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Down and Out in White-Collar America
XorNand writes "Fortune has a pretty sobering article on the employment situation for white-collar workers. By many accounts, we've never had it harder--the slump in the 80's primarily hit blue-collar workers. While bleak, things might be inching towards the light; as my econ professor says, jobs are the last thing to recover after a recession."
It's a good thing my shirts have green collars.
"But in the past two or three years companies have turned to India and the Philippines for much more sophisticated tasks: financial analysis, software design, tax preparation, even the creation of PowerPoint presentations."
Apparently Fortune isn't hiring software people either.
Vonal Declosion
Go read about what happened in the Great Depression. I don't see many coders struggling to eat...
American economy has been hit hard. Enron, etc, and september 11 couldn't have come at a worse time. Not trying to be flamebait, but the usual 'let's start a war or 2 to fix up the economy' hasn't worked :-(
According to the Debt clock, each Citizen's share of this debt is $22,684.87.
he National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.47 billion per day since September 30, 2002!
The Fix? I don't know. Welcome to Globaliziation.
I'm not Seth.
I'm an EE major, and the teacher keeps saying, "If you graduated two year earlier, companies would literally fight for every one of you... But now...".
Oh sure, eveything was fine when it was manufacturing jobs that were exported to other countries. Now that white-collar/no-collar jobs like software development are being exported, suddenly it's alarming.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My wife who like me is a GenX'r is now a manager in charge of hiring programmers, etc.
Well when the topic of GenX's who cannot get work came up in SlashDot I talked this over with my wife. She yeah she hires young programmers. I asked how come? She said that they learn quicker and are more flexible.
I looked at her with amazement and said HUH? Are you bs'ing me? I said you are just as bad as those other managers. Promptly I pointed out that I can learn very quickly, etc, etc. She said, but fine that is you, but not me. I have problems learning these days in contrast to previous years. And GenX's demand too much.
What I learned from this is as follows:
1) Managers suck! They look at their own perspective and think the rest of world must be like that.
2) People like to validate sterotypes. ONLY young people can learn new technologies and are flexible.
3) GenX's are screwed!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Don't forget about the president's impact on the economy.
It's been a long time since we've had such an idiot in the whitehouse: not elected, taking away your rights, giving disproportanate tax cuts to his wealthy friends, ignoring corporate execs who have cost the economy billions, fighting questionable wars.
He's making us into servants.
Back when I was a young'n, we had these things called JOBS. We had to walk 5 miles through 6 foot snowdrifts just to get to work, then labored until we were exhausted. And we LIKED it!
With the demise of so called 'blue collar' jobs and now the demise of 'white collar' jobs, what, if anything will actually be done in developed western countries like the United States and Europe?
It seems the only thing that will be left is retail and the public sector. But where will people obtain money to buy things in stores if all other activities occur in less developed/cheaper countries. We can't all work in shops or government, can we? The balance of payments would be totally off-balanced if we did.
The current arrangement cannot last.That companies keep outsourcing things to foreign countries. Of course, it saves them money, but at what cost? As they do that, unemployment in the US will only rise. I guess the prospect of higher profit margins outshines the prospect of giving a hard-working American a job.
Ok, let's say that these things do allow for more investment into other markets. But with the US economy in the shape it is in right now, will these companies want to spend the money on possibly risky ventures into new markets, or just claim the money as profit and make all their execs super rich with fat bonuses.
Or maybe I'm bitter because I can't find a job.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
I've noticed that lots of people who were highly paid during the dotcom boom are not recovering well, despite the existence of jobs, only requiring a little bit of creativity to find them. I wouldn't say that things are in the overinflated state they were, with people being paid $100K for basic system administration, but jobs can be found. I think that the problem is that most of the people who were making the insane dollars they were don't want to take on a $30K-$40K job, even if basic administration or technician work will pay the bills. They can't forget the lavish lifestyles that they lived.
I was affected by it too, for I managed to get out of field techin' to start doing Quality Assurance Engineering. That job lasted a year. When it ended, I looked for other QA jobs, basic IS admin jobs, and the like, and I ended having to go back to what I knew very well, which was field tech. It's not the most fun, the most glamourous, but it does pay the rent, gets me away from a desk all day, and doesn't leave me sitting at home feeling dejected for myself for being unemployed for months and months.
If the market picks up, and QA positions become available in the money and stability that I want, I may leave my current job for one. Until that time arrives, I'm going to be happy where I am. It's not perfect, but life isn't fair, and those that get off their asses and try to make something for themselves will be a lot happier than those who give up.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I know it's not glamorous, but think about it...
All of my computer-industry related friends bemoan the state of the industry, in general. Those of us who have jobs face lower pay, longer hours, and general harassment by management, as management knows if we don't, there's 10 others out there that will. Talk about bum luck.
However, most of my friends who are skilled "trademen" of some sort are all working. They may not make the big bucks (although most of them still make in the $12-15 range locally, which is a decent sum), they're working. And when there's no work, well, it's time to kick back and relax. Isn't this what life's supposed to be about? (fortunately, there's never been a prolonged period of no-work for them, I can imagine a long spout would trigger the same anxieties we've faced: How are we gonna pay the rent? Food? Utilities? Of course, most of them fall into the "Fuck the rent, I'm getting a tattoo" category, but that's another story). What do they do?
Plumbers. People still shit and piss and pipes still get clogged.
HVAC. Gotta have A/C in the summer and heat in the winter around here (your mileage may vary depending upon your locale).
Welders.
Construction workers (ever see Office Space?)
Painters
Tilesetters
Manual Laborers.
Like I said, it's not glamorous, but you may actually find you enjoy doing such work. And it adds to your skillset in general (Ever see those Carlton Sheets ads? Buy property, fix it up yourself, sell for profit. In today's economy, the interest rates are spot on and lots of property is available on the cheap). And it gets you out of the house. Your parents will be proud.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Not to give up my secret or anything, but I've figured out how to get through this, for me at least...
When you were laid off/graduated college to discover no jobs available/etc., where did you go first? Same place I did, I bet. The bar. And you probably spend most of the money you do come up with right there, tipping those bartenders that best help you drink away the economy...
So I just completed bartending school, and I'm already fighting off job offers. A perfect complement to my CS degree for sure, based on my new economic theory.
Linux is growing but unfortunately all of those people who got their msce's and then IT jobs 4 years ago are now looking at different career paths. maybe they can use visualbasic to write a job search client?
Dada ended art.
Booya
Sooner or later it was bound to happen. As companies become bigger and bigger they break away from national barriers and are able to take advantage of cheaper, skilled labor from overseas.
Since asia now holds its own in terms of education and technical ability, I believe we are beginning to see some sweeping changes that will more or less bring more homogenity to wages and living expenses the world over.
All the outsourcing examples given share one common requirement - the need for reliable, high-speed Internet connections between central HQ and the workhou^H^H^H^Hsatellite offices. While a lot of network management can be done remotely, there is still a need for a physical presence - even if only to check that the cables haven't come loose...
I was laid off four months ago from a software development firm with 170 others working with me. In those four months - i had only 2 interviews (with one leading to an offer very recently) & i consider myself lucky to have had those because many of my collegues are yet to get their first call.
The four month period was a interesting experience & here are some things i learned/did in that time:
1. Remind yourself "often" that it is not your fault. Economy is bad and nothing stays that way forever.
2. Network: I created a simple discussion forum on my server (http://www.toastforums.com/) and asked all my 170 peers to register. It turned out to be very useful in discussing subjects like - how to get our unemployment benefits & severence packages/Over Time pay from our old firm. Many of them started posting job opportunities too as soon as they found themselves in a job.
3. Actively prepare towards something : How about a certification that those recruiters so much like ? Or simply read tech forums and keep updated on any new thing on your subject that shows up. This gave me an artificial feeling of getting somewhere which was very useful to keep my hopes floating.
4. Apply to every ridiculous job on the web, even to those recruiters with fake job descriptions. This could seem like a futile effort with many not even drawing a "hi there, i got you email response". But, again - its one of those exercises that help in keeping a healthy hope alive.
Thats about it.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
It can and will last... the Bush/Halliburton junta will see to that.
mod UP!!
He's just saying his wife sucks.
That kind of think happening to Slashdot readers is rare...
When Bush is finished with America and destroyed the middle class, there won't be anyone who can afford those things and housing prices will fall. Its coming soon -- the collapse of the housing bubble.
Whilst I'm far from being an economist, isn't this sort of thing completely and utterly unsustainable? I think its fair to say that lots of tech company's workers are pretty much their customers too. So if the majority of tech companies continue to outsource their development contracts in Asia aren't they going to eventually ruin their customer base? I mean they pay pittance to Indian workers who could not afford to be a customer of theirs. Don't believe the bullshit - get a quote from a offshoring firm for the chargeout rate on a developer - a client of ours recently did and it was around $10US per hour for a senior developer. So you can image what the poor sod cutting the code is actually getting paid. Never mind - some bright spark in 10 years time will decide that the next big thing to fix a country's economy will be to repatriate workers and the cycle will continue... Its already happened here in Australia with outsourcing vs permanent employees.
Cheaper services, like cheaper PCs, is good for anyone who needs it, and the current outsourcing wave is likely to be very good for the global economy in the long term. It just means we in the service sector have to find other ways of passing our time, getting paid less and working on smaller, local projects.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
one of the things congress can do is cut off the H1B visa program. almost every tech company is outsourcing its IT to chinese, indian, and others. these are jobs that will never return and are not part of the economic cycle. of course the public schools need to push technology education far more also. write your representatives!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
If you're consulting and not attached to a company, why does anybody have to know how old you are IRL?
I've worked smart mob style with designers who I've payed through paypal, and I've gotten jobs (not tech ones unfortunately, just writing/journo stuff) from people who are just an email address and a funny line on Instand Mesenger.
Your website looks pretty mad! You could probably illustrate comics for someone like Neil Gaimon if you got the right lucky breaks.
Hang in there.
And don't tell anyone your age!
(ps. look at my old slashdot posts, and then guess how old I am.)
And this comment, as well :-)
It's seriously not a bad thing for the dollar to be slightly down against other currancies. It doesn't really mean the economy is in trouble or not moving in an upwards direction, it only means the rules are slightly tweaked for a bit.
I always have and will continue to buy made in the USA cars; Ford or GM, Cry-slur = crap and I heard they incorporated offshore. If Ford or GM go offshore then I'll make do with used cars.
in 80's when things were being automated, blue-collars were hit hard.
nowadays, white-collars designed and invented a lot of useful and efficient technologies which are now slowly replacing relatively less efficient white-collars. we should have seen this coming.
i'll be more interested to know what's the next 'collar' to be replaced due to the advancement we have made so far.
Well, in this area (Washington DC metropolitan) depending upon the type of construction work you do, you can be just as screwed as the white-collar types. The late 90s saw a huge commercial construction boom, but with the current economic bust, there are huge buildings that either (a) have never been finished, (b) have never been occupied, or (c) are now standing empty because all of the tenents went bankrupt. That means no new commercial construction. In Loudoun county alone (home of AOL & MCI/Worldcom), 16% of the office space is empty, and if MCI/Worldcom is forced to close their offices here (more than one million square feet), that figure would double.
Residential construction is still hot, but "used" home sales are starting to outstrip new home sales, and new residential construction is moving farther away from the metro area, simply because most of the inner metro areas are already built to zoning capacity, and "smart growth" advocates (you know, the sorts who have a $1m+ house on 5+ acres of land, and want everyone else to live in apartments near metro stops) have squashed new local development.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying
.9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did
Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.
All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.
Fact: The USA is dying
Hi!
/off-shoring business or start one of your own! Heck, if the companies will export 3 million jobs in the next few years to save money, I'd say there is money to be made in helping companies save money. Like they say, if you can't beat 'em , join 'em.
:-)
Instead of worrying about how we all are headed to the homeless shelters and how the profit-hungry Corporations and the Government is to blame, can we think of some ways to "offshore-proof" our employability?
Here are some suggestions:
(1) Move up the chain!! Instead of being the one whose job is being exported, think of ways to crawl you way up the ladder to become the one who is doing the job-exporting.
(2) Work in Defense. If you are writing software for the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, administering the UNIX cluster at the local Air Force Base or cranking out Code for the F-22 at Boeing/Lockheed Martin, rest assured, your job isn't going to be outsourced to a shop in Bangalore - even if they promise to do it for free!
(3) Work for an out-sourcing
(4) Get into Sales and customer-facing jobs. I know y'all like to work in T-shirts with ketchup and coffee stains but may be it's time to get a makeover, buy a suit and start honing up on your people-skills. A company cannot hire someone in Russia to do a face-to-face meeting with a client in Chicago or Atlanta. An added advantage - The makeover and newly found people skills will help you get dem girlz too!
Of course all the above is easier said than done.. but saying it is still a better start than all the complaining and worrying...
How we arrived at the present situation:
The Supreme Court elected George Bush. As Alan Dershowitz said, it was an unprecedented abandonment of judicial principle.
New president George Bush put a man in charge of foreign policy who had lived his entire life with the idea that the way to solve problems is to kill people and destroy their property. This sent another very clear message to Arabs that the U.S. government support for killing Arabs would increase.
Arabs and Muslims are prevented from having a voice in their government partly by the U.S. government presence in Saudi Arabia.
Arabs and Muslims are prevented from living in peace by the violent Jewish occupation of the land that was theirs (now known as Israel).
The U.S. government pays between 3.5 and 5.5 billion dollars every year to Jews in Israel. This money is used to buy helicopter gunships and other high-profit American-made weapons. The weapons are used to kill Arabs.
Arab and Muslim cultures are not particularly good at communicating. They tend to feel that getting attention through violence is their only option. (It would be better if they could start their own influential newspaper in the U.S., as the Jewish people have in the New York Times.) The Jewish cultures are far better than the Arab cultures in teaching their children to be intellectual. To be influential by communicating, it is first necessary to learn to be intellectual.
Since the U.S. government is actively involved in killing Arabs, and the Israeli government is actively involved in killing Arabs, the Arabs decided to fight violence with violence and kill a few Americans. Numerous Arabs were willing to sacrifice their lives for this.
Using techniques the CIA taught them in Afghanistan, the Arabs planned and executed the destruction in the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
The uncertainty that violence brings causes leaders not to want to invest. The Bush administration has already incurred a huge U.S. government debt. The cost of pretending that the terrorists are sacrificing their lives for no reason is huge.
The uncertain political and financial climate (constant, never-ending war) and bankrupt government causes job loss and loss of opportunity.
Anonymous Coward, why do you hate Indians/Filipinos?
Another Anonymous Coward loses his job due to Chronic Foot In Mouth syndrome.
Right. You have a job. You got job security? You got the code to prove it? Doesn't mean a licking difference, because a faltering economy means just that: FALTERING. Your job exists now, but will it in a year, month, week or will you get a pink slip tomorrow?
How do you know you won't be knocking on IBM's doors praying to be let in or accepting some shit job like Game Testing for EA or something like that? Because, frankly, there is zero job security in the tech world today.
Karma: Non-Heinous
All those jobs you mention are good for people who are good with their hands. I have no coordination or strength lol.
Get in and learn the skills, most homeowners would like to change something about their house, but don't have the time or skill to do it themselves. You can make a nice suppliment to your income of you get a contractor's license, and do a little work on the side of what ever else you are doing. Stuff like tiling a floor, changing a kitchen counter, laying wood floors, sheetrock, and others, none of it should be too dificult for any of us to learn and the excersise and knowledge that you can point to something you built are both pretty nice.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
I posted before but it seems that this misconception is widespread enough to warrant additional explanation.
A WEAK DOLLAR IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
This is because most major American companies derive huge amounts of their profits from overseas (i.e., from exports). And when the dollar is weak, exports can be priced much more competitively.
For example, lets say Coke wants to price drinks sold in Japan at 1dollar each.
Ex1. Strong Dollar:
Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar.
Price of Coke in Japan will be 100yen.
Ex2. Weak Dollar:
Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar.
Price of Coke in Japan will be 50yen only!
In other words, with a weaker dollar, Coke can set lower prices will keeping its revenue (in dollars) the same. So this allows American firms to undercut prices and compete more effectively against foreign companies.
In addition, a weak dollar also inflates the amount of profits from operations in foreign countries.
For example, lets say Coke will make 100billion yen in profits in Japan.
Ex1. Strong Dollar:
Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar.
Coke will have made 1billion dollars in profit.
Ex2. Weak Dollar:
Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar.
Coke will have made 2billion dollars in profit!
So even though profits are stagnant at 100billion yen, Coke has still doubled its income. All because of a weak dollar.
To conclude, a weak dollar is NOT BAD.
In fact, a major concern right now is that if a weak dollar hurts the exports of other countries, they will try to devalue their own currencies.
Of course, currency values are all relative, so if Japan devalues the yen, and we still want a weak dollar, we have to devalue further, prompting them to do the same...and so on.
Things then spiral downward.
When you actually read the article you will notice that these laid off guys have all low-level academic titles like bachlors. There is a MBA mentioned but everyone knows that you get these things for a few business seminars and they are nothing to do with real science. Not even economical sciences.
I wouldn't consider these guys as white-collar workers. evryone knows that knowledge standards are raising rapidly and with a BS you are still a blue-collar worker. White-collar starts at least with a MS or a PhD.
So, I wonder if real white-collar workers really have these problems.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Instead of hanging, why not eliminate the tax benefit of moving work and companies off-shore.
If you don't allow companies to deduct costs for moving work off-shore. It is a double slapp when a company moves the work offsjore, to foreign workers, then give the company a tax advantage for that.
Fight Spammers!
All of this is basically unnecessary. With a little more work we could have cheap nuclear power or perhaps hydrogen. Start up mining projects in nearby parts of space and you solve matrial shortages. Once that's done, we could build machines to do the work we need to do and free us all from labor and poverty. This isn't sci-fi, it's something attainable by mankind in a generation or two. The problem is there are too many people opposed to this. Oil companies, old money who'd loss their importance without scarcity, polititions and leaders who thrive on war and stife (George Bush, I'ma lookin' at you), etc, etc.
