Hey I’m as unemployed and pissed off as you can get and I agree with them. Propping up inefficient industries and businesses doesn’t help anyone in the long run…or the short run for that matter. Those subsidies have to come from somewhere and that somewhere is your wallet. The first rule of economics is “there’s no free lunch”. Someone always has to pay for it.
The problem with the economy is not that all the tech support and customer service jobs are going to India (by the way, a lot of the customer service jobs also go to the Midwest). The problem is that companies areacting timid and not expanding. Everyone is waiting for something to happen so no one is hiring and when they are hiring, they take their sweet time.
For those advocating protectionism, perhaps youd like to explain to me why it is youre in favor of the government forcing people to buy from certain people?
Lets make no mistake about it. Protectionsim isnt about punishng foreign companies or US companies that go overseas. Protectionism is about punishing american consumers for the choices they make.
A hypothetical 15% tarriff on Japanese auto imports? No. Its a hypothetical 15% tax on americans who choose to buy japanese cars. You may as well have a cop at the auto dealer handing out fines of 15% of the cost to those who make a purchase. Same effect.
Would those in favor of protectionism support such a scenario?
I cant think of too many things more disgusting than an american in favor of restricting trade. All kinds of labels come to mind, each one more foul than the other.
If you dont like the purchasing decisions of your fellow americans, too bad. You want money? Earn it. You want a job? Earn it.
I drive past homeless americans every day holding signs saying Will Work For Food, while right behind them are help wanted signs. I drive right past without giving a dime. A mile down the road are fields full of mexican labororers breaking their backs to pick strawberries. I always stop and buy some. Those mexican laborers have earned the fruits of my labor, and as far as Im concerned they are far more welcome than those americans trying to appeal to my patriotism for their sustanance…
People vote with their wallets as to whos labor they want to reward. If you arent able to get anyone to reward you for your labor, maybe that should be telling you something about the quality of your labor.
Corporate moves overseas are the same thing on a bigger scale. Choosing between a Dell made all in the US and another companies product made in China for half the price, there is no choice. Im buying the cheaper one. Me, an american. And if Dell doesnt like it, or its workers dont like it, thats too damn bad. No one owes anyone a living simply by having been born in the same political boundery.
Im in favor of getting totally rid of the restrictions on trade that exist.
That way all the lazy ass moochers who seem to think that because they are american they shouldnt have to break as much of a sweat as a non american would either have to actually start earning their money or the same thing would happen to them as happens to any other member of an animal species that wont/cant support itself.
No, the people in favor of protectionism dont have a problem with the government. They have a problem with their fellow americans, myself being one of them. Too bad.
There is no fair trade unless their is free trade.
Wrong, sailor, I DID offer a specific solution – a WCC type works program that would offer employment to able-bodied and able-minded unemployed people to address problems like homelessness. In fact, I’d go beyond that and suggest a government- sponsored Internet superhighway project involving high speed trunk likes going to every American city. Anybody or any business could link onto it – it wouldn’t be like our present cable systems, where only one biz has control. I think it could radically improve the delivery of information and entertainment in America if it were properly implemented. A similar wireless phone system – maybe even a satellite phone system – could also be useful. The able-bodied could dig the trenches and lay the fiber, and the able-minded could administer and staff it.
Sorry to burst your ideological bubble with an actual idea, but there it is. And don’t say it won’t work. It will. It already did, in the form of interstate superhighways.
This will be good practice for the future, as I see advances in automation eventually obviating the necessity of a workface of any size. What happens when a nation of 250 million like the U.S. (more or less) will be able to keep everyone well fed, clothed and housed on the labor of 2.5 million? What do we do with the 247.5 million useless hangers-on? Let 'em starve?
(I say, reduce one’s working life to something like four years, after which one “retires” and does things one’s interested in rather than things one has to do because they need to be done.
>> I see advances in automation eventually obviating the necessity of a workface of any size
Ah, yes, we have heard this before. Forgive me if I pass on this one.
Voodoochile, you make a very interesting argument in that subsidies take away certain amount of freedom from the consumer as they penalize him for some choices over others. At any rate, it has been amply shown by experience that protectionism just makes things worse which is reason enough.
Evil Captor, besides the probability of such an idea being illegal (any legal types want to shoot me down?), your ideas are already handled by private industry. Not only that, but the cabling and wireless are already all in place. Are they monopolized? Yes. Is that good for the consumer? No. However, if I was the one that paid to cable your neighborhood, I wouldn’t want someone else to come in and piggyback on the system I paid for and maintain, and that’s why the cable companies fight to keep out competition. That, and it has been shown (by the lack of competition even in huge markets like my own NYC) that an area can really only support one cable company. [Aside: Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think satellite TV can compete against local cable because it’s nationwide] Our government does not compete openly with private industry (for the most part - I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but I’m sure someone will come in and say, “Well, how about here…”) .
