Thoughtful column from Bob Herbert

[CARLHAYDEN]

Too long to condense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/opinion/20herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

so now you're a demand-sider?

here is the problem of the middle and lower class in a nut shell - the U.S. economy is moving, and has been, towards brain-labor-servicies economy instead of a manual-labor-manufacturing economy.  Long gone are the days of the high school grad getting a job at the local mill and making enough to raise a family.  

In the modern economy, you need a college education, not a strong back.  As Apollo Creed warned us back in 1976:      

"Stay in school an' use
your brains, dig -- Be a
lawyer, be a doctor, carry a
leather briefcase an' forget
about sports!!  Sports can
only make ya grunt an' smell --
Be a thinker not a stinker!!"

[Beet]

Not everyone can follow Apollo's advice. There are millions of people in this country who will never be anything more than manual laborers or otherwise low skilled workers in one capacity or another. What about them? Are we now moving towards a 2- tier economy, with the "knowledge" class on one side and the laboring class on the other side?

[opebo]

here is the problem of the middle and lower class in a nut shell - the U.S. economy is moving, and has been, towards brain-labor-servicies economy instead of a manual-labor-manufacturing economy.  Long gone are the days of the high school grad getting a job at the local mill and making enough to raise a family.  

In the modern economy, you need a college education, not a strong back.  As Apollo Creed warned us back in 1976:      

"Stay in school an' use
your brains, dig -- Be a
lawyer, be a doctor, carry a
leather briefcase an' forget
about sports!!  Sports can
only make ya grunt an' smell --
Be a thinker not a stinker!!"

Oh lord.  You're so easily deluded, jmfcst.  The process you describe was not something that 'just happened', it was a political choice,  implemented politically, though access to and use of power.  The idea that there is some large difference in knowledge or intellectual capability between the college graduate of 2009 and the high school graduate of 1959 is laughable.  

You say 'physical labor' has been reduced in the economy - it hasn't!  It has merely been relocated to people more conveniently under control.  There is no less manufacturing - its just in some slave camp in Shenzen instead of Lansing, etc.  What remains, is, yes, some employment.  Far, far less employment, and much harder to get employment, but yes a bit.  But the point of the whole excersize was the reduce working class incomes and increase the incomes of those who control our society.

Your attachment to the education fairy-tale is of course understandable given your pathetic hubris and resultant desire to blame the defenseless victims for the violence perpetrated upon them.  

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Your attachment to the education fairy-tale is of course understandable given your pathetic hubris and resultant desire to blame the defenseless victims for the violence perpetrated upon them.  

Dateline United States, September 2009, Unemployment rate by education level:

Less than a high school diploma – 15.0%
High school graduates, no college – 10.8%
Some college or associate degree – 8.5%                                                                                               
Bachelor's degree and higher – 4.9%

[opebo]

Your attachment to the education fairy-tale is of course understandable given your pathetic hubris and resultant desire to blame the defenseless victims for the violence perpetrated upon them.  

Dateline United States, September 2009, Unemployment rate by education level:

Less than a high school diploma – 15.0%
High school graduates, no college – 10.8%
Some college or associate degree – 8.5%                                                                                               
Bachelor's degree and higher – 4.9%

Dude, that has nothing to do with 'education' - that's a representation of class. 

And besides, the important point here is that all of those rates are both far higher than they were in the 1960s, and precisely so because of government policy.