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No, I don't think self-serve checkouts should be abolished. Self-service gas stations replaced gas attendants. I don't want to go back to some stranger messing with my car everytime I need gas. ATMs replaced bank tellers. I don't want to go back to standing in line at the bank just so I can cash a check or take out some money (remember those days?). The Internet is putting a lot of people out of work such as travel agents, but I don't want to sit in some hard plastic chair for a half-hour anymore booking my next cruise.

I prefer using the supermarket self-checkouts because I get through much faster than if a gum-snapping teenager rang up my purchases. Also, they always seem to get stuck for one reason or another. Either the machine runs out of tape or they need to get a price-check. Odd that I've never had this issue with the self-checkouts.

Speaking of supermarkets, my pet peeve is the baggers. Now I used to bag groceries at a supermarket when I was a teenager and I remember working quickly and efficiently and I was always done at just the time the cashier was ringing up the purchase. Now they are so freaking slow! Nine times out of 10, the cashier has to help with the bagging after ringing up the purchases because the witless bagger got backed up. When I bag my groceries at the self-checkout, I probably get it down in 1/3 the time. I am also not afraid to fill the bags to the top. So my groceries fit in five or six paper bags intead of a dozen and a half plastic bags - another pet peeve of mine. Plastic grocery bags suck! And it really annoys me when the bagger bleats "Paper or plastic" and gets visibly annoyed when I say paper.

America used to have 50% of its workforce in agriculture. Now we feed the world, basically, with a very low percentage of the workforce involved in the actual production.

During the twentieth century we moved to a very educated workforce with a college education being the goal for all. Now the rest of the world has found ways to use their educated population to earn money without emigrating to America. This is a net benefit for the world's communities.

The job skills and availability of workers in any jurisdiction are commodities like any other commodities, subject to scarcity and surplus.

I see the pendulum swinging in terms of desirable jobs to those which require knowledge, skill and a personal touch. Plumbers, electricians, cabinetmakers are earning as much as many computer programmers. Nurses and physiotherapists will soon be in this category. (America has to import both at the present time.)

When you need a plumber, you will pay anything to get his service.

Speaking of supermarkets, my pet peeve is the baggers.

Exactly. The supermarket I go to has a bag caroussel. I scan and put the product in the plastic bag(I like plastic bags because I can use them as small garbage recepticals later on) and move on. Also I don't have to worry about the cashier running out of 1's or quarters or wait as the cashier tries to open those plastic rolls of quarters. They are much faster.

Tell him/her you want the plastic bag (handles) lined with paper (structure) and see the response. I was at a checkout recently, at a store where I worked as a teen, and the bagger reached for a MilkyWay and ate it as he bagged. I asked him if he paid for it and he said, Nah, they can't fire me, they don't have enough help as it is. In my day, I would have been dragged off to the managers perch, my pay docked, and escorted out of the store into the custody of the police on detail. Times have changed.

Now I used to bag groceries at a supermarket when I was a teenager and I remember working quickly and efficiently and I was always done at just the time the cashier was ringing up the purchase.

Sam, do you remember that the cashier had to hand ring up the price. Didn't have scanners back then so the baggers could keep up. Otherwise I agree with you about the rest.