Probably the silliest group that opposes this sort of thing is common laborer's afraid of losing jobs to machines (that includes white collars, remember how many accountants got put out of work by Lotus 123?). It seems to me instead of getting angry at the tool that takes your job, you ought to be mad at people who control the distribution of goods made by those tools to the detriment of the rest of society. There's something really wrong with a society that lets 2% of the people control 95% of the wealth. There ought to be less talk about bolstering the economy and more about improving the general standard of living. Oh well, not like that's gonna happen anytime soon.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Ironically, it's a pretty good place to be these days. Defense spending is way up for obvious reasons, and it's poured into high-tech programs that demand a lot of engineering. Many, many people bailed out for the tech boom in the late '90s, which thinned out the employee base. I won't say there is a massive shortage of people or a huge number of unfilled openings, but there is a healthy market with employers like Lockheed, Raytheon, CIA - calls from recruiters and job hopping are pretty common where I work.
And, national security jobs can't be outsourced to India - 99% of them have US citizenship as a basic requirement.
Developers inhabit a continuum from just below real Software Engineersl
(those that have read Knuth and understood him) down to the burger
flippers coding in VB to a spec someone else wrote. They are the post
modern agricultural laborers AND THEY KNOW THIS really.
-- http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/30459.htm
Dyslexics have more fnu.
The company I work for is doing great, mainly because I'm underpaid.
I actually typed about 1000 words describing what I do there, but decided to scrap it. Now I feel bad for spending an hour on this post.
I am in a similar situation to what you are in except I spent 4 years in the computer industry as a systems engineer with linux and other unices. I worked for Qwest and Navisite during that time and had a lot of fun and made some good money. When the company was going down I took a couple of months off and then decided to get a job as a bartender, since I had previous experience serving tables. The money is great and you dont have to participate fully in the countrywide tip pool :). I am just now after over a year, going back to finish my CS degree. If things go well and the market recovers I can hopefully land a good computer job because the only thing I want right now is to work in the industry at any level or pay. I just love working on computers but I have to live.
If you are ever in Riverhead on Long Island go to the restaurant across the street from the racetrack. Just look for the black haired guy with a part in the middle. Ask me something about computers and I'll know.
As
... for companies to do so. Many were hiring people just to have them available to them for work. They never gave them anything revolutionary to work on (by and large), and ended up wasting them. It was a bad investment, planning for something that didn't pan out.
It didn't help that people *flocked* to technical programs at universities, forcing excessive weed-out classes to reduce admissions numbers. I ended up ceasing to ccontinue with my CSE major not because I didn't want to learn the trade to do something that I liked, working with computers in newer, exciting ways, but because I didn't want to do group projects with people who had no idea what a spreadsheet was, and we all were to be basically graded on the performance of the lowest member of the group. (yes, I am bitter)
People flocked to the programs for the money. There's no money now, and there are a lot of trained people who are very upset about not being able to make a five year career on a four year education. This is one fad that died.
I believe that it'll level out again, and that suitable numbers of college-training-required technical jobs will come back, but hopefully this period of bust will be remembered, and the trend won't repeat for a long time.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Ne construction goes in waves (at the moment in many parts of the western world it is on a downturn) but many people still need the basics for maintenance.
My normally empathic heart is having a hard time bleeding for this guy. Especially considering:
"...the 40-year-old engineering exec has been out of work for three months now."
and
"My kids think I'm still working. My oldest knows I'm looking for a job, but not that I'm out of work."
So the first guy's got the scratch to maintain his suburban Chicago existence for 3 months whilst lying to his kids so they have no idea of their situation. Then we hear thu implication of how this is exactly mhat blue collar workers are going through.
In the interest of fairness, I will admit that I, thankfully, am an employed white collar worker. That notwithstanding, this article makes it seem as if the current economic doldrums are amazingly unbelievably unprecedentedly awfully fantastically horrible; as evidenced by the fact that, gasp, executive consultants may not be able to maintain the lifestyle which they have became accustomed. And, to add insult to injury, "White-collar workers and college graduates are in a state of shock...".
We do have a serious economic problems. However, I don't think that shedding crocodile tears for the plight of the yuppie is any way to start solving them.
The next problem is that a weak Dollar will drive international economics to use other currencies for trading contracts. And with the appearance of the Euro there is a single powerful currency with a strong economic background to take the Dollar's place. The US goverment tries to prevent this by military means (like Irak) but can't wage war on everyone. And have the Dollar as the international trade currency is extremly important for the US, because you can finance all your resource consuption just by printing new money. In fact this was a "money-for-US" tax for other countries but this will be gone soon.
A weak currency is sometimes just a slow poison. That's the reason why the European are so keen on having a hard Euro.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
it was a matter of time before free trade and zero control in capital flow affected the well paid middle class in the US. Now, since few high salary jobs are created, the purchasing power of that middle class slowly erodes as the unemployed relocate to lower paying jobs. I wonder the implications of this for sectors like tourism that depend highly on that middle class purchasing power.
If you are EVER thinking you'll never get a job again, forget the computers. Take a Food Preparation course, or Hospitality/Hotel.
Seriously, start your own business (when the economy is down it's the best thing to do). Write a kickass application. Take your skill and make something. Till you open your own business you're just a cog in a wheel. Easily replaced and of no real value to anybody.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
What is Sweden's secret? Progressive taxation. Average production workers in Sweden pay no income tax to their central government because the bottom bracket starts about a tenth above the average production worker's salary. The Swedish tax rate is typically about 57% of income earned above that base. Sweden only has two central government tax brackets: 0% and 25%, so their "federal" taxes are actually closer to the "flat tax" than ours are in the U.S. The additional 32% or so varies by local jurisdiction, as does the income bracket at which it takes effect.
The problem in the U.S. is that top-bracket income earners (including corporations, medium-sized businesses, and most of the top 1% rich, excluding some of the prominent top rich in the media spotlight) pay a huge amount of money in order to help elect government officials who will keep the top tax brackets low. This effectivly "saves" them an even larger amount of money, except for the externalities like crime rate, debt, and property values. We used to have regulations providing equal air time for federal candidates, but Reagan's FCC did away with those, so most candidates today, even most nationally prominent Democrats, sure know which side of their bread is buttered on. There are some notable exceptions, however.
(1) I don't want to. If I'd wanted to end my working life as a middle-manager, I'd have majored in Business Administration or something equally useless.
(2) Great, make it your job to help kill people.
(3) "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em", otherwise known as "Backstab everybody around you so you can make a buck".
(4) Yeah, get on your knees and be a corporate whore.
Being scared of big numbers is for non-geeks. The US national debt looks large, it is a really big number. However, the US economy is over 10 trillion dollars per year. As a percentage of GDP, the national debt is not a problem. Some will argue with the exact numbers, but most reputable economists will but the national debt in the area of 40-45% of GDP. The current amount of that debt is only like 2-3% of GDP. That is not a big problem!!!
Other countries have worse debt problems than the US, including other advanced nations, such as Western European countries.
Sure, in absolute dollars, the US has really high debt, but when you look at percentages, which is all that really matters, the US is doing fine.
Debt is not bad. Obviously, the US does not want to push its debt up too high, because too much debt is bad, if it reaches levels around 60-80% of GDP, then you should worry.
Think of it this way, Bill Gates house cost a lot, way more than any of ours, but we shouldn't worry about how is going to pay for it. To Mr. Gates, a 20 billion dollar house is cheaper than a 100 thousand dollar house is to most of us.
Get the comparison? Debt is only meaningful in terms of ability to pay. The US has a huge debt, but it has a huge ability to pay. Germany has less debt, but they have much less ability to pay.
It is all in the percentages folks. I would have though most geeks would not be afraid of numbers just because they are big.
Back when I was in highschool (Class '01), I was sold on taking Cisco classes at our Community College for the better part of my day all year. My initial plan was to graduate early, get a job doing whatever, but I went for Cisco instead because 1) It was 13 free college credits and 2) EVERYONE was telling me how I'd be making $30k/yr easy, probably even before I got out of college. Took the classes, got my CCNA in Nov. '01, right about the time the economy officially turned to shit. I worked making collection calls for Ford until 6-02 when I joined the AF, got a medical discharge 6 months ago, and now I can't find a job anywhere. I know my stuff, I'm a CCNA, but I can't get a job. I do mean anywhere to. I never had a problem getting jobs when I was in high school, but now that I have a diploma, some college, a professional cert., and some life experience, I'm having to dig through the my sofa for change for food or gas.
Now, I'm really not trying to sound like I'm bitching, because I'm not, I'm just recounting my experience. I'm also not saying all those people who told me Cisco was great screwed me, but rather, I think they we're just going with the info they knew to be true. Problem is their info was from '99 or so. Now all the IT jobs I can find open want more experience and skills than I think any human could have, and want to pay them something in line with McWages.
All in all, my whole experience has me actually wondering if IT is even going to be a viable career for long. For some reason, I see it going to something of a plumber type occupation. Very few places have a in-house plumber and only call one when they are need for their specialized skills. With computers becoming easier to use and more stable all the time, I can see IT people no longer needed on a day to day basis and instead delegated to being the IT plumbers. Seriously, have you ever seen one of Apple's XServe's? I don't think it can get much easier than that. Maybe I can be a teacher, seems like I'm always hearing about more of them being needed...
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
With all the people out of work, if you are willing to take the pay cut and have more experience there should be no reason not to hire you.
Hey, maybe instead of unemployed, you can be retired off the lawsuit payoff.
Maybe someone should form a "Age Discrimination" Watch group. Why dont you guys/gals stop bitching and do something about it. Stop the whinefest and get off your ass and do something about it.
I know at our work, HR started is only hiring entry level pay positions (they call it a choice market, and can get talent at that price...) but they still hire the most experienced people that apply.
With the bad taste over the phantom 'Weapons Of Mass Destruction' (tm) still in our mouths, those of us who disagree with the owner of the largest stockpile of 'Weapons Of Mass Destruction' (tm) on Earth chuckle at the US predicament.
You see, the companies that have elevated your country to its current position in international thuggery are quite willing and able to give your jobs to less well paid workers in other countries . Usually these slave-labour countries are run by a military dictatorship, much like the one the multinational corporations would like to have everywhere.
Several contradictions US society must deal with if they want to evolve from where they are:
1) You can't steal everything. Even with all the wars US has started and all the 'rights' it has won and 'deals' it has signed, it must pay the world for the goods and services it uses. Currenty it does not. Currently, the US foreign debt is climbing by over $US 1 billion per day.
2) Military dicatorships are not acceptable, except when they allow US corporations to rape the country's local resources - including the people in slave labour camps.
3) American patriotism is the greatest force on the planet, except when tbe individuals insist on charing so much for their sevices, and it becomes more profitable to employ foreigners in slave labour camps.
I could go on and on, but those who agree with me need no more reminders, and those who don't agree with me already have their heads in the sand by now.
It's funny to notice that most /. posters think they are 'white-collar'. They are not. They are at best 'blue-collar' workers. Little hands that implement the ideas of others. If you get fired and you are not able to see you are nothing more than a production line worker, then you may start to understand why you are fired. On the other hand, you probably prefer to dream on.
WHEN WILL the bad weather end? Why the distance between what is and what ought to be? Where are Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? If he was such a threat, why did his army perform so poorly? Does it matter where he is? If the war in Iraq was not about oil, why does the United States insist on its indefinite control? If the war was, instead, about democracy, why are the Iraqi people, including Saddam's proven enemies, excluded from authority? Is Iraq to be like Afghanistan, where war lords rule and heroin thrives? Are there more suicide-bombers now than ever? Has the American war on terrorism advanced safety? How did relations between the United States and its European allies become so fragile? Will history recognize the 21st century Anglo-American combine as a mere continuation of the 19th century British Empire? What do good intentions count for if they cut a wake of wreckage? And is the bad weather the result of an atmospheric low that will not lift without the answers?
Why are taxes being cut when teachers and librarians are being laid off? What happened to campaign finance reform? Why is the United States more divided by race than ever? When did its citizens ever decide to forgo privacy? How can low-income wage-earners support their families? How much longer will the middle class be able to afford health insurance? Why are Americans eating so much bad food? Does prime time television hold a mirror up to the nation? Who teaches children to bring guns to school? What happens to teenagers who fulfill every graduation requirement except the test they can't pass? How many more will fail that test because their teachers were laid off?
Such impossible questions go a long way toward explaining the American mood. We cannot answer them, so we do not ask them, and the emotional weather is lousy. Thus, the patently false ebullience of George W. Bush -- the doubtless man -- is the perfect emblem of a nation so adrift that it dares not look twice at its real condition. Whatever the technical reasons for it, the economy that refuses to recover matches perfectly a broad psychological stagnation that precludes self-knowledge. Why are Americans incapable of looking directly at what we are doing and what we are becoming?
Abroad, the United States wages war on such vaporous pretexts that when they dissipate in the first breeze of mourners wailing, Americans take no notice. A strong tradition of multilateral internationalism is overthrown without political controversy or even debate. An old liberal dream of world federalism, nations united as democratic partners in global governance, is replaced by a program of American unipolarity, world government administered by fiat from Washington. And who in Washington questions this?
At home, an anxious sadness underlies the civic life. Careers feel terribly uncertain. Leisure is a forgotten luxury, which is not all bad because blank spaces in the datebook spark insecurities most of all. Intimate relationships are burdened by what is not discussed, and the confessional to which many people might once have carried such secrets is now dangerous. The Catholic crisis, cutting an entire community loose from moorings of authority and meaning, directly affects only a part of the national population, yet it, too, seems very American. The sadness is as religious as it is political.
In America each boon seems now to carry a curse. Is our freedom secured? Yes, by a government that can eavesdrop on every conversation. Are we well fed? Yes, to the point of obesity. Is our medical care superb? To the point of bankruptcy. Are we the most heavily armed people in history? Frighteningly so. Does the unprecedented success of the national project over the last generation bode well for the next generation? Obviously not. Can we dare to ask why?
An answer is apparent this very day in Iraq. The distance between what is and what ought to be is so vast there that only an act of communal self-blinding can keep Americans ignorant of it. The dark national mood ha
I take it "Fortune" is not a big fan of Bush's economic policy.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Poor excuse. The human body is quite adaptable and can change it's own parameters when necessary to cope with the current situation. I too (yet another AC :P) had said the same thing, but after 3 months of not feeding myself or my family, decided to take up a job as an auto mechanic. The more I did, the less sensitive I became to grease and other hazardous chemicals involved in automotives, and the more skilled and strong I grew. Take the time to step away from the computer, and work out - you won't regret it!
This ad paid for by the international council for Anonymous Life Changing Posts.
I grow pot now. Good indoor is worth more than gold per ounce!
Perhaps the puzzling part of the article (how the dollar and market don't look so bad but unemployment is) can be answered by the negative effects of giving ultra-big business all these "pro-business" concessions via government mandate.
Small and medium size business employ more people than all large companies combined in the US. Yet, every stimulus package from Congress only benefits the big boys who can afford a team of lobbyists and a legal department that dwarfs most law firms.
Where does this leave the real innovators? Its hardly contested that innovation and new markets are usually created by those willing to go at it with a small company and do it or fail trying as opposed to some big-business top-down master plan. In the tech industry you have to fight the legal departments of potential competitors, fight the patent junkies, fight potential adversaries like the massive and powerful content industry, etc before you can even come up with a decent business plan.
Someone somewhere is sitting on a billion dollar idea but its not going to go anywhere because investors fear retribution from unfair competitors. Or perhaps she cannot get enough money to pay for years of IP challenges. In a legal war of attrition its the little guy who loses, and loses badly.
I think we might be seeing a loss of innovation and a loss in small to medium sized businesses. How can these companies compete with sweetheart deals, crony capitalism, and legal tricks?
If this little thesis is correct it would explain why Joe from Winnekta can't find a job, even though the economy isn't as bad as it was in the 80s, why PCs are still ugly and loud beige boxes, and why relatively new tech like cellphones are a better deal and a better product overseas. Or why broadband is so expensive here in the States.
Everytime congress cuts a deal for some business it raises a barrier to entry for small business to walk in and compete. Enough barriers and you've got an economy that isn't moving, but is dependant or more crony capitalism to keep it going. I hope I'm wrong as I'd hate to be here when this all hits critical mass.
Prophetic words from potter George Ohr. What we are seeing is a cycle we are doomed to until we get over this mass consumerist mindset. Sure, you can go to wallyworld and buy tons of crap you couldn't afford before - but for what? I'm willing to bet 70% of everything that comes out of that place ends up in a landfill within three years.
If you look around you'll see some people still doing just fine - or even better than last year. $40,000 cars still sell and automakers are coming out with $100,000 cars. People I know who make high end home entertainment systems are still doing just fine. Why? Because the people who can afford that stuff aren't the ones whose jobs are being shipped overseas.
I hate how this sounds, but it all comes down to values. Not family values but simple common sense values - like spending twice as much on an article that will last five times as long. Like buying something that represents craftsmanship and community instead of a cheap chinese trinket you had to get in order to keep up with the neighbor.
It's everywhere - even on those "home improvment" type shows. Every week I laugh in disgust as Steve Thomas and the boys tell us how great this new styrafoam and plastic POS they are gluing to the front of their project of the month is when compared to the old, outdated plaster and woodwork that it's replacing - never mind it's a hundred fucking years old and just now in need of replacment - this new same-as-ten-thousand-others piece of crap is "just as good"... yeah, right.
You don't have to be a millionaire to buy good shit - you just have to learn to not drive yourself into debt buying truckloads of cheap crap. Until the people of the US can accept this most basic bit of common sense, it's all downhill.
But don't worry... all that infrastructure - the roads, the abandoned factories, the empty offices - will still be here, and all those jobs will come back... in twenty years, when the US economy has finally and completely hit the shitter and the people of the US will once again willingly work 12 hour days in sweatshops for peanuts - producing cheap american trinkets for the up-and-coming EU market and all those freshly minted eurotrash capitalists from the FSU.
Yep, exactly. Learn the various architectural trends and whatnot and figure out how to market yourself. Some people specialize in turning those old warehouses into loft apartments, some people specialize in revamping older buildings to meet construction codes, etc. There's lots of work to be done and livings to be made if you do it right. And furthermore, even though you still have clients, you're still the boss. :)
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
You know, if you had a job that didn't involve something that any 'tard out of College/University could do (web development, coding etc) then you wouldn't have a problem.
While all my mates were doing programming, I decided to go and understand how the 'net fits together. You know, routing, BGP/AS paths etc. So I am now a network admin at a good carrier (NOT ISP. A carrier. We supply BW to ISPs)
Yea, this is flamebait. But if you think about it, it's also true. How many web devs do you know looking for a job? And how many people that have a good skill that's hard to find are out of work? Not many huh?