Your interstate highways comparison is just plain wrong. Sorry to be blunt but there is no other way to say it. Local government handles the lattice of roads within a town/county/whatever. State government connects the towns. Federal government connects the states. Roads, like fire, police and other services, are the duty and are best handled by government. You might argue that cable and phone are best handled by government, but private industry got there first, long before government realized how necessary the services might be, and we don’t privatize industries in this country (again, for the most part). Privatizing industries is horrible, in that no one will want to innovate and make capital investments if government has a habit of taking over once the infrastructure is built.
Well, you are a patient fellow. One assumes your savings and/or unemployment benefits have not yet run out or that you have some means of getting by without having to earn money. More power to you. I’ve read and heard plenty of accounts from unemployed people who are in serious danger of losing their homes, or in the case of some older ones, having to decide between buying drugs or food to survive (I guess Voodoochile would opt for “neither” on their behalf). These people are considerably less sanguine about the economy than you are.
Your analysis is that “Everyone is waiting for something to happen” before they hire. Um, that’s an interesting analysis. Cite?
You know, if someone has got you bent over a barrel with your pants down around your ankles, it does no good to ignore the situation and cast about for other predicaments you may be in. You’re a gonna have ta deal with that barrel situation before things improve for you.
In other, far less pithy words, if the widespread analysis that big business is
A) shipping jobs overseas wholesale (plenty of evidence for that, especially in the tech industries)
B) Increasing productivity via computers so that less people can do the work of more, thus promoting “jobless recoveries” as companies return to profitability but don’t add on staff
C) Using temp and contract workers to replace full time workers, bringing their cost of doing business down but disastrously affecting the quality of life of their workers
D) Hiring workers for hours that fall just below the maximum for “part time” workers so that their work is in effect full time but they are paid and get benefits as “part time” workers
E) Systematically raiding workers’ retirement accounts for their own profit, disastrously affecting their workers’ capacity to survive after retirement
F) Systematically dumping aging workers to cut down on health benefit costs and retirement pay benefits
Well, if all that’s true, then maybe it’s going to take more than some mysterious “something” to happen at some nebulous unspecified time before things get better for workers in general and the unemployed and the underemployed in particular.
Evil Captor, headlines do not equal systematic. Are there abuses? Yes. Are there too many abuses? One could say even one abuse is too many, but that would foolishly ignore human nature. Still, IMO, yes. Systematic? You are going to have to prove that one.
Also, hie thee to an advanced economic text. Increased productivity via computers doesn’t kill jobs, it reapportions them. We’ve never had a jobless recovery. You may find that your field of business doesn’t have as many jobs as it once did, but that does not equal ‘jobless recovery’.
You want jobs? Large hedge funds cannot find enough qualified people to handle their accounting and operations, and have to outsource work they would rather do internally. You’ll find large concentrations of hedge funds in NY (tri-state region), Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth and San Francisco. The industry is creating jobs. It’s up to people to learn the skills to fill available jobs, not government to make jobs for a particular skillset. Manufacturing jobs are down because un- and semi-skilled labor is cheaper elsewhere. The un/semi-skilled US worker has priced himself out of the market. Don’t force the market; force the workers to evolve their skills. Yes, it’s going to be painful. But do you rip the bandaid off at once, or do you slowly, agonizingly take it off?
If the government needs to do anything its to explain to everyone in no uncertain terms that the days of being able to learn only one craft or trade and work your whole life for one company are gone never to return. I would imagine this fact should be obvious, but hey.
The only reason the past generation or so was able to do that was because of the limitations on peoples freedom to choose that are slowly (thankfully) being gotten rid of.
You might want to consider the fact that the more secure someone is in their job, the less opportunity there is for others.
Im not sure but it seems like you think work is something people shouldnt have to do. Whats this retire after four years thing? Who the hell would do that? Why on earth would anyone want to retire after four years? Wouldnt it bother you that other peoples labor was going into supporting your existance and you were doing nothing in return?
The fact of the mater is that no matter how callous it sounds, many people are hurting not just because of globalization but because of the choices they have made in life.
