SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Rural America is facing an existential crisis. As cities continue to grow and prosper, small towns are shrinking. That fundamental divide played itself out in the recent presidential election.
[...] The trend is clear: Rural America is literally fading away. It shouldn't come as a surprise, therefore, that the opioid overdose epidemic has hit rural states, like Kentucky and West Virginia, especially hard. And the latest research from the CDC also shouldn't come as a surprise: Suicides in rural America (labeled as non-core) have increased over 40% in 16 years.
From 1999 to 2015, suicide rates increased everywhere in America. On average, across the U.S., suicides increased from 12.2 per 100,000 to 15.7 per 100,0001, an increase of just under 30%. However, in rural America, the suicide rate surged over 40%2, from just over 15 per 100,000 to roughly 22 per 100,000. Similarly, the suicide rate in micropolitan areas (defined as having a population between 10,000-49,999) went from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000, an increase of around 35%.
On the flip side, major cities saw much smaller increases in suicide rates, on the order of 10%. The graph depicts a clear pattern: Suicide rates are highest in the most rural parts of the country, and they slowly decrease as urbanization increases. As of 2015, the suicide rate in rural areas (22 per 100,000) is about 40% higher than in the nation as a whole (15.7 per 100,000) and 83% higher than in large cities (12 per 100,000).
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:21PM (89 children)
Huh. It was either going to be universal basic income or something like this.
People can't compete with robots. Many people simply don't have the capacity to be robot technicians or any of those other gee whiz zoom zomg jobs that are supposed to trickle down in a golden shower. It's not a matter of "hard work" or "education." It is simply beyond the capabilities and mental capacities of those individuals. I'm not one of them, but I feel sorry for them. (Remember, those of us here are probably intellectual 1%ers. Well when we're not being tards and trolling. It may be difficult or next to impossible to even begin to conceive of how something you take for granted is simply beyond the intellectual capabilities of somebody else, no matter what, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they self-flagellate, no matter what economic system you throw them in, NO MATTER WHAT.) Then come the robot technician robots.
I guess people would rather kill themselves than support OMG Socialism! Stalin! Mao! Pol Pot! Venezuela!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:27PM (55 children)
Regardless of anything else, your "robots are taking our jerbs!" argument is premature. The current failure is in preparing children to be self-supporting in life not in there being no jobs. Maybe one day it will be true. I doubt it, but for the sake of argument... Today, however, is not that day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:46PM (39 children)
The current failure is in preparing children to be self-supporting in life not in there being no jobs.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Outside the U.S. in parts of Europe, I see kids getting a double serving of both. It's getting worse as education is cut back again and again, both secondary and tertiary. That harm is amplified by the teachers having to spend more and more of their time dorking around with unnecessary, unproductive, and irrelevant administrivia. On the jobs side, businesses and governments are cutting back for so long that it's been a slow death spiral, yet they can't or won't see it.
In today's ideological, screw the facts and data, climate neither the schools nor the jobs are going to get the investment they need to get bootstrapped and back onto the right path.
There are also the politically charged issues of overpopulation and incapable parents.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:00PM (38 children)
It's not the lack of book-learning that's killing the jobs prospects of kids today, it's the absence of shop classes and vo-tech. Frankly, kids could get by just fine if they learned everything up to and nothing after sixth grade, as long as they had a marketable skill. Knowing how to balance a checkbook and make/stick-to a realistic budget would be helpful as well. We're just utterly failing to teach them things that are actually useful.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (6 children)
While kids might be able to support themselves with only a sixth grade education and some vocational training for a skill, but they will never have the best paying jobs. But the world needs all kinds of jobs.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:56PM (5 children)
True, we're just telling kids nowadays that damned good paying jobs in the trades are beneath them and that they should go to college so they never have to get their hands dirty. It's insane.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:40PM
That's a good point. Someone who is not the brightest bulb, but is skilled at some trade should be able to make decent money and have a decent life. A good paying job that they can do well and maybe even enjoy is something to be desired. Even if it is not the best paying job.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @11:34PM (3 children)
Failure to get a degree will normally remove a male from the marriage market.
This wasn't the case in times past. Degrees were uncommon, and they were especially uncommon for women. Most jobs were unavailable to women. Women needed men; men had purpose in life.
Generally, women don't want to marry down. They'd rather stay single, letting their fertile years go to waste. Mating with a male who seems inferior is just not accepted. Once past the fertile years, women become invisible.
Men aren't too comfortable marrying up either. This type of marriage is more prone to fail. Many men, probably even those who would deny it, do not feel right in this situation. Men have a need to be the provider.
