Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.24] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 23:20:56 :
In Reply to: Re: Hard times in the mining camp (OT) posted by Mark in Flagstaff [172.68.34.156] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 22:17:34 :
That's what I'm trying to figure out. Can we really have an economy based on selling each other title insurance and Facebook ads? A lot of people have plenty of time to go to anti-oil, anti-coal, anti-logging, anti-farming, anti-mining protests, paddle around in their canoes, hold hands, etc. Are they living on trust funds? Disability? Google stock options? How many are actually making anything? And I don't mean boilers and steam engines, but actually writing operating system software, designing electronic circuits, etc? Not very many, out of the millions who are buying quarter million dollar condos and half million dollar houses. It seems like most of them are just in "marketing", "sales", or "finance". And then there are all the ones squatting under bridges, in abandoned buildings, even in the grassy parts of the freeway interchanges.
I know we can't go back to the old days, mostly because we don't want to (my grandpa's first job was feeding a rock crusher for $2 per 10-hour day, which would be $30 today). But so much of this "new economy" seems to be smoke and mirrors -- just shuffling money around from one place to another without producing anything.
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