Thought so.
did anyone consider moving to where the jobs are going, India? Sure your pay will be less than half, but cost of living in India is low. Plus, you will have a job.
IANAE
You got it mostly right. It's easier to look at it the other way: when foreigners want to invest in the US, they need dollars. Thus the demand for dollars increases, and the price level of the dollar will rise. (This is of course in an idealized world where that's the only thing going on at the time--ceteris peribus, as economists would say.) A similar thing happens when people in other countries want to buy American goods and services.
When the "value" (price) of the dollar goes up, it means Americans (who own lots of dollars) can afford to buy more PS2s because it takes fewer dollars to buy a yen than before. Unfortunately, the Japanese can't buy so many, uh, whatever they buy from us because it takes more yen to buy a single dollar. So our imports go up and our exports go down when we have a "strong" (high priced) dollar.
When the factors reverse, we have a weak dollar, and the opposite happens. We export more and import less. (Before you assume this is ideal, think what happens to the prices of consumer goods when competition from overseas is lessened.) As you might guess, the ideal value of the dollar relative to the yen (remember, the dollar might get stronger against the yen but weaker against the euro at the same time) is something the US and Japan might not agree on.
Now, about worker efficiency. Economists have a term for this: productivity. It's not just a buzzword: productivity can be measured in terms of product per man-hour. To find a (somewhat meaningless) national productivity, divide the GDP by the total number of hours worked. For a time in the 90s some economists in the Federal Reserve (which influences the economy, but that's beyond the scope of this post) thought that technology advances were pushing up productivity faster than usual, allowing the "natural rate of growth" of the American economy to increase. (Some even talked about the "end of the [boom-bust] business cycle", in the same way people talked about the "end of history" and other such nonsense.) So instead of aiming to grow GDP at say 3%, they though they could get away with 5%. The result of this was an economy that starting moving faster than the Fed could control it, finally spiraling into a recession. The truth of the matter is there's very little hard data to suggest that overall productivity grew any faster during the last ten years than at any other time in the postwar period.
Finally, consider that there are other major causes for this recession. For example, a collapse in consumer and business confidence. This has been caused partially by the post-9/11 hysteria, fueled by FOX News and color-coded alerts. Also contributing is the government's increasing deficits. Gingrich and his radicals forced Clinton to balance the budget, and that worked great in good times. Now that bad times have hit, the government is going a little crazy with deficit spending--some is good, but it should be targeted spending, not tax cuts to people who already have lots of discretionary income. Government deficits have all sorts of reprecussions in the economy, few of them good. Another cause has been the amount of corporate crime that has recently been revealed (e.g. Enron). Businesses have been getting away with more and more under the last 4 presidents, and it sure doesn't give people confidence to think "my company could be next--where will the food come from if I'm out of work?". So people are saving more, and an economy built on rising amounts of consumer debt is collapsing.
In the long run the current shake-up in the economy is health. That sure isn't comforting to the man on the street, though. If you don't like what's being done about it, remember to vote in 2004. That's the only way you'll get people in power that share your views, whatever they may be, on what should or should not be done for the economy in tough times.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
At my university, there were more CS majors this year than any other year. There were also more people who dropped the major than any other year. I wonder what went through their minds...
...That is, if they can get a job. Or, rather, if there are any jobs to get.
Wait a second. Computer science actually requires a brain and logical thought? Maybe we should go major in something like Communications or English.
The CS department also made the courses a lot more difficult, in order to weed out the not-too-bright ones. I didn't mind it though, I learned a lot more than I would have normally.
What I don't understand though are the kids who get Ds and Fs in CS courses and then stay in the major. They don't put any work into their assignments, and don't care about computers outside of class. Don't they realize that they're going to be spending every day of their lives after graduation in front of a computer screen?
Pardon me, but did you just say that white-collar jobs are what blue collar workers rely on as a backup when their normal jobs are exported overseas? Isn't it the other way around?
I want to second the parent post's parent. Let's not roll over in self-pity just because we can't afford as fast a car as before. Large segments of america--larger segments of the world--face the same problems without expectation of economic recovery or 50k jobs.
When having economic problems, a weak dollar helps bring money into the economy. That is a good thing. There is nothing to worry about that. However, those investing in American bonds don't want to see an intentional devaluation, so the Fed has to toe a very slim line between not giving the impression that they are committed to a low dollar, yet not trying to pump the value of it.
There was a round table on either Dobbs or Bloomberg and every panelist said the same thing: lets keep the weak dollar until the rest of the economy gets rolling.
Easier to bully. Cheaper.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
In the next 15 years Forrester Research predicts that 3.3 million service jobs will move to countries like India, Russia, China, and the Philippines, with the IT sector leading the way
...thanks a lot, Bill. You're obscenely rich, but you've pissed off the rest of the world, and now they're eating US jobs.
These are the same countries that are keen on supporting Open Source solutions instead of paying Redmond their pound of flesh. So you have non-US companies switching away from Microsoft because of their deceptive and vicious business practices. Now US companies are outsourcing their IT needs to those same non-US companies...
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Mmmmm, all that hate is keeping me warm.
1. Real income of white and blue collar workers have been on the decline for several decades, cost of living has been rising. 2. Capitalism is basically killing it's own customers, since people earn less, they can consume less (otherwise they simply make more debts and creating dangerous bubbles). 3. Most manufacturing is done by machines these days, only service and administration jobs are the main areas for humans. So most people work in jobs were they can be easily replaced. 4. Job fluctuation has become extreme - compatred to the old "job for life" hardly anyone stays longer then five years in one company. This also dimishes the social fabric in companies, the ties between workers and management are loser, people stick less together. 5. Globalisation also means not only the exchange of riches (by creating jobs in these developing countries9, but also sharing poverty (in those "rich countries"). 6. Protectionism (like US-steel tarifs) just speed up the shift of jobs, since they raise the benefits of outsourcing even higher and create a "false" market that could collapse anytime without more government intervention. 7. Business is more and more concentrated, so less companies produce all the goods/services. Obviously less companies need less employees. 8. The financial market has developed in a way that it investors make more money, thru short term money business instead of investing long term in companies. This of course doesn't create many jobs ...
9. Since most companies these days are on the stock market, their share values have become more important then the actual core business. Instead on focusing on markets and products, CEO's are forced in a three months rhythm to create value for stockholders - so money gets sucked out of companies and long term projects are hardly tackled.
10. Not to mention the overall inbalance between job payments of CEO's etc. - and that they are hardly held responsible for job and value destruction.
11. Education in most industrial societies is wrecked or seriously cut down, so western countries become "dumber", while developing countries catch up. ...
Perhaps society needs to re-think the idea that all jobs should be full-time, single employee propositions. Which would be preferable - to have some people in full-time employment and others fruitlessly searching for jobs, or to have job-share schemes in which everyone can be employed some of the time?
It's evident from looking at society (I'm in the UK, by the way) that there are many social problems which need addressing, and a large pool of intelligent, educated people with free time who could be doing useful work addressing these problems (e.g. working with delinquent kids, helping the elderly and infirm), but are instead using that time trying to get a job.
Maybe in the future, we'll accept that not everyone can work five days a week, and instead it will be accepted that people share their jobs, working maybe three days a week, and spending the other two working for the public good. Or maybe they work conventionally for 6 months a year, and spend the other half applying their skills to improve conditions in less developed countries.
Obviously, people would require paying for these services, and this would be done by the government. This is good for them, as it brings their salary up to the level they'd expect if they were working full time, and it gives them a wider perspective on the world than they might get if they spent their lives in an office. It is also good for the government, since it would mean that social problems for which they're ultimately held responsible are being tackled in a systematic and serious way. And as a taxpayer, I like the idea - currently I'm paying out to have people deal with the consequences of society's ills (e.g. crime, pollution), and I'd think it a better use of my money to have these problems attacked at the root.
Whatever happens, a society which generates increasing numbers of highly skilled people chasing a dwindling number of jobs is clearly not going to work in the long-term. Will we find imaginative alternative ways of harnessing those skills or wait patiently for 'market forces' to deal with the issue in their habitually destructive way?
insisting on mindlessly using microsoft products!
The dollar is most likely over-valued. If it were not, US exports to the rest of the world would be less expensive, and the US would not have as huge a trade deficit as it does now. A decrease in the value of the dollar would result in fewer imports, and greater domestic production which would have a stimulative effect on the economy.
The stock market is not a reliable indicator of overall economic performance or recovery as it is very heavily influenced by perceptions and not reality. It tends to play catchup to actual trends rather than lead them. (As it should if it has any real significance. Does anything else improve before the thing it is said to reflect improves? Of course not.)
According to the IRS, the top 1% of wage earners payed 37.42% of the tax burden while only making 20.81% of earned income. The top 10% payed 67.33% of the tax burde while only making 46.01% of earned income.
First, the comparison between a massive United States and tiny Sweden isn't close. That is like comparing the books between a mom and pop corner store and Microsoft. There are not going to be too many similarities.
Second, there are two ways to boost tax revenue. You can tax the shit out of people. However, you are never going to grow too much and have jaw dropping increases from year to year. Or you can lower the tax rate and hopefully spur the economy to boil up, increasing income. The second strategy is much more agressive and have a huge potential upside. It is also why the US was and is the economic leader of the world. Even in a depression were are still top dog. Part of this is because of the flexibility of the low taxation system. Money is kept in the economy where it should be, as determined by consumer spending.
It's called the American Dream and not the Swedism Dream for a reason.
Oh, yes there is. If you hadn't noticed, dispite the commercial and consumer debt sectors purporting to be market-based, interest rates in the U.S. have been institutionalized by congress as a command economy. If Greenspan and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency say the prime rate goes up, it goes up, and if they say it goes down, well, they have about 1.5% left before they get to zero.
I'm not claiming that the market doesn't play a part. If the consumer economy (about 2/3 of the GDP) was actually robust, there would be a lot more demand for homeowner credit, and that would push rates up faster that you can say "Freddy Mac."
We are teetering on the brink. The baby boomers are looking at their health insurance go up 8-10% annually, and thinking about retirement. Something has to give.
Look, why not go to Sweden's two-bracket steeply progressive system? Are you going to offer any reasons not to?
Looks like I'll have to go back school again but major in Arts.
At least then I won't be bitter about being overqualified to operate the microphone at the Drive-Thru window...
The US has been preaching free trade, golbalization and opening of markets to the rest of the world for years now. Funny how when other coutnries actually start to compete with them they scream blue murder and beg for protectionism.
Take the film production and visual effects post production industry that I know something about as I work in that Industry in Australia. A worker doing the same job as me in LA would probably get paid double what I get in US dollars.
Recently Australia has been competing in film production and post production because our dollar is lower so the costs are cheaper and we have good skilled crews and visual effects houses here (Animal Logic, Photon, Fuel, etc). of course this has called for someActors to call for strikes against productions going overseas.
So if we can do as good a job than you for cheaper then tough, you have to lower your costs (wages) to compete globally or watch your jobs go overseas.
The US has enjoyed a priviliged and isolated position in the world economy for too long, when the US lowers it's dollars and wages to globally competitive levels then it will recover.
Don't like compitition, well then make sure you control enough capital that you have don't have to compete globally for a living.
Welcome to the global labour market, you guys asked for it now you've got it so go compete.
"What is Sweden's secret?"
THeir secrect (seriously) is:
1) They are a small boutique economy
2) They have a small, homogeneous work force
3) Because they are a small country, they can depend on other countries for things like defense
4) since they are a small country, their economy is a tiny fraction of something like the US
To use computer terminology, Sweden's economy is interesting, but it doesnt' scale well.
The biggest difficulty I can forsee is not the decline in programming jobs, but the decline in skilled careers altogether, because of losses to overseas. The prospect of re-training doesn't bother me so much. But re-train to do what? Accounting? Law? Engineering? DBA work? Manufacturing? Research? All of these careers will move to foreign shores. Graphic Design? Even graphic design is being shipped overseas -- "The Simpsons" is now drawn by people in Thailand for $1/hr!
Nothing remains! I have no idea what skill to acquire. The only career for which there's brisk demand is NURSING. That can't be shipped overseas, not even a portion of it. I have no desire -- NONE -- to be a nurse. I suppose I could sell clothes at the Gap to people who no longer can afford to shop there.
the job market now is the harshest it's been in decades
No shit. They just figured this out?
So what's keeping people like Hill and Thompson from finding jobs?
Lying, cheating, thieving, treacherous management.
Traditionally a college degree or senior-executive experience protected people from the threat of years of unemployment. Not in this economy, says Jeffrey Wenger, a labor economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Ah, the ollllllllll' bait and switch. Remember the high school guidance office? "Go to college, get a good job." Sure thing.
"I think they're surprised at how the economy can mistreat you."
It's not the economy. It's the lying fucks who ought to be keeping their word instead of screwing people out of their careers so they can pump the numbers for next quarter.
Business school students aren't just studying in Starbucks; they're worried they'll end up working there.
Such wit.
While the situation for budding execs or out-of-work ones like Jim Klinck is tough, keep in mind that the overall unemployment rate for white-collar workers is just 3%, about half the overall unemployment rate of 6.1%.
A few paragraphs back:
The numbers of those who are searching are staggering
See, now this is where the bullshit starts. "Keep in mind that you really aren't being fucked over by the millions. It's not as bad as I just spent an entire page describing." Anyone who doesn't see through this happy talk crap is an idiot.
"Workers should ask, 'Where in the value chain can I position myself?'"
You can't. A "value chain" implies that there are values. There aren't. Management doesn't give a shit. As long as the numbers are coming in, everything's fine. When the eventually company files for Chapter 11, they just pick up their potato salad and their drink and wander off to the next company.
The worst possible business proposition in the world is W-4 employment. Labor laws are such that all of the advantages are on the employer's side. Employees have no power, no upside and no recourse.
No businessperson worth 12 cents would obligate themselves to a mortgage on the one hand (a 30 year agreement with no escape clause) and a handshake at-will employment agreement (which is no agreement) on the other.
But dumbass managers will continue to believe they can beat the laws of business, while everyone else has to follow them. They tell us "you get what you pay for" at the cash register, but don't listen to themselves during the hiring process.
Fine. If they want to believe they can compete with underpaid people, that's their problem. You pay five bucks an hour, you're going to get a five-buck-an-hour job.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
"A shrinking middle class puts us on a collision course with riots, not unlike those the president's father faced a dozen years ago."
There were no riots facing George Bush senior.
You have interesting points, but just making up stuff make you seem like a lunatic.
Then that makes her at most 25-28.
Hardly "seasoned".
And trust me, she's a junior member of the HR team.
Do you know what the problem is? She has problems with authority. She thinks she ought to be in charge "and those old people (a.k.a. those over 35) don't know a damned thing"
I hope she gives good head, because she certainly isn't well thought out.
Don't have any children, because you will be divorced within 5 years.
So what? You think that your elite skills should be worth the world forever? Get a grip on reality. If you are not constantly on the ball making sure that you are employable, you deserve what you get. Hmm, tech sector has been taking a dive and you have been watching your co-workers getting the axe for several years and you just sat on your ass hoping you were not next without reworking your skillset? You deserve what you get.
Missed the target when you didn't get your QWERT and ASDF certifications and they are what everyone wants? Opps, missed it.
Got the JKLP Certification or the BSXY degree and the jobs are all out there for the PSSPA Certification and the MSABLMNOP degree? Hmm, the world still owes you a killer salary for even though you made the wrong choice?
Most people go through several major career changes. Think it was that they got bored with the work they were doing for big bucks? Try going through 4 or 5 totally unrelated unrelated career changes and come back and whine that your high dollar job went away and now you are back at the bottom of the food chain.
It is your responsibility to keep yourself employable and valuable. As long as you are relying on other people to give you money and cool toys, its your job to make sure that they want to keep giving them to you. Thats the way the world works. Get used to it.
Why would you compete with this kind of labor pool?
I'd move to DC, Atlanta, Boston...
People cause their own problems and then bitch about the results.
There is a building boom in the DC area.
Look downtown around chinatown; there are tons of apartments and condo's going up. I haven't seen anything like it in 20 years.
In the rest of the city, they are basically bulldozing blocks and redoing them. Assuming the people building them aren't morons, this tells me there is a lot of interesting in new space.
Out in the 'burbs, particularly around Rockville, there's so much building going on, its pissing me off. They're tearing down shopping centers and old house to put up new buildings.
I'm laughing because I say to my wife, "Hey, I thought we're in a recession, and there's a building boom going on".
Take a look around... the signs of recovery everywhere, only the psychology hasn't changed yet, but that's about 6-12 months away.
You forget the tax load needed to keep an employee, the taxes an employee pays, and the hassles of dealing with OSHA, discrimination laws, permits, and HEALTH INSURANCE. In Michigan, decent health care has gone from $150/month for a single ($400/month married) to 550 and 1400 respectively, in just 18 months. In early 2005, I've been told to budget 900 and 2600 per month, respectively. I can't compete with Bangalore.
What drives up health insurance? It's been the addition of mental health coverage for the last 18 months, and the next 18 months will be the coverage of domestic partners and gay marriages.
Gov't mandates are pricing the US worker out of the world market.
In that they have a 99% literacy rate, while the U.S. has 97% (what a joke! As a certified literacy tutor, I can personally attest that the U.S. English literacy rate, including undocumented workers, is closer to 85%.)
They spend 2.1% of their GDP on defense.
Their economy is 69% services, whereas the U.S. economy is 80% services. Which do you think is more robust?
This is my first post, and I hope I don't get flamed for it. As a US citizen who is in a world of financial; hurt right now, I would like to advocate to all concerned that they, on every possible occassion, BOYCOTT 1)the mega-stores that are destroying our way of life and our small businesses 2)any company that has moved production out of country (where can you find a list?) 3)all Chinese products We absolutely must save our small businesses. Maybe you have thoughts on a grassroots effort. What can we do to stop China and other Asians from buying our hi-techs? Complaining doesn't accomplish much, but I live by the 3 rules that I wrote as much as possible, no matter that it hurts. Is there anything you do that helps?
Let me add my wife's comments to my post.
It's the end of private employment in Michigan if these health care increases really happen.
The fix is for the US to accept the global economy, and pay our school teachers and govt workers on the global scale, and return health coverage to 50s levels, or get rid of it entirely and go with pay-as-you-go.