The trades may bring in some money, but the lack of status (for the marriage market) makes them pretty worthless. Why bother?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 31 2017, @12:57AM (2 children)
Erm... you must associate with a vastly different species of females than humans. Every last one I've met has been nearly overjoyed at the prospect of changing their man, up to and including his financial and educational standing. And all he generally needed to get them to that point is a smidgin of confidence in himself and a lack of desire to be the hell away from her.
You do have a point about the uncomfortable men though.
And, for the record, you'd make far more as a plumber/welder/electrician with twenty years experience than you could as a dev/network admin except in extreme, <1% cases or situations where you've chosen a lower paying job for personal reasons.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @03:43AM (1 child)
> Every last one I've met
What's the common denominator there?
FYI, its called assortative mating and its the result of women moving towards equality in the workforce. There are now plenty of women with equal financial means for men to marry, so the opportunity for poor women to marry up is mostly gone.
Its also why marriage rates among the poor are so high, marriage is an economic privilege and if you are poor you can't afford it. Since poor women can no longer marry up, all they are left with are poor men. Taking on financial risk of a partner who is himself not a good earner is a bad bet. So poor women stay single even when they have children. That doesn't mean poor fathers are out of their children's lives, far from it actually. They just aren't a financial risk to the mother.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 31 2017, @10:04AM
So you're saying that at some time in the past young, single men were significantly better off than their middle-aged, married counterparts? Yeah, no. That is the exact opposite of reality.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:19PM (13 children)
What I wrote applies also to the vocational lines as well, I am sad to observe.
Anyway, skills, vocational or not, are not marketable these days. That's just the reality and kids can see through any bullshit people tell them about an education helping them. It's more like a lottery with the education (or training) being the entrance fee. More and more can just look around and see skilled and experienced people, young and old, having a hard go of it. So an increasing number of kids who see that, just cut their losses and stay home playing video games or loitering in the downtown's shadier districts.
About the life skills like bank accounts and budgets, that's supposed to come from the parents. Permits are required to keep animals, even dogs, in many areas or even to modify a house. That requirement should apply double for even thinking about having kids.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:50PM (11 children)
Beg to differ on the skilled labor situation. Finding good help is as hard as it's ever been in the trades. Reason being, everyone thinks they'll go to college so they don't have to work hard later. Their parents actually encourage this way of thinking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:55PM (9 children)
Believing a caricature of someone means you are an asshole that would rather signal virtue than understand people.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:57PM (8 children)
That would be a proper zinger if it were remotely accurate. Try again another time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:13PM (7 children)
You have the worst comebacks, I can only blame a deficiency in education and practice with critical thinking.
everyone thinks they'll go to college so they don't have to work hard later. Their parents actually encourage this way of thinking.
Maybe if you hadn't used the word "everyone" you could possible make an argument about it not being accurate. But "remotely accurate"? Try again you mental giant!
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:17PM (6 children)
I guess you missed the day they discussed generalizations and their function in the language in English class. Oh well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:24PM (5 children)
Caricature: exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics
Generalization: a general statement, law, principle, or proposition
Your statement was not a generalization, it was a caricature. There are plenty of young people who want to work, and a small minority that fall into your generalization. Once you apply a generalization incorrectly to a larger population it becomes a caricature.
Maybe you should switch to a primarily fish diet? I hear the omega-3s are good for the brain.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:41PM (4 children)
The guy literally brags about not learning anything in school.
Nearly every post he makes demonstrates that he's not lying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:50PM (3 children)
Explains so much... Gee I wonder why a well rounded education is a good thing? If you'd like a real world example just read TMB's comment history! lol
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:55PM (2 children)
Yeah, and when he's clearly wrong he'll shit out another 3 or 4 posts consisting of nothing but some lazy fallacious one-liner, if you're lucky, or just resort to calling you SJW or something else equally horrible in his mind. He's obviously got the brains to code, but can't do jack shit else.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:18PM (1 child)
Could also be he's one of those people that gets sadistic glee out of trolling people. Never overlook that, its the new favorite past time for angry nerds online!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:37PM
He clearly thinks trolling people is an accomplishment.
At best its just a pyrrhic victory.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:06PM
You're absolutely correct about this, with the proviso that it's not just trades. I work in retail, and there are plenty of people in my store who are just warm bodies.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Friday March 31 2017, @02:51PM
So if a parent is lacking life skills that are needed, the child should never have the opportunity to learn them? I find that reasoning to be poor at best, and intentionally harmful to the poor at worst.
Otherwise, I agree with your overall sentiment.
