That has always been a result of changing technologies and why we don't have very many blacksmiths or buggy whip makers any more.

I'm from Maine, where the shoe industry used to be a major employer.  Decades ago, the shoe industry in Maine died, the jobs shipped first to the South and then overseas, always in the pursuit of cheaper labor.  Many of those shoe factories are now mini-malls.  The replacement jobs tend to require fewer skills and to pay less.  That sort of change has very little to do with technology and much more to do with corporate bottom lines.  And we have seen that sort of thing repeated over and over again.

Isn't it fascinating that major oil companies are once again announcing record profits while each of us digs deeper into our wallets to fill up the car or the furnace?  Could there possibly be a connection?





Tommy Walz
Technology Coordinator
Barre Supervisory Union

>>> Ray Ballou <[log in to unmask]> 2/4/2008 9:28 AM >>>
Tommy and others:

>what is happening to the folks who actually produce those widgets?  More, 
>faster, cheaper is not necessarily good for them.

Obviously there are balances to be made, but one would think that working in 
agriculture in the 2000s is allot easier than it was in the 1900s (for most 
workers) in fact the number of people doing that kind of grueling work has 
shrunk tremendously. So productivity (tractors, fertilizer, irrigation) has put 
people out of difficult work and likley put them into easier (physically easier) 
factory and office work.

The impact on the environment not withstanding.

R.