Richie: One of the things you might be 'missing', and I certainly don't mean that as a slam, is something that has been occurring in ALL business - worker productivity. Whether it's a robot replacing an assembly line worker or software on a PC that allows one person to do a job that used to take two people, it's been on the increase for a long time in the US.

As I recall when I saw some statistics a ways back, the US *is* number one in the world when it comes to this. Part of it is the squeeze put on labor, but automation has had a huge hand in this.

This can easily explain some of the "bigger profits from fewer workers" equation.