News I really see no hope for employment in the US

[turbo]

Whatever you 'meant' was not really what you said. You claim we grow a lot more food, which is true, with far fewer people, which isn't completely true. See my previous post. 'Nuff said, I feel it is impossible for me to make this any clearer.

It is a good idea to consider seasonal variations in employment. Once upon a time, farms were operated by families, with perhaps cooperative efforts during high-labor times, like during the harvest. Nowadays, automation has stripped the population of active farmers in grains, corn, etc. There are lots of people employed in the harvest of tomatoes, broccoli, apples, grapes, lettuce, strawberries, etc, but those crops are not well-suited to mechanical one-size-fits-all harvesting. It is not easy to gauge the labor-costs for migrant seasonal work-forces.

 

[CAC1001]

Whatever you 'meant' was not really what you said.

Yes it is.

You claim we grow a lot more food, which is true, with far fewer people, which isn't completely true. See my previous post. 'Nuff said, I feel it is impossible for me to make this any clearer.

We use far fewer people, as a percentage of the population, to grow food today than we did before. We also use fewer people, as a percentage of the population, to manufacture things.

Yes, the economy is interlinked, I'm talking about the people directly involved. I am sure if you stretch it far enough, you could connect anyone to any industry.

 

[mheslep]

Whatever you 'meant' was not really what you said. You claim we grow a lot more food, which is true, with far fewer people, which isn't completely true. See my previous post. 'Nuff said, I feel it is impossible for me to make this any clearer.

You're referring to all the additonal inputs from the guy who made the tracter, pumped the oil to run the tracter, made the advandced hybrid seeds, etc. CAC is still correct for like versus like. In terms of man hours to produce a bushel of whatever, including the fractional man hours for the tractor, etc, the total is still down many multiples of what it was hundreds of years ago. That's just for the bushel at the farm, however. If you add in the nationwide, even global, food distribution system, the nice presentation at the local grocer, the 100,000 paper pushers at the US Dept of Agriculture; that part didn't exist a couple hundred years ago, and I'll grant you that part of the food industry in the US is using many more people than before.

 

[nismaratwork]

You're referring to all the additonal inputs from the guy who made the tracter, pumped the oil to run the tracter, made the advandced hybrid seeds, etc. CAC is still correct for like versus like. In terms of man hours to produce a bushel of whatever, including the fractional man hours for the tractor, etc, the total is still down many multiples of what it was hundreds of years ago. That's just for the bushel at the farm, however. If you add in the nationwide, even global, food distribution system, the nice presentation at the local grocer, the 100,000 paper pushers at the US Dept of Agriculture; that part didn't exist a couple hundred years ago, and I'll grant you that part of the food industry in the US is using many more people than before.

I'd add, the use of corn, wheat, and soybeans in large tracts makes it possible, not for all crops, to harvest using minimal labor. The result isn't lost jobs, because we no longer have much of an indigenous migrant labor force. Yeah, that big machine cost a ton, and it uses diesel, but it also does the work of a literal FLEET of people. People need food, shelter, entertainment, training... and more. If you can clear fields of grapes, wheat, corn, soy... all in a few days and with minimal loss?... Averagesupernova, I need a much better argument to explain why you think your point is so "clear".

 

[Al68]

Thus, I think an important part of organizing our future society is coming up with a model that works just fine even with a substantial mount of people not working ("unemployed").

The "model" that works best is society organizing itself as individuals choose. It also has the added benefit of individual economic liberty, which many still consider integral to their happiness.

 

[Zarqon]

The "model" that works best is society organizing itself as individuals choose. It also has the added benefit of individual economic liberty, which many still consider integral to their happiness.

I'm not sure what you mean by individual choice, but I don't know if it can be considered an organization. I mean, what if one individuals choice contradicts another ones?

No, with model I was thinking of the fact that one country produces a certain amount of combined products/services, and the job of the Model is to describe how those resources are distributed to all people in that country in the best possible way. Regardless of how many persons have to work to produce those resources. If only 50% of the population needs to work to reach that goal, then this is a good thing not a bad, and the non-working portion also needs to be able to get enough of what society produces to be happy.

 

[Astronuc]

Interestingly - there seems to be opportunity in Germany - if one can get through the maze of regulations.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1020/1224281543028.html

 

[mugaliens]

Employment is up in the US! Furthermore, earnings were unexpectedly terrific this past quarter, as were investment starts. This invariably translates into opening the doors to more employment.

