Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,
If you have a good paying job, you should probably try to hold on to it as hard as you can, because those types of jobs are steadily becoming rarer. Since 1990, the U.S. economy has produced millions of jobs, but as you will see below nearly two-thirds of them have been low wage jobs. Of course this is one of the biggest factors causing the systematic erosion of the American middle class. Today, half of all U.S. workers make less than $33,000 a year, but meanwhile the cost of living has been steadily increasing. Housing costs, health insurance and other basic necessities have been rising much faster than our paychecks have, and this has put an enormous amount of financial stress on hard working American families.
A job making making chicken sandwiches at Popeye’s is not equivalent to a structural engineering job. In other words, the quality of the jobs that we create is perhaps even more important than the number of jobs that we create.
Yes, the U.S. has been creating a lot of jobs in recent years, but meanwhile the overall quality of our jobs has degraded rapidly…
Although the U.S. is on a record streak for job creation, many Americans still feel like they can’t get ahead. It’s not their imagination. The past three decades have seen the economy churn out more and more jobs that offer inadequate pay, a group of researchers found.
“The history of private-sector employment in the U.S. over the past three decades is one of overall degradation in the ability of many American jobs to support households — even those with multiple jobholders,” they wrote.
In fact, if you go back to 1990 about half of all jobs in the U.S. were good jobs.
But since that time, a whopping 63 percent of the jobs that have been created have been “low-wage, low-hour jobs”…
“In 1990, the jobs were pretty much evenly divided,” said Daniel Alpert, a founder of Westwood Capital and one of the creators of the index. In the process of running the numbers, he said, “We discovered that 63% of all jobs that were created since 1990 were low-wage, low-hour jobs. That was a pretty stunning statistic.”
So what is the answer?
In the past, you could make good money in America even if you just had a high school education. There were millions upon millions of high paying manufacturing jobs in this country, but at this point most of those high paying jobs have been shipped to other nations where wages are far, far lower.
Today, our young people are being greatly encouraged to get a college education so that they can compete for the dwindling number of good paying jobs. Of course there aren’t enough good paying jobs for all of our college graduates, but at least with a college degree you have a better chance of landing one.
Unfortunately, getting a college education has become oppressively expensive, and our young people have been taking on enormous amounts of debt as a result.
In fact, Time Magazine says that the total amount of student loan debt in the United States is now over 1.5 trillion dollars…
Today more than 44 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt, which has become the one of the biggest consumer debt categories. All told, student debt in the U.S. now totals more than $1.5 trillion.
Sadly, that number has almost doubled over the past decade. We have never seen a student loan debt bubble of this magnitude in the entire history of this country, and student loan debt delinquency rates are soaring.
And even though there has been a national uproar about this, the cost of a college education continues to rise much faster than the overall rate of inflation…
As the issue of college affordability continues to be a prominent talking point on the campaign trail ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a new study shows that the cost of a college education is still increasing at a rate that far outpaces inflation.
The study, put out by the financial technology company Self, found that on average, college costs have risen $2,835 since 2015, increasing 112 percent more than the rate of inflation during the same period.
At this point, you are probably asking one very important question.
Where in the world is all of that money going?
Well, one recent study discovered that “administrative bloat” is the biggest factor that is driving up costs…
“Administrative bloat contributes enormously to the high and rising cost of tuition. In recent years, non-teaching personnel in higher education have exploded,” Pulliam said. “At some colleges bureaucrats outnumber faculty. The ‘diversity bureaucracy’ has proliferated at many schools. UT employs nearly 100 people in its diversity department, some of whom are paid in the six figures. Unnecessary and overpaid administrators are responsible for much of the increased overhead borne by students in the form of tuition increases.”
So as you pay off your student loan debt for decades to come, you can be comforted by the fact that the associate provost for diversity and inclusion at your college is bringing home more than $100,000 a year.
And perhaps that is the solution for the U.S. economy as a whole. If we just create enough “diversity” and “inclusion” administrative jobs, then we can all make six figures a year and the U.S. middle class will be restored.
Of course I am being facetious. The truth is that if we ever want to restore the U.S. economy to greatness, we need to start making things in this country again. We need jobs that add real value to our society, and we need an economic environment that respects and encourages innovation.
Unfortunately, what we have today is just the opposite. We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, many of our “good paying jobs” are administrative or government jobs that add very little value to our society, and our small businesses are being strangled to death by rules, regulations and oppressive levels of taxation.
The only way that we have been able to maintain our debt-fueled standard of living is by piling up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and if we continue on the path that we are on there is no way that our story is going to end well.
