Le Jacquelope
Loves Spam
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2003
- Posts
- 76,445
Bush was right when he said that. But he's pursuing it all the wrong frickin way.
The United States needs a stronger, more vibrant middle class. With the ranks of the poor and ultra rich growing, and the middle class shrinking, we have fewer opportunities for people to cross the gap.
America is in deep shit when it falls into the game where you have to be the very best of the best in order to compete in the modern economy. There is only room for one in the 'best' category.
On my job, that means "Joe Bob", the network guy with 37 years of computer experience (2 years longer than I've been alive), is the best, and he's the senior tech officer. By all rights at any other company he'd have all the work. Hell, at other companies, they do overwork their employees, giving them the work of 3 or more people. That leads to cutting corners to save time, and thus mistakes. The "winner" isn't much of a winner at all in that case; nor is the company.
We have more billionaires than ever, but also more poor people than in recent history. Ignorant economists - the ones you notice that never mention things like externalities, etc. - think this means America is doing well. But that only means either a) they're hoarding up their money in the form of land; or b) they're investing overseas.
We need fewer billionaires, and more domestic investments in America.
Forget tax cuts, let's bring back those middle class jobs that enabled people to live middle class lifestyles without sinking deep into credit card debt.
Raise the middle class and you raise overall incomes. It's as simple as that.
Raise incomes and you raise consumer spending. It's as simple as that.
Raise consumer spending and you raise tax revenue without raising tax rates. It's as simple as that.
Raise tax revenues and you can:
1) Get newer books for schools, and shrink classroom sizes.
2) Deliver more health care to the poor.
3) Put more money into people's pockets so they can afford health insurance and have fewer deadbeat patients. Which leads to cheaper health care.
4) PAY DOWN THE DEBT!!!
Oh yeah, and with a stronger middle class, there'll be less of a need for welfare services. In the 1990s I tipped a single mom off to a customer support job, she's been through tier-2 support, senior support, programming and coding, and is now a manager at another company. To rip off busybody, Americans can do. I wish to fuck he and other laissez-faire "Rah rah, China!" pot heads would realize that.
So, how do you bring back the middle class jobs?
PROTECT the entry level work. Entry level jobs allow newbies to the gain skills they need to contribute in more efficient ways and also move up to higher level work. There's no reason why a customer service rep can't ramp up to:
a) a system/network admin (at an internet service provider)
b) a software tester (at a software company)
c) a financial services advisor (at Scottrade, for instance)
d) an insurance agent (at an auto insurance company)
Each of those jobs lead to even higher levels of work as well.
Keep those jobs here, and you guarantee a faster growth in America's overall skills base. After all, aren't corporations complaining about the lack of skills in America? On the job experience and training is the fastest way out of that loop.
It's bad enough for the middle class that everyone needs a college degree to get a $16/hour job!!! It's downright shameful and insulting that I have interviewed college degreed people that have been turned down at other places for lack of experience, then hired them only to find they are harder working and more dynamic than the old birds we've had working alongside them.
Oh and about that experience thing... Requiring 10 years' experience in C#? COME ON, employers.
Who came up with that shit?
Don't tell me that protecting American jobs hurts America. Please. Automation is in no way harming the tech industry's job base - programming jobs are growing in number, not shrinking. We need more customer support, network administration, software testing (hello, Microsoft?) and data entry than ever. We need it for America, to say nothing of for the rest of the world. The problem is, we're not looking to Americans to do work for America any more. Protectinig America's job base means more people will have money to participate. People will buy more computers because more people will be paying rent and cutting down their debt. We'll need more ISPs and more ISP workers to serve them. If anything, protecting US jobs will cause a runaway spiral of employment and consumer activity which will lead to more companies expanding domestically.
Factory automation would be a necessity at that point to drive down a lot of wage-pressured prices, but when you're planting former factory workers in call centers (did you know a call center employee makes almost as much as a medical Opthalmology tech here in California? $14 vs $16/hr! and the Op tech went to school for his/her work!!!) and movin' em on up to higher levels of work, does it matter? On the other hand, factory automation coupled with taking the dependent upstream jobs overseas, has left millions of our factory workers with nothing more than minimum wage Wal Mart and McDonald's style jobs - a massive contraction of their overall income. No wonder America's national and consumer debt is swelling!
Dependent upstream jobs is, of course, my definition for industries that bloom only when you make certain things cheaper (typically by offshoring or automation). Sadly, dependent upstream jobs also go overseas nowadays, and that's a recipe for total disaster.
