Quote:
Originally posted by Kuan
Piotr, manufacturing did not decrease worldwide. Most advances in manufacturing technology do not make quick enough advances overnight. If it did, we'd see manufacturing jobs disappear instead of going overseas. It still takes humans, maybe fewer because they tend to not have overtime laws in inner Mongolia, but it still takes humans. (see Levi Strauss new factory in China example) American productivity increased because there were fewer workers per dollar goods sold in the United States. (I don't get this. Why are we more productive when someone else is doing the work?) Once again the numbers in the news lie to us. As I sit here on my couch, contents of my workbench on my lap, drowning my sorrows in beer, somebody somewhere is assembling laptops for the American market. You tell me, am I being more productive?
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Sorry, you are wrong. The latest UN data (have to Google this again) showed that in the past year manufacturing jobs dropped world wide by about 6% due to mechanization. This number was of course higher in the developed countries. BTW, the mfg jobs dropped also in the second and third world that saw its jobs exported even further down (Malaysia, etc.).