B: “We must provide jobs for the unemployed.” C: “Sorry, I can’t let that happen, that will cost too much money.” B: “Well, then we must provide help for them until they can find work.” C: “Nope. Can’t let you do that, either. Too expensive.” B: “Can’t we raise the money? There are lots of people who have lots of money, and many of them would be more than willing to pay more to help their country and their fellow citizens if they thought everyone was sharing the burden.” C: “Everyone’s already paying too much already. If some people want to give their money away to lazy moochers, that’s their affair. No reason for us to get involved.” B: “But we’re talking about a million people. They can’t all be lazy moochers. Most of them are trying to find jobs. For most of them, it isn’t their fault at all that they are in this situation.” C: “No, it’s not their fault. It’s all your fault.” B: “MY fault? Why my fault?” C: “Because you won’t do anything to help them.”
If long-term unemployment is “the Obama Legacy” as CG says, then it is neither the fault of the unemployed for being lazy, nor the fault of unavoidable economic circumstance, but that it is the fault of bad government, which means that good government would fix, or would have fixed, the problem. Good government knows when to act, and when not to act. When to spend, and when not to spend. So it appears that government is the answer after all. This is the essential paradox of the “government is not the answer” rhetoric. Just because a certain policy is counter-productive, that does not mean that having a policy is a bad idea. Doing nothing is also a policy. The only solution for bad government is good government, not no government. Government should be limited in its powers, they say. There should be some things that government is just not permitted to do. That is a fine ideal. But no one seems actually to believe it, or be able to agree on what those things are. Should government be permitted to kill people? To imprison without charge or trial? To torture people? We all cry NO! But then who wants to eliminate the death penalty, condemn the drone program, release all the prisoners in Guantanamo, and throw Jack Bauer in jail for torturing people to get information? Liberals or Conservatives, mostly? I agree that people have rights that even the government must not be allowed to infringe upon, and all Americans should stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of the those rights for all people, and not just Americans. But beyond those, we should be concerned with the wisdom or foolishness of various policies, whether they are strict or permissive, not simply tie our own hands in advance so that we have no power to act at all. Those who want a small, weak, powerless government are exactly like those who want a small, weak, powerless military. (True Libertarians want both, I suppose.) They think they are eliminating power altogether, when they are actually just ceding power others. What is actually wanted is a powerful government and powerful military, which both know when it is best to do nothing.
The do nothing Congress needs to fund infrastructure improvements throughout the US. That sort “trickle down” economics raises all boats. Skilled labor gets work, they pay more taxes, buy more groceries, eat out more often…. This has worked every time in our history. Unless we start yet another war, conscript every man & woman then the government would still be paying. Come on folks…this ain’t rocket science!
Many long term unemployed are such because their education and skill level is completely wrong and inadequate for the Electronics Revolution age. They were trained and educated to work in the Industrial Revolution age and that is over and history.The world no longer needs marginally skilled factory workers. It no longer needs single or few skill office workers. The nature of society and the jobs needed are radically changing just as they did when the Industrial Revolution started some three to four hundred years ago.This means the way we educate and train people has to change and the jobs they will do are going to change too..The Democrats being the historical illiterates that they are, cannot recognize the future so they are trying to recreate the past. It won’t work.
But Nantucket many previous office jobs ceased to exist an the need for masses of office workers along with it.Typists, file clerks, stenographers, mail room employees… dozens of jobs like that went away because of word processors, e-mail, and other computer applications..Factories are becoming automated. No need for low skill assembly line workers. Even skilled ones are in lower demand..This trend is accelerating too..The result is that workers that cannot learn complex jobs requiring considerable education and training along with being able to do higher level reasoning, problem solving, and use of imagination are no longer needed.Unlike Progressives, I recognize that not everyone is cut out for a college education. A liberal arts or fine arts degree is worthless today as it is little more than a glorified high school education in many cases.Even fewer people can go to college and complete business, engineering, scientific, or other degrees requiring a high degree of intellect and ability.So, until we as a society recognize that a traditional liberal arts education is nearly worthless in the Electronics Revolution and change how we educate people (some children will be left behind unfortunately) and focus on one that imparts the needed technical and cognitave skills we will see what we are today:A shortage of skilled and trained labor and a growing pool of unemployable people..This is a very good argument against amnesty for illegals too as more than two thirds of them have less than an 8th Grade education.
high-tech jobs are important to the economy, yes…but ifall those highly educated a guys need a home repair, evenneed one built, then if there are no carpenters, what will happen?
