So, you lost your job to outsourcing and can't pay your bills

[Le Jacquelope]

and you join one of the thousands of Americans now going into foreclosure or bankruptcy.

Since people like Joe Wadsworth say credit checks for employment are okay... how do these people ever expect to recover from this mess?

It's a pity we don't do the same thing to bankrupt corporations or their leaders.

Perhaps they should start having credit checks as a part of the incorporation status?

 

[rgraham666]

Why do you hate freedom?

 

[sr71plt]

If you'd lost your job to outscourcing and couldn't pay your bills, why would you be on the Internet jabbering about it rather than out looking for another job?

 

[Liar]

It's a pity we don't do the same thing to bankrupt corporations or their leaders.

Leaders, sometimes. Corporations, no.

What you fail to see here is that coporations are not units. A corporation is a group of individuals. Workers, janitors, clerks, managers CEOs et cetera.

If individuals in a corporation fucks things up (most often the leadters, because they have the most opportunikty fo fuck up), we should identify the individuals and slam appropriate punishment on them.

We should not punish the other individuals for the fuckupers' fuckupery. Or do you endorse collective punishment?

 

[cloudy]

Why do you hate freedom?

. .

 

[BlackShanglan]

Why do you hate freedom?

It's a good hobby to have for the times when I'm not busy torturing bunnies and stealing candy from small children.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

If you'd lost your job to outscourcing and couldn't pay your bills, why would you be on the Internet jabbering about it rather than out looking for another job?

Could it be because I'm someone who's NOT in that position, speaking up for those who are?

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Leaders, sometimes. Corporations, no.

What you fail to see here is that coporations are not units. A corporation is a group of individuals. Workers, janitors, clerks, managers CEOs et cetera.

If individuals in a corporation fucks things up (most often the leadters, because they have the most opportunikty fo fuck up), we should identify the individuals and slam appropriate punishment on them.

We should not punish the other individuals for the fuckupers' fuckupery. Or do you endorse collective punishment?

I'll go for punishing the individuals who brought a company down like that. That's more than what happens today.

 

[sr71plt]

Could it be because I'm someone who's NOT in that position, speaking up for those who are?

Could it be that you have too much anger in your life and not enough incentive to do constructive things rather than lash out on Internet boards (especially about things you say aren't happening to you personally)?

Get up out of your chair and go help in a foodbank, or something. You'll live longer, be more content, and acquire a sense of self-worth and meaning.

 

[cloudy]

Could it be that you have too much anger in your life and not enough incentive to do constructive things rather than lash out on Internet boards (especially about things you say aren't happening to you personally)?

Get up out of your chair and go help in a foodbank, or something. You'll live longer, be more content, and acquire a sense of self-worth and meaning.

Have you ever thought that maybe he does, indeed, care? Maybe he wants to make those that have gotten complacent think?

I applaud him for his efforts. Maybe thinking about these situations is uncomfortable for some, but you don't have to read his threads, eh?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

Actually, I somewhat agree with Loving Tongue on this issue.

The government makes it feisable, easy and profitable for corporations to take a citizen's job and outsource it to India, Thailand, Canada, Mexico or some other country with a lower standard of labor. Corporate America naturally takes advantage of this and lays off the American worker for cheap labor overseas. Does this mean that since labor is now 10%, 20% 50% cheaper the retail price reflects the cost savings? No.

And what about the worker? He is faced with few choices: Either bankruptcy, moving out of the country to seek work or settling for one of the fabulous minimum wage jobs that the Shrub Administration claims to have created for out benefit.

So, you have some middle management guy who has had an income of $50 to $60 K per year, now has to settle for about $11,000 per year and maintain his $2000/month mortgage payment, car payments, pay off his average American $8,000 credit card bill, insurance and all the rest? This looks like the only real possibility is bankruptcy.

Then when he/she approaches corporate America looking for better work he loses out to some moronic, inexperienced recent college grad because he has bad credit? Well, sounds good to me.

