destinations, the distribution of talent is even more skewed. Four Anglo-Saxon countries – the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia – are the chosen destinations for nearly 70% of high-skilled migrants (to the OECD) in 2010. The US alone has historically hosted close to half of all high-skilled migrants to the OECD and one-third of high-skilled migrants worldwide. The attractiveness of these English-speaking, high-income countries has led other destination countries, such as France, Germany, and Spain, to increase their policy efforts to attract high-skilled workers. Nevertheless, the volume of skilled migration to the four Anglo-Saxon countries, coupled with the significant asymmetry in the concentration of leading universities, high-tech firms and research centres, implies that the global competition for skills will continue to be fierce yet unequal.
Increased concentration with increased skill levels
Agglomeration of talent is even starker within the upper tail of the talent distribution. The Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Medicine, and Physics, along with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, all provide powerful examples. In the first third of the time period since 1901, 9% of these Nobel Prize winners were born in the US and 13% were affiliated with US institutions at the time of their winning. In the most recent third of the time period, however, academics associated with American institutions have won over 65% of these Nobel Prizes, yet only 46% of this group was born in the US. Of all Nobel Prizes across the four subject areas, 31% (203 of 661) have been awarded to immigrants, of whom 53% (107 of 203) were affiliated with American institutions. The asymmetry of the flows is remarkable. Only four Americans were affiliated with non-American institutions when they received the award, out of 230 total Nobel Prizes being awarded to Americans. Our papers document similar relationships in other settings like professional sports and movie stars.
Concentrated in particular occupations
Many host countries end up with higher concentrations of high-skilled immigrants in particular occupations. For example, immigrants account for some 57% of scientists residing in Switzerland, 45% in Australia, and 38% in the US (Franzoni et al 2012). In the US in 2010, 27% of all physicians and surgeons and over 35% of current medical residents were foreign-born. Immigrants accounted for over 35% of recent enrollments in STEM fields, with very high proportions in specific areas like Electrical Engineering (70%), Computer Science (63%) and Economics (55%) as reported by Anderson (2013).
Concentration within country
Stark inequalities in the concentrations of talent also exist across regions and cities within individual destination countries as demonstrated by Figure 1. We observe significant concentrations of high-skilled migrants in Boston, Northern and Southern California, Chicago, New York City, Miami and Seattle, among others. Our papers document how these spatial concentrations are even sharper in scientific fields and are also present globally – for example, London, New York, Paris, and Milan continue to maintain their positions as the global capitals of finance and fashion.
Figure 1. Distribution of high-skilled migrants in the US, 2010
Notes: Data on high-skilled migrants by Public Use Micro Areas in 2010 are drawn from the 5-year sample of the American Community Survey. These data are subsequently merged to 1990 Commuting Zones using the crosswalk files and weights developed by David Dorn. High-skilled migrants are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education.
Increase from wider range of origins
OECD countries are increasingly attracting high-skilled migrants from a wider set of origin countries. Figure 2 summarises this pattern by displaying cumulative distributions for high-skilled immigration and emigration stocks in 2010 where origin and destination countries are ranked by the size of their emigrant and immigrant populations respectively. The red line at the top-left of the graph shows the distribution of high-skilled workers in destination countries. This line starts at almost 40%, as the US is the first-ranked country and accounts for the largest share of global immigration flows. As noted earlier, further adding the UK, Canada, and Australia pushes the cumulative share to almost 75%. The second (blue) line graphs the equivalent distribution for emigration of high-skilled workers, with origin countries now ranked by how many migrants they send abroad. The gap between the two lines clearly shows that skilled emigration originates from many countries, even if it flows to relatively few.
Figure 2. Cumulative distribution of high-skilled immigration and emigration, 2010
Notes: Data are from Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) and non-OECD Countries (DIOC-E). High-skilled workers are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education. The data presented cover people of working age (25+). Countries are ranked according to their share of total high-skilled immigrant inflows and outflows, respectively. These distributions demonstrate that emigration flows have a much wider base relative to the more-concentrated set of immigrant destinations.
Many origin countries have limited educational capacities and fiscal resources to train workers or to replace those that have emigrated. Countries experiencing particularly high emigration rates of high-skilled workers to OECD destinations in 2010 tended to be small, low-income countries, and island states, such as Guyana (93%) and Haiti (82%). Figure 3 demonstrates this inverse relationship between country size and high-skilled emigration rates. Emigration rates are also decreasing in GDP per capita, and these patterns are much starker for high-skilled migration than for overall flows. These movements of high-skilled labour away from certain small and low-income countries have raised controversies about ‘brain drain’.
Figure 3. Emigration rates of high-skilled workers by population, 2010
Notes: Emigration data are from Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) and non-OECD Countries (DIOC-E). High-skilled workers are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education. The data cover people of working age (25+) and pertain to over 200 origin countries. GDP per capita and population data are from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank accessible at databank.worldbank.org/wdi.
Figure 4 further illustrates that high-skilled migrants tend to travel farther to their destination countries than their less-skilled compatriots. This graph shows the cumulative distribution of distances travelled by migrants of different skill levels in 2010. The median distance travelled by a high-skilled migrant is 7,000 miles, while it is below 4,000 for low-skilled migrants.
Figure 4. Cumulative distribution of migration distance, 2010
Notes: Figure 4 plots the relationship between the stock of immigrants to OECD countries and the distance between their destination and origin countries. The data come from Arslan et al (2014) and refer to those of age 25 or over. Tertiary-educated individuals are defined as high-skilled.
Agglomeration foundation
These high-skilled migration patterns can be explained with agglomeration economies. The presence of high-skilled people in a geographic location – regardless of whether they are natives or immigrants – increases the incentives for additional high-skilled people to move there due to a wide range positive externalities. Many high-skilled occupations and sectors with high migrant shares exhibit such agglomeration effects where individuals’ productivity is enhanced by the presence of, or collaboration with, other high-skilled workers employed in similar or related occupations and sectors.
At the core of the agglomeration process is trade in knowledge services provided by high-skilled people. High-tech companies headquartered in Silicon Valley compete with each other globally; their market is not limited to Northern California. The clusters allow better technology exchanges, deeper labour market specialisation, stronger complementary inputs (e.g. specialised lawyers), and so on. Thus, there is no inherent limit as to how many firms can physically locate in Silicon Valley. On the contrary, the presence of entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists lead to the employment of others like them as they start new firms or expand existing ones.
In the presence of agglomeration effects, migration of the highly skilled into a geographic area or sector need not lead to a decline in returns to skills or to wages. As a result, this mechanism can be quite self-reinforcing as demonstrated in the endogenous growth literature (Jones 1995). Agglomeration effects and spillovers increase the returns to higher skills in one country rather than in others, and may even create sharp differences across regions within the same country. These effects can be accentuated as the economics of firms enter into high-skilled migration movement decisions (Kerr et al. 2015a, 2015b).
These agglomeration factors and their implications for economic growth make the economics of high-skilled migration quite different from those of low-skilled migration. Moreover, the critical role of gatekeepers like firms and universities for national admissions are greatly unexplored compared to their importance. The data necessary to analyse these important patterns are just coming online, and the future research potential is immense.
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REAL left social progressive academics KNEW back in the 1990s this high-skilled human capital movement from our US universities overseas would not END WELL. No doubt these same 5% are those coming back to US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones build the same here in US----and we can guess they are those 5% GREEKS and FREEMASONS----these were the folks building these few decades that global labor pool for 99% of workers in Foreign Economic Zones around the world. This was MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE back in Clinton era 1990s.
We bet those 5% university grads choosing to head overseas to be involved in building Foreign Economic Zones did not see themselves as global human capital being distributed by a system that would lead to even high-skilled professionals being brought to extreme poverty but that is where we are today. US being flooded today with global high-skilled labor working for lower wages -----soon to become third world wages ----is the final goal of Clinton Initiative.
THE LARGEST PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PROJECT IN WORLD HISTORY WAS INDEED THE REBUILDING OF GLOBAL HUMAN CAPITAL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM BY CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
This is what we mean when we shout ---our university grads need to return to their communities to grow local business economies and not become those global Wall Street players........
'These movements of high-skilled labour away from certain small and low-income countries have raised controversies about ‘brain drain’.
When WE THE PEOPLE allowed global neo-liberal economics to replace our left social progressive economics -----this means allowing MONOPOLY---then GLOBAL MONOPOLY----our university economics departments became those structures designing global human capital distribution systems. Yes, this SOARED DURING CLINTON ERA.
