Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Quote of the Day

August 29, 2012
Longshoremen could halt traffic at Georgia ports

“My concern,” he added in a June 2 letter to Capo, “is that the [the Alliance] wants to effectively eliminate the workforce through automation.”

While I can sympathize, that's what every company wishes to do and it has been going on since the invention of dirt (or at the very least the invention of the wheelbarrow).

The following chart shows U.S. manufacturing employees per capita.


Click to enlarge.

November 22, 1999
Mr. Buffett on the Stock Market

Frankly, I'm disappointed that the Buffett family was not short horses through this entire period.

...

U.S. Horse Population 1900: 21 million 1998: 5 million

First they came for the horses and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a horse.

Then they came for the farm workers and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a farm worker.

Then they came for the factory workers and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a factory worker.

Then they came for the retail trade employees and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a retail trade employee.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

(This probably doesn't bode well for job creation, but what's new?)

See Also:
Port Traffic Stagnation Continues

2 comments:

Craig Brandenburg said...

Of all the many weird values in our civilization, I thinks it's our clamoring for jobs that will be hardest for historians in future civilizations to understand. “Wait, they wanted to work for other people more?”

William Deresiewicz: Virtually Exhausted

To every age its virtue. For the Greeks, courage; the Romans, duty; the Middle Ages, piety. Our virtue is industriousness, in the industrial age. (It is one that would have been incomprehensible to other times. The Greeks had a word for people who worked harder than anyone else: slaves.) …

Stagflationary Mark said...

Craig M. Brandenburg,

Very amusing! I can really relate to the theme.

I honestly believe that the best things in life are free and/or nearly free.

The Best Things in Life Are Free (Musical Tribute)