(Score: 3, Informative) by slinches on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:27PM (6 children)
The school system sucks for multiple reasons, but that isn't the root cause of the issue. The most fundamental issue is that fewer kids have good family support and role models who set high expectations. Even in more affluent neighborhoods, it has become common for a kid's parents to be split up and have little to no extended family nearby. Without that sort of support, better schools will only make marginal improvements. The problem is societal. We need to implement/reinforce social structures that encourage parental/familial involvement in children's lives and that they are fully invested in their success.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:44PM
Abso-fucking-lutely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:26PM
How can you possibly enforce this? By telling them you know better and its for the good of the country? OK you - stay in your unhappy marriage, don't apply for that job in another State, buy from the expensive local store, don't have teh butsecks, pray to the one true Allah. Next in line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:09PM (3 children)
Correct, societal problems indeed!
Welp, the answer is lessen wealth inequality and provide social programs so that taking your kid to the doctor doesn't become a "will I make rent this month" type of question. Make it so that even the poorest family can survive on a single FT job. Take away people's security and it has a ton of negative consequences. No time for kids and increased psychological stress, bad for the marriage and bad for the required patience and understanding when trying to raise children. Required mobility for decent jobs also means that people must leave their social circle so that they have no familial support available.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:53PM (1 child)
Damn straight! Anybody who offers, or takes, ANY job of ANY type for ANY reason that doesn't pay a full living wage for the worker's whole family? GO TO JAIL!
Need someone to sweep in front of your store for fifteen minutes every morning? Full wage and bennies or GO TO JAIL!
Want someone to clear out a drainage ditch? Full wage and bennies or GO TO JAIL!
That'll fix that there economy and get us to full employment right quick, yes sir...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:21PM
Yup, the world is black and white, you've got it, that is exactly what I meant.
Fix yer brain doodads, they seem to be broken.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by slinches on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:55PM
I'm glad we can agree on the type of problem we're facing, but I don't think your proposed solutions will be effective since they don't directly affect the core issues. Wealth inequality isn't a significant driver in whether parents care about their kids and improved health care cost/accessibility will be at best a secondary effect. I agree that a family should be able to be supported comfortably on a single income, but I'd rather approach that from the cost side rather than increasing the minimum wage, which makes it harder for young adults to transition into the workforce. Instead, if we stopped encouraging everyone to go into crippling debt and live within their means, more households would be financially healthy. But the biggest thing is that we need to promote strong core families and support structures directly. I think this is one area where we've lost in rejecting traditional gender roles. Now the expectation is that there are two breadwinners and no caretakers. Instead of splitting the caretaker responsibilities, we've eschewed them entirely and now we're seeing the consequences. Housewife (and househusband) should be a highly respected role in our society and we need to change our attitudes to make that happen. As an additional encouragement, there could be a shift in the tax incentives for families that rewards the full time caretaker role more and dual incomes less.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:34PM (6 children)
Conservatives have been crying about this for years, but it simply doesn't add up. Maybe its cause you're old now and have been out of the job market for a long time. The overwhelming vast majority of young people are perfectly capable but there is a massive problem of unemployment that is being quietly hidden. Sure there are areas in need of skilled applicants, but then you run into the problem where not everyone can afford the 1.5-3 year programs to get certified, or employers reject people because it would be too hard to train them.
Yes some young people reject jobs they don't want, yes some young people are bad at budgeting and such, but those are straw men that make you feel more comfortable with our fucked up society. It is like the various people I have met who have zero clue about mass surveillance or the shenanigans of the CIA. The truth is just too awful for them to bear, it takes years for their minds to accept the overwhelming horror of what is actually happening.
So go ahead, keep blaming the victims of a system that is steadily removing funding from the programs you so wish to have.
We're just utterly failing to teach them things that are actually useful.
So very wrong. Kids learn plenty of useful things, but I agree we should have more vocational programs. Maybe we should stop trying to destroy the government and defund education then? It has been a downhill road for a long time now, but the current POTUS is tanking it worse than ever with Devos all but committing to cutting education funding even further. We could discuss bad allocation of funds, but don't kid yourself about why education is so bad right now.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:41PM (4 children)
You should pay attention to who you're talking to. I'm neither conservative nor retirement age.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:50PM (3 children)
That is your reply? The least important aspect is what you glom on to???
Maybe its cause you're old now and have been out of the job market for a long time
There was a "maybe" in there and the point was that you don't know about the current struggles of young people trying to get into the job market. I do know enough about you, not your precise age but you run your own business supposedly so you are on the wrong side of the problem to understand what applicants go through. Your rhetoric is always about irresponsible kids not doing enough and you just ignore the actual problems.