US citizens are NOT human CAPITAL-----and we hope we would not see global citizens as CAPITAL. When we saw our universities taking these economic stances---WE SHOUTED AS REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES in 1990s that our left Democratic Party was being taken by far-right global Wall Street. It is at this time Clinton neo-liberals gathered those 5% to the 1% and created those global Wall Street Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations to PRETEND TO BE WORKING FOR 99% ---while working to build this global labor pool human capital distribution system.
If WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% were ENGAGED AND EDUCATING in public policy---we would have seen this really, really, really bad global public transportation structure being built. Today, we are now seeing inside US the expansion of global labor pool in our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones like Baltimore.
Global Human Capital Trends
As of the start of 2016, the world’s population is estimated at about 7.4 billion people. Out of these, just over two fifths (41%) fall within the prime working age group of 25–54 year-olds, 16% fall within the 15–24 age group and 26% are aged under 15. At the upper end of the world population pyramid, 9% of the world’s people fall within the 55–64 age group and 8% are aged 65 and over (see Figure 6). Aiming to be as representative of each segment of the global population as possible, these percentage distributions are also used as pillar weights in constructing the Human Capital Index.
This is, however, a simplifying assumption, since countries’ exact population distributions tend to bifurcate into those that are ageing and those experiencing a “youth bulge”, with a small cohort of countries undergoing a demographic transition with the potential of a reaping a temporary “demographic dividend” (whereby the share of the prime working age population expands before the older age groups do so as well). In practice, the share of under 25 year-olds in our sample countries ranges from 68.2% in Uganda to 23.1% in Germany, while the share of over 65 year-olds ranges from 26.9% in Japan to 1.2% in the United Arab Emirates. For a detailed discussion of index construction and weighting decisions, please refer to the Technical Notes on the Report website.Going beyond national population averages, our data highlights the unequal development and deployment of human capital across the age-group spectrum (see Figure 6). On average, the world has developed 81% of the human capital potential of the youngest members of the global population for whom the Index assesses education among the most critical factors. This is in line with recent massive investment pushes in this age bracket—such as the former United Nations Millennium Development Goals and UNESCO’s Education for All agenda—and places the 0–14 age group significantly ahead of other parts of the global population with regard to its realized human capital potential.
However, in the 15–24 age group, for whom the Index emphasizes factors such as workplace relevant skills and a successful education-to-employment transition, countries have on average only leveraged 66% of young people’s human capital potential, pointing to a disconnect between learning and employment in many economies around the world.
Moving on to the next stage within the Index’s life-course approach to human capital analysis, countries on average only make use of 63% of the full human capital potential of their 25–54 year-old prime working age population. As discussed above, at the regional and individual country level, there is, however, a wide divergence around the world in human capital outcomes for this age group, for whom the Index emphasizes continuous learning opportunities in the workplace and employment quality. High-performing countries, such as the Nordics and Switzerland, have maximized more than 80% of the human capital of their prime age population; 16 countries in the Index have yet to cross the 50% threshold.
Finally, the world’s older workforce—for whom the Index assesses both continued opportunity and health and quality of life—is the most underinvested-in segment of the global population, with human capital optimization ranging from 67% on average in the 55–64 age group to only 54% on average in the 65 and over age group.
Our analysis shows that—in addition to measures such as bringing young people into work and preparing the next generation of workers in countries with high youth unemployment—human capital investment must also continue building up the human capital potential of the population above age 25 or risk neglecting, on average, 58% of a nation’s total talent. This is particularly true for advanced, ageing economies with a very different population pyramid from the young, emerging world. In fact, the declining share of the youth cohort in ageing economies implies that relying wholly on today’s students to meet future skills requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not going to be enough to stay competitive, since older age groups will continue to form the bulk of these countries’ workforces for a long time to come. With rapidly rising healthy life expectancies, life-long learning and re-skilling of existing workforces will become much more important. Equally important will be the removal of unconscious biases and unintentional disincentives against hiring and retaining older workers.10 Similarly, barriers to women’s employment throughout the life-course need to be addressed through both public policy, particularly an improved care infrastructure, and private sector efforts.
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We need these 5% players who no doubt were paid a good salary working as EX-PATS these few decades to WAKE UP ---dismantling the US as a first world developed democratic republic to advance ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE killing 99% of citizens is crazy stuff..............
'In fact, the declining share of the youth cohort in ageing economies implies that relying wholly on today’s students to meet future skills requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not going to be enough to stay competitive, since older age groups will continue to form the bulk of these countries’ workforces for a long time to come'.
The RACE TO THE TOP education reform was designed to do just this ----strengthen the global labor pool human capital distribution system by throwing US citizens black, white, and brown into this PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM. This is what those PESKY 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS have been doing these few decades and are today still MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US cities as Foreign Economic Zones.
WE CAN SEE WHY ALL MOVEMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL MUST NOW BE CONTAINED---THERE WILL BE NO HAPPY CAMPERS IN THE US 99%----OR GLOBAL 99% INSIDE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
The Clinton era saw Foreign Economic Zone expansion soar taking our US corporations overseas and taking our labor unions from local, to national, to INTERNATIONAL and VOILA now our international labor union leaders are team 5% to the 1% global Wall Street players. This is why we must break from International labor unions and rebuild our labor unions locally.
This is what left social progressive academics were shouting in the 1990s against Clinton while national media and global Wall Street organizations were calling all this CONSPIRACY THEORY------please take time to understand political stances even if they may end up being real conspiracy theories---
THIS IS A GREAT DESCRIPTION OF THOSE GLOBAL WALL STREET 1%--THEIR 2% --AND THAT 5%
'These loners are driven only by the ethos of self-serving competitiveness. Blindly attached to money. Insecure and paranoid. No wonder we’re so unwell today'.
'Is human capital theory, and neoclassical economics, a form of extremism'?
What is human capital?
Human capital theory was invented as an ideological weapon in the Cold War. Now it is helping to Uberise the world of work
Workers leaving Pennsylvania shipyards, Beaumont, Texas in 1943. Photo by John Vachon/Library of Congress
Peter Fleming is professor of business and society at Cass Business School at City, University of London. His latest book is The Death of Homo Economicus (forthcoming, 2017).
Is human capital theory, and neoclassical economics, a form of extremism?
Chicago, 1960. The United States is bogged down in a long, expensive and dangerous Cold War with the Soviet Union. Inside the Economics Building at the University of Chicago, two academics are engaged in a private, intense conversation. Theodore ‘Teddy’ Schultz is tall and lanky. Raised on a South Dakota farm and pulled out of school by his father, he’d still managed to scale the heady heights of academia, first as chairman of the Economics Department in 1944 and then as president of the American Economic Association in 1960. Schultz has strong connections with the Ford Foundation, an important front for CIA programmes during the Cold War.
His younger sparring partner is Milton Friedman who in 1946 joined what became known as the ‘Chicago school’. Although Friedman was of diminutive stature, measuring only 1.52 metres tall, he already enjoyed a fierce reputation as a verbal opponent. Friedman will flirt with the CIA in due course too, training Chilean economists in the art of neoliberal ‘shock therapy’. His know-how came in handy after the US-sponsored overthrow/death of Chile’s Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973. Richard Nixon said he wanted to hear the Chilean economy scream.
As the two men faced each other in that dark, oak-panelled office, they had a big problem on their hands. University economists were being recast in a new light by US state authorities; no longer bumbling professors (sporting a pipe and tweed jacket) but the creators of ideational weapons, just as important as the intercontinental ballistic missiles being readied at Vandenberg airbase in California. Members of the Chicago school were confident they could make a significant contribution in the struggle.
But how exactly?
Schultz shifts nervously in his leather-bound chair. Economic growth has to be the answer, he avers. Friedman nods in agreement, but quietly frowns as Schultz makes his case. In Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev has just announced that ‘growth of industrial and agricultural production is the battering ram with which we shall smash the capitalist system’. This brazen provocation caused a stir when it was read to the US Joint Economic Committee of Congress in 1959.
Friedman is stony silent – a rarity that Schultz seizes upon to extend his point. There’s a very pragmatic aspect to his plan, too. Not only is growth a ‘hot topic’ following the Khrushchev speech, but a number of powerful technocrats in the US government are increasingly sympathetic to Schultz’s views, especially the Council of Economic Advisers. They’ve been instructed by the Oval Office to devise a growth strategy that will eclipse the USSR and leave it for dead.
Although Schultz holds staunch neoclassical assumptions about growth and development, he learnt from his earlier studies of agricultural productivity that increased public spending on education was absolutely vital to the nation’s growth agenda. It will not only give the US a scientific edge in the space race but also enrich the country’s wider skill reserves, making it more productive and thus beating the Soviets at their own ‘growth game’.
