Hah, I think you worry too much. We're experiencing another shift from an economic landscape of haves and have nots to a landscape of cans and cannots, just like what happened during and after the Great Depression. Except with Bernanke's finesse, it's looking like it'll be a little easier this time. It's still rough to go through, but it will wring wealth from the useless and give it to the useful. Otherwise, if automation got that bad we could always move to where the work is. Even if it means leaving everything behind and stowing yourself away on a cargo ship bound for Asia.

If the world continues to plunge, we're basically heading back to what it was like in England in Victorian times, or what India was like in recent times. Since the powers-that-be are adamant about hiding inflation, the entitlement systems that calculate disbursement adjustments from inflation numbers will deflate in real terms and eventually offer no meaningful help, and the minimum wage will deflate in real terms to the point where we'll start seeing a sharp increase in middle class household hiring. Butlers, servants, personal drivers, and other marginal labor that will get 3 hots and a cot, and little else, but you can survive.

I'll move if I have to, but if I'm locked in and forced to eat shit, so be it. I mean I'm sure I could hop on a flight to Bangalore or Hyderabad and find a job in a week, and deal with the culture shock as it comes.

The human delight in prestige and power over his fellow man will make sure no one seeking employment in earnest goes unemployed for long.

But I believe the structural unemployment we're seeing is in a shift in skilled vs unskilled labor. Much of the "Middle Class" getting hurt right now are no more than unskilled labor that made it into higher income by short-term growth driven demand (like most but not all of the A+ certified scabs from the late 90's who are now back to flipping burgers). No one I know who is actually good at what they do is hurting right now.

The upcoming big inflationary event people are worried about will strip wealth from the wealthy and the unskilled poor, and redistribute it to the skilled middle classes (for an example compare the economic landscape of the 1880's to 1920's vs 1940's to 70's). The Great Depression, while difficult, actually was a good thing in the end.

That is why I don't understand why so many IT people are so big into socialism. That ideology ends up benefiting most the drooling morons who beat us up in high school, and the super-rich bastards. People who are already rich do not pay taxes on income, and high taxes keep people from becoming rich, so those who need investment capital, budding businesses, can only access it from a few already-rich players in the market (and since supply is low, the rich get even MORE rich than in a strictly capitalist system). That is why so many movie stars and super-rich folks aren't scared of the idea, and that is why old-money and socialism is the craze in Europe.

I mean, get on YouTube and watch videos of people gathering after a big layoff, whether it is IT people, or union people, or whatever. It'll give you a confidence boost. You'll notice a bunch of birds of the same feather: 1. They're all disgustingly obese. 2. They generally just sit there and wait for some idiot to speak, never taking the lead, not engaged at all. 3. They look tired and dopey. 4. If they do talk on camera, they make it pretty apparent that they don't give a shit about the work, its all about the money and their obligations, never that they loved/were passionate about what they did and detailing what they're doing to get back in the game.

Anyway, those people and their idiot children are going to try to claw their way back in by collecting useless degrees and/or collecting degrees they don't have the brainpower for, and trying to greaseball their way into gigs, wasting enormous amounts of HR time (wasn't there a Slashdot article recently about this?), and inconveniencing McDonalds by depriving them of their workforce temporarily. (Look at the increasing number of trolls on Slashdot. I rest my case.)

Anyway, even if you're good at what you do and caught in a bind, give it another 3 years and things will be really, really good again, once Bernanke is done inflating the stagnant wealth away from the rich, the MBA's, unskilled labor, and the other overvalued actors in society. Or if that is just too long of a haul, just take your retirement checks to a low cost-of-living country and live large.

To truly take advantage of this technological progress, we must rid ourselves of this. That will be the hardest challenge.

I don't see how.

When I started my current job, I busted my ass to catch up on things. When it typically took at least 3 months of downtime to get to know the system and describe it meaningfully to others, I did it in one. Now its been over a year and people have been here 5 years are sometimes asking me questions.