Good job being self-centered as if my slight mis-characterization of you is the really important part.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:58PM (2 children)
The rest of it wasn't really worth a response.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:17PM (1 child)
Oh ho! Dismiss what you don't like Mighty Ostrich.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:06PM
Yeah he's not doing too well on that front today :) I reckon I've just about exhausted him; keep hammering at him and he may have a stroke.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:02PM
The US is (give or take some fiddly details about precisely how you measure it) the single country in the world that pays the most, per capita, on its school age kids.
If you wriggle the numbers just right, including vocational schools and so on, and selectively ignore some facts about purchasing power parity, you can make it look as if the USA is number two in per capita costs.
So, of course, the US of A has the gosh-darn bestest educational outcomes in the world, amirite?
Wait, what, I'm not right? Second? Third? No?
Oh.
OK, so then the question becomes: how can we spend smarter, not harder? Because throwing buckets-o-cash at it sure as hell hasn't worked. And in fact, maybe we should stop throwing those buckets-o-cash until we have a better plan?
No, that's crazy talk. This is America, we'll spend until it hurts! That'll fix it!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Thursday March 30 2017, @09:05PM
This.
Take my high school experience. I went to a public vocational school, Thomas A. Edison Vocational and Technical HS in Jamaica, NYC. It had some great vocational programs including Automotive (one of the best there was), Business Equipment Repair, HVAC, Carpentry, Plumbing, Machine Shop, and Electrical Installation. For their technical classes they had Electrical Engineering, Bio Medical, Publishing, and one or two others. I took Electrical Installation, training to become an electrician or technician. You were also given great career opportunities out of school as they had hooks into the Local 3 Electrical Union, MTA, LIRR, Con Edison, and a few other big companies.
By the time I got there the Machine and HVAC shops were gone and divided up into classrooms. During my first year they lost some funding for the vocational programs. So they merged part of electrical installation, plumbing and carpentry into one program called General Contracting. My shop teacher, a licensed master electrician, was furious they did this and said "There is no such profession as general contracting. Those kids are getting ripped off. They should sue the school" On the positive side, the Automotive and Electrical Installation shops were going strong. My shop teacher then got the school to relocate an entire robotics lab to our shop class in senior year. They inherited the lab from Jamaica High across the street. They tried to start a technical program but it failed to launch. I spent half a year getting that system working and even setup a fancy demo for open house. Either way, my experience was nothing but positive in that school. I learned a whole lot of things and worked on some interesting electrical equipment. I heard it went to shit about 10 years later but today is back on its feet sans half of the programs (progress, right?).
The problem revealed to me by my shop teacher was one of funding and paying experienced teachers. First off, technical and vocational shops are not only expensive to maintain but are also a huge liability insurance wise. As funding is cut, the first things to go are the more costly technical and vocational shops. Then you have the problem of getting competent teachers. People with technical experience aren't going to settle for $40-60K/yr when their profession pays double or more. My shop teacher had his own gig and used the school system for its pension and health benefits. He already had his own business and ran it while teaching. Once his kids were old enough, they ran the business while he was teaching. He now lives in a 10k square foot home in North Carolina with two three car garages for all his toys. He did teaching the right way. But not everyone has that mentality or family willing to pitch in and do the same. That man had a huge Impact on my life and was an amazing teacher. I wish there were more teachers like him in this world. We would be a lot better off.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:38PM (1 child)
You mean... like... doing something useful instead of wasting their time on SN?
Some 6000+ people in this world don't know it themselves, how do you expect to teach their children?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday March 31 2017, @09:24AM
I'll have you know I have tens, if not hundreds of useful projects in some state of compeletion (or commencement. Or planning)
Alas, I learned all the "actually useful" skills for these projects from my grandfather and father, but I learned *how to ask questions* and *how to learn* partly from school.
But then I didn't go to school in the US.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:58PM (12 children)
> The current failure is in preparing children to be self-supporting in life not in there being no jobs.
Proof by vague assertion! In what way are children not being prepared to be "self-supporting?"
And what jobs are available in rural america?
Manufacturing employment is down 30% since NAFTA passed (while manufacturing output is up 70% and is at the highest it has ever been).
So what jobs are you talking about?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:03PM (11 children)
Skilled labor jobs exist everywhere. I'm making this statement from rural America, in fact. There are over five million jobs unfilled at this moment because nobody can be found willing and able to do them. Make of that what you will.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:16PM (1 child)
> Skilled labor jobs exist everywhere.
That's a facile and meaningless statement.
Yes they exist. What matters is how many of them exist and how well they pay.