We have all worked with those who do the least amount possible in work; who do just enough to avoid getting fired. We all have known people who think work is some unnatural thing that they shouldnt have to do. We have all known people who chose to learn one thing and one thing only and dont think they should have to learn anything else. We have all known people who have the psuedo-religous belief that labor has a value seperate and apart from what other people place on it. We have all known people who get a girl pregnant and have kids and buy a house when they only have a high school diploma and a union apprenticeship.
We have all known people who go to Vegas with the last of their savings and lose it all.
I have no sympathy for these people, and I think enough people have known similar people to explain why your indignation isnt shared by more. They have made their own beds. If they are bent over a barrel its because they were wearing hot pants and bright red lipstick. They didnt seem to mind the barrel when it felt good.
In this country probably more than any other it is easy to succeed for those who want to. But in this country is it harder and harder to live the life one wants to live if one thinks its up to others to supply it. This is a Good Thing. People with jobs are not plow horses there to pull around those who dont have them.
Are only those who choose to be lazy having problems? No, not at all. But it is only those who choose to be lazy or who choose to think others owe them something who need be afraid, and rightfully so in my opinion.
If one finds that ones labor does not have the value that it once did, then obviously its time to learn how to do something else. There are community colleges, libraries, book stores all over the place. There are literally thousands of organizations out there to help people learn new things and adapt to not only the current changes but also to help prepare themselves for future changes.
You say youve talked to people and heard stories of losing houses etc. Did you just sit there and wipe their nose as they cried in their beers, or did you try to actually help them? Did you help them try to find any organizations that could help them with retraining/education? Did you help to study their spending habits and identify where they left themselves open to risk so that they could avoid making the same mistake in the future? Did you help them identify any industries that are short of people and so perhaps a good area for them to try to exploit?
Or do you consider helping people to be lobbying the government to restrict all the rest of our freedoms so that people never have to be faced with the reality of bad choices they have made?
Im a contract programmer myself. Ive been working for the past year and a half but before that I was out of work pretty much for a year. Partly its my lack of a college degree and partly it was my limited ability in some languages. So, I spent that year learning other languages. My lack of a degree is an asset; I charge less than many degreed programmers do while doing the same or higher quality of work.
Its very easy to get full of oneself and think ‘I shouldnt have to do that’, Im guilty of it myself from time to time. But its stupid. No one is so important that everyone elses choices should be restricted in order to provide them with something they are perfectly capable of providing themselves.
Perhaps your concern with peoples plights might be better served in actually trying to help them identify the areas they need to change or improve in their knowledge, or in helping them with the issues involved in starting their own companies, or in helping them identify what their assets are and emphasize them, rather than just offering patronizing pity.
I have seen this. people qho are out of work and believe the world owes them a job doing whatever it is they did. A guy who was a programmer for a while now refuses to drive a truck or to do anything else that is not what he was doing. Some will say “I’m a lawyer, I am not going to drive a truck”. Well, the world is telling you right now your work as a lawyer is not needed so you better start doing something which the world values and pays for. the world does not owe you a job as a lawyer or as anything. It is up to you to find something the world is willing to pay for. You can start trading on ebay, or start your business or whatever but don’t expect the world to create a job for you.
I’m sure there would be legal disputes given that there are companies involved that can afford lawyers, but there’s nothing defacto illegal about the feds building infrastructure whether or not private companies and/or state and local governments already have. State and local governments and private firms already had built roads when the feds built the interstate highway system, but that didn’t stop us.
As for the local cable companies protesting – of course they will. But who gives a fuck what those damn robber barons think? They have all the political popularity of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
(I’m really kinda surprised to encounter anyone defending the cable people. Do you work for a cable company or what? Because the only other cable company defender I ever encountered worked for one.)
A popular works program that laid cable over every last cable system in America’s lines would be wildly popular and could run roughshod over any objectiions they might make.
The idea is, let the government lay the cable just like they built the roads, and then let private firms – any private firms – provide content over those “roads” that want to. Your point about cable being a "natural’ monopoly is bogus – the reason it’s a monopoly is that there’s no way someone who has to build a new cable system can compete economically with someone who’s already had the advantage of a monopoly to defray the cost of their cable build-out, so that their only cost now is content and maintenance of their existing network. If the government lays the cable on a non-profit basis, that little problem is solved, and we’re rid of our national network of robber barons … excuse me, cable providers … who’ve been strangling the devleopment of cable services through their monopolistic practices.
Privatizing industries is horrible, in that no one will want to innovate and make capital investments if government has a habit of taking over once the infrastructure is built.