Nantucket, there are people that are too dumb to even make it through trade schools or other training. Our prisons are full of people like that. That too isn’t an answer..Unfortunately the need for “sheep” for lack of a better way to describe them, has become nearly zero in a world where they can be replaced by a computer..Companies want people already trained and who have a good track record of employment for a reason: The cost of hiring due to government regulation is so high and the difficulty of firing a poor employee so great that they take no chances. This has been common in Europe where such regulations have been in place for decades too..As for working for little, that too is partially a function of government regulation. A worker making say $35,000 a year is costing an employer about $20,000 a year in regulatory complaince, taxes and fees to the government to keep employed. If you reduced that burden then the employer could raise wages and do so much more easily than trying to increase the profitability of his company to do it..As for Liberal Arts…. When I was doing my engineering and business degrees there was a joke about that. It was an integration of the function of major with respect to gpa. As GPA went from 4.0 to 0 major changed from Engineering / Science to Business to Liberal Arts to Fine Arts….
No, Nantucket, I didn’t. I actually liked many of the liberal arts courses I took but they were never core to my education. They were… broadening… to use the popular term. It is when those sort of courses are core to someone’s education that they have little value.You need training in a field that has application to the “real world” so-to-speak first and the arts make you well rounded as an addition to that..As for the “too dumb” comment, it is 100% accurate. The world has a glut of dummies running around in it and many of those do end up in prison at some point.That is just a sad but true fact of life. Denying it denies reality. It doesn’t change it.
The cost varies for hiring an employee but it is fairly steep. Don’t take my generalized example as some hard and fast numerial value..Here’s some estimates by various entities:.http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/the-cost-of-hiring-a-new-employee.aspx.Most employers say regulation is their biggest problem to growth..http://www.gallup.com/poll/150287/Gov-Regulations-Top-Small-Business-Owners-Problem-List.aspx.The idea I was expressing is that government regulation makes hiring more costly and harder. That is bad for workers..As for the second, I agree with you again. An employer may not reduce prices or increase wages if regulation was reduced. But, some employers I think would. That would help some workers and that is better than not doing anything or adding more regulation.
Who here remembers the state where the republicans ran off many of the illegal farm workers saying it was the greatest jobs bill in history, and the produce rotted in the fields?
@mdavis – I think you summed it up well. I’m a republican who believes in the free market but I also believe in a modest and comprehensive safety net. I think there should be unemployment benefits, and food stamps, and housing assistance and many other services for those who are displaced because their job disappeared. But at what point does the safety net become a hammock? 6 months, 12 months, 18 months?
If you have been receiving unemployment benefits for two years straight then you really need to re-examine your opinion of what the government owes you AND your true worth in the job marketplace.
There are jobs out there: McDonalds, Walmart, Subway (just listing what is available today according to the job website for my community). But the starting salary you will be payed for working at any of those places will be less then could receive in unemployment benefits. I don’t blame the unemployed for holding out as long as the benefits are coming in. But I do think the gravy train needs to stop.
@Night-gaunt: You seem to hold the opinion that businesses should continue to employ workers even when they don’t need them. That the owners of those companies should just settle for a lower standard of living (lower profits) just so that people will remain employed.
That just isn’t going to happen. You might like to think those greedy investors are taking way more then they need and don’t deserve it anyway but let me remind you of who some of those investors are:
1) Pension funds that are scrambling to support an ever increasing number of pensioners during a recession.
2) People on fixed incomes that are surviving on the proceeds of their 401Ks. (Remember – Not everyone decided to leave their retirement to the SS administration)
3) Scholarship funds that support the next group of high school graduates who are hoping to go to college and create a better life for themselves.
