Re: Greenspan says Skills are KILLING us

From: Johnny 5 (johnny5_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/25/04 

Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:59:40 GMT

Dave Head <rally2xs@att.net> wrote in
news:o8d7g0tg4mf3f2vl7ikcqi1jm8ookua8i1@4ax.com:

> Maybe when I get high speed access. Right now, I'm living in the

www.direcway.com - satellite internet, I have used this, works great and
superfast and only 50 bucks a month. Don't need a Cable, we are living in
the wireless Age.

> 3rd-world area of the country known as King George, Va. where the
> power goes off at the drop of a hat,

You can get solar arrays and battery backups and generators - I live in
Florida, Lightning capitol of the world, power going out all the time, go
to www.ebay.com and do a search for APC backup - you can get hours of
backup for mere dollars. I did. Power went out last week for 4 hours, I
didn't go down.

 stores that are open 24 hrs in
> the rest of the country are not here, and there is currently no high
> speed access. The cable company is saying "by the end of the year",
> but we'll see...

*** the cable company, in my old city I had direcway and high speed
access 2 years before all those idiots waiting on the cable company - be
a FREE man, don't wait on them, buy direcway - then if you want to switch
later you can.

>> I can
>>see his point - capital one just laid off 1100 people in Tampa,
>
> What sort of job do you suppose they're going to be able to get now?

I do free volunteer work at the library sometimes, we need lots of
volunteers.

>>http://www.capitalone.com/indexn.shtml
>
> This deserves a boycott, BTW.

Capitol one is not in my wallet, I don't own CREDIT cards, I only have a
SECURED card that I got from www.bankrate.com, *** identity thieves
getting me into tens of thousands of credit debt because MR INTERNET
POLICE MAN couldn't outmanuever the Virtual Kaiser Soze. I had 2 friends
do a bankruptcy already because of that bull***.

>>> The highly skilled (computer scientist, engineer, etc.) are going
>>> down!
>>
>>The supervisor at my old position in IBM got a payraise after 7800
>>people were laid off.
>
> What sort of job do you supposed they're going to be able to get now?

Some of them got a job delivering pizza, some of them got on with merck
and MCI, some went back to school and got new degrees and new training,
some used the opportunity to hang out and take it easy for awhile like I
did and didn't WORK at all.

>>BWAHAHA! It beats picking tobacco in the fields in the hot sun
>>doesn't it?
>
> If you are starving, and you can _not_ get the $100K per year sysadmin
> job, but you _can_ get the $6K per year tobacco picking job, and
> _eat_, the real tobacco picking job beats the $100K sysadmin job that
> is built out of unobtanium.

www.monster.com - there are lots of jobs paying more than 6K per year,
you are being silly.

> Yep - rich get richer, poor get poorer. That is evil, BTW.

I lost my job, and I lost my income level, but I feel I got RICHER than I
was 10 years ago when I had work and more income, no internet, no free
movies and dvd's at the library back then, JOBS do not define WEALTH for
me - you want to do busywork, go do like my friend Jack used too - he
would stack empty boxes on one side of the room, and when he got through
he would go stack them on the other side - I said Jack why dont you go
watch a movie with me of go hang out at the beach and have a BBQ or come
to the library and read Socrates and he said NO - MUST WORK. Fucking
Fool - he died a few months later, heart attack - he should have stopped
working so hard stacking empty boxes.

>>Child slave labor in sweatshops is cheap - robots cheaper still.
>
> We really need to do something about that child labor thing - we
> should have laws that formally boycott _all_ goods produced with child
> labor - whether that is here or in some 3rd world country.

I agree, change is coming though, maybe we can get our representatives to
pass these laws.

> And Mom and Pop could retrain for some better job. Now that avenue is
> closing, with _all_ the better jobs under attack by people from
> elsewhere that will do them for half price or less.

There is more to life than work, go watch THE SHINING - if he could have
just took it easy and not been such a workaholic maybe he would have
lived longer, I tried to get my friend Jack to go watch that movie with
me, he had to stack empty boxes - MUST WORK.

>> Go ahead and
>>> invest thousands of dollars in becoming a hi-tech worker,
>>
>>Why invest thousands, www.slashdot.org is free, the library is free,
>>the internet is free, free learning, why PAY for what you can get for
>>FREE?
>
> WWW.SLASHDOT,ORG is an on-line newspaper, not a university.

