Semi-Random Thoughts:
TimberMcPherson
Aside from the hiccup in the economy, the world in general has become more service orientated. Think 30 years back. How many people you knew had other people mow there lawns, paint there house, trim there trees, gathered there own wood, grew vegetables etc.
That was one of two thoughts I had when I read the first post.
First:
In the country, folks were much more do-it-yourself. We still have just as many DIY'ers...it's just we've been overrun by urban refuges who, unlike my grandparents, moved from the cities (or college campuses) but still expect that someone else will do things for them. My grandparents / great-grandparents generation moved from urban areas to farms that made them and their kids jack of all trades types.
25 years ago a lawn service was reserved for only a few commercial properties around...and even then most of the commercial folks owned their own riding mower and had one of their employees mow the lawn. Residential lawns were the domain of the neighbor's kid. I honestly can only remember 1 person who had a true business of lawn care back in 1987 in my town. Today there has to be a dozen folks based in my town alone.
Second:
Trees got bigger.
More trees in the suburbs, lots of suburbs founded post World War II...until the 1970s a lot of them probably didn't have many trees big enough to need a tree service.
Similarly in the cities, lots of growth in the 1870s -- 1930s, by the 1970s on you had century old trees that were now declining and needed more services then the same community fifty years before.
EdenT
So now you either work in technology or a service industry that can't be relocated.
And those are precious few.
Healthcare is probably the only well paying service that can't be relocated.
Everything else is either under global pressure, or under illegal immigration pressure, both helping suppress wages for decades now.
That has a cascade effect.
Farming is so capital intensive now, you don't see under-employed men going back to the land.
You do see them in things like tree services. Need less start up cash and you get cash flow right away instead of after harvest. But a lot of them don't have a good business head or good understanding what they're doing. So they wing it, often underinsured and avoiding other fees and business taxes and not putting away money for the business' future or their own retirement -- costs that established firms face, and under cut the pricing not for reasons of efficiency or anything positive. They just work cheap.