 

[sr71plt]

Have you ever thought that maybe he does, indeed, care? Maybe he wants to make those that have gotten complacent think?

I applaud him for his efforts. Maybe thinking about these situations is uncomfortable for some, but you don't have to read his threads, eh?

I don't disagree with him on the issue--but we've already had this identical thread run here recently--initiated by him. And it was just a bunch of folks moaning and groaning and not getting anywhere. Just a bunch of moaning and groaning on an Internet board. Just unfocused anger.

 

[Night_Jasmine]

My thoughts on this are - no more credit checks for employment unless you're dealing with a financial institution (banks or whatnot).

However..the best plan is for the government to do the following:

1. Tax breaks and incentives for companies if they keep the jobs INSIDE the country instead of outsourcing.
2. Any company outsourcing must contribute to social funding - Social Security, etc - to cover what is being missed due to 'cutbacks.'
3. Any company outsourcing must try to relocate the workers BEFORE laying them off and show active proof that they attempted this (even if it's calling in favors with other companies) and ensure that the employee being laid off is given compensation for the rest of the calender year.

That might encourage them to keep their doors open here in the US, hmm?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

My thoughts on this are - no more credit checks for employment unless you're dealing with a financial institution (banks or whatnot).

However..the best plan is for the government to do the following:

1. Tax breaks and incentives for companies if they keep the jobs INSIDE the country instead of outsourcing.
2. Any company outsourcing must contribute to social funding - Social Security, etc - to cover what is being missed due to 'cutbacks.'
3. Any company outsourcing must try to relocate the workers BEFORE laying them off and show active proof that they attempted this (even if it's calling in favors with other companies) and ensure that the employee being laid off is given compensation for the rest of the calender year.

That might encourage them to keep their doors open here in the US, hmm?

Agreed that outsourcing gives corporations a leg up while the American worker gets the shaft, however, the problem is not really with corporations, it's with the Federal Government. Taxing corporations in the hope of keeping employees in this country simply won't work. The effect of what you say will simply be an increase in retail prices (Inflation).

The root of the problem is NAFTA and like treaties that allow American companies to outsourse jobs and production then import their own products back into the U.S. market without terrifs.

The affect has been to move this country into the world leader in industrial production to a "service economy" without benefit to the worker. If you went to college and became an Attorney, a Doctor, a CPA or some other "stand alone" professional, you are most likely going to survive for the time being. But the lion's share of the American workforce is in industry. Those people have no other skills and aren't likely to be retrained to survive.

Looking farther into the future, when the lion's share of the work force is working minimum wage jobs in the hospitality and resturaunt industries, will they be able to afford the upper end professionals? Will they be able to afford the rapidly increasing cost of health insurance?

Seeing what is going on now, do you think an 18 year old is going to apply at an auto factory or go to college with expecations of entering the "Professional" levels. I see that happening already. So, when everyone is either working at minimum wage or starving as a professional, we're all fucked.

 

[rgraham666]

I wouldn't blame NAFTA, Jenny. Which was actually never about free trade. It was just called that so the people who backed it could pull the 'Why are you against freedom?' card if NAFTA was questioned. Trade between Canada and the US was 98% free even before NAFTA.

What I blame for this phenomena is something very basic that's happened where the decisions are made. That is the separation of authority and responsibility.

The people who make the decisions have the authority to do so, but they do not believe they are responsible for the results.

It's a phenomena that has occurred frequently in history. No society has ever survived it, that I know of.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

I don't disagree with him on the issue--but we've already had this identical thread run here recently--initiated by him. And it was just a bunch of folks moaning and groaning and not getting anywhere. Just a bunch of moaning and groaning on an Internet board. Just unfocused anger.

Please, show us how you are any different.