We desperately need a return to common sense economics, but unfortunately common sense appears to be in short supply in America today.
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The guy making chicken sandwiches hasn’t the intelligence and drive to become a structural engineer. He’s been taught to take the easy path through life by getting an award for showing up.
The manufacturing jobs left the country because labor rates were too high compared to other places. Why were they so high? Taxes, wars, Federal Reserve debt monetization, redundant gov’t, welfare, prisons, the entrenched monopolies like the MIC, Pharma, Medical, Insurance, etc that all extract money needlessly because the law says so.
The Fed Gov is the ultimate cause of a high cost of living which dictates a high labor rate. Cut out the useless Fed Gov and labor rates could go down to where manufacturing can return and provide decent jobs.
I agree the gov’t is guilty of inflating the cost of living but there is a distinct difference from the cost of living and a standard of living. Your implication that the manufacturing jobs will return if they can pay a lower wage doesn’t help the standard of living for those taking the jobs if they are still low-wage.
Absent ((central banks)) forever inflating the money supply and manipulating interest rates and absent a fedgov mandating the use of their debt-based scrip, consumer prices would tend to drift lower in line with inreases in productivity and innovation, while wages, though more modest, would also remain relatively more stable. Lower cost of living in this case would ensure a higher standard of living and a more solid middle class. Racial and cultural homogeneity are also critical.
And Let’s Not Forget…..Our Friendly UNIONS…
A bunch of Horse hockey.
Collective bargaining = legalized extortion.
I call bullshit. Collective bargaining, in the private sector, is no different than the boardroom getting together and voting on labor costs. People have a right to organize. Sheesh!!!
Where it goes sideways is when collective bargaining, in the public sector, does not allow the payer (taxpayer) a vote. Sheesh!!
The business owner / stock holders, own everything, including the jobs they put on offer. They decide who to hire and fire according to their interests.
Employees should be able to organize and unionize to select an individual or group to represent them and their interests to management. Management should be able to either negotiate with that employee representative or not. Management should be able to fire anyone and everyone they deem not compatible with their goals.
When the law FORCES management to relinquish their rights over their property and jobs, that then becomes extortion when the union can’t lose. Management is forced to deal with the union and come to terms when they would rather not.
It is the force that the law provides that is the problem. No one is against organizing and presenting a united list of objectives. Management should be free to bargain or not as they see fit.
Give me a little more info please. Are you saying management can’t renig (that’s for you EC) on a contract and/or shop on the scab market?
A contract is a binding legal obligation, so reneging on a contract is verboten under contract law.
Scabs are a misdirection. They can’t make up for the mass of labor that walks off the job.
Look at the UAW. They control the bulk of the automobile industry in the US. By threatening or actually walking off the job, causes huge disruptions. Management can’t replace all the labor in an instant and so is extorted to come to terms with the union. Any attempt to find an alternative work force is political suicide.
The union members extort above market wages and benefits via threat and intimidation fostered by existing law. Every purchaser of a union made product pays for the extorted benefits.
Every non union member should refuse to purchase union made goods because they end up paying for the excesses that the extortion realizes.
Any corporation that is threatened by unionization and the inevitable extortion should move off shore and close plant till the law makes the extortion illegal.
Unions are a factor moving jobs off shore. Greed on both sides is manifest and management has options that labor doesn’t. End result is jobs going elsewhere.
SAO – that is somewhat correct. But…. I have run some huge plants with very entrenched unions. It is entirely possible to deal with them if the management is good enough. The UAW/GM/Ford etc issues may be beyond overcoming due to the political issues, as you say. But barring that, a good manager with backbone could fix those issues at the next contract. It really is not that complex.
The UAW is a force unto itself. It does what’s best for the union management first and if coincidentally, the workers dead last. The latest scandal concerning union management gives testimony towards their utter corruption. It is a mafia style organization.
I doubt any management can get any real concessions from the UAW unless they can show that they intend to close plants in the US and reduce the labor force which ultimately is the life blood of the union itself. That is the one ace management has and has played it for quite some time. Sooner or later, more plants will close and move production to Asia where the demand currently is and will only grow in years ahead.
When GM moves the bulk of their production off shore or their headquarters to China that will signal the death knell for the US economy.
Go union!
I agree, Llpoh. My buddy in Illinois loves having a union shop. He hires some outfit that negotiates the contract every 5 years or so, and he has labor peace. It would be a nightmare to negotiate with every one of his hundreds of employees individually. People don’t stop to think about that.
