Service Providing

I read today, forgot where, how there are as many Americans employed in manufacturing as there were in 1940...with a population roughly half of what it is today.


I was offing waste into the garbage can today and every box, every box, was labeled Made In China. All the stuff my consumeristic family purchases was all sourced overseas.

That said, I can be well assured that my 14-year old son will never, ever find himself in a manufacturing job. Ever.

Particularly him being a Californian. California is the place to consume shit, not to manufacture shit. Just ask all those formerly employed at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, recently shuttered. We cannot compete with cheaper Asians. We cannot. Not when we demand time-and-a-half, vacation, sick-leave, defined pensions, union rules, OSHA oversight and environmental restrictions, while expecting that our eggs, our vacuum cleaners and our iPods be cheaper today than yesterday.

Fair enough. Global wage arbitrage led to these NUMMI job losses, along with a half million other manufacturing jobs. We had just better re-invent ourselves as service providers:

Sell insurance on stuff.
Sell insurance on others.
Sell insurance on yourself.
Cut each other's hair.
Sell movie tickets to movie attendants on their days off.
Sell hot dogs to hot dog vendors on their days off.
Sell financial products to service commercial real-estate.
Mow the lawns of those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.
Use that commercial real-estate to sell consumer shit (strip retail).
Create valued-additions such as converting corn into Chicken McNuggets, petroleum into infusion tubing.
Amuse others during their leisure time, while allowing them to amuse you during your leisure.
Perform a theatrical performance of the mime to other mime artists.
Wash car windows of Home Depot patrons in the parking lot.
Market your app to rip Youtube videos to iTouches.
Sell golf vacations.
Manage four-star resorts in balmy locales.
Sell authorized NASCAR jackets to Alabamans...jackets made by Vietnamese workers, of course.
Clean the houses of maids while they clean your house.
Disseminate economic information to the public. Tell them how great our economy is doing.
Kill household pests for those unwilling to venture out-of-doors.

This is our future. Service providing. OK. Let's make the best of it...