According to the article, the number of Bachelor's of Science degrees has increased greatly, which means we have a lot more techs, not scientists as the article is claiming.
The degree reads "Bachelor of Science" not "Bachelor of Tech"
As everyone has already pointed out, we don't need more techs; we outsource those.
Leaving the college graduate with no job. Yeah. That's a winner.
It's really unfortunate people aren't taking chances due to this attitude.
Then there's the other half of the problem where business says "it'll never work" when it's a guaranteed winner. Western Union could have owned AT&T for $100,000. Disney passed on the Lord of the Rings trilogy ($6 billion box office, 17 Academy Awards). The amounts of money (and jobs) this is costing our economy is astounding.
And who decided to take out the loans and use the credit cards?
The student was offered a low-interest loan so they could get that all-important college degree that nobody told them was worthless. The credit card was free. You see, there are about 118 billion banks that hire people to scream "FREE CREDIT CARD" on college campuses. Since college students aren't taught to understand how revolving credit works (and their parents likely don't understand it either) they get a nice fat pile of debt to go with that worthless degree just before they take the $9 an hour job sweeping floors at Wal-Mart.
For young adults, a credit card is what makes it possible for them to afford the dentist, the new transmission for the car and the trip to the family reunion. Since wages have stagnated, they have no disposable income, so they pay 28% compounded on any expense that isn't rent, food and utilities.
Further, buying a home doesn't require very good credit.
Getting a decent interest rate does. How about a nice 15% rate on that mortgage to go with the credit card?
because the house makes such great collateral that the risk to them isn't that large.
Until the value drops. Negative equity is a wonderful thing.
And even if you do fall on hard times, it's not that difficult to maintain a decent credit rating as long as you actively work with your creditors, rather than just letting the bills go unpaid.
This stereotype of people who "just let all the bills go unpaid" is quite entertaining.
Talking to them in advance and working out ways to make partial payments will generally keep you from getting too many bad marks.
Uh huh.
First-time buyers are eligible for FHA loans which have very low downpayment requirements, as little as 3%
Please refer to the previous comment on "total lack of ANY disposable income" and "negative wage growth."
Most states have other programs to assist first-time buyers, also, and they usually work with FHA loans to enhance the FHA offerings.
Sounds great. Do states have programs to find a steady paycheck?
Though I'm sure there are exceptions, in general, with the low interest rates today, your monthly payment on a home or condo will be about the same as your monthly rent for a similar space in a similar area. In most cases it will be a little less, particularly after you factor in the tax deduction on the mortgage interest.
Yeah, deduction on mortgage interest. Why do we tax renters more than homeowners? Why not a tax deduction for renters to help first-time buyers save a down payment? Why do we tax the poor and give tax breaks to the middle-class?
Along with all of this bitterness you must have invested some energy in thinking through a solution to this unfair system.
There are no solutions to this problem that can be offered by government. It is a societal problem. People who own and run businesses have to take the social contract seriously, because without it eventually they have no customers.
1. Having a workforce of homeowners is good for business. 2. Hiring and training entry-level workers is good for business. 3. Stable neighborhoods are good for business. 4. Entrepreneurial employees are good for business. 5. Education is good for business.
But what do we get now?
1. A layoff as a reward for signing a mortgage. 2. No employee with less than five years of experience is qualified. 3. Have to move every three years to find another job. 4. People with new ideas aren't being "team players" so they get fired. 5. Put your degree last.
Government can certainly help, however.
Tax credit for telecommuters. (Shared by the company and the employee)
Want to reduce traffic? Want to reduce energy costs? Want to encourage mass transit? Want to reduce taxes? Give business a reason to allow telecommuting. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for people to drive 35 miles a day back and forth to an office any more. None. Zero.
Mandatory education about the capital markets, credit, contracts, corporation/LLC/partnership and accounting.
We claim to be a capitalist society, yet the average college graduate probably knows less about the capital markets than the receptionist at an accountant's office.
Apprenticeship
Business in general should have a formal process of apprenticeship, supported by legislation, which would allow both employer and employee to determine precisely how qualified someone is for a particular job. It worked very well in the 50s and 60s, especially in fields like journalism and manufacturing. This is one of the reasons it is so easy to get a job as a doctor or lawyer. "I have a medical license" or "I passed the Bar exam" means the person is qualified. Period.
