Change all Jobs? Change is Hard and Risky

 

there is no end of jobs better done by ai, but it will be slow and messy as usual.  however, I recall back in the  day, looking at a product line of appliances engineered back in the fifties.  It still took tewenty more years to replace them.

an engineer freind took over a meter company over twenty years ago.  The hardware used an 8 bit chip, but was good enough.  anotherr twenty years before better hardware used.

my point is that good enough matters and change after  that remains hard and risky.,  

Understand that farmers still use seventy year old tractors because the job they do has not changed.

Change all Jobs? Change is Hard and Risky

February 28, 2026 by Brian Wang

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2026/02/change-all-jobs-change-is-hard-and-risky.html#more-208826

IBM losing 13% because Anthropic did some initial COBOL analysis is absurd. It was also an absurd part of the $1 trillion stock losses from the boogeyman story about AI job losses.

1. IBM only makes a tiny fraction from the COBOL business

2. BS the banks etc… will change the cobol running the ATMs etc… when they have not done it for 60+ years. They were scared to change before and they are scared to change now. They did not know what is in all of the undocumented code and even if AI tells them how long will it take to test and verify. Maybe each big bank can save a few hundred million per year if they change it. Or they can focus on making some new crypto-AI apps and services to make a few billion per year on new products.Screenshot

“Modernizing COBOL has been a technically solved problem for a while,” Matt Brasier, analyst at Gartner, told VentureBeat. “The real problem is that the costs of modernization are high and the ROI is low.” Senior data and infrastructure engineers will spend the next few weeks fielding questions from executives who saw the headlines and assumed the hard problem just got solved. It did not.

“It’s COBOL, but there are numerous applications tied to it,” Joshi said. “It’s not like you transform millions of lines and somehow you are ready to go to cloud. It’s a massive risk assessment, dependencies and all those things.” Everything other system is connected to the existing systems. The hard parts are extracting institutional knowledge, reworking processes and controls, change management, and containing operational risk in systems that cannot break. AI can compress the “analysis and translation” work, but it does not eliminate the governance and accountability burden.

Growing is Far More Rewarding

Full transformations often yield 0-20% net gains (or losses) after failures. New ventures (or add-ons) in boom eras delivered 5-1000x scaling. If growing is better and more rewarding then jobs are not killed. Productivity increases. The pie is expanded.

When Ford originally grew its car company. The employees were paid more to create more customers for the new industry.

US retail ecommerce went from ~$27B (2000) to $1.2T+ (2024). Global ~$6.3T (2025 est., +8.8% YoY). ADDED channels drove 50%+ of some retail growth. They added and integrated with bricks and mortar stores.

Risks and Failure Rates in Extreme Change Management

Large-scale change initiatives (restructuring, full digital overhauls, or change all jobs reengineering) fail at rates of 60-70%, a figure consistent across decades of studies.

70% Failure Rate for Change Programs

Harvard Business Review (2000, still widely cited) finds ~70% failure rate for change programs.

McKinsey traditionally 70% fail due to employee resistance and lack of management support. Even today, radical reinvention is tough.

Maybe better practices can flip odds to 70-80% success in prepared organizations [This is called consultant fantasy where an executive is being sold by a consultant company that will get huge money to try to implement the change].

Errida & Lotfi (2021) meta-analysis and others finds one breakdown showed 50% outright failures, 16% mixed, 34% successes.

Result of Failed Change Autopsies

Employee resistance ~37-70% of failures.

Poor communication and leadership. 25% of leaders unable to execute the big change.

Change fatigue when employees face ~10 planned changes/year

Without full process mapping and verification, disruptions cascade (knowledge loss, supply chain breaks, customer churn). Not knowing you did not know how important things really worked.

Failed transformations destroy value, erode trust, and can lead to bankruptcy.

Even vastly more efficient new models don’t automatically kill incumbents due to switching costs, brand inertia, regulations, customer habits, and legacy moats.

During the 1990s-2000s internet boom and later cloud era, outsourcing isolated non-core departments (BPO/IT) delivered reliable cost and efficiency gains without full overhaul, while adding new channels like ecommerce or SaaS drove the biggest revenue upside. Full core gutting/switching was rarer and riskier.

That is Old, Why is It Still Around?

Newspapers have been around for 300+ years in US (colonial era).

Daily circulation peaked ~62.8M (1987), ~55.8M (2000) → ~21M combined print/digital (2022, -8-10% YoY).

Radio starts in 1920s, Survived TV and then later internet/podcasts. Weekly reach stable at ~80-90% of peak.

Walmart versus older retail and Sears. Niches in older retail survive and it is taking decades for Sears to go away. Sears could have adjusted and competed far better.

Amazon versus Walmart and Barnes & Noble. Physical book stores got hit hard but are now coming back. Walmart continues to grow.

hypersonic going over the top

This is extraordinary news.  It means that we can expect been able to reach ramjet engine speeds from take off.  swi8itching over to a ramjet then becomes possible if one is high enough and a ramjet makes a vrun up to orbit possible..  that has always been the gap and we can jump it.