I’m sure you think they all look like the Koch brothers but not everyone who invests in businesses was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The very idea that you think they should get by with less so the surplus worker can continue to earn a wage is ludicrous.
My dad was 4-F, his brother, and my father-in-law both fought as tank commanders at the Battle of the Bulge, they were all part of that “greatest generation”. My dad had years of bad health, and I started working at age 12 for other folks (started in our restaurant at 6 as a dishwasher) because I had to help support our family when dad couldn’t work.
I was part of that ‘Nam generation, and volunteered to fight in a “dumb war” for my country, ending up a disabled vet, with some of those disabilities taking time to progress to incapacitating levels. I’ve never been without a job, because I’d take what was available when necessary. Yes, I do have several college degrees, needed for my “job of my desires”.
My son is now also a disabled vet after 13 years of service in the Navy, part of that time with the most elite group in our military. He rejected the option, after being accepted at MIT and Cal Tech for pursuing a PhD in physics. Instead, he’s completing a degree as a veterinary technician, because a. he loves animals, and b. he can find a job in that field almost anywhere in the country.
Today’s world in America has limited job opportunities for anyone without education, or OJT gaining a lot of experience, before a job will provide a “living wage”. I know of PhDs doing “menial jobs”, because even high tech, not just “liberal arts” jobs are gone for college degree posessors.
It is the culture of corporate greed and profit regardless the cost to the nation, has given the current “me” generation their sense of “self-worth”. Reagan and the ilk are largely responsible for that mental, and moral, decay, because it IS the privileged class of INHERITANCE who’ve made folks THINK that “anyone” can still get ahead. Yes, some have made it, like Gates and Jobs, Bezos, and some internet moguls, but the truth is, hard work alone, just doesn’t cut it any more. Because that “hard work” job, is now overseas.
I think we need to impose a cap, at least temporarily, on the ratio of executive vs. worker compensation levels. That way, if the CEO wants a fat paycheck, he can’t do it at the expense of the workers..In 1981, the ratio between CEO pay and median worker pay was about 50:1. Now, that ratio is over 300:1, and in some companies it’s over 1000:1. Cap it at, say, 100:1 for a while. Executives could either take a pay cut to meet the ratio, raise worker wages, or some combination of the two. Best of all, it doesn’t affect companies that are already behaving responsibly; all it does is rein in the greedy ones.
@RevBob – Yet another feelgood idea that would have many unintended consequences. You can deny economic forces all day long but if you start enacting those ideas you will drive more work overseas and more screwy business ventures.
CEOs are, usually, smarter then liberals. If I were the CEO of a company and you enacted such a law I could get around it like this: 1) I create a corporation: Managements-are-us say and in it I have Me (The CEO) and my executive management team.2) I would Franchise all of my production facilities (Factory, Hotel, Restaurant) with a manager that works for one of my VPs (OK so now I have 100:1 difference between me and the plant manager)3) I could repeat this with several layers, of course, to make sure I get my workers back down to a salary that matches their productivity.4) Or I could just ship as much work overseas and on to robotic facilities as possible.
Either way I’ve walked around a law that should never be put in existence because it is one more form of red tape that kills jobs in this country and contributes to unemployment.
@TheTrustedMechanic – I don’t believe Greed is the problem.
We all step up to the economy and try to extract the maximum rewards from it for our efforts. Some choose vocational paths that require the types of skills that make them very valuable in the market place while others choose vocational paths that force them to vie for work with 1000s or even millions of others.
Most Captains of Industry have demonstrated a very savy grasp of the business world and the ability to lead large numbers of people to ever greater heights of prosperity. If they don’t they get canned by their board of directors and someone new is put in their place. This is what makes them valuable. To suggest that anyone could do what they do demonstrates a very poor grasp of what it takes to run a large corporation.
I think the real problem here is Economic forces that must be reckoned with. We held off that day of reckoning for years by unionizing and imposing work rules that distorted the market for labor. But better communications, transportation, and manufacturing techniques made it possible to manufacture an IPOD in China and deliver it to Chicago in 2 days. This made it unnecessary for companies to tolerate the burdensome regulations imposed by the US labor laws.