But even with all this help, it's really the responsibility of business to employ people in stable, well-paying jobs. That's part of the social contract. Without it, nobody has any reason at all to honor their part of the contract, which is to work hard, get an education and get a good job.
I suppose if your choices of location are limited, you could be stuck renting. Even in those areas, though, there are usually options like condominiums so that you can build some equity but start at a lower price.
Doesn't solve the credit, down payment and job security problem. Signing a mortgage in this job market is like signing a bankruptcy. Real estate is at the top of the market. Prices have nowhere to go, so in addition to the constant layoffs and debt, that mortgage is looking at negative equity if values drop, and looking at foreclosure when the layoff happens because they can't sell negative equity.
That's all presuming they qualify for a mortgage in the first place with half their income being absorbed in taxes, inflation and debt.
Like many things in life, whether or not you can own a house depends heavily on how badly you *want* to own a house, and how much you're willing to do to get there. It's all about what's important to you.
Owning a house depends heavily on a stable job. Houses outnumber stable jobs. That's the problem.
Bah. If they haven't owned a home that's because they chose not to.
Yeah. They've all had the opportunity but decided to keep renting instead. Sure thing.
That's just an anecdote, of course, but the fact is that buying doesn't cost much more than renting, and in many cases it actually costs *less* -- at least in terms of the payments.
And if buying a home were that simple, it wouldn't be a problem.
Buying a home requires good credit, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards, confiscatory rents and multiple layoffs don't really help with much. Buying a home requires a down payment, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards, confiscatory rents and multiple layoffs don't really help with much. Buying a home requires 360 monthly payments in the four figures, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards and multiple layoffs don't really help with much.
Then we can add the negative wage growth, total lack of job security, massive taxation and inflation. Yeah, buying a home is just like buying a box of Corn Flakes.
Seriously, why do waitresses get paid more than particle physicists?
Business wants slaves. Not employees. They want brands, not products. They want control, not innovation. Business doesn't want the responsibility of employing people. They like the social contract as long as it doesn't cost them anything.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
This is the first generation in the history of this society that will do worse than the previous generation. The numbers of people who are now in their 30s having never owned a home, for example, are absolutely staggering. Most people in the previous generation had owned a home for at least 5-10 years by the time they were in their mid-30s. The modern workplace simply doesn't allow that any more.
So we have an entire generation of permarenters who are told to "put their degree last." So much for the social contract. An entire generation cheated out of their opportunity to contribute.
Perhaps if there were fewer worker bees and more professionals in the field
That's the way management wants it. More slaves. Less innovation. Cubicle-managers don't want innovation, knowledge, brilliance or achievement. They want control.
they could command professional wages
Any degree with the word "Engineer" or "Engineering" on it commands a professional wage. Period.
Hard work is meaningless in a bureaucracy. Imagination and innovation are simply incompatible with bureaucracy and office politics. Only business practices matter. That is why the modern workplace is an adversarial, backwards, anti-innovation toilet.
If you're in it for the money, go sell real estate; please.
What do business people say? Hmm..
You get what you pay for?
Ain't no free lunch?
This is what they tell customers when they gleaming-teeth-smile and power-sell the $7500 television. Then when it comes time to pay their employees what they're worth, well, guess not.
Hey business people? Want professionals? Gotta pay a professional wage. Welcome to reality.
Like it or not, those are the facts. There are two of them. Count them if you need to. There it is.
Apple brought the music industry to the digital market. Customers who were declared "uninterested" in anything other than downloading all their music for free have purchased one BILLION songs (and counting). iTunes is probably one of the most brilliant and successful examples of combining business and innovation ever. Left to the crouton people, the market for music would still be non-existent except for the odd music video promotion. On their own, the cubicles will ALWAYS FAIL TO INNOVATE. ALWAYS.
Apple is an example of one of the very VERY few companies that actually produce new products. Their list of successes is beyond belief and dwarfs their competition. The rest of business is so bereft of this ability it is truly astounding. Apple innovates. Everyone else follows.
Are you seriously arguing that if a company can charge you more to give you less at a lower cost, they are trying to lose your business?
