OT-Left Behind

That's just it, Tom. Those 80% aren't paying attention, aren't seeking continuing education, and are refusing to learn new things. For the most part, it's their own fault. And I agree that employers who teach their employees new tricks will save money by lessening the turnover. It makes for happier employees, too.

-- Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same.' -- Joan McIntosh

(...)

You're right, Snag.

The effects of the missing economy are just now starting to dawn on our friends at Comcast and they have really stepped up their advertising budget. I've got a long memory, an on-air antenna and streaming video over the net now. Screw em. :)

--Winston

Way back when, my employer paid for my college education. It ment going to school on saturdays and twice a week at night.

Do employers still pay for continuing education ?

Its been 35 years since i had to work for a living.

Best Regards Tom.

Tuition is always paid up front. If they quit after one semester the school doesn't get any more money from them. In any case, I am not talking about your school, I'm talking about the standards at average and below average schools.

Oh, I've been in school, up until quite recently, and I see work generated by recent college graduates.

Oh, sure, they're funding education. To the tune of $9,666 (federal average) per student per year for twelve years, and then graduating some who can't read, write, or think beyond third grade level; who can't point out the USA on a world globe; who may never have even heard the term "thinking". Ayieeeeeeeee!

-- Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same.' -- Joan McIntosh

The real surprise was when I called DirecTV to cancel my service . I haven't worked a full time job in over 15 months , just can't justify payin' for it anymore , especially since I get "basic cable" with my internet connection . For all intents and purposes , they gave me the next 4 months of satellite TV service for free ... and though they did drop my service to a lower tier package , they still provide the DVR service I had with the other package . I don't care what the politicians are sayin' , this depression ain't over yet by a long shot . It's particularly rough on people who are getting older . I'm just 59 , but not many companies are looking at hiring men my age when there are lots of younger and more physically capable men out there looking too . Guess who's going to get that warehouse job humpin' boxes onto the conveyor ? -- Snag Learning keeps you young !

From everything I've heard about Comcast for the past years, they're one of the companies which is too big NOT to fail.

Qwest, my phone company, is another. They just merged with CenturyLink, Inc. this month. I hope something good comes of it.

-- Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same.' -- Joan McIntosh

Why should you care about Tom's car, Spehro?

-- Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same.' -- Joan McIntosh

Computers can replace 70 to 80 percent of the people. You just are not seeing what has happened. Take something like filling out income tax forms. With a computer program, one person can fill out as many income tax forms as eight people used to be able to do. So the computer has replaced about 70 percent of the people that used to do income taxes.

Ditto surveyors. The computer has not replaced all surveyors. But surveyors now use sets of equipment so that they do not have to do all the calculations. The result is fewer surveyors needed.

And then there is the wonderful voice recognition. To order a prescription refill, I never talk to a person. And if I spoke Spanish, I could probably do it in Spanish.

Now an engineer uses a cad program to generate a drawing. That drafting job has been replaced by a computer. The cad drawing is then used to generate a cnc program. And the machinist has been replaced by computers.

Nucor has at least one plant that makes nuts and bolts. It runs 24 hours a day and on the graveyard shift they save on electricity. Why? Because they run lights out with no humans actually working on the graveyard shift.

Take the postal service. The letters and packages are sorted by computer.

So there are jobs that require people, but not as many people as the jobs used to require.

Dan

Reply: True, lots of jobs for the computer. But still lots of jobs for real people. Otherwise, we would have all the cheap manufacturing here, using computers. Who is going to screw the nuts and bolts together?

lol

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Good advertising!

Where do I sign? In this valley, the age discrimination is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. :(

--Winston

I still have hope that the purchase of Maytag by Whirlpool will result in reasonable-quality Maytag products, at long last.

Perhaps not.

--Winston

Yes, and some corporations have classes inside their buildings.

I'm jealous. (Still aching from today's work.)

-- Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same.' -- Joan McIntosh

Yes, exactly! And it goes further and further!

Yes, but their boards are different in some important ways. The electors are parents of the students (plus one or two elected by teachers and, in secondary schools, students). They get their money from the national government, so they're not playing political football with local tax assessments. And the curriculum is national, and out of the boards' hands.

The biggest consequence is the result of not having the community at large voting for board members. I've been involved in two knock-'em-down, drag-'em-out school board election battles in my town, in which we parents basically had to pound the retirees into the ground with croquet mallets. In the US, we often wind up with boards whose primary goal is not to improve education, but to cheapen it. Sometimes they have no real interest in education at all, only taxes. For a couple of years the most commonly asked question by our local board members was, "What is the minimum state requirement for this?"

But I did miss New Zealand when I checked out the structure of OECD countries' educational systems a couple of months ago. I'm glad you corrected me so I don't say that in some school board meeting. d8-)

First of all, as far as I know, the manufacturing in the US is highest it has ever been. Or at least close.

A large part of the reason why some manufacturing moved to third world countries, is that they have more lax environment regulations and allow their businesses to shit their own country. Look up "China pollution" or "China environment" on Youtube if you want to see.

I would say, they can have all the pollution they want.

I pay for my employees' books or their kids books if they keep a 3.5 GPA.

That's part of it but there are structural incentives involved that have little to do with this and labor costs are the smallest part of manufacturing costs. China is the worlds largest car market today so ask yourself this. Why aren't Americans building and exporting cars to the Chinese? It isn't because our labor costs are so high.

Except that hasn't happened. What has happened is that as the tax codes have become increasingly complex employment has grown in this area and significantly.

Hardly. Machinists without computer skills are unemployed. Nobody programs anything from drawings today. They went the way of the Dodo a decade or more ago. Software is just another productivity tool.

I guess you don't know much about machine tools. The nuts and bolts business is pretty energy intensive. What they save on electricity is trivial. They don't have humans on the graveyard shift because they pack and ship during the day. That is also when the material handling and other tasks are done. In other words, there simply isn't anything for a human to do on graveyard except get into trouble messing around with something.

Anyway, saying that computers will displace 80 percent of the work force is just silly. The structural impediments to growth will be removed eventually. They will have to be. The only question is what the circumstances will be.