[DesertRhino]

Joke about scrub brushes. But someone used to build and maintain the machinery. Someone used to mine coal. Someone used to make levis. Someone used to make Carrier air conditioners. Someone used to make Ford pickups. Someone used to process lumber, fish, raise crops in the San Joaquin valley. (the water was cut off, farming was killed, and Mexican farmers got the windfall)

These people who you laugh at bought houses, raised kids, and provided for a family with these jobs.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Companies all over the world - in the USA, in China, in Taiwan, in Germany, in Mexico - have very smart people dedicated to the task of "how can we make more products with a smaller workforce??"

They do this not because they are some evil hybrid of Montgomery Burns and Scrooge McDuck, but because the folks who manage our IRA's and 401k's insist that they do so.

We had better start thinking right now how conservative, free enterprise economics are going to work in a world that needs 30-50 percent less labor than it does today.

Because that is the way we are headed.