Mommy, why are poor people poor?Follow

It's just bitter. Don't like it.

I disagree. My assumption is that he was riding off of his savings. It's only a matter of time before that depletes. From my experience, most people aren't looking to manage burger joints, so there isn't much competition.



I did get this when I worked the front counter. I look and laugh... I'm thinking.. "dude I'm a math major".

Eh not really. There is still a very strong focus on manufacturing. The problem however when you talk about jobs moving is automation. The number 1 killer of jobs in manufacturing (around the world not just north america) is automation. The jobs simply no longer exist. Not that they have been moved to another market sector, but have been eliminated from things we need done in society all together. The second largest impactor to manufacturing jobs is product quality. Our stuff simply is made better and lasts longer. Since less product needs to be replaced over the life time you need to make less, thus eliminating positions because you simply don't need to have all these extra people working when you aren't making that much. These jobs have also been temporarily eliminated, and I say temporarily because you could have a massive recall (Toyota almost 1 million vehicles) and need more people to help run production to fix the problems. But there are no new service industry jobs specifically created for these people who have "inlimbo" employment status.

Since jobs are being eliminated in manufacturing, and not just "lost" then yes people would look elsewhere in society for work, these are primarily in the service industry, although many go into primary industries as well. While the appearance may be that the work force is tending to service, it only does so because the jobs no longer exist in manufacturing new jobs haven't been blossoming out of the service industry either nor primary industry. Its also not because a few thousand relocated, but because tens of thousands simply no longer exists on task sheets of men.



Edited, Oct 19th 2013 11:47am by rdmcandie

The difference is that if something goes horribly wrong on an automated assembly line, the engineer pushing the button will probably have some inkling of what he should do. That kind of knowledge isn't something you can acquire in a week of training videos.

When I went to the sawmill, we got to see some pretty friggin awesome robots and big machines doing cool things. We learned that the two highest paid positions in the sawmill were this: the guy who manually rolled and rotated the bigger logs to get the most yield out of them (well, manually with joysticks from a booth ten feet up), and the guy who sharpened the teeth of the giant blade saws. Both positions were skilled in different ways. The senior blade sharpener dude had an apprentice.

Both were "merely pushing buttons" but both also required an immediate visual analysis of the stuff they were doing.

Ever work in a large manufacturing facility? You think these people out on the floor pushing buttons are "engineers"? These are people that can barely do high school math. This is work that requires only a couple hours of "training" and then throw the person on the floor and tell them to follow the written instructions at the job, sometimes a senior operator that has ran the machine before will work with them for a couple shifts, but rarely. From what I've seen on the shop floor, your average cashier at Wal-mart or Burger King gets just as much training as these button pushers.

The engineers developing the machines are not the button pushers. The machines, especially in an automated process, are developed so that any idiot that walks in off the street can operate it with minimal skills or training.



Those were not merely button pushers. You can look at my job as a controls engineer and say I'm merely pushing buttons since that is what you may see me doing most of the time. But I also have a 4 year degree in Electrical Engineering, 8 years experience with these control systems, and an innate ability to understand machine logic and figure out how to make the machine do exactly what I want it to do quickly and efficiently.

There are 400 other employees whose only job is to put a piece of metal into a machine and press the start button, then remove that piece of metal from the machine and put it into a box. If anything goes wrong with their machine they call a person from the maintenance or electrical crews over to take a look at it. If those crews can't figure it out they call the engineers.

There are 400 other employees whose only job is to put a piece of metal into a machine and press the start button, then remove that piece of metal from the machine and put it into a box. If anything goes wrong with their machine they call a person from the maintenance or electrical crews over to take a look at it. If those crews can't figure it out they call the engineers.

Then the engineer reads the manual and calls the OEM. Try the veal.

That's the part that's funniest.

I agree we should be working more to make a manufacturing foundation. Unfortunately the very nature of our society dictates the continual deterioration of manufacturing jobs. Eventually our entire manufacturing process will be automated, and those jobs will never be replaced in our society, As we move forward more and more stuff will become automated. The service sector has seen lots of job loss as computer manage more and more operations, Probably the most notable today being product ordering. Computers track store and shelf stock and determine whether the store needs more or not. 10 years ago people did this. (I know because this was my first job out of highschool and I was replaced by the computer doing it for me in 2004)

All industry is moving towards automation, many are moving faster and faster, in 10 years we won't need bank tellers, everything can be done via computer, already we are working withough cashiers in many service industry with Uscan stations. The more we automate the less jobs exist. So while I agree that we need to work to keep manufacturing here, ultimately it is redundant because our eventuality is to live in a mostly automated society, and if it is mostly automated that means we humans will be mostly out of work.

But that doesn't matter either because in the next couple decades nations will realize it is not the value of money but the value of resources, and economies will flip not to who works the most and builds the most, but to who can supply the most product to the machines to make us sh*t that costs nothing.

The future dictates humans don't work, and that we use our technology to provide for everyone. Regardless of what the Gbaji crowd thinks personal wealth and influence will be largely dead traits in humanity by 2030. Should be a fun time, we will likely be the first automated generation(s), where we can go get what we want whenever we want it and have to work minimal if any hours "for the man".

Edited, Oct 20th 2013 8:17pm by rdmcandie

Edited, Oct 20th 2013 8:21pm by rdmcandie

As modern a thought as your Luddism.

Going into the family business one summer when we were visiting. I ask where's great-grandma? And get told she's out in the shop pressing brackets. I head out back around a corner of some boxes and there's the she is, this little 92 year-old lady standing next to the press.

Slips a cut piece of metal into the slot, stomps the floor petal, and the weight drops.

"Ka-thwam!"

It's raises up, and she grabs the bracket and tosses it into a box, and then the next piece goes in.

"Ka-thwam!"

Who needs retirement?

Much more so than the guy who was supposed to be working, but didn't bother to show up that day, so the 92-year-old wife of the company owner stepped up and did his job for him.

No idea, only that he was one of those people that was frequently absent and always seemed to have an excuse. IIRC, they fairly frequently hired a few of these young friend-of-the-family types who would work for a little while, like a summer, or when just out of school or something, and eventually move on to something else. You can imagine they didn't always have the best work ethic.

Kids these days.

Edited, Oct 21st 2013 10:37am by someproteinguy