 

[talk2glenn]

Whatever you 'meant' was not really what you said. You claim we grow a lot more food, which is true, with far fewer people, which isn't completely true. See my previous post. 'Nuff said, I feel it is impossible for me to make this any clearer.

This is complete nonsense.

Agriculture contributes about 1.2% of US GDP (by definition final product, which includes intermediate goods), and consumes about 2.0% of US energy (both direct and indirect).

The notion that there has not been a dramatic reallocation of labor out of agriculture and into other sectors since, approximately, the Industrial Revolution is silly and pointless. Every high school kid knows that agriculture has gone from 99% of global GDP a few hundred years ago to less than a third today.

 

[mheslep]

talk2glenn you're missing the details of what was said. Yes obviously agricultural productivity is way up. But Cac1001 commented in terms of absolutes originally, not in terms of productivity of produce made per person:

We grow more food today than ever before, but use far fewer people.

That's not exactly true, just as A. SuperNova said, as there are probably more people directly employed by agriculture in the US than in the entire population of the US in colonial times. Then he alluded to how the the modern farmer is dependent on other parts of society, which is also true. One can't point to X people in a society any more and say that those people alone are responsible for producing food.

 

[talk2glenn]

talk2glenn you're missing the details of what was said. Yes obviously agricultural productivity is way up. But Cac1001 commented in terms of absolutes originally, not in terms of productivity of produce made per person:

Absolutely, too, it is complete nonsense, unless one goes so far back in time that the American population is reduced to that of modern Manhattan. Then maybe, but you aren't really saying anything of value, are you?

See here:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/April08/Features/HiredFarm.htm

In 1950, there were almost 10 million farm workers in the United States. In 2006, there were 1 million. I'm sure if I kept searching I could go farther back and see the trend continuing for quite awhile (at least the 20th century).

That's not exactly true, just as A. SuperNova said, as there are probably more people directly employed by agriculture in the US than in the entire population of the US in colonial times. Then he alluded to how the the modern farmer is dependent on other parts of society, which is also true. One can't point to X people in a society any more and say that those people alone are responsible for producing food.

This is why I avoided quoting the number of workers in the US in the agrilculture field - to address the non sequitor about "indirection contribution".

GDP, as a measure of final product, includes any intermediate value added products, and indirect energy use by sector is tracked by the government as part of environmental regulations, so these figures are widely and easily available and get around this convenient distraction.

Assume for a moment that, individual outliers aside, if you grabbed a sufficiently large group of Americans (like 1.5% of the working population, the number of people working on farms) they'd be all more or less equally productive. There'd be outliers, to be sure, both by sector and by worker, but it'd average out well. If you can accept that axiom, then you can measure the productive contribution of workers to a sector - indirects included - by looking at GDP. So I quoted it.

It is also true that workers, regardless of the industry they are working in, need some relatively fixed amount of electricity to do their jobs. Again, it varies by the exact type of work and the location, but grab a sufficiently large bunch and it'd average out well. Accept this axiom, and you can see why I quoted energy usage.

Together we get a useful picture of how much indirect contribution the American economy today makes to agriculture, and the answer is not much. Yes, even including the "fractional manhours" spent building John Deere tractors.

 

[GRB 080319B]

Why must that be so?

One word: Money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvqqYDmLgjY"

Quote from The Week, Where America's jobs went, March 25, 2011, pp. 13: "The trend began in earnest in the late 1970s at large manufacturers such as General Electric. GE's then CEO, Jack Welch, who was widely respected by other corporate chieftains, argued that public corporations owe their primary allegiance to stockholders, not employees. Therefore, Welch said, companies should seek to lower costs and maximize profits by moving operations wherever is cheapest. "Ideally," Welch said, "you'd have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy." Not only did GE offshore much of its manufacturing, so did its parts suppliers, which were instructed at GE-orchestrated "supplier migration seminars" to "migrate or be out of business." ... As economic globalization gathers speed and technology erases geographic boundaries, firms now have instant access to educated workers all over the planet ... White-collar workers who once seemed immune to offshoring - lawyers, financial analysts, even local newspaper reporters - are now in peril of seeing their jobs shifted to India, Eastern Europe, or China."

I believe this is a rather concise summation of what I am attempting to get across:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3vbCxj2ifs&feature=related"