No. If they are trying to charge more in order to make customers stop using the product, they are trying to lose business. It is directly contradictory to the law of supply and demand. They are artificially limiting the supply in an attempt to limit demand. In the process they are going to lose customers and will therefore be required reduce their workforce, which means thousands out of work, again.
And they don't care that people are going to lose their jobs, which is wrong.
There is no such thing as the "mainstream." The first search engine rendered the mass market instantly obsolete. There is no mass market.
as the good reading tools (and people using them) ignore them
Oh good. The free market. Let's write tools that deprive authors of an audience. Why, that's exactly the same as the "free" market now! Want proof? Twelve publishers passed on Harry Potter. ($54E803 in sales) Disney passed on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. ($6 billion box office, 17 Academy Awards) It doesn't work. It just makes the authors work harder.
Here's a thought: Let's not turn blogs into Hollywood.
If you're not one of the top 100 blogs of these tools you're basically ignored
Yep. Sounds like Hollywood.
A few thousand great blogs stay up for years, many consolidating
Until all blogs are owned by three companies. I'll pass.
Which necessarily means they must treat their customers, employees and vendors with as much contempt as possible, of course.
Point two is about labor, which has nothing to do with customers.
The Disney animation division is destroyed (and then replaced at a cost of billions), and that has nothing to do with customers?
Makes no sense at all and I didn't even go to business school.
Point three has nothing to do with the subject
Of course it does. AOL will lay off their entire dial-up division once all the customers have given up on the product. Thousands upon thousands of foreclosures, bankruptcies, destroyed neighborhoods, divorce, stress, depression. Why? Because the company deliberately destroyed the product.
Still, assuming them true: while sad, they do not reflect any on a company's desire to retain a customer.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies that do not want to retain customers also do not want to retain employees. Simple math. Therefore there are few, if any, good jobs. (Full-time, permanent, benefits, stable enough to sign a mortgage) Companies with no jobs to offer also offer no incentive for people to obtain educations in order to acquire those jobs. That's the social contract that has also been destroyed.
The education of an entire generation is being made worthless.
Corrected for inflation, TVs before the '60s costed a lot more than they do now
Corrected for inflation, wages have plummeted in the last 30 years.
I haven't heard of 28% credit cards, I would think those would be going to the people that shouldn't ever have a credit card.
Like college students. No better way to fuck over somebody's finances than to bury them in debt before they even get a job. Give them $20,000 in student loans and $20,000 in 28% credit card debt and watch them fail. It's fun for the whole society! Throw in a few "let's start over for the eighth time" layoffs, then make fun of them because they are financially ruined twice by age 30. Then let's tell them what losers they are as they try to scramble out of depression, debt and misery.
Oh, and let's also just declare their degree worthless the moment they earn it. Such fucking losers. They should be able to afford houses that are priced 50 times what they are worth.
Because, as everyone knows, middle managers didn't exist back in the 60s.
They existed, and their job was fighting for their people. General Motors fires 30,000 people now and nobody gives a shit. It's all the employee's fault, of course. They didn't have enough "marketable skills." General Motors firing 30,000 people in 1969 would have resulted in a national outrage that would have made history.
Well, wait a minute--if we haven't invented anything new since the 60s
Well we did invent $7000 televisions and 28% credit cards. That's progress I guess.
And technology really hasn't really changed any since 1969
It's changed. The U.S. is no longer capable of manufacturing it's own necessities, half the working-age adults don't have full-time jobs and we haven't been within 200,000 miles of the moon since the mid-70s. Three cheers for progress. Pass the croutons.
I can't imagine why you'd ever have a negative relationship with your manager
Not difficult when the manager is a lying cheat fuck.
or why you might have been fired
When you see near-perfect employees fired and physically shoved out of the building, being fired doesn't really matter any more. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how good someone is at their job any more. It's all about greed, lying and more greed.
You're buying partially into the romanticization of historical inventors
No. I'm buying into present-day powdered-donut stuffing fatass-wedged hairpiece cheat fuck liar middle managers. Don't have to romanticize inventors. They're right there in TFA.
didn't struggle against powermongering and corporate politics etc
Wasn't anywhere NEAR as destructive as it is today. Not even on the map. Nice try.
1969. Back when we were building things. Inventing things. Making things better. We were actually investing in the future then.
