Of interest

Technology improvement make certain occupations "obsolete" (e.g. the windlass cut down on the number of openings for "overseer"; reliable internal combustion engines cut down on the need for stable hands,etc, etc.), and it can be a real bitch to be a couple decades short of retirement and have your niche vanish. But if you want a secure career ... take up being a holy one, and pray that there is no massive shift in the local theology.

tschus pyotr

Reply to
pyotr filipivich
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That would put the income of American workers at something just above 1/2 of what they're making now. Why? Because we've decided to let China dictate our standard of living?

I think you're looking at this backwards, Harold. As I concluded a few years ago, when I wrote my series of article on China trade for _Machining_, the word "competition" is the problem. We can't "compete" with 80-cents/hr. wages. That isn't competition. That's surrender.

We need to re-think this business of international "competition." That's a concept that's been shoved down our throats by multinational corporations who are justifying their exploitation. This is a fact: You cannot compete with someone who is making 80 cents/hr. Never. Forget it.

You think we can out-innovate them? Sure, and then GM packs the entire technology for making advanced car enginess into some shipping containers, sends them off to Shanghai with a few managers to run the operation, and sends back our "innovation" in the form of Chevy Equinox engines that get stuffed into the SUVs in Canada and then sent back to us. It's a process that's completely free of those icky American automobile workers. Too bad they weren't happy with 80 cents/hr., or they'd still have those jobs, eh?

We've let this concept, "globalization," dictate our lives. Bullshit. It's time to re-think the whole business, before every third-world country that gets into manufacturing keeps re-setting the bar for us, lower and lower every time.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

pyotr filipivich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

How pray tell (pun intended) does being a holy one make one more efficient, or productive, or be able to do bigger and better things? Unless of course you mean like feeding the masses with a couple of fish...;0)

Reply to
granpaw

Google on "race to the bottom"

The entire rationale for "comparative advantage" requires the immobility of capital. As soon as capital is mobile, only "absolute advantage" exists. It is interesting that one of the first things "free trade" did was remove the "comparative advantage" justification for "free trade," i.e. implementing the free movement of capital [which need not be money, but can include methodology, etc.]

No one can innovate and research as fast as the "suits" can ship it overseas. Indeed, in this case innovation and research simply digs the hole deeper because it increases your competitors productivity and profit margins.

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

As in Alan Tonelson? He was one of my sources for my China trade articles.

It's deep water, George. But it's something we have to address. The dislocations come too fast and they're too extensive, regardless of what happens to GDP.

It's an ideal subject for Republican/Democratic debate, should we be so fortunate as to see it happen again.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

======================== Actually Alvin & Heidi Toffler in my case

also see

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This has already been addressed -- a few nuggets of interest.

Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), English philosopher. Leviathan, "A Review and Conclusion" (1651). .............. Everyone is always in favour of general economy and particular expenditure. Sir Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 17 June 1958). .............. As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors. William James (1842-1910), U.S. psychologist, philosopher. The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 14-15, "The Value of Saintliness" (1902). ............... What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy? George Orwell (1903-50), British author. Winston Smith, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, pt. 3, ch. 3 (1949), speaking of O'Brien. ...............

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

======================== For those that might be interested, Tonelson's book is available at Amazon, see

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Also if this "brave new one world order" is indeed a "third wave," to use Toffler's phrase, Kondratieff's work (and derivatives) should be considered [The waves always end in a crash against the rocks to mangle the metaphor.] see
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(Economics)&page=1
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and a whole bunch more

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but granpaw wrote on Sun, 12 Nov 2006 11:47:34 -0600 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

I'm recommending a career change. :-) It's not about bigger things, my son, but in being pious, prayerful and, well, holy. I suppose that there might be a need to do such in an efficient manner, yet the idea of bringing "efficiencies" into a monastery seems to smack of worldly concerns. Pretty soon you'll be hearing about Total Quality Management and evaluations of piety, humility and the like, leading to that whole "holier than thou" problem. Not to mention the blurb on the web site: Holy Ascetics Hermitage is proud to be the recipient of the annual "Most Humble" award three years running.

Ah, now you are getting into that whole liberal social services folderol. :-)

All seriousness aside, I find it important in my own life to keep an eye on my own spiritual discipline even (or more so) on the job. Less strife, less stress; and a better work environment. "We" may not be any more efficient, but we waste less time on non-productive issues.

tschus pyotr

Reply to
pyotr filipivich

On the other hand you may be spending too much time in machine shops and not enough elsewhere. If you only concentrate your attention on presses, mills and lathes your statements hold water as you're still talking about "one machine, one man" and in this case efficiency is increased, but what if you're expected to operate two N/C machines at the same time? And guess what, there's a whole world out there.

