That is the problem, efficiency, we are already too efficient. One desktop computer eliminates 25 bean counters. Or it gets rid of a room of human calculators. For example.
Folks that would be happily employed doing those jobs are now moping around and getting fat.
Also, efficiency and outsourcing have mainly weakened this country beyond repair.
I can't tell if you were attempting to be funny or not. I'm going to assume you are not; you are serious about this post, and I will treat it as such.
One desktop computer eliminates 25 bean counters.
Lets say I have some REALLY long, complicated, ugly math problem to do for an engineering project. Say, building a bridge. This bridge will also have a toll on it, due to the sheer cost of building it. Let's also assume I have both a desktop computer and 25 bean counters. Which do you think will get done faster?
Assume the computer is INCREDIBLY slow, and the bean counter operators are INCREDIBLY fast, such that the desktop computer only finishes twice as fast. Say, 10 minutes. The bean counter operators, as a whole, finish in 20. Their wage is 50 USD an hour
(1/6)*50 = 8.333 dollars, this guy got paid for doing this job. That's 8.333 dollars that the construction company spent. Add 8.333 dollars to the total cost of construction.
(1/3)*50 = 16.666 dollars, that EACH BEAN COUNTER got paid for the job. 16.666 * 25 = 416.666 dollars that this company had to shell out to the bean counters, as a whole.
416.666/8.333 = 50. Because this company wanted to be less efficient, it cost them
50 times more just to pay their lead engineer(s). Do you think that this company will just absorb this cost? No, they will pass it off to their "customers"; in this case, the toll. They will either make the toll higher or keep it longer.
^An example of how efficiency is always better.
Folks that would be happily employed doing those jobs are now moping around and getting fat.
You are equating a job to improving the efficiency of the country. If I hand you a shovel, and tell you to dig holes in the middle of the desert, just for my own amusement, and you are getting paid 20 dollars an hour (unions and all), and 1/3rd the country is doing this...the United States would die. Disintegrate. Dissolve.
Also, efficiency and outsourcing have mainly weakened this country beyond repair.
We already covered the efficiency bit, now to outsourcing. I'm not sure where I stand on outsourcing. On the one hand, it improves the efficiency of whatever company is doing it (which, as we have shown, lowers production cost, and thus lowers the cost consumers pay), but it also pays someone else in a foreign country, which they will probably use to help their own country, not the country that gives them the job. So I'm not sure where I stand.
~Kaito