Thanks for that input, Star. There are a lot of advantages to having unions – so long as the management is firm in negotiations, and fair.
People forget why unions came into being – workers were treated abominably. Workers indeed have the right to organize, and business must therefore deal with them. It really is not hard, nor is it unfair. It falls apart when politics enters the equation, or when there is extended bad management.
He and I have a little hobby farm here in Florida we run for the fun of it, One of my responsibilities is keeping it staffed and running smoothly. It’s a tiny little thing, I try to keep three or four people working. But it takes a certain type of person to do what needs to be done because I can’t be there very much. They all seem great for the first month or two, and then inevitably they start milking the situation. I don’t have a great deal of turnover in my business because I stay on top of people and let them know what I expect and correct them if it starts going south. When people have to be self starters, most of them can’t do it. The turnover rate on the little side project is atrocious, and the costs are much, much harder to control. it’s not really super important that we do stay on top of the costs, but the way I’m wired it drives me nuts.
That is what it takes to be a good business owner – it is the little things that matter, and if you stop being concerned about even little costs, it is time to get out.
I cannot see your logic. Extortion? Quitting en mass is extortion? Is said extortion in the middle of a contract? NFL players do it all the time. It’s written in the union rules though, if I understand correctly. If the “extortion” is during a contract…maybe you have a point. Q: how do you force someone to complete a labor contract and would you even want to force a disgruntled employee to complete it? Freedom of association plays a role here, no?
P.S. – As far as the answer you gave concerning scabbery, that’s the companies problem. Maybe the problem really is the company is just too damn big. Hmm, is there such a thing? If these companies want to crawl to the government for bailouts, they’re gonna become a governmental division. Companies can’t have it every way they want. What do you want…fascism or something?
You hit the nail square on the head. Freedom of association is key.
Management doesn’t want to associate with the union. It is forced to do so by law. That FORCE is the prima facie evidence that it violates freedom of association. Any contract is arrived at under duress. Period.
How is the company forced to by law? This, I don’t know.
This sounds like an essay assignment. Write an article about union laws and how they came about. Any chance these large corporations played a part in these laws being passed?
Btw, contracts are arrived at under duress All. The. Time.
When the employees decide to unionize and a vote is conducted to affirm the majority want a union, the law backs them up and the union becomes the bargaining agent. The corp has no say in the matter.
Contracting is usually done with mutual agreement or else the parties go their separate ways.
Contracting is rarely under duress. It’s only when the contract negotiations are something that can’t be avoided due to law that it becomes a duress situation.
SAO – once again, your ignorance is showing. It is clear that you have never run an organization with a large number of people. And it is clear that you only on surface know what you are talking about as a result. You see some things re the UAW and extrapolate that across all companies and plants.
I have had no issues running union plants. None at all. There are huge benefits of having union plants in some situations. If I have a plant of say 2000 or more people, have a union means I do not have to negotiate wages and conditions with 2000 people. Try that sometime, and see how you like it. I vastly prefer doing one negotiation, and moving on. It streamlines many things. There are many other benefits as well, too many to go into at this time.
Unions are not hard to deal with. Management does what it does, and unions cave in, if they know that management is serious. It is like having a large dog, say a boerboel. It is necessary that the dog understand that it is not the master. Neither is the dog a slave. If the master – the business – does the right thing and does not exploit the union, and is firm, the union will support the business. There are of course exceptions where stupid happens, but it is almost always the fault of management, not of the unions.
There are some companies that are very serious in how they go about things. The Kenworth truck organization is well known for playing hardball. If the unions get out of hand, they simply close the plant and walk away until sense is restored. As a result, throught the world. Kenworth plants have almost zero union strike issues. It is well known that they will not be coerced in that way.
SAO – you really need to understand there is much you talk about that you do not understand and that you do not have experience in, and you should try to learn more and comment less in those instances.
The fact that some companies survive with unions doesn’t change the fact that they have no choice in the matter. The law forces them to associate with the union.
It is the force that is the problem. If there were no force there probably wouldn’t be many unions.
I’m not in the habit of doling out personal advice. I’m also not in the habit of taking any.
Please stay on topic and avoid personal recriminations.
SAO – yo are a fuckwit. Go fuck yourself. You post one stinking pile of ill-informed shit after another. Yo may not be in the habit of doling out advice, but you sure have a habit of posting ignorant bullshit opinions about things of which you know zero.