Now it would require a "business case" before anyone would be allowed a moment to think about CCD image sensors, much less build them. Some rat fuck middle management asscrack would probably write the group up for "unauthorized use of business resources" and start drawing up requests for department-wide layoffs.
That's of course assuming brilliant people like these men who could "after maybe an hour's work, we went over to the blackboard and we had some sketching there. We went down to our models lab and made one" would get hired in the first place. They'd be declared "overqualified" or lacking "marketable skills" before they were even interviewed.
We were on the doorstep of the solar system almost 40 years ago. Now we're all parked in front of plasma televisions bought on 28% credit watching "reality shows." Talk about toilet-ramming the future. This is what happens when entire generations of education are wasted on purpose. What a fucking waste.
More foreclosures and bankruptcies. More pain. More suffering. More destroyed neighborhoods. More unemployment and reposessions. More wasted education. GET MORE SKILLS! It's the EMPLOYEE'S FAULT!
And a big bump for the stock price. Cracked lobster with a side of tall dollars. Step up to the buffet and pass the croutons.
A company is going to deliberately overcharge their customers in an attempt to get them to stop using the product.
Read that again.
Perhaps people will begin to understand why:
1. Retail stores deliberately mistreat their customers by having one cashier and 57 "loss prevention" employees. 2. Disney fires 4000 people between nine-figure movie releases, then fires their entire animation division 3. General Motors fires 30,000 people because "nobody is buying cars" We hear the news on the radio in a traffic jam that can be seen from orbit. 4. Half of working-age adults are not employed in full-time permanent jobs. 5. Half of the population is functionally illiterate.
Go back and read about the company that is deliberately overpricing their product to make customers leave.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the article, the number of Bachelor's of Science degrees has increased greatly, which means we have a lot more techs, not scientists as the article is claiming.
The degree reads "Bachelor of Science" not "Bachelor of Tech"
As everyone has already pointed out, we don't need more techs; we outsource those.
Leaving the college graduate with no job. Yeah. That's a winner.
It's really unfortunate people aren't taking chances due to this attitude.
Then there's the other half of the problem where business says "it'll never work" when it's a guaranteed winner. Western Union could have owned AT&T for $100,000. Disney passed on the Lord of the Rings trilogy ($6 billion box office, 17 Academy Awards). The amounts of money (and jobs) this is costing our economy is astounding.
And who decided to take out the loans and use the credit cards?
The student was offered a low-interest loan so they could get that all-important college degree that nobody told them was worthless. The credit card was free. You see, there are about 118 billion banks that hire people to scream "FREE CREDIT CARD" on college campuses. Since college students aren't taught to understand how revolving credit works (and their parents likely don't understand it either) they get a nice fat pile of debt to go with that worthless degree just before they take the $9 an hour job sweeping floors at Wal-Mart.
For young adults, a credit card is what makes it possible for them to afford the dentist, the new transmission for the car and the trip to the family reunion. Since wages have stagnated, they have no disposable income, so they pay 28% compounded on any expense that isn't rent, food and utilities.
Further, buying a home doesn't require very good credit.
Getting a decent interest rate does. How about a nice 15% rate on that mortgage to go with the credit card?
because the house makes such great collateral that the risk to them isn't that large.
Until the value drops. Negative equity is a wonderful thing.
And even if you do fall on hard times, it's not that difficult to maintain a decent credit rating as long as you actively work with your creditors, rather than just letting the bills go unpaid.
This stereotype of people who "just let all the bills go unpaid" is quite entertaining.
Talking to them in advance and working out ways to make partial payments will generally keep you from getting too many bad marks.
Uh huh.
First-time buyers are eligible for FHA loans which have very low downpayment requirements, as little as 3%
Please refer to the previous comment on "total lack of ANY disposable income" and "negative wage growth."
Most states have other programs to assist first-time buyers, also, and they usually work with FHA loans to enhance the FHA offerings.
Sounds great. Do states have programs to find a steady paycheck?
Though I'm sure there are exceptions, in general, with the low interest rates today, your monthly payment on a home or condo will be about the same as your monthly rent for a similar space in a similar area. In most cases it will be a little less, particularly after you factor in the tax deduction on the mortgage interest.
