you seemingly established a correlation between automation and wage level, maybe you were a littke off there...but oh yeah, that little thing called "offshoring". ever call for tech help and get connected to someone in India? a college educated Indian nonetheless. toast in this age of offshoring, Bermuda tax havens, sweatshops in southeast Asia, lax or nonexistent regulation of the financial services industry, 10,000+ highly paid DC lobbyists, ...pretty much just unfettered greed i reckon RS