🚀 go-pugleaf

"Mark Martin" <mpmartin7@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<ak2vp0$jtd$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
> "Jim Blair" <jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote in message
> news:ak0cau$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.


I can bridge the gap between both of your apparently opposing theories
of how the economy works.  Yes, it is better for the economy when it
takes fewer people to do a job today than it did ten years ago. 
You're point is, how can it be better if people must lose their jobs
because it can now be done by fewere people?

In my pet theory of the economy, the service industry or service
sector of the economy expands to pick up those people whose jobs have
been shed by the manufacturing or production part of the economy
because of increases in efficiency and technology.  Service industrys
expand as manufacturing/production industries shrink.  Travel
industrys expands (we can all afford to travel more).  Restaurant
industry expands (we can all afford to eat out more).  Entertainment
industry expands (we can all afford to go see more movies go to discos
partys etc) etc etc etc    The service industry expands to take up the
slack left by the manufacturing industry....