Drugs and Work Stations

Dean Baker voices a genuine concern, but provision of a Medicare Drug plan promises little benefit, if Medicare negotiates only for the small, select group who would enroll in such a Plan. Negotiations possess substance only when the empowering act designates Social Security to negotiate a Drug Price Schedule for all enrollees in both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. A Democratic agenda which seeks less will only make the situation worse.

The Skeptical Optimist claims We are morphing into a Service economy. It is a good Post, but the value of transforming into a Service economy seems not as wonderful to me as it does to him. An Appendix in one of the books which I had written back in the last Century describes my Concept of the modern Work Station; it being my contention then and now that a proper Work Station could perform any act of Production, Security, and even Transportation necessary with connection with the Production equipment. The flow of Production from the United States comes from Tech refusal to develop such a Work Station (which should be Standard, and basics of such Work Station operation taught in every High School). The Nerds refused to devise the equipment to aid their brothers, who had neither the time, or the capacity to attain advanced Skills. It most definitely not true that it is natural for the United States to become a Service economy.

The Above paragraph assumes far greater important after one reads this article by Michael Mandel. He lists very effectively how the United States may be losing on the Globalization front. Development of Work Station technology and Training for that technology could be the answer to the American problem. I have long been an advocate of closed environment Production operated from Work Stations. Does it seem futuristic? It should not! The Day will come when Production facilities are underground, and all labors (including Maintenance) are accomplished on Work Stations manned by Labor aboveground, who come to Work in casual clothes. (I actually await the Business which draws Work Station labor from the Net for the entirety of its Labor force.)

Environmental factors enter into the equation as well, and not just as Production pollution. It is a ‘given’ that Coal will be the fuel of future Production. The United States has both the technology and wealth to develop environmentally safe Coal usage, which China and India and other Underdeveloped Countries cannot. We can put the Common American back to Work, and do so to the benefit of the entire World. lgl