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Services Industries Key to Future American Jobs

More useless rhetoric of no consequence whatsoever - it is devoid of factual evidence.

Your spleen bust with rage?

M r a ...

Lol ! Yea tell us again Frenchy how a service based economy and a gutted manufacturing sector is the way towards American economic prosperity

You don't even live here, so stop pretending you have any stake let alone any influence in what goes on over here.

Europeans want two things from America. A free ride on Americas super power coat tails, because theyre never going to live up to their NATO obligations and access to its over 300 million consumers

When we elect a President that actually follows through with his campaign promises and address our growing trade deficit, you people throw a tantrum
Too bad so sad
 
Then you're an American immigrant practicing being a Frenchman.
Sorry, you don't know diddly about what's been happening here.
And you may want to read up on our robot overlords and what they have in store for us.
Humans Need Not Apply isn't just some cute YouTube video, it's the future.

Sarcasm is the principal tool of closed minds. Get help.

Robots are already taking their place on the manufacturing product-line. They've been painting cars in the US since the 1980s!

When they start replacing YOU it will be because they can ask questions and understand answers and respond. That advance is not yet fully there, but will be in another 5-years depending upon the application. If it means that more than half the health-complaints for which one must see a doctor can be replace at one fifth the cost, I'm all for it. (A GP in the US makes on average $200K a year, and in France a third of that amount. You'll be pleased when your health-insurance cost is halved ...)

And since you ARE in France, you may want to think long and hard about the concept of Universal Basic Income, because France isn't the only place where UBI is going to become crucial.

The minimum wage by country in Europe (where it exists) is between 6 and $12 an hour. See here, and note that only Spain has a MW of $6 and hour.

Most European countries have a MW between 10&12 dollars an hour. Which allows a basically decent standard of living and not much else. Anyway, it's better than $7.25 average for the US ...

I welcome any effort to bring a Minimum Wage to the Europe Union. But that will take some doing, since it should be in respect to cost-of-living in each country and not necessarily uniform throughout the EU ...
 
Lol ! Yea tell us again Frenchy how a service based economy and a gutted manufacturing sector is the way towards American economic prosperity

You don't even live here, so stop pretending you have any stake let alone any influence in what goes on over here.

Europeans want two things from America. A free ride on Americas super power coat tails, because theyre never going to live up to their NATO obligations and access to its over 300 million consumers

When we elect a President that actually follows through with his campaign promises and address our growing trade deficit, you people throw a tantrum
Too bad so sad

Blah, blah, blah. More specious sarcasm.

I don't have to live in the US to know what is going on there statistically.

You seem to be living in the last century ...
 
I think what most of you are missing is the fact that every year we can manufacture more, with less human labor. No one is suggesting that all manufacturing will move off shore, they are explaining that soon, most low skilled manufacturing jobs (and most manufacturing jobs are low skilled) will be replaced by robots and computers.

Also, the OP isn't suggesting that we will be better off with a service based economy, he is saying that ultimately a service based economy is inevitable due to advances in technology. And that's not a bad thing. Services are one of the things that we demand. We want doctors, we want barbers, we want to get our nails done or have our house cleaned. And as we continue to have shorter and shorter working ours per year (avg work week dropped by 30 hours during the 20th century), we will demand more entertainment, and have more time available for vacationing and leisure activities.

Foreign trade will eventually be reduced due to this trend, except for the trade of rare natural resources (oil, metals, rare plants and trees, etc). Computers and robots cost about the same to operate in every country, thus no country will have a competitive advantage in manufacturing.
 
...

You seem to be living in the last century ...

Most people have no vision of the future, and not a good understanding of life in the past. They see things for what they are today, nothing more. Having a vision of the future requires understanding how the world living/working environment has changed over time, recognizing the trends, realizing that there may be points that the trends change. It also takes a tad bit of imagination.
 
LOL I am not old enough to have old days to dream of in relation to work. You still are missing the point--you cannot use national aggregate totals to judge the importance of manufacturing in places where manufacturing happens.

You are missing the point. He isn't judging, he is making a projection of what will happen in the future. I believe that he is correct.
 
No. :no:

Production is key to a thriving economy.

Services are provided to other's who work and have the wherewithal to pay.

However, most services, whether it be haircuts, laundry, food service, etc....all depend on the purchase of goods.

Thus barber/hair stylists need scissors, clippers, hair products, etc..

