Re: Greenspan says Skills are KILLING us

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Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 01:52:32 GMT

On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:59:40 GMT, Johnny 5 <johnny5@yahoo.com> wrote:

>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.

Looked into that. The upload is even _slower_ than dialup. Part of the reason
I want it is to upload my digital pictures, either to web-pages or e-mail to
friends with high-speed access.

>
>> 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.

These things would be on their knees the 1st time my 6 KW electric water heater
kicked in... probably explode...

>>> 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.

Not that kind of job - a job with an income. Its all about income. "Free" and
"Volunteer" is a non-starter...

>
>>>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***.

My card is insured. Some internet thieves _did_ get ahold of my number last
year. Didn't cost me a thing.

>>>> 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,

What a poor sort of outcome.

>some of them got on with merck
>and MCI,

Until _that bunch_ gets their H1B and outsourcing program going...

>some went back to school and got new degrees and new training,

For what? What could they get that won't eventually be taken over by
foreigners working for 1/2 the fair wages, or less?

>some used the opportunity to hang out and take it easy for awhile like I
>did and didn't WORK at all.

I like the idea of no work, but only if my income doesn't go down... <G>

>
>>>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.

I know. There would be _something_ that would be available for more than $6K a
year. But as for monster.com, just try it. There are hundreds of thousands of
_American_ workers in my field that are out of work _because_ they are American
and expect a salary commensurate with the cost of the education they paid for.
Plus, I'm over 50 - almost 60. There _is_ rampant age discrimination in IT.
I probably couldn't finish a retraining program to some other field that would
pay as much as I get now, before it would be time for me to retire anyway.

>> 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.

Had a friend work himself to death with _real_ work, the kind you get paid for,
earlier this year. He was pretty high-level, tho - even a member of a
Presidential council of some sort - reading improvement in schools, I think it
was. But he was working on a Sunday in a motel room in Florida when he just
keeled over with a heart attack.

There's no danger of me working that hard. I work hard enough to make the
money I get, and don't much seek more, as it would complicate my life too much.
I've always avoided management, for instance, as I believe it would be capable
of generating the sort of worry that would prove fatal, like my friend earlier
this year. Need to keep the job reigned in to a 9 to 5 thing, walk away from
it then, don't be worrying about it all the time. I'd worry about it all the
time if I were a manager. No way... just be an Indian. I'm a fairly decent
Indian, tho... <G>

>>>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.

The pendulum will swing back to the democrat side of things eventually - that's
what it'll take to get something like that done. Republicans will never do it.
I vote republican, just because of the gun issue, but agree with a lot of what
the democrats believe in, too. If the damn dems weren't out to collect up all
the guns every time we turn around... but they are.

>> 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.

This is the perfect example. Yeah, the guy can program in Python.

But, does he know anything at all about working in a team, gathering
requirements, _not missing_ any requirements, keeping track of them with
respect to the code with a tracability matrix, how to institute a development
process that will get everyone working together, etc, etc. Very little is done
by 1 person working alone - the significant software is done by teams, usually
large teams. Windows 2000 was a 6000-member team, working together, making a
new build of the software _every day_ for continuous integration and smoke
test. Simply programming Python, or any other language, and 25 cents will get
you a cup of coffee in the company cafeteria. You need more, and you ain't
gonna get it via self study unless you're really, really exceptional.

>
> You probably wouldn't take a language course -
>> but you should.
>
>Would not have taken a foreign language if it was not
>REQUIRED, english has worked fine for my life.

See!!!
>
> 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.

Just try and get one...

>>>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,

Now you're being silly...

>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.

The super poor 20, 200, 2000 years from now will still have the same problems
they had 20, 200, and 2000 years ago - food, shelter, etc. There's just gonna
be a _lot_ more of 'em, proportionally, than there has been for a really long
time, in the near future if the outsourcing / H1B thing is allowed to go
unchecked.

> 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.

No, they're not. You're being silly.

>Genetic drugs, genetic modifications, virtual entertainment, space
>travel, the future is getting better all the time.

Those will only be for people who can pay a lot of money for them.

>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.

I don't want to _go_ _anywhere_ to use the internet. I'm going to do it from
right here... Besides, the library is closed now, has been all day, and I want
to be able to do this anytime of the day or night. Libraries are non-starters.
They're just storage anyway - what they offer is supposed to be able to be used
at home - the books, tapes, CDs. Hanging around a library to use the internet
is poverty in itself - having to _go somewhere_ to do something like that is a
non-starter...