We could all make it stop by refusing to buy foreign goods but most of us like a bargain and don’t feel we should have to pay more for a product just to keep a US factory worker employed.
So what is a person to do in this situation? Develop skills that are in high demand in the marketplace. Go back to college, learn to write and do higher level math. Increase their value to an employer and they will see a comeasurate rise in pay.
“The once great hope an’ inspiration for oppressed people everywhere is now an example of growing oppression itself, an’ the noblest part of what we once were is slipping away very rapidly now… … ’almost gone entirely…:”
Have to agree with that. All of it … I don’t recall being in agreement with you all that often in the past, but maybe we’ve just arrived at the same conclusions via different routes!
“But the republican party has demonstrated time and again that it believes not in personal sacrifice, “I got mine now to he|| with you!.”:
That’s the only bit of what you wrote I’d like to .. um .. comment on. I’d put it differently. I’d say: The GOP is still committed to personal sacrifice – yours, not theirs. They sacrifice nothing, you sacrifice everything.
A lot of people here keep calling, along that line, for people to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their health are, in the matter of ‘health savings policies’.
My brother did. He recently received a letter to say that since he hadn’t used his medical savings, they would be confiscated forthwith.
That certainly does support people taking personal responsibility, doesn’t it?
I’d say so. I’d even say it could be recovered – maybe. If enough of us start pulling together soon enough.
And if we can refrain from blaming the victims for their plight. Clearly we can’t start there, but there certainly are a lot of victims, one way and another.
“Then perhaps you can agree with this too, as a Conservative (notice no emphasis) you are one of the very few who agrees with prosecuting those who hire illegals.”
Full agreement here, too.
Would be nice to go a little further – penalties for hiring skilled labor from offshore. And huge penalties for shifting jobs off shore.
Not all at once … incrementally, as they’ve done it to us.
Of course greed is the problem. Everybody says so – the only real issue is that we need to determine whose greed is the problem.
The powers that be insist that it is their starving, unemployed, impaired by being unable to access treatment for the health issues they are suffering constituents are impoverishing them and the country… and an illiterate population eagerly agrees, because anything that lets them off the hook sounds good to them.
Most of those people are NOT industry executives, and in fact are themselves suffering from industry excesses. However, they are semi literate at best, and can somehow believe that people without the power to force the goverment to police their OWN laws on behalf of their constituents can somehow destroy an exceptionally powerful country.
No country in recorded history has been brought down by the poor among their population. Oh, yes, the poor have taken up arms after the fact on more than one occasion, but if you don’t read the histories, it would be easy to miss the fact that the top one percent of the power structure was responsible every time. It was their actions which drove their oppressed citizens to violence.
The term ‘productive’ has come to mean, in this country ‘producing on my behalf’ … or in other words, NOT on the behalf of the worker himself. Ergo, the elderly, who might remember better ways and pass them on, can be abandoned. The sooner they die off the better, but hey – make sure you get their assets first.
Yes, the problem is greed at the top. It always has been, and likely always will be.
That’s why they are so terrified of ‘anarchism’, which in their minds means independence and freedom for all men.
Darsan54 Premium Member over 10 years ago
“We just hasten the process.” say the GOP.
ConserveGov over 10 years ago
The Obama Legacy
Doughfoot over 10 years ago
B: “We must provide jobs for the unemployed.” C: “Sorry, I can’t let that happen, that will cost too much money.” B: “Well, then we must provide help for them until they can find work.” C: “Nope. Can’t let you do that, either. Too expensive.” B: “Can’t we raise the money? There are lots of people who have lots of money, and many of them would be more than willing to pay more to help their country and their fellow citizens if they thought everyone was sharing the burden.” C: “Everyone’s already paying too much already. If some people want to give their money away to lazy moochers, that’s their affair. No reason for us to get involved.” B: “But we’re talking about a million people. They can’t all be lazy moochers. Most of them are trying to find jobs. For most of them, it isn’t their fault at all that they are in this situation.” C: “No, it’s not their fault. It’s all your fault.” B: “MY fault? Why my fault?” C: “Because you won’t do anything to help them.”
