{"id":12203,"date":"2020-02-20T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T18:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12203"},"modified":"2020-02-19T12:11:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T20:11:21","slug":"the-farming-wit-and-wisdom-of-mike-bloomberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-farming-wit-and-wisdom-of-mike-bloomberg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Farming Wit and Wisdom of Mike Bloomberg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2020\/02\/17\/bloomberg-once-suggested-farming-factory-work-doesnt-require-much-gray-matter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as reported in the&nbsp;<em>New York Post<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>\u201cI could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer,\u201d Bloomberg told the audience at the Distinguished Speakers Series at the University of Oxford Sa\u00efd Business School. \u201cIt\u2019s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn.\u201d<\/p><p>The former three-term New York City mayor also addressed workers\u2019 skills during the Industrial Revolution.<\/p><p>\u201cYou 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\u2019s 2 percent in the United States,\u201d Bloomberg said.<\/p><p>He then pointed out the difference between the economy then and today\u2019s information economy.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s 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\u201d\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Both President Trump and Bloomberg\u2019s Democratic rivals jumped on him for obvious reasons. And here is what Bloomberg\u2019s campaign staff offered the public in Bloomberg\u2019s defense:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-farming-wit-and-wisdom-of-mike-bloomberg\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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,&nbsp;as reported in the&nbsp;New York Post: \u201cI could teach anybody, even people in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3aP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12216,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/gray-matter-deficient-americans\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":0},"title":"\u2018Gray Matter\u2019\u2013Deficient Americans","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Former\u00a0New York mayor and multibillionaire Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, four years ago at Oxford, England, dismissed farming, ancient and modern. He lectured that agriculture was little more than the rote labor of dropping seeds into the ground and watching corn sprout \u2014 easy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11951,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/cosmic-injustice\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":1},"title":"Cosmic Injustice","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness One of the weirdest characteristics of our global politicians and moral censors is their preference to voice cosmic justice rather than to address less abstract sin within their own purview or authority. These progressive virtue mongers see themselves as citizens of the world rather\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12355,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/biden-has-become-an-albatross-for-the-democrats\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":2},"title":"Biden Has Become an Albatross for the Democrats","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Joe Biden\u00a0is the apparent Democratic presidential nominee. After all, he had a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates going into the rescheduled August convention in the postponed Democratic primary race. Biden was winning the nomination largely because he was not the socialist Bernie Sanders, who\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4072,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-bloomberg-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":3},"title":"The Bloomberg Syndrome","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After the recent Tucson, Ariz., shootings, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, a Democrat, almost immediately and without evidence claimed that conservative anti-government speech had set off alleged killer Jared Lee Loughner. Yet the more the unfolding details informed us that the Communist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Punditry&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9930,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dont-sweat-the-big-stuff\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":4},"title":"Don\u2019t Sweat the Big Stuff","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Politicians who cannot cope with the realities of governing should stop fantasizing about utopia. The recent Academy Awards ceremony turned into a monotony of hate. Many of the stars who mounted the stage ranted on cue about the evils of President Donald Trump. Such\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9957,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/9957-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12203,"position":5},"title":"Academy Untoward 2","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: After reading your discombobulated thoughts on Academy Awards, Mayor Bloomberg, et al., I now know why newspapers have traditionally been used as toilet tissue. M. Buendia Breinigsville PA Victor Davis Hanson's Reply: Dear Angry Reader M. Buendia, Are such angry letters mass produced in some central\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Angry Reader&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12205,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12203\/revisions\/12205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}