Food services need burgers, fries, chicken, soda, plates, cups, utensils, etc..

Sales professionals need something to sell; cars, clothing, homes. etc..

Rental agents need things to rent; furniture, apartments, vehicles, etc..

Doctor's need scalpels, medicines, bandages, sutures, needles, etc..

Everyone needs shoes, and clothing, and personal care products.

Something has to be produced in order to be either marketed, or support the services being rendered.

Without the basic common denominator of production, services cannot be maintained and inevitably fail.

Allowing production to concentrate outside the home economy makes the home economy more and more dependent on that source of production.

It would be better to have home grown production for the vast majority of our necessities, rather than cede control to outside forces.

This so as to reduce dependence to only those resources we cannot obtain in our own lands to produce the things we need, making for a far healthier economic system.

Even if we opt to automate, there would still be local jobs maintaining and improving those automated systems and our service industry would be secure.

Every single thing you listed is now produced with less human labor than it was 20 years ago. In twenty more years it will require even less human labor to produce that list.

That's the point you are missing. The quantity of manufactured items may increase, but the quantity of people who earn a living in manufacturing will continue to drop. Even China is losing manufacturing jobs to automation.
 
Every single thing you listed is now produced with less human labor than it was 20 years ago. In twenty more years it will require even less human labor to produce that list.

That's the point you are missing. The quantity of manufactured items may increase, but the quantity of people who earn a living in manufacturing will continue to drop. Even China is losing manufacturing jobs to automation.

The point YOU are missing is that automated or not, it were better the production be HERE (where maintenance and tech jobs can be done by Americans) and not THERE controlled by some foreign nation.
 
Having a vision of the future requires understanding how the world living/working environment has changed over time, recognizing the trends, realizing that there may be points that the trends change. It also takes a tad bit of imagination.

The US is living a day-to-day political existence, which is how a toad like Donald Dork could have got elected.

The US deserves him - DD and the fact that all three components of our governance (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) are in the hands of a Replicant Party run by billionaire-money is a nadir in American democracy.

The only question remaining is, "Can the US recover from this historical low-point in its long existence?" Or, do we just keep living the monstrous error in democracy?

The reason why a democratic catastrophe has happened is historic; it started (in the early 19th century) with:
*The manipulation an ill-conceived and non-representational Electoral College and
* Gerrymandering of district voting patterns.

We have no reason whatsoever to be proud of the above voting manipulations for over two centuries! If the latter of the above, a finagling of the democratic vote, is not put down by the Supremes where it is presently under consideration, one should leave the country. (Look north to Canada for an example of how a democracy should be implemented.)

The EC must be put to its timely death, but that requires a major constitutional change ratified by the states. So, the best and quickest solution is to pass an electoral law stipulating that the EC must reflect the strict mathematical outcome of a democratic popular-vote describing the majority winning-party.

And to assure this, states should no longer be responsible for any Executive and Legislative national elections. This is the rightful responsibility of the US government in Washington, DC!

This sham of democracy can't get any worse due to the lack of individual respect of a sacred right to the democratic vote (small "d"). From Pew Research see the chart, U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout.

For a democracy, we as a nation are pretty damn lazy ... !
 
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HISTORY LESSON

The point YOU are missing is that automated or not, it were better the production be HERE (where maintenance and tech jobs can be done by Americans) and not THERE controlled by some foreign nation.

Not really. You forget the American consumer who is at fault for the present dominance of Chinese-made products at the low end in the US.

It's the price that matters, and the US could not compete with the China-price. So, some American companies (rather than go out of business) opted for manufacturing in China. American consumers will always select a price that suits their pocket-books and "Made in America" can go-to-hell.

Time and time again that fact is proven in the American market-place. We, the sheeple, want the lowest price possible. And, we get it? So, then we start whining about "where did all the jobs go"?

It started a long, long time ago. Consider Massachusetts where the plastics-industry was virtually born in the 1930s. Nowadays, there is NOT ONE major plastics-manufacturer left. Not one!

Why did we not see that coming? Because we thought that both China and Russia would remain behind the Iron Curtain and be cut-off from European and American markets. That worked up till the 1990s, and then China came out onto international markets with a vengeance.

What, then, did American and European countries do? They were STOOPID enough in the 1990s to "marry themselves" to Chinese companies, meaning a fusion of companies on Chinese soil. Which the Chinese government insisted upon.