Wrenching change is ahead in the near term.
On the contrary, there were devastating riots in Los Angeles in late April, 1992.
People should also remember that with reduced wages of workers overseas, the company that uses them also takes on the risk of doing buisness in that country. All it takes is a dictator to come to power, a war or a hurricane to take out your cheep labor force. One thing the U.S. does provide is a stable government and stable country. Also, communication and shipping becomes more expensive and critical. If you ship your manufacturing over to Asia, then west coast ports become critical. There are other risks as well.
All it will take is one Major catastrophy to hit one of these places where our corporations have set up their remote locations and you'll be seeing them start to think twice about using cheap labor! Hopefully...
Things change. The 'developing' world catches up - the Western world doesn't have some god-given right to be rich.
It reminds me of that Armando Iannucci program (BBC) where the animals take over the world because the humans are complacent and spend their whole time thinking they are superior and playing golf.
This may sound pompous, but I disagree about doing manual labor. Have you spent much time listening to the way most manual laborers talk and present themselves? If you think you can be around that without picking up some bad habits (grammar, cursing and general dialect) you are probably wrong. We are social beings, and it is natural to pick up habits from those we are around.
In my opinion, language discrimination is one of the most common forms that holds people back. You never know if you got passed over for an interview because on the phone you sounded like a construction worker or a poor person. No matter how unfair it may be, the bottom line is that people who talk and act like professionals generally want their own kind in their midst.
Therefore, construction or any blue collar work is the last thing I would do if I had any intention of getting back into professional work long term.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
I don't claim to have all the answers to unemployment, but I do know that you should stop whining about outsourcing.
How many people still paint cars for Ford or GM? Very few. Robots do most of that now. How many "human computers" do financial institutions hire today? Very few. Computers have taken it over. It is a natural progression from an old paridigm to a new one.
I once worked for a company that made athletic clothing. When I started, there were 6 teams of ladies that sewed shirts. There were about 50 people per team and they worked in 8 hour shifts 24/7. My team of about 4 people took shit out of big boxes and put it in smaller boxes. These smaller boxes went to Mexico to be put together there for about a quarter of the cost of doing it here. Before I left, my team had grown to 12 people and all the teams of sewing ladies had been moved somewhere else. Many had been laid off.
Their children learned an important lesson. Learn a new skill, the old ones are being outsourced.
I feel sorry for you programmers. I really do. But programming is bitchwork. The hours are long and the ammount of crap you put up with is unbearable. Why do you insist on learning a skill that has no real future? If Asians have placed themselves into the position of doing our bitchwork for less than us, we should be happy. Go find something else to do.
There will always be a job for sewers, painters, and programmers in this country. But not many. If you love programming, then contribute to a GPL project or become a program manager. You guys always bitch that managment doesn't undrestand you, so replace them. Look for smaller jobs like code auditing or consulting. Basicly, find something else to love.
My point is, there has to be a progression from a country of people doing bitchwork to some kind of golden age. Think about everyone in america still working in factories or mines or docks. There is going to be a progression with or without your help. Eventually, I'd like to see some new industry for us to perfet. Then we can outsource that and find another.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Like $20,000 of consumer debt provides tremendous liquidity to Visa and MasterCard? No way; the national debt is simply a means of passing the buck to the next generation. If the U.S. wasn't selling debt, then that $7 trillion that U.S. common stocks lost since 1999 would likely still be in people's pension and college funds.
It wasn't too long ago that our leaders in the U.S. prided themselves that "the buck stops here." It wasn't too long ago that we had a budget surplus. These days, we have neither.
A good thing for who? Osama bin Laden? Every dollar Uncle Sam pays off the debt is several cents per year saved in interest.
You can say that again. Next time, please try it without the pathetic rationalizations.
Of course, if it was that simple and you could devalue your way to wealth, Burkina Faso would be the richest country in the world..
/usr/games/fortune > ~/.signature
Before you start comparing the United States to other 1st world nations you have to ask yourself a few questions to make absolutely sure you have some idea what you are talking about...
A) Have you ever lived outside the United States for longer than one Month?
B) If Yes, Have you ever had to deal with a Non-U.S. Gov for anything important?
C) If Yes, Do you know anyone that was born and raised within this country?
D) If Yes, What does this person think about their system of government/taxation/health care/social services?
If you've answered yes to questions A through C, have a positive response to question D and still think you have a case...then proceed to quote your statistics and post links that support your line of thinking.
HOWEVER, if you are someone that has done nothing but read a few blurbs on random websites about Swedish adventures in bureaucracy, there's a small possibility you have no idea what you're speaking of.
I was born and raised in Southwest Missouri. I also used to complain about the state of America's economy/tax system/foriegn policy...and then i moved to Europe, married a Dutch girl, and had personal experience dealing with European Authorities. After a time, I realized that America may not be perfect, but its loads better than the various ad-hoc systems of europe. Sweden's system may look good on paper, but if you haven't experienced it for yourself, you have no clue what you're talking about.
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
...that Greenspan is intentionally doing this to undercut the Euro. I find this doubtful, but I'd like it to be true
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
I am a plumber, working in the repair and service end of the field, and pull in about $55k working no more than my 40 hr week. Around here this is plenty to buy a home, feed the family, and support my expensive computer hobby. No stress, no forced overtime, and very little heavy labor. My job mostly involves making little old ladies understand that the noise they are hearing is normal, or fixing leaking toilets with $5 parts. In many ways I am more of a customer rep than a manual laborer.
US corporate CEOs are rewarded for making or beating quarterly profit targets or stock price targets, if they do, their stock options get triggered and they make serious money. This is a major reason why books are often cooked so the company seems to have a steady increase in profit every quarter, usually by deferring when major sales are posted. Especially helpful when something major goes wrong, the money that they've stashed can reappear magically... and the company seems to have made their profits grow miraculously again.
Anyone with the remotest clue about business knows that NO revenue stream grows constantly all the time, companies have good quarters and bad ones. But that's not what reports on profits will generally show. .
This means that if they outsource core business profits and get a short-term bump in profits, they will do this even knowing that they are funding new competition in Bangalore in a few years that understands their business better than they do and have their customer lists.. They figure that they won't be at the company by then and their successors can clean up the mess, or go bankrupt. Not a problem for the current CEO generation either way, they'll already have cashed out.
Conversely, if they are offered a venture that'll cost the corporation major money NOW but will guarantee it major profits starting 5-10 years out and into the indefinite future, they will NOT bother. Why should they? There's nothing in it for them and the negative reaction of industry analysts also looking for short-term profit bumps will mean. . . NO stock options.
Tech Public Policy stuff
because there's just too much US debt out there. An oversupply of anything will cause a fall in prices.
We've been borrowing like mad through the Clinton admin, and George 2 picked up where the Skirtgrabber left off.
Typically, housing/real estate is the last thing to recover from a recession. The housing market typically lags 6-10 months behind the economy.
This time around, however, it seems as though it is actually leading the market. I've never seen this before. Then again, I've never seen an economic growth period like the one we recently had.
Yes, right, for the few years that there was a 70% top bracket in the U.S. (for mostly corporate incomes over $500,000, IIRC), there were also lots of deductions, shelters, and other loopholes, so that the tax rate as a fraction of GDP was around 18%.
a Honda assembled in the US
a Ford assembled in Canada
a Daimler-Chrylser made in the US
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
It's called GATS, the service sector counterpart of GATT. The WTO GATS homepage (see the above link), "recognizes the right of Members to regulate the supply of services in pursuit of their own policy objectives, and does not seek to influence these objectives." But if you think that means your representatives are aiming to save your white collar job, well PT Barnum was probably right. Think about it some more. Which service sector jobs are going to move? The waitress serving coffee at the local diner. The guy standing behind the counter ringing up your gas and soft drink? Your hairdresser? Or the folks writing software? The people handling support calls?
I think the Segway needs more gyros to be G.W.B. compatible?
Maybe he should stick to horses?
This is where living in europe really has its benefits, I can loose my job tomorrow and i'm still entitled to health care of the same standard and cost (well actually it goes from cheap to free if I loose my job).
I would like to see how you are actually going to start an outsourcing business for example in India.
For once do you speak the language(s)? Do you understand the mentality? Do you have the contacts? No? I guess your SOL then.
How about China then? Well, all of the above etc. etc.
Or let me put it different: I doubt very much that you could start your own business offshore without having lived in the country you want to outsource to, and if it is just because of the language barrier.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
As an intern, I was of the understanding that all of the creation of powerpoint presentations went to me. I am equally disgusted with this new information
--------- I have no signature
You have two programmers. One is just out of college, and costs you $x per year. One has been working in the industry for fifteen years, and costs you lets say $3x per year.
You give both programmers the same assignment.
Most managers look at stupid metrics like number of lines of code produced, number of bugs fixed, that kind of thing. Younger programmers can crank crap out by the dumptruck, resulting in bugs by the dumptruck. And all that for a lower cost per year. But we all know that the more experienced programmer is the way to go, because he is actually completing more projects -- even though that metric cannot be accurately measured (since you practically never give the same assignment to two separate teams).
Managers hate this kind of reality, because it is impossible to graph on a powerpoint slide. They may not even know it intellectually, because all the metrics they measure are pointing to the wrong conclusion -- but as they do what the metrics encourage them to do, they wonder if there is a better way than having all these kids grinding all these hours producing all this crap.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
This would be my advice: say "fuck it", and get a job teaching English overseas. You basically need a 4-year degree in SOMETHING, and you can get a pretty decent job -- especially in Asia. For instance, I work in South Korea.
PLUSES:
1. I make about $23,000 a year. Sounds crappy, but you can save about half of that every year if you're not a crazy spend-o-matic (you don't pay any US taxes).
2. Free apartment!
3. Free Medical Care!
4. Cheap booze!
5. Mountains and temples...and stuff!
6. Asian girls like foreign guys!
7. Asian girls like foreign guys!
8. Asian girls like foreign guys!
MINUSES:
1. Uh...you have to go to another country?
2. Hm...I'll get back to you.
Well, you know...whatever. You can find out more info about available jobs as sites like http://www.eslcafe.com.
The budget surplus - yeah, that's pretty stupid too. The ability of Congress to curtail spending is pretty much independent of the economic health of the country. Find more money? OH BOY, LET'S SPEND MORE ON WORTHLESS SOCIAL PROGRAMS!
As for outsourcing - why don't you just go back to school and educate yourself into a position that is too specialized to be outsourced? Or at least find a way to capitalize on substandard work churned out by Indian code sweatshops.
--sdem
- my heart pumps purple piss for all the white-collar whiners out of work...
- there's no reason to be out of work
- today's 20-30 year-olds have no work ethic (lazy, chip-on-the-shoulder, the world-owes-me attitudes, etc.)
- stories about folks out of work for six months are stories about losers who who don't want to work in the first place...
- i'm glad to see industry trim the fat off its rolls and get rid of these over-promoted pimply faced oafs who do nothing to contribute to the bottom line...
- need money? get a job! that means *any* job to bring in income...
- don't expect to get a 30-hour work week, a BMW, executive compensation, and four weeks of vacation a year right out of college or even after five years on the job (although you can get three out of the four if you join the military, something most eligible, able-bodied but losers with a "slacker ethic" are unwilling to do)...
- more liberal crap here on Slashdot...
- how about a nice cup of "shut the f*ck up and go to work"???
- cut back on the lattes at Starbucks, hit the sidewalks, and even [shudder] push a broom for a living if you have to...
- whiners...
Here, from the computer consultants Usenet newsgroup is a more realistic definition of "unemployment" that is closer to "underutilization" and historic definitions of "unemployment" that we intuitively think of, and it is _damn_ sobering:
About 20% -- or in other words approaching the same order as the Great Depression of 1930s -- with the caveat that we must remember a lot of people in the 1930s were still close relatives to someone who had a farm -- and that provided a much more benign "safety net" than a potentially hostile government bureaucrat.
Seastead this.
Yeah, but I am seeing some "modern interior" interior redesigns in closer-in areas such as Cheverly and Hyattsville, MD, trying to be the next Takoma Park, MD or Alexandria, VA. People who aren't making .COM money any more are getting sick of spending 4+ hours per day commuting from $500k McMansions in the distant suburbs, and are retruning to $250k-$350k old houses in the close-in suburbs, or even DC itself as far east as 14th street NW.
While there certainly will be a general new housing slowdown in the US, Washington,DC should exepct to see a lot of interior redos since the area is actually adding jobs (as happened in San Francisco and Manhattan during the 90's)
There are also all kinds of new houses going up in Southern PG County (MD) along the Potomac. I've seen $450k waterfront houses there, which would be over $1m across the river in Virginia.
In the case of mobile phones, you're exactly wrong. In the US, the mantra was "let the market decide" while in the rest of the world the systems to be used were dictated by governments. In that particular case, the free market approach you're advocating, along with a low population densitity, has left the US system quite far behind.
As to the rest... I'm not qualified to comment.
One thing I've noticed from the business shows is that the recent dropping of the interest rates have had a completely unexpected effect compared to historical rate drops.
The idea is that dropping the interest rates makes stocks more desireable, as opposed to bonds. As the rate drops, bonds become less valuable, and fund managers are inclined to move money from the bond markets into the stock markets. Right now, bonds will get you 3%, whereas the stock market may have a 5% short-term gain. Alternately, lowering the rates will lower your monthly loan payments, which leaves more spare money to spend in other sectors of the economy.
But there were problems with these assumptions. First, too many people have a short-term investment mentality (those who only got into the market in '98), and seeing a 3 year drop in average prices does make reinvesting in the stock market undesireable. Then they looked at bonds, and figured that the rates were to poor of an investment which is the point). Then, a low interest rate makes your savings account interest pitiful (what, 0.5%?) which discourages savings, encouraging spending. Last, I would add a cultural change -- the current old population is obsessed with "image" and status symbols. What bigger generational symbol is there than a bigger house?
A lower rate for the same value loan makes a lower monthly payment, but that's half of what people were thinking... Because the same formulas give a different result -- a lower rate for a larger value loan makes the same monthly payment.
Personally, I believe that many people were comfortable with their monthly payments (the 90's made people too comfortable with carrying debt), and instead of buying the same value house and having cash left over (to invest in the economy), they instead bought a more expensive house (which at the lower interest rate equalled the payment they were making before). For evidence, look at the mid-atlantic USA -- housing prices have really jumped in the last year and a half, matching the drops in the prime rate.
So, I think that is why the housing market is booming, yet the other sectors of the economy are slower in recovering. People tied their money up in monthly payments for more expensive houses rather than spending it in the local economies.
Excuse me.
I've written one book, co-authored another, and I'm working on yet another one. I speak regularly at technical conferences. I'm sure my English usage is on a par with yours, possibly better.
And yet, when I was younger I did mostly blue-collar work. I was a soldier, a mechanic, an electronics technician, a cabbie, and a limo driver. And I've done a little short-order cooking and dishwashing "in between," too.
In my off hours, back then, I wrote a little fiction, which got me some awards and ego strokes but never really paid the bills. (I "turned pro" as a writer only after I switched to non-fiction, which tends to pay far better than fiction, on average.)
Jack London worked on fishing boats off and on, and no sane person complains about how he spoke or wrote. He's just one example. There are thousands, of others. And not just writers.... remember a guy named Abe Lincoln? He did labor work before he got into the lawyer business, and later into politics.
Don't knock blue-collar work. There's nothing wrong with having a trade, and there's no reason you can't go home from your job doing front end alignments and compose music, create abstract sculpture or write (hopefully free/open) software.
Writing and editing are already global. I compete with peers all over the world. The U.S. and Europe are the big consumers, but my work has appeared in publications elsewhere, including India, Africa, and the Middle East.
Some of us "make it" as writers, and most don't. Some write for free -- or nearly so -- because they love to write.
If I lost my job, and didn't want to take another editing job or put out the energy it takes to make a living freelancing full-time, I'd go back to "real work" (probably cab driving) without thinking any less of myself -- or giving up any of my vocabulary or language skills.
I would still write, and I might write better and more interesting stories at that, because I wouldn't be faced with constant deadlines, and I could pick and choose my subject matter instead of sticking to a particular publication's specialty or area of interest.
As it is with writers today, so it will be with programmers tomorrow. So don't knock tradesmen and other hands-on workers. One day you might be one yourself. (And you would probably still program on the side, wouldn't you?)
- Robin
I'm Danish, from where I live I can look over to Sweden.
:p) but it's only about 34.000 Dkr (Dkr â 1/6 $). I'm unsure of the swedish bottom limit, but it's not much different, I believe.
Danish taxes are very like those is Sweden, apart from the fact that we pay a 105 -180% tax on our cars.
The claim that average production workers do not pay income tax is nonsense. It's try that there is a an excemption limit, under which you dont pay taxes (socialist politicians here in Denmark curcumvented that by the way
The problem of the socalled "welfare" states, is that it does not pay to work. Denmark has a tax level on 50,4% of the GNP, Sweden's is 50,3%. This, however, does not tell the story, that marginal taxes for hig income groups are well above 60% if your income. In short, you are punished for working!
I agree that the US state debt can only be paid off by raising taxes, but to pull out a scandinavian country as a role model is misguided.
People have been putting it off for a long time, making excuses for him.
You can blame 911, Enron, anything you want, but ultimately the reason our economy is terrible is because of George W Bush. Perhaps if our government actually promoted businesses hiring Americans, by using tax incentives instead of just giving a Trillion dollars directly to the Indian economy, we'd see more jobs created.
Tax cuts to big businesses will not create jobs, we need to punish businesses who dont hire Americans, if they hire Indian workers we should boycott them, I mean we boycott the french over some stupid crap, but we cant get Bush to go on TV and tell us to boycott other companies?
Come on people, even the so called conservatives are selling us out.
Theres no fix for Globalization, but we certainly can slow it down, and make ourselves immune to it long enough so we can create our next big industries.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It sounds like you have been unemployed for a couple of years. Inside offices their can be just the same amount of Potty mouth that their is on a construction site. The only exception is when their are a lot of people on the telephone. Sure working in an area with a lot of bad habbits you will normally pick up the habits while talking to the people. But most people can quickly change back when their in different environments.
