Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
One of the most persistent trends in American employment over the past couple decades is the steady disappearance of well-paying manufacturing jobs, a trend that has accelerated during Bush's term. To be fair, that really isn't his fault beyond staffing his administration with folks like Gregory Mankiw, who believes that shipping jobs overseas is good for the economy. All the same, it isn't the sort of statistic you want floating around when you are an embattled incumbent trailing badly leading into an election. What to do, what to do... EUREKA!
In a speech to Washington economists Tuesday, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said that properly classifying such workers was "an important consideration" in setting economic policy. Counting jobs at McDonald's, Burger King and other fast-food enterprises alongside those at industrial companies like General Motors and Eastman Kodak might seem like a stretch, akin to classifying ketchup in school lunches as a vegetable, as was briefly the case in a 1981 federal regulatory proposal.
But the presidential report points out that the current system for classifying jobs "is not straightforward." The White House drew a box around the section so it would stand out among the 417 pages of statistics. "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" the report asks.
In related news, layoffs are now being reclassified as "extended unpaid vacations," prison construction funds will be considered "low income housing assistance," and active combat duty has been designated "extreme sports."
TrackBackWell, the actual definition of the word manufacture (as defined by dictionary.com) seems to suggest that the current administration should also be classified as such. See # 3 of the verb form....
v. man·u·fac·tured, man·u·fac·tur·ing,
1) a.To make or process (a raw material) into a finished product, especially by means of a large-scale industrial operation.
b.To make or process (a product), especially with the use of industrial machines.
2) To create, produce, or turn out in a mechanical manner: “His books seem to have been manufactured rather than composed” (Dwight Macdonald).
"3) To concoct or invent; fabricate: manufacture an excuse."
To make or process goods, especially in large quantities and by means of industrial machines.
n.
1) a. The act, craft, or process of manufacturing products, especially on a large scale.
b.An industry in which mechanical power and machinery are employed.
2) A product that is manufactured.
3) The making or producing of something.
I hope the last paragraph was scarcsum and not new policy, it's getting had to tell these days.
Posted by: kach22i at February 20, 2004 12:09 PMI din't laugh until the last words. "Extreme sports" is very funny indeed.
Posted by: bigoldgeek at February 20, 2004 04:10 PMIt is all just so much PR. You have to learn to read between the lines:
Bush's tax cuts increased jobs (in China and India).
IBM is adding US jobs (shipping 5000 programmer jobs to India, adding 3500 lower-paying jobs in the US).
We will retrain workers (to wipe butts at nursing homes at minimum wage) whose jobs (with a livable wage) are shipped overseas.
Is wiping a butt in a nursing home a manufacturing job, too?
Nah, that's a service position. The nursing home resident is the manufacturer in that scenario.
Posted by: apostropher at February 20, 2004 08:28 PMRaising the retirement age, huh. Figures. Keep 'em working longer.
Posted by: froz gobo at February 21, 2004 10:19 AM