Still a long ways off but no longer just impossible.  Exciting times.

we now have a bif thimper able to directly boost a hundred tonsintoo orbit and this promises to allow a commute.

We all gave up too soon.

Physics Broken: Rolls Royce's New Ice Cool Engine Achieves Mach 7 Without Melting At Mach 7, the sky turns into fire. In this deep dive, we explore how Rolls-Royce and Reaction Engines are challenging one of aerospace engineering’s most unforgiving barriers: surviving hypersonic heat. When aircraft push beyond Mach 5, the air itself becomes a 1,000°C plasma blast furnace capable of melting advanced alloys in seconds. Traditional jet engines fail. Even legends like the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-22 Raptor never came close to these extremes. For decades, reusable hypersonic flight seemed impossible. But the SABRE engine (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) may change everything. At the heart of this breakthrough is a revolutionary *precooler* system capable of chilling 1,000°C airflow to manageable temperatures in under 1/20th of a second. Combined with ceramic matrix composites, fuel-based regenerative cooling, and advanced frost-control systems, this technology doesn’t fight the heat — it manages it. From ground tests in Colorado using a modified General Electric J79 as a hypersonic blowtorch, to integrated UK test runs simulating speeds beyond the Concorde, this is the story of how engineers are rewriting the rules of flight. Could this mean: • London to Sydney in under 4 hours? • Fully reusable spaceplanes? • Mach 5+ reconnaissance aircraft? • A new era of sixth-generation air dominance? The wall of fire that stopped hypersonic aviation for 60 years may finally be cracking. 

#RollsRoyce #Hypersonic #SABRE #ReactionEngines #AerospaceEngineering #FutureOfFlight #Mach7 #Precooler #Spaceplane #MilitaryTechnology #AdvancedMaterials #Innovation #EngineeringBreakthrough

How this was made

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Pakistan Declares 'All-Out War' Against Afghanistan, Hundreds Dead In Overnight Clashes With Taliban

History strikes again.  Recall that if you harbor an insurgency, they always come back over the pass to attack you.  After all, they think that they know where the money is.

I had hoped they would all settle down, but no such luck, obviously.

Who do we blame tis time?

Pakistan Declares 'All-Out War' Against Afghanistan, Hundreds Dead In Overnight Clashes With Taliban

Friday, Feb 27, 2026 - 08:25 AM

Overnight, Pakistan launched airstrikes across Afghanistan, including targets in the capital of Kabul, soon after which Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif by Friday morning declared an "all-out war" between the two countries.

Hours prior to the commencement of airstrikes and heavier clashes, Afghan Taliban forces reportedly attacked Pakistani border troops Thursday night in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes earlier in the week.

A Pakistani military spokesman has said that 274 Taliban fighters have been killed and more than 400 injured by Pakistani strikes, adding that 74 Taliban posts were destroyed and 18 captured - and counting.Taliban near the Torkham border, via AFP.

The Taliban for its part has said that 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 19 posts seized. Kabul have acknowledged Taliban fighters killed, 11 wounded, and 13 civilians injured in the mountainous northwest border region where the line of fighting is concentrated.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which share the disputed 1,600-mile Durand Line, have shifted from cautious engagement to open hostility. The history has been marked by shifting from one-time allies to on-and-off again enemies. Many analysts are pointing to 'blowback' for Pakistan after sponsoring the Taliban's rise in the first place, decades ago (which also had the help of the CIA in 'Operation Cyclone').

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of sheltering Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants who carry out cross-border attacks.

Analysts say the latest escalation marks the first time Pakistan has directly targeted Taliban government sites, or essentially going all out against Kabul, rather than limiting strikes to alleged TTP positions.

Pakistan has said its forces have taken out a number of tanks and armored vehicles, as well as artillery positions. The Taliban relies on equipment left behind and confiscated after US and NATO forces rapidly withdrew from the country in the summer of 2021.

It remains that Pakistan's army has total force domination; however, the Taliban can still inflict pain through acts of terrorism, which Pakistani cities have suffered immensely under.

Acts of terror by Islamist groups have become almost a regular occurrence in Pakistan - with many suspected of having support through Afghanistan. For example, we reported on this major incident just weeks ago as follows:

At least 31 people were killed and 169 others injured on Friday when a suicide bomber struck a Shia mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad during Friday prayers, Pakistani officials said, in one of the capital’s deadliest attacks in over a decade.

The blast happened in the Khadija al-Kubra Imambargah mosque in the outskirts of Islamabad, with police saying the attacker had been stopped at the mosque gate before opening fire and setting off explosives among worshipers, according to officials cited by Reuters.

As for how the warring sides compare, regional publication Al-Monitor lays out the following:

Pakistan's armed forces benefit from good recruitment and retention, bolstered by equipment from its main defense partner China. Islamabad continues to invest in its military nuclear programs and is also modernizing its navy and air force...

Pakistan has 660,000 active personnel in its defense forces, of whom 560,000 are in the army, 70,000 are in the air force, and 30,000 are in the navy.

The strength of the Afghan Taliban's military is thinner, with only 172,000 active personnel. The group has, however, announced plans to expand its armed forces to 200,000 personnel.