I manage a data center and have done a LOT to make things better. I've discredited the need for bullshit like credit checks with very stringent and effective internal security; I've killed TWO attempts at outsourcing our call center work even before I was one of the top 2 managers. We've got rural outsourced reps in Oklahoma and the flyover states. I've got employee morale through the roof and productivity at its peak. My employees like the work and have modern tools and rules that help make them productive instead of holding them back (integrated web based interfaces pulling data directly from Cisco VOIP phones, versus my competitors' clunky assed cut and paste-unfriendly terminal screens, prehistoric wanna-be IP phones that can't pipe data to the computer, and pseudo apps that refuse to persist data and that don't interoperate). We have 10 hour/4 day work week options for everyone who has been here over 6 months. I'm out on a daily basis now, watching lobbyists fight tooth and nail for a permit for vertical parking. We have a school next door that is almost completely constructed for training people in IT. I even get on the phones now and then to see what it's like, and what we might need to make things better.

I can go on forever here, dude.

What have you done?

Don't sit there lecturing me about just moaning and groaning, because you're way off the mark.

And as much moaning and groaning that happens on a daily basis on any given website, you have quite the crusade ahead of you, pardner. I'm responding ONCE to your pitiful, puerile act of singling me out. After this, it ain't worth my time to take your bullshit and hypocrisy seriously.

 

[sr71plt]

Please, show us how you are any different.

I manage a data center and have done a LOT to make things better. I've discredited the need for bullshit like credit checks with very stringent and effective internal security; I've killed TWO attempts at outsourcing our call center work even before I was one of the top 2 managers. We've got rural outsourced reps in Oklahoma and the flyover states. I've got employee morale through the roof and productivity at its peak. My employees like the work and have modern tools and rules that help make them productive instead of holding them back (integrated web based interfaces pulling data directly from Cisco VOIP phones, versus my competitors' clunky assed cut and paste-unfriendly terminal screens, prehistoric wanna-be IP phones that can't pipe data to the computer, and pseudo apps that refuse to persist data and that don't interoperate). We have 10 hour/4 day work week options for everyone who has been here over 6 months. I'm out on a daily basis now, watching lobbyists fight tooth and nail for a permit for vertical parking. We have a school next door that is almost completely constructed for training people in IT. I even get on the phones now and then to see what it's like, and what we might need to make things better.

I can go on forever here, dude.

What have you done?

Don't sit there lecturing me about just moaning and groaning, because you're way off the mark.

And as much moaning and groaning that happens on a daily basis on any given website, you have quite the crusade ahead of you, pardner. I'm responding ONCE to your pitiful, puerile act of singling me out. After this, it ain't worth my time to take your bullshit and hypocrisy seriously.

You, of course, have no idea whatsoever if I speak hypocrisy--because you have absolutely no idea what I do in action rather than sitting at the computer and complaining about it on a sex site forum. (Geez, how irrelevant.)

I know this is pissing in the wind, but, God, this is an Author's Hangout forum, and not only don't you really qualify as a current author on Lit. (nothing credited to you in the last four years), but you can't even offer any discussion of any relevance to Lit. authoring on this particular forum. And what you do write about is just a lot of hate about situations that can only be yammered about by other angry people wasting their time/effort in jabbering here and that have nothing to do with a sex story site.

I know it isn't going to change, but God, this crap belongs on some other thread if at all (the General Board, probably). Go write some stories to post, man, you haven't contributed anything but irrelevant angry jabber here for four years. But, yes, I know that's just pissing in the wind.

You've diatribed and now I have too. So, we're even.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

You, of course, have no idea whatsoever if I speak hypocrisy--because you have absolutely no idea what I do in action rather than sitting at the computer and complaining about it on a sex site forum. (Geez, how irrelevant.)

Funny that you say this, yet you went off on me based on an equally high pile of assumptions.

I know this is pissing in the wind, but, God, this is an Author's Hangout forum, and not only don't you really qualify as a current author on Lit. (nothing credited to you in the last four years), but you can't even offer any discussion of any relevance to Lit. authoring on this particular forum. And what you do write about is just a lot of hate about situations that can only be yammered about by other angry people wasting their time/effort in jabbering here and that have nothing to do with a sex story site.

