No, the jobs never returned

First, an aside.  The above is a parody of “No, he never returned.  He’ll ride forever beneath the streets of Boston.”  I often wonder why Charlie’s wife gave him a sandwich but never another nickel to pay his fare.

Trump’s claim about getting manufacturing jobs back made me think of an old Walter Reuther/Henry Ford anecdote about robots not buying cars.  For more on this story, see “How Will You Get Robots to Pay Union Dues?” “How Will You Get Robots to Buy Cars?"

Think of all the jobs that have been lost during my life time: elevator operators, typists, secretaries, gas jockeys, telephone operators (both telco and company in-house), ice men, shoe repair, and dry cleaners.

Think of all the jobs that have been made more efficient, reducing the number of people needed to do them.

Trash collectors: the trucks are bigger and semi-automated.  The driver often doesn’t have to get out of the cab to dump the cans in the truck.

Mail carriers: the carrier doesn’t have to keep walking to a storage box to get another sack of mail.  He or she fills the SUV with probably a whole day’s worth of mail.

Cashiers: When I was a grocery cashier years ago, I had to look for the price on every can or package to enter it in the cash register.  Also, we had to get approval from the head cashier for a check.  Now, the cashier takes a check without question. .  Many stores also expect customers to bag their own groceries.

Billing department clerks:  Many people pay online with the whole transaction untouched by human hands.  The statement is posted in email, the customer submits a credit card number, and Voila!  All done in a few minutes without having put a check in the mail or without having a clerk open the envelope and enter the check in a ledger.

Bank tellers:  Much of our income is deposited directly to our accounts, even while the remaining tellers are asleep.  If we need cash, we go to an ATM.  Many of us may never set foot inside a bank.  About the only reasons to go into a bank are to open an account, get a loan, and access a safe deposit box.

Stock brokers: forty years ago we had to call in our buy or sell orders and wait for the broker to get back to us with the price of the transaction.  On top of that, we had to pay several dollars varying according to dollar amount of the transaction.  Now we get on our computers, type in a transaction, and often have it completed within seconds, and pay a flat, known fee for each transaction, whether for a few hundred dollars or for thousand dollars.

Carpenters: when I was in high school, many craft unions had clauses restricting the use of power tools.  Now many carpenters have so many personal power tools that no way do they want to use hand tools when a power tool is faster and easier.

Truck drivers:  I remember when auto carriers had space for four vehicles.  Now many have space for six or more vehicles.  I don’t remember the length of trailers in the 50s, but I do remember how trucking companies successfully lobbied for 53-foot trailers and “double bottoms” (two trailers pulled by one tractor).

Farming: equipment has gotten bigger and more efficient allowing farmers to have much larger fields.  Automatic milkers.  In Iceland we saw an automatic milk machine.  The cows lined up to take their turn, being enticed by some food.  The machine would wash the teats. put the milkers on them, and when the cow was dry, release her for the next one.  Also, the floor had an automatic sweeper for all the droppings.  The cows just stepped over it as it came by.

Dry Cleaners: how many of us wear suits that have be dry cleaned?  Once upon a time, men always wore suits to the office, church, or restaurants.  Now many wear blue jeans as a matter of course.  Wearing slacks to many is being formal.

Who will you thank at Thanksgiving?

Most people will give thanks for their Thanksgiving dinner to God and to the preparers.  Consider all the others who helped make your dinner possible.

First, consider the people who built the roads for you to get to the store and all those who paid taxes for those roads, both now and long ago.

Consider the people at the grocery store who stocked the shelves, coolers, and freezers with all the food you bought and who checked you out and bagged your groceries.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the food to the grocery store.

Consider the people in the warehouses who unloaded the goods from one set of trucks coming from processors, stacked them, and then loaded them on another set of trucks for delivery to local stores.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the goods to a warehouse.  Sometimes they are driving long hours under a deadline.

Consider the people who processed the food at a cannery, a packager, or a slaughterhouse.  Many of them work under conditions and wages you wouldn’t tolerate.

Consider the people who drove the trucks on the above-mentioned roads to deliver the produce or animals to a cannery, a packager, or a slaughterhouse.

Consider the state and federal inspectors who try to enforce those “burdensome” regulations so that you have safe food, uncontaminated by unwanted organisms and chemicals.

Consider the environmentalists who want to reduce the contaminants in our air and water that could make your food less healthy.

Consider the people who picked the fruit and vegetables that are on your Thanksgiving table.  Some of them worked in air-conditioned harvester cabs; others of them picked by hand so long that they wondered if they could stand straight at the end of the day.  Some of them owned the land they worked and kept any profits.  Some worked seasonally at wages you wouldn’t tolerate.

Consider the people who ran the farms.  Some of them were corporate managers and some of them were resident farmer-owners.  These latter took many risks to produce your food besides the general risk of physical injury.  Was the weather going to be just right to give a great crop?  Were the market prices going to be favorable enough to pay their bank loans and still have money left over to live on until the next crops came in?

Consider the local bankers who made many of the loans to farmers.  Did they evaluate the risk properly so that the bank would have enough profit to continue the next year?  Now savings account interest is a joke, but when it was a decent return would the banker have enough profit to pass on to his or her savings customers?

Consider all those who contribute indirectly to your having an enjoyable meal.

If the weather is bad, consider all the snowplow operators who work long, weird hours so that you or your guests could get safely to wherever your Thanksgiving meal will be.

Consider the police who are out patrolling while you travel or are eating.

Consider the firefighters who may have to jump up from their meal at moment’s notice because somebody knocked over a candle or burned themselves with hot food.

Consider the complexity behind some of our simple pleasures.  Without the efforts of hundreds and thousands of people we may never meet, we would have to go out ourselves to grow and harvest what we enjoy in good company in a warm house.

Also posted on the Reader Weekly website at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/21/2479_party_of_one-6.