The main difference between a Blue Collar worker who has always been dooing blue coller work vs. A White collar worker who started a blue collar job. Is that most Blue Collar workers never really got much past highschool and probably just bearly passed. While most white collar workers have at least a 2 year degree and got an average 2.8-3.2 GPA. The White collar workers generally have a better vocabulary and express themself without useing curse words. And when in a different situation they can still work without the vocabulary.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
White collars have been traditionally reserved for organization and management roles. I'd assume programmers would be blue collar.
But I am dot-bomb. I just graduated CMU, I've been programming on computer since I was like 6, and I've played more video games than most.
I like computers just because they're computers, and I come up with actually good ideas that could make money if people funded them. I even have an idea now that'd kick ass.
God spoke to me
So yes they are fair, the majority of the people in this country have kids in public school, the majority want healthcare, the majority WANT higher taxes.
Cant you see this? People want the rich to pay most of the taxes if not all the taxes, and you cant think of a reason why they shouldnt, I mean they are rich and they wont even notice.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Indian radiologists now analyze CT scans and chest X-rays for American patients in an office park in Bangalore, not far from where Ernst & Young has 200 accountants processing U.S. tax returns.
Now what want to know is WTF is my personal information doing overseas? Is this legal? If I use E&Y as my Tax Accountant, I should think they would provide full disclosure that my identity is going to be sent offshore. What if one of these offshore accountants decides to take a stack of folders and sell them for identity fraud? They would be outside of US jurisdiction for prosecution. I'm going to look into this further, this can't be correct.
Why dont buy American made clothes, American made computers, American made oh wait I know why, because your salary isnt going up and American made costs American dollars.
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I graduated as an EE two years ago and I was only able to grab an assistant job for an IT department for $33,000. You seem to forget "2 years ago" was right around September 11. College graduates were lucky to get $40,000 out of the gate.
You can pitch a prototype of this kick-ass idea and try to get funding for it. Or, you can demo it to prospective employers as proof of your talents. Just make sure that if you do get a job offer, that you take actions to retain the rights to your idea. That's a slippery slope right there.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Food costs the same, Rent goes up, and you are without a job. How can your quality of life go up just because certain devices and toys you dont really need are cheaper? With no job or with a mc donalds job you'll be struggling to pay your rent.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Everyone wants to blame everyone and everything but the President when its HIS job to solve this problem.
He ignored the ecnoomy for 4 years, now our economy is absolute shit, its almost a great depression type situation here. Whats Bush going to do about it? Give tax cuts? Microsoft will use the extra money to hire more Indians, Thanks alot Mr. Bush for giving more jobs away using tax money.
If the gov wants to create jobs they need to invest in R&D, and give tax cuts to small businesses who hire a certain percentage of American employees while raising the taxes of businesses who hire mostly overseas.
Why should you give a taxcut to a sellout traitor business? If Microsoft wants to hire 70% Indian workers, they shouldnt get a tax cut, instead restrict tax cuts to companies who hire 90% American workers or above.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
By many accounts, we've never had it harder...
Geez, it might not be wonderful right now, but it's not exaclty the Great Depression. Have any of your friends started jumping out of windows? Living in shantytowns? Try to keep just a little perspective.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
It seems to me that most people are speaking a little too soon. The economy rests on one key factor. The mindset of consumers.
For the average American Worker/Consumer, it's business as usual these days. The guy on the national news talking about the falling stock markets and currency exchange rates doesn't mean a damn thing to Joe Blow the Car Mechanic. His car payment, house payment, medical bills, and trips to the grocery/electronics/warehouse/wholesale club/golf/porno store, and his requests for services on his car/house/computer/toaster/TV are what DRIVE the american economy. IT is one very small facet of a much larger system.
If you look at the general situation that America is in, you might feel different about the future. A few points...
A) America is now in position to guide (control) the development of the most oil-rich regions of the planet (Major Diplomatic/Military presence in Kazakhstan, Successful Invasion of Iraq, Veiled threats directed at Syria, Uprisings and Pro-American/Reform demonstrations in Iran)
B) After consolidation of US control in the Middle-East, America's Economy will spring upward reminding all of a time circa 1996.
C) Examine the resources, infrastructure, technological base, skilled labor pool, military power, research and development capabilities, and the sheer volume of money changing hands within the borders of the United States.
and finally....
D) Bush's Reign is finite...
So in short, while things might appear to be quite bad right this moment because the euro's up on the dollar, it still doesn't take away from point C (see above)
America's economy will continue to run in cycles for the forseeable future. So just pray this is the worst before it gets better.
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
Folks either have really short memories, or else it goes to show the young age of most Slashdot readers, but these same exact complaints about poor ol' unemployable white collar workers were being made in '93,'94 as the U.S. was coming out of another (mild) recession following (another) war with Iraq. The figure of the IBM executive whose COBOL programming skills are no longer valued and has to go to a C++ training class (now it would be Java, I guess) with pimply-faced teenagers has alredy appeared before in Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs" (published in '96, but written around '94/'95). Sure hope Mr. COBOL-programming IBM executive didn't hang himself as the economic misery increased in the late '90's :P . Now where's my day-trading account...
I mean if you expect to have a place to live, sure if your dollar is worth alot you can buy toys, but people dont need toys to live, they need a house.
So now what? Perhaps you can buy a house in China, Japan or some other country, have your family live there while you work in the USA? Is that it?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This isn't just about dot-commers. They can generally land on their feet, or at least survive-- frequently they don't have families. The problem I've seen is that 50 yr. old, experienced engineers are being laid off left and right.
Feeding your family or hanging around "those types of people"?
Yes, you do sound pompous.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
We should tax the hell out of Microsoft and all these other companies who want to hire mostly overseas. Why the hell give them tax cuts? So we can create more jobs for the Indian economy?
I'm not against tax cuts but we should give these tax cuts to businesses which hire 90% or above US workforce. Bush's tax cut should have been more targetted so it could combat Globalism.
Who do I blame? George W Bush, because hes the only one with the power to fix this problem and all he is doing is making it worse by just blindly throwing money at the problem. You dont give Nike and Microsoft more money, I mean sure it creates jobs but where will these jobs be created? Not here, so hows it help our economy?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Problem is, many countries now peg their currencies to the dollar. This includes China, as well as a number of other export/labor-export nations. So when the US dollar drops in value, we don't get a damn bit of help when it comes to exports or salaries.
Of course, if the US dollar really goes into free-fall, those nations might de-couple their currencies and go with something more reliable, like the Euro. Of course, there will be major economic consequences for the US should such a currency crash occur; consequences that could more than wipe out any advantage we get. Think about our government deficit for a second when you contemplate this.
>The good jobs are gone.
But are there a $30/hr jobs?
$125/hr is just insane for some positions. Its not a "good job", its a "this can't last forever" job.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Despite what you wackos still believe, the President WAS elected according to the Constitution.
I'd also like to know what rights you had that were taken away after Bush's election. Remember kids, the evil DMCA was passed under Clinton's watch.
Disproportionate tax cuts? Why not? Since they pay a disproportionate share of the taxes?
Some servants we are, all these people from other countries are still coming in to be join us and be enslaved. You must know something the rest of the world doesn't.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Not only is your "friend" buying expensive cars, a new house, stereo, and "whatever",-
He's also buying the latest and greatest weaponry in the world, and threatening anyone who tries to get close to his level of armaments!
By many accounts, we've never had it harder--the slump in the 80's primarily hit blue-collar workers.
Then go get a blue collar job. The very fact that you have a computer, Internet access, and are a Slashdot reader probably places you somewhere north of the 95th percentile of material wealth in this world. Trust me--things could be much worse.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I worked for an IT consulting firm during college. We actually went to the client and made sure their systems worked, secured them, and installed new systems. That was very "hands-on" work that could not be done by someone overseas (try having an IT guy in Bangalore replace a failed switch or router).
During my last year in college I handed in most of my programming projects via e-mail. That made me realize that I (or some other low-paid code monkey) could do my job from anywhere on the planet. Any good or service that can travel a wire can easily be "offshored" or outsourced.
After college I got a job as a network administrator for a school. Sure, I was earning 20k/yr less than my "programming friends" but I knew I had a job that could not easily be replaced. If you are looking for job security, get one that REQUIRES client contact. That makes you much harder to replace.
-ted
Dude, if I had mod points I'd mod you down.
It ain't the white collar workers who are screwing the working class, because white collar workers ARE the working class. It's the C[ETIF]Os and accountants that are doing the screwing.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
>people who interview candidates are not allowed to ask them about their legal status
But they can make a great guess from what information their resume/employement history.
>Hence there is pretty little room to hire "for cheap", you just hire the best. Period.
Um. For many many companies "best" involves the person's going rate. If you had two equal people for a job and one was double the rate of the other, which one would you hire?
For a CEO/HR person, which is the "best" person?
There is no "Period" here. There is a subjective review of a person on a huge number of issues. The "best" person, how ever you define it, does not always get hired.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
(2) Work in Defense. If you are writing software for the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, administering the UNIX cluster at the local Air Force Base or cranking out Code for the F-22 at Boeing/Lockheed Martin, rest assured, your job isn't going to be outsourced to a shop in Bangalore - even if they promise to do it for free!
Nope. My former employer has/had lots of defense customers and they aren't buying squat either. I'm not sure whats going on. I'm guessing that there's been no big pickup in defense orders and the civilian sections of those companies are getting hammered from the mess the airline industry is in (terrorism, SARS hype).
Oh. My. God. Dude, you were just in the military? DID YOU GET CLEARANCE? Employers are SALAVATING for people with clearance. Seriously. You have no idea. It's like 1999 all over again if you have secret clearance.
GET TO NORTHERN VIRGINIA POST HASTE! Or maybe San Diego. Or hell, maybe your old base. A long-term career with a big defense/homeland security contractor awaits!
1. Many of you are complaining that you are putting in 60+ hours at work for low pay. May of you also have ideas on how a business should be run. Why not combine your willingness to put in great number of hours and great business ideas and run your own business?
2. We as consumers put mom and pop stores out of business because it is cheaper to shop at Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. Then why are we suprised that businesses are laying people off for cheaper labor overseas?
3. If we tax the shit out of businesses, won't they encourage them to cut costs by laying more people off?
4. For people who invest, do you not invest with hope that you'll make money off of your investment? Since share holders elect board members who in turn hires CEOs, why are you suprised when CEOs act in the interests of the shareholds?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Hey! But at least there's a bright spot. "There is an upside to offshoring. As companies increase profits and become more competitive, they are likely to reinvest in other areas--and that could mean new jobs back in the States. E&Y's Kline insists that his firm has actually hired more higher-paid execs in the U.S. to supervise the new accountants in India. "As we grow the business, we need more midlevel people," he says." We get more higher-paid executives. Now what economy doesn't need more of those? :('
This sounds like my aunt, take out a home loan so I can get a tax deduction.
Fight Spammers!
What we need is more snake oil salesmen.
A New Economy!
Ridiculous market valuations!
Sales of very expensive products where only 20% work!
This is a major hangover folks. We had a serious trash-the-house party, drank way too much.
Derek
Having lived the tale so to speak (I'm in the Bay Area, worked for startups and corporations, through boom times and now slacksville):
We as workers need to adapt. Get used to the idea that you will likely not have your job for a lifetime, let alone five years. Get used to the idea that you will not have a sustainable career, either. You might have to totally change gears every ten years, and get into something related but completely different. The days of job security are over. Companies simply don't give a shit about their workers. Many of the benefits enjoyed by previous generations like pensions and unions are now gone, thanks to the largely empty promises of stock options and equity in the company. Yeah, when times are good, those things can be worth something but the people running the companies always gave themselves more anyways. The disparity between the execs and the workers is shocking to behold. And they will ship your job to whatever country is cheaper so they can save a dime. They don't give a crap about us. That's life, that's business, and it sucks, but we gotta eat, so every day I suck it up and go to work but in the back of my head I'm preparing an exit strategy ... just in case.
It sounds harsh, but we all gotta do it. No matter what job you have, no matter how secure you think it is, you gotta pay off your debts, get six months of expenses saved up, and just imagine "what if"... because I've already lived through a layoff where you go to work one day and the next day your out on your ass, a security guard watching you pack up your cube. And you have to learn from this.
I'm saying, in addition to thinking about what you'd do if you lose your job, we all have to think about what else we can do as a career. The reason why recessions are so hard on people is because they think whatever they did at their last job is all they can do. We all have got to come up with other careers to fall back on just in case.
I was watching a story on the building of Boulder Dam. Back in the day (Great Depression era) people made about $5.00/Hr and companies didn't give a shit what happened to you because they could replace you with another $5.00 person. A lot of workers died from carbon monoxide poisoning (which the six companies knew about) during the building of the diversionary tunnels. The environment was a fucking desert. Safety guards on moving machinery? OSHA? Forget that. Companies take advantage of their workers, then and now, and will continue to do so in the future. The only difference is that some white-collar worker will never get chewed up in a tape drive, maimed for life with no recourse. And no worker LIKED IT, but when faced with the line between life and death we all know which side will be picked.
What will happen to the "magic bullet" of offshoring when the Indian programmers realize they are being paid half of what the American programmers are? Moving resources into another country will only go on so long as it's profitable; sooner or later there will be a break-even point, it will no longer be advantageous to do so, and the jobs will stay in America.
I'm sorry, but what I get out of the article is that capitalism sucks. Companies are going to other countries where work is cheaper and therefore more profitable for them. That takes American jobs away.
A quote from the article:
6.1%, the unemployment rate is still well below the 7.4% it averaged in the 1980s and early '90s. The stock market has gained 13% since January, while corporate profits are up 15% from last year's levels. And for all the talk of double dips and deflation, the economy is growing--by 1.9% in the first quarter, according to just-released government numbers.
It makes it sound like the American economy isn't that bad. I think it's simply about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer - in so much that those who have Master's degress and Bachelor's degress can fall on the 'poor' side and continue to go poorer.
H-1B PRESS RELEASE
STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH ON
THE CLINTON-GORE ADMINISTRATION'S REFUSAL
TO RAISE THE H1-B IMMIGRANT VISA CAP
"America has the best industries in the world. And that means we need the best workers
in the world. By failing to support legislation to increase the number of highly-skilled,
highly-trained immigrants, the Clinton-Gore administration is standing in the way of
continued economic growth.
"I urge the administration to unequivocally support bipartisan efforts in Congress to raise
the number of highly-skilled, highly-trained immigrants who can enter the country each
year. By increasing the number of these H1-B Visas, we can increase the chances that
our economy will continue to grow.
"Still, H1-B visas are a short term solution to a long term problem. As America's need
for highly-trained specialists continues to grow, the solution will be better education. I
have laid out an agenda based on the types of education reforms we passed in Texas,
placing a renewed emphasis on science and technology training.
"I urge the Clinton-Gore administration to put the public's interests ahead of union
bosses and special interests who oppose legal immigration. Let's raise our sights. And
let's raise the number of H1-B Visas."
"According to preliminary data released by the Internal Revenue Service and a new Tax Foundation Special Report, the top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers earned more than two-thirds of the nation's income (67.3%) and paid more than five out of every six dollars collected by the federal income tax (84%) in 2000. There were 32 million tax returns in the top 25 percent, all with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $55,225.
The top one percent of U.S. taxpayers (annual income over $313,469) made 20.8 percent of the income earned in 2000 and paid 37.4 percent of the total federal individual income taxes collected that year. This fraction of the tax burden paid by the top one percent - well over a third of the total - is up from 25.1 percent ten years earlier in tax year 1990.
At the other end of the income spectrum, the bottom 50 percent of the nation's taxpayers earned only 13.0 percent of all income in 2000, but they paid an even smaller fraction of the federal individual income taxes collected - 3.9 percent."
Here are the latest tax rates just signed into law.
If you like Sweden's system, don't bother living in the US!
Helevius
"All those jobs you mention are good for people who are good with their hands. I have no coordination or strength lol."
You know all this ADVICE, doesn't take into account the handicapped unemployed. For them a white-collar job is a much better fit. Hey we can help carry your lumber on our wheelchairs. Be right there to fix your leaky roof. Someone give me a boost.
Say you went to college to get a degree in Computer Science, went $50K in debt via student loans to do so, and are now out on your ass with no work, and someone offers you a great job in construction work. Will you take it?
The poster might, but most people will not. reason being, human nature. To take a job that has nothing to do with what they studied in college (and likely went massively into debt for), is like admitting they made a stupid mistake, and that college education was practically worthless and they are afraid the inevitable question: well, if you were going to be a construction worker, why'd you blow 50K in college, hardy har har?
So a recent college graduate is instead, going to suffer along for a few years, applying to tech jobs in vain, getting contract work that pays barely enough to eat (let alone pay back those loans), move in with room-mates, or their parents, getting more and more discouraged, and then finally has to take some job "that doesn't have anything to do with my major (oh the crying shame!)" just to get by.
That's what most people end up doing, and I think it's pretty sad. We have to be adaptable these days, be prepared to totally change our jobs, our careers, our view of ourselves to get by in these terrible economic times. And I think far too many people are unwilling to do this because they are under the mistaken belief that whatever they studied in college is a ticket to employment success.
The wealthly are NOT LEGALLY OBLIGATED to spend their tax cuts and corporate welfare in ways that create jobs or help the middle-class.
What do you think happens in the business world when one party gives up something and the other party is not LEGALLY BOUND to return something of similar value? You guessed it.
Look at Ford Motor Company--they recently announced profits yet they announced that more layoffs are coming. This should give you a clue that profits don't always lead to new jobs or preventing layoffs.
I'm not saying Ford's action is good, evil, right or wrong--I'm simply citing a specific example that shows the PURE BULLSHIT of politicians claiming tax cuts & loopholes for the ultra rich will help the rest of us.
The foundation of trickle down economics is based on the naive belief that new tax breaks given to the rich will be spent in ways that help the stupid working bastards subsidizing the deal.
We MUST treat tax cuts as it would be handled in the business world. Both parties must be legally bound to receive something of similar value in return for giving something. Right now, we are giving something of value (huge tax breaks) and receiving BULLSHIT promises in return (how much are promises worth? How much was "read my lips, no new taxes" worth to you?).
The ultra wealthy and companies should be allowed to spend their money as they please--but if they want the middle-class to subsidize their new tax cuts & loopholes, then the rich should be HELD ACCOUNTABLE to spend those subsidies in ways that benefit the middle-class because that was the FOUNDATION of the arguments used to persuade the public.
