🚀 go-pugleaf

"Jim Blair" <jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote in message
news:ak3a0r$756$2@news.doit.wisc.edu...
>
> >> VOR <vorcycles@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >The employment in the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy is now
> >> >approaching levels not seen in 40 years!!! Take a look at the chart
> >> >analysis for the U.S. manufacturing employment, unemployment rate,
> >> >capacity utilization, and housing starts at
>  >
>  >  http://www.mktcycles.com/econdata.htm
>
> >"Jim Blair" <jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote
> >
> > So manufacturing employment is dropping but industrial production is
> > rising?  Note that productivity is also rising (and unemployment
> > dropping).
> >
> > It is taking ever fewer people to make ever more goods?  That is GOOD.
>
>
> >"Grinch" <oldnasty@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Once upon a time 75% of total employment in the US was in agriculture.
> >> It's dropped to 2% today -- although farms produce vastly more today,
> >> due to much higher productivity, of course.
> >>
> >> Look at the 73% unemployment in the US now!  Look at how US wealth now
> >> is concentrated among those 2% of agricultural barrons -- how they get
> >> all the money!
>
> "Mark Martin" <mpmartin7@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >
> >Agricultural barrons????  You must mean Philip Morris.  I don't know of
any
> >filthy-rich dirt farmers.  Filthy farmers, dirt-poor farmers, but not
> >filthy-rich dirt farmers.
>
> Grinch:
> >
> >> Wouldn't life be better if agricultural productivity had remained low,
> >> so we all of necessity still lived and worked on the farm, and none of
> >> us had been forced into those 98% of other lousy jobs that make up a
> >> modern economy?
>
> Mark Martin:
> >
> >Gee, nobody forced me to go to college or take a job as a computer
> >programmer.  I haven't seen any jobs at all for farm-hands.  Maybe I
should
> >take that job as a sysadmin for the local porno site.  Now THAT'S filth!
> >
> Hi,
>
> From your reply I say you missed Grinch's point. We are the better for the
> drop in agricultural employment because of increased productivity.
>
> So we also expect to be better off because of the drop in manufacturing
> employment due to increased productivity.

Oh, I got the point alright.  You're saying that because we're not all
farmers, and that goods are made in highly automated factories, that we're
all better off.  This point that you're trying to make is pointless and
completely moot.  The agricultural economy died out in the 19th century, or
early 20th, with the advent of the industrial revolution.  Who cares about
that?  That was when my grandpa was a kid.  Now, the industrial economy is
supposedly dying out, giving way to either a services oriented economy, or
an information age, or what they called "New Economy" a year or two ago.  I
think this is the point that you're referring to, but you make no mention of
this part of the equation at all.  Instead, you're saying that since we're
not all farmers or factory workers, we're all better off.  The phasing out
of old economies cannot accout for greater employment.  Less people working
[at manufacturing] does not mean more people are employed.  You gotta talk
about what replaces the economy that's being phased out, and that's what
your argument is missing.

Now, about this "new economy", or whatever.  The supposed "information age"
is a flop right now.  The dot-com bubble burst last year, and has no chance
of recovering any time soon.  There are no computer jobs of any kind, no
high-tech jobs anywhere.  Lots of companies have already layed off large
portions of their workforce, or gone out of business:  Montgomery Ward,
K-Mart... there was a website that listed hundreds of companies that were
laying off thousands, dozens of thousands of employees at a time.  Now, here
you are saying that all this unemployment means a "higher standard of
living,"  while you fail to acknowledge all these facts that the current
state of the economy is a complete shambles.  Pardon me if I feel insulted.

Granted, I can get a hamburger at Wendy's without having to chase the animal
around the barnyard or go foraging for the vegetables.  And CDs are better
quality than 8-tracks.  And I can get help right away from McAfee over the
web for my virus scanner software.  But you'll never convince me that less
people working means more people are employed.  That's pretty much what you
said:

> ??? 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.


Mark Martin