You jabber on incessantly about shit where you are fucking clueless. You are truly ignorant in a great many areas, and I have been trying to help you out with gentle advice. But no, you are a know it nothing too stupid to learn, and too stupid to take advice from those more experienced and knowledgeble in the areas where you spout off ill-informed bullshit.
No more gentle help. What a dickhead you are. You have zero clue.
You do not know me, but you should have found out. You are in for a ride now, asshole.
BTW, dickhead, you are misinterpreting waht the laws are about. The laws give individuals the rights to associate, which is perfectly fucking reasonable, and it is the protection of their rights to do so that is the over-riding factor. If business were allowed to not deal with unions it would be granting them rights over the rights of individuals to associate.
“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the losers.” – Socrates
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” – Mark Twain
Donkey – right you are. The moron is wrong, mostly, but not entirely.
SAO – I am the resident manufacturing expert. You say that manufacturing jobs left the country because of high labor rates. That is a bit too simplistic.
First, whatever manufacturing jobs that left were essentially inconsequential with respect to total job losses in manufacturing. In 1950, around 50% of all jobs were in manufacturing. At today’s population and labor force, that would be around 80 million jobs. But there are only around 12 million or so manufacturing jobs. So the equivalent of 68 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared. I assure you, 68 million manufacturing jobs have not gone overseas. That number is more likely to be 2 to 4 million.
What that means is that around 64 – 66 million equivalent jobs were eliminated via automation. And the job elimination will continue.
The reason jobs left, the few million of them, is because this equation became out of balance: the cost of automating jobs out of existence > or = to the cost of moving jobs overseas.
If the jobs had not moved overseas, they would have been automated away in any event.
Because as you say, labor is expensive, and besides, n one wants employees as they are a pain in the ass.
The talk of jobs coming back is bullshit. Jobs will not be coming back. Maybe manufacturing will come back, if the equation above turns around. Any manufacturing that comes back will not include jobs – it will be so heavily automated that there will be few if any jobs.
There is currently a headline that says that manufacturing jobs have increased by 450k under Trump. however, when you look at it, that means mfg jobs have increased less than the rate of GDP – which means automation is still eroding mfg jobs, and will continue to do so.
When the exodus of manufacturing started, automation wasn’t yet a primary concern. Factories left due to labor rates.
Yes, over time more and more jobs were eliminated due to automation. Yes, automation is going to keep reducing the need for labor. You’re right that should any manufacturing start up in the US, it will be very lean on labor.
Machines need repairs, routine maintenance, and depending on the size of an operation, machinists and others with metalworking knowledge are cheaper than some multi million dollar automated equivalent. Fewer people but higher skilled are still going to be in demand.
The US had decades to revamp education to produce a workforce higher in skills to not need so many low end jobs. That time was squandered. Now, as you say, anyone without some serious skills is going to have a very tough time making ends meet.
What to do with people that are basically useless to anyone? The military won’t hire anyone below a certain IQ level because they’ve determined that they are incapable of adding value anywhere along some process. I forget the statistics, but its millions of US residents.
Just handing out welfare for no productive output can’t continue. There has to be a way to get people productive somehow. Starting to reduce welfare benefits might get some so hungry that they figure something out themselves. If push comes to shove, stoop labor in the farm fields might be necessary to get rid of the entitlement mentality and to curb breeding more mental midgets.
SAO – you think that automation was not a concern when mfg jobs started to disappear? What the fuck – you cannot do even a modicum of research? I have been in senior manufacturing management my entire working life, and I know this shit. I have an advanced degree in operations. Some of what you say is correct, but fact remains that there has been an almost steady decline in manufacturing jobs as a percentage of total jobs going back to 1950. See how straight that line is more or less?
Every year manufacturing gets around 2.5%- 5% more efficient. It makes more with less, year in, year out. And it has done so for decades. The job losses to automation go back decades.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-064e017da402fd01bf0f57e804f99364
Next time you write about something, make sure you know what you are talking about, because right now you do not. This is my field. I am indeed an expert in it. Your thoughts that jobs disappeared overseas prior to automation is wrong, and that is putting it mildly.
Anyone voting that post down are imbeciles. The entirety of the post can be confirmed by data if anyone has the skills needed to but look. Sorry if the facts do not suit your narratives.
Worse than the ignorant down votes are assholes spewing bullshit on topics you know a lot about, and having the gonads to multi-down vote it so as to twist the discussion’s narrative. Doesn’t seem to be very open and in support of the free flow of ideas to me. It’s villainous and not too dissimilar to Antifa and PSYOP tactics so as to control the message and “lead” readers to a conclusion.