If we can ask high school kids to pass an exam before they receive their diplomas, we can sure as hell ask the rich to show exactly how they'll spend the new tax breaks--and require that they pay it back with full interest + penalties if they do not do so.
For more info:
http://www.ctj.org/html/corp0402.htm
They actually decreased when Reagan gave his tax cut for the rich.
Table of tax collections in the 80's given in current and constant dollars
This data is from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 1996.
You bring up some good points, and I probably should have stated the standard disclaimer about exceptions to the rule, but I still think I bring up a valid concern. People operate in social groups and there isn't a lot of mobility outside of those groups. It simply makes sense that by doing your best to keep within professional circles you will stand a better chance of hearing about future work that interests you. Work for the construction company and you will find out about all sorts of other common labor opportunities.
Seriously, no offense was intended. I think I'm just observing a social dynamic and offering a warning about the downside to taking a blue collar job.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
The way I grew up you did what you had to do to keep a roof over your head and put food on the table. It seems like todays generation are a bunch of prissy ass whiners who refuse to do anything that might involve getting their hands dirty or breaking a sweat. No, it's not the job you want....but damnit....it WILL keep a roof over your head and food in the mouths of your family!!!
As a current blue collar man myself (field tech for a cable company) it really pisses me off to drive down the road every day and see literally 20 to 30 job opportunities a day on the sides of buildings or in the store window with no takers. Hell, the manager at the local Circle-K was pulling double shifts beacause he was unable to find any applicants....let alone employees!! It might be a job as head chicken boy at KFC or lead burger flipper at Mickey D's....but it's a job!!! Tighten up that belt, stop buying expensive dinner out and quit buying those geek gadgets that you so cherish until you get back on your feet.
It's pretty sad that we have an unemployment rate at all with all of these open jobs that people would rather collect welfare than take. It's even more sad that we have a government that would take (steal) my hard earned money to give to people that REFUSE to accept one of these many jobs that are available. Learn the meaning of "Ramen Noodles".....then come back and talk to me about a handout.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
problem solved!
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
"People flocked to the programs for the money. There's no money now, and there are a lot of trained people who are very upset about not being able to make a five year career on a four year education. This is one fad that died."
You know this is one of the silliest things that anyone could say. Exactly what did you expect people to flock to? What you really ment is for these people to flock to some profession, OTHER than the one you're in. Can't be depressing your standard of living now can we? This is just another silly American example of NIMBY. What if they all flocked to the "butter and cheese" industry? Poor cheese and butter workers. Oh well, at least it isn't happening to you.
Managers hate this kind of reality, because it is impossible to graph on a powerpoint slide. They may not even know it intellectually, because all the metrics they measure are pointing to the wrong conclusion -- but as they do what the metrics encourage them to do
Bin-go. This is seriously one of the largest problems I've seen everywhere I've worked, not just in software. People come up with these metrics, these indicators of performance -- and then assume that to increase performance, they can just focus on goosing their scores on the metrics.
I worked helping to manage an intranet at a call center once. One favorite call center metric?
Average time spent on a call. So you get the floor manager out there trying to get everybody to get those call times down. Knowledgeable and skilled customer service and tech support people will, of course, be processing most calls more quickly, but there's so many ways to process calls quickly that don't involved good support/service that the metric fails if you try to focus on it.
It should be reflexive, drilled into suit-heads during business school, to think, when considering any metric: how many ways are there to make this number go up w/o actually improving our business?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
White collar. HA!
To anybody with a good grasp of topology, and of the finite fundamentals, computing is all BS.
I have no idea how technies managed to convince themselves or their PHBs that they were any better or worth anymore per hour than gocery shelf re-stockers.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
With companies outsource real human jobs to India, it's no wonder we are having trouble here in the US. What jobs are gonna be left here in the US besides restaurant jobs? I bet in the future they will figure out how to man drive thru places like White Castle and McDonalds completely by robots.
Maybe your hamburger won't be assembled in malaysia, but it sure might be "packaged" in some place like argentina and shipped in. All you might get here is the "presentation" of it. In case (anyone, generally speaking throughout this post)you haven't noticed, agriculture here is collapsing pretty fast now. It's not totally gone,no way, but being based on resource costs being static -fuel, machinery, fertilisers, etc), it's destroyed now,just finishing the shaking-out, no way to sustain it except the very largest international corporate farms, and very small hobby niche farms. And the corporate farms wil be moving to third world nations eventually as well, and probably pretty soon. You can see all the trends, it's going to become very marginalised in the US. It's existing by inertia now more than anything else, farms are being consolidated or abandoned to other purposes, and for most farmers, there is very, very little if any profit any more, and almost all new laws and regulations and taxes are designed to drive them out of existance. Some mid level thinkers spout "subsidies" on the television and elsewheres,but reality is, hardly no real "old fashioned" type farmers receive those,in any true meaningful way that really helps out, they go way way more to corporate CEOS once you follow the buck around to wherever it stops.
All the jobs (and who really owns the valuable tangibles) are rearranging, it's the great leveling combined with the shift to a master/serf planet,based completely on the social goal of the very higher levels of the globalists, which can be termed technofuedalism. Both parts of that descriptive word are important to consider.
Economics are only one factor-techno- they also want power and control beyond which they have now-feudalism. It is very, very important to always remember that, it is NOT only about money, it's also about raw power over other humans. It is 50/50 in that perspective to them.
A rough model to compare is mainland china, which is really their poster boy style of nation, hence all the international very high level globalist interest. An industrious but thorughly controlled and cowed population, 1% master, 99% techno and traditional serf, full tech available to the elite, some bones thrown here and there to those beneath them. Just enough carrots and sticks to keep things running smoothly, in a technofeudal fashion. Now imagine that on a global scale. It's not hard to imagine that either, 1/3th of the planet is like this now already, population-wise.
The only way to level is to run the highs and lows together. That's the easy definitionand what leveling means. Unfortunately, the historical past US vast middle class,both white collar and blue collar, represent a significant chunk of the highs on a planetary scale. There's hardly any way whatsoever they will escape a general over all loss in income and quality of life as determind by economics with globalization and this leveling. Balance of trade proves it, unemployment rates (The real rates of over 10%, not the lied about cooked rates they quote) prove it, interest levels prove it, instances of bankruptcy prove it, debt load proves it, and socially it's past being proven, we are more chaotic and un-social now than at any time previous in our history short of the revolutionary wars 1 and 2.
Globalization will result in turning the planet into one giant "second world" type nation, with all this re arranging and leveling out, first world nations level go down, third world levels go up, that's the over all big picture. That's the leveled middle ground. Once that's achieved, a very slow rise in general up is a possibility and even a probability, EXCEPT if major technological wars break out merely one single order of magnitude larger than what we are seeing today with all the various wars going on. Then, no one knows or can predict, too many wild cards. If no major global devastating wars or plagues,(I sincerely doubt we will avoid them) by around mid century there *might* be a good general ri
I, personally, feel no more sympathy for the so-called 'white collar workers' than I do for the equally so-called 'blue collar workers.' The whole nation is in a slump right now, not just the business people. And, you know, a teacher (not my own) once told me that college graduates, people with degrees, make up approximately 5% of the population. And only 6.1% of them are currently unemployed. That's not a big number. To the people who are out of work, it matters, sure. But to the economy, well...surely it isn't helping, but it isn't plunging us into debt, either. So. Good luck to all.
this should not have been modded as troll
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
This is true. But the US has a powerful military that can be used to keep dictators inline or provide humanitarian aid. I would expect to see this type of use in the future.
I, personally, feel no more sympathy for the so-called 'slashdot poster' than I do for the equally so-called 'used car salesman.' The whole nation is lying to each other right now, not just the slashdot posters. And, you know, a teacher (obviously an unimpeachable source) once told me that only 5% of the population had a college degree, partly in an effort to scare me somehow but mostly to justify her worthless career which earned less than pizza dilivery, and I never bothered to go to the goddamn fucking source and find out the the true number was at least 27.5 percent, maybe more if you count people over 34. That's not a big difference. To the people who care about truth, it matters, sure. But to me, well . . . surely I'm an uninformed idiot, but since when did that ever hold anyone back in America ?
I have to say that the sourcing of jobs overseas could have some beneficial effect on the prices we pay for services, however - that assumes that corporations would pass the savings along. Highly doubtful in this climate. They'll hold onto any increase in margin they can squeeze out, so there really isn't any silver lining to this cloud right now. In this case jobs that pay very well are being lost. Its not like when a blue-collar worker loses his/her job. Often they can get vocational training and make similar money or better. An accountant/engineer/scientist who spent 4-8 years getting an education doesn't want to get more "vocational" training. They did that already...we'd become a nation of professional students.
The remedy?
1) Laws? Tax corporations that "oversource" jobs?
2) Accept lower salaries?
3) Grass roots activisim?
I don't know - but at this point I've read several articles about this trend and would like to know which companies are doing this type of thing. For example - Capital One credit of moving a chunk of its call center to India. I don't really want to deal with someone in India when I have a problem, I mean I'm sure everyone is well trained and all, but I feel more warm and fuzzy talking to someone here...I guess its just personal preference.
I thought it was a good idea
idiot
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Thanks for correcting me. Let's be best friends.
I think there is probably a lot of money to be had for American proxies willing to act as local representation to foreign outsource. 'Course, the problem, as you pointed out, is that you have to be able to communicate with the locals. India wouldn't be so hard, as they speak English. Most other countries, you'd have to know the foreign language...
C//
From my experience, I would agree that younger people learn something completely new faster than older people. (I'm 31.) The interesting caveat is that to older people, very little is completely different.
Mastery and discipline are different than "learning" something in this sense. While there is always a place for new blood, bringing in people that can hit the ground running (and do their work in 40 hours a week) is more productive. The new blood only serves to create a management position above them in the short-term.
globalization is showing us the true vision of the worldâ(TM)s freer economy. Education is up all over and its effects on new channel building,loses and gains are emerging clearer and clearer. All the pooled wealth is flowing free from these channels into the nations that build them best. It leaves the greatest overflowing consintrations fastest and in the end evens out based on the volume of all the pools. how much is spilled,lost, produced or pooled depends on the innovative architects and engineers of those pools.
or as i prefer killing all the lawyers
truth be known the goverment really does bend over backwards to help small business. If thy want the help, however many small busin3ss ownrs do not want to deal with the paperwork nessisary to get the small business grants that are out there. I was looking at one setup that would provide a low intrest $100k loan (2%) but I needed to submit a viable business plan, since right now my ideas for these plans all look like this
1. provide service
2.???
3. profit
I am staying away from it and staying in school untill I get my BS
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
We're desparate to hire people (architectural engineering) for Richmond, VA... just two hours south. San Francisco has more vacant office space... something like 30%. DC has the benefit of government contracts, which tend to be stable at worst, and growing now with the homeland security crap.
I tend to agree with you, that middle-to-lower class workers don't necessarily feel the brunt of sudden unemployment the way their wealthier counterparts do. A factory my mother worked at, Texas Instruments, moved to Mexico several years ago and left her out of work--left much of our town out of work, actually. However, the company reimbursed her by sending her to college, and she is now better off than she's ever been. For blue collar workers, there really isn't anything for them to do but either stay put or improve themselves. For the 'money-makers,' though, it's the equivelant of being in a slump, and I suppose there isn't anything they can do about it except take a job they're overqualified for.
I can think of one simple change in the trading laws that might actually work to help the real economy and to knock down the skimmers back to levels they should be at, and not prominent either like they are now.
I would put a minimum time limit holding law on stocks, and make it realistic, at least one year and ideally two years. In other words, no pumping and dumping, no short term trades or daily trades, you buy it, you buy it because you believe company x makes good products or services so you sit on the stock. If I had another dictatorial wish to make the market "work" better, stocks would have to pay dividends, at a credible % level based on gross income(that will help set limits on CEO pay, etc), within a few years, say 5 maximum, or the corporation gets dissolved by law, they lose their "of the public benefit" status, their granted charter. The first one though is vital, time limits on exchanges of stock. Right now it has nothing(to be fair just little) to do with what a company does or makes or anything, it's done with "waves" and charts and rumors and shilling and other associated economic astrological-esque voodoo just as much or more as whether or not the company actually does good profitable business and makes and services and markets widgets.
But that 50K *has* to be repaid. How can a person do that on $10-$15/hr, and still have a roof over his head and food in his belly?
Remember that student loans generally can't be discharged via bankruptcy, so that's not even an option.
So it's not just "foolish pride", it's the reality of being faced with a crushing debt burden that can only be paid off with a good job.
Gordon.
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
This is nothing. Wait til the real estate market collapses. THAT is going to really hurt the economy.
Manufacturing is not just about national pride, it is about involving citizens and craft together in a process which improves their own sense of destiny.
America does not make anything any more, because our lazy and stupid CEOs are more worry wart busy bodies than they are the dynamic and visionary leaders they project themselves to be. They send projects overseas, to anyone but their own companies, solely because they do not want to take any risks themselves.
The cure is very simple:
a) Shoot everyone who is a senior level manager or above. If they wanted to really lead, or were really good at it, they would have their own business.
b) Bar sales people and lawyers from becoming CEOs and politicians, respectively.
c) Educate people to realize that buying foreign products is a kind of treason. Really, half the reason the Japanese and Europeans do so well is that they are culturally disinclined to buy foreign stuff. They don't view trade as an equal exchange, they view it as an opportunity to screw America and get rich doing it. So, fuck them and free trade.
This is my sig.
Furthermore, I had said:
That was misleadingly optimistic. In reality, that post estimated "unemployment" according to historically acceptable definitions -- and did not account for "underemployment" as you and I would have preferred. Either not generally speaking or not relevant to the issue at hand. "The Grapes of Wrath" was about victims of the "dust bowl" which was a weather pattern than tragically hit some rural families -- primarily in the south central US. The dust bowl problem was blown out of proportion for political purposes when it was convenient to get rural constituents behind labor movements and the New Deal. Furthermore, "going bust" in the sense of not making any money is very different if you are in an environment that supplies all your essential needs and you aren't in any debt. Most of the farming families still had pioneer land from their ancestors and had not yet been conned into leveraging that land in a big way to buy huge combines, hybrid seed, pesticides and chemical fertilizer. You tried that lie on the wrong guy, slicker -- my dad won the national clean plowing championship two years running and grew up on a farm during the Great Depression and my mother grew up in a small town but had no agricultural relatives. Their experiences of the depression were like night and day.Furthermore, there weren't just "more farms in that period" the population was still largely farm-based. That means all of the rest of the social safety-nets you are talking about are discounted. Not having yet monetized everything from food to women they existed in a different form then -- they were based on friends and family not government. The world based on clans as social safety net is actually vastly preferable to government for a lot of reasons, regardless of how you may have perceived the economic situation of the 1930s through the eyes of others.
SorryYou don't have to be a well-adapted parasite to extract that social safety-net.
If you think just anyone can get the benefits needed from the government you should try looking at Oregon sometime. It is #1 in hunger in the United States. It also happens to be #1 in heroin deaths percapita. Go to the social services centers in Portland and look at the people running them. Go look at the people who are going to bed hungry in the rural areas and the people who are showing up dead at the emergency room. You'll notice a big difference: race.
Seastead this.
You've just independently invented what was put into words a few thousand years ago as part of biblical economic and social laws/guidelines, laws which make great sense, whether a believer or not. One of the laws is to have "just weights and measures" for example, and to use real money and to not engage in usury. Another is admonitions to be productive, and because of the nature of the world, that resulted in most people having more than one specific sort of job, to not grossly over specialise to the detriment of your human-ness.
And to be more specific, in your post you have outlined the "tithing" concept, and are hinting around the "jubilee" concept a little as well. Where you missed it was granting too many powers to the "priest" class, in your example substitute government, as in the old days they were the government, and had strict but very limited authority and powers, and really could not lawfully "demand" a tithe except as outlined in some other rules, and if they did they became non-priests quickly.
Human nature really doesn't change all that much, and nor do basic simple realities of work, trade, economy, wealth creation as opposed to wealth re-arrangement, and social interaction.
(5) I can't emphasize this enough, whenever and wherever possible follow the jobs! 40k is a decent salary in Bangalore and much of the E.U. enjoys far more humane working conditions than anywhere between New York and San Jose. U.S. employees are the most productive in the world, but U.S. businesses must also pay for our high cost of living, high insurance and liability costs, high medical costs, complex tax, labor, business and environmental laws... You can live a more comfortable and happy life working for an overseas branch of a U.S. company. Only tariffs and visa laws prevent a truly free economy where employees flow to where they find the best lifestyle/work balance.
Literally.
Get off your high horse, and thank the people who support the infrastructure you couldn't live without. Electricity, telecommunications, freight, plumbing, road repair, auto mechanics... All the way down to the neighborhood kid you pay $10 to mow your lawn every week.
The experiences I had growing up on a farm, working as a janitor, mowing grass for the Army Corps of engineers, doing CAD work for a manufacturing facility as well as QA, delivering pizza, and automotive repair have served me well now that I'm working full-time as a systems engineer. I don't see how I could have a more well rounded education!
Don't you dare look down on today's blue collar workers. Any one of them could be your boss tomorrow.
Student loans have to be the easiest of loans to pay off. Where else are you going to get such a great interest rate, and low monthly payments?
If you can't afford to support yourself on $10-15 an hour, you're doing something seriously wrong. Time for a lifestyle adjustment, pal.
People live on $10 an hour or less every day. Some support families on that kind of pay. Suck it up, and have a dose of reality.
Globalization seeks infinite mobility of capital. Labor is screwed, since workers can't follow capital and jobs.
India will continue to grow for sometime until wages increase, then they will be shafted as their jobs are exported to Uganda or Peru or somewhere where wages are cheaper, and they will follow the US into its downward spiral.
Globalization as it exists is designed to maximize profits for US-based multinational firms. At last, the middle-class white collar folks (like me) are feeling the pinch. I don't know what the solution is, but I guarantee it's going to get a lot worse for the US worker before it gets better...
Expect a serious decline in living standards in the US over the next 10-20 years if nothing is done.
Your (2) has always been an interesting one...
Why doesn't everyone work for the government?
Where does the government get their money?
From the people.
Where do the people get their money?
From the government!