Friedman abruptly interjects. Yes, he intones, the question of economic growth is vital. But public spending is not the way forward. It’s easy to picture Friedman browbeating his weary chairman once again about the evils of ‘big government’ and central planning. The Soviet enemy instead needs to be confronted on strictly US terms, where individual freedom and capitalist enterprise come to the fore. Government is the problem, not the solution. Friedman’s ideal hero is the self-made entrepreneur. He often cited a joke from the vaudeville humourist Will Rogers to cut down his government-friendly critics: just be thankful you don’t get the government you actually pay for!
Here, Friedman is echoing the views of the Austrian free-market zealot F A Hayek, who had joined the University of Chicago in 1950. While exiled in London back in the 1940s, Hayek had written the rabid anti-communist tract, The Road to Serfdom. A condensed version was published by Reader’s Digest and made its author famous. Hayek’s near-fanatical belief in capitalist individualism and all things anti-USSR undoubtedly swayed the terms of the debate that Schultz and Friedman were presently having.
The two academics pause to gather their thoughts. Then the concept of human capital is broached. Possibly by Schultz since it might help to find some common ground with his tiny counterpart. Unfortunately, it proved to be the older academic’s undoing in the debate.
In essence, the idea of human capital wasn’t new. Adam Smith had pointed out long before how the skills and abilities acquired by workers (eg, training, education, etc) can add economic value to an enterprise. But Schultz had only recently become intrigued by the idea. He actively encouraged new faculty and PhD students to build a more robust and formalistic theory of human capital. Legend has it that Schultz suddenly grasped its importance after visiting an impoverished farm. He asked the threadbare owners why they were so content. Because they’d managed to send their children to school, they replied. It would guarantee a secure income for the family long into the future.
Friedman too was fascinated by the notion of human capital, but from a different angle. Some junior colleagues – including Gary Becker, Friedman’s doctoral student who would make his name in this branch of economics – had made some major breakthroughs. One in particular caught Friedman’s eye. Unlike money or equipment, this type of capital cannot conceptually be separated from the individual who owns it. It’s intrinsically part of him. And by extension, someone’s human capital cannot be owned by anyone else since that would be slavery. Therefore, who exactly ought to have the responsibility of investing in it or the enjoyment of its benefits? We gain an inkling of where Friedman stood on the issue from an early paper of Becker’s, in which he showed why it’s irrational for a firm to fund employee training schemes since that same investment might one day literally walk out the door and join a rival.
Friedman probably agreed with Schultz that human capital theory was the ideational weapon they’d been searching for to counter the Soviet threat on the economic front. The very phrase implied that human beings’ interests naturally coincide with the values of capitalism. But therein lay the tension between the two economists. Schultz’s rendition of human capital theory – with all its talk of public spending programmes and central planning – threatened to dilute this image of the independent, self-reliant pseudo-capitalist that everyone was assumed to be.
It appears that the force of Friedman’s argument hit a nerve. We see clear signs of it in Schultz’s inaugural presidential speech to the American Economic Association in December 1960. As expected, he stressed the importance of national investment in human capital and its correlation with economic growth. Towards the end of the talk, Schultz mentions that a colleague has asked for clarification on a crucial detail: ‘Should the returns from public investment in human capital accrue to the individuals in whom it is made?’
Schultz wants to reply ‘yes’. He believes that governmental investment in people’s skills is essential and ought to be managed as a public good. Those skills might be utilised as a private advantage by individuals, like a state-funded tertiary education being used to increase a person’s income over his lifetime. But the investment will ultimately have wider positive effects or ‘externalities’ on the economy in its turn. However, Schultz begins to hesitate on this point. He seems to recognise that the intellectual ground has shifted and soon seems a bit confused:
The policy issues implicit in this question run deep and are full of perplexities pertaining to both resource allocation and to welfare. Physical capital that is formed by public investment is not transferred as a rule to particular individuals as a gift. It would greatly simplify the allocative processes if public investment in human capital were placed on the same footing.We learn in a footnote to the published version of the address who the bothersome colleague was. Friedman, of course.
Friedman cheerfully summed up human capital theory in a pithy catchphrase: there is no such thing as a free lunch
The answer Friedman received from Schultz is understandably ambivalent, with two possible conclusions. First, returns on human capital derived from public investment (eg, taxes) ought to remain in public hands. The problem here is that this would be socialism. And besides, we’ve already learnt that the individual cannot be separated from his human capital. So that leaves only the second conclusion. If the returns on human capital derived from public investment (eg, taxes) aren’t a ‘gift’ to the individual benefactor, then he or she should bear some or all of the investment costs. In short, this is no handout.
The Schultz camp was fighting a losing battle. The government’s attempts to apply his ideas and dramatically increase federal education spending were shot down in 1961 and 1963. Detractors construed it as creeping welfare or worse.
More importantly, Friedman’s decisive encounter with Schultz still reverberates today, and not in a good way. For example, one can trace a red thread from his 1960 victory concerning who’s exactly responsible for human capital investment, and the student debt catastrophe unfolding presently in the US, UK and many other countries that embraced neoliberalism a little too uncritically. Want a university degree and to get ahead in life but can’t afford it? Then here’s a student loan to tide you over, with terms and conditions that will hound you to the grave. The underlying message of human capital theory turns out to be simple, and Friedman cheerfully summed it up in a pithy catchphrase during the 1970s: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Friedman had discovered in human capital theory more than just a means for boosting economic growth. The very way it conceptualised human beings was an ideological weapon too, especially when it came to counteracting the labour-centric discourse of communism, both outside and inside the US. For doesn’t human capital theory provide the ultimate conservative retort to the Marxist slogan that workers should seize the means of production? If each person is already his own means of production, then the presumed conflict at the heart of the capitalist labour process logically dissolves. Schultz too was starting to see the light, and agreed that workers might actually be de facto capitalists: ‘labourers have become capitalists not from the diffusion of the ownership of corporation stocks, as folk law would have it, but from the acquisition of knowledge and skill that have economic value.’
One can only guess what the Soviet Union made of all this. Human capital theory was literally ‘disappearing’ workers from the dominant narrative concerning what made capitalism tick. It was an ingenious ploy for spreading pro-capitalist sympathies throughout the US, particularly among the working classes who were starting to suspect that their current employer might be the real enemy. Now capitalists were speaking a different language: ‘How can you be against us? In fact, you’re one of us!’
With the elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, human capital theory found hospitable political environments in the Anglo world. What followed in the UK, the US and other countries could best be described as a massive decollectivisation movement. Society no longer existed. Only individuals and their families did. Hayek in particular was a major revelation for the Iron Lady, who endlessly praised him.
the story of human capital theory in Western economies has been about divesting in people
In this new vision of the economy, workers can’t be seen as a specific class with shared interests. They didn’t even belong to a company … too communal. For sure, perhaps they weren’t even workers! Homo economicus qua human capital was instead somehow external to the firm, pursuing his interests alone and investing in his abilities to leverage the best deal. This ‘free-agent nation’ fantasy often bordered on the uncanny. Airport pop-management books from the 1980s and ’90s are hilarious for this reason. According to Charles Handy’s The Age of Paradox (1994), for example: ‘Karl Marx would be amused. He longed for the day when the workers would own the means of production. Now they do.’ Peter Drucker even felt comfortable announcing the arrival of the ‘post-capitalist society’, labelling the US the most socialist country around because all workers owned some capital after all.
What isn’t a joking matter, however, is the brave new world of work that has followed in the wake of neoclassical ideas such as human capital theory. Only when the employee is framed in such an ultra-individualist manner could the regressive trend of on-demand (or ‘zero-hours’) employment contracts ever gain a foothold in the economy. What some have called the Uberisation of the workforce functions by reclassifying workers as independent business owners, thereby shifting all employment costs to the employee: training, uniforms, vehicles and almost everything else.
Back in the 1960s, Friedman envisaged a society in which we’d all be wealthy, thriving entrepreneurs. What we got in reality was a pay cut, reduced holiday or sick leave, a chronic skills deficit, credit-card debt and endless hours of pointless work. If anything, the story of human capital theory in Western economies has been about divesting in people, not the opposite.
That’s because it was born within an extreme period in 20th-century history, when many believed that the fate of humanity was hanging in the balance. It should therefore be approached as such, a rather eccentric and largely unrealistic relic of the Cold War. Only in that highly unusual milieu could mavericks such as Hayek and Friedman ever be taken seriously and listened to. In the face of communist collectivism, the Chicago school developed a diametrically opposed account of society, one populated by capsule-like individuals who automatically shun all forms of social cohesion that isn’t transactional. These loners are driven only by the ethos of self-serving competitiveness. Blindly attached to money. Insecure and paranoid. No wonder we’re so unwell today.
