🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jim Blair" <jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote in message
news:ak0cau$ka7$1@news.doit.wisc.edu...
> Hi,
>
> ??? As ever fewer people have been able to make ever more (and better)
> goods because of higher productuvity, the fraction of the population
> employed has increased, and family incomes have increased to their highest
> levels ever.

That makes no sense at all.  "...fewer people making goods means more people
are employed."

> While Michael Coburn laments this as increased drugery, sensible people
> can see that living standards are higher than ever because of this, and
> few (other than Michael) would want a time machine to take them back to
> 1950.
>
> Would you?

<flame>
This worn-out ivory tower logic is tiring.  My *experience* is that a job
lasts about 2 to 3 years at the most, whereas my dad's job lasted some 35 or
40 years.  This instability of employment means that a job is something I do
inbetween layoffs, that I live off of credit when I'm out of work and out of
unemployment benefits, and whenever I do have a job, I save like crazy and
eliminate my debts, reduce my expenses, and do my shopping at Walmart.  It's
worked pretty good so far.

I don't see how a higher fraction of the population can be employed.  A lot
of jobs that people have nowdays are just low-grade temp and retail jobs.
If you call that a higher standard of living, then I'll take a job doing
some honest work in some factory from the 50's era.

Michael Coburn didn't say anything about drudgery either.  That's crazy,
there's no drudgery in current jobs.  There's a lot of insanity and
uncertainty from things changing faster than people can adjust.

You're not from this planet, are you.  I'll bet these kind of theories come
from some stodgy university professor who never set foot in the working
world.  You probably also think that layoffs mean a company is about to do a
lot more business, and that unemployment is good for the economy.

</flame>

Mark Martin