Right, but they keep up with lots of new trends and always have links to
places to LEARN the new trends and get educated.

> Universities still cost a lot of money, and will continue to do so,
> only probably more than before.

I know too many people that make money without a university education
that LEARNED from the internet FOR FREE and are self taught.

> No on-line education is going to 1) be accepted 2) be complete.

I disagree, there is a guy that reads about python programming, then
there is a guy that takes a class on python programming, then there is a
geek who DOES pything programming and never steps foot into a UNI and
blows away the first 2, I know which ones employers hire.

  You
> have to have a university set your curriculum for you - you don't know
> enough about what you _should_ learn in order to get the full-pull
> education you should have.

Read slashdot, keep up with trends, you don't need a university for that,
some of my old CS professors understood fortran, that was it, I went to
UNI to learn C and Java and they said what's Java? BWAHAHA! I brought
my bluetooth MP3 Player to one of them and showed them how I can be
listening to my mp3 player, my bluetooth phone in my bookbag takes the
call, I dont have to get the phone out - just talk through the MP3 player
and put the song on hold - this freaked out the professor - their
DEPENDANCE on the university is holding them back.

  You probably will think you don't need
> history - but you do.

I can read history all over the internet. www.aesopfables.com - written
about 2500 years ago I think - but so few college peers had ever read
them - they don't even know the difference between a fable and a parable.

  You probably wouldn't take a language course -
> but you should.

I took french, but doubt I will use it, I don't like what the french are
doing. I should have taken Spanish, many more mexicans here than
frenchmen. Would not have taken a foreign language if it was not
REQUIRED, english has worked fine for my life.

  Etc. You have to get a real degree to get accepted
> into a job that requires one

But there are many jobs that want EXPERIENCED workers, not paper without
experience - www.monster.com. Go here
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechgoodwillhunting.
html and read or play the audio file - Good Will Hunting.

 - except that there will be no such jobs
> for Americans in a decade or 2. They'll all be occupied by foreign
> workers.

Innovation is key, if you don't innovate - go sit down at the library and
read some books and let the LEADERS take the reigns - stop holding back
progress.

>>Start doing jobs that can't be exported, pulling tobacco requires a
>>physical presence.
>
> Yep - that's what _I'm_ saying - super rich and super poor. I know
> I'm not going to land on the super-rich side,

But you are, 20 years ago the super rich don't have what the super poor
do today, 20 years from now even super poor, you will have what the super
rich dont have today if you let INNOVATION and PROGRESS work thier magic.

 or wouldn't (except I'm
> going to retire from an unexportable job, not open to foreigners
> coming here (defense), in about 5 - 8 years, the money will be
> adequate, and the next generation is going to have to deal with the
> joblessness and resulting poverty.)

They are going to have luxuries you can only dream about right now.
Genetic drugs, genetic modifications, virtual entertainment, space
travel, the future is getting better all the time. You may even luck up
and get FREE DSL at your local library soon - why not go ask your library
if they can swing the budget for a DIRECWAY satellite so you can surf for
FREE at HIGH SPEED? I can't wait to take a trip on the FREEDOM ship, or
the new casino ship that just came to tampa. We just got a new stadium
too.

> BTW, the jobs that can't be exported will have foreigners _coming
> here_ to do those too, if they pay well.

If they can do those JOBS great, you only make money if you provide a
useful product or service.

  The only jobs likely to be
> protected is ones you own yourself.

Ownership is a bad concept.

 A married couple, both IT
> workers, got laid off about the same time, used their savings to buy a
> lunch-counter in the New York subway system, and operate that. No
> foriegn workers are going to be able to attack that successfully,

I eat sweet potatoes grown outside in my back yard - they won't get my
money.

 but
> had they not already had the money to do that, they'd simply be
> unemployed now, or maybe picking tobacco.

What is so bad about unemployment? I like watching free movies and
playing video games and programming free software for you and the other 6
billion on the planet to use instead of being like my friend Jack that
just stacked boxes to make busy work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/international/europe/25oslo.html?
pagewanted=all&position=

Norway Looks for Ways to Keep Its Workers on the Job
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

OSLO - Before the oil boom, when Norway was mostly poor and largely
isolated, the country survived on its hard work and self-reliance, two
stalwart Scandinavian virtues.

