by slimboyfat 85 Replies latest social current
You can be dirt poor and half-starving and still look respectable nowadays with a $20 wardrobe from Wal-Mart.
I buy good quality second hand clothes. Those cheap clothes don't last long and half the time they are rubbish. Not even good value for money.
When I was a little boy growing up in Fort Worth, Texas we lived next to a railroad. It was the 1950's and so many returning veterans
had flooded the job market (which women had filled up until the end of the war) volatile things happened.
1.Women, for the first time, were competitors. If men took their jobs the women were unemployed. If women held onto the jobs the men were unemployed.
2. Industry had over-cranked for the war effort and the drop in demand stifled growth.
3. Many many drifters rode the rails looking for opportunity in city after city.
I say all the above to address the statement BERENGIA made:
Rich people don't create jobs.
Non-rich people create jobs to become rich.
No, you are just overthinking this. Demand = Jobs.
I immediately thought back to all those drifters who wandered up to my neighbor's front door and demanded work for a meal or some money.
They were, for the most part, desperate and anxious men. Some of them were on the edge emotionally.
One such fellow didn't take too kindly when my great grandmother refused to "help out". He chased her into her living room and was pushing the 85 year old against the wall!
His DEMAND did not = JOBS. It got him shot in the leg by my grandfather! (He intended to fire a warning shot at the floor. The hardwood caused a riccochet!)
I still remember the man's name. It was Earl Bunt. I was 8 years old.
Why do I tell you this story?
For years the men wandered the country perfectly willing and able to WORK for FOOD. But, everybody had just come out of the Great Depression and had very little in the way of "extra" for "helping out" those less fortunate.
It was unthinkable in those days to simply BEG without an offer of work. It went against the self-sufficient Puritan ethic that still lingered in our society.
Today, things have changed but the idea of DEMAND=JOBS is still pretty empty as a reality.
That is my experience, anyway.
Added note: My grandson recently obtained a job at the local WAL-MART after searching and applying for over a year! His job consists of bringing baskets in from the parking lot. He works all day in the 100+degree weather and has darkened to the color of mahogany.
He is young and healthy. No older fellow could/would try doing what he is doing.
His DEMAND took a year but it was not the efficient CAUSE of the JOB.
I don't know many people who do not curl their lip at the mention of the "WAL-MART" brand. But, it is a job.
The filthy capitalist, Henry Ford, spent a ton of money to develop a reliable, inexpensive automobile. It was a success. It created a demand that spawned other capitalists to develop autos. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were created. The auto industry worldwide still supports millions of workers who pay taxes and buy stuff.
Terry...I read Berengarias comment differently to you.
I read that demand for goods or services creates jobs. NOT demands from people looking for work creates jobs.Trying to say that people LOOKING for work creates jobs is just plain silly.
I know that for a small business, demand for their services creates jobs...when you have too much work to handle, you employ someone. Or even get a contractor to do some of the work. Demand for your service creates jobs.
I read that demand for goods or services creates jobs. NOT demands from people looking for work creates jobs.Trying to say that people LOOKING for work creates jobs is just plain silly.
Of course.
Demand does not equal jobs in an age when most things are made with little ( or less and less ) human intervention every day.
Conversely, without demand all that automation and human intervention, as little as it may be, will be useless.
Productivity is up largely because of the increased automation in almost every sector.
Not neccessarily. Human productivity is up, but wages are stagnant or even down. Downsizing, fewer unions, off shoring, longer hours, fewer people being made to do the same or more work etc etc etc.
This is what years of buying into the supply side economics myth has done for us. Even China is beginning to look at raising wages to create consumers.
Couple of interesting articles.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=au7tdjzgHks8
What I've noticed in my work experience is that companies are more than willing to fire people and dump their workload on to other employees. This happened to me. I already had my hands full but all of a sudden I get a whole other jobd dumped on me, on top of the one I already had to do.