Which is how I felt yesterday when I was beating my head against a damn wall. As if I am making shit up out of nowhere.
I hate mouthy n00bs. I waited 8-9 years before I jumped on these boards and started sharing ideas. You guys taught me to shut the fuck up and pull out the coloring book first. I wish Stucky was around because he’d be lassoing them with his dick.
AOC – SAO has good instincts in general. Really. That is the good news. But the bad news is he refuses to learn and stop doubling down when he is ignorant of the facts.
He shoots his mouth off on occasion re things he does not understand, and when gently corrected, and it was gently, he doubled down on the stupid bits. The charts above clearly show he is incorrect. He really needs to learn how to learn. I live and breathe this stuff, and he wants to dispute facts with me. That is stunningly ill-advised.
Manufacturing as a percentage of jobs has dropped in an almost straight line since 1950. It is indisputable. Any jobs that were exported, by and large, did not start until the Japanese started to make an impact in the 1970s. Mfg was by then a shadow of its former self, with jobs being down by half as a percentage. In only 20 years. They halved again in the next twenty, and again in the next twenty, and will do so again.
The jobs exported overseas is neither here nor there in the scheme of things. Mfg jobs are disappearing at a steady rate, and the number of jobs exported is a pittance relative to what automation has done. And if they had not been exported, they would very likely have been automated out, as they were the next lot of targets. Exporting them was simply cheaper than automating them out.
AOC – SAO has good instincts in general. Really. That is the good news. But the bad news is he refuses to learn and stop doubling down when he is ignorant of the facts.
Totally agree with this and it was why I recommended humility in all things to him. He is very knowledgeable on IT and engineering overall. I can detect a bullshitter on both, assuming it’s using technology that I know. He’s not a bullshitter there.
My problem is that he is incapable of self-muzzling and listening to people who know more than he does in other areas. He suffers from the most rigid thinking patterns I have ever encountered on here. His solutions are often not solutions but recycled libertarian talking points that have been digested, honed, and settled 10 years ago on TBP! When he is challenged – and he knows I’ve challenged him good and hard – he turtles into comfort zone defenses.
THIS is the primary difference between INTJ and INTP. We (INTP) are all over the map and scatter-brained, but we’ve performed INTJ’s thought experiments on everything already! There’s a difference between being book smart versus learning through experimentation and real-world experience. That is where the rubber meets the road for me.
AoC – that about sums it up. I guess the issue is that he thinks he knows, does not know, and is too stubborn, putting it kindly, to actually learn something new when his ignorance is pointed out to him.
llpoh,
I am no manufacturing expert in any way shape or form. However, one angle I have posted about before that plays into the big picture of our manufacturing decline is where China got the loans (after Nixon’s handler Kissinger) opened China to build the factories in the first place.
From the greatest traitors of the United States and in modern times, the Rockefellers, and their toad Hennery Kissinger (and they were tax free loans to boot)
US MIDDLE CLASS STILL SUFFERING FROM ROCKEFELLER-KISSINGER INDUSTRIAL TRANSFER SCHEME TO CHINA
When Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller met with Zhou Enlai in China in 1973—just after President Richard Nixon had visited China establishing official relations—an understanding was reached whereby the U.S. would supply industrial capital and know-how to China.
In return Kissinger-connected corporations would gain the monopolistic advantage of low-cost labor production which could outcompete all U.S. domestic industry.
The comparative advantage gained was being able to hire Chinese laborers who were ready to work hard at exceedingly low cost—with no drugs, no alcohol, a strong work ethic, no unions, no paid benefits and weak environmental standards. And with such a large labor pool, burned out workers could simply be replaced. This gave the Rockefeller/Kissinger corporations a major edge over their domestic U.S. competitors who had to pay relatively high wages, high regulation costs, deal with union strikes and collective bargaining etc.
Of course, the American consumer did not see greatly lowered prices commensurate with such greatly lowered labor costs. The $19.99 plastic action-figure toy marketed with a Hollywood movie still cost $19.99 even though it cost $12 to $15 to produce in the U.S. but less than $2.00 per copy to produce in China and transport to America’s West Coast container ports for distribution throughout America.
Washington writer Dick Eastman taught economics at Texas A & M University and also studied the behavorial sciences.
