Doug Kanter wrote:
"BobK207" wrote in message
oups.com...

..................Some crops cannot be harvested by machines. If they
could be, the machines would exist. .............


not if the current alternative is cheaper, if I can have fruit hand
picked for less than the ammortized cost of a machine then there is no
incentive for such a machine to exist.

. ......No machine will harvest them safely, at least not until
robotics are much further along. A long list of other crops are also
too delicate for anything but human handling......

Again at what relative cost?

as long as we have artificially cheap labor innovation in those fields
will be stunted

no machine could ever fly,
one could ever fly faster than the speed of sound,
it would be impossbile to send a man to the moon & return safely
how could one ever operate on a persons heart
active suspension in a production automobile? too expensive!


what else do we put on the list?


The combine was invented in the late 1940s. There was plenty of cheap labor
available at the time, as there has been ever since. In that time period,
farmers have immediately embraced machinery, regardless of labor costs.
There are benefits which go beyond human labor costs.


Doug-

I get the feeling you deny the existance of economic forces in the
world.

The whole reason for application of capital is the improvement of
productivity; that is, output per unit input.


In that time period, farmers have immediately embraced machinery, regardless of labor costs.

must have been their altruistic side making those decisions


you didn't address my Japan & Germany case

just like people in SoCal stopped mowing their own lawns, because it
wasn't worth their time.

If the illegals disappeared, lawn mowing would become more costly and

some people would pay more for legals, some would mow their own, some
would replace their lawns with low maint gardens.

it's all about choices, "economic" choices (even if the folks making
the choice fail to see it) time vs money; DIY or job it
out.........millions & millions of choices

and the illegal alien pool of cheap labor skew the choices in favor of
labor over alternatives


but it seems like I won't be able to convince you.........

cheers
Bob