Yeah, deduction on mortgage interest. Why do we tax renters more than homeowners? Why not a tax deduction for renters to help first-time buyers save a down payment? Why do we tax the poor and give tax breaks to the middle-class?
It's a good idea, though.
Stable jobs are a good idea too.
cubicledrone, you sound bitter.
I'm also right.
Along with all of this bitterness you must have invested some energy in thinking through a solution to this unfair system.
There are no solutions to this problem that can be offered by government. It is a societal problem. People who own and run businesses have to take the social contract seriously, because without it eventually they have no customers.
1. Having a workforce of homeowners is good for business.
2. Hiring and training entry-level workers is good for business.
3. Stable neighborhoods are good for business.
4. Entrepreneurial employees are good for business.
5. Education is good for business.
But what do we get now?
1. A layoff as a reward for signing a mortgage.
2. No employee with less than five years of experience is qualified.
3. Have to move every three years to find another job.
4. People with new ideas aren't being "team players" so they get fired.
5. Put your degree last.
Government can certainly help, however.
Tax credit for telecommuters. (Shared by the company and the employee)
Want to reduce traffic? Want to reduce energy costs? Want to encourage mass transit? Want to reduce taxes? Give business a reason to allow telecommuting. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for people to drive 35 miles a day back and forth to an office any more. None. Zero.
Mandatory education about the capital markets, credit, contracts, corporation/LLC/partnership and accounting.
We claim to be a capitalist society, yet the average college graduate probably knows less about the capital markets than the receptionist at an accountant's office.
Apprenticeship
Business in general should have a formal process of apprenticeship, supported by legislation, which would allow both employer and employee to determine precisely how qualified someone is for a particular job. It worked very well in the 50s and 60s, especially in fields like journalism and manufacturing. This is one of the reasons it is so easy to get a job as a doctor or lawyer. "I have a medical license" or "I passed the Bar exam" means the person is qualified. Period.
But even with all this help, it's really the responsibility of business to employ people in stable, well-paying jobs. That's part of the social contract. Without it, nobody has any reason at all to honor their part of the contract, which is to work hard, get an education and get a good job.
I suppose if your choices of location are limited, you could be stuck renting. Even in those areas, though, there are usually options like condominiums so that you can build some equity but start at a lower price.
Doesn't solve the credit, down payment and job security problem. Signing a mortgage in this job market is like signing a bankruptcy. Real estate is at the top of the market. Prices have nowhere to go, so in addition to the constant layoffs and debt, that mortgage is looking at negative equity if values drop, and looking at foreclosure when the layoff happens because they can't sell negative equity.
That's all presuming they qualify for a mortgage in the first place with half their income being absorbed in taxes, inflation and debt.
Like many things in life, whether or not you can own a house depends heavily on how badly you *want* to own a house, and how much you're willing to do to get there. It's all about what's important to you.
Owning a house depends heavily on a stable job. Houses outnumber stable jobs. That's the problem.
Bah. If they haven't owned a home that's because they chose not to.
Yeah. They've all had the opportunity but decided to keep renting instead. Sure thing.
That's just an anecdote, of course, but the fact is that buying doesn't cost much more than renting, and in many cases it actually costs *less* -- at least in terms of the payments.
And if buying a home were that simple, it wouldn't be a problem.
Buying a home requires good credit, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards, confiscatory rents and multiple layoffs don't really help with much.
Buying a home requires a down payment, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards, confiscatory rents and multiple layoffs don't really help with much.
Buying a home requires 360 monthly payments in the four figures, something which the student loan, 28% credit cards and multiple layoffs don't really help with much.
Then we can add the negative wage growth, total lack of job security, massive taxation and inflation. Yeah, buying a home is just like buying a box of Corn Flakes.
It's competition! Time to announce layoffs!
how anybody could advocate letting others reap the benefits of the work of those who are most capable of doing it?
Wouldn't be a problem at all if business were willing to pay for what they buy.
Seriously, why do waitresses get paid more than particle physicists?
Business wants slaves. Not employees. They want brands, not products. They want control, not innovation. Business doesn't want the responsibility of employing people. They like the social contract as long as it doesn't cost them anything.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
However, future prospects don't look very good.