Who says being a current author is a pre-req for posting here? And you assume that I can't offer any discussion about Lit authoring. I will get around to it on my time.

I know it isn't going to change, but God, this crap belongs on some other thread if at all (the General Board, probably). Go write some stories to post, man, you haven't contributed anything but irrelevant angry jabber here for four years. But, yes, I know that's just pissing in the wind.

Perhaps I, and others, would prefer to discuss things on a board where you get more real world responses and less of the World Wrestling Federation cartoonish bullshit like on the GB?

And who knows, maybe I'm working on a new story, too? You ASSume too much.

You've diatribed and now I have too. So, we're even.

And you've pissed in the wind and spent quite a bit of time at the computer complaining about political debates on a sex site forum.

And what have you changed, in the process?


Hmmm. Sounds to me like you just did the exact thing you accuse me of doing.

 

[sr71plt]

If I've initiated an anger thread (once let alone the multiple times you come back to the same themes) on something that has absolutely nothing to do with Lit. author's hanging out on topics relevant to this Web site, feel free to point them out. This Web site obviously isn't a good fit for you other than for purveying your anger and bitterness. You don't write erotica--at least haven't for years--and can only run around in circles with your irrelevant anger. So, don't be surprised if occasionally someone blows and says "Get a grip and get off your tail and go do something about all that anger other than jabbering on a sex story site." No one here is going to assuage your anger at the world in general. I think you need medical help.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

If I've initiated an anger thread (once let alone the multiple times you come back to the same themes) on something that has absolutely nothing to do with Lit. author's hanging out on topics relevant to this Web site, feel free to point them out. This Web site obviously isn't a good fit for you other than for purveying your anger and bitterness. You don't write erotica--at least haven't for years--and can only run around in circles with your irrelevant anger. So, don't be surprised if occasionally someone blows says "Get a grip and get off your tail and go do something about all that anger other than jabbering on a sex story site." No one here is going to assuage your anger at the world in general.

Duly noted.

 

[Lee Chambers]

It's a good hobby to have for the times when I'm not busy torturing bunnies and stealing candy from small children.

You do that too? And here I thought I was the only one.

 

[Handprints]

The government makes it feisable, easy and profitable for corporations to take a citizen's job and outsource it to India, Thailand, Canada, Mexico or some other country with a lower standard of labor. Corporate America naturally takes advantage of this and lays off the American worker for cheap labor overseas.

Someone's got to take up arms for Canada, given the board's recent invasion threat, so: the most recent comparative study I can find of workplace injury suggests there are fewer of them in Canada than the US and that Canada's lead in this measure is gaining. (Al-Amin Yussif, "An international analysis
of workplace injuries" on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

On other measures, such as union recognition, legal standing of unions and labour flexibility (the employer's right to reassign work, job location, hours, practices, etc), a recent study from the pro-business Fraser Institute, which is no fan of unions, scored every Canadian province except Alberta higher than every US state. (available on: www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/product_files/EmpCompLRL.pdf)

Wondering why this might be the case, a cynic might suggest that Canada can afford to impose tighter health & safety laws alongside better protection for unions because its stringent pension-funding laws mean Canadian manufacturers don't, as a rule, face the kind of nightmare deficits that currently plague the rust belt.

Does this mean that since labor is now 10%, 20% 50% cheaper the retail price reflects the cost savings? No.

Except for the almost-inflationless economic growth that the US has enjoyed for the past 15+ years, price deflation on a wide range of imported goods (especially food and clothing), and the low interest rates that let everyone pay less over time for their big-ticket purchases (or, if they believed that the party would never end, rack up truly astounding debts, as below...)

So, you have some middle management guy who has had an income of $50 to $60 K per year, now has to settle for about $11,000 per year and maintain his $2000/month mortgage payment, car payments, pay off his average American $8,000 credit card bill, insurance and all the rest? This looks like the only real possibility is bankruptcy.