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We ALREADY KNEW about decades of UNDERARMOUR overseas Foreign Economic Zone activities in being a major pusher of global human capital slave trade at its global corporate campuses----we knew this these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA so we knew when Baltimore Development, Greater Baltimore, and global Johns Hopkins and their Baltimore pols in City Council and Maryland Assembly pushed these global corporate campuses ----UnderArmour, Amazon.com, et al as with global Hopkins would bring global labor pool distribution system to Maryland and Baltimore. Our labor unions knew----our 5% to the 1% FAKE RELIGIOUS LEADERS knew----so anyone promoting these global corporations as US city anchors for rebuilding US economy are GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.
There will be NO WINNING against these global corporate campuses----the only REAL left social progressive labor and justice stance is ----STOP MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS BUILDING AND FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE STATUS in US.
WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% can win this easy peasy---we simply must stop allowing fake 'labor and justice' organizations be our leaders. No one knows this history of global human capital distribution system better than our TRADES UNIONS.
We need our Latino, Asian, African business and employment to WAKE UP and stop MOVING FORWARD ---bringing this to US will permanently install ONE WORLD FOR GLOBAL 1% ONLY
'Beltsville-based Palacios Contracting, disputed the union's claims, saying he did not pay workers involved in the project in cash and that only some of the workers were independent subcontractors'.
Carpenters' union stages small protest at Under Armour
Natalie ShermanContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun
August 19, 2015
Members of a local carpenter's union staged a small protest outside of Under Armour Tuesday to bring attention to unfair labor practices they say are used in construction projects there.
The Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters said the "Shame on Under Armour" banner was prompted by the use of a labor broker that pays its workers in cash and misclassifies them as independent subcontractors for a recent renovation project.
The union started to protest last week. Although the renovation in question is complete, members said they want to see union laborers used on future projects.
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank is planning major, mixed-use development on land he owns in South Baltimore through his privately owned Sagamore Development, with a new campus for Under Armour, a whiskey distillery, offices, stores and other buildings.
Under Armour "is a big business here in Baltimore and around the world," said Conce Morales, an organizer with local 101. "They have the capacity to use responsible contractors to do renovation or construction."
Santos Palacios, the owner of Beltsville-based Palacios Contracting, disputed the union's claims, saying he did not pay workers involved in the project in cash and that only some of the workers were independent subcontractors.
Santos said he did not remember how many people had worked on the project because it frequently changed. He said he recently dissolved his company because he is leaving the country for several months.
Under Armour and subcontractor Robey Inc. declined to comment. Rand Construction, the lead contractor on the project, did not respond to requests for comment.
It is an issue industry-wide. The Maryland Division of Labor and Industry, which oversees construction and landscaping, last year issued 238 citations affecting 681 workers and collected nearly $90,000 in penalties related to misclassification, according to an annual report by the state's Joint Enforcement Task Force on Workplace Fraud.
"This company is a symbol of the city of Baltimore," said Victor Tobar, 35, of Baltimore, one of two people who held the sign Tuesday morning." "We don't have anything against the company — we buy their shirts — but it's not just."
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UNMANNED CARGO SHIPS include of course plane and ship. What is the major transport these few decades of global labor pool 99% to Foreign Economic Zones around the world? CARGO PLANES AND SHIPS. Modern day slave trading ships.
Here we have yet another mode of transport going unmanned-----who will be employed? Those small group of people monitoring a radar screen soon to be replaced by artificial intelligence.
If WE THE PEOPLE are racing to become employed in building these structures----our children and grandchildren will be facing a very, very, very far-right, authoritarian DEEP STATE ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for the global 1%.
Smart Shipping depends on international cooperation
– Interview with Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs, Rijkswaterstaat
Posted on 30/05/2017 by Diana Macovei
Smart Shipping depends on international cooperation – Interview with Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs, Rijkswaterstaat
Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs are both working for Rijkswaterstaat, the National Waterways Authority in the Netherlands. Rijkswaterstaat has taken a remarkable initiative that aims at cooperation between entrepreneurs, research and governments. This remarkable program is called SMASH! Schrijnen and Van der Sluijs speak about the project on Jun 13, at Unmanned Cargo Ship Conference in Venlo.
“Rijkswaterstaat has been asked by the Dutch government to bring the ‘Triple Helix’ together, they exist of entrepreneurs, research and government. Rijkswaterstaat plays the moderator-role and we are glad with the growing interest from the different companies, institutions as well governments. The number of participants is growing rapidly, which shows the importance for all involved,” says Laurens Schrijnen, manager at Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) and the moderator behind Smart Shipping Challenge 2017 SMASH!.
The Netherlands is the most important country of Europe in terms of transport, according to Schrijnen. “Half the European inland fleet is sailing under the Dutch flag. A new phase in inland navigation is starting. Knowledge and skills will and stay crucial and technology will be more and more important. For instance remotely controlled vessels, smart share of information, optimization of maintenance and possibly autonomous sailing. This gives opportunities and challenges regarding sustainability, safety and efficiency. All this will be put together in a demonstration, the Smart Shipping Challenge 2017 SMASH! on November 30, 2017. The aim is to bring knowledge and experience of existing initiatives, technologies, institutes and commercial organisations together, to learn from each other and take advantage of working together to get to smart shipping. SMASH! supports innovation and competitiveness in the Netherlands and other countries regarding inland navigation.”
Astonishment
“Surprisingly many entrepreneurs are astonished that so many technologies are already available out of other innovative fields,” says Anja van der Sluijs, who also is involved with SMASH!. “We are looking at smart tug services, that can be ready in time for service when required. This way less time is lost waiting. Automation plays an important role just like Wifi and pneumatic and magnetic devices. We want to provide different facilities and essential preconditions, which will take care of useful communication between various parties. From here the co-operation between the different groups will grow.”
The interest for SMASH! is growing fast, at the moment this conference will be held some 125 people have signed in for the next meeting te be held in a few days. The interest is not only from the Netherlands but the whole of Europe, which shows the importance for European inland shipping. Cooperating is very important, if not the most important issue of SMASH!.
Knowledge
The main issue behind SMASH! is sharing the knowledge of so many fields so as to lessen the input of largest danger factor, the human input. “The man is still the weakest link and most restrictive. For instance, underwater robots (Remotely Operated Vehicles, ROV) can do the work of men at great depths and give the view of what is going on. For instance when the MH 370 crashed nearly three years ago, we were astonished that only 2% of the seafloor is mapped,” according to Schrijnen. “Technology can support man in many fields and is done far too less. Why take water samples by hand when a robot can do it as well and at lower costs.”
Knowledge of a less pleasant piece of business is accident registration. With the growing information this gives more and more insight into how and why accidents happen, has a direct influence on the safety of inland shipping.
Schrijnen concludes: “It is for all involved better if we learn from our mistakes. We are lucky that most of the professionals agree with this view and this is an important basic ingredient for true cooperation, which brings us the so much needed innovations.”
These few decades of Clinton/Bush/Obama have been about identifying the most talented in communities around the world, tying them to global IVY LEAGUEs and through those GREEKS, AND FREEMASON ties sending our 99% talented citizens around the world leaving behind their communities like Baltimore----like Providence RI----with no leadership. These are what became those 5% to the 1%----dedicated to building Foreign Economic Zones overseas---knowing global citizens were being enslaved in these systems often setting the stage for those transported by this global human capital distribution system unable to return to their nations.
We are made to believe this is all great for America----I'm sure Hebrew University told their citizens it was great for Israel-----it is all simply those same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% who were involved in colonial slave trade----in Venetian Empire slave trade et al.
- The Distribution of Human Capital and Economic
- www.brown.edu/academics/economics/sites/brown...1. Introduction This paper analyses the interaction between the distribution of human capital, tech-nological progress, and economic growth. It demonstrates the signi ...
We allowed our highly trained US professionals to become literally human capital distribution system products as they were sent overseas to build economic structures that killed our US economy. They were no doubt paid well unlike those global labor pool 99% enslaved in global sweat shop factories.
THE LOGISTICS OF TRANSPORTING THESE LARGE NUMBERS OF HUMAN CAPITAL AROUND THE WORLD THESE FEW DECADES WAS A HUGE ENDEAVOR.
As we see today, the goal was in 1990s to end the status of high-skilled high wage status----and that is what MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE WAGE BASIC INCOME is doing now.
CEPR's Policy Portal
Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
Global talent mobility and human capital agglomeration
Sari Pekkala Kerr, William Kerr, Çağlar Özden, Christopher Parsons 31 January 2017
The distribution of talent and human capital is highly skewed across the world. As high-income countries engage in a global race for talent, the resulting migration of high-skilled workers across countries tilts the deck even further. This column draws upon newly available data to outline the patterns and implications of global talent mobility. Key results include recent dramatic increases in high-skilled migration flows, particularly in certain occupations, in certain countries, among those with higher skill levels, and from a wider range of origins.
