On Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:12:49 -0600, Ignoramus5113
wrote:

On 2012-11-06, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Ignoramus5113 wrote:

On 2012-11-06, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Ignoramus5113 wrote:

On 2012-11-06, Karl Townsend wrote:
...
This fundamental issue is also combining with automation to further
erode the ability of a country's economy to gainfully employ the
majority of it's population. When the production of all the products and
services required by 100% of the population only requires 20% of the
population's labor you have another serious problem that has no easy
solution.

The easy solution is called a service economy. Nobody said that
"production" is the only real economic activity.


'Service Economy' is a myth. It doesn't create anything by itself,
it just bounces the same few dollars around.

Let's say that you give me a chunk of metal and I make you an object
from this chunk of metal, that you need. You pay me for it. That's
manufacturing.

Now let's say that tomorrow you come to me and I cut your hair
instead. That's service.

It is manufacturing on one day and service on another.

But the economic difference is not huge.


Apples & oranges. You're a babrber and your last pair of electric
hair clippers die. You call all the companies who used to make them, to
discover their factories were closed & all the tools liquidated. You're
out of business, too.

But Mike, the concern was that manufacturing would disappear, it would
not, but that it would be automated and not employing a lot of
people.

And my answer is, it is fine, people can instead be employed servicing
each other, while manufacturing hums along with minimal staffing
level.

The same thing already happened to agriculture. 150 years ago, most
people were in agriculture. Now, just a small number. But the food is
plentiful and cheap.

i

In the late 1400's and early 1500's exactly this happened in England.
Tenant farmers forced off their farms and the farms enclosed (fenced)
to make pasture for sheep as the wool industry was more profitable
then farming and used far less peoples. The result was a tremendous
increase in the population in the cities, massive unemployment and
large increases in crime.

But wool was cheap and abundant.

Close to 200 years later the English industrial revolution came along
and employed these "poor people".

--
Cheers,
John B.