It���s a common complaint, but absurd.

Technological improvements have been around since the invention of the wheel. (Hey, it used to take five of us 3 days to get this grain from here to the market, now we can put it in the cart and one person gets it there in 1 day.)

It is true that automation eliminates jobs. It also creates jobs.

When wool was made into cloth by hand it was very expensive. When it could be done via automation in a mill it became far less expensive. The upshot was that many more people could afford wool clothing.

So milling wool lost jobs for weavers. But it created jobs for shepherds, for clothing manufacturers, and fashion designers.

Every new kind of automation loses jobs in some places but creates jobs in others because of the greater efficiency.

So the real complaint here isn���t the loss of jobs. It���s that what jobs are available are changing.

Nothing ever stays the same. That���s a fact of life that young people (and lazy people) don���t understand and don���t like. Change is uncomfortable���scary even.

But for the bank teller that���s been replaced by the ATM, other businesses will be better able to hire because their banking expenses have gone down.

Automation is neither a cause nor a symptom of the bad economy. It���s one of the things that could actually help to improve the economy.

Automation means producing more with less time, less cost and less effort. That helps everyone. It even helps those people who are unemployed. If producing food were not automated, it would be VERY expensive and people on limited budgets would be starving.

But it also means that if you wish to remain employed, you must, everyone MUST be ready, willing and able to learn new things, to embrace new careers.

Nobody has a ���right��� to live their entire life some kind of forever unchanging ���Mayberry���.

There���s an old adage that every living thing is either growing���or dying. So choose to grow because there is only one alternative.