Re: DOLLAR COLLAPSE NOW IMMINENT

> > So now lets change the view for a moment and YOU have a business and
> > you are the employer.  Should YOU be forced to hire without the
> > ability to determine who and without having a choice of how much to
> > pay?  Is every employer a Robber-Baron
>
> Examples include: all the companies that did mass layoffs to offshore
> their jobs, all the companies that did employee "replacement" projects
> (local guy trains cheap immigrants), all of the companies that did
> arbitrary wage reductions (this happened in the 1870s in the USA and
> caused mass strikes...its in the history books). And, all the
> companies that do bad things to employees not because they are having
> difficulties but to increase an already adequate net profit bottom
> line (one WSJ article listed many companies that had good profit
> re****ts but the executives were only interested in more and so
> initiated draconian further pressures on employees).
>

Hey, I was working at one of those cor****ations that did mass layoffs
and outsourced a substantial amount of work.  I didn't like it one bit
and still don't, but I can also understand the business decisions that
made it almost impossible for the company to do anything else.  They
are in competition on a global basis and in order to survive, they
must remain competitive on a global basis.  I am not so naive as to
believe that my job, no matter how good I might be at it, can't be
done by someone else far cheaper.  It might take two or three Indians
to do it but when they earn less than 10% of what I earned, it still
remains a huge bargain for the cor****ation.

> No, not every cor****ation is a robber-baron, but a lot of them are,
> and a lot of them do as much bad as they do good and it would have to
> be a separate discussion to go into this tangent in detail.
>
> and if so what would you do if
>
> > there were no employers?
>
> We'd be in the hunter-gatherer days.
>
>
We really still are, we are just hunting a different game.  The
problem is that the vast majority of people would starve to death if
we returned to the "hunter-gatherer" days of the past.

>
> deleted some
>
> > > > What you describe is text book theory, that is the way it should
> > > > work, but that is if everyone competes on a level playing field.
> > > > I am concerned that the many will want to deregulate to the
> > > > point that the US regulations are like Mexico's. in order to help
> > > > the economy. People will justify children working because 3
> > > > incomes is better than 2. The downside is an eroded standard
> > > > of living.
>
> > The standard of living that you desire is your choice but that choice
> > brings requirements.  If your standard requires a 3500sf house instead
> > of a 1800sf house it might also require two incomes.  Could you live
> > and be comfortable in the smaller house?  Probably but the reality is
> > that you don't want to and thus a requirement for two incomes.  Your
> > choice.
>
> Too much of that choice is controlled NOT by you but by the income
> associated with your resources and not that many people can control
> that. The ones that can are the ones in the Forbes "400 richest
> Americans" lists.
>

That just simply isn't true, none of it.  We all have choices but few
of us really take advantage of those choices.  It is far easier for
most to head to the local ice house for a cold beer than to attend
cl***** at the local Jr. College.

>
>
> > You want to blame it all on the cor****ations which are nothing more
> > than people just like you who are trying to do the best they can for
> > themselves.  Don't get me wrong, I can't defend the stupid decisions
> > made by the CEO's and directors of many of our cor****ations but in my
> > 60 years I have also seen the demise of many of those same
> > cor****ations.  They exist in a very competitive world where one
> > mistake can end their existance.
>
> Yeah, but here is my gripe: the executives get a better "safety net"
> and have a better deal in general than the underlings and the
> underlings have zero control over anything. Cor****ations are,
> basically, dictator****ps with a guy basically no different than
> _kings_ or emperors in earlier history except that the wars are
> economic rather than military.
>

I agree with you completely on the golden parachute bull **** but that
is really making a super issue out of the tip of the tip of the
iceburg.  The problems in all cor****ate environments isn't just with
the top but from every level top to bottom.  The CEO's are simply the
most visible element but many of the decisions that most effect the
rank and file workers are made at various levels throughout the
organization often without the knowledge of the CEO's.    The decision
to layoff and outsource where I was working was made by a mid-level
manager.