Bingo! As a result of the fusion, Chinese companies had rightful access to new-technologies that now belonged to them and with which they rightfully produced under-priced products that were gobbled up by American companies/consumers!

Moreover, since then, the Chinese have learned a lot about manufacturing higher-tech products for the world. The bric a brac they are leaving to Vietnam. China is going upmarket in its manufacturing because THAT IS WHERE THE PROFITS ARE!

MY POINT?

The Chinese are not the culprits! US manufacturing could have gone to eastern Europe, which has well-educated workers, and thrived. This is what IKEA did - and it now produces for the European market almost all out of Poland!

It would be interesting to know what the hell we - in "DC" and Brussels (EU) - were thinking when the Chinese came out from under the Red Curtain. Because NOW is too late for Manufacturing - the damage has been done!

But it is not too late for the Services Industries - if we get-our-finger-out and make sure that our kids get the Tertiary Education that those industries require!

Free post-secondary education at state-schools funded by the US government (by reduction of a completely outsized DoD budget).

Guns or Butter, boyz-'n-girlz. Which do you want because you cannot have both ... !?!
 
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No.Services are provided to other's who work and have the wherewithal to pay.

Thus barber/hair stylists need scissors, clippers, hair products, etc..

Get your facts straight. Start with the GDP breakdown: Percentage added to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States of America in 2016, by industry (as a percentage of GDP)

Manufacturing is barely 12%. Three "industries" (Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing, Government, and Professional and Business Services) compose half the total GDP! Add a few more "services industries" and the total rises to 65%.

Wakey, wakey! (You are stuck in a time long since past ... !)

However, most services, whether it be haircuts, laundry, food service, etc....all depend on the purchase of goods.

Statistically, that cannot happen. An "industry" is either predominantly goods or services producing. Not both.
 
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The point YOU are missing is that automated or not, it were better the production be HERE (where maintenance and tech jobs can be done by Americans) and not THERE controlled by some foreign nation.

No, I get that. The OP isn't advocating for more off shore production. Where did he suggest that? He is simply saying that realistically, manufacturing will never be the big job creator that it once was. Even if we brought it all back to the US is still wouldn't be a huge job creator.

As far as the service industry, we are ALSO better off with our service industry being located in the US.
 
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You are missing the point. He isn't judging, he is making a projection of what will happen in the future. I believe that he is correct.

No I am not missing any point. The total manufacturing sector in relation to the national economy means nothing to those areas where manufacturing is critical. You two have the same blindspot as Hillary who thought it was ok to kill coal as long as you create jobs somewhere else. That is peachy for somewhere else, but not for Appalachia.
 
No I am not missing any point. The total manufacturing sector in relation to the national economy means nothing to those areas where manufacturing is critical. You two have the same blindspot as Hillary who thought it was ok to kill coal as long as you create jobs somewhere else. That is peachy for somewhere else, but not for Appalachia.

Why is it that coal areas can't attract other industries?

Textiles and peach farming was once the main industries in my county. Now it's automotive manufacturing, and wages are higher than in textiles and peach farming. Things change.
 
Why is it that coal areas can't attract other industries?

Textiles and peach farming was once the main industries in my county. Now it's automotive manufacturing, and wages are higher than in textiles and peach farming. Things change.

Perhaps the fact that the sit in big sloped mountains that are not easily leveled in comparison to other places for construction of big plants, often with federally protected waterways at the base of them.
 
... Bingo! ... The Chinese are not the culprits! US manufacturing could have gone to eastern Europe, which has well-educated workers, and thrived. This is what IKEA did - and it now produces for the European market almost all out of Poland! ...

It would be interesting to know what the hell we - in "DC" and Brussels (EU) - were thinking when the Chinese came out from under the Red Curtain. Because NOW is too late for Manufacturing - the damage has been done!

But it is not too late for the Services Industries - if we get-our-finger-out and make sure that our kids get the Tertiary Education that those industries require!

Free post-secondary education at state-schools funded by the US government (by reduction of a completely outsized DoD budget).

Guns or Butter, boyz-'n-girlz. Which do you want because you cannot have both ... !?!
Lafayette, determining what's to your own advantage is generally considered as intelligence. Don't blame enterprises or consumers for doing what's expected of them. Blame ourselves the voters and those we elect for economic policies that conflict between purchasers best financial interests and our entire society's aggregate economic interests.

