The best thing since sliced bread - perhaps not...

[Lohman446]

Seriously, lets discuss it. The basics - the first commercially available sliced bread was sold in the late 20s, Wonder bread took off during the 30s (proving that good sales can be head even in the leanest times as long as you are providing a product people want).

So, you have the basics. What if one made an argument that sliced bread could be used to represent a downward trend in America, and considering its timing might even have led the way.

Consider this - before sliced bread you bought, generally speaking, artisan breads. Breads made in the bakery you were buying them from - mostly small "mom and pop" style stores that provided a good living to those who ran them and served a great purpose in the community. You got your bread as what it was, more often than not the same day it was made.

Sliced bread (incidentally the first slicing machine also bagged the bread to help it preserve freshness) changed things. We could go from a handmade, hand cut, hand served product to a product ready to use - in another innovation of the time - toasters. It was simple, it was cheap, and it was readily available.

Bread making went from an artisan process to a factory process. Rather than supporting family businesses where people saw the product from scratch to retail it shifted to "factory" baked bread, which was then delivered to different bakeries and sold. Now the bread you got in New York was the same bread you bought in Chicago. It was cheap, it was consistent, and it was edible. Yet there was no longer an art form to it.

Now, rather than employing a couple people at a single location of reasonable skill and entreupenurial (sp) investment the process employed people to simply follow directions. People who really had not deep investment into the quality of the product they made. They were paid to do a job rather than earning money by selling what they made. The downside becomes further. Its easier to work with and get consistency with highly ground and processed flours. No one really cares that it is far less natural or healthy for you. It was a need of the early bread makers. Process it, then "enrich" it to give it back more nutritional value than sawdust (processed white flour without enrichers is about the nutritional equivalent of saw dust).

Use it as an example - how much better is artisan bread than bagged sliced bread? How much more does the maker of artisan bread make than the bread factory worker following instructions? There is a downfall to looking for the cheapest and the easiest way to have what we want. Bread is bread, until you have tried good bread, and realize what we have lost out on by having to have something put cheaply in front of us, ready to use, with little thought or effort on our part.

/:P I did it, I ranted against sliced bread

[vf-xx]

This is why I make my own bread. Cheaper, fresher and better for me.

Not hard to do either.

http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

;)

[punkncat]

There are many parallels when you consider the industrialization, and automation of manufacturing, and services in America. It is like the self checkout line at the grocery. For every one of those open, after two, a cashier lost their job. (there is an attendant)

For every Wal Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. some small mom and pop store, where people actually knew things and could help you, is gone. With that, people that cared about the community, who had the opportunity to be entepreneurs, and make more of themselves, are now clerks at those same stores making minimum wage (or barely above it).

I was reading an article a while back about Toyota's experience with robotics. They learned that while quicker, it was actually costing them more to go back and fix the small things that robots could not know to do, and re-replaced them with people again to get a better quality product.

America better wakeup to the fact that conveniant is not always better.

[skife]

i agree with lohman.

I drink craft beer and i try to keep it as michigan beer.
the other day i drank a founder's pale ale, it was delicious, then the bar had a special on coors light, so i had one of those. I couldn't taste it.

[Lohman446]

There are many parallels when you consider the industrialization, and automation of manufacturing, and services in America. It is like the self checkout line at the grocery. For every one of those open, after two, a cashier lost their job. (there is an attendant)

For every Wal Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. some small mom and pop store, where people actually knew things and could help you, is gone. With that, people that cared about the community, who had the opportunity to be entepreneurs, and make more of themselves, are now clerks at those same stores making minimum wage (or barely above it).

I was reading an article a while back about Toyota's experience with robotics. They learned that while quicker, it was actually costing them more to go back and fix the small things that robots could not know to do, and re-replaced them with people again to get a better quality product.

America better wakeup to the fact that conveniant is not always better.

I always considered modernization the unintended consequence of trickle down economics. Give to the rich and employers the money does not always trickle down. A lot of time it went into modernization. Face it, American workers have gotten more and more efficient and it is not due to more and more effort. Employers spent money on education and modernization to increase efficiency, eliminating many jobs in the process.

[teufelhunden]

I always considered modernization the unintended consequence of trickle down economics. Give to the rich and employers the money does not always trickle down. A lot of time it went into modernization. Face it, American workers have gotten more and more efficient and it is not due to more and more effort. Employers spent money on education and modernization to increase efficiency, eliminating many jobs in the process.

