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it says that men simply can't compete with women in this new service based economy. women go to college in larger #s, graduate in larger #s, and are simply better at "relationships", which is key in a service economy.
i can't say i disagree.
so when you say that male workers are vanishing...all i can really say is, i'm not surprised.
That is a four year old article and the situation has changed drastically since that time. Men have recovered faster than women from unemployment since that time and men currently outearn women and are less likely to be unemployed. The reason why the recession was so harsh on men is it that affected disproportionately male industries (finance and construction) the hardest.
Here is a newer article about women in the workforce:
People in TN generally have no work ethic. They'd rather deal drugs or do nothing at all rather than honest work. That's one of the reasons I left, other than work just not being available.
When you live in a rural area, or an economically depressed area in general and aren't going to move, well then you're kind of in a dead end. A lot of people in such situations turn to the "underground economy" dealing drugs like you mentioned.
I just looked at the interactive map for my county (Bedford co. TN) and of 9114 men age 25 to 54 25% are not working! That is 2,278 men sitting at home idle!
In some counties in Tennessee over 50% of the men are idle. If you look in some counties in eastern Kentucky it is 65%
In my area I see quite a few jobs being posted lately and many of them lower skilled factory jobs paying 10 to 12 dollars an hour. A job like that is at least going to pay the bills while you look for something else.
Sure beats sitting your butt on the couch all day watching daytime tv....no idea what is even on tv during the day anymore. Sally Jesse? Phil Donohue? General Hospital?
I can understand not taking $10 an hour. That will hardly pay the bills, and really won't if you have any dependents. At 40 hours a week that's $1600 a month, subtract about 20% of that for deductions and taxes, you've got $1280 take-home.
My basic bills:
Mortgage/Insurance/Taxes - $640
Electric - $60 (would have to just bundle up in winter & barely run heat)
Utilities - $65
Transportation (gas, insurance & averaged maintenance) - $120 (could be cut to maybe $75 in an emergency situation)
Food - $300 (could be cut to $150 in an emergency situation)
These could be cut in an emergency situation, but it would not be advisable
Cell Phone - $80 (this is necessary, not a luxury in today's world) (maybe could cut to $40 - no smartphone)
Internet - $65 (again, a necessity, not a luxury in today's world)
Many people work 2 jobs. Hasn't killed them. If you're married or living with someone, your resources have doubled.
Sorry, but no needs a cell phone or the internet or cable. No one has EVER died from the lack of tv or internet. A landline phone or a tracphone would be fine and far cheaper than an iPhone or whatever smartphone someone has.
You'd be amazed at what you could do if you really had to do it! People survived for centuries before all the crap we have today.
Many people work 2 jobs. Hasn't killed them. If you're married or living with someone, your resources have doubled.
Sorry, but no needs a cell phone or the internet or cable. No one has EVER died from the lack of tv or internet. A landline phone or a tracphone would be fine and far cheaper than an iPhone or whatever smartphone someone has.
You'd be amazed at what you could do if you really had to do it! People survived for centuries before all the crap we have today.
That is hardly the point of the OP.
the question is why instead of going forward we are going backwards?
Why policies that were deemed favorable for US economy did the opposite? Why is the middle class decimated?
When you live in a rural area, or an economically depressed area in general and aren't going to move, well then you're kind of in a dead end. A lot of people in such situations turn to the "underground economy" dealing drugs like you mentioned.
It's not only drugs that's a problem - many legit businesses are not above board. You may have a guy working on cars completely off the books, tax and regulation free.
But you aren't one of them. You have NO idea what it entails.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
Hasn't killed them.
There is a recent story on the internet of a woman who died in her car between jobs. Just saying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
If you're married or living with someone, your resources have doubled.
And if you are not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
Sorry, but no needs a cell phone or the internet or cable. No one has EVER died from the lack of tv or internet. A landline phone or a tracphone would be fine and far cheaper than an iPhone or whatever smartphone someone has.
But you have a cell phone, don't you. You also have Internet. You wouldn't want to do without these things. Why should anyone else? Our species started the stopwatch to extinction the moment we stopped caring about how others would manage and thinking only about our individual comforts. We don't even care how our children will deal with a crumbling future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
You'd be amazed at what you could do if you really had to do it! People survived for centuries before all the crap we have today.
What do you know about it? Nada. Just stop. Really. Stop. Find some empathy from somewhere.
Sure, you'd survive, but without the internet it would be much harder and slower to find a new job. Without a phone, how would someone contact you to arrange a job interview or to accept an offer? I've lost out on jobs because I did not respond quickly enough. Many people communicate via text these days. Want a sales job, ie: real estate? No way, you have to have a smartphone because clients expect near-instant responses.
You can survive without those things but you will be at a disadvantage, prolonging the time you'll stay at the $10 an hour level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ss20ts
Many people work 2 jobs. Hasn't killed them. If you're married or living with someone, your resources have doubled.
