Another boring day. Nothing to do but to watch the stock market go down. Dramatically. Unless it goes up. Dramatically. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I could do with a little less drama.
(Apparently Boo the Cat is tired of drama as well and she bedded down close to me as soon as she came in this morning.)
The high drama this week on Wall Street will be the 'maybe' bailout of the automobile industry. And after reading some pertinent facts about the industry, I would have to say it would be foolish for us to give them any money. First, the obvious; why give money to fools? They got themselves into this mess…why do we expect them to suddenly become wiser? Shouldn't we expect to see brand new management in place and with a plan of some sort before we hand over billions? I know we have rarely done that kind of thing during the past few years but it might be the wise course of action. Second, where is the market for new cars? After many years, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries have pulled past us in a surging demand for new vehicles. The market isn't coming back. Not here. Sometimes we have to face facts and the sooner we do it, the better.
Manufacturing jobs accounted for 53% of our economy in 1965. In 1988, that figure had dropped to 39%. And in 2004, manufacturing accounted for 9% of our economy. Those were the good paying jobs. Jobs that allowed you to buy a home and that car you wanted. And the jobs that have replaced them?…service sector jobs.
No comments:
Post a Comment