I really see no hope for employment in the US

[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"