Replies to post #116619 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[south louisiana]

Train Guy - Your post made me recall one summer vacation in a little town in the mountains in central Mexico. Every day a crew of 80 workers with picks worked sunup til sundown to dig a new sewer line for a block on the cobblestone streets. A friend asked why they didn't just use a backhoe and knock the job out in a day. Upon reflection, it became apparent that it was preferential to have the 80 workers employed all day every day for a week.

[brainlessone]

train guy no body here has an honest job. but we are still typing away

[otraque]

you have l;eft much food for thought, putting this post in keep file.
But has one possible downside counterpoint to this is
<<How productive and efficient a society is determines it's living standard. So simple a concept and yet so powerful. One could ask how does a military add to the productivity of a country. Well if you have barbaric neighbors and they routinely invade you, take your stuff and break everything, if you want to maintain your standard of living, you better get yourself an army to prevent that from happening. Of course using this concept one can see that the optimum solution for your barbaric neighbors would be to civilize them so they no longer invade you. But until you civilize them you better have a damn good army.>> There are those that think that the economic process needs getting broken apart periodically or over productivity/efficiency leads to an out of wack supply side versus demand, which leads to deflation which leads to depression.(this "the all is boom and bust cycle" fatalist:)
But reminds, if one wants to see a devilish satire on unions versus time and efficiency there is a ancient movie from about 1959 starring Peter Sellers called "I'm All Right Jack' (i saw it when i was 18--and just released:) Matlin gives it a 3.5 stars(on a 4star system) and calls a "memorable comedy".gd