I believe it was Ben Stein that wrote a very good article talking about how our "service enconomy" is really doomed to fail unless we also keep our manufacturing and producing economics as well. Shaking money around doesn't make more of it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I never owned a foreign made pair of sneaks until I was in my 30's. Nor a car, nor any electrical or mechanical appliance I can think of, or a tool of any sort. We used to do all that stuff,vertically manufactured,and the people who made them could all afford them. Plus a home, plus vacations, plus retirement nest eggs plus could send kids to school and etc, etc. I used to fill my gas tank for 2.50$, and the 50 cents was silver, and the two dollar bills said silver certificate on them, not "federal reserve (debt) note". And everything else cost similar.
What we DIDN'T have was near as many high level multi-multi-multi millionaires and billionaires, or near as many people who existed and "made their living" by skimming other's wealth as opposed to producing their own wealth.
And that's what happened, and those gents control the mass media and politics now, and it's why the middle class is getting hammered and will continue to get hammered. It's much easier for high level thieves to steal when they go by "color of law" and it's not classed as theft and they set the rules and they control the media and public schooling mass conditioning and indoctrinational efforts.
Greed always sells,or promising the impossible, it's the magic beans for the cow scam theory, it's a great advertising tool because it's based on almost universal human nature. You promise enough people the impossible, eventually more and more will believe it.
Have doubts?
Ever see spam, wonder why it still exists?
Which therefore stopped a decade ago.
What about Ikea? A U.S.-backed plot to help introduce brightly-painted modular furniture into drab Soviet homes and offices?
It is not. The US is in actuality the world's largest importer. The strong dollar is what put BMW's into the hands of the middle class, and it is what put foreign investment (the $2 bill a DAY needed to keep the current accounts deficit in any sort of balance) in US equity markets.
The US is the largest debtor in the world. We need to attract capital to prop up the account deficit. The weak dollar is only useful as a temporary measure to export our recession to Europe (can't export it to China, they already tie to the greenback). The strong dollar policy will be back because it is the only thing keeping the US solvent.
For 3 decades the Upper and Middle class in America has sat and watched the goring of the working class. This is a debt that the white collar workers now must pay. It is bigger than a debt of dollars, it is a bill for letting the foundation of the structure of a modern economy rot.
(All American Rant, Bubba aint familliar with overseas) Globalization is where the upper and middle classes of 1st world nations ignorantly stand by and watch 3rd World living standards be imposed by the elite.;
Now, as a lifelong Blue Collar worker ( Gardening and a little construction), it is hard to sympathize with white collar workers. White collar workers have stood around the last 3 decades while blue collar workers were gored. Blue collar workers have lost decent wages, access to health care, etc etc. White collar workers have systematically undermined a whole class of vital, hard working Americans. Illegal Latin American workers have gored the working class. There is nothing wrong with latino immigrants, until they are brought in to ruin benefits and wages for Americans through a shadow economy. Likewise, blue collar workers were gored (at a great cost to quality workmanship) by reducing any job possible to a temporary McJob.
Of course, this undermines the whole economy (long term rot for short term gain). So I am confused as to why after watching the whole bottom of the economy collapse under them, there is surprise it is now unable to bear the weight of a strong middle class
PS, this is not a statement for either politcial party in US, both are equally guilty poor economic policy to protect the foundation of the economy. It isn't rocket science, a modern economy needs:
Prosperous, productive working class
A well educated, white collar class
A wisely regulated, upper class, that CAREFULLY balances protecting the interests of the lower classes. At the same time, it must foster an environment where the upper class is free to pursue the extremely profitable business methods that create wealth.
But when public policy does not protect all 3 classes, all three classes ultimately end up poorer. (The richest class will not reach maximum long term wealth in a world with weak lower classes, look at any 3rd world nation)
The solution is to restore the foundation of the pyramid if America is to remain a great nation to live and work in. America became a powerful nation through decades of strong corporations carefully regulated by a wise government. Not enough regulation to stifle the corporation, but enough to keep the corporations from devouring the economy. It is a careful balancing act the nation no longer does with foresight.
HenryJamesFeltus.com
It is to export our recession to Europe. Keynes called this the "beggar thy neighbor" approach. When the greenback devalues, it makes it more expensive to produce elsewhere. In this case elsewhere means Europe, as Japan is already in the toilet and China pegs to the greenback. The parent poster's analysis was on the level correct but utterly simplistic rehash from an economics text with no understanding of our current situation.
On the contrary, the suitability index for child rearing is designed to be a big aggregate standard of living measure, with some extra woman's issues mixed in, published every Mothers' Day. This year, Sweden was 1st, and the U.S. was 11th.
No matter how you slice it -- life expectancy (+2.4 years), unemployment (2% less), literacy (from 2% to 14% more, depending on whether you belive U.S. statistics ignoring undocumented workers), median purchasing power ($8,000 more per capita) -- Sweden's standard of living is superior to that of the U.S.
I believe the book Mary Kaldor, The Baroque Arsenal, Hill and Wang, 1981 (See Amazon.com) advanced this theory.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
The thing that cracks me up about all of this is the whole statement about "Overqualified folks will look for a new position faster than 'just' qualified folks" Duh! They also get a hell of a lot more done in the short time that they are there!
We are dealing in a corporate America that cannot see past the end of the coming quarter. I make it a habit of hiring the most qualified people that I can, and I don't expect them to stick around for more than two years. As a manager, I would be absolutely stupid not to do that. Most of my projects need to be done within three quarters, because management is usually not around to fund anything longer than that. The "over qualified" folks that I hire have traditionally been professional enough to stick it out to the end of a project. Once a new project starts, I am ok with new heads.
I work in a fortune 100 company as a manager, or more appropriately a technical lead. I am short staffed. The more experience my new hires have, the better off I am. When I look at my career, I have 1) never been unemployed, 2) never finished college, 3) been at Fortune 100 companies for my entire career since 18, 4) I am 33, my shortest tenure at any company has been 4 years, 5)I am usually one of the first to jump ship when things start going south. One thing that I have noticed is that the good people are usually the first to jump on their own terms.
I am also amazed at how my "top 10 best places to work" employer goes out of their way to remind people that this is a "work at will" environment. If you keep telling your folks that they can be terminated at any time, then don't be suprised when the good ones start walking out the door. It is a two way street. The hypocracy of expecting loyalty from employees without the employer offering any security is amazing.
The reason that "professional" jobs get hit harder is because our jobs depend on change and investment. I have dubbed this "delta work". If things don't change, then there is less need for us; and when budgets get tight, change tends to slow down. Software does not "break" like machinery, so programmers are not needed as much if you don't change it. Software can run forever without programmers being on call. Similarly, if you are a professional amusement park designer, then your services are less needed during downturns because nobody is building new parks and cutting back on changes to existing ones.
However, many blue-collar operations continue. You still need janitors, cash register workers, etc. These are "production" careers, not "investment" careers. These are people who run stuff, not build stuff, and companies must keep the front lines up and running for survival.
This delta trend only seems to get deeper on each recession. I am thinking of getting a plumbing certificate or something because this trend may get worse, and I need a back-up career. Higher education is becoming the road to bigger bumps and valleys. Higher education may earn you more money over the long run, but may not contribute to career stability like it used to.
Further, globalization may result in "commodity brains". Brain-intensive work can be purchased on the global market for less and less.
Table-ized A.I.
I would put a minimum time limit holding law on stocks, and make it realistic, at least one year and ideally two years
Then you would have to have _much_ harder regulations on the kind of information a company puts out as well as what kind of advice investment advisors give. Sorry, but I just don't think that's realistic.
No, you know what happens? Goods become cheaper and better. I don't have to pay through the nose because some guy thinks he should get $40/hour just to enter numbers into some data base or make a powerpoint presentation. Things become more affordable, more people can afford them, and everyone's quality of life goes up. THAT is what happens.
Pure capitalism does NOT guarentee equality. Capitalism Hell in England about 100 years ago is what led to popular communist revolts.
Cheap labor may simply make the rich richer and rid the middle class. (It depends on which assumptions of human behavior you emphasize in your model.)
Globalism making a higher standard of living for the "masses" is a right-wing myth. There is no proof. It is only a theory. (And, there are left-wing myths too, but that is another topic.)
Table-ized A.I.
The U.S. does exactly the same thing, with about the same difference between the sizes of the population and the labor force.
Again, the U.S. has very similar "hidden" employment taxes (e.g., FICA, Unemployment, Social Security.)
Again, exactly the same in the U.S.
Here, of course, is where the U.S. and Sweden part company. Perhaps this difference is why Swedes enjoy, on average, 2.4 years of additional life expectancy at birth.
Below average at the pinacle, eh? Your 99% literacy rate is a lot higher than that of the U.S., which refuses to even publish a correct literacy rate accounting for our undocumented immigrants.
I wish.
A few years ago I helped my dad out, who is an urban planner, in calculating some population cohorts, which is usually a good indicator of the level of development of a country.
Developing countries have cohorts that look like pyramids - a lot of young people, and much less older people. Developed countries tend to look like chimney stacks since health care is better so there are almost as many older people as there are young.
The problem we have these days is that most HR management don't seem to know how to manage cohorts for the mid to long term. But I suspect the largest, and most successful companies do in fact have guidelines to ensure there is good balance of new and old blood - seems like common sense really.
Now there is a visionary of how America should be!!!
HenryJamesFeltus.com
A lot of posters have made some good points about how the wages are lower etc... I personally think that some of that is a myth - I know that back in the days during the dot-com bust just as people were beginning to get laid off due to economic conditions at my company's US locations, the folks in Bangalore were receiving bonuses on the order of 80%-100% of their wages! And...people were quitting because some of them *only* received a bonus of 75%!
Currency exchange rates are one thing but giving someone a bonus equivalent to his yearly salary is quite another - and these folks that I mention were at comprable rank levels to the people who got laid off in the US!
No I think that management is to blame - some 'guru' comes up and says that layoffs and bangalore are the thing to do and the rest of the pack follows. Who do the laid off people turn to? Eventually its the government's responsibility to intervene and look out for the people. Oh wait not here not ever...*sigh*
just keep putting out the word. We Americans will get the idea eventually.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Just think of things that absolutely need a physical presense, that cannot be done through email.
Service industry jobs. Retail. Sales. People can't get their coffee served to them by some guy in India.
Anything to do with real estate and the housing industry. Construction. Selling homes. Mortgage broker. Real Estate Agent. Plumber. Interior Decorator.
Government jobs. Senator. Defense industry.
Health care industry. All the baby boomers retiring are gonna need a lot of care. Nurse, hospital administrator, retirement home orderly etc.
If any of these jobs sound unappealing or exciting to you, that's your perception. But we all gotta eat.
I would argue one could even turn a service industry type job into something interesting. Consider upscale marketing ... selling over priced crap to rich people. For example, auto mechanic might sound very unimpressive until you consider how many newer cars have complex computers inside of them. They have to be serviced at the dealer. So, take some classes with your computer skills, get certified at a BMW dealership. That's not exactly a "low class" gig.
I'll see those (raw, unsummarized, and poorly formatted) rushlimbaugh.com figures, and raise you this easy-to-read analysis of the recent cuts.
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. :-) I'm not happy that my cushy job will eventually go away, but it sure as hell isn't some kind of horrible unfair injustice.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ah, yes...the martini. Its definition is so far lost to most people now that a dead rat in a cocktail glass can be called a "martini".
On a side note, the interesting bit about martinis is that, although most consider gin to be "correct" for one, and that is indeed what will go into a "martini" if you just order it by name, the earliest martinis were made with vodka, as it was around for many a long year before gin came about.
90% of the time? I was in a bar two nights ago that had nothing but beer. Their sole form of advertising outside is a dated lit-up PBR sign (their name is not even visible from outside), and as I do not drink beer the best they could do for me was a can of Pepsi, which I believe may have been the bartender's personal for-lunch can.
But what I prefer is a bar with some good rock music, maybe live bands a night or two a week, and that part of the college-and-on crowd that, like me, never did like the techno/DJ/other-abuse-of-the-word-"music" places. A place where you can call the bartender by name the second time you go in, and he knows you like your Jack & Cokes a little on the strong side because you're only mixing 'em to avoid looking like the alcoholic you are.
I've always heard of IT/programming folks as white collar except maybe the lowest ranks. I always figured if you made an hourly rate you were blue collar and if you worked on salary you were white collar. Of course sometimes you can make more money on the hourly rate. :)
:)
Good luck at finding funding. If you can afford to live I'd say just go ahead and do the projects and if they are good enough somebody will be interested. That's what I do. Except I don't like looking for funding.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Get into Sales and customer-facing jobs. I know y'all like to work in T-shirts with ketchup and coffee stains but may be it's time to get a makeover, buy a suit and start honing up on your people-skills.
Join PHB Suit-Hell? aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!
Table-ized A.I.
On the contrary, Volvo is independent with nobody other than insiders owning more than 0.44%.
"Be nice to geeks one day, for you may be competing for the same job.
Other college degrees have been used to these job prospects for quite some time now. I'm sure you know some people who've gotten degrees in English, Sociology, Philosophy, Music, Art ... what are a lot of them doing? Most likely they went to graduate school or got a job having absolutely nothing to do with whatever they studied in college.
So just because you got a degree that doesn't automatically lead right into the job of your dreams, who cares. Times are just that a CS degree, for example, might just be the new English major. Chalk it up to "oh well" and life goes on. Or apply to graduate school and become a teacher.
Well, two things: the last recession really felt like one: big job losses, big house price falls, a depressed culture. Recessions feel horrible for everyone. This one doesn't yet, there has been and still is a lot of optimism around, which implies it hasn't bottomed yet.
The white collar execs you mention in your post included IBM (caught out by the collapse in mainframe sales as everyone went for PCs), the end of the cold war meaning a shrinking in the defence industry. Those were big structural changes. This time, it is the slow sucking sound of jobs not being lost, but shifted overseas. Very different process.
Good.
... the blue-collars and the Midwesterners.
So here and now we all are, and the "important people" are being hoist by their own petards.
I predicted at least 6 years ago that the loss of jobs would rise up past the manual-laborers and blue-collars, and start to impact the degreed, the certified, and the professional. For many years before that, job losses primarily affected those who don't matter to the hidden plutocracy
Pardon me for not shedding a tear for these folks, who expected to be paid a lot of money for doing very little productive work. I find myself giggly over the hiring-freezes and outright layoffs affecting the blue-collar city-worker set of people, who are equally as bad about performing their moral duty to work for their wages.
At the same time, I find the Young Republican set running around and saying things like "no one owes you a living". I can't agree with that considering that it must be further narrowed into my favorite saying: "people are owed the opportunity to earn a living". In our own nations, we owe it to the blue-collar and white-collar workers to establish and maintain businesses that keep them gainfully employed.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Govt Jobs!
I work for a county agency.
I can't be outsourced, downsized or H1-B'ed. I'm home by 4:30 every day. I used to tell people that the pay isn't top dollar but that's not true anymore!
And oh, by the way, I currently have 6 weeks of vacation I haven't used and 12 weeks of sick time.
Govt grows every year and there's no selling.
Fsck the private sector! Yes, I know they're necessary but that doesn't mean I have to slave for 'em!
How's your 401(k) looking these days? We get one of those too plus a Federally Insured Pension (remember those?)!
Good luck!
Learn to weld metals in a shop. You'll have a backup job, and guess what! If the boss comes around to get in your way, just light up an arc! (Off he goes)
Yeah, I'm waiting for the real estate bubble to burst. So then I can laugh at all my fucktard friends, who got insane mortgages for overpriced average homes, and buy their homes out from under them for pennies on the dollar. I still fail to see the 'wisdom' (created by banks and lending institutions) of portraying non-commercial real estate as 'investement'. It's not. Never was. Protection against inflation and collateral for more loans AT BEST.
How many Americans know who represents them at the state level? How many Americans know who represents them in the US House and Senate?
GenXers (and I am one) often characterize the Internet economy as something that was spawned wholly by free enterprise. That was fine with people in the boom, but now everyone is yelping that big business is bad. The truth is, business never operates in a vacuum.
Get involved in politics. Learn the issues. Vote, and encourage others to vote. If you want a society (and by extension an economy) that works, you have to make it yourself.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Vote Bush out! He is looting America!
What's the matter, got accounting criminality to hide? That's my first impression.
Obviously tax and accounting rules have to change radically for that to be effective. I'll give you that one. They would have to be pretty simple, the bulk of the tax code scrapped, and assets really had to be assets, debits had to be debits, and so on. And yes, I could care less if it puts a huge number of traders and investment "advisors" and media astroturfer shills and brokerages and newsletter writers out of work and makes companies compete on merit of what they do long term, if they really have a business plan they work at or are they paper work shufflers and schemers and scammers.
Any more, take it up with warren buffet, he has similar-not identical-but similar styled views, he's also even rougher on the scammers and government than I am, and I guarantee is richer and more successful than any random poster on slashdot. He buys companies, he doesn't specialise in "waving" voodoo theories of trading stocks. He doesn't always nail it, but has been *rather* successful at it.
And yes, I agree, what I proposed is not even remotely likely to even ever be considered, another one I'll grant you. I just think they are dandy ideas if "the market" was truly interested in reform. there's zero about any reform to benefit them or their skimmed profits, all they ("they" being the so called private market and the so called public government) will do is run the latest version of "See, we're doing something about it, we're cleaning it up and cracking down on abuse! Really and truly this time, we are!" like they've been doing as long as I have been looking at it. I know it's not, and so does everyone else, so the point is moot, I was just daydreaming a little on a couple of "what ifs".
I stay out of it,I like to look at it but stay out of it, I only have any truck with tangibles of any sorts.
I think I'm just observing a social dynamic and offering a warning about the downside to taking a blue collar job.
What is that? That by taking a blue collar job, you'll end up sounding ignorant?
You already sound ignorant. Find another excuse.
read about the REAL matrix.. 60 page scientific paper, meticulously researched: FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING AS ECONOMIC PARASITISM
In the future people will shake their heads about this. They won't laugh though.
--------------------------------------------- "In the end, we're all just water and old stars."
Investment dollars are important too, though. If the value of the dollare falls, investors, American and foreign, stop investing in US securities and take their money overseas. That means less much-needed capital for US companies.
"Student loans have to be the easiest of loans to pay off. Where else are you going to get such a great interest rate, and low monthly payments?"
There's limits to how far down they will go. Don't believe me? Call them up yourself and find out.
"If you can't afford to support yourself on $10-15 an hour, you're doing something seriously wrong. Time for a lifestyle adjustment, pal."