Look at the robots working in the auto makers plants and tell me people are not replaced with machines. Hell, even the little company I worked for was building production lines that replaced around 12 to 20 employees each, and we were shipping as fast as we could produce. This is the trend happening all over the country, ask anyone involved in high production whether production has increased while employment has remained the same or decreased.

I guess the upside is _some_ jobs still remain stateside.

dennis in nca

Reply to
rigger

No..Im not talking about 1 man, 1 machine. As I said, those who are now no longer running a Bridgeport mill, could be running 2 CNCs in a cell, and out producing their old method by several orders of magnitude. That many people wont learn to program, or to operate CNC machine tools, is not the fault of the tool.

Remained the same..or decreased. Which is it? If it remains the same..those that were running a BP, are now doing something else. Not replaced them, simply moved them to another job, likely a job created out of the new technology. For ever worker displaced from a job that he is no longer needed in, 2 more NEW jobs are opened up by the advances in technology.

If this were not true..no kid would have an entry level job, would have little chance of a better job, and the unemployment rate would be skyrocketing as new workers enter the work force. In fact..we are an aging society..with the workers retiring far faster than ever before.simply because they were Boomers and are reaching retirement age enmasse.

LOTS of jobs remain in the States. But the trend has shifted from buggywhip makers to High Tech.

And those that dont follow the trends and evolve with it, wind up telling us "Welcome to Walmart"

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Reply to
Gunner

=============== And for another view consider:

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor. Karl Marx (1818-83), German political theorist, social philosopher. The Poverty of Philosophy, ch. 5, pt. 5 (1847; repr. in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Collected Works, vol. 6,

1976).

He also noted:

The bourgeoisie . . . has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts and Gothic cathedrals. . . . The bourgeoisie . . . draws all, even the most barbarian nations into civilization. . . . It has created enormous cities . . . and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. . . . The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Karl Marx (1818-83) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95), German social philosophers, revolutionaries. The Communist Manifesto, sct. 1, (1848; repr. in Karl Marx: Selected Works, vol. 1, 1942).

The more things change the more they stay the same?????

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

IMO, about the only place where the blame can be truly placed squarely upon Clinton et.al.

Nevermind that Bush has done *absolutely nothing* about the situation--after all...he was just following the protocol.

Perhaps a close look at NAFTA is in order here :

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Have fun fixing machines in China for $.80 Gunner, cause if things dont change thats where you gonna be in another decade.

Unless Wal-Mart sees fit to hire you for less pay.

Reply to
PrecisionMachinisT

Just a hint...Ive got more than one trade I can do. I keep current with computer networking, phone systems, fire alarms and security systems, welding (MIG/TIG/Stick/Gas), gunsmithing, electrical up to

480vts, and a host of other things Im rather good at. And I keep adding skills. Im now pretty good at doing work on forklifts. I never worked on one 2 yrs ago. Im not a bad beginning machinist with manual machines. And Ive got a pretty complete range of tools, from microscopes, to 15" lathes, to 300 amp square wave TIG welders to carpentry tools, Thickness planers, table and radial arm saws, hell..Ive even got braces and bits to go with em, mauls and axes, spoke shaves and dovetail fixtures.

Im a practicing survivalist. Not all emergencies are fire, flood, earthquake and so forth. Ive made quite a number of career changes over the last 38 yrs. Jack of all trades, master of a couple, damned good at some few more..decent at even more.

Ive made the effort to be able to move with the tide, or climb up on the bank and fish.

Shrug.

Gunner

"This device is provided without warranty of any kind as to reliability, accuracy, existence or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose and Bioalchemic Products specifically does not warrant, guarantee, imply or make any representations as to its merchantability for any particular purpose and furthermore shall have no liability for or responsibility to you or any other person, entity or deity with respect to any loss or damage whatsoever caused by this device or object or by any attempts to destroy it by hammering it against a wall or dropping it into a deep well or any other means whatsoever and moreover asserts that you indicate your acceptance of this agreement or any other agreement that may he substituted at any time by coming within five miles of the product or observing it through large telescopes or by any other means because you are such an easily cowed moron who will happily accept arrogant and unilateral conditions on a piece of highly priced garbage that you would not dream of accepting on a bag of dog biscuits and is used solely at your own risk.'

