Say a BIG THANK YOU on their 17th birthday! There is no philosophy or politics or any other shit here … just plain STABLE software! …
update: just upgraded to squeeze from lenny. Since squeeze is still ‘testing’ i had to do a bit of removal and addition of applications. Result a gnome install with a RAM foot print of 135 MB on a 4GB machine. Blazing!
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US generally has been a consumer oriented society; this means people consume more than they can produce. This is actually an interesting premise. We are now talking about consuming goods versus producing them. Now consuming by its very nature is limited by a boundary of limitation of resource to consume more. Whether its food grain or some leisure activity, there always is a constraint involved. Production on the other hand is limitless, except perhaps by availability of capital.
Assuming there is no machinery, no monetary capital and no competition for the particular product involved and the unit of production is achieved purely by labour; a case of old fashioned farming except with limitless arable land. The man can produce as much food as he wants but starts with 100 units; but his village’s capacity to consume is limited; say 50 units. So he will tend to try and sell the 50 units of extra food to the neighbouring village. If the consumption capacity for the neighbouring village is 25 units. He can decide to sell it to a village further away or he could decide to produce only 75 units next time.
Basically, he chose his market; The market did not choose him.Hold This Thought.
So the producer has to keep seeking new markets provided he decides to grow. A consumer on the other hand will be hard pressed to move out of his realm and seek pleasures of consumption unless the object is a necessity or an addiction. So food units will do just fine and we might be happy enough to go abroad and import but perfumes and iphones are a different ballgame altogether.
The producers will gladly bring the products to the consumer and thus for the consumer due to regular use, the “Good To Have” becomes a “Need To Have” So air conditioning becomes a necessity, bottled water becomes a necessity, coke becomes a necessity. All these products are supported by an income which is in turn generated by working for a ‘producer’ company.
Now bring in a complication, Labour rate. Labour rates do not follow logic most of the time as its tied to human emotion and aspirations. So eventually you have a situation where growth in labour rates have outgrown viability. Thus production for consumption at the same location is no longer feasible.
Now the producer has three options,
But he cannot reduce production as his Cost Of Production still involves rising labour costs. He cannot reduce labour as it leads to really messy situations. So he does the next best thing and seeks newer markets where he has to compete with another producer.
Our producer cannot sell his product at a lower price as this would trigger a smuggling of goods back into his home market thus cannibalizing his sales back home. Besides his cost of production would not change unless he shifts manufacturing abroad to locations with lower labour rates. A case of outsourcing. So he stops producing in his home country altogether and beings to import from a foreign location.
So now we have lost jobs and job creation abroad to balance this off. Result – Increase in unemployment in the home country. Some of this employment is offset by a rising consumption driven sector, Service Sector!
Since labour rates have increased, this has also triggered a corresponding increase in consumption also by people who have not taken part in production. Wife and kids for instance. This consumption had to be supported with services and newer life style products. If we assume production of even these products has completely shifted outside, we have a pure service sector economy.
The service sector drives the economy going forward. Eventually the service sector faces the same dilemma faced by producers earlier. But they cannot shift abroad except a few back-office functions. The service has to be provided here, directly to the consumer. But the back office jobs go away, more job loss and another round of job creation abroad. This time there is no other sector to even partly support the job losses. This is where we came in.
The consumption coupled with peer pressure has risen to individual consumer debt levels to alarming proportions. A slight change in your income could actually spell a huge lifestyle change. This retrograde never really goes down with essentially a human characteristic. You need to blame someone for your plight! Civil unrest.
If US has to improve, they have to get back to their basics. Think about reducing your production costs. Produce and produce more and see if the world wants your product. History seems to think you actually can sell ice to an Eskimo. So there you go, as simple as that.
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From comments at /.
You have to design the car so that the user doesn’t get the idea of looking into the fuel tank with a lighter, or if he does get that idea, that he can’t do it. No matter how silly it sounds. This is why our society works, because we can safely use tools without having to be experts in them.
Another one,
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. — Roy Santoro
Funny!
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