Horrible to you perhaps. To me it’s just another option, like any other, to be judged on its merits in any given situation. Granted, it doesn’t work for a LOT of industries that have tried it, but a lot of those have been failures because the governments have tried to subsequently run profitable businesses based on what they’ve laid out. I’m saying, let the gummint lay the cable, let the content providers run the programs, cut out the cable system middleman completely if possible, or reduce their rule to as close to nothign as possible.
Interstate hiways are a great example. They worked pretty good if you ask me – or anyone who’s not a total libertarian ideologue. And I’ve already dealt with the cable companies.
As for the other – if the unemployment level goes up to ten percent plus and a considerable portion of that is middle class – both quite possible – the political impetus to do something positive to combat unemployment will be so loud so anguished and so powerful that state and local governments won’t be able to do shit except challenge in court. Maybe that’ll work, maybe it won’t. They probably won’t have the balls to do it because they’re run by elected officials and opposing a plan to get the economy out of the dumps will be political suicide.
this is why I’m saying you “status quo” guys who think we shouldn’t be thinking about doing anything about the economy are actually the ones who are under the gun. If things get bad enough, solutions will be tried, and if all you’re doing is sitting there with your big bag of nothing for a suggestion, the solutions that will be tried will be the ones you are going to just hate. I’m talking Hawley-Smoot time here.
Frankly, I think the actual state of the economy for middle class folk, as opposed to the reported state (think underemployment as opposed to unemployment) is already bad enough that this will be a major factor in the 2004 election, especially considering how closely contested the election is likely to be. The unemployed vote could swing it for either party.
You want socialism - go to where there is socialism. There are plenty of countries with varying degrees. I like capitalism. When socialism comes here, it will be time for me to hope there are still greener, capitalist pastures.
Here’s something to ponder, which may help you understand the nature of efficiency and its relation to job creation:
There was a time when over 90% of all Americans were employed in the food creation, packaging, and distribution system.
Today, that number is less than 5%.
Why aren’t 85% of all Americans unemployed?
What happened to all the blacksmiths, saddle makers, and stable owners when the horse gave way to the motor car?
Now think about this:
What if we invented a miracle machine that you could push raw materials into, push a button, and miraculously a car came out the other side, made better and cheaper than we know how to make? Would that be a good thing? Would it benefit the economy?
Now substitute ‘Japan’ for ‘machine’, and tell me why the equation changes.
The Fed highway system was not built out of any economic bailout justification. The economics of private transport was a fringe benefit. The Fed highway system was built by the Eisenhower admin under the aegis of the Feds role of provider of military defense. The Fed highway system was first and foremost a means of providing a rapid troop transport system, which is why even today the specs contractors have to follow are based on the freeway being able to handle the tonage of tanks and troop carriers.
Because of this, issues of fairness to all those areas not close to a Fed freeway were and are avoided. Access to a freeway is not a ‘right’. Freeways were planned out with the primary necessity of ‘is this the best route to get troops from point A to point B’.
Unless of course youre talking about depression-era WPA style road building stuff, which is silly considering unemployment was higher in 1939 after 7 years of the WPA than it was in 1932 at its inception. Sure, a few WPA works were a success, much in the same way as if I threw a handful of pebbles at a bird one or two is likely to hit it.
If the Feds were to build a national fiber optic trunk system, it wouldnt be long before lawsuits abounded from the boondocks claiming rightfully that they had a right to access as well, even though there may not be enough people in that area to justify the cost.
Then there are issues of government control of a network trunk that all kinds of private and sensative data is sent over. Sure, for the first few years a particular admin may promise not to ‘spy’ or collect data through it, but that wouldnt last long.
Would you want Repubs or Demos dictating the content that could be sent over The Peoples network just like they control content over the The Peoples airwaves? I know I wouldnt.
And of course unionization of all the Gov IT workers who admin the damn thing, which of course means seniority would matter far more than ability. Which of course means far more network downtime and delays than would be acceptable in a private network.
All of the above would do nothing but create a market for providers who did ~not~ use the Fed trunk, so that people could be assured their data was safe from gov eyes and gov incompetence. The Fed IT unions would of course proivide far less decent service than any private company could. As more and more private networks sprung up, and less and less used the gov network, the gov network would start losing more money. Resulting in pressure to do what…either ban private networks from competing or privatize the network.
But why on earth would or should the majority have to be soaked in order to provide jobs to a minority?
And what gaurentees would there be, and how long could those gaurentees last, as to which companies could purchase access? How much of their customers data would they have to be willing to compromise in order to be granted access?
