Replying to a message of Bob Klahn to Bob Ackley:

 BK>>>  Industry is where productivity increases most easily. And
 BK>>>  industry is leaving the country.

 BA>> I get a honk out of your fixation on productivity.  AAMOF,
 BA>> one can be efficient as h*ll and productive as h*ll and
 BA>> neither accomplish nor make anything of value - or FTM
 BA>> anything at all.  But one is very efficient at doing it.
 BA>> IMO it's a pretty much meaningless measure.

 BK>  It's a lot more meaningful than you may realize. Much of our
 BK>  economy runs on people who do not actually produce anything.

*Everybody* associated with the Internet, for example.  Several to many
thousand people performing what are basically useless tasks that contribute
nothing but time-wasting entertainment.

 BK>  When you look at it, a very great deal of what we need can be
 BK>  produced by few people. In the early 20th century about half the 
 BK> population was living on farms. About half the workers were farm 
 BK> workers. Today it takes what, 5%? 6%?

 BK>  Most things you buy that are made in factories are made by half
 BK>  the people who worked there just 30 or 40 years ago. And that
 BK>  was maybe half or less what it was a generation before that.

 BK>  What we need in material objects can probably be produced by 25%  of
 BK> our working age population, if that. The rest is working at  what we
 BK> want, instead of what we need. Or selling what we want  and need, not
 BK> producing it.

 BK>  And I would bet that could easily extend to cover imports if we
 BK>  tried.

 BA>> There are thousands of jobs in this country that could be
 BA>> abolished overnight and affect only those who lost them -
 BA>> IOW would have *no* effect on production or productivity.
 BA>> For example, *all* jobs connected in any way with the
 BA>> Internet.  Those employed in those jobs are no doubt very
 BA>> productive and very efficient at them, but they're also
 BA>> very unnecessary.

 BK>  Oh, you already thought of that. Only I would disagree on the
 BK>  internet. I don't believe you realize how much the internet is
 BK>  tied into the workplace. We can go online and check the
 BK>  operation of machines in other plants all over the country. And
 BK>  we can make programming changes in them. Well it's possible, but  I
 BK> don't have passwords to get into our Kent Washington plants.

 BK>  Our file repository is in Chicago. If I make a change on a
 BK>  machine from one computer, I save it to the repostitory. The
 BK>  next person to go into that machine from another computer will
 BK>  get a notice that the program has been changed, so he can
 BK>  download the latest version.

There were private computer networks long before there was the Internet.
Most large companies had them.  Shucks, banks even had remote ATMs before
there was an Internet.  Not including Fidonet, BTW, although I suppose that
counts too.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+