Full article here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3511217/posts
Mark – a lot of this stuff is overstated. What happened in the 1970s is reasonably complex. The biggest issue, in my informed opinion, is that US manufacturing became arrogant. The quality of its goods was horrible, as it was effectively a closed market at that time. There were no foreign competitors to its manufacturers. If you are old enough, think back to the absolute crap that was coming out of car factories at that time. That arrogance allowed Japan in particular to get a foothold in internationally manufacturing, an it did so by concentrating on quality, a movement lead by a guy named Deming- an American – who was unsuccessful in getting US firms to adopt his principles. By concentrating on quality, Japan took advantage of the fact that the US was producing shit products.
Manufacturing as a % of GDP is today much as it ever was. Some jobs flowed overseas, but the reality is that, generally, the US manufactures as much as it eve did – it just takes far fewer people to do it.
Imported goods have been financed by debt. What has happened is that US consumers consume a lot more, and it is financed by debt. That is what the imports are about – extra consumption. The US remains a mighty producer of manufactured goods, and a huge exporter of manufactured goods. But it has become an extraordinary consumer of goods financed by debt.
The China stuff you mention above was fluff, and perhaps accelerated what happened in China a few years – it always would have happened anyway.
The Us is its own wort enemy. Instead of taking ruthless advantage of the position it found itself in after WW2, it effectively financed the resurrection of its current economic competitors – especially Japan and Germany. It was a mistake.
BTW – the fact that the author says “THEY WERE TEARING OUT THE GUTS OF AMERICAN PRODUCTION” is indicative that he is a clueless hack. The US mfg GDP is almost unchanged. That in itself refutes the claim. The issue is extra imported consumption, not reduced manufacturing. Manufacturing has not reduced, or very little. It is simply vastly more efficient.
OK, Llpoh, I am pretty ignorant about manufacturing. Here’s a question and it is an important one to me, because it’s my baby boy I’ve been giving advice to. I have been pushing him to take the robotics class they’re offering in his middle school, and I’m trying to keep him interested in STEM.
My gut led me to switch from EE to CS 20+ years ago and I haven’t been disappointed. My gut is telling me to continue to push him in STEM, but more specifically, I want him to really focus on robotics and how to use them to improve productive capacity in agri.
Is that good advice? I am anxious to work on a drone with him, program it, and show him the power of robotics and how it can be used to, for instance in my case, map detailed topo on my orchard, ever so subtle drainage issues, etc. I figure if you can master robotics in general and learn how to apply that knowledge to a particular scenario, you could theoretically apply it to medicine, manufacturing, etc.
AoC – I have no idea how to so advise. Yes, STEM seems real smart, and IT still seems good. Robotics with specifics in agri? I have no idea. Just not sure, as agriculture is such a small percentage of the workforce already – scale has taken over already there. I just do not know about it. Robotics as a long-term career field? I simply cannot say much there.
One of my family members is a world-class software engineer making a squillion a year, and they say that there will be incredible demand in the foreseeable future for top-notch software folks. The caveat is “top-notch” – say top 1% types. If your son is in that category then anything in tech will serve him right.
I would also suggest that in STEM if he can combine tech skills with communication skills, that is the world-by-the-balls scenario, as a great many techies are incapable of dealing with human beings.
Sorry I cannot be of more help. STEM yes, but robotics, especially specifically in agriculture, I just would not have a clue.
If you see Dutch, Star, and a few others, maybe ask the question again to the entire TBP crowd – there are a lot of smart folks out there with experience in these areas.
My son is definitely “top-notch”, potential 1% in terms of STEM. We do need to work on his self-confidence which will only help his communication skills. That is a WIP.
Thank you.
AOC
You’re in IT, correct? Out of curiosity, in what area of IT?
FWIW, I think Bill Gates would tell your son to concentrate on software. Even robots will be controlled by software. A great coder can start their own business in many different industries even.
There is so much more to be accomplished with code imo. I’d even say software can decentralize some industries.
Btw, I have a computer science degree but am certainly not in the 1% of coders and never was. Not even close. What I do know is that my company would be nothing…nothing, without one.
WIP, kinda all over the place. Every time I get out of management to focus on mentoring and solutioning/architecting, they suck me back in and expect me to do both. I’ve done it all since starting out with Basic on a TRS80 Model III, finally took a circuitous route to where most industry E of the Mississippi ends up: MSFT technologies, for better or for worse.
I wanted to stick with breadboards but my gut instinct was to specialize (at the time) in computer science, which actually meant something different than it does today.
