Austerity measures have they ever saved an economy?

Why?Jon

If you have to ask "Why?" I don't think I would be able to explain it to you. But I'll give it a try anyway.The short version: Let's put industries and pollution in orbit, where God intended.The long-term version: Every time there was a frontier the best and brightest (as well as the misfits) headed that way, resulting in a better population in the new areas and a poorer one in the old areas. "The cowards never started -- and the weak died along the way." Look at it as a "frontier filter."The human race needs frontiers.

Ahh... I got it now; you want to create artificial barriers to survival that only the people who create the barriers can overcome leaving the other 99% to eat dirt... literally.Good plan. It's neither sustainable nor moral... but it's got all the hallmarks of Coyote politics, so that's gotta count for something.Jon

The barriers are not artificial, nor are they "created."It is nature's way of sorting things out: evolution in action.You may not like it--the dinosaurs probably didn't--but that doesn't change anything.

No need to explain further; I get it completely. You think a small number of people should be able to prosper unimaginably while the rest toil for peanuts and the occasional plague.Anyone who thinks that the concepts of biological evolution should be even remotely applicable in determining best practice political and economic strategies is just an idiot at best and a monster at worst.So here's me giving you the benefit of the doubt. Is there anything else to do besides laugh at someone who attempts to draw a connection between dinosaurs and space exploration?Jon

That's complete rubbish. It is entirely possible and in fact likely that without efforts to counter the effect, Coca Cola would lose market share to other cola manufacturers.The goal of advertising is to increase profits, with increasing consumption of cola being one way to do that. Another way to increasoe profits is to increase the price while convincing people that they still must drink Coca Cola despite the increased price.There demand for Coca Cola is not a fixed number. The demand for coke is variable with price, marketplace substitutes, etc. One object of advertising for Coke is to convince people that there is no acceptable substitute thus increasing the demand. There is plenty of opportunity for Coca Cola to lose or gain marketshare.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Yes, the purpose of the advertising is to artificially increase demand for a product independent of the dictates of the free market.Isn't that what I said?Jon

That may be what you just said, but your statement does not resemble what I said. Telling people about your product does not constitute an artificial means independent of the dictates of a free market.How old are you?

Which parts of medicine are a service? I am suggesting that for parts of medicine that you will call a service, an analogous legal service can be presented that should also be considered a service by any reasonable definition. Yet according to you, legal services must be considered manufacturing because legal opinons are printed on paper.In particular, I gave the examples of a doctor providing a medical prognosis for a disease and an attorney providing a legal opinion regarding the outcome of a law suit. By any reasonable definition, the providing of such opinions is properly characterized as services. Yet, you want to consider the lawyer's work to be manufacturing paper work. I think it is pretty clear that I have no issue with the idea that only some jobs are offshorable. My issue is with the idea that we can identify service jobs as being those jobs which are not offshorable. Some service jobs are off shorable, and it is only by an unjustifiable stretch of imagination that you can characterize such jobs as being properly thought of as manufacturing jobs. Of course. That statement is very nearly a tautology. Jobs that must be done here, must be done here. You seem to have forgotten your position that offshorable=manufacturing and non-offshorable=service jobs. That's the sole point I am challenging here. I don't know how to point out the object of our disagreement more clearly.I'll take one more shot at it. Flipping burgers is a service job by everyone's definition except yours. But further, we agree that burger flipping is not offshorable. Yet you now admit that cooking hamburgers is manufacturing. That admission is not consistent with your statement in message 90: In fact there is global competition for some service jobs. For example product service desk support is a sevice and it is off shoreable. There is of course no global competion for jobs that are impractical to perform abroad. But the latter statement is merely a tautology.Trying to define service jobs such that they constitute all of the non-offshorable jobs does not work for any purpose except covering up your error in message 90.