Doughfoot over 10 years ago
If long-term unemployment is “the Obama Legacy” as CG says, then it is neither the fault of the unemployed for being lazy, nor the fault of unavoidable economic circumstance, but that it is the fault of bad government, which means that good government would fix, or would have fixed, the problem. Good government knows when to act, and when not to act. When to spend, and when not to spend. So it appears that government is the answer after all. This is the essential paradox of the “government is not the answer” rhetoric. Just because a certain policy is counter-productive, that does not mean that having a policy is a bad idea. Doing nothing is also a policy. The only solution for bad government is good government, not no government. Government should be limited in its powers, they say. There should be some things that government is just not permitted to do. That is a fine ideal. But no one seems actually to believe it, or be able to agree on what those things are. Should government be permitted to kill people? To imprison without charge or trial? To torture people? We all cry NO! But then who wants to eliminate the death penalty, condemn the drone program, release all the prisoners in Guantanamo, and throw Jack Bauer in jail for torturing people to get information? Liberals or Conservatives, mostly? I agree that people have rights that even the government must not be allowed to infringe upon, and all Americans should stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of the those rights for all people, and not just Americans. But beyond those, we should be concerned with the wisdom or foolishness of various policies, whether they are strict or permissive, not simply tie our own hands in advance so that we have no power to act at all. Those who want a small, weak, powerless government are exactly like those who want a small, weak, powerless military. (True Libertarians want both, I suppose.) They think they are eliminating power altogether, when they are actually just ceding power others. What is actually wanted is a powerful government and powerful military, which both know when it is best to do nothing.
Crabbyrino Premium Member over 10 years ago
The do nothing Congress needs to fund infrastructure improvements throughout the US. That sort “trickle down” economics raises all boats. Skilled labor gets work, they pay more taxes, buy more groceries, eat out more often…. This has worked every time in our history. Unless we start yet another war, conscript every man & woman then the government would still be paying. Come on folks…this ain’t rocket science!
Enoki over 10 years ago
Many long term unemployed are such because their education and skill level is completely wrong and inadequate for the Electronics Revolution age. They were trained and educated to work in the Industrial Revolution age and that is over and history.The world no longer needs marginally skilled factory workers. It no longer needs single or few skill office workers. The nature of society and the jobs needed are radically changing just as they did when the Industrial Revolution started some three to four hundred years ago.This means the way we educate and train people has to change and the jobs they will do are going to change too..The Democrats being the historical illiterates that they are, cannot recognize the future so they are trying to recreate the past. It won’t work.
Kip W over 10 years ago
Obama isn’t kissing up to big business hard enough? Wow, what an oppressor.
Enoki over 10 years ago
But Nantucket many previous office jobs ceased to exist an the need for masses of office workers along with it.Typists, file clerks, stenographers, mail room employees… dozens of jobs like that went away because of word processors, e-mail, and other computer applications..Factories are becoming automated. No need for low skill assembly line workers. Even skilled ones are in lower demand..This trend is accelerating too..The result is that workers that cannot learn complex jobs requiring considerable education and training along with being able to do higher level reasoning, problem solving, and use of imagination are no longer needed.Unlike Progressives, I recognize that not everyone is cut out for a college education. A liberal arts or fine arts degree is worthless today as it is little more than a glorified high school education in many cases.Even fewer people can go to college and complete business, engineering, scientific, or other degrees requiring a high degree of intellect and ability.So, until we as a society recognize that a traditional liberal arts education is nearly worthless in the Electronics Revolution and change how we educate people (some children will be left behind unfortunately) and focus on one that imparts the needed technical and cognitave skills we will see what we are today:A shortage of skilled and trained labor and a growing pool of unemployable people..This is a very good argument against amnesty for illegals too as more than two thirds of them have less than an 8th Grade education.
woodwork over 10 years ago
high-tech jobs are important to the economy, yes…but ifall those highly educated a guys need a home repair, evenneed one built, then if there are no carpenters, what will happen?
