Looking at the BLS numbers, 50 years ago, there were two manufacturing production workers for every government drone in the Land of the Free….. since when the trend has been to an inexorable deterioration.
That said, Dubya has truly excelled himself during his spell in the Imperial Purple. If we had only stuck to the 1954-1999 trend–bad as it was–there would now be ‘only’ 178 Tax Eaters per 100 manufacturing Tax Payers; instead we stand slightly in excess of 215:100, which is more than one-fifth worse than we might have expected in just over four short years. Given this, do we really believe there can be a productivity revolution across ALL of the economy?
See the chart.
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Clearly there has been an enormous increase in productivity per worker in the past 50 years. And it’s likely that in 50 years productivity will increase still further. And in terms of material wealth, we have also seen dramatic increases. But that wealth increase is not completely due to the increase in productivity, and it has come at a very high cost.
To a great extent it is the result of the increase in the percentage of the non welfare population that works for money income. Most women with working husbands used to stay at home raising children. Now they often fob off that “tedious” job to day care workers and the public school system, and have paying jobs themselves. Families have more real income, adjusted for inflation, but a considerably lower standard of living, by any rational and moral measurement, since mom isn’t there to give a hug when Billy scrapes his knee, or needs a stern wag of the finger or smack on the behind when he rips the head off of little sister Betsy’s doll.
So here we are, flush with material possessions, but with little in the way of real community and strong family bonds. As the state and its criminal class of welfare babes and gallant bomb tossing world democratizers grows in strength, the family gets weaker and weaker. At what point do people decide that the second chicken in the pot isn’t worth the price?
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