Now, with the country still bulging from three decades of oil money,
Norway is discovering that sudden wealth does not come without
complications: The country's bedrock work ethic is caving in. Like the
overindulged children of newly minted millionaires, Norwegians now stay
home from work at a rate that is the highest in Europe, outdoing even the
former titleholder, Sweden.

'We have become a nation of whiners,' said Finn Bergesen Jr., director
general of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry, Norway's
largest business trade organization. 'Everything is wrong, yet we are
living in the best country in the world. People complain and complain -
because we have everything.'

On an average day, about 25 percent of Norway's workers are absent from
work, either because they have called in sick, are undergoing
rehabilitation or are on long-term disability. The rate is especially
high among government employees, who account for half the work force.

The average amount of time people were absent from work in Norway in
2002, not including vacations, was 4.8 weeks. Sweden, its closest
competitor, totaled 4.2 weeks, while Italy came in at 1.8 weeks and
Portugal at 1.5 weeks, according to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development.

Throw in vacation time (five weeks for most people), national paid
holidays (11 per year) and weekends, and Norwegians take off nearly half
the calendar year, about 170 days, a figure that does not include time
off for disability and rehabilitation, according to Bergens Tidende, the
newspaper that made the calculations. Long-term disability leave, up 20
percent since 1990, is growing at an even faster rate than sick leave.

There are few penalties for chronic absenteeism. Most people who take
sick leave receive 100 percent of their pay for a year, though the level
dips to 60 percent in the second year under a job rehabilitation program.
Few employees get fired, but, if they do, unemployment benefits are
generous.

The most common complaints - other than colds and flu - are skeletal and
muscle problems, including repetitive stress injuries.

Paradoxically, when they are at work, Norwegians are highly productive;
the country's economy was ranked by the World Economic Forum as the ninth
most competitive in 2003, ahead of Japan, Britain and Canada.

But getting them to work consistently is proving difficult.

'Twenty to 25 percent of the potential work force are not at work,' said
Arild Sundberg, director general of the National Insurance
Administration, which disburses the benefits. 'That is a huge sum.'

It is also a sum that costs the government dearly in benefits: $12.3
billion a year for 2003.

Such levels of absenteeism have started a national debate about how to
tackle the problem and what is causing it. The government set up a
voluntary three-way agreement with employers and unions to decrease the
rate in 2001, but to the embarrassment of all involved it was widely
ignored and the problem grew worse.

>>The very very poor of today live better than the super rich of 20
>>years ago - I will accept that trade as long as my life keeps getting
>>better and better. Let Bill gates have 200 billion and me have 2
>>dollars if that is what it takes for growth and progress and
>>technology.
>
> The very, very poor of today have the same problems they've always had
> - eating, staying warm in the winter, etc.

There is food at practically every homeless shelter and church in this
country, you are wrong, hunger is a CHOICE in the USA.

 The super-rich of 20 years
> ago were driving Ferrarris, boating with yachts, etc. This disparity
> is just going to get worse.

They didn't have cell phones back then, internet, sci.econ, cspan, you
are wrong, its getting better for all of us, poor included.

 There's going to be _tons_ more people on
> the "not enough to eat" side of thing, and even fewer "super-rich"
> people.

Fantasy, hunger is a choice, I stopped at homeless shelters all over this
country 2 months ago to see what each city provided - Arizona was
tightening up SOME on FREE services like free bus trips and tickets for
bumbs, but they still gave me free food at several churches and the
foodbank and several homeless shelters. Utah was my favorite, that is a
nice place to be a bumb, those mormons sure took care of me. Thier
LIBRARY - it was AMAZING. http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/index.jsp

> The free education won't do you any good since the jobs that require
> it will be filled by foreigners working at former poverty wages.

I made ZERO last year, spent a lot of time at the beach looking at the
bikinis, hanging out at the mall, going to the free services all over my
city, why do you want to make busywork Jack? All work and no play and
jack go crazy.

  By
> then, the poverty wages will be lower, since stuff really _will_ be
> cheaper because of these cheap workers, but not cheap enough to make
> life good for Americans with _no_ income.

I made NO INCOME last year, read lots of free books at the library, got
on the FREE internet a lot and watched Comedy Clips - SNL, MADTV,
SOUTHPARK, watched free MOVIES, went to free concerts and community get
togethers almost every weekend, FREE, and had TIME to do it, busy work is
for idiots that deserve the heart attack coming to them.