Middle management guy got a USD400K mortgage on a USD60K salary, on top of his USD8K credit card bill? I feel bad for him but he was a bankruptcy waiting to happen the minute he signed for the loan.

Your AV's still the most gorgeous sight on the board, though!

Hope that's of use,
H

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Someone's got to take up arms for Canada, given the board's recent invasion threat, so: the most recent comparative study I can find of workplace injury suggests there are fewer of them in Canada than the US and that Canada's lead in this measure is gaining. (Al-Amin Yussif, "An international analysis
of workplace injuries" on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

On other measures, such as union recognition, legal standing of unions and labour flexibility (the employer's right to reassign work, job location, hours, practices, etc), a recent study from the pro-business Fraser Institute, which is no fan of unions, scored every Canadian province except Alberta higher than every US state. (available on: www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.web/product_files/EmpCompLRL.pdf)

Wondering why this might be the case, a cynic might suggest that Canada can afford to impose tighter health & safety laws alongside better protection for unions because its stringent pension-funding laws mean Canadian manufacturers don't, as a rule, face the kind of nightmare deficits that currently plague the rust belt.



Except for the almost-inflationless economic growth that the US has enjoyed for the past 15+ years, price deflation on a wide range of imported goods (especially food and clothing), and the low interest rates that let everyone pay less over time for their big-ticket purchases (or, if they believed that the party would never end, rack up truly astounding debts, as below...)



Middle management guy got a USD400K mortgage on a USD60K salary, on top of his USD8K credit card bill? I feel bad for him but he was a bankruptcy waiting to happen the minute he signed for the loan.

Your AV's still the most gorgeous sight on the board, though!

Hope that's of use,
H

I may not sound like the smartest economic analyst in the world to you, but I'd like to address that middle management wage deflation scenario there, pardner.

When this happens to a large number of people, what effect, pray tell, do you think this will have on consumer spending once the credit stops being extended? Or do we just assume these consumer debts can grow into perpetuity? And if consumer spending is affected, what is the inevitable effect on the overall economy?

I sincerely contend that the "always the low prices, always" and the attendant drop in wages, will not allow the working class in America to keep up with things like car fuel, rent, mortgages, and especially higher education/retraining tuition and health care.

That, I contend, is a bigger factor behind the subprime crash than the subprime resets. And if you disagree with that, you must agree that these downward pressures on wages and upward pressures on debts for the middle class, will make recovery very difficult.

I'm glad those guys in Vietnam and China are doing so great with jobs that were taken from Americans and given to them, not even for servicing their own market. It's a pity that American workers will have to play musical jobs after x years of "re training", while a handful of American CEOs, lucky inventors and lottery-playing gambl^H^H^H^H^Hinvestors get rich.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is dwindling away. And even you can't deny that with a straight face.

And to top it off, the rich get to kick the working class in the face by denying them jobs because their finances are ruined by all this international re-distribution of workers' wealth.

Perhaps someone's going to tell me the middle class is overrated?

 

[Handprints]

I think this is well worth talking about but I wonder how we're going to do it: I'm not the type to argue from a philosophical basis, so I'm not really going to contribute much to discussions of motive or moral rights. I'm also not American: I think I'm middle class because I don't have a title and I don't come home from work with machine oil and metal shavings in my hair (although some of my middle class friends do, so I suppose that one's out of date).

So let's set some boundaries for who we're talking about and what's happening to them, if we can?

I may not sound like the smartest economic analyst in the world to you, but I'd like to address that middle management wage deflation scenario there, pardner.

When this happens to a large number of people, what effect, pray tell, do you think this will have on consumer spending once the credit stops being extended? Or do we just assume these consumer debts can grow into perpetuity? And if consumer spending is affected, what is the inevitable effect on the overall economy?

Middle management: 2nd quartile of the US income range as a proxy? Some professional body that's not subject to one industry's economic tides? Which group's numbers are we going to look at?

