Everyone has heard this sentiment at some point in their lives, often to justify the "service economy." Great goal for an individual, but how does that make sense??
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"Service economy" jobs feed off people who produce products for a living, aka creating value. Without manufacturing, what producers do we have? The tech industry? The whole of America cannot subsist off the tech industry. So what's left? Construction? Farming? America is supposed to survive off providing healthcare and financial services to farmers and Google employees?
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To work in tech, or in most service sectors like finance, law, medicine, data analytics, etc, let's say your IQ needs to be about 1 standard deviation above the mean. That leaves about 80% of Americans in the cold. Overestimation? Maybe, but probably not far from the truth.
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So how does the service economy achieve a 5% unemployment rate? Top service job sectors are education/healthcare with 26M employees in schools, hospitals, and social services, and 23M employees in "government." LOLLLLL
So you have:
- government-funded (or directly government-run) schools, universities, and hospitals employing the biggest chunk of people
- then another 23M people explicitly paid by the government
- then millions of women in the private business sector who are essentially subsidized by government-mandated email jobs
- then the transportation and UberEats sector that feeds off these people's Amazon deliveries and takeout orders
- then the legions of people on disability or food stamps or not making enough to actually pay taxes
- then the remainder of the population that actually creates some kind of value (excluding service jobs like legal, financial, business services, etc)
Our country runs off unlimited debt and pixie dust.
I don't think most of the people parroting it to their own children are doing it this maliciously.
They want their children to have safe, well paying jobs. A goal I think we can all understand. Hard labor is often not only incredibly dangerous both in terms of immediate problems but also gradual build up destruction of your body, but also not exactly well paying. A lot of people assume the trades fall into this category, and they often can, but most hard labor jobs aren't skilled nor compensated well enough for the wear and tear on your physical form.
Its not a sentiment that is beneficial for society as a whole, but its absolutely a well meaning one for the individual family. Everyone wants to think their kid can do whatever they want and be one of the few capable of getting into those cushy jobs, even if to an outsider its obvious Jim is gonna hold signs for road workers.
Now of course the government and Elites abused this in all the ways you listed, but that's one of the most evil things about them. They take things that should otherwise be wonderful (a parent's desire for their children to succeed) and twist it into their whims to destroy everything.