I’m totally burnt out with IT and I have finally figured out why, as I was focusing on my orchard all of last week. In America, everything has become financialized. It has caused an explosive growth in service professions who otherwise in a free market would be on subsistence living. STEM hasn’t grown nearly as rapidly here, but even its growth is marred by spaghetti coders versus real problem solvers and engineers. So the good ones (and I am a very good one) suffer from a paradox, which is this: They need me far more than I need them, and they hate me for it. So they burn me to the ground, until one day working outside, I decided I am going Galt.
Buh-bye paradox.
You are high IQ, would be my bet. Duh. 🙂
Why, WHY didn’t you ever start your own business based on your IT knowledge?
Mark, amazing no? Nothing is anything less than a full on nobel prize research effort to flesh out the ENTIRE story of how things evolved to where they are at any given time.
donk – the mistakes made are so numerous it is impossible to list them all. For me, it seems to be debt driven consumption of imported, cheap goods that is a root issue. Bad quality, stupid unions and political decisions, bad management, EPA and stupid endless regs, uneducated and slack workforce, all the myriad taxes,etc are all contributing factors to the general malaise. It is a never-ending list.
LL, I am sure you’re correct. There are things we don’t know and things we don’t know we don’t know. I say this in relation to how the world operates at the highest levels. IMO, America being a closed system, I do not think it had to have the effect it did. How/why? Think of how upstarts are fucked with as soon as they start to make noise. Think of one of the most famous patent lawsuits in 70s(?). A man named Robert Kearns, the intermittent wiper inventor. The big 3 tried desperately to fuck him over. How much of that takes place? Not just that but what about the Hudson guy who was fucked over by the big 3? All America needed, even in a closed system, was to allow unfettered competition. It is the cure all. But for some reason, we had to go the foreign competition route? Why? Inquiring minds want to know. I mean, think about it, America had the brightest and most inventive minds and probably still do. Now we even import minds. WTF is going on?!!!
llpoh,
You have forgotten more about the inner workings of manufacturing management then I know, I agree with everything you said to Donkey.
“The biggest issue, in my informed opinion, is that US manufacturing became arrogant”.
Yes, that is a huge issue, but as far as its ranking I have my doubts.
We have been massively betrayed behind the curtain, and it was a red iron one with slanted eyes.
I see David Rockefeller (a Luciferian if there ever was one) and the entire power base of the CFR (that the Rockefellers took control of from the Rothschild’s in the 50’s) as a driving force in accelerating the decline of American manufacturing by pouring billions of ‘tax free’ loans…the capital needed…into China to jump start them building the factories to first compete, and then explode (along with more Presidential and Congressional betrayals) into the economic ‘manufacturing’ powerhouse they became.
Your points are all valid, I just think you are under estimating this one.
What the Rockefellers did was not a ‘mistake’…it was intentional in the ‘Long March’ to help the hollowing out the American Middle Class and the Globalists Luciferian Banksters shifting their power base away from the US and to China. The IMF and China are also long in it together.
Here are the major events since the TRAITOR DAVID ROCKEFELLER running the CFR (and the Federal government for all intents after Nixon was taken out) went to China:
1973 –DAVID ROCKEFELLER VISITS CHINA
July 1973 – David Rockefeller forms Trilateral Commission.
1974-1975 – George H.W. Bush is the US “ambassador” to China. Officially the US did not recognize the PROC, so he did not hold the official title of ambassador.
1976 – Mao Tse Tung (Zedong) died at the age of 82. Hua Guofeng becomes the new Chairman of the Communist Party of China.
1978 – Economic reforms called “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” were started by pragmatists within the Communist Party led by Deng Xiaoping. The goal of Chinese economic reform was to generate sufficient surplus value to finance the modernization of the economy.
Note: This ‘sufficient surplus’ came from the Rockefellers.
January 1, 1979 – The United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
1979 – Deng Xiaoping became the first Chinese leader to visit the United States. He met with Jimmy Carter in the White House.
1981 – Deng finishes consolidating power in China by ousting Hua Guofeng and replacing him with persons loyal to him.
1984 – The United Kingdom signs an agreement to hand over Hong Kong to China.
June 1989 – Tiananmen Square protests in China brutally suppressed.
1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union.
1995 – WTO is formed
1997 – Hong Kong handed over to China by the United Kingdom.
December 20, 1999 – Macau handed over to China by Portugal.
July 13, 2001 – 2008 Olympics awarded to Beijing.
December 11, 2001 – China accepted into WTO. Robert Zoellick was the US negotiator.
April 2006 – China’s President Hu Jintao meets with President George W. Bush in White House.
July 1, 2007 – Robert Zoellick becomes president of the World Bank.