High-skilled workers play a central and starring role in today’s knowledge economy. Workers with valuable and transferrable skills have a higher propensity to migrate both domestically and abroad. Yet, not all high-income destinations are equally attractive in the professional and social opportunities they present for immigrants. Countries differ in their geographic accessibility, professional attractiveness, and the degree to which they welcome foreigners. While there is a complex web of factors involved, the central outcome is clear – the flows of high-skilled migrants are very concentrated, both within and across national borders.
This agglomeration of talent has been documented by economists for the upper tail of the talent distribution (Stephan and Levin 2001, Wasmer et al. 2007, Stephan 2010, Weinberg 2011, Kerr 2016), but systematic progress on these important flows has consistently confronted data limitations. In two recent and complementary papers, we provide a systematic review of available global data sources, the observed patterns of high-skilled migration, the role of firms and national policies in shaping these flows, and the underlying agglomeration economies that produce these concentrations (Kerr et al. 2016, 2017). Here we go through some key examples from these findings.
Rapid increase
Overall levels of international migration have been hovering around 3% over the last 60 years. Beneath this perceived stability, global migration patterns have become increasingly asymmetric along several critical dimensions, especially human capital and skills. There were about 28 million high-skilled migrants (defined as at least one-year of tertiary education) residing in OECD countries in 2010, an increase of nearly 130% since 1990. This exceptional rise is the result of several forces – for example, increased efforts by policymakers as they recognise the central role of human capital in economic growth, positive spillovers generated by skill agglomeration, declines in transportation and communication costs, and the rise in the pursuit of foreign education by young people.
Concentration across destinations
While OECD countries constitute less than a fifth of the world’s population, they host two-thirds of high-skilled migrants (OECD 2013, Artuç et al. 2015). Among OECD destinations, the distribution of talent is even more skewed. Four Anglo-Saxon countries – the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia – are the chosen destinations for nearly 70% of high-skilled migrants (to the OECD) in 2010. The US alone has historically hosted close to half of all high-skilled migrants to the OECD and one-third of high-skilled migrants worldwide. The attractiveness of these English-speaking, high-income countries has led other destination countries, such as France, Germany, and Spain, to increase their policy efforts to attract high-skilled workers. Nevertheless, the volume of skilled migration to the four Anglo-Saxon countries, coupled with the significant asymmetry in the concentration of leading universities, high-tech firms and research centres, implies that the global competition for skills will continue to be fierce yet unequal.
Increased concentration with increased skill levels
Agglomeration of talent is even starker within the upper tail of the talent distribution. The Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Medicine, and Physics, along with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, all provide powerful examples. In the first third of the time period since 1901, 9% of these Nobel Prize winners were born in the US and 13% were affiliated with US institutions at the time of their winning. In the most recent third of the time period, however, academics associated with American institutions have won over 65% of these Nobel Prizes, yet only 46% of this group was born in the US. Of all Nobel Prizes across the four subject areas, 31% (203 of 661) have been awarded to immigrants, of whom 53% (107 of 203) were affiliated with American institutions. The asymmetry of the flows is remarkable. Only four Americans were affiliated with non-American institutions when they received the award, out of 230 total Nobel Prizes being awarded to Americans. Our papers document similar relationships in other settings like professional sports and movie stars.
Concentrated in particular occupations
Many host countries end up with higher concentrations of high-skilled immigrants in particular occupations. For example, immigrants account for some 57% of scientists residing in Switzerland, 45% in Australia, and 38% in the US (Franzoni et al 2012). In the US in 2010, 27% of all physicians and surgeons and over 35% of current medical residents were foreign-born. Immigrants accounted for over 35% of recent enrollments in STEM fields, with very high proportions in specific areas like Electrical Engineering (70%), Computer Science (63%) and Economics (55%) as reported by Anderson (2013).
Concentration within country
Stark inequalities in the concentrations of talent also exist across regions and cities within individual destination countries as demonstrated by Figure 1. We observe significant concentrations of high-skilled migrants in Boston, Northern and Southern California, Chicago, New York City, Miami and Seattle, among others. Our papers document how these spatial concentrations are even sharper in scientific fields and are also present globally – for example, London, New York, Paris, and Milan continue to maintain their positions as the global capitals of finance and fashion.
Figure 1. Distribution of high-skilled migrants in the US, 2010
Notes: Data on high-skilled migrants by Public Use Micro Areas in 2010 are drawn from the 5-year sample of the American Community Survey. These data are subsequently merged to 1990 Commuting Zones using the crosswalk files and weights developed by David Dorn. High-skilled migrants are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education.
Increase from wider range of origins
OECD countries are increasingly attracting high-skilled migrants from a wider set of origin countries. Figure 2 summarises this pattern by displaying cumulative distributions for high-skilled immigration and emigration stocks in 2010 where origin and destination countries are ranked by the size of their emigrant and immigrant populations respectively. The red line at the top-left of the graph shows the distribution of high-skilled workers in destination countries. This line starts at almost 40%, as the US is the first-ranked country and accounts for the largest share of global immigration flows. As noted earlier, further adding the UK, Canada, and Australia pushes the cumulative share to almost 75%. The second (blue) line graphs the equivalent distribution for emigration of high-skilled workers, with origin countries now ranked by how many migrants they send abroad. The gap between the two lines clearly shows that skilled emigration originates from many countries, even if it flows to relatively few.
Figure 2. Cumulative distribution of high-skilled immigration and emigration, 2010
Notes: Data are from Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) and non-OECD Countries (DIOC-E). High-skilled workers are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education. The data presented cover people of working age (25+). Countries are ranked according to their share of total high-skilled immigrant inflows and outflows, respectively. These distributions demonstrate that emigration flows have a much wider base relative to the more-concentrated set of immigrant destinations.
Many origin countries have limited educational capacities and fiscal resources to train workers or to replace those that have emigrated. Countries experiencing particularly high emigration rates of high-skilled workers to OECD destinations in 2010 tended to be small, low-income countries, and island states, such as Guyana (93%) and Haiti (82%). Figure 3 demonstrates this inverse relationship between country size and high-skilled emigration rates. Emigration rates are also decreasing in GDP per capita, and these patterns are much starker for high-skilled migration than for overall flows. These movements of high-skilled labour away from certain small and low-income countries have raised controversies about ‘brain drain’.
Figure 3. Emigration rates of high-skilled workers by population, 2010
Notes: Emigration data are from Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) and non-OECD Countries (DIOC-E). High-skilled workers are defined as those with at least one year of tertiary education. The data cover people of working age (25+) and pertain to over 200 origin countries. GDP per capita and population data are from the World Development Indicators of the World Bank accessible at databank.worldbank.org/wdi.
Figure 4 further illustrates that high-skilled migrants tend to travel farther to their destination countries than their less-skilled compatriots. This graph shows the cumulative distribution of distances travelled by migrants of different skill levels in 2010. The median distance travelled by a high-skilled migrant is 7,000 miles, while it is below 4,000 for low-skilled migrants.
Figure 4. Cumulative distribution of migration distance, 2010
Notes: Figure 4 plots the relationship between the stock of immigrants to OECD countries and the distance between their destination and origin countries. The data come from Arslan et al (2014) and refer to those of age 25 or over. Tertiary-educated individuals are defined as high-skilled.
Agglomeration foundation
These high-skilled migration patterns can be explained with agglomeration economies. The presence of high-skilled people in a geographic location – regardless of whether they are natives or immigrants – increases the incentives for additional high-skilled people to move there due to a wide range positive externalities. Many high-skilled occupations and sectors with high migrant shares exhibit such agglomeration effects where individuals’ productivity is enhanced by the presence of, or collaboration with, other high-skilled workers employed in similar or related occupations and sectors.
At the core of the agglomeration process is trade in knowledge services provided by high-skilled people. High-tech companies headquartered in Silicon Valley compete with each other globally; their market is not limited to Northern California. The clusters allow better technology exchanges, deeper labour market specialisation, stronger complementary inputs (e.g. specialised lawyers), and so on. Thus, there is no inherent limit as to how many firms can physically locate in Silicon Valley. On the contrary, the presence of entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists lead to the employment of others like them as they start new firms or expand existing ones.
In the presence of agglomeration effects, migration of the highly skilled into a geographic area or sector need not lead to a decline in returns to skills or to wages. As a result, this mechanism can be quite self-reinforcing as demonstrated in the endogenous growth literature (Jones 1995). Agglomeration effects and spillovers increase the returns to higher skills in one country rather than in others, and may even create sharp differences across regions within the same country. These effects can be accentuated as the economics of firms enter into high-skilled migration movement decisions (Kerr et al. 2015a, 2015b).