Sorry, but no needs a cell phone or the internet or cable. No one has EVER died from the lack of tv or internet. A landline phone or a tracphone would be fine and far cheaper than an iPhone or whatever smartphone someone has.
You'd be amazed at what you could do if you really had to do it! People survived for centuries before all the crap we have today.
It all depends on the area of the country you live in, as to how many jobs there are, and what the pay is.
Take my town here in Montana---3.4% unemployment rate, and McDonald's starts high school kids at $11 an hour, and more mature at $14 an hour to show the base here and reasonable cost of living. Montana as a whole has a 3.8% unemployment rate. When you consider that 3% unemployment rate is considered full employment, as 3% of the people will be changing jobs, taking a little personal time off, etc., that means we have a .4% unemployment rate for practical purposes. Our biggest unemployment problems, are at the 7 Indian Reservations in the state some larger than the smallest state, and as they are ran by the U.S. Government, they have to fight to try to get job producing facilities on them, as if they let the Indians control what happens on the reservation a huge loss in employment for the Indian Services Administration in Washington and the federal jobs on the reservations.
Montana has a problem. As a newspaper article pointed out a few months ago, a company wanted to open a facility in Montana due to the quality of the workforce and the business friendliness of the state. They would need 300 people to start. Before they would put in the facility they were told by the state employment offices, to check to see if they could find enough workers. They advertised, and could only get 77 applications total in Billings our biggest city, and less in the two other places they tried. We don't have the potential employees for a lot more employment opportunities, especially those needing a thousand or more employees. We have had numerous companies looking at moving to Montana, but we don't have the workers needed.
In some other parts of the country, instead of 77 applications, there would be from hundreds to thousands applying.
When we see posters telling how bad things are, and people going for years without jobs in their areas, we all need to realize those big unemployment problems are all local, not nation wide.
Non union right to work states, are where the new jobs are being created in largest numbers. Over the next 6 years, millions of jobs will be created by just the thousands of Foreign Companies increasing employment by millions of jobs due to opening factories and other facilities in the U.S. Example, 10 foreign owners have opened auto manufacturing plants in the U.S. and bought Chrysler. None of these were put in big union states. More foreign company autos are built in the U.S. than Ford and General Motors build.
Some states that are really unfriendly to Business, are seeing changes. California as an example due to being so business unfriendly, have recently seen companies such as Toyota leaving the state, California companies such as Apple, building a big computer manufacturing facility for thousands of workers in Texas, and Tesla putting their new batter manufacturing in Nevada again to hire thousands of people, and more California companies moving out of state, or opening their new facilities out of state all the time. New York is seeing the same problem.
A big reason that a number of places like California have problems, is they have made it nearly impossible for a company to do business in California. Tesla said the reason they put the new plant with thousands of jobs in Nevada, was it takes 2 years longer to get the approvals to build the plant than other places, and they could not wait for those two extra years.
Using California as an example, states that are business unfriendly, with super high business taxes, and take 2 to 3 years to get approval to put in a new factory, are driving businesses from the state, and keeping new ones out such as the Tesla and Apple facilities that hire thousands of people. There are going to be millions of jobs created by foreign companies in the U.S., and those are not going to go to places that are unfriendly to businesses, and take years to get permits to enlarge or put in a new factory.
Some parts of the U.S. are doing great, in fact doing as well or better than before the recession started. Others have problems. So employment conditions and pay in relation to cost of living, are completely different as we move around the country. Some areas are doing great, and some areas have problems. Your perspective of what is happening in the field of employment depends on where you are living.
There's a ton of electrical work and I happen to be in Maryland. Anyone in my company is free to write their own ticket in overtime. The difference is that you have to want to work and become proficient in your job.
The guy who was interviewed for that article might try working NON-Union. Sure less money on the surface, but the work is there as is the pride. I have no idea how unions make money anymore or why anyone would want to hire union workers considering how expensive they are. In know the government mandates union work oftentimes, but that is a moral hazard.
Edit: I'm in the same county as this guy. The building trades are doing just fine. He needs to get off his butt.
Private sector workers are also not limited to wage stagnation like union workers are. I believe once you hit "journeyman" your wages freeze where they are until you become a Master. Sure a "helper" might start out at $12-14/hr. but that's fine and you move up over time. A journeyman in our company makes minimum of about 22-23 (we don't discuss wages) and I know some of the more experienced guys are making at or above 30. Sixty thousand a year plus overtime in this state isn't bad especially when you're in your thirties. What does this union guy want? Maybe he could've started his own business if he wasn't so lazy.
So it doesn't matter how good you are you'll always be paid the same as ALL the other journeymen in the union. So where's the incentive to become faster, more efficient, more knowledgeable? There isn't. Private companies don't have this problem since you get paid in proportion to what you produce and how well you perform your job.
Last edited by mapmd; 12-13-2014 at 02:55 PM..
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