>
>
> deleted some b/c no new material
>
>
> > Got laid off 5 years ago as a result of the huge movement of IT jobs
> > offshore and the cutbacks following Y2K.  Whined about it for a while
> > but realized that is was a total waste of time and found a new field.
> > Took an initial cut in income but it has been short term and I have
> > recovered.
>
> Good for you, congratulations. But, you might consider telling the
> rest of the guys here more about what you're doing and give some
> tips.
>

Took a tem****ary position as a Project Manager that led to a position
as Senior Billing Analyst.  Both were total departures from my Lead
Systems Designer position that I had been working for years.  Found
that the IT field had totally collapsed following the Y2K and dot.com
bust.  I could complain that I ran into a lot of age discrimination as
well but the reality was that I had ridden my experience for several
years instead of staying on top of current trends.

The worst part of being out of work in your late 50's or early 60's is
that your network of associates is mostly retired or worse, dead.  The
second worst part is that you will find yourself interviewing with
people half your age who don't want to hire you because they are
insecure having someone older and more experienced working for them.
My only choice was to fully exploit my network of former clients and
associates with an open attitude and promote my business experience as
well as my IT experience.  I got the position because I was willing to
use my experience, to learn and most im****tant, I was willing to take
responsibility.

>  Oh yes, I am not some twenty-something grad from Harvard
>
> > but a non-degreed 61 year old fart.
>
> I would say you were lucky. Out of dozens of stories like yours, most
> of the guys are doing worse than before. Me, I'm 64 and retired and my
> resources cover my expenses.
>

Hell, during the time I was out of work I spent three months working
for $11 per hour shoveling sand in the heat and humidity of Houston to
set the floor in a giant oil storage facility.  When not doing that, I
was beating the bushes for something else and taking SAP Training.
(Talk about a waste)  There was no luck involved, just plain hard
work.

> And, some of those 20-somethings from Harvard are having a hard time,
> too.
>
Too many of them think that the only thing they had to do was get that
degree and everyone would just automatically beat a path to their
door.  Its not what you have but what you do with it.

> > > And, I'm sorry, but re-training is not the answer because we're back
> > > to the applicant-to-job ratio. It does no good to have ten guys
> > > fighting for one job; nine guys are going to go hungry.
>
> > That is a totally pathetic view.  I almost fell into the same mindset
> > but that is the view of a loser who wants to blame everyone else for
> > their own failures.
>
> You really have no answer, do you, for the fact that when the number
> of applicants exceed the number of jobs that there will be real losers
> and not because they want to be losers. And, this is why we are seeing
> a lot of programmer/IT guys in the USA ending up bagging groceries at
> Walmart for $8/hour.
>
If those programmer/IT guys were really smart enough to be good at
their jobs, they have the same smarts to learn something new.  We are
like the blacksmiths of a hundred years ago, the jobs moved on and we
didn't.  Instead we believed all the hype that our profession would
continue to grow and that we were all safe.

> And, that is also an elitist view. You look at the vast majority of
> people anywhere in the world who are born in poverty and ignorance and
> all of the demographic studies will show that your _chances_ of
> getting out of that are near zero, or very low. Most of the kids that
> really do have a _chance_ are the ones coming out of typically middle
> class backgrounds or above.
>

I am not talking about those people, they don't have the options that
we have and that is clear.  What is also clear is that they are
starting to climb the ecnomic ladder and as they do, they are
threatening those of us who chose to climb up a few rungs on the
ladder and then rest for the remainder of our life.

>  Most of us would still be crawling on our hands
>
> > and knees if we had taken the same attitude when learning to walk.
>
> The fact of the matter is that out of a clutch of young birds just out
> of the egg, a few will fall out of the nest before they learn to fly,
> and a few of those will fall into the mouths of predators waiting on
> the ground for them with their mouths open.
>
If not for that, the predators would starve.  Its called natural
selection.

> > Why is it that as adults we suddenly believe that we can no longer
> > learn something new?
>
> It takes more than ability to learn something new to actually learn
> something new.-

You are right about that, it takes a willing attitude as well.  The
real problem is that most of us really don't want to be forced to
learn something new.