The number of good paying jobs has plummeted as automation has replaced people.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:15PM
There's also the question in how in a rural setting one gets a education mindset from parents, access to learning facilities in expensive cities and all payed by bankbarons.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:13PM (1 child)
And skilled labor doesn't exist everywhere, thus pays reflects that (lest H1-B).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:53PM
Skilled labor not existing somewhere is an education failing not a jobs failing though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:15PM (3 children)
Don't know about the US, but in the UK there were/are lots of job vacancies listed... Some of course are real, but many others fall into these categories:
1) Recruitment agencies or companies creating fake jobs to scope the market and build profiles for a time when they do need to hire someone, and to gauge the market to see how much they can lowball a salary and still get suitable applicants.
2) Self-employed contract work where the employees must pay for entry (uniform, equipment, vehicle) and essentially get a franchise and an area to generate their own leads/work under another brand.
3) zero-hour (or now one hour) contracts where people just get put on the books and maybe get a call 6 hours before they need to be at work, that they need to come in or get blacklisted. Usually ending up with 30hrs a month, no guarantees on the employers side for any.
4) Jobs designed not to be filled to they can outsourced.
5) Contract jobs that are always listed due to the high turnover of recruits, as the sales pitch is good, but targets are unattainable so the pay you were expecting is never realized no matter how many hours you put in, so the employers only ever expect people to last a month working for almost free, then just get a new batch of desperate people.
I have personal experience of situations:
1) Got an interview because i was vastly overqualified and willing to work for cheap, was still expected to work for 2 weeks unpaid as a trial run.
2) Quit before i started, when i worked out the scam
3) many people i know have experience of this
4) is a hard one to prove (10 years experience in 5 year old tech)
5) was an example i got a call months after i applied, and then quit a month in after learning the business model... was assured by the line manager "not to worry, we have a new lot starting this week"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:52PM
Interesting but I've never seen or heard of it in the US. Overselling the job, sure, but not near to that extent.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:32PM
You missed one:
6) Posting several different jobs with similar, but distinct qualifications. It is a combination of 5 and 4.
If you apply for the wrong one (ie: the one you feel most qualified for), you are not qualified for the position they really want to fill.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday March 31 2017, @07:52AM
The UK seems to have a particular thing for "temps", i.e., companies hiring staff without benefits. I know entire companies where the only permanent employees are management - everyone else is a temp, meaning that staff turnover is constant. Everyone is new, everyone is frantically learning on the job. Whoever you deal with has no idea how things were handled last year, and makes all the same beginner mistakes as the last person, and the person before that.
It seems a horribly inefficient way to run a company, just to avoid paying benefits.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:28PM
What jobs exist doesn't matter. You still need to get hired. Way too many companies disqualify people for the slightest reasons. Once you end up in that downward spiral... Applying to jobs is a full time job leaving you with no time or money to spend on new skills to increase your employability. The longer you're unemployed, the worse that gets as money gets tighter and employees don't want to hire someone out of work for long periods of time. It's extremely difficult to get out of that downward spiral. I was in it, I managed to use my unemployment benefits to get back into school and now instead of living on the street I have a Masters degree and am about to buy my first house. I'll employ many others in fixing it up to livable conditions. A bottom social security net is very helpful. I would had been an excellent criminal without it. Instead, now I'm an excellent engineer and in 1-2 years will be starting my own business.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:24PM
There are over five million jobs unfilled at this moment because nobody can be found willing and able to do them.
I've seen you say this before. I'm curious about your source for this info, because honestly I'd like to read more about it.
I completely agree with you that we need to encourage more young people to learn trades, enter apprenticeships instead of college, etc. I have no doubt that many young people could find better employment opportunities in skilled trades. But I am also aware that employment markets can be manipulated and "shortages" can be exaggerated (e.g., employers unwilling to pay reasonable wages for qualified people, unions manipulating entry-level qualifications and apprenticeship opportunities, etc.), so I'm just looking for accurate figures.
Just as one data point, my dad was a skilled tradesman all his life, and a highly qualified one. For the last couple decades of his career, he worked at a non-union shop, mostly because it was closer to home and union opportunities were few in the area. Anyhow, what he saw in his final few years was: (1) his company outsourced more and more work, to the point that the tradesmen in his division of the company decreased by over 75% while he was there, (2) increasing automation also played a role in reducing necessary workforce, and (3) in his final years, his company decided that individual tradesmen weren't really as important, so it wanted to reclassify everyone as "multi-skilled workers." Thus, my dad, in his mid-late 50s, spent a year or so going to night school on and off, taking an 8-week course on basic electrician skills or basic mechanic skills or whatever, to supposedly "train" him to be a "multi-skilled worker."
He did this because the company promised salary increases for "multi-skilled workers" and because he saw previous cutbacks so this created a little more job security for him. He was jumping through the stupid hoops created by management, who clearly were idiots and thought that you could create somebody who could basically do ALL skilled trades just by giving them a few weeks training in each.