August 2008 – US opens huge new embassy in Beijing on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. At the same time China opens its new embassy in Washington, D.C. which is the biggest embassy in the US capital.
August 2008 – Beijing Olympics – China’s “coming out party”.
September 2008 – Global economic crisis triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers.
September 25, 2009 – New Economic World Order created at G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh.
Then we had 8 years of the greatest Trojan Horse in the history of Trojan Horses.
Mark – a lot of bad shit has happened. No doubt. Mistakes were made everywhere.
Here is a little aside. I know some Rockefellers. Been to their house if you can call such a massive thing a house. My experience with them is not extensive, but I did not find them evil, but only nice and welcoming, albeit from a different universe from such as us. It was not David’s house, but Nelson’s, by memory. Long time ago.
That $1.5 Trillion was only $1 Trillion a few years ago. I remember the headlines. Its going up almost as fast as our government is racking up debt.
Skilled trades apprenticeships are the way to go for those who do not want to go into debt for a worthless degree. Apprenticeships typically last for 4 or 5 years depending on the trade and result in no student debt. In addition, apprentices are protected from job reductions and layoffs as they are the last to suffer from employment “reductions in force”.
The only downside to apprenticeships exist for white males, who are commonly “passed over”, although qualified as that old bugaboo “racial quotas” comes into play.
although qualified as that old bugaboo
You mean jigaboo?
Economic and financial pirates have bought the US Congress and have been making excessive profits for 40 years. Their primary investment has been in the US subsidies for “American?” companies selling foreign goods in USA. I’m ashamed that I bought the Republican free trade propaganda in the 80’s and 90’s. Now I realize that it was hust the other side of the Democrat globalist banker coin.
As the US now has the labor force of a third world nation, it continues to let third worlders come in via H1-b and other programs and take the more skilled jobs. Also low paying jobs guarantee a high enlistment in the military, which kills off more Americans and leaves the muds in guest worker programs to remain, breed and takeover AmeriKa entirely. None dare call it ‘white genocide’.
The industrial revolution is over, the tech revolution is over. Many problems have been solved via computerization.
I haven’t stepped inside a bank in years – ATM’s vend money, accept checks. Mastercard keeps sending me checks – at 4% interest for 18 months – no need for short term loans or loan officers. You can get a mortgage on-line.
Realtors are now being replaced by on-line listing services.
Same for engineering – AutoCad drafting, bill-of-materials, all sorts of engineering design programs – make it easy for a lesser person to do what and experience engineer once did.
Demand for new cars: the average age of a car on the road is 12 years.
Many things have been streamlined, automated, solved. There isn’t the opportunity there was.
Dutch – you say above “Same for engineering – AutoCad drafting, bill-of-materials, all sorts of engineering design programs – make it easy for a lesser person to do what and experience engineer once did.” Unfortunately, that is what is believed but it is not true.
I do a lot of work with businesses that provide AutoCad designs from non-experienced engineers. I make a lot of money because we are able to correct the poor designs that these AutoCad folks put out. A lot of the designs cannot either be 1) made, or 2) made efficiently.
You see, they can design things, to tight tolerances, but these AutoCad drivers have no idea about how things are made, about shrinkages, tool design, tool life expectancies, etc etc etc.
So business tends to come my way because we are able to fix and actually build the parts as drawn, which is almost always do not fit the real world.
And again some idiot knows how to hit the down button but not how to think.
LL, forget the downers man, keep keep’n on.
Thanks Donk. Just get tired of idiots.
Trump knows this………..
“We desperately need a return to common sense economics.”
What’s this we shit? With Gospel-believers leading the resistance, what could possible go wrong? Shine those turds! Make those turds productive members of [our totally inclusive] society! Yay.
Was it Rousseau who said that workers should be paid just enough to survive? America has nearly achieved Communist Nirvana.
No I think that was Bezos
Reality staring us right in the eye. Without a healthy working environment -gloom and Mr doom People need to know they can make a decent buck for ther efforts.
Excellent summary paragraph
The coming economic collapse and all the resulting death may have an upside.
Union labor contracts brought American working people into the middle class with incomes that drove a lifestyle and an economy of consumerism the world copied .
Government greed and corporate mismanagement along with taking advantage of off shore sweat shop labor to flood the US market with cheap goods was profitable for a short while .
As industries closed and wages stagnated or spiraled down so did the tax base . Along comes borrowing to infinity and now boom it’s over and all who did not support build buy American and all who invested in American working people’s demise are guilty of economic treason .
Even many red white & blue flags are foreign made !