Annual trade deficits are always net detrimental to their nation's net GDP and they drag upon their numbers of jobs.
Pure free trade for a higher wage nation promotes the nation's trade deficits. (You'll note that IKEA, a Dutch company begun in Sweden, purchases many of their goods from Poland which is among Europe's lower wage nations.

Any improvement of our educational and training systems would be reflected by no less extent of improvement of our social and economic conditions; we ain't got that.
The Import Certificate policy described within the Wikipedia article would significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate our chronic annual trade deficits of goods and thus, increase our GDP and numbers of jobs more than otherwise; we ain't got that.

Due to improving technology and communication, there's reason to also be expecting future annual trade deficits of service products. Any service that can be performed at remotely rather than at the customer's location, will be performed from nations' with the cheapest labor that's capable of satisfying the purchasers.

Respectfully, Supposn
 
Don't blame enterprises or consumers for doing what's expected of them. Blame ourselves the voters and those we elect for economic policies that conflict between purchasers best financial interests and our entire society's aggregate economic interests.

Yes, well I do. Don't I ...

Because we are the key integral-part of the economic cycle. Without which there would be no economic cycle.

And yet, we are brought up to think that America is the land of abundance, and all we need do is seek our "fair share".

Abundance does not come from America. It comes from Americans. That is, this market-economy that would be nothing without Consumer Demand to propel it.

And yet, when you look at who "lucks-out" best in this economy, the upper 20Percenters, they are for the most part a highly educated group of people. Who - for the most part - had the great good fortune to obtain a post-secondary education that allowed them the job-level to join the upper-income strata of society.

And who are not these people? That is, who are those from the other end of the income spectrum? Where do they come from and why? That is, the questions economists/sociologists ARE NOT ANSWERING.

When a body is sick, there is typically a dysfunctional reason for which medicinal technology should have a cure. Any nation that has 14% of its men, women and children endlessly living below the Poverty Threshold ($24K income for a family of four) is sick, sick, sick; and needs badly/urgently an economic-policy to cure itself ...

History, US rate of poverty graphic:
poverty_rate_historical_0.jpg


What's the word for an economic illness that is pervasive over time? It's called "endemic" ...
 
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Lafayette, determining what's to your own advantage is generally considered as intelligence. Don't blame enterprises or consumers for doing what's expected of them. Blame ourselves the voters and those we elect for economic policies that conflict between purchasers best financial interests and our entire society's aggregate economic interests.

Annual trade deficits are always net detrimental to their nation's net GDP and they drag upon their numbers of jobs. ...
Yes, well I do [blame enterprises or consumers for doing what's expected of them?] .. Don't I …
… What's the word for an economic illness that is pervasive over time? It's called "endemic"
Lafayette, what's the word for our experiencing similar unfortunate outcomes but continuing to repeat doing the same thing in the same manner and expecting different results? Is that considered insanity?

I'm among the proponents that advocate USA unilaterally adopt the policy described by Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article. It would significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate USA's chronic annual trade deficits of goods in a manner that would increase our GDP and numbers of jobs more than otherwise.

Annual trade deficits are always net detrimental to their nation's GDP and drag upon their numbers of jobs.
I suppose these posts advocating Import Certificates are my own insanity.

Respectfully, Supposn
 
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SORRY TO INSIST

Lafayette, what's the word for our experiencing similar unfortunate outcomes but continuing to repeat doing the same thing in the same manner and expecting different results? Is that considered insanity?

Bad habit. Colossal mistake when it afflicts an entire country that thinks life-owes-me-a-living ...

I'm among the proponents that advocate USA unilaterally adopt the policy described by Wikipedia's “Import Certificates” article. It would significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate USA's chronic annual trade deficits of goods in a manner that would increase our GDP and numbers of jobs more than otherwise.

I'm not convinced that trade matters all that much. NAFTA has been a good thing. It developed jobs in all three countries involved, and furthered trade.

An example of how "good trade" works:
*Production-cost intensive car-parts are made in Mexico. They are imported into the US and employed in the construction of a car, that Americans can afford. If all the parts were made in the US, the market for cars could possibly be far, far thinner than it is today.
*Isn't that goodness for the American automotive manufacturers and the people they employ?

So let's stop complaining about the Trade Deficit. It is NOT a central issue as regards the matter of National Employment. What IS a central-issue is the lack of competent skills-at-home. It is stoopid to go looking for programmers from India when we could be employing our own IF WE HAD EDUCATED THEM FOR FAR, FAR LESS THAN THAN THE AVERAGE $10K IT COSTS IN A STATE SCHOOL IN THE USA.