My point is that the neglect of skilled trades isn't only an education issue. They are often not appreciated anymore by society, by employers, etc. Unless you hit a particular demand in an area or get a good union job that guarantees high wages, etc., you may not be paid proportionately to the level of skill expected of skilled tradesmen. So it's part of a larger issue too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:11PM
That's a load of bullshit and you know it. Here, let me correct it for you:
"There are over five million jobs unfilled at this moment because nobody can be found willing to do them at a sub-standard wage for the location of the job."
Of course you can't find someone willing to work for $9/hour in NYC. Of course you can't find someone willing to do a job that typically commands an $80,000 a year salary for just $25,000 a year. NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK.
In case anyone says [citation needed], here's my citation needed: The current H1B fiasco, something that, again, Trump promised to fix but I have a feeling that will be Yet Another Lie from the bullshitter in chief.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:34PM (1 child)
You're completely full of fucking shit.
The robots taking the jobs is coming much sooner than later. IIRC, it was Wendy's or Carl's Jr. that had announced they were going to start replacing company owned restaurants with fully automated kiosk style restaurants that have almost no employees. Sure, that sounds like progress until you realize it is not pimple faced teenagers subsidized by their parents being out of work. It's wage slavers in their 40's that were barely getting by with government assistance included, now out on the streets. Along with their wives and children.
America has been quickly moving to wage-slaving service industry jobs which are ripe for automation. Most people are completely fucking clueless about how robots and automation have already largely decimated many types of farming that required large amounts of field hands to harvest. JOBS HAVE BEEN DISAPPEARING. Specifically, living wage jobs that allowed people to support families, have medical, and put savings towards a future of not-being-subsidized-by-the-state and eating-ketchup-with-hot-water because they don't need to be 75 and having most of their daily production being sucked (stolen) upwards by the 1%. That's if you are some fucking amazing 75 year old that can compete for jobs with 20 somethings desperate for the shiny.
Children not being taught how to be self-supporting? Again, you are full of fucking shit today. Just what do you mean anyways? That children are not taught how to grow veggies in the backyard? How to pressure can veggies, food, soup, etc. to have food for a few years in the pantry? How to change out the spark plug in the lawn mower? Just what is it about self-supporting that makes the young adult all of the sudden able to find these mystical living wage jobs that are just laying about everywhere? You do realize that part of being self-supporting is that they can find, apply, obtain, and hold a LIVING WAGE job. If they don't have a LIVING WAGE job, they are by definition, NOT self-supporting. So what the fuck are you smoking, and just what the fuck do you mean by this? You're quite offensively stating that nearly every 30 something out there struggling with wage slave jobs and try to survive was just raised wrong and that Corporate America shares zero of the blame for the current environment we are in.
Have you heard of H1B's and outsourcing? It's only been going on since the fucking 70's and the slow decline of union labor and their influence.
Ohhh, wait, by job you must mean that these young self-supporting adults can line up by the hundreds so a foreman might choose a dozen or so to work that day. Those good wholesome American jobs are the ones you are referring to right?
You don't live in the real fucking world. In the real world we are watching the suits send our jobs out of country, or give them to robots, or flat out refuse to create work offers that are living wage jobs..... because they don't have to because everybody is so fucking desperate to survive.
That's fucking reality. Not your delusion that children are being raised wrong and Corporate America has created a plethora of jobs ready for the taking.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:57PM
You should stop bitching and start building skyscrapers with your bare hands, like that dude in Atlas Shrugged or that other book that Paul Ryan wrote.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:36PM (23 children)
Automation is a popular scapegoat, but ...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39995-trade-denialism-continues-trade-really-did-kill-manufacturing-jobs [truth-out.org]
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:55PM (6 children)
It has an effect in that robots do lower wages and reduce jobs [theverge.com]. However, I suspect ideological factors play several orders of magnitude more impact. I'd like to have hard data about the ideological factors where janitors, secretaries, grounds crew, and other useful jobs are axed seemingly just because some C-level scum want to make life hard for both those they have fired and those that will be forced to pick up the slack out of necessity. That looks to me to be the big wound, not the pin prick caused by robots.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:35PM (5 children)
Robots may lower wages and reduce jobs, but this may not be as important a factor as the vast bulk of the world's wealth is held by a small number of people.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:26PM (4 children)
That's basically it in a nutshell. The average CEO takes 300 times as much as the average employee [fortune.com], and a similar discrepancy is there for the other executives. People complain about robots, but firing one executive would allow hundreds of employees to stay one at average wage. Or it would allow half that many but at a double wage. That would be money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot. I'm not sure why people still fall for that Trickle Down crap that was discredited even back in Reagan's time.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:34PM
> money pouring back into the economy, because poor and middle class do spend a lot
The be precise, the poor spend about 100% of their income, and much of the middle class spend more than that (yay for debt!).