> The only jobs likely to be
>> protected is ones you own yourself.
>
>Ownership is a bad concept.

Not if you're the owner...

> 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.

If you want to do that sort of work, go right ahead. I want to do computer
work, get money that way, pay it for the damn sweet potato at the grocery, and
eat it at home, later. I don't want to be spending my time with plows and
fertilizer and etc... If I did, I'd probably turn Amish...

> 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?

You tend to have no income, which leads to getting thrown out of your apartment
for non-payment of rent, tends to make you hungry a lot from inability to buy
food, gets you to a place where you don't have health insurance so you die from
an infection you had to wait too long to get treated at someone else's expense,
etc. etc. I really, really hate unemployment - actually hate the lack of
income, but practically its the same thing.

>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.

Have fun. I don't like watching free movies unless they're in a free theater
with free popcorn and free coke. Ain't happenin' - I know that. Ain't
watchin' em at the library, don't even watch them at home - just at the
Theater, except for the really dumb-looking ones. Otherwise, I see mostly
everything (except Cat Woman looks too dumb for words - will miss that...)

Norway snipped - don't really care about Norway's problems...
>
>>>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.

No, there is nowhere near enough to go around.

> 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.

The poor _still_ don't have the Ferrari's and yachts. Won't, either. The rich
had mobile phones, all right, they just weren't cell phones.

> 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

Whatever - you want to live off someone else's efforts, you are indeed a bum.
I would not, and will not be a bum unless there is absolutely no other choice.
Fighting the H1Bs and outsourcing nonsense is one of the ways I attempt to
avoid becoming a bum.

>> 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.

Well, I don't know what you're up to, really. The only honorable way to make
zero money and live that way is if you've saved up a ton all by yourself, or
are accepting it from someone that is willing to give it. That, BTW, doesn't
include any source paid from taxes, nor any limited resources meant for people
that are incapable of making enough money for their sustinance. There's no
such thing a a free lunch. Someone always has to make an effort to make lunch
happen. Most rightly, the person doing the consuming is the person that should
be doing the effort.

> 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.

I'll live like that after I retire - except for accepting free food meant for
people that _can't_ provide for themselves.

> 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 :(

The 60's were a gas, tho...

>>>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.

If you _have_ to fish for it, hunt for it, work the soil for it, it isn't free.
That's known as WORK. Its just a different kind of work (the kind I don't want
to do...) I want to work with tech stuff, get paid for it, and buy the sort of
stuff that I would otherwise find myself doing the sort of work I don't enjoy
in order to get it.

>> 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?

I don't take public transport often. I don't want to share my space. I want
full control of my space - eat, drink, play the radio, and do it someplace that
no one else has a thing to say about it. Wouldn't ride a bus cross-country on
a bet.

>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.

There's no broadband upload available - my pics are up to about 10 Mb each -
the camera is about 5.5 Mpixels. Even the highly-compressed shots are 1/2 to 1
Mb - send 27 of those somewhere, its gonna take a while.

> 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.

This computer is a year and a half old, has 2 Ghz, 2GB RAM, 240 GB of disk, is
_mine_ and has all _my stuff_ stored on it. Nobody else gets to look at my
stuff, and I can use it whenever I want to, including 4 AM when the library
isn't open.

Hey, you _don't_ live 3 times as good. I fell earlier this year, and my HEALTH
INSURANCE paid for the emergency room visit, 100%. It didn't come out of any
taxpayer's pocket. Also, I got a 4-year case of chronic tendonitis fixed with
therapy, also this year, again with the health insurance, not at gov. expense.
If you're independently wealthy, I expect you can get yourself fixed up too,
without it costing the taxpayers anything. If you're using tax money for that,
or using money meant for needy people when you could pay your own way if you
just had an income, then, well, ur a leech.

> 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.

Considered this, like I said. In addition to the upload speed problem, there's
a limit on the download volume and rate. You can't hog the satellite. Plus, I
have 4 HUGE oak trees in my front yard, which is to the south, so I would
likely have to cut them down to see the bird. Don't wanna.

Dave Head

• Previous message: Rob Duncan: "Re: Population and longevity"
• In reply to: Johnny 5: "Re: Greenspan says Skills are KILLING us"
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