Enoki over 10 years ago
For once I agree TTM. Prosecute businesses and owners that use illegal immigrant labor. I have no problem whatsoever with that.
Enoki over 10 years ago
Nantucket, there are people that are too dumb to even make it through trade schools or other training. Our prisons are full of people like that. That too isn’t an answer..Unfortunately the need for “sheep” for lack of a better way to describe them, has become nearly zero in a world where they can be replaced by a computer..Companies want people already trained and who have a good track record of employment for a reason: The cost of hiring due to government regulation is so high and the difficulty of firing a poor employee so great that they take no chances. This has been common in Europe where such regulations have been in place for decades too..As for working for little, that too is partially a function of government regulation. A worker making say $35,000 a year is costing an employer about $20,000 a year in regulatory complaince, taxes and fees to the government to keep employed. If you reduced that burden then the employer could raise wages and do so much more easily than trying to increase the profitability of his company to do it..As for Liberal Arts…. When I was doing my engineering and business degrees there was a joke about that. It was an integration of the function of major with respect to gpa. As GPA went from 4.0 to 0 major changed from Engineering / Science to Business to Liberal Arts to Fine Arts….
Enoki over 10 years ago
No, Nantucket, I didn’t. I actually liked many of the liberal arts courses I took but they were never core to my education. They were… broadening… to use the popular term. It is when those sort of courses are core to someone’s education that they have little value.You need training in a field that has application to the “real world” so-to-speak first and the arts make you well rounded as an addition to that..As for the “too dumb” comment, it is 100% accurate. The world has a glut of dummies running around in it and many of those do end up in prison at some point.That is just a sad but true fact of life. Denying it denies reality. It doesn’t change it.
Bilword over 10 years ago
and that was our elected representatives speaking
Enoki over 10 years ago
The cost varies for hiring an employee but it is fairly steep. Don’t take my generalized example as some hard and fast numerial value..Here’s some estimates by various entities:.http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/the-cost-of-hiring-a-new-employee.aspx.Most employers say regulation is their biggest problem to growth..http://www.gallup.com/poll/150287/Gov-Regulations-Top-Small-Business-Owners-Problem-List.aspx.The idea I was expressing is that government regulation makes hiring more costly and harder. That is bad for workers..As for the second, I agree with you again. An employer may not reduce prices or increase wages if regulation was reduced. But, some employers I think would. That would help some workers and that is better than not doing anything or adding more regulation.
eugene57 over 10 years ago
Who here remembers the state where the republicans ran off many of the illegal farm workers saying it was the greatest jobs bill in history, and the produce rotted in the fields?
Doughfoot over 10 years ago
“…‘Keep on dreamin’…” Thanks. I will. When we give up our dreams, there isn’t much point to living after that.
Mephistopheles over 10 years ago
@mdavis – I think you summed it up well. I’m a republican who believes in the free market but I also believe in a modest and comprehensive safety net. I think there should be unemployment benefits, and food stamps, and housing assistance and many other services for those who are displaced because their job disappeared. But at what point does the safety net become a hammock? 6 months, 12 months, 18 months?
If you have been receiving unemployment benefits for two years straight then you really need to re-examine your opinion of what the government owes you AND your true worth in the job marketplace.
There are jobs out there: McDonalds, Walmart, Subway (just listing what is available today according to the job website for my community). But the starting salary you will be payed for working at any of those places will be less then could receive in unemployment benefits. I don’t blame the unemployed for holding out as long as the benefits are coming in. But I do think the gravy train needs to stop.
Mephistopheles over 10 years ago
@Night-gaunt: You seem to hold the opinion that businesses should continue to employ workers even when they don’t need them. That the owners of those companies should just settle for a lower standard of living (lower profits) just so that people will remain employed.
That just isn’t going to happen. You might like to think those greedy investors are taking way more then they need and don’t deserve it anyway but let me remind you of who some of those investors are:
1) Pension funds that are scrambling to support an ever increasing number of pensioners during a recession.
