Comments on: Lack of demand — not uncertainty over debt — is biggest obstacle to economic recovery http://www.billdawers.com/2011/07/17/lack-of-demand-biggest-economic-obstacle/ Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:50:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 By: Dan Suwyn http://www.billdawers.com/2011/07/17/lack-of-demand-biggest-economic-obstacle/#comment-1319 Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:50:22 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=865#comment-1319 Good analysis, Bill. Let me offer an additional perspective. Customers won’t be coming back because corporations don’t need as many people as they did prior to 1990. While some jobs have left the United States for other countries, a lot more have been permanently eliminated by automation and computerization. The IP plant can make more bags today with less than 1,000 employees than it could in 1990 with close to 3,500 people. The ports are growing, but they need fewer longshoreman and stevedores. Even retail operations have found ways to do more with less.

The big question for this century isn’t “when will the jobs return,” it is this: “what will people do when there is little need for them in a capitalist society?”

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