This is the first generation in the history of this society that will do worse than the previous generation. The numbers of people who are now in their 30s having never owned a home, for example, are absolutely staggering. Most people in the previous generation had owned a home for at least 5-10 years by the time they were in their mid-30s. The modern workplace simply doesn't allow that any more.
So we have an entire generation of permarenters who are told to "put their degree last." So much for the social contract. An entire generation cheated out of their opportunity to contribute.
Perhaps if there were fewer worker bees and more professionals in the field
That's the way management wants it. More slaves. Less innovation. Cubicle-managers don't want innovation, knowledge, brilliance or achievement. They want control.
they could command professional wages
Any degree with the word "Engineer" or "Engineering" on it commands a professional wage. Period.
Hard work is meaningless in a bureaucracy. Imagination and innovation are simply incompatible with bureaucracy and office politics. Only business practices matter. That is why the modern workplace is an adversarial, backwards, anti-innovation toilet.
If you're in it for the money, go sell real estate; please.
What do business people say? Hmm..
You get what you pay for?
Ain't no free lunch?
This is what they tell customers when they gleaming-teeth-smile and power-sell the $7500 television. Then when it comes time to pay their employees what they're worth, well, guess not.
Hey business people? Want professionals? Gotta pay a professional wage. Welcome to reality.
Apple delivered. Everyone else failed.
Like it or not, those are the facts. There are two of them. Count them if you need to. There it is.
Apple brought the music industry to the digital market. Customers who were declared "uninterested" in anything other than downloading all their music for free have purchased one BILLION songs (and counting). iTunes is probably one of the most brilliant and successful examples of combining business and innovation ever. Left to the crouton people, the market for music would still be non-existent except for the odd music video promotion. On their own, the cubicles will ALWAYS FAIL TO INNOVATE. ALWAYS.
Apple is an example of one of the very VERY few companies that actually produce new products. Their list of successes is beyond belief and dwarfs their competition. The rest of business is so bereft of this ability it is truly astounding. Apple innovates. Everyone else follows.
Apple delivered. Everyone else failed.
Those are the facts.
Are you seriously arguing that if a company can charge you more to give you less at a lower cost, they are trying to lose your business?
No. If they are trying to charge more in order to make customers stop using the product, they are trying to lose business. It is directly contradictory to the law of supply and demand. They are artificially limiting the supply in an attempt to limit demand. In the process they are going to lose customers and will therefore be required reduce their workforce, which means thousands out of work, again.
And they don't care that people are going to lose their jobs, which is wrong.
Once all the other mainstream venues open up then there will no longer be a need for a private soap box with limited audience.
There is no such thing as "the mainstream." It is a myth. Like the "permanent job" and the "free market." It doesn't exist.
Mainstream backlash
There is no such thing as the "mainstream." The first search engine rendered the mass market instantly obsolete. There is no mass market.
as the good reading tools (and people using them) ignore them
Oh good. The free market. Let's write tools that deprive authors of an audience. Why, that's exactly the same as the "free" market now! Want proof? Twelve publishers passed on Harry Potter. ($54E803 in sales) Disney passed on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. ($6 billion box office, 17 Academy Awards) It doesn't work. It just makes the authors work harder.
Here's a thought: Let's not turn blogs into Hollywood.
If you're not one of the top 100 blogs of these tools you're basically ignored
Yep. Sounds like Hollywood.
A few thousand great blogs stay up for years, many consolidating
Until all blogs are owned by three companies. I'll pass.
but corporations only want to maximize profit
Which necessarily means they must treat their customers, employees and vendors with as much contempt as possible, of course.
Point two is about labor, which has nothing to do with customers.
The Disney animation division is destroyed (and then replaced at a cost of billions), and that has nothing to do with customers?
Makes no sense at all and I didn't even go to business school.
Point three has nothing to do with the subject
Of course it does. AOL will lay off their entire dial-up division once all the customers have given up on the product. Thousands upon thousands of foreclosures, bankruptcies, destroyed neighborhoods, divorce, stress, depression. Why? Because the company deliberately destroyed the product.