Why is that? Simple pride. I like feeling like I earned the number on my paycheck. And the minute I feel like I'm standing still, I'll move on.

A few people have been brought on since I came here, and they all were let go in a few weeks? Why? I guess they thought they were entitled to a salary, and were doing as little as little as possible to get it, and got a surprise kick out the door, probably without knowing exactly why, and probably for the same reason they lost their last job. Probably complaining about evil slave-driving capitalists, or someone other than themselves that is at fault.

Taking pride in your work is essential, for both yourself, and the world. Not fussing about the evil greedy rich bastards, or the mob-run business-crushing unions. Not wait in the wings of the corrupt politician of your choice while life passes you by.

The reason IT people are still employed in the US at all is because work is not all about salary, it is that everyone wants a person who takes pride in their work, and will pay generously for it in any denomination, for whatever generous is in the location of the worker. Self-absorbed lackeys are a dime a dozen, and you can get those anywhere you please for as little as possible, if that is what you want.

Pride is a trait that remains consistent in people who have that specific brand of maturity whether they happen to be flipping burgers or running the country. If you don't have that, you're just another miserable lazy fuck that nobody wants to be around or hire (or turning into one as we speak) and your days are numbered.

Taking pride in your work is as simple as deciding to do so. If you don't believe that, well, god help you, I guess you'll just another one of the many old brats in the world who is trying to optimize themselves into an adult version of their parasitic childhood, and destroying themselves and the world around them in the process.

Conspiracy theories aside, just like everything else in real life I'd say its probably a little more mundane than that. C-level jobs are soul sucking, and these people live to work rather than work to live. These people don't see their wife or their kids often. How much is that worth?

Then consider the sinking ship that Hostess was. Imagine you were on that crew. You have a career to consider. Would you want to stick around and run that mess? How much $$$ would it take to get you to stick around and continue to miss out on your family and captain the Titanic, even through when it sinks it'll probably publicly destroy your career? (Which it basically did for these people)

Enlightened self-interest 101. I'm pretty sure everyone here would negotiate the same terms. Want me to stick around? Show me the $$$! Even though the smart thing to do would have been to leave no matter how much money the board would approve.

They knew they were screwed when they took $1 salaries. They were making the news. "Oh boy, there went our careers!"


The whole backlash that Bain and friends have been getting has a fairly mundane basis as well. People that staff these consulting companies are top talent. Brilliant people who went to the best schools, eat the best peas and carrots, and are hand-picked for their ability to be a brilliant tactician. Now when the business is built and the consultants pack their bags and go home....who is left to run the show? Oh, the not so brilliant people left behind (otherwise they'd be working for Bain). Who probably have a great deal more money than they did before, and so they're just not as motivated, and would just as soon let the company fail so they'd have more time to spend on the beach.

Nobody is gonna come out and say ANY of this on the public stage, that would be a career-killer for sure, since it'd basically showcase that human nature makes their business model bad in the long run. Maybe it'd sell a few books, but not many. They're happy to let the average PHB-in-training look at it from the outside and hate Bain and what they do, Bain continues to be an astounding success at what they put their hands on, and life goes on.

Lack of social programs? I'm sorry I think it's the other way around. How many of you out there have suffered in your youth because you were forced to spend your precious time in a mind prison with the dross of society taunting and molesting you with no need to worry of reproach? Most of you? I turned to drugs and alcohol in my high school days and some time thereafter and it set me back quite a few years.

People have it backwards. You NEED to be able to hit bottom. How else do you learn? Why do you think we have ghettos? Which I would define as "area of people with a toxic support system that will not let them fail and learn from their mistakes"

The reason US schools suck is because you don't have to WORK HARD to get in past grammar school. You are given it and you don't deserve it. Why else do you think our country's society sucks?
 
The only people really winning the game big are the sociopaths, as they have their own emotional walled garden and are immune and in fact inspired to more grotesque greatness in this terrible system we exist in. While the rest of us with a little less than a free ride get lost in the cess pool of human garbage.