These agglomeration factors and their implications for economic growth make the economics of high-skilled migration quite different from those of low-skilled migration. Moreover, the critical role of gatekeepers like firms and universities for national admissions are greatly unexplored compared to their importance. The data necessary to analyse these important patterns are just coming online, and the future research potential is immense.
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REAL left social progressive academics KNEW back in the 1990s this high-skilled human capital movement from our US universities overseas would not END WELL. No doubt these same 5% are those coming back to US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones build the same here in US----and we can guess they are those 5% GREEKS and FREEMASONS----these were the folks building these few decades that global labor pool for 99% of workers in Foreign Economic Zones around the world. This was MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE back in Clinton era 1990s.
We bet those 5% university grads choosing to head overseas to be involved in building Foreign Economic Zones did not see themselves as global human capital being distributed by a system that would lead to even high-skilled professionals being brought to extreme poverty but that is where we are today. US being flooded today with global high-skilled labor working for lower wages -----soon to become third world wages ----is the final goal of Clinton Initiative.
THE LARGEST PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PROJECT IN WORLD HISTORY WAS INDEED THE REBUILDING OF GLOBAL HUMAN CAPITAL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM BY CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
This is what we mean when we shout ---our university grads need to return to their communities to grow local business economies and not become those global Wall Street players........
'These movements of high-skilled labour away from certain small and low-income countries have raised controversies about ‘brain drain’.
When WE THE PEOPLE allowed global neo-liberal economics to replace our left social progressive economics -----this means allowing MONOPOLY---then GLOBAL MONOPOLY----our university economics departments became those structures designing global human capital distribution systems. Yes, this SOARED DURING CLINTON ERA.
US citizens are NOT human CAPITAL-----and we hope we would not see global citizens as CAPITAL. When we saw our universities taking these economic stances---WE SHOUTED AS REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES in 1990s that our left Democratic Party was being taken by far-right global Wall Street. It is at this time Clinton neo-liberals gathered those 5% to the 1% and created those global Wall Street Baltimore Development 'labor and justice' organizations to PRETEND TO BE WORKING FOR 99% ---while working to build this global labor pool human capital distribution system.
If WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% were ENGAGED AND EDUCATING in public policy---we would have seen this really, really, really bad global public transportation structure being built. Today, we are now seeing inside US the expansion of global labor pool in our US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones like Baltimore.
Global Human Capital Trends
As of the start of 2016, the world’s population is estimated at about 7.4 billion people. Out of these, just over two fifths (41%) fall within the prime working age group of 25–54 year-olds, 16% fall within the 15–24 age group and 26% are aged under 15. At the upper end of the world population pyramid, 9% of the world’s people fall within the 55–64 age group and 8% are aged 65 and over (see Figure 6). Aiming to be as representative of each segment of the global population as possible, these percentage distributions are also used as pillar weights in constructing the Human Capital Index.
This is, however, a simplifying assumption, since countries’ exact population distributions tend to bifurcate into those that are ageing and those experiencing a “youth bulge”, with a small cohort of countries undergoing a demographic transition with the potential of a reaping a temporary “demographic dividend” (whereby the share of the prime working age population expands before the older age groups do so as well). In practice, the share of under 25 year-olds in our sample countries ranges from 68.2% in Uganda to 23.1% in Germany, while the share of over 65 year-olds ranges from 26.9% in Japan to 1.2% in the United Arab Emirates. For a detailed discussion of index construction and weighting decisions, please refer to the Technical Notes on the Report website.Going beyond national population averages, our data highlights the unequal development and deployment of human capital across the age-group spectrum (see Figure 6). On average, the world has developed 81% of the human capital potential of the youngest members of the global population for whom the Index assesses education among the most critical factors. This is in line with recent massive investment pushes in this age bracket—such as the former United Nations Millennium Development Goals and UNESCO’s Education for All agenda—and places the 0–14 age group significantly ahead of other parts of the global population with regard to its realized human capital potential.
However, in the 15–24 age group, for whom the Index emphasizes factors such as workplace relevant skills and a successful education-to-employment transition, countries have on average only leveraged 66% of young people’s human capital potential, pointing to a disconnect between learning and employment in many economies around the world.
Moving on to the next stage within the Index’s life-course approach to human capital analysis, countries on average only make use of 63% of the full human capital potential of their 25–54 year-old prime working age population. As discussed above, at the regional and individual country level, there is, however, a wide divergence around the world in human capital outcomes for this age group, for whom the Index emphasizes continuous learning opportunities in the workplace and employment quality. High-performing countries, such as the Nordics and Switzerland, have maximized more than 80% of the human capital of their prime age population; 16 countries in the Index have yet to cross the 50% threshold.
Finally, the world’s older workforce—for whom the Index assesses both continued opportunity and health and quality of life—is the most underinvested-in segment of the global population, with human capital optimization ranging from 67% on average in the 55–64 age group to only 54% on average in the 65 and over age group.
Our analysis shows that—in addition to measures such as bringing young people into work and preparing the next generation of workers in countries with high youth unemployment—human capital investment must also continue building up the human capital potential of the population above age 25 or risk neglecting, on average, 58% of a nation’s total talent. This is particularly true for advanced, ageing economies with a very different population pyramid from the young, emerging world. In fact, the declining share of the youth cohort in ageing economies implies that relying wholly on today’s students to meet future skills requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not going to be enough to stay competitive, since older age groups will continue to form the bulk of these countries’ workforces for a long time to come. With rapidly rising healthy life expectancies, life-long learning and re-skilling of existing workforces will become much more important. Equally important will be the removal of unconscious biases and unintentional disincentives against hiring and retaining older workers.10 Similarly, barriers to women’s employment throughout the life-course need to be addressed through both public policy, particularly an improved care infrastructure, and private sector efforts.
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We need these 5% players who no doubt were paid a good salary working as EX-PATS these few decades to WAKE UP ---dismantling the US as a first world developed democratic republic to advance ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE killing 99% of citizens is crazy stuff..............
'In fact, the declining share of the youth cohort in ageing economies implies that relying wholly on today’s students to meet future skills requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is not going to be enough to stay competitive, since older age groups will continue to form the bulk of these countries’ workforces for a long time to come'.
The RACE TO THE TOP education reform was designed to do just this ----strengthen the global labor pool human capital distribution system by throwing US citizens black, white, and brown into this PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM. This is what those PESKY 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS have been doing these few decades and are today still MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US cities as Foreign Economic Zones.
WE CAN SEE WHY ALL MOVEMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL MUST NOW BE CONTAINED---THERE WILL BE NO HAPPY CAMPERS IN THE US 99%----OR GLOBAL 99% INSIDE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
The Clinton era saw Foreign Economic Zone expansion soar taking our US corporations overseas and taking our labor unions from local, to national, to INTERNATIONAL and VOILA now our international labor union leaders are team 5% to the 1% global Wall Street players. This is why we must break from International labor unions and rebuild our labor unions locally.
This is what left social progressive academics were shouting in the 1990s against Clinton while national media and global Wall Street organizations were calling all this CONSPIRACY THEORY------please take time to understand political stances even if they may end up being real conspiracy theories---
THIS IS A GREAT DESCRIPTION OF THOSE GLOBAL WALL STREET 1%--THEIR 2% --AND THAT 5%
'These loners are driven only by the ethos of self-serving competitiveness. Blindly attached to money. Insecure and paranoid. No wonder we’re so unwell today'.
'Is human capital theory, and neoclassical economics, a form of extremism'?
What is human capital?
Human capital theory was invented as an ideological weapon in the Cold War. Now it is helping to Uberise the world of work
Workers leaving Pennsylvania shipyards, Beaumont, Texas in 1943. Photo by John Vachon/Library of Congress
Peter Fleming is professor of business and society at Cass Business School at City, University of London. His latest book is The Death of Homo Economicus (forthcoming, 2017).
Is human capital theory, and neoclassical economics, a form of extremism?
Chicago, 1960. The United States is bogged down in a long, expensive and dangerous Cold War with the Soviet Union. Inside the Economics Building at the University of Chicago, two academics are engaged in a private, intense conversation. Theodore ‘Teddy’ Schultz is tall and lanky. Raised on a South Dakota farm and pulled out of school by his father, he’d still managed to scale the heady heights of academia, first as chairman of the Economics Department in 1944 and then as president of the American Economic Association in 1960. Schultz has strong connections with the Ford Foundation, an important front for CIA programmes during the Cold War.
His younger sparring partner is Milton Friedman who in 1946 joined what became known as the ‘Chicago school’. Although Friedman was of diminutive stature, measuring only 1.52 metres tall, he already enjoyed a fierce reputation as a verbal opponent. Friedman will flirt with the CIA in due course too, training Chilean economists in the art of neoliberal ‘shock therapy’. His know-how came in handy after the US-sponsored overthrow/death of Chile’s Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973. Richard Nixon said he wanted to hear the Chilean economy scream.
