Luddite in Chief
Posted by Richard on June 16, 2011
I guess after two and a half years, the Obama administration figures the "blame Bush" rhetoric just isn't working anymore. So now they have a new explanation for the unemployment, underemployment, and generally sucky state of this so-called recovery: blame technology and automation. It's all those infernal machines and devices that are preventing you from getting a job! The Prez explained it thusly:
“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
Man, the economy would be going gangbusters if only we didn't have ATMs or airport kiosks. Or self-service elevators. Or long-distance phone calls that don't require an operator. Or online shopping … online bill-pay … and the whole damn job-destroying internet, actually!
Now I understand why $800 billion worth of stimulus didn't turn things around. It's all those bulldozers, graders, dump-trucks, jack-hammers, and backhoes. Think of how many "shovel-ready" jobs would be created if we just destroyed all that diesel-burning, greenhouse-gas-spouting machinery and used men with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows instead!
Socialists are basically all Luddites.
Shelton said
Maybe his buds in the UAW could get rid of all those “job-killing” assembly lines and robots. And imagine how many jobs we could create if, instead of combine harvesters we just had people out in the field picking corn or cutting wheat with scythes!
They’re right… the man is truly too smart to be president!
rgcombs said
It’s gotten even funnier. A week after claiming that automation killed jobs, Obama argued that automation creates jobs. The true post-modernist: there is no truth, there are only competing narratives; pick the one that suits your purpose today.
I failed to note something important when I posted this. The ATMs that the Prez blamed for the lousy employment situation have been around for a while. Haven’t most of us been using them for about 20 years? So this particular “structural issue” may have eliminated some jobs during the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, but what the hell does it have to do with today?