Posted on 12/28/2013 4:49:57 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
no doubt we were way ahead of everyone for a variety of reasons. our productivity on a relative basis then made us the powerhouse we were. The multiple of productivity today over that of say 40-50 years ago is likely unmeasurable no matter how many economists would like to be able to quantify it.
todays productivity is costing jobs. Still we have permitted, allowed even encouraged (not you and i of course) manufacturing jobs to leave here in chase of the extra buck.
these jobs can and should pay more than flipping burgers or pouring an espresso. To me it is in our national interest to have those jobs here, to have people making more. More workers making more money means productivity may go down but the consumer class makes that up with increased sales.
And screw these 3rd world hell holes the companies have gone to.
Productivity kills jobs. We have millions fewer factory jobs because of it. I’m not saying roll back the clock. Thats foolish but jobs are in our national interest. Jobs are as important as anything else we spend money on.
Regulations i agree for the most part. I’m not a tree hugger but one would have to be blind to the massive poisoning of lakes and land that went on for decades. Hence the superfund to clean up. No reasonable person can say oh let them do it.
Your comment on China and India. I for one would not be against tax breaks to get jobs back here. Level the playing field. I would also not be against tax breaks based on level of compensation a company pays out. First off the government would get the same income, just from the individual instead of a corporation. Secondly the cash would be in the hands of consumers and the velocity of money, so long missing would pick up. This is fairly simple. Corporations have something along the lines of a trillion dollars overseas they can’t or won’t bring back here because of taxes. Make it so it doesn’t just go to big shareholders and simply pump up the Kennedy family trust fund. Get it into peoples hand and that will bring back jobs better and faster than anything.
That reminds me. I bought a new house in June. My realtor gave me this Home Warranty. Later in June, there was a large puddle accumulating around my hot water heater. I said, “Great, at least I have the home warranty.” So I called the home warranty, and they sent some plumbers to my house. I had to pay $100 for the housecall. He was there about 5 minutes and said, “you need a new hotwater heater.” He writes up a ticket of things that are not covered by the warranty, it added up to almost $650. So I start reading it, it included the disposal of the old one for $175. I asked him, why can’t I do this myself, I can literally carry it on my shoulder for 1 mile to the dump. He responds “insurance reasons”. Then it had something about bringing it up to code and etc. I call the home warranty place and said, this costs nearly $200 more than if I do it myself. This doesn’t even include the $100 I already spent. In an unrelated problem, my basement can get very damp, so I get a dehumidifier, and magically there was no more puddles forming around the hot water heater. There was no problem with my hot water, the plumber lied, and tried to shake out a lot of money out of me. I called the warranty place, and cancelled it. I got the cash value of the warranty for 10 months.
I came away from this, not trusting being a plumber in my house.
That reminds me. I bought a new house in June. My realtor gave me this Home Warranty. Later in June, there was a large puddle accumulating around my hot water heater. I said, “Great, at least I have the home warranty.” So I called the home warranty, and they sent some plumbers to my house. I had to pay $100 for the housecall. He was there about 5 minutes and said, “you need a new hotwater heater.” He writes up a ticket of things that are not covered by the warranty, it added up to almost $650. So I start reading it, it included the disposal of the old one for $175. I asked him, why can’t I do this myself, I can literally carry it on my shoulder for 1 mile to the dump. He responds “insurance reasons”. Then it had something about bringing it up to code and etc. I call the home warranty place and said, this costs nearly $200 more than if I do it myself. This doesn’t even include the $100 I already spent. In an unrelated problem, my basement can get very damp, so I get a dehumidifier, and magically there was no more puddles forming around the hot water heater. There was no problem with my hot water, the plumber lied, and tried to shake out a lot of money out of me. I called the warranty place, and cancelled it. I got the cash value of the warranty for 10 months.
I came away from this, not trusting being a plumber in my house.
Should have majored in engineering, medicine or some other useful skill. The world doesn’t need any more lawyers plying their dubious trade and having people with law degrees working at the perfume counter instead of clogging up our already overburdened courts with more frivolous lawsuits is a net gain for society, in my opinion.