>>go watch some FREE movies at the library,
>
> I don't care to watch movies in a library.

THank goodness, if people like you caught on I wouldn't have all the
titles available like I do now, you might check them out.

 I watch them in the
> theater, where you can make noise commsurate with a machine gun's
> chatter or a building falling down in the wake of a volcanic
> eruption...

They have a dollar theater here, 1 dollar isn't that bad, but I like
FREE.

>>- take it easy citizen - put your feet up and smell the roses.
>
> Still gotta eat, and that won't be easy.

www.ebay.com - MRE - free library books about GARDENING, I grow sweet
potatoes, go to the food bank or the mall during lunchtime, lots of
people dont eat half thier meal - there is PLENTY for you citizen.

 Glad I lived in the best
> timeframe possible, since the "before" (WW II timeframe) was much more
> difficult, and the "after" (year 2010+, or so) will also be much more
> difficult.

Your timeframe sucked, I would have committed suicide if I had to live in
that ***, no cell phone, no internet, no Jon Stewart, no Futurama, how
depressing :(

>>I don't have to WORK to go see a free movie at the library - why do
>>you?
>
> 'Cuz I want to take a $1000 scuba vacation to the Caribbean, something
> I can easily afford now, but which will be beyond reach for 95% of the
> American population once this outsourcing and "guest worker" thing is
> deployed fully.

My friend is a bumb in keywest, he goes scuba diving all the time, FOR
FREE. He said the FREE lobster he catches is mighty tasty down there in
KEY WEST. BUt I know your type, you would rather pay that foriegn worker
in red lobster 50 dollars a plate so you dont have to get off your fat
ass rather than go catch them for FREE yourself.

> And I want to be able to afford to drive cross-country and visit
> America's geologic and historic attractions.

I took greyhound 2 months ago and saw so MANY places - 99 bucks, someone
else drove, I didn't have to maintain the vehicle, I got to sleep or read
a book or listen at my radio mp3 player, I went through shreveport, el
paso, alberquerque, silverton CO - BEAUTIFUL place, salt lake city utah,
Wallace Idaho, seattle washington, minneappolis, chicago, Fargo,
nashville, lots of places - for 99 bucks - how much is it gonna cost you?

You are a wasteful ignorant citizen, you sit and bitch that you don't
have broadband but you do, people like you make it bad on the rest of us.

 I want to be able to
> afford a new computer every few years.

They have gotten cheaper everytime I went to buy one - www.ebay.com has
computers that are only a few months old that you can get for 50 bucks -
are you that broke? I make less than you and live 3 times as good because
I am not a whiner and you are, pathetic.

  I want to be able to do
> basically what I'm able to do now. I _probably_ will always be able
> to do that, 'cuz of the pension,

I am doing MORE than you without a pension, you are a whiner, get off
your fat ass and get that direcway installed at your house and get the
local library to install one too, go check out www.greyhound.com for
CHEAP 99 dollar fares as long as you buy 7 days in advance.

 and 'cuz stuff really is getting
> cheaper 'cuz of those "work for peanuts" 3rd worlders, but those that
> live 10 - 20 years from now, and are still working for a living,
> probably won't be able to.

I don't agree.

 Things for the vast majority of America
> are going to get _worse_, a _lot_ worse.

You either see the glass half empty or half full, you are like Roy L, you
suffer from the progress paradox, you remind me of the spoiled bitches in
my old city who had EASY STREET but all she could do was BITCH,

She was too beautiful for words, but not for arguements - HAHA!

The Progress Paradox : How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679463038/qid=1090781721/sr=ka-
1/ref=pd_ka_1/103-3834341-1481442

http://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheHartandtheHunter

 The Hart and the Hunter

  The Hart was once drinking from a pool and admiring the noble
figure he made there. "Ah," said he, "where can you see such
noble horns as these, with such antlers! I wish I had legs more
worthy to bear such a noble crown; it is a pity they are so slim
and slight." At that moment a Hunter approached and sent an arrow
whistling after him. Away bounded the Hart, and soon, by the aid
of his nimble legs, was nearly out of sight of the Hunter; but not
noticing where he was going, he passed under some trees with
branches growing low down in which his antlers were caught, so
that the Hunter had time to come up. "Alas! alas!" cried the
Hart:

        "We often despise what is most useful to us." 

-- 
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look 
respectable. -- John Kenneth Galbraith