2) People on fixed incomes that are surviving on the proceeds of their 401Ks. (Remember – Not everyone decided to leave their retirement to the SS administration)
3) Scholarship funds that support the next group of high school graduates who are hoping to go to college and create a better life for themselves.
I’m sure you think they all look like the Koch brothers but not everyone who invests in businesses was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The very idea that you think they should get by with less so the surplus worker can continue to earn a wage is ludicrous.
Dtroutma over 10 years ago
My dad was 4-F, his brother, and my father-in-law both fought as tank commanders at the Battle of the Bulge, they were all part of that “greatest generation”. My dad had years of bad health, and I started working at age 12 for other folks (started in our restaurant at 6 as a dishwasher) because I had to help support our family when dad couldn’t work.
I was part of that ‘Nam generation, and volunteered to fight in a “dumb war” for my country, ending up a disabled vet, with some of those disabilities taking time to progress to incapacitating levels. I’ve never been without a job, because I’d take what was available when necessary. Yes, I do have several college degrees, needed for my “job of my desires”.
My son is now also a disabled vet after 13 years of service in the Navy, part of that time with the most elite group in our military. He rejected the option, after being accepted at MIT and Cal Tech for pursuing a PhD in physics. Instead, he’s completing a degree as a veterinary technician, because a. he loves animals, and b. he can find a job in that field almost anywhere in the country.
Today’s world in America has limited job opportunities for anyone without education, or OJT gaining a lot of experience, before a job will provide a “living wage”. I know of PhDs doing “menial jobs”, because even high tech, not just “liberal arts” jobs are gone for college degree posessors.
It is the culture of corporate greed and profit regardless the cost to the nation, has given the current “me” generation their sense of “self-worth”. Reagan and the ilk are largely responsible for that mental, and moral, decay, because it IS the privileged class of INHERITANCE who’ve made folks THINK that “anyone” can still get ahead. Yes, some have made it, like Gates and Jobs, Bezos, and some internet moguls, but the truth is, hard work alone, just doesn’t cut it any more. Because that “hard work” job, is now overseas.
RevBobMIB over 10 years ago
I think we need to impose a cap, at least temporarily, on the ratio of executive vs. worker compensation levels. That way, if the CEO wants a fat paycheck, he can’t do it at the expense of the workers..In 1981, the ratio between CEO pay and median worker pay was about 50:1. Now, that ratio is over 300:1, and in some companies it’s over 1000:1. Cap it at, say, 100:1 for a while. Executives could either take a pay cut to meet the ratio, raise worker wages, or some combination of the two. Best of all, it doesn’t affect companies that are already behaving responsibly; all it does is rein in the greedy ones.
Mephistopheles over 10 years ago
@RevBob – Yet another feelgood idea that would have many unintended consequences. You can deny economic forces all day long but if you start enacting those ideas you will drive more work overseas and more screwy business ventures.
CEOs are, usually, smarter then liberals. If I were the CEO of a company and you enacted such a law I could get around it like this: 1) I create a corporation: Managements-are-us say and in it I have Me (The CEO) and my executive management team.2) I would Franchise all of my production facilities (Factory, Hotel, Restaurant) with a manager that works for one of my VPs (OK so now I have 100:1 difference between me and the plant manager)3) I could repeat this with several layers, of course, to make sure I get my workers back down to a salary that matches their productivity.4) Or I could just ship as much work overseas and on to robotic facilities as possible.
Either way I’ve walked around a law that should never be put in existence because it is one more form of red tape that kills jobs in this country and contributes to unemployment.
Mephistopheles over 10 years ago
@TheTrustedMechanic – I don’t believe Greed is the problem.
We all step up to the economy and try to extract the maximum rewards from it for our efforts. Some choose vocational paths that require the types of skills that make them very valuable in the market place while others choose vocational paths that force them to vie for work with 1000s or even millions of others.