The Taliban's international isolation has meant that it cannot modernize its military - but still, there have been reports of drone usage against Pakistan positions.

As is typical, Pakistan points the finger at Israel and India for fomenting instability in the region:

Taliban authorities said their forces carried out drone strikes against military targets inside Pakistan as clashes between the two countries continued, according to statements from the defense ministry and a government spokesperson on Friday.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistani Taliban militants attempted to deploy drones against targets within Pakistan, but air defense systems intercepted them and no casualties were reported.

via Al Jazeera

Overall, Pakistan is experiencing some serious blowback for its years-long policies... Sky News' Yalda Hakim points out that "Pakistan spent decades backing and sheltering the Afghan Taliban - its defense minister acknowledged that to me on camera. Now it says Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is providing sanctuary to militants attacking Pakistan. The consequences are unfolding in real time."

The substitution of a tariff for the income tax would re-create free Americans

Anyway the argument goes on.  what no one proposes for the USA is a proper VAT conforming to that used by all others.  By conforming, all natural offsets can be integrated with the others.  this matters.  Secondly it can be split with the states ensuring their finances.  this changes a lot.

Sensibly, the same rate can be applied to income and way more important all exemptions can be banned.  There will be more than enough and a rigid budget stops obvious greed.

It can all be made simplke.

The substitution of a tariff for the income tax would re-create free Americans

February 27, 2026

https://paulcraigroberts.org/the-substitution-of-a-tariff-for-the-income-tax-would-re-create-free-americans/

Paul Craig Roberts

On February 25, I wrote on this website that the most important part of President Trump’s State of the Union address was the refusal of Democrats to stand if they agreed with his statement: “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Actually, there is an equally important element in his address, perhaps more important, and that is President Trump’s statement that tariffs would eventually replace the system of income taxation. This is perhaps the most important sentence ever stated in a state of the union address. As far as I can tell, the only attention it received was that the Supreme Court had recently invalidated Trump’s tariffs.

As I have pointed out for decades to no avail–not even libertarians have noticed–the income tax enacted in 1913 converted free Americans into serfs or slaves. The reason I can say this is that the historical definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. Serfs and slaves do not own their own labor. Serfs owed a portion of their labor to their feudal lord. Normally it did not exceed 30% of their labor. Slaves owed 50% of their labor to their owners, the other half of their labor going to their own maintenance as an effective and loyal workforce.

There is no way around the fact that the historical definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. The land enclosures freed serfs from their obligation to feudal Lords, and created a labor market in which untaxed wages were paid to laborers for their labor. Free men appeared once they owned their own labor and sold it at market wages.

The income tax that passed in 1913 did not materially enserf or enslave Americans, because the tax rate was so low and applied to such a tiny percentage of incomes that it had no material effect. That is how they got it in place. But once in place, the income tax grew quickly, both up in the tax rate and broadly in the percentage of the population subject to income taxation. By the time of the John F Kennedy administration the tax rate on middle income Americans exceeded the tax rate on the labor of medieval serfs, and the tax rate on upper incomes exceeded the tax rate on 19th century slaves on American cotton and tobacco plantations. As the Kennedy tax rate reductions were not indexed, by the time of the Reagan administration the tax rates again exceeded those on medieval serfs and 19th century slaves. The Reagan administration indexed the new tax rates, and this has held the appropriation of the labor of the middle class to that appropriated by feudal lords. For the upper income class, the official tax rate is higher than that on medieval serfs, but there are methods depending on the economic activities of the upper income class that keep the tax rates for some of them below that of medieval serfs. Regardless, the upper class does not own all of its own labor and is no more free than the lower class.

A tariff is a tax on your purchases, not on your labor. If you purchase domestic products made from domestic resources, you do not have to pay the tariff. If you purchase imported goods or domestic goods made partially from imported products, you pay a tariff based on the content of foreign input in to the product. The purpose of tariffs is to protect domestic production from foreign competition, not as Trump uses them to bludgeon foreign countries to obey his orders.

Tariffs are in effect a consumption tax, not a tax on labor and capital. Therefore, a country with a consumption tax instead of an income tax will have higher growth and higher living standards.

All of this completely obvious and correct information has been ignored in the United States since 1913, a period of 113 years. For over a century American GDP and personal incomes have been held down by the liberals and leftists who have the outlook of communists and prefer equal incomes in poverty to higher incomes with inequality.

It is extraordinary that Donald Trump, a real estate developer, understands this, but the American Economic Association is incapable, being brainwashed as it is by a century of indoctrination.

When you read economists, you learn that their only concern about the income tax is that it is fair. By fair, they mean that it must fall heaviest on the higher incomes. A flat tax rate that taxes everyone at the same rate, which seems consistent with the Constitutional mandate of equal treatment under the law, is considered unfair. The fact that a tax on income means that the taxpayer has lost his freedom and now owes part of his labor to the government, the equivalent of a feudal lord or 19 century plantation owner, is beyond the comprehension of economists.

The consequence is that we will remain serfs and slaves with only a partial ownership of our own labor.