Obama, Productivity and Unemployment

From Carpe Diem:

While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic.

“Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.

President Obama has gone on record in the past as saying that ATM machines destroy jobs. He’s even developed his own theory as to why productivity gains are leading to the current jobless “recovery” in the United States. He would do well to acquaint himself with the level-headed and common sense thinking of Mr Friedman.

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