Most Captains of Industry have demonstrated a very savy grasp of the business world and the ability to lead large numbers of people to ever greater heights of prosperity. If they don’t they get canned by their board of directors and someone new is put in their place. This is what makes them valuable. To suggest that anyone could do what they do demonstrates a very poor grasp of what it takes to run a large corporation.
I think the real problem here is Economic forces that must be reckoned with. We held off that day of reckoning for years by unionizing and imposing work rules that distorted the market for labor. But better communications, transportation, and manufacturing techniques made it possible to manufacture an IPOD in China and deliver it to Chicago in 2 days. This made it unnecessary for companies to tolerate the burdensome regulations imposed by the US labor laws.
We could all make it stop by refusing to buy foreign goods but most of us like a bargain and don’t feel we should have to pay more for a product just to keep a US factory worker employed.
So what is a person to do in this situation? Develop skills that are in high demand in the marketplace. Go back to college, learn to write and do higher level math. Increase their value to an employer and they will see a comeasurate rise in pay.
Rymlianin over 10 years ago
You, first.
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
“The once great hope an’ inspiration for oppressed people everywhere is now an example of growing oppression itself, an’ the noblest part of what we once were is slipping away very rapidly now… … ’almost gone entirely…:”
Have to agree with that. All of it … I don’t recall being in agreement with you all that often in the past, but maybe we’ve just arrived at the same conclusions via different routes!
Happy New Year!
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
“But the republican party has demonstrated time and again that it believes not in personal sacrifice, “I got mine now to he|| with you!.”:
That’s the only bit of what you wrote I’d like to .. um .. comment on. I’d put it differently. I’d say: The GOP is still committed to personal sacrifice – yours, not theirs. They sacrifice nothing, you sacrifice everything.
A lot of people here keep calling, along that line, for people to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their health are, in the matter of ‘health savings policies’.
My brother did. He recently received a letter to say that since he hadn’t used his medical savings, they would be confiscated forthwith.
That certainly does support people taking personal responsibility, doesn’t it?
/sarcasm OFF
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
“and to invest in “green energy” frauds.”
AHA! Progress is being made! Those green energy special interests are about as green as Shell Oil’s logo. Glad to see people are noticing that!
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
“It was most definitely avoidable.”
I’d say so. I’d even say it could be recovered – maybe. If enough of us start pulling together soon enough.
And if we can refrain from blaming the victims for their plight. Clearly we can’t start there, but there certainly are a lot of victims, one way and another.
Hmmmm …
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
“Then perhaps you can agree with this too, as a Conservative (notice no emphasis) you are one of the very few who agrees with prosecuting those who hire illegals.”
Full agreement here, too.
Would be nice to go a little further – penalties for hiring skilled labor from offshore. And huge penalties for shifting jobs off shore.
Not all at once … incrementally, as they’ve done it to us.
Hawthorne over 10 years ago
Of course greed is the problem. Everybody says so – the only real issue is that we need to determine whose greed is the problem.
The powers that be insist that it is their starving, unemployed, impaired by being unable to access treatment for the health issues they are suffering constituents are impoverishing them and the country… and an illiterate population eagerly agrees, because anything that lets them off the hook sounds good to them.
Most of those people are NOT industry executives, and in fact are themselves suffering from industry excesses. However, they are semi literate at best, and can somehow believe that people without the power to force the goverment to police their OWN laws on behalf of their constituents can somehow destroy an exceptionally powerful country.
No country in recorded history has been brought down by the poor among their population. Oh, yes, the poor have taken up arms after the fact on more than one occasion, but if you don’t read the histories, it would be easy to miss the fact that the top one percent of the power structure was responsible every time. It was their actions which drove their oppressed citizens to violence.
The term ‘productive’ has come to mean, in this country ‘producing on my behalf’ … or in other words, NOT on the behalf of the worker himself. Ergo, the elderly, who might remember better ways and pass them on, can be abandoned. The sooner they die off the better, but hey – make sure you get their assets first.
Yes, the problem is greed at the top. It always has been, and likely always will be.
That’s why they are so terrified of ‘anarchism’, which in their minds means independence and freedom for all men.