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To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (50785)	6/7/2004 4:06:44 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

Abundant low cost labor -usually the farm reserve army- is indeed a drag in any country. They are low cost because that is how the market value them. This is how the low cost labor disappears. The economy grow so fast that put all of them to work. As the reserve army dwindles, they become scarce and as a reserve of value governments, firms and the individual invest in himself. After this point, the only way to get low cost labor is bringing in foreigners. The countries that got rich before had it very very easy. The guy ex-farmers was working in the telephone company the next day. He would go out of the farm and instead of stretching barbed wire along a fence, pulled out copper wire from pole to pole to build telephone networks. Today the guy 4-year college education to be able to work in the modern economy. Hence it is tough, time consuming and expensive -and in 95% of the cases it is impossible!- to deplete the reserve army. There are lots of countries that will never make it. They can bring up their reserve armies to be productive in a modern economy. I've seen the guys digging with shovel, pushing wheel barrows, mixing concrete with hand tools, lifting loads with pulleys... You can't deplete the reserve armies by training mechanics and machine tool operators for construction equipment since it is cheaper to give shovels and picks to the unemployed rather than invest in a backhoe.