But, of course, that's not at all what we have. The marketing strategies of large corporations like Coca Cola aren't simply 'telling people about your product', it is full-out in-your-face constant harassment.I am shocked that an intelligent person would deny that large corporations employ predatory advertising techniques above and beyond the normals of human interactions.It's pretty clear that corporate marketing reeks of greedfilth.Jon

I never took such a position, Nukes, and I'm at a loss to figure out why you think I did. My point had nothing to do with whether or not service jobs were offshorable (though it's obvious that they tend not to be), it was about the fact that people like Phat tend to consider "manufacturing" jobs "respectable" and "service" jobs "menial", and that this is an obstacle in an economy where employment is largely moving to "service" jobs because those tend not to be able to be done in China.I'm simply telling Phat that, if he likes, a lot of nominally "service" jobs can actually be considered manufacturing. Like "manufacturing" food in a restaurant. Why you think the manufacturing of a hamburger somehow disproves my point, when that's almost exactly the example I already gave Phat, is a mystery to me. If anything is unclear, it's why you're attributing to me a position that I don't hold and have not articulated.

I think you took that position because you made an explicit statement to that effect. How do you manage to avoid acknowledging that despite the fact that I quoted your statement from Message 90. How does the above statement not require that service jobs are not offshorable? What was the point of trying to define lawyering as "manufacturing" legal paper if not to show that lawyering was not an example of a service job that could be exported. If your point was to show that service jobs were not menial, then why wouldn't examples such as lawyer, doctor, and Indian Chief make your point?You don't have to own up to your error, because I'm going to let you off the hook after this post, regardless of what rebuttal you make. Feel free to cast an aspersion or two.Edited by NoNukes, : Fix link

No, I didn't. That's neither in message 90 nor in any other.

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But the thing is - there's no "global competition" for service jobs

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I'm wondering why you're choosing to represent my entire supposed position by a sentence fragment. The full context, of course, is this:

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I'm not saying that you look down on those who do other types of work, but you seem to have a notion that those jobs should be temporary stepping stones on the way to 50's-style manufacturing employment.

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But the thing is - there's no "global competition" for service jobs, and there's no reason that manufacturing a toaster should be considered more permanent or more stable than "manufacturing" a meal at a restaurant. Bagging groceries and delivering pizzas and teaching Yoga isn't something you can outsource to China, they have to be done here in the US.

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In context it's abundantly clear that I'm talking about Phat's possible perception of the kinds of jobs that can't be outsourced to China, not making a sweeping claim that any and all jobs which the Department of Labor classifies as "services" are eternally proof against competition by cheap Chinese labor. If I had gone so far as to assert that any and all jobs classified as "services" could not be outsourced to Chinese labor, you would have a point.But I didn't say that, did I?Can you explain why you insist on arguing against a single sentence fragment completely taken out of context?

Absolutely. I'll give two reasons1. Despite your claim to the contrary, the remaining portions of the sentence and paragraph do not, in my opinion, limit the scope of jobs that you refer to as service jobs. You merely talked about service jobs vs. manufacturing jobs of the type Phat wants. I did not remove any context from your statement that affected the point I chose to address.2. Whatever doubt might remained about point 1, should have been cleared up in your response to my post in which I explicitly stated that I was questioning your definition of service jobs. I gave a number of examples of exportable service jobs. Your response was to indicate that all of my examples as manufacturing jobs. I found your characterization of my examples incorrect, with the example of providing a legal opinion as manufacturing being particularly egregious. There is no reason to characterize a medical opinion as a service and a legal opinion as manufacturing. Yet one is exportable while the other isn't.In other words, your response to my post confirms that you were indeed defining service jobs as being a type of non-exportable job. In subsequent posts, I even pointed out that I had no issue with the fact that offshoring resistant jobs did exist, and that my only qualm was with your definition of service jobs.You eventually did indicate that you didn't mean any such thing, but only while saying that you had never said it in the first place. If there was a misunderstanding you share in the blame for it.

Dupe removedEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.