When I was younger, we used to pay $30 an hour for a back hoe or bull dozer with a 2 hour minimum. The minimum wage was $3.85 an hour. I was paid $5.00. I remember spending a full day shoveling, because it was cheaper than the bulldozer. In this argument, the question I see is, when does the cost of labor cost or than the expense of mechanization? Almost all the grocery stores around here are going to self checkout centers. Loggers are going to self pickers (?) and laying off many of the workers. It is the same question Pol Pot tried to answer when he tried to go back to an agricultural bases society. How do we handle the loss of labor as productivity increases? How much do you pay the sign waver before you go to more expensive but more productive means of advertising?


On a different note, I think we have entered a unique society where the rich are using social means to maximize profits. Almost every restrictive law said to protect us, benefits someone. Mandatory insurance benefits the insurance company, mandatory seat belt laws do the same. Consumer protection laws often benefit those with the means to met them and limit entry into market for smaller companies. In my business, the industry keeps trying to rise the education requirements for entry, while exempting those already in the business. Limit competition = an increase your market share and increase in the cost for the product.
Want to increase demand, simply make everyone purchase it, from insurance to carbon monoxide detectors. My nephew wants to be a doctor, but could not get accepted into medical school, despite stellar grades in one of the toughest undergraduate programs around. Seems only a very small percentage get accepted to medical school and then upon graduating, some are denied residency. Yet all we know that there is a shortage of doctors, right?
It seems all of the economy is using the government to full fill the position of the Union. I loved listening to right wing radio scream about government intervention. I wonder who protects their radio waves? Would it be ok for me to build a tower next to theirs and drown out them out? If we don't like socialism, should we get rid of public roads? Schools? Police? What about the military or boarder patrol?
In then end it really gets down to deciding what is the best level of social intervention is needed. The answer to that seems to be controlled wholly by greed. On one side big business been able to pigeon hole the government to give them what they want, why trying desperately to keep others from getting the same. On the other side the Unions are trying to do the same. Everyone outside each protected group can easily see the problem, but individually we do not have the power, motivation, or means to combat them all. A major correction is needed as I believe it is getting out of control, in all areas.