And another point ... regarding the matter showing how the "Trade Deficit" does not cover services and therefore overly reflects "goods trade" in creating the deficit here from the NYT : FACT CHECK - President Trump’s Exaggerated and Misleading Claims on Trade - excerpt:
The president’s claims about enormous trade deficits, tariffs and the World Trade Organization are overstated and contradicted by his own economic report.

The United States’ economy has shifted “away from manufacturing and toward service provision industries” in recent decades, according to the report. “Focusing only on the trade in goods alone ignores the United States’ comparative advantage in services.”

Like most developed countries, the United States is primarily a services economy, said Scott Lincicome, a trade analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. And American service sectors — like accounting, finance, technology, engineering and law — are globally dominant.


Annual trade deficits are always net detrimental to their nation's GDP and drag upon their numbers of jobs.I suppose these posts advocating Import Certificates are my own insanity.

Only if you believe Donald Dork who, since he decided to get elected PotUS, has been fishing around for any and all wrong-information that would strike fear in the hearts of those who were most concerned about losing their jobs. And that was in the manufacturing sector.

Btw, the sectors most concerned are a bit larger than just manufacturing. They are: Goods-producing (excluding agriculture); that is, Mining, Construction, Manufacturing. The total percentage of the Good Producing sector is just 7.9% of the total employed population of the US.

American voters gobbled the Incomplete Information, and went off to elect Donald Dork. (Who, I will repeat forever, did not when the popular-vote election to the presidency. He is a false-PotUS concocted by the Electoral College.)

PS: Sorry to insist, but I must. We are transitioning from the Industrial to the Information Age, and either we "go with the flow" or we, as a nation, will suffer drastic employment consequences. We must educate our youth to a post-secondary diploma level-of-competence free, gratis and for nothing. Period.
 
Manufacturing has evolved and, indeed, a lot of base manufacturing has left the US for good. Some will come back as soon as engineers learn how apply robotic manufacturing to produce any given product.
Many manufacturers offshored their production operations to reap the rewards of lower cost labor being integrated with the final generation of manufacturing machinery that allowed producers to build their wares using very low-skilled factory-floor labor. Now, however, technology is advancing at a rapid enough pace that it's become economic to exchange labor for capital; thus manufacturers are transforming production lines accordingly.

What's notable about that transformation is its impact on the value-proposition associated with the factors of production.
Insofar as labor costs (direct, indirect and labor overhead) is often a large yet least controllable cost element in COGS and operating expense, exchanging labor for capital changes that equation, making highly predictable, easily measured and compared PP&E and logistics supplant labor in that regard. Such costs are markedly more manageable. Machines don't call in sick, aren't susceptible to bad weather, don't require pay raises, etc. Because capital can be equally implemented anywhere, the production model shift frees execs to choose production locales without regard to labor force profiles; thus, basically, where land is cheap and property taxes low, one can build a factory. (I'll leave you to intuit the economic implications.)

But the lesson we Yanks have to learn, and it seems we are having great difficulty in assimilating, is that Manufacturing is NOT the key economic factor anymore. Not in the US, and not in Europe either.
Manufacturing will always be a key economic factor. What it won't always be, particularly in mature economies, is a key provider of jobs. Those are two very different things.

That which is key in any advancing economy is the Services Industries. And services require both intuition and intelligence in order to be sold to customers who understand their inherent added-value. Which means that we have a great challenge ahead of us.
There is no question that the U.S. comparative advantage is intellectual capital, not human capital. That's been so for some 20 years already.
 
Whilst the above is highly promising in terms of eventual outcomes, what is not obvious is the fact that the higher numbers of those graduating with a post-secondary degree are only about 46% of the total number of students graduating from High School....Which means that less than half of our young adults graduating from high-school today do not attain the level where job-opportunities are most lucrative.

...We must have a post-secondary state-schooling that is free or nearly free to assure that the highest number possible of our youth continue their cycle of education as far as they can get in the post-secondary ladder of degrees.
Frankly, the primary problem that needs resolving is not that folks forgo college and post-graduate degrees, though I agree that having such is highly beneficial in the current economy. From what I can tell, however, much of what one needs to learn to develop a decent 21st century career can be taught in high school, yet it mostly isn't.

