Report Card for Donald Trump

[Warren Dew]

(01-03-2017, 09:00 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-02-2017, 07:20 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I did and I see the 12% so I see where you got that.  But this is for manufacturing whereas the others are for industry.  I suspect the categories for the other three countries are more broadly defined (as there are fewer of them).  The GDP figures are for industry for all four and each shows the same number of categories.  So the GDP sector comparisons are more likely apples to apples than the labor comparisons.

The point is well taken, but measuring by GDP doesn't speak to the issue of employment vis automation, which is what we are discussing.  Nonetheless, by any measure, their share of industry as a share of the labor force is at least as high of ours despite significantly higher levels of automation, showing that an increase in automation does not necessarily lead to a drop in the size or share of the labor force devoted to it, even in this day and age.

It doesn't show that.  To do that you would have to look at how employment and automation evolved over time in all four countries.  Industrialization began in the US earlier than any of these countries, also Japan and Germany received a set back in WW II, which likely results in the loss of a decade or two worth of development, making their starts effectively later than they actually were.  That is, where the US is could simply reflect that fact that the US is further along its development track.  To check this out you might look at Britain, who is further past the Industrial Revolution than are we.

This is a weak argument considering that the opposite argument - that Germany and Japan leapfrogged ahead in technology due to having to replace obsolescent factories that were destroyed, rather than keeping those obsolescent factories running as in the US - has more often been made.  You were much better off with your argument that the difference is because they are export economies and we aren't.  That of course begs the question of why we aren't an export economy, which probably comes down to the fact that exporting virtual dollar bills is more economically advantageous than exporting actual goods.