Jobs Don't Matter

That's Bruce Bartlett's contention in his latest article. Yep, millions unemployed is perfectly acceptable if the company still makes money.

Speaking specifically of the Manufacturing Sector, Bartlett says, "The truth is that manufacturing is doing just fine in every way except employment. However, few economists would judge the health or sickness of any industry solely based on employment. . . . Rather, such things as output, productivity, profitability and wages better determine industrial health. On this score, manufacturing is actually doing quite well in the United States. "

Now he does mention wages, which betray a scant concern for the American worker, but he is also comfortable with the fact that in 2000 we had 17.3 million manufacturing jobs and now we have 14.6 million. That's a loss of 2.7 Million Jobs. But luckily production hasn't dropped all that much, so we remain competitive and CEO saleries won't need to be cut.

So screw those ungrateful, unskilled workers. If they wanted job security they should have become CEOs instead of lazy unproductive members of society. They should have realized that manufacturing jobs would eventually get shipped overseas for the profit of the company, and prepared themselves with the skills to get good jobs at Arby's after their jobs were eliminated.