As the two men faced each other in that dark, oak-panelled office, they had a big problem on their hands. University economists were being recast in a new light by US state authorities; no longer bumbling professors (sporting a pipe and tweed jacket) but the creators of ideational weapons, just as important as the intercontinental ballistic missiles being readied at Vandenberg airbase in California. Members of the Chicago school were confident they could make a significant contribution in the struggle.
But how exactly?
Schultz shifts nervously in his leather-bound chair. Economic growth has to be the answer, he avers. Friedman nods in agreement, but quietly frowns as Schultz makes his case. In Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev has just announced that ‘growth of industrial and agricultural production is the battering ram with which we shall smash the capitalist system’. This brazen provocation caused a stir when it was read to the US Joint Economic Committee of Congress in 1959.
Friedman is stony silent – a rarity that Schultz seizes upon to extend his point. There’s a very pragmatic aspect to his plan, too. Not only is growth a ‘hot topic’ following the Khrushchev speech, but a number of powerful technocrats in the US government are increasingly sympathetic to Schultz’s views, especially the Council of Economic Advisers. They’ve been instructed by the Oval Office to devise a growth strategy that will eclipse the USSR and leave it for dead.
Although Schultz holds staunch neoclassical assumptions about growth and development, he learnt from his earlier studies of agricultural productivity that increased public spending on education was absolutely vital to the nation’s growth agenda. It will not only give the US a scientific edge in the space race but also enrich the country’s wider skill reserves, making it more productive and thus beating the Soviets at their own ‘growth game’.
Friedman abruptly interjects. Yes, he intones, the question of economic growth is vital. But public spending is not the way forward. It’s easy to picture Friedman browbeating his weary chairman once again about the evils of ‘big government’ and central planning. The Soviet enemy instead needs to be confronted on strictly US terms, where individual freedom and capitalist enterprise come to the fore. Government is the problem, not the solution. Friedman’s ideal hero is the self-made entrepreneur. He often cited a joke from the vaudeville humourist Will Rogers to cut down his government-friendly critics: just be thankful you don’t get the government you actually pay for!
Here, Friedman is echoing the views of the Austrian free-market zealot F A Hayek, who had joined the University of Chicago in 1950. While exiled in London back in the 1940s, Hayek had written the rabid anti-communist tract, The Road to Serfdom. A condensed version was published by Reader’s Digest and made its author famous. Hayek’s near-fanatical belief in capitalist individualism and all things anti-USSR undoubtedly swayed the terms of the debate that Schultz and Friedman were presently having.
The two academics pause to gather their thoughts. Then the concept of human capital is broached. Possibly by Schultz since it might help to find some common ground with his tiny counterpart. Unfortunately, it proved to be the older academic’s undoing in the debate.
In essence, the idea of human capital wasn’t new. Adam Smith had pointed out long before how the skills and abilities acquired by workers (eg, training, education, etc) can add economic value to an enterprise. But Schultz had only recently become intrigued by the idea. He actively encouraged new faculty and PhD students to build a more robust and formalistic theory of human capital. Legend has it that Schultz suddenly grasped its importance after visiting an impoverished farm. He asked the threadbare owners why they were so content. Because they’d managed to send their children to school, they replied. It would guarantee a secure income for the family long into the future.
Friedman too was fascinated by the notion of human capital, but from a different angle. Some junior colleagues – including Gary Becker, Friedman’s doctoral student who would make his name in this branch of economics – had made some major breakthroughs. One in particular caught Friedman’s eye. Unlike money or equipment, this type of capital cannot conceptually be separated from the individual who owns it. It’s intrinsically part of him. And by extension, someone’s human capital cannot be owned by anyone else since that would be slavery. Therefore, who exactly ought to have the responsibility of investing in it or the enjoyment of its benefits? We gain an inkling of where Friedman stood on the issue from an early paper of Becker’s, in which he showed why it’s irrational for a firm to fund employee training schemes since that same investment might one day literally walk out the door and join a rival.
Friedman probably agreed with Schultz that human capital theory was the ideational weapon they’d been searching for to counter the Soviet threat on the economic front. The very phrase implied that human beings’ interests naturally coincide with the values of capitalism. But therein lay the tension between the two economists. Schultz’s rendition of human capital theory – with all its talk of public spending programmes and central planning – threatened to dilute this image of the independent, self-reliant pseudo-capitalist that everyone was assumed to be.
It appears that the force of Friedman’s argument hit a nerve. We see clear signs of it in Schultz’s inaugural presidential speech to the American Economic Association in December 1960. As expected, he stressed the importance of national investment in human capital and its correlation with economic growth. Towards the end of the talk, Schultz mentions that a colleague has asked for clarification on a crucial detail: ‘Should the returns from public investment in human capital accrue to the individuals in whom it is made?’
Schultz wants to reply ‘yes’. He believes that governmental investment in people’s skills is essential and ought to be managed as a public good. Those skills might be utilised as a private advantage by individuals, like a state-funded tertiary education being used to increase a person’s income over his lifetime. But the investment will ultimately have wider positive effects or ‘externalities’ on the economy in its turn. However, Schultz begins to hesitate on this point. He seems to recognise that the intellectual ground has shifted and soon seems a bit confused:
The policy issues implicit in this question run deep and are full of perplexities pertaining to both resource allocation and to welfare. Physical capital that is formed by public investment is not transferred as a rule to particular individuals as a gift. It would greatly simplify the allocative processes if public investment in human capital were placed on the same footing.We learn in a footnote to the published version of the address who the bothersome colleague was. Friedman, of course.
Friedman cheerfully summed up human capital theory in a pithy catchphrase: there is no such thing as a free lunch
The answer Friedman received from Schultz is understandably ambivalent, with two possible conclusions. First, returns on human capital derived from public investment (eg, taxes) ought to remain in public hands. The problem here is that this would be socialism. And besides, we’ve already learnt that the individual cannot be separated from his human capital. So that leaves only the second conclusion. If the returns on human capital derived from public investment (eg, taxes) aren’t a ‘gift’ to the individual benefactor, then he or she should bear some or all of the investment costs. In short, this is no handout.
The Schultz camp was fighting a losing battle. The government’s attempts to apply his ideas and dramatically increase federal education spending were shot down in 1961 and 1963. Detractors construed it as creeping welfare or worse.
More importantly, Friedman’s decisive encounter with Schultz still reverberates today, and not in a good way. For example, one can trace a red thread from his 1960 victory concerning who’s exactly responsible for human capital investment, and the student debt catastrophe unfolding presently in the US, UK and many other countries that embraced neoliberalism a little too uncritically. Want a university degree and to get ahead in life but can’t afford it? Then here’s a student loan to tide you over, with terms and conditions that will hound you to the grave. The underlying message of human capital theory turns out to be simple, and Friedman cheerfully summed it up in a pithy catchphrase during the 1970s: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Friedman had discovered in human capital theory more than just a means for boosting economic growth. The very way it conceptualised human beings was an ideological weapon too, especially when it came to counteracting the labour-centric discourse of communism, both outside and inside the US. For doesn’t human capital theory provide the ultimate conservative retort to the Marxist slogan that workers should seize the means of production? If each person is already his own means of production, then the presumed conflict at the heart of the capitalist labour process logically dissolves. Schultz too was starting to see the light, and agreed that workers might actually be de facto capitalists: ‘labourers have become capitalists not from the diffusion of the ownership of corporation stocks, as folk law would have it, but from the acquisition of knowledge and skill that have economic value.’
One can only guess what the Soviet Union made of all this. Human capital theory was literally ‘disappearing’ workers from the dominant narrative concerning what made capitalism tick. It was an ingenious ploy for spreading pro-capitalist sympathies throughout the US, particularly among the working classes who were starting to suspect that their current employer might be the real enemy. Now capitalists were speaking a different language: ‘How can you be against us? In fact, you’re one of us!’
With the elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, human capital theory found hospitable political environments in the Anglo world. What followed in the UK, the US and other countries could best be described as a massive decollectivisation movement. Society no longer existed. Only individuals and their families did. Hayek in particular was a major revelation for the Iron Lady, who endlessly praised him.
the story of human capital theory in Western economies has been about divesting in people
In this new vision of the economy, workers can’t be seen as a specific class with shared interests. They didn’t even belong to a company … too communal. For sure, perhaps they weren’t even workers! Homo economicus qua human capital was instead somehow external to the firm, pursuing his interests alone and investing in his abilities to leverage the best deal. This ‘free-agent nation’ fantasy often bordered on the uncanny. Airport pop-management books from the 1980s and ’90s are hilarious for this reason. According to Charles Handy’s The Age of Paradox (1994), for example: ‘Karl Marx would be amused. He longed for the day when the workers would own the means of production. Now they do.’ Peter Drucker even felt comfortable announcing the arrival of the ‘post-capitalist society’, labelling the US the most socialist country around because all workers owned some capital after all.