Still, assuming them true: while sad, they do not reflect any on a company's desire to retain a customer.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies that do not want to retain customers also do not want to retain employees. Simple math. Therefore there are few, if any, good jobs. (Full-time, permanent, benefits, stable enough to sign a mortgage) Companies with no jobs to offer also offer no incentive for people to obtain educations in order to acquire those jobs. That's the social contract that has also been destroyed.
The education of an entire generation is being made worthless.
Corrected for inflation, TVs before the '60s costed a lot more than they do now
Corrected for inflation, wages have plummeted in the last 30 years.
I haven't heard of 28% credit cards, I would think those would be going to the people that shouldn't ever have a credit card.
Like college students. No better way to fuck over somebody's finances than to bury them in debt before they even get a job. Give them $20,000 in student loans and $20,000 in 28% credit card debt and watch them fail. It's fun for the whole society! Throw in a few "let's start over for the eighth time" layoffs, then make fun of them because they are financially ruined twice by age 30. Then let's tell them what losers they are as they try to scramble out of depression, debt and misery.
Oh, and let's also just declare their degree worthless the moment they earn it. Such fucking losers. They should be able to afford houses that are priced 50 times what they are worth.
Now let's all sing the company song.
Because, as everyone knows, middle managers didn't exist back in the 60s.
They existed, and their job was fighting for their people. General Motors fires 30,000 people now and nobody gives a shit. It's all the employee's fault, of course. They didn't have enough "marketable skills." General Motors firing 30,000 people in 1969 would have resulted in a national outrage that would have made history.
Well, wait a minute--if we haven't invented anything new since the 60s
Well we did invent $7000 televisions and 28% credit cards. That's progress I guess.
And technology really hasn't really changed any since 1969
It's changed. The U.S. is no longer capable of manufacturing it's own necessities, half the working-age adults don't have full-time jobs and we haven't been within 200,000 miles of the moon since the mid-70s. Three cheers for progress. Pass the croutons.
I can't imagine why you'd ever have a negative relationship with your manager
Not difficult when the manager is a lying cheat fuck.
or why you might have been fired
When you see near-perfect employees fired and physically shoved out of the building, being fired doesn't really matter any more. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with how good someone is at their job any more. It's all about greed, lying and more greed.
You're buying partially into the romanticization of historical inventors
No. I'm buying into present-day powdered-donut stuffing fatass-wedged hairpiece cheat fuck liar middle managers. Don't have to romanticize inventors. They're right there in TFA.
didn't struggle against powermongering and corporate politics etc
Wasn't anywhere NEAR as destructive as it is today. Not even on the map. Nice try.
1969. Back when we were building things. Inventing things. Making things better. We were actually investing in the future then.
Now it would require a "business case" before anyone would be allowed a moment to think about CCD image sensors, much less build them. Some rat fuck middle management asscrack would probably write the group up for "unauthorized use of business resources" and start drawing up requests for department-wide layoffs.
That's of course assuming brilliant people like these men who could "after maybe an hour's work, we went over to the blackboard and we had some sketching there. We went down to our models lab and made one" would get hired in the first place. They'd be declared "overqualified" or lacking "marketable skills" before they were even interviewed.
We were on the doorstep of the solar system almost 40 years ago. Now we're all parked in front of plasma televisions bought on 28% credit watching "reality shows." Talk about toilet-ramming the future. This is what happens when entire generations of education are wasted on purpose. What a fucking waste.
Oh, of course! Layoffs!
More foreclosures and bankruptcies. More pain. More suffering. More destroyed neighborhoods. More unemployment and reposessions. More wasted education. GET MORE SKILLS! It's the EMPLOYEE'S FAULT!
And a big bump for the stock price. Cracked lobster with a side of tall dollars. Step up to the buffet and pass the croutons.
A company is going to deliberately overcharge their customers in an attempt to get them to stop using the product.
Read that again.
Perhaps people will begin to understand why:
1. Retail stores deliberately mistreat their customers by having one cashier and 57 "loss prevention" employees.
2. Disney fires 4000 people between nine-figure movie releases, then fires their entire animation division
3. General Motors fires 30,000 people because "nobody is buying cars" We hear the news on the radio in a traffic jam that can be seen from orbit.
4. Half of working-age adults are not employed in full-time permanent jobs.
5. Half of the population is functionally illiterate.
Go back and read about the company that is deliberately overpricing their product to make customers leave.
Go ahead.