In order for the world to get better, you can't pity people. Pity is the weapon of the addict, the loafer, the emotional vampire, the person who hasn't had their ass handed to them and hasn't had the opportunity to really "get it".

Are you one of those people who pines for the old days when you had to buy a separate coprocessor and cache memory along with your CPU and motherboard?

Sigh...only because I lost them in the fyords

Not just that, I had a Sound Blaster Pro from '91 that hung in there until 2004 or so, and that's only because they stopped putting the ISA 8-bit slot it required on new motherboards.

Now I wish I had kept all my old hardware, DOS-era machines with proper gaming equipment are now back in demand, and sell for a mint.

Meh. Its brain-dead easy to get a second fast food job, and most of these are part-time/< 30 hours anyway. These jobs practically grow on trees, and are hard to fill. So there's nothing to be mad about here.

A pizza parlor or a burger joint, or any other low-margin business (where experience doesn't matter, wages are low and the turnover is high) is not going to feel any of those secondary benefits. In 5 years, less than 1% of the people currently flipping burgers and pizzas are going to be working the same job, regardless of what their wage is or what happens with healthcare.

In low-margin-ville, any little hiccup can destroy your business, so that is why you see people generally paranoid about everything and taking proactive steps to avoid change, since change is usually bad/usually margin crushing. The managers who aren't paranoid and proactive lost their businesses a long time ago.

Not many of his employees are going to notice, except for the 2 or 3 mouth-breathers who actually got a non-management full-time position.

:crickets chirping: Mind what ye be sayin, Ezekiel, there be atheists in these here parts

Finally we can put that myth to rest. Air is not free.

However, I would direct you to Mr. Humphries, who is always free.

Cause those people were betting their careers, thats why. "Drive a company into the ground", and you're retired whether you like it or not. Thus, the parachute. Otherwise who the hell would want that job.

It's mostly the shit hole states in the south of the US where you don't see any unionization.

I bet you think you're well educated! Maybe its because most people down here, even the bosses, are very understanding and nice, cost of living is low, and the jobs pay well enough.

There are tons of Detroit transplants where I live...bunch of mouth-breathing, low-energy piggies who are passive-aggressive; always saying weird shit just to watch you squirm. And they wonder why they have trouble getting respect and staying employed! :D

And the weird part about the transplants is they flee to escape the mess they created, and they work to get the same thing going when they get here. Its like Rush Limbaugh saying Republicans need to talk more about killing stem-cell research and school prayer after they got their asses handed to them.

<SouthernDrawl>People need to pull their little head out of the rear-end learn a little practicality</SouthernDrawl>

Referring to my earlier comment, giving up my first born, was actually quite literal. Luckily my significant other came to the same conclusion...Some of those decisions can be very hard, but they're really worth making.

Hence my disdain for bleeding-heart conservatism...that move really saved my butt. Now that I have a career in place I can afford many more than one, and more than make up for the loss :D

You'd be surprised how many Republican-leaning voters are not social conservatives at all...I'd say 1/3rd of the total...hence the mediocre showing for deeply religious candidates :D

That being said, I paid my blood and my first born, thank you very much, and I don't support the next generation getting the free ride, particularly for students who are the most likely to have no trouble paying their loans back! This is silly popularism striking again.

note that the poor suffer disproportionately from the effects of air pollution

Scenario: Let's say you owe the court system money. You can either afford your court fees or a car. Either way you go to prison because you can't drive to work in the former situation. So, how much do you care about air pollution? If you met some snot telling you to be grateful about clean air, you'd probably be inclined to beat that person up.

As my grandfather would say..."Pull your head out of your ass, young man."

Don't underestimate the power of organized religion in Russia....

dafuq??

I have to admit, I bought this line of shit for a few minutes, then realized what happened later.

It's still wrong, but you're really misreprenting...

There it is. See it? That first clause? Something made of straw man? Pff....too bad nothing can be done, right? Oh well, I guess Senor Putin is just fun and games and can't be bothered...