By your logic all these statements will hold true: If you can't afford to support yourself on $5.00-7.00 an hour, you're doing something seriously wrong. Time for a lifestyle adjustment, pal. OR If you can't afford to support yourself on $3.00-5.00 an hour, you're doing something seriously wrong. Time for a lifestyle adjustment, pal.
"People live on $10 an hour or less every day. Some support families on that kind of pay. Suck it up, and have a dose of reality."
People live on $5.00-7.00 an hour or less every day. Some support families on that kind of pay. Suck it up, and have a dose of reality. OR People live on $3.00-5.00 an hour or less every day. Some support families on that kind of pay. Suck it up, and have a dose of reality.
In other words you need to get out from under your parents roof, and get a real dose of reality, instead of pretending to be a know it all.
Consider the export of dollars and US debt when you calculate our balance of trade. It puts an entirely different spin on the issue.
When the US borrows, it does so not just against its future output, but against the world's existing and future consumption of dollars and US debt as a store of value, as a measure of risk, and as a black-market acceptable currency.
It's that inherent value (meta-stored value if you will) of our currency that makes it acceptable for us to borrow in excess of our own capacity; and to claim we are a NET exporter IMHO.
www.hiredinsight.com
I'm working on my MMORPG right now, but this other idea would be boring to code, so I'll let someone else do it, unless someone comes to me with funding for this multi billion over a few years idea.
:) Good for 10 workers over 2-6 months. Not good for one coder.
Basically its an agent that job searches ALL the net for a position. Like ebay agents. To develop it, all you need to do is parse every website out there
God spoke to me
Bush didnt properly cut taxes like Clinton did. When you cut taxes you want to also increase federal funding to the states so states dont raise taxes. Otherwise cutting taxes isnt doing anything but transfering money from the city to the rural communities.
The city needs taxes to function, rural communities dont.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Bush has 1 year left. Hes been president from 2001-2003. In 2004 its the new election, so ok it wasnt exactly 4 years, maybe it was more like 3, but hes still been in office almost an entire term, what has he done? He has 1 year left, unless he works a miracle hes done.
Please do not try to promote censorship, thats not good, I can blame Bush if i want, hes President and we have to blame someone. I'm sick of people making excuses for Bush, now with the weapons of mass destruction thing, people are looking for someone to blame, so they ignore Bush and look at the CIA?
No, Bush is President, not the CIA.
Bush has one last chance to do something right. His election is on the line, currently hes under pressure, the weapons of mass destruction have not been found, the economy is shit, his tax cuts while they did help the stock market, have not done anything for the economy, he has not fixed the leak in our econonmy which leaks all our tax money to India and China, until he does, tax cuts wont do anything to create jobs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Not everyone is competiting to earn money, some people just want to earn enough money to pay their bills, and do a job which they feel good about doing, which they believe will benefit the world, alot of people would prefer to feel useful working as a teacher, than feel like a useless peon as an office manager for a nameless faceless private company.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Is this what Bush really wants? I dont think he knows what hes doing if you ask me. But by pushing people out of the cities, does he expect all the problems of the city not to follow him to his rural homelands?
All the crime, drugs, toxic waste and other problems will move out of the expensive city to somewhere, wonder where it will be.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'll agree that the U.S. isn't too bad, all things considered. But having lived several years in Germany...yeah, if I could, I'd switch. Especially when I think of my 3 year old daughter, and what sort of future she will have here in the U.S., versus what a future Europe will be like (both good and bad parts). One big plus with the German system is that their politicians just don't get away with the enormous shenanigans you see here in the U.S. Yes, there are "scandals" there, but they seem petty by our standards. Why don't I put my money where my mouth is, you say? I checked, and it turns out the U.S. Internal Revenue Service takes almost all your money, if you go through proper channels to relocate permanently overseas. If that changes, that would be great, and I'd probably make the move.
...stamp duty has that effect...
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
i love those stories i was reading in the newspaper telling the sad tales of a couple who now that the husband has lost his job they are headed to the poor house. the story goes on to tell that they now have to rely on the wife's medical residency salary of 40K a year. my heart bled for those people, especially since my girlfriend and i each make 16K/year for a total of 32K. they were worried about how they were going to make the mortgage and car payments (so sad). the article made no mention of his savings from the days when he was making 150K per year. people in the management of alot of these companies are just as bad as the people managing the money in the govt. i have no sympathy for those people. by the way, the story never mentioned that when the unemployment benefits ran out if he actually went and got a low income job to try to get at least some income flowing. poor guy.
I was a bit miffed when I wrote the above, largely because once again the employees feel the sting of the stupidity of American business managers and investors.
For all of the ballyhooed triumphs of American capitalism, our investment and management class seems to have come to the conclusion that the people of the country whose flag they so bravenly wave are not capable of anything.
We need to learn to say to ourselves, over and over and over again, our leadership is the problem, not the competitiveness of our workers.
Since, mergers of companies into ever larger institutions is the rage, it stands to reason that all of the benefits of the mega merger would accrue if all of America's companies were merged into a national institution!
Every US Citizen (and citizens of other countries that wanted join- Europe perhaps!), would be issued an internet based voting device to indicate the things they want. An end to end automated system would allocate the entire national gross national product by a democratic process. Citizens would band together electronically to work on different projects, and these bands could propose their own work. The whole thing would be electronically managed.
Some pundits may call this socialism, but, it's really not, because:
a) we retain a consumer society.
b) we gain more rights because we link ownership of national assets to democratic values.
c) we gain in efficiency by eliminating an unproductive investment class.
d) we gain in efficiency because things like NDAs and patents would be completely unneccessary.
e) we gain in efficiency for the same reasons that companies gain in efficiency. Consumer voting drives production forecasts, which in turn efficiently drives production allocation.
If we can have an efficient automated value chain for a $300 billion dollar a year Walmart, why not have an even more efficient automated value chain for the entire 20 trillion dollar United States and Europe?
This is my sig.
Nope, I agree with you, but the problem is that the masses seem to think that only by giving up their own right, and by being skimmed do they have a chance of becoming rich one day themselves.
In the past they sold products, nowadays they sell illusions.
The emperor new clothes in full swing.
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Yes, but lately there have been reports (I think there even was a post on slashdot about this) that the lowlevel jobs start to migrate from India to China etc.
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This is why the current account deficit is considerd bad and this is why when it becomes wider, it is reported as bad news, not good news.
Be thankful your government at least tells you what they could be doing better. In the U.S., treasury secretaries and budget directors who dare to speak the truth get fired and replaced with those who can take orders.
While a lot of network management can be done remotely, there is still a need for a physical presence
And offshore vendors are more then happy to send someone to the United States for several months at a time to provide that on-site presence. This makes sense in a perverted sort of way: since the bulk of the company's IT staff is already Indian, it is easier to send someone from India -- who speaks the language and understands the culture -- then to use a US citizen.
Most of the people that I work with on a daily bases are from India. We have SysAdmins, programers, customer support, DBAs, and architects. All of the work for the off-shore vendor; many have been in the US for close to a year now.
I love seing comments from folks on here: I'm not worried about off-shore, my leet skills will save me. Or the companies will realize that it is more expensive in the long run to go off-shore. Or, don't talk about unions/laws/taxes; it will only drive more jobs off-shore. Oh Polyanna, when will you learn?
Folks, unless you work for a small IT shop, your job is going to India or eastern Europe. Your skills are not that special; there is someone in India who can do your just as well as you can. The CEO will tell your internal customers to accept the new world order; it's good for the stock price and that is all that matters.
The only thing that will stop this from happening is a change in US laws. Unless that happens, I will continue to tell folks that IT is a real shitty industry to enter.
Get out while you still have your pride kids.
$5 an hour in the Depression days? HAHAHA! Try $5 a DAY if they were lucky.
Hell, minimum wage was still under $5/hr when I was in High School during the 80s.
Kids these days. $5/hr during the depression. You're so cute.
*wipes a tear*
Look, I think people should be free to believe whatever they want. But if you think the Swedish system is so great, maybe you should pack up and move there, because we're never going to that kind of system. I read the article that you presented as evidence of what Swedes pay, but I'm not sold on those facts. There was an article a few years back about Swedish auto workers that had to be motivated by perks, because overtime would simply be sucked up by Swedish tax rates. And I know as recently as the late 90's, the Swedes had a bust ass deficit. So it isn't Paradise over there.
I'd be happy to pay more taxes if I was sure it would go to good causes. But too often, it doesn't, especially on the state level. When guys like Robert Byrd can make entire branches of major federal agencies pack up and move to his state, I'll want to keep my own money, thanks. Another problem is the definition of "Progressive". You and I will definitely have different definitions of progress.
Maybe there's no answer to this, because this country is both blessed and cursed with FAR diverging political opinions. But I would submit to you, sir, that most Americans would never go for Euro socialism-lite like that which is found in Sweden. The beauty of this country, is that you're free to try to convince myself and everyone otherwise....
Good luck to you, sir.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Sure. 'Course you pointed out some logistics problems with that. In India, while the coders demand more, you can guarantee that they probably speak English. The Tawainese probably all speak English, too, as well as the Chinese denizens in and around Hong Kong. Anyway, China's economy is veritably exploding. They are now the world's second largest economy, and could quite possibly outstrip the U.S. within just 10 years. Eventually, they will become a great *consumer*, and this is a very good thing.
C//
We're really living in prosperity. It doesn't matter if big business has no need to innovate to the point where they must employ herds of people.
My suggestion is for people to get together to produce the next generation of technology. Already we see movies hyping artificial intelligence and biotech more and more frequently albeit without the optimism of Star Trek.
new technologies in demand:
- less expensive but larger and lighter tablet PC, especially one that works with any pen
- personal robot servant
- virtual reality
- long-term high capacity, portable and not-fragile backup media
- aerodynamic car
- solar power
I'm talking about stuff that everyone wants to buy one for themself but does not quite exist.
Therefore, don't just look for a job, create it. A fundamental principle for all the educated people is they have to use their imagination.
Large corporations might tend to be more conservative due to a view that they have all the technology they need to maintain a cash flow where they think market share can't do any more than ripple around on the whims of consumers. That is, the big fish have eaten all the little fish.
Still, there are a lot of lucrative technologies that beg to be developed, requiring large amounts of man hours, not too much risk, and promise to stay in business for a long time.
We've seen a phase where many bizarre get-rich-quick schemes and scams have failed. But there are many areas that we can look to for work, areas that require real work rather than some pie-in-the-sky web company with no real idea of how to make money.
How about an improved recycling system? Or reducing energy costs? Electronic books? Miniature GPS for valuable portable items?
Even if large businesses are not buying as many new toys, individuals still have an appetite.
Businesses might be governed by requirements as theorized by Maslow about people, but people, once they have satisfied their basic needs will turn to entertainment. Businesses are like machines - they don't need entertainment even if they provide it.
However, businesses should go beyond the profit motive and try to improve the lives of people. Is there a profit in this? Many businesses right now are in a deadlock with their competition. They know how to achieve cashflow but have no curiosity for anything outside tested business activities. As time passes, it is natural for all the simple ways of earning revenue to be explored. The successful will motivate the newcomers to emulate or copy.
It's too easy for business leaders to deprioritize the risky goals in the light of less risky goals. I will point this out to business leaders: ultimately technology will reach the level where your business area will be controlled by a small number of companies, as one may observe with car manufacturers. This technological takeover will spread to many types of businesses. This is fine - let the machines do the labor.
One of the market forces that I can think of urging businesses in comfortable positions is the escalation of competition. Customers can be won by incentives. If businesses follow narrow, low risk objectives they face steeper competition. This breaks down when technology takes over. Customers like the low pricing caused by competition but are willing to accept a benign monopoly based on improving technology on the grounds that major price increases will cause an easily implemented competitor.
People must reach for loftier goals. They should direct their businesses to reaching those goals. As businesses that we know become automated, people will lose their meaning in such activities. For example, no one will pull a plow with their bare hands if they can use a tractor. If we can extrapolate to the point where all the food production is automated, then what? Businesses need to anticipate and engineer a new world.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
If they say anywhere outside of the country they are serving, then tell them you don't want to talk to them and hang up. Each time they try to sell you something, ask them.
---> Caller: Hi, would you like to transfer a balance today to our card with 3.9% APR?
---> USA Bob: Where are you located?
---> Caller: India.
---> USA Bob: Oh, don't call me back until someone from the USA is on the line, goodbye.
*CLICK*
There aren't any new oil fields left to bring on line, and demand is still increasing.
If there wasn't an oil supply problem, why would the US go to war to take over a nation that supplies oil?
Unless you believe that the US really did go to war to stop Saddam from deploying what now appear to be imaginary weapons of mass destruction, or to save the citizens of Iraq from Saddam's (unfortunately not imaginary) oppression. If you do, go back to your Trekkie fantasies, you have no business in an adult public policy discussion.
Tech Public Policy stuff
This is a good thing, as it will help correct the situation. A week dollar means that overseas workers and products become more expensive, while domestic become more affordable.
Direct link to the chart
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Oddly enough, I do an awful lot of my own maintenance. I can't see paying a contractor to do work that I can do, and who I'd have to supervise directly in order to get the job done with the quality I want. Not to say I do everything -- I am more than happy to pay an electrical contractor to add new electrical circuits (putting new circuit breakers into a breaker box is not a job for amateurs), but I've done all of the phone and network wiring, and most of the electrical work. I've built new walls, installed doors, repaired and installed drywall, and installed linoleum flooring. And painting. Way too much painting, though my wife does the bulk of that.
The next major projects are redoing the kitchen (much of which will be contracted out because I don't have the time to do everything myself) and converting a storage room into a workroom for my wife (she makes glass beads & jewelry) complete with kiln.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
I have a EE degree.. as soon as I have more money saved, I'm heading for the performance auto tuning and rebuilding world. It's been my hobby for a long time - and everyone has a car. The worse the economy gets, the more people who want to keep old cars on the road.. the more old cars.. the more repairs..
And, FWIW, most tradespeople do a hair better than $14/hr around here once you work your way up and build a client base.
..don't panic
Robot Jox
The person you just hired knows more than you, has better interpersonal skills and many more good contacts. Suddenly you have a much greater problem than a blank space on the org sheet. My advice to Mr. Klinck would be to start his own company from scratch. Such a charismatic leader was surely loved at his former company and many highly qualified people would immediately come work for him. Failing that, start taking stuff off your resume. entropy The 'Burger King' modification: $200,000/yr ----> $9/hr Now all the 18yr old Burger King manager has to say is, well we only hire at $8/hr but if you do a goo job we can boost you up to $9/hr in six months. Instant employment.
There IS such a thing as welfare you know. Its PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE to use it if your about to have essential services like ELECTRICITY cut off.
But I mean come on, you don't have any relatives you could move back in with? There's no retail or fast food places you could find work at? Just because you can't get a tech job doesn't mean you should allow yourself to starve.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Well, if you divide the progressives up into pragmatists and idealists, I'd guess less than a percent of the former want to ban handguns, whereas perhaps half of the idealists do. But those are many of the people who say they want to legalize hemp to help the textile industry, if you get my drift. I'm not alone in my lack of trust of idealogues, be they progressive or otherwise, and they don't often get elected.
Most of the pragmatic progressives these days who care at all about gun issues are focused on things like making a chamber round indicator mandatory so kids don't keep shooting each other. We lose a whole lot of kids every year because they think ejecting a magazine unloads a gun.
As for things like registration, mandatory training and safety inspections, trigger locks, etc., that's another story, and very well within the meaning of the 2nd amendment's words, "well regulated." Even "The Brady Campaign works to enact sensible gun control legislation in the United States but does not seek to ban guns."
It is not a surprise that IT workers are the ones who experience the most horrors in this economy. Why? The answer is simple: the IT industry carries the most responsibility for screwing itself over because it pushed for a flood of underqualified professionals.
During the mid nineties everybody, mostly immigrants, on my block were 'developers.' People who were fresh off the boat, including my mom, went to community colleges and technical schools because anybody who could put a couple of catch phrases had a potential to be hired. There were many people who did not consider going to college or do anything meaningful with their lives. Why bother if you could earn money by doing something that not everybody is born to do: coding. I remember some people bragging about how little they learnt and how much money they were getting for almost having almost no skills. Companies were eager to hire newly created 'developers' because they hoped to use them in the future. When the ideas fell through, these companies began to lay people off. These layoffs created a class of unemployed IT professionals; the irony is that some of those people don't even belong in IT.
I have known many of people that got into IT in the middle of the nineties only because of money. They did not like what they did at work, the did not show any interest in technology or what was the driving force behind it. They thought that taking a bunch of course at a local community college will provide them with enough experience for the rest of their lives. Right? Wrong!! Yet, for some magical reason, companies hired them! I have talked to some of these developers: not only they lacked the basics, but they were not interested in improving things, learning, and benefitting their own companies! Eventhough some of these people sucked, they managed to get several years of experience and now they compete with both real IT professionals and students who graduate with technical degrees. The consequences are horrible: IT unemployment is on the rise and managers think that there is a whole lot of professionals looking for jobs. Yeah, I know a lot of professionals, people with 10+ years of experience who have to work at a local retail store in order to support their families. At the same time I know several 'software engineers' who asked me what 'threads' were. Moreover, everytime I turn on my TV I see yet another commercial that advertises a 1 year technical college with programs that will bring deep knowledge of a certain IT field and economic prosperity. It seems that companies have learnt that IT demands knowledge, experience and interest just like any other industry.
Many Indian companies have certifications backing their claims to quality that many Western companies only dream of.
Filipino companies do not have those.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You sell tailored services of some kind or another Luke.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... then labour becomes cheaper, which is an inncentive for companies working in the US.
In an era of closed markets labour in Western countries was overvalued. Globalization is bringing labour costs back to reality and eventually will mean that people are hired based on merit, not in price.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Please tell me more.
"Burning away too much resources" and purchasing what others produce are two different things; moreover, not all resources are unrenewable. It's generally a good thing, for humans, when their country joins the first world. First world nations generally enjoy stable (even shrinking) populations, also.
C//
China already has a population problem (see "one child policy" and what that does to the world).
Even if, say, over the next 10 years China would loose 10% of their population while increasing the overall living standard by 10% that would still mean that 900 million people would consume easily as much as as the US is right now. And the US already consumes huge amounts of crude oil and other resources. Some of them renewable, most of them are not.
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