We need more middle class and gateway jobs, and there really is no other way out of America's debt and vast epidemic of social problems without that.
The United States needs a stronger, more vibrant middle class. With the ranks of the poor and ultra rich growing, and the middle class shrinking, we have fewer opportunities for people to cross the gap.
America is in deep shit when it falls into the game where you have to be the very best of the best in order to compete in the modern economy. There is only room for one in the 'best' category.
On my job, that means "Joe Bob", the network guy with 37 years of computer experience (2 years longer than I've been alive), is the best, and he's the senior tech officer. By all rights at any other company he'd have all the work. Hell, at other companies, they do overwork their employees, giving them the work of 3 or more people. That leads to cutting corners to save time, and thus mistakes. The "winner" isn't much of a winner at all in that case; nor is the company.
We have more billionaires than ever, but also more poor people than in recent history. Ignorant economists - the ones you notice that never mention things like externalities, etc. - think this means America is doing well. But that only means either a) they're hoarding up their money in the form of land; or b) they're investing overseas.
We need fewer billionaires, and more domestic investments in America.
Forget tax cuts, let's bring back those middle class jobs that enabled people to live middle class lifestyles without sinking deep into credit card debt.
Raise the middle class and you raise overall incomes. It's as simple as that.
Raise incomes and you raise consumer spending. It's as simple as that.
Raise consumer spending and you raise tax revenue without raising tax rates. It's as simple as that.
Raise tax revenues and you can:
1) Get newer books for schools, and shrink classroom sizes.
2) Deliver more health care to the poor.
3) Put more money into people's pockets so they can afford health insurance and have fewer deadbeat patients. Which leads to cheaper health care.
4) PAY DOWN THE DEBT!!!
Oh yeah, and with a stronger middle class, there'll be less of a need for welfare services. In the 1990s I tipped a single mom off to a customer support job, she's been through tier-2 support, senior support, programming and coding, and is now a manager at another company. To rip off busybody, Americans can do. I wish to fuck he and other laissez-faire "Rah rah, China!" pot heads would realize that.
So, how do you bring back the middle class jobs?
PROTECT the entry level work. Entry level jobs allow newbies to the gain skills they need to contribute in more efficient ways and also move up to higher level work. There's no reason why a customer service rep can't ramp up to:
a) a system/network admin (at an internet service provider)
b) a software tester (at a software company)
c) a financial services advisor (at Scottrade, for instance)
d) an insurance agent (at an auto insurance company)
Each of those jobs lead to even higher levels of work as well.
Keep those jobs here, and you guarantee a faster growth in America's overall skills base. After all, aren't corporations complaining about the lack of skills in America? On the job experience and training is the fastest way out of that loop.
It's bad enough for the middle class that everyone needs a college degree to get a $16/hour job!!! It's downright shameful and insulting that I have interviewed college degreed people that have been turned down at other places for lack of experience, then hired them only to find they are harder working and more dynamic than the old birds we've had working alongside them.
Oh and about that experience thing... Requiring 10 years' experience in C#? COME ON, employers.
Who came up with that shit?Don't tell me that protecting American jobs hurts America. Please. Automation is in no way harming the tech industry's job base - programming jobs are growing in number, not shrinking. We need more customer support, network administration, software testing (hello, Microsoft?) and data entry than ever. We need it for America, to say nothing of for the rest of the world. The problem is, we're not looking to Americans to do work for America any more. Protectinig America's job base means more people will have money to participate. People will buy more computers because more people will be paying rent and cutting down their debt. We'll need more ISPs and more ISP workers to serve them. If anything, protecting US jobs will cause a runaway spiral of employment and consumer activity which will lead to more companies expanding domestically.
Factory automation would be a necessity at that point to drive down a lot of wage-pressured prices, but when you're planting former factory workers in call centers (did you know a call center employee makes almost as much as a medical Opthalmology tech here in California? $14 vs $16/hr! and the Op tech went to school for his/her work!!!) and movin' em on up to higher levels of work, does it matter? On the other hand, factory automation coupled with taking the dependent upstream jobs overseas, has left millions of our factory workers with nothing more than minimum wage Wal Mart and McDonald's style jobs - a massive contraction of their overall income. No wonder America's national and consumer debt is swelling!
Dependent upstream jobs is, of course, my definition for industries that bloom only when you make certain things cheaper (typically by offshoring or automation). Sadly, dependent upstream jobs also go overseas nowadays, and that's a recipe for total disaster.
We need more middle class and gateway jobs, and there really is no other way out of America's debt and vast epidemic of social problems without that.