To wit, I have four kids and all of them finished high school with 20+ college credits before going to college. One entered college as a sophomore. Now one might think I have very bright kids. I'd say my kids are bright, but not inordinately so; my daughter did test to a genius level IQ, but my sons are just above average, and that because they worked at it. What all of them are is driven to succeed -- they didn't play instead of study, etc. -- and they have a fair measure of intellectual curiosity. They all played on inter-/intramural sports teams at school and socialized as much as most other kids, they went on vacations, and got themselves into various bits of mischief, but they occasionally slept a bit less than some kids.

The result of their efforts is that I will pay for five fewer semesters of college (bless them!). More to my point above, however, they finished high school knowing speaking Python, C++, Java/Javascript, and PL/SQL, having basic dBA skills, understanding the principles of economics (macro and micro), a mastery of critical thinking/logic, and the rest of the courses of an academic curriculum (AP Calculus, AP Physics, AP US History, AP European History, AP English Comp, AP [Modern Language], Latin, comparative religion, philosophy, etc.). I was truly amazed because I graduated well (late '70s) just as they did (our schools don't have class rank), but I don't know that I could have accomplished as much as they did, and much of the classes they took weren't even options when I was at the same school.

In my career, part of what I did was recruit and mentor recent grads -- undergrads and master's degree grads -- and help them develop their careers so they could rise to the partner level in my firm. Though all the junior folks I have interviewed, mentored, worked with are bright, only a few of them (the ones to whom we gave job offers) are as bright/driven as are my kids, which is to say, as bright/driven as we expect new hires to be. Would 21 to 25 year-old "me" today get hired by my firm? Probably not...On intellect alone, yes. On intellect plus skills mastered upon walking in the door, absent my parents or a close family friend owning the firm or something, no.

What I'm saying is that the bar has risen, but far too many kids, particularly kids from "typical" social strata, have not (for whatever reason) risen to meet it. Compounding the situation is the fact that K-12 school systems too haven't risen their bars to match the demands providers of high quality jobs have for people whom they'd hire. Both of those lacunae are, IMO, matters of will, not wherewithal.
 
From what I can tell, however, much of what one needs to learn to develop a decent 21st century career can be taught in high school, yet it mostly isn't.

A high-school degree is just not enough - and as regards a secondary-education, here is the mediocre outcome for the US:
58471001ba6eb6d3008b7bf9-1200


You may not care that education (primary, secondary, tertiary - the whole bit) is The Central Key to a country's standard of living, but I do.

A child spends around 10 years on primary/secondary schooling, then another 2/6 years specializing with a tertiary-level degree. In the US degree attainment looks like this below from two different sources:
(from Education in the US):
Attainment:
Secondary diploma - 81%
Post-secondary diploma - 30%

Only a post-secondary diploma will teach most children "how to think" and not simply "how to do". The second condition being "vocational training". All three (vocational, associates, bachelors, masters and doctorate) are considered post-graduate education.

In all instances, the higher the level of education, the more jobs are both filled and produced. Produced meaning Demand for products (eg. computers) and services (computing, medicine, education, finance, etc., etc.)

Most important, in all instances, Tertiary Education produces classes of salaries that are uniformly much greater than those hiring personnel with just a secondary-level degree (or below).

I repeat: Salary is not the only desired consequence of an education. There are also other sociological attributes that are obtained by those who having tertiary-level degree. Education changes a person fundamentally. For instance, consider this factoid (from Bureau of Justice Statistics here):

Highlights:
*68% of State prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma
*About 26% of State prison inmates said they had completed the GED while serving time in a correctional facility.
*Although the percentage of State prison inmates who reported taking education courses while confined fell from 57% in 1991 to 52% in 1997, the number who participated in an educational program since admission increased from 402,500 inmates in 1991 to 550,000 in 1997.
 
Manufacturing will always be a key economic factor. What it won't always be, particularly in mature economies, is a key provider of jobs. Those are two very different things.

That is an apparent contradiction in terms. Unless explained. So please do so.

Otherwise, very good post. And no, not because it coincides somewhat with my own sentiments.

But because it is factually correct in key aspects ...
 
Services Industries Key to Future American Jobs

they'll most likely automate those jobs, too, because technology is cheaper. we'll have a very interesting discussion when that happens.
 
If you look at your upscale neighborhoods today its lawyers,doctors,plumbers and drywall installers that live there.
 
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