Before the 2008 financial crisis, the average was about 107%. I'm not sure what the current numbers are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:37PM (1 child)
Cause they're idiots who fall for propaganda and just loooove talk radio.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM
The do a lot more than talk radio. Like vote, wrecking good ideas in work life, meddling with other peoples life which they can't comprehend, etc..
Whenever there's a idiot in the ecosystem. The type of area matters less.... :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @01:00AM
I'm guessing that, for most of them, it is because they believe themselves to be temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:08PM (3 children)
> The extraordinary plunge in manufacturing jobs in the years 2000 to 2007 was due to the explosion of the trade deficit,
And yet, US manufacturing output increased more than 10% [stlouisfed.org] during that time period, even while manufacturing employment decreased by nearly 20%.
That looks like pretty strong evidence of automation being the dominating factor to me.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (1 child)
Right -- the massive increase in the ratio of imports to exports since 2000 had zero effect. /sarc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:41PM
Maybe you could explain your logic in a way that could be evaluated rather than a "you are stupid" declaration. Because that sure makes it look like you can't explain your logic.
Manufacturing output increased while employment decreased.
One explanation for why the trade deficit didn't meaningfully harm employment is simply that americans bought more stuff.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday March 31 2017, @03:49PM
Not necessarily. If you automate the manufacturing it requires fewer employees to produce the same output. But that also means the products cost less to produce, which means people can buy more of them, so demand increases so you need more employees again. Although it's likely to increase employment in a different field -- If food gets cheaper I still won't need to eat more, but I'll almost certainly spend that money on computers instead. Which, given the current global economy, means some of the money that used to buy produce from California is now buying motherboards from China.
This isn't going to balance perfectly, but there's no reason that automation MUST cause a corresponding drop in employment. You need to also consider consumption of those goods. I'd be interested in seeing a graph that compares US employment vs production where production is measured not compared to past US production but as a percentage of global consumption. That would show if employment is decreasing because someone else is producing the goods or if it's decreasing because automation is causing supply to outpace demand. I suspect it would be a mix of both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:12PM (1 child)
I will agree it's a combination of trade practices and automation. However, keep in mind that American labor will be more expensive than labor in newly industrialized countries. Even if tariff's etc. were erected to bring manufacturing back, automation would be more likely deployed in the US than such nations due to the high labor rate. Thus, it's not a 1-to-1 comparison of job outsourcing. Detroit makes the same number of cars with fewer employees due to automation. Same with farm work and mining. Machines are slowly marching up the job-skills ladder. Self-driving trucks are almost inevitable: they are out of sci-fi realm and being tuned for practicality, at least for pre-mapped routes.
I will agree our "trade deals are bad", but renegotiating them will only delay the inevitable.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday March 31 2017, @12:34AM
And in that delay, is a short respite that allows people to transition more smoothly than being thrown to the wolves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by meustrus on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:21PM (8 children)
Usually the argument is not framed as "automation killed more jobs than globalism in general". At least not when you're talking to anybody that wants to see the data. Most of the time, the argument is carefully narrowed down to "automation killed more jobs than trade with Mexico/China/any other single country", followed by data to prove it. Which can be true, even when automation is the smaller boogeyman. Especially since a lot of those jobs now go to several of the different countries south of China, further diluting each individual country's share of global jobs moved out of America.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:40PM (7 children)
All of that sort of analysis assumes that markets are static. In fact, trade doesn't just move jobs around, it also creates new jobs because it creates new consumers. The amount of poverty in the world has been vastly reduced, it is hard to over-state just how much poverty has been eliminated by globalism. [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:54PM (6 children)
Service-economy... imagine 100 hairdressers in a circle, each one tending the hair of the one in front of it. Would you qualify this as a "well-being upward spiral"?
Now, tell me what type of new customers are created when the population can not get enough money to pay for the... mmm... customs?
Middle-class is disappearing, fast; the bottom of the barrel is showing already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday March 31 2017, @12:37AM (1 child)
Yep. Services are necessary but without an underlying wealth generating economy in place (*), services become unfordable eventually. A pure service economy is like a perpetual motion machine -- doesn't work.
(*) by wealth generating, I do not mean middlemen personally enriching themselves - I mean creating new stuff that people want.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @05:53AM
Umm... I wish this would be a clear cut. nut it isn't.
Someone may argue that "production" is actually a special kind of service:
- the service of extracting and processing already existing minerals, a service of processing them and transforming them in tangible, a service of transporting/distributing them.