Consumer spending out of surplus income is usually good. Consumer spending out of debt usually backfires. If wages really are going down, is that a problem if the pre-surplus costs are also falling?

I sincerely contend that the "always the low prices, always" and the attendant drop in wages, will not allow the working class in America to keep up with things like car fuel, rent, mortgages, and especially higher education/retraining tuition and health care.

"Always the low prices, always" is something a business can only do if its offering a commodity good or service: supermarkets, nickel producers, chip makers, blood tests and the like. Everybody else competes on something other than price: service, customisation, amenities, whatever. There are fewer businesses (as a percentage) in the US competing with price as their main competitive strength than in just about any other country and hundreds of thousands, if not more, fewer than there were 30 years ago.

It's the refusal to compete on price (or the recognition that it's America's weakness, in light of cheaper labour elsewhere, if you prefer) that has changed the working class' typical job location from the factory floor into call centers, malls and Humvee detailing shops.

You don't seem to prefer service sector jobs to shopfloor jobs, if I've understood your previous posts correctly. I work in the service sector, as do Buffett, Gates, and A-Rod; it's been pretty good to us. (Ok, better for them even though I can hit a curveball in the post-season just as well as any of them.) I'm not sure I see how one's economic prospects become more circumscribed by moving out of industry.

By the way, who do we mean by working class? Is it the lowest quartile of household incomes? Is it defined by educational level? Is it the old joke about jobs where you need a shower before your wife will kiss you?

That, I contend, is a bigger factor behind the subprime crash than the subprime resets. And if you disagree with that, you must agree that these downward pressures on wages and upward pressures on debts for the middle class, will make recovery very difficult.

I think the biggest factor behind the sub-prime crash was a large number of people taking on mortgages they couldn't hope to pay. I'm not yet convinced, because you haven't yet had an opportunity to tell me which group we're discussing, that there is significant pressure on wages to force them down. I also don't understand what force is capable of putting upward pressure on middle class debt. If you mean the prospect (or reality) of job loss, that's (I'd have thought fairly self-evidently) the time to put your life on e-Bay and pay it all off as there's not going to be any income to service it with.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is dwindling away. And even you can't deny that with a straight face.

The only way I can construe the first part of that to make sense is if we're measuring poverty comparatively: "I'm getting poorer because my earnings, expressed as a percentage of the richest man's earnings, are getting smaller." America's poor (Bottom quartile of the income range, bottom decile? You pick.) are making more money every year, at a rate that has exceeded inflation in each of the past 20 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Give me a group called "middle class" whose numbers we can measure over time and I'll tell you whether or not I think it's dwindling.

Perhaps someone's going to tell me the middle class is overrated?

I'm middle class, I'm overrated. You can continue the poll when you find time.

Regards,
H

 

[rgraham666]

I'm no economist, but here's my take on the matter.

From what I've seen, it's adding value that makes an economy go. There's only three ways that I'm aware of to do that. Agriculture, commodities and manufacturing. Of these three manufacturing is the one that adds the most value in the most consistent manner.

That's why Britain was Great Britain for so long. That's why the States was so rich for so long. They were the world's major manufacturers. It's why China and India are on the way up. They're making stuff, taking raw materials and adding value to it.

Britain stopped upgrading its industry and let others take the lead in the middle of the 19th Century. Much of that industry went to Germany and the U.S. And by the beginning of WWI it was obvious they were in trouble. With their major rivals being Germany and the U.S.

The U.S. stopped upgrading its industry in the seventies. They let their industry go to China and India. They're now in trouble and their new rivals are China and India.

History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

On a similar point, I regard the term 'service industry' as an oxymoron. All the 'services' don't add value. Therefore, in my mind, they can't be industry. All the accountants, lawyers, advertising people, etc don't add value. They might be necessary but they don't add value. Their relationship is symbiotic.

However it can easily become parasitic if the economic body they are attached to becomes too weak. Here in North America, we're very close to that point.