Your ratio is too generous. It's more like 1 in 100 fast food workers that ever make it to management. BTW, I'm not talking "shift-supervisor" but a genuine management position with P&L responsibility and the full benefits and bonuses that go with it.
That said, the competition is not quite as stiff as you imply. This industry is starved for management talent. The vast majority of fast food workers simply do not have the ambition or the work ethic to make it to management. In fact, most of them see management as "the enemy" and do not even aspire to it.
Many fast food workers just want to clock in, work their shift and clock back out and do as little as possible in between. They have no compunction about calling in sick, even when they aren't sick. Or showing up late. Every inconvenience becomes a gripe to them. When they are off the clock, they don't even think about work or how to improve themselves. But they will be the first ones to complain that they can't make ends meet on their low wages.
Compounding the problem is that those few who genuinely want to do a good job and move up the ladder are quickly labeled by their co-workers as "brown-noses" and "suck-ups" and become shunned. This is probably true to some extent in every workplace but even more so in the fast food industry where it is considered "cool" to not care and have no ambitions.
Bottom line is that anybody with the right work ethic and attitude can quickly rise to a management position in fast food but they need to have a thick skin and maintain a positive attitude at all times.
Overqualified? By his own words this little princess isn't even qualified to breakdown and pack boxes. Notice how he provides his excuse before revealing his ass-chewing and his closing note. He was law review, so of course he's going to re-invent the simple procedure of breaking down boxes. A grade school drop out could have listened to the simple instruction that I'm sure he was issued and done the job.
Yo, lawgrad, break these empty boxes down and stack them in the dumpster.
Simple one sentence command involving two actions. The assingned task was the simplest one in a retail store, none easier or less demanding.
And lawgrad managed to screw it up. And then wonders why he was slowed talked through the simple procedure again.
Oh, and Mr Overqualified-I-was-on-law-review attended the bottom tier of the fifty top law schools, otherwise he would have been sure to tell us that it was top ten, top twenty and so on.
Kinda sounds like that Obama fellow, (top ten law school, law review) that Val Jarrett and Chris Matthews tell us is overqualified for his job.
The sadder parts involve managers talking to him like he's an idiot. From the blog:
The other day I was in the stock room alone unpacking inventory and I was throwing cardboard boxes into this big dumpster. I wasn't breaking them down because I was going to wait until I was done and then break them all down at the end. A manager came in and f---ing chewed my ass out telling me to never throw boxes in there without breaking them down first. She actually explained to me very slowly that the purpose of breaking down the boxes was so we could fit more boxes in. I was on law review.
I'm still trying to figure out what kind of store hires men to sell cologne. Haven't seen one yet.
If you mean tax breaks for all by reducing the burden of government, then I'm for that. If, instead, you mean taxing employers who are providing jobs in order to give the money to employers whose businesses can't compete in the world market, then you would only be making the successful employers less successful. Not a good idea.
I identify more with the Indian engineer who recently got his first apartment, a studio, and a small, fuel efficient car than with a whole lot of Americans who expect their sociology degrees to earn them a comfortable living and an early retirement.
of course the first. encourage hiring and better pay. that don’t jibe with the governments goal of having as many people dependent upon it as possible.
He has a horrible attitude toward the firm that let him intern, in addition to the bad attitude toward those paying him to work.
If he’s referring to clients as cuss-words, no wonder he can’t get a better job. And if he’s badmouthing the people nice enough to hire him and pay him, he’ll probably lose his retail job, too.
Not clear to me whether this is a deliberate farce on his part. If it is, maybe the folks climbing all over him should take chill pills.
It sure sounds like not-very-serious farce to me. My guess is that he’s writing what he hopes will be salable entertainment. And thus, being rather diligently capitalist.
On the Q&A section on his blog, one question asks how much he blames the economic policies of Obama for his not being able to get a job. He answers ‘0%’. Long road ahead to fix him.
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