- a service of planting seeds, growing produce/cereals/animals, no different in nature from flipping burgers.
- etc
No actual creation, just many specialized services of transforming substances and energy from one form to another
And beat me if I know how to refute the above argumentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @03:53AM (3 children)
Service-economy... imagine 100 hairdressers in a circle, each one tending the hair of the one in front of it. Would you qualify this as a "well-being upward spiral"?
A service economy isn't just hairdressers. Its doctors. Its teachers. Its gardeners. Its musicians, authors and painters.
And a transition to a service economy is inevitable in a world of growing automation. That's because automation makes manufacturing cheaper, which makes goods cheaper. But you can't as easily automate a home health aid or a tennis pro as you can a television assembly line. So when the amount of available money stays the same and the cost of physical goods is reduced it is inevitable that more money will be spent on services because they get proportionally more expensive.
So try to get past your reductive mischaracterization of what a service economy entails and realize that not only is it inevitable, its also not a bad thing. Its just a new thing.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @05:39AM (2 children)
So it would be, except for a nagging detail... make the wealth generated by the use of automation be distributed to the population. Otherwise you are building a house of cards on a sandy ground while a storm is blowing high winds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @07:28AM (1 child)
> make the wealth generated by the use of automation be distributed to the population.
As long as there is effective competition the prices should reflect the vastly reduced costs, which means that wealth is distributed via the increased purchasing power. You get a lot more stuff for the same price or you get the same amount of stuff and you keep a lot more cash in your wallet.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 31 2017, @08:45AM
Implicit assumption: you have money in your wallet to start with.
Verify this assumption after 3 years of being unemployed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:22PM
You already have robots eating into the prostitution market.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:26PM (3 children)
Robots are going to be the scapegoat that the rich use to avoid the subject of the vast wealth inequality. Jesus said "you will always have the poor". If there were a lot less difference between the rich and poor, more people might have a good enough quality of life that they wouldn't see life as hopeless.
But robots will be blamed. I think the deeper problem is that some people have insatiable greed and no regrets about the people they walk over.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:46PM
I don't follow what their argument would be. Even if the cause of growing inequality were automation, that's not a reason not to tax the rich more, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @11:17AM (1 child)
I don't have the source at hand here, but I have read that the eight richest people in the world have a combined wealth equal to the poorest 3.5 billion people. That sort of inequality is going to end up with 8 heads on spikes outside their respective palaces.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 03 2017, @08:06AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:17PM
It takes some smarts to be a good troll. Any moron can be a moron troll, but it takes an exceptional troll to work this forum. Ask the kiddie-diddler from Greece.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Thursday March 30 2017, @10:07PM (3 children)
I lile to be as lazy as the next guy, but if my options were basic income or basic income I would just kill myself. A lot of what makes me is working and competing to be the best that I can be. When a robot finally comes for my job I will try to find a hobby to keep me occupied, when I can't woodwork because "muh trees" I will probably just end it then. My wife recently pointed out to me that if I dont do something productive on the weekend I end up in a depressive spiral all week until I get something done.
I imagine a lot of men (people?) are the same way. Part of it is not relying on the government, a lot of it is finding self worth in being self reliant. When my existance depends on others excelling and doing great and I can't find work because there is a shortage, a large part of my reason for living goes away.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @03:56AM
That is profoundly sad.
No wonder you are so reactionary.
The world is changing around you and the only path you can see is your failure and death.
You must be scared shitless deep down inside. It certainly shows in most of your posts.
I guess what they say is right, we are all limited by our own experiences.
I hope you can figure out how to fix your head, you've got a lot more chance of being successful at that then your current path of trying to fight the future.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @01:49PM (1 child)
I don't entirely know why people build up this dichotomy of basic income or work.
The two are in no way even remotely mutually exclusive. The whole idea of a basic income is essentially to allow people to do as they see fit in society without concern of starving. Like you mention, I think the vast majority of people have a desire to produce and create. Imagine you could, today, start wood working as a career with no concern of immediate profit. Basic income will completely revolutionize entrepreneurship because of this. Right now the main barrier to entry to entrepreneurship is labor capital. If you want 10 people to work on your idea with you you're going to need to be able to provide for those 10 people. With basic income you can get 10 people working together, agree to share the revenue, and boom you've got a 10 man company ready to go full time.
There will be some people that will do nothing, but I don't know why people seem to think that means they have to do nothing. The entire point of basic income is freedom. What people do with that freedom is up to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31 2017, @04:56PM
Thank you! It is very difficult to get this idea across, opponents are too stuck on "everyone will sit on their couch watching TV all day." Some will, most won't, and as you say UBI does not prevent people from working.