The reality is is that the Fed gov only has so much influence on the economy. The states that are suffering the worst are states that pretty much screwed themselves, like here in Cal.
Hell, there are states in this country where it is impossible to work in the trades without joining a union. Talk about the dark ages. There are states in this country where it is actually illegal to hire someone who walks up to a construction site and asks for work. There are actually states in this country that make you take a state exam in your field, and based on that, dictate how much your prospective employer is ‘allowed’ to pay you. There are actually states in this country that regulate how little you can charge - not how much - if youre a non-union worker. Its hard to believe I know, but there are states in this country where your ability matters far less than someone elses seniority.
There is still far too much protectionism in this country, which means far less opportunity for those who are out of work and willing to get it. Im not really sure why ~more~ protectionism could ever be seen to do anything other than make things worse for those who need jobs and more expensive for those who have them.
You and a couple others are engaging in some fairly binary thinking here. You are assuming that because I believe that it’s worthwhile to look at the conditions that lead to joblessness, I therefore don’t believe that people who are unemployed should, in addition to looking for work in their established field, retrain themselves, look for work in new fields, take jobs at lwoer wages, etc.
I believe that these are good responses to being unemployed, on a personal level, and I am sure that most unemployed people do them to one extent or another. I understand that many of you are so anxious about unemployment that you must ascribe it to personal failings on the part of the unemployed, like the women who invariably seek to blame rape victims for inviting attack so they won’t feel so vulnerable to rape themselves.
However, I do not believe that just because there are personal responses to unemployment, that that makes it purely a personal problem. I believe that how we as a society responds to unemployment has a lot to do with how well people as individuals are able to deal with it. And guys who call unemployed people lazy moochers are NOT helping.
You guys are like a bunch of doctors who, when presented with a patient with strep throat, say, “Look you miserable weaking, take these antibiotics, rest in bed, drink plenty of fluids and take this sore throat medication. But we absolutely REFUSE to look into how strep throat is spread or what we as a society should do to see that its effects are minimized for those who have it. That would just encourage more weaklings like you to get sick. Now, go play with those healthy kids over there!”
In short, you insist on looking at unemployment as purely a personal problem and not as a social problem at all, when it is so very obvious that both approaches are worthwhile.
Go pick up a financial magazine or an economics book or something. It’s basic common sense. When companies aren’t hiring, it’s because they do not anticipate significant growth in the near future. What did you think it is?
I’m not “cool” about it but at least I understand the cause of many of the problems. You are under the assumption that the world (substitute “government” or “big business”) owes you a job with health benefits and a high salary. I am under no such illusion.
The economy is cyclical. 5 years ago everyone thought the boom would last forever. Now people can’t imagine the recession ever ending.
You can’t compete with cost or quality. Complaining about workers overseas working for less money just sounds silly. If you were running a company, would you hire 50 foreigners who quietly did their job at a fraction of the cost or 50 high-priced unionized Americans who constantly give attitude?
People managed to survive before pension funds, health plans and all the other stuff we think is “critical”.
Shit happens - People lose their jobs, their homes, etc. If you live your life as if the good times are going to last forever, you’re going to have a lot of trouble when the bad times come (and they always do). The reason I can get by now is that I pretty much knew that things at work were pretty slow in an industry succeptible to recession. Because of that, I tried to save as much as I could. Even still, I could have done other things to better manage my finances - live in Hobokken or Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, work the summer after B-school instead of taking it off, etc. It’s hard to feel bad for some of these tech workers who are loosing homes they couldn’t afford paid with worthless stock options.
Maybe instead of wishing for the government to step in or big business to grow compassion, time would be better spent analysing the choices one made in life and planning for the future.
Evil Captor, I hate to be the one to break this to you…from your positions stated so far in this thread, I’d have to agree with D_Odds. Its basically a socialist position. I don’t understand why this bothers you. You must know that your positions are essentially socilaist. Why get defensive? If thats what you think, then be proud of it Evil. I happen to think that those positions are a disaster, but thats just MY opinion.
Voodoochile, msmith537, D_Odds, John Mace are all making good, rational points. My feeling is you are speaking from emotion, not from facts. As I said earlier, my suggestion is to try and do some independant research to try and better understand the underlieing issues here (actually my suggestion was for Grim714, but you need the same thing). Pick up a Wall Street Journal, or a Foutune magazine some time and READ it. Most of the things that are being talked about here are pretty standard fare. Once you read and understand, THEN come back and debate. It will be much more interesting, and these guys won’t have to beat their head against the wall, over and over, on the same points.