Lifestyle > Train of Thought
Now the americans are all for Haiti
TraceOneInfinite:
--- Quote from: 7even on January 28, 2010, 02:30:20 AM ---
Would be fine, if only it would be true that service jobs randomly pop up as soon as production jobs are lost. People lose their production job, don't get an equal "service job" in return and thus lose standard of living and dignity.
--- End quote ---
You need to look at the big picture, because it doesn't happen directly like you described.
To understand economics you have to understand the "seen" vs. "unseen" concept. Like if a man throws a brick through the window of a barber shop, you would cheer, because you would think "now the window repair man (glacier?) will have work fixing the window to the barber shop". When in reality, what is unseen, is that now instead of spending the extra cash on a luxury item like taking his family to a movie, or getting a professional massage; the barber now has to spend his expendable income to repair the window; thus he experiences no increase in his standard of living!
So when you see production jobs being lost, like at General Motors for example. And you see cars being produced at lower costs and greater efficiency over in Japan, you cry, because you say "OHHH no, the poor people at GM lost their jobs, we must save the production jobs in this country, it's vital to our country's intererest". When in reality, the fact that millions of American's now have greater disposable income, by the fact that they can purchase less expensive, more efficient automobiles from oversea's markets; means that they now have the disposable income to spend in the service sectors of the economy; such as taking there family to a movie or out for a massage!
Understand? So where the jobs are lost in the production sector, such as General Motors; jobs are gained in massage therapy, yoga, entertainment industry, etc. Thus, the standard of living is increased!
ikke:
^ In a perfect world...
Who says people who lost their production jobs have the skills required for those jobs?
Infact, even if they have the required skills, why didn't they start earlier?
They either didn't like the work or the pay wasn't enough, either way the standard of living doesn't go up at all.
TraceOneInfinite:
--- Quote from: The Great Cornholio on January 29, 2010, 04:58:36 AM ---^ In a perfect world...
Who says people who lost their production jobs have the skills required for those jobs?
Infact, even if they have the required skills, why didn't they start earlier?
They either didn't like the work or the pay wasn't enough, either way the standard of living doesn't go up at all.
--- End quote ---
Again, I said it doesn't happen directly or immediately. Like, you don't get fired from General Motors and then immediately pick up a job as a yoga instructor. Look we can all be hunter and gatherers or nomads and all have jobs, live off what we kill as hunters and grow in our farms and everybody will have a job and we can live like it was in the dark ages or like we are living in the Sahara in Africa, if that what you are looking for? That's full employment right? I mean, I guess the Native American's had a pretty good life, so if that's your argument then okay.
But, really, I think the goal is to increase the standard of living, not to provide jobs that are no longer needed. If it's no longer needed for us to have factories in America because American workers standards of living are so high that they won't work at the low pay and increased efficiency of foreign workers, then other sectors of the economy must be available to them.
I am talking about the American workforce as a whole. Why do you want to preserve jobs that are no longer needed? So I guess you wish history would have never invented such things as the printing press? Because many scribes who were paid to write out copies of books by hand, now were out of work, right? But what you don't see is that because of that invention the standard of living was greatly increased, and other sections of the economy picked up, such as book-binding, book selling and distributing; plus the knowledge base that existed in the world was greatly increased as information spread all over the world at a rapid rate; thus increasing productivity and efficiency throughout the overall economy.
There has to be personal responsibility. And an individual has to know that their respective skill set may one day be rendered useless by an increase in technology or a change in the times. So they have to adapt. Because if you insist on preserving jobs that are no longer needed then you prevent progress and decrease the standard of living; which is basically what the government has always done. Government has always been a roadblock in the way of people increasing their standard of living. The free market naturally responds to the needs and wants of society, where as the government only responds to what they want, and then they enforce it at the barrel of a gun upon the rest of society.
virtuoso:
What you seemingly overlook is the fact that unemployment was fairly low and the average wage was good to (during the manufacturing good days), now you have a situation in which unemployment has been steadily climbing and wages sharply falling.
TraceOneInfinite:
--- Quote from: virtuoso on January 29, 2010, 05:21:59 AM ---
What you seemingly overlook is the fact that unemployment was fairly low and the average wage was good to (during the manufacturing good days), now you have a situation in which unemployment has been steadily climbing and wages sharply falling.
--- End quote ---
No shit... and that's part of my point.
See, you are all focused on employment and wages when you should be focused upon standard of living. In the manufacturing days I may have had a consistent job and a higher wage; but I wouldn't be able to obtain free information/entertainment from anywhere in the world via the internet, and travel to Africa, the Middle East with relative ease. And drive around in my own car when I was only 16 years old and every day since, and always have running water, electricity, and heating and cooling everywhere I go in America for my whole life.
So if you compare the average standard of living to the standard of living of someone in the manufacturing days you will see that it has increased; in spite of the governments increasing efforts to deter it. Government is slow and inefficient, and an individual moving alone can still find freedom in an unfree world.
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