Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to I think that's a pretty reasonable assessment of the situation.

re: reasonable assessment of the situation
TB — (archived)

Thanks. While any number of people have complained about the obvious loss of low-skill, high-wage (relatively) jobs, and blamed government policy or rampant capitalism (depending on their side of the aisle,) I haven't seen anyone point to the obvious time period after WWII that pretty much made an unbombed America immune to any real competition for many years, even if trade had been completely open.

Nothing like having all your competitors digging out of rubble for a few years. It's gratifying in some ways, at least to me, to see how strongly they came back, especially Japan. Succeeding because of the misfortune of others has always rubbed me the wrong way, even if it's not intentional.

There are patterns in our economy that are not clear to me. I spend time at the BLS chart site, tracking trends and numbers. The graphing tools are powerful, and useful.

Just one example: Go to this page, and click on "Manufacturing Employment - Seasonally Adjusted." Look at what happened in 2000. Play with the date ranges--run it back as far as you like--and don't forget to click on the graphing option.

This is a huge change.

Why? I can think of no government policies, either by Clinton or Bush, or anything else obvious that would cause that big of a plummet. What happened? You can see more if you select "Durable" and "Non-Durable" goods manufacturing.

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