A Greek top oligarch admits that robots are taking the jobs!

globinfo freexchange

Many conclusions could be derived from the testimony of a key member of the Greek economic elite in the Committee of the Greek Parliament which examines the case of the loans that the banks gave to the media and the political parties in Greece.

However, a particular statement concerning jobs is really interesting. Attempting to persuade the Committee for his intention to keep as many jobs as possible in the media that he controls, Fotis Bobolas stated something totally contradictory. He admitted actually that robots are taking the jobs in every sector of economic activity!

“Step by step, now with the technology, we start seeing - not only in some businesses sectors - that robots started to take job positions and this is not happening only in industries, it's happening even in the media.”

Given that himself is part of the Greek oligarchy*, the statement is actually a complete admission by the economic elite of the estimation and analysis concerning the consequences of hyper-automation and occupation of nearly every job sector by super-intelligent machines.

As mentioned in the article The dominant elite ready to break the "social contract" , “Hyper-automation is the key for the ruling class to break the social contract exactly because it doesn't need human labor anymore. The culture of extreme individualism serves perfectly the plan, because for decades generations learned to grow just to consume and protect their individual rights without caring for the others (this is the general picture of course, there are exceptions). The “inflation” of the middle class based on this one-dimensional culture, destroyed any class consciousness, fed apolitical generations and now used as a tool to trigger conflict interests inside the shrinking middle class, always on an economic basis.”

So, here we are. Not only analyses lead to the same conclusion, but now, you have the admission and confirmation of the economic elite representatives.

* From the Media oligarchs go shopping report by Reporters Without Borders: The Bobolas family has ruled over the construction sector for decades. At the same time, like so many other “big families” in Greece, it also controls a number of media outlets. Fortis Bobolas, the younger brother of Leonidas, heads the board of Pegasus, a publishing house that owns five dailies including Ethnos, around 15 magazines, and websites. The family’s media flagship is Mega, a TV channel in which they hold the majority of the shares. Mega distinguished itself by clearly backing a “yes” vote in the 2015 bailout referendum, thereby defying the prime minister. [...] the Greek oligarchs used their media outlets to try to block Tsipras’ rise to power. Their media also waged a united campaign against the “no” vote sought by Tsipras in the July 2015 referendum in order to defy Europe. They failed in both cases. This may have been because Greek voters had ceased to trust their news media, knowing them to be subservient to the oligarchy’s interests, and had sought information elsewhere, on blogs, social networks and the websites of grass-roots groups.