[LS]

Do you read the posts? I said when it was in the post. What does the potato famine have to do with where a plant is located? Why did the U.S. have a pretty substantial national debt from 1800 to about 1830---when it was growing the fastest---and why was it running a pretty consistent trade deficit?

Americans have always had high-skill jobs because of the availability of land. That means that businesses are continually trying to dump workers because they are expensive, and substituted machines. This has been going on since Whitney and Colt and Slater and Lowell. This is why the U.S. has always been the exact opposite of low-wage Europe which has "protected" its jobs. We innovated, they trailed.

Now, that certainly does not mean that it's good that American companies are laying people off. It may well mean that American LAWS and REGULATIONS are so punative that they make it impossible for American companies to innovate. But laying unproductive workers off is the key to success, not failure. You only fail when you lay off productive, efficient workers.

[ex-snook]

So why the shouldn’t people expect the government to provide jobs if none are available in cost efficient [profit maximizing] industry? Hungry people are fodder for democrats, crime and revolution [read growth of socialism and communism].