Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
Here is what Democratic candidate for president Michael Bloomberg said in 2016 at Oxford, in what he apparently offered up as an ad hoc history of labor, agriculture, and industry, leading up to his own sophisticated era, as reported in the New York Post:
“I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer,” Bloomberg told the audience at the Distinguished Speakers Series at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School. “It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.”
The former three-term New York City mayor also addressed workers’ skills during the Industrial Revolution.
“You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job. And we created a lot of jobs. At one point, 98 percent of the world worked in agriculture, today it’s 2 percent in the United States,” Bloomberg said.
He then pointed out the difference between the economy then and today’s information economy.
“It’s built around replacing people with technology, and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set, you have to have a lot more gray matter”…
Both President Trump and Bloomberg’s Democratic rivals jumped on him for obvious reasons. And here is what Bloomberg’s campaign staff offered the public in Bloomberg’s defense:
Discussion (4)
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Hokay Little Mikey, you are so sophisticated I'm certain you will grasp this: I OWN a lathe. Yes, a real one. You say this about these machines: “You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job." What metal, how big, what hardness, ductibility, alloy, etc? HOW do you mount it into the mechanism of the lathe.. any idiot can take a chunk of steel and "put it on the lathe"... but a lathe operator must know HOW to fit it to the lathe's accesories. Do I use the tailstock? How about a mid-brace? Live centre, point centre, or a chuck that turns in the tailstock with the piece? HOW FAST (in RPM) do I make the headstock turn? In which direction? HOW FAST do I make the lead screw turn, and in which direction, or do I need it to turn at all? Next, WHICH crank to turn? (mine has three of them) How far, how fast? The arrow only tells you half the infomation, WHAT are you doing to that metal? Do I thus turn the crank (which one?) in the direction of the arrow, or against it? What about the cuttting tool itself? What shape do I give the point for the task at hand? What size stock should I use, and which tool holder? Little Mikey, until you KNOW all those answers, AND have the grey matter to figure out any situation NOT in the little booklet that comes with the machine, you DO NOT have a job..... And the reason so many Americans are out of work now is that the SCHOOL SYSTEM fails to give the kids anything in way of useful skills. And standing in front of a BIG mike and blathering on about that of which you know naught does not help. But please, Little Mikey, keep it up Because the more often you DO that the more Americans will be able to see the fraudulent, demented control freak you really are, and no, all your money cannot buy you a bed in the White House.
How to become a billionaire: 'It's easy. You put your hand out and the reserve bank just fills it with dollars.'
Let Bloomberg eat what he grows
I wonder how "Mike" would feel if all his food came from quarantined China? All the farmers I know are educated, many with degrees in agriculture, understand commodity trading and run million dollar enterprises. Most extremely wealthy individuals acknowledge their hard work but admit to having some failures and luck in their careers. Bloomberg thinks he just worked hard.