I'm sure it was a slip, but of course you know that nobody "gave" it to the rich. Except maybe their parents, but at some point, it was earned.

I think that modernization is exactly what trickle down would expect. For those who may be unaware, the basic nuts and bolts of trickle down economics (aka Reaganomics) are that the upper class should not be taxed to death and allowed to keep more of their money because they will generally spend it, reinvest it, etc, which clearly has a positive effect on the economy as a whole (for rich, middle, and poor alike).

As such, I think that trickle down is working if the business owners are buying new expensive production machines. Obviously, they are buying the machines from someone who designed the machines, built the machines, shipped the machines, etc. The business employs people to run and maintain the machines, and the QC/inspection staff goes up (fewer human hands along the way to actually look at things). Yes, the guy who used to bolt on the flap goes away, but some of those positions will be replaced by higher skill workers.

That's how I view factory modernization - it isn't taking 100 jobs and making it one person at the end of the line collecting the money. I think it's taking 100 jobs in the plant and making them 60 skilled (aka higher paying) jobs producing more stuff. I don't think that's a bad thing.


And to tie into another of our discussions, can you blame the factory owners when labor is demanding $55/hr total comp?

[Lohman446]

Yes, it was a slip on the giving to the rich, it really was just taking less. I think one of the killers of our evolving system is the move towards high skill high pay jobs. These are great and a wonderful theory, however it ignores one aspect of the work force.

W.e seem to forget that there is a need for "low-skill" jobs for whatever reason. Call it a failure of the education system, a lack of personal responsibility, motivation, or whatever you want but there are people who cannot or will not do high skill jobs with the pay reflective of it. The solution is not to provide them with $55 an hour jobs that require minimal skill :), nor is it to hand them government support. As you noted noone can really blame the industries for trying to do less with more when labor is a major factor in costs.

[snoopay700]

There are many parallels when you consider the industrialization, and automation of manufacturing, and services in America. It is like the self checkout line at the grocery. For every one of those open, after two, a cashier lost their job. (there is an attendant)

For every Wal Mart, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc. some small mom and pop store, where people actually knew things and could help you, is gone. With that, people that cared about the community, who had the opportunity to be entepreneurs, and make more of themselves, are now clerks at those same stores making minimum wage (or barely above it).

I was reading an article a while back about Toyota's experience with robotics. They learned that while quicker, it was actually costing them more to go back and fix the small things that robots could not know to do, and re-replaced them with people again to get a better quality product.

America better wakeup to the fact that conveniant is not always better.
As far as the self checkouts that's not really true, i worked at a place that had a self checkout (Jewel-Osco, it's an Albertson's company and they're all the same, just different names). When they got the self checkout they didn't lay anyone off and in fact continued to hire people. It is generally a supervisor who runs the self checkout, and that's because they can leave the post since there is not a whole lot to do to help other cashiers if need be, which is why they rarely work normal registers and either walk around helping people or they sit behind the service desk to help people. Really the only thing self checkouts do is help people who only have one or two things to buy get through quicker, especially when it's packed, but when people have a large order it takes forever on self checkout and that's the lane that usually gets backed up, even with 4 registers. Now it could eventually get to the point where it cuts down on jobs, but i really don't see that happening any time soon.

On the other hand what Lohman said about companies getting more efficient and cutting out jobs, that is entirely true.

[neppo1345]

tl;dr

[MANN]

It is like the self checkout line at the grocery. For every one of those open, after two, a cashier lost their job. (there is an attendant)

I love and hate these things. I can get in and out of a store in 3 min flat if no one is in line before me at one of these. When a soccer mom tries to ring up 400.00 in goods it is an absolute nightmare.


OT
there are many trades that can be done in the same comparison. Look at any meat you buy at walmart. It all is packaged at one place, and shipped to each location.

Some trades are no longer needed as we progress through technology (sp). I dont want to see the day when I need a waggon wheel repair man, and I really dont want to milk my own cow.

Times change. Is it for the better? depends on how you look at it. IMO it is the glass half empty or half full arguement. Today will be tomorrows' "good ol day"

Oh and I make my own bread...or my wife does. Im not sure how she does, how much it cost, or if it is good for me. It taste delicious, and I can eat a football sized loaf in one setting.