What isn’t a joking matter, however, is the brave new world of work that has followed in the wake of neoclassical ideas such as human capital theory. Only when the employee is framed in such an ultra-individualist manner could the regressive trend of on-demand (or ‘zero-hours’) employment contracts ever gain a foothold in the economy. What some have called the Uberisation of the workforce functions by reclassifying workers as independent business owners, thereby shifting all employment costs to the employee: training, uniforms, vehicles and almost everything else.
Back in the 1960s, Friedman envisaged a society in which we’d all be wealthy, thriving entrepreneurs. What we got in reality was a pay cut, reduced holiday or sick leave, a chronic skills deficit, credit-card debt and endless hours of pointless work. If anything, the story of human capital theory in Western economies has been about divesting in people, not the opposite.
That’s because it was born within an extreme period in 20th-century history, when many believed that the fate of humanity was hanging in the balance. It should therefore be approached as such, a rather eccentric and largely unrealistic relic of the Cold War. Only in that highly unusual milieu could mavericks such as Hayek and Friedman ever be taken seriously and listened to. In the face of communist collectivism, the Chicago school developed a diametrically opposed account of society, one populated by capsule-like individuals who automatically shun all forms of social cohesion that isn’t transactional. These loners are driven only by the ethos of self-serving competitiveness. Blindly attached to money. Insecure and paranoid. No wonder we’re so unwell today.
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We ALREADY KNEW about decades of UNDERARMOUR overseas Foreign Economic Zone activities in being a major pusher of global human capital slave trade at its global corporate campuses----we knew this these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA so we knew when Baltimore Development, Greater Baltimore, and global Johns Hopkins and their Baltimore pols in City Council and Maryland Assembly pushed these global corporate campuses ----UnderArmour, Amazon.com, et al as with global Hopkins would bring global labor pool distribution system to Maryland and Baltimore. Our labor unions knew----our 5% to the 1% FAKE RELIGIOUS LEADERS knew----so anyone promoting these global corporations as US city anchors for rebuilding US economy are GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.
There will be NO WINNING against these global corporate campuses----the only REAL left social progressive labor and justice stance is ----STOP MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUS BUILDING AND FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE STATUS in US.
WE THE PEOPLE THE 99% can win this easy peasy---we simply must stop allowing fake 'labor and justice' organizations be our leaders. No one knows this history of global human capital distribution system better than our TRADES UNIONS.
We need our Latino, Asian, African business and employment to WAKE UP and stop MOVING FORWARD ---bringing this to US will permanently install ONE WORLD FOR GLOBAL 1% ONLY
'Beltsville-based Palacios Contracting, disputed the union's claims, saying he did not pay workers involved in the project in cash and that only some of the workers were independent subcontractors'.
Carpenters' union stages small protest at Under Armour
Natalie ShermanContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun
August 19, 2015
Members of a local carpenter's union staged a small protest outside of Under Armour Tuesday to bring attention to unfair labor practices they say are used in construction projects there.
The Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters said the "Shame on Under Armour" banner was prompted by the use of a labor broker that pays its workers in cash and misclassifies them as independent subcontractors for a recent renovation project.
The union started to protest last week. Although the renovation in question is complete, members said they want to see union laborers used on future projects.
Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank is planning major, mixed-use development on land he owns in South Baltimore through his privately owned Sagamore Development, with a new campus for Under Armour, a whiskey distillery, offices, stores and other buildings.
Under Armour "is a big business here in Baltimore and around the world," said Conce Morales, an organizer with local 101. "They have the capacity to use responsible contractors to do renovation or construction."
Santos Palacios, the owner of Beltsville-based Palacios Contracting, disputed the union's claims, saying he did not pay workers involved in the project in cash and that only some of the workers were independent subcontractors.
Santos said he did not remember how many people had worked on the project because it frequently changed. He said he recently dissolved his company because he is leaving the country for several months.
Under Armour and subcontractor Robey Inc. declined to comment. Rand Construction, the lead contractor on the project, did not respond to requests for comment.
It is an issue industry-wide. The Maryland Division of Labor and Industry, which oversees construction and landscaping, last year issued 238 citations affecting 681 workers and collected nearly $90,000 in penalties related to misclassification, according to an annual report by the state's Joint Enforcement Task Force on Workplace Fraud.
"This company is a symbol of the city of Baltimore," said Victor Tobar, 35, of Baltimore, one of two people who held the sign Tuesday morning." "We don't have anything against the company — we buy their shirts — but it's not just."
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UNMANNED CARGO SHIPS include of course plane and ship. What is the major transport these few decades of global labor pool 99% to Foreign Economic Zones around the world? CARGO PLANES AND SHIPS. Modern day slave trading ships.
Here we have yet another mode of transport going unmanned-----who will be employed? Those small group of people monitoring a radar screen soon to be replaced by artificial intelligence.
If WE THE PEOPLE are racing to become employed in building these structures----our children and grandchildren will be facing a very, very, very far-right, authoritarian DEEP STATE ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for the global 1%.
Smart Shipping depends on international cooperation
– Interview with Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs, Rijkswaterstaat
Posted on 30/05/2017 by Diana Macovei
Smart Shipping depends on international cooperation – Interview with Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs, Rijkswaterstaat
Laurens Schrijnen and Anja van der Sluijs are both working for Rijkswaterstaat, the National Waterways Authority in the Netherlands. Rijkswaterstaat has taken a remarkable initiative that aims at cooperation between entrepreneurs, research and governments. This remarkable program is called SMASH! Schrijnen and Van der Sluijs speak about the project on Jun 13, at Unmanned Cargo Ship Conference in Venlo.
“Rijkswaterstaat has been asked by the Dutch government to bring the ‘Triple Helix’ together, they exist of entrepreneurs, research and government. Rijkswaterstaat plays the moderator-role and we are glad with the growing interest from the different companies, institutions as well governments. The number of participants is growing rapidly, which shows the importance for all involved,” says Laurens Schrijnen, manager at Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) and the moderator behind Smart Shipping Challenge 2017 SMASH!.
The Netherlands is the most important country of Europe in terms of transport, according to Schrijnen. “Half the European inland fleet is sailing under the Dutch flag. A new phase in inland navigation is starting. Knowledge and skills will and stay crucial and technology will be more and more important. For instance remotely controlled vessels, smart share of information, optimization of maintenance and possibly autonomous sailing. This gives opportunities and challenges regarding sustainability, safety and efficiency. All this will be put together in a demonstration, the Smart Shipping Challenge 2017 SMASH! on November 30, 2017. The aim is to bring knowledge and experience of existing initiatives, technologies, institutes and commercial organisations together, to learn from each other and take advantage of working together to get to smart shipping. SMASH! supports innovation and competitiveness in the Netherlands and other countries regarding inland navigation.”
Astonishment
“Surprisingly many entrepreneurs are astonished that so many technologies are already available out of other innovative fields,” says Anja van der Sluijs, who also is involved with SMASH!. “We are looking at smart tug services, that can be ready in time for service when required. This way less time is lost waiting. Automation plays an important role just like Wifi and pneumatic and magnetic devices. We want to provide different facilities and essential preconditions, which will take care of useful communication between various parties. From here the co-operation between the different groups will grow.”
The interest for SMASH! is growing fast, at the moment this conference will be held some 125 people have signed in for the next meeting te be held in a few days. The interest is not only from the Netherlands but the whole of Europe, which shows the importance for European inland shipping. Cooperating is very important, if not the most important issue of SMASH!.
Knowledge
The main issue behind SMASH! is sharing the knowledge of so many fields so as to lessen the input of largest danger factor, the human input. “The man is still the weakest link and most restrictive. For instance, underwater robots (Remotely Operated Vehicles, ROV) can do the work of men at great depths and give the view of what is going on. For instance when the MH 370 crashed nearly three years ago, we were astonished that only 2% of the seafloor is mapped,” according to Schrijnen. “Technology can support man in many fields and is done far too less. Why take water samples by hand when a robot can do it as well and at lower costs.”
Knowledge of a less pleasant piece of business is accident registration. With the growing information this gives more and more insight into how and why accidents happen, has a direct influence on the safety of inland shipping.
Schrijnen concludes: “It is for all involved better if we learn from our mistakes. We are lucky that most of the professionals agree with this view and this is an important basic ingredient for true cooperation, which brings us the so much needed innovations.”
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