How to stop the loss of manufacturing jobs, by George W. Bush.

[elfs]

George W. Bush's economic team floated a brilliant idea for reducing the loss of manufacturing jobs: define burger-flipping as "manufacturing."

Comments

[rapier.livejournal.com]

I heard about that on Friday. I think they want to justify it by saying that when you make a hamburger, you're "manufacturing a product." Strictly speaking, that might be true. But in the contemporary definition of "manufacturing job," the burger-flipping doesn't qualify -- it's not high-paying, it's not unionized, it doesn't need skilled workers, and the benefits are far from desirable.

On the other hand, it illustrates the arbitrariness of our classifications of jobs. There are some jobs out there that I would consider a "service" job that are classified as manufacturing, like . . . damn, I can't remember. I want to say florists and bartenders, but that may not be right.

Anyway, it's bollocks.