Reply to
Gunner

Well, then I imagine you have cites for:

The trends I've read about say the shift is from production to lower paying service sector jobs. I doubt you can back-up your conjecture. The move from "buggywhip makers to High Tech" happened a long long time ago, or perhaps you have visions of former machine operators flocking to Silicon Valley for jobs????

dennis in nca

dennis in nca

Reply to
rigger

Yep, they go to work at Wal-Mart. Train for hi-tech is crap, seems hi-tech jobs are going overseas & they have to work at Wal-mart.

Some illegal will do gunners job cheaper.

Reply to
Jonny

Blink blink..cites for an obvious sig? Are you daft?

Shrug..lots of spindles turning, lots of new start up machine shops in So. Cal. Rows upon rows of late model CNC in cells calculated to best efficency of the one guy tending 2 or 3 of them.

Also lots of cottage industry startups. Guy retires from Boeing or whathave you, buys a small CNC, is cranking out high tech medical parts in his garage. Not too many buggy whip makers..but lots of high tech guys.

Gunner

Rule #35 "That which does not kill you, has made a huge tactical error"

Reply to
Gunner

Shrug..it would take a host of them to do everything I can do..that has a market. In which case, I simply hire them, and become a labor broker.

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

Betcha if you were to start up making buggy whips, and advertising them in the right circles, there'd be a living in it.

Just gotta try to believe that some of them might be used near a horse and buggy, while you make them..... :-/ But if you actually believed that, you'd probably be advertising in the wrong place, and starving to death.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Reply to
Trevor Jones

The fly in this particular jar of salve is the increasing inability of organizations and individuals to re-deploy capital from declining activity to a growing activity.

David Ricardo (1772-1823) established many of the basic assumptions about large-scale [macro] economics in his seminal work "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" (1817). He was also a banker and propagandist for the British government during the Napoleonic wars. As a banker, he naturally regarded capital as money, and money is easy to re-deploy, be it dollars, yen, pounds or euros. As Napoleon's government implemented a "closed" state controlled economy [e.g. the "Continental system."] the British naturally promoted "Free Trade" and an "open economy." It is unknown if Ricardo was selected for advancement and reward because he popularized and gave intellectual foundation to the desired economic theory, or if he popularized and gave intellectual foundation for "free trade" and an "open economy" for the rewards and advancement. It is ironic that so much of today's economic discussion is largely based on a single piece of British war propaganda nearly 200 years old, and phrases such as "comparative advantage" are still chanted in Economic 101, as if these continue to mean something.

To an extraordinary degree, non-monetary capital has become single use with a very limited life span in contrast to the general conditions existing in Ricardo's time. Even monetary capital is now tending to become frozen in obsolescent technology/methology, and only scrap/salvage value can be extracted for re-depolyment. [And "inflation" appears set for its "comeback" tour. -- eat your hear out Michael Jackson]

Until the 1950s, and later in many sectors, a reasonably skilled individual could, with a little practice and instruction, shift between products while still remaining within their chosen occupation or profession, and most workshops could change from one product to another with minimal investment or difficulty.

With the introduction of the railways this began to change. A railroad cannot be used for anything but a railroad, and if it is liquidated, you have so much scrap iron, and marginal land, generally unsuitable for any other use. A person skilled as an engineer [train driver] or fire-man, would have difficulty in apply these skills in other areas, unless these were steam power generation related.

When we examine the current conditions, the general technician, the general craftsman, the general manufacturing facility, is all but extinct. Very high degrees of specialization in education, training, equipment and even buildings are required for economic viability. At the same time progress is so rapid that the depreciation of capital investments, be they education, equipment, machines, methodology, or buildings is appalling. No one can afford to "invest" 100,000$ and five years in an education that is valid for only 10 years, and the go back and make another 5 year, 100,000 dollar investment, unless the salary received is exceptional. What else can an airframe manufacturer make but air frames? Grumman may make a few canoes, but aeronautical engineers are not required. If my factory is set up to make 512Meg DRAM, what else can I make? To what else will my technicials/engineers skills apply but silicon DRAM?

I don't know what the solution is, but I can warn you that if you inhale enough crack or crank, your head will explode, no matter how good/strong it makes you feel. The same is true for economies/societies.

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Yep, no SS, health care (they get that free) no overtime pay & you can work them 15 hrs a day, pay cash & you can be just like other companys & get rich while the taxpayers pick up the tab .

Reply to
Jonny

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