jafo

I did not say these stories do not exist, but the fact remains most the people in this country are employed. But if you go without work for that long, you gotta do something different, even if that means moving to where the work is if things are that bad. I do wish you and you wife luck finding new jobs.

No I want everyone to make a good living. However a "living wage" must be earned, not given. A significant portion of those making minimum wage are young kids without experience. Our schools have done a terrible job of preping our kids for the work force. School should be teaching kids that are not headed to college some skilled trades to help them get a start in life. Looking at the numbers, I would have to say we still a bit to go before it gets that bad. Retirees are not counted as part of workforce by bls, because they are well...retired.

Yes there are anecdotal horror stories, but 93%+ of the population remains employed. A friend of mine got laid off a couple of weeks ago, and he found a job that paidt just as well, before he got his severance check. And if you go 4 years without a job you are being far to picky. Having a job is better than having no job and the longer you go without a job the more difficult it is find to a job. That person was too unwilling to work do work beneath her skill sets or was wanting too much pay or something.. Dont worry I have a life raft. I am well educated with skills that are in demand. And I will keep it that way.

What do you think is happening now. Uncle sam will provide for those that are too lazy to provides for themselves.

A significant portion of those working minimum wage jobs are young(under 25) and dont have any real work skills. Teenagers and kids that are still going to school. And if you also look at the bls stats, you will see that mediam income keeps trending up, so there is no signicant underemployment that you speak of.

Yes but also remember our workforce is about 50 larger than it was in 1980. So first time unemployment numbers would have to be around 1million to be worse than 1980. The number are bad today, but they still have topped that period when you adjust for population size. Also inflation still remains lows and not at 20% like it was then.

With software work, there is always maintenance and follow on work. Today it paystubs, tomorrow it is tax info and benefits info.

There is no good answer for this. You always have to make investments in productivity to survive. Failure to do results in no jobs for anyone. IT was a number reported in the paper. 40% annual turnover for the garbage men. New trucks were rolled out over 3 years, so no one was laid off because of it. You never want to get ride of you best people. You want to best to stay with as your technology changes. And those with degrees are still at about 4% unemployment. And the new minimum wage laws are not helping the youth at all. Things will turn around, we always have. I dont expect that to chage. As far as war debt goes, our debt to gdp ratio has only moved a few points since iraq started. IT is now about 65%, post WWII debt to gdp was 140%.

Conversly why dont you explain why it is a companies best interest to remain inefficient with its use of resources? Right now we are experiencing a financial hangover that was largely government induced. Once the economy picks back up, so will car sales. It was not an assertion. It was a fact. The local trash collections experienced 40% annual turn over. This was not a desirable and apparently people had an easy time finding better work. Now it sucks being let go for whatever reason, but it happens. I have had it happen to me a couple of times. But there is no guarantee of job lasting forever, so it is part of life that you have to deal with. Actually it was. Goverment will spend whatever it has. When break double digit unemployment for a sustained period of time, then we can think about calling a depression. Until there we are still in a recession, and so far it is still not as bad as the one in 1980. It was not unions that pulled us out of the great depression. It was the WWII and drafting 10% of the population, which caused a labor shortage. Things like the smoot-harley act(protectionism) dragged us into a depression.

I do not think it take much intelligence to see which jobs are going the way of buggy whip makers. As I said before, the destruction of jobs is not painless, but the benefits outweigh the negatives. Actually I have a great work ethic and I dont cling to things that decrease productivity. That was my point. The money saved by using automated trash trucks will be spent elsewhere. And this will be no different than any other organization, the money saved from increased productivity will be put to work somewhere else. Up until recently unemployment numbers have been below the 20 year average. You can check out www.bls.gov if you dont believe me. This will probably be the worst recession since 1980 as the last two were fairly mild. Well first thing is they did not go on big spending sprees when times were good. We keep a business friendly environment. Compare that to other states that spent freely and tax business so much that they to better places. As far as real goes, I know what real is. I know there is a slow down, I know it is largest slowdown in a few decades. I also know some places are affected more than others. I am fortunate to live in a place were at this point the slowdown is very mild. Recessions suck, but they are part of the natural business cycle.

But you are willing to defend jobs that do not need to exist, which only ties up capital for jobs that do need to exist.You cant have it both ways. If you want high paying better jobs, you have let go of the jobs that can be automated. The garbage pick up here had a 40% annual turnover. This is a job that no one really wants to do. I am willing bet you have similar turn over there. Go ahead and fight the automatic trash pickup, let people work a job where getting hurt at work is easy. Dont let the city spend money on something else more productive. Keep those crummy jobs. Ever meet a goverment that had too much money to spend? Until recently people were finding new jobs without much problem, Unemployment has been relatively low for a long time. And I am doubtwill we are going to reach double digit unemployment either at this point. ANd my state is one the few without budget problems. Maybe ohio should look at what those states are doing and try to emulate them.

The average one earner family that you speak of from years past also had to support a much smaller house and only a single car instead of the 2 or 3 most families have today. They also did not have have many of todays luxuries. Single earner family is still very possible today, you just have to make wise choices. And I agree we have too many people getting a govt handout, but that is more of a function of our congress critters buying votes than our economic situation. technology is going to progress and we will be better for it. The city here just replaced our garbage trucks with automated trucked. The 3 man trash crew went to a truck driver. You will say that 2/3 of the trash crew is out of a job now, but that was handled by attrition as it is job that no really wants. But the city now has the funds to spend elsewhere now that is it not pay these extra people to pick up trash. You see every job loss, but fail to see that a different opportunity is created elsewhere because the capital is also freed as well. But you seem to want every position that exists today preserved in time and that is just not going to happen.

Nice straw man. But you still have to deal with the forward progress of technology. There are winners and losers with technology, but gains made by the winners far outweigh the loses by the losers. Manufacturing is becoming more and more automated and many factories are going dark. The only people that are there are for maintenance and control. The auto industry is headed that way and there is little than can be done to stop.

There is not such thing as a job for life and this is no part of the problem there. There is no way to save jobs from technology. Dont you think accountants have better things to do than print paychecks? DOnt you think foremen have better things to do than hand out paystubs? There may not be any jobs at all lost in the process, as these people may very well get assigned a more productive task. Yep lets keep the things the way they have always been, lets not change or adapt. And you wonder why the big 3 have been getting their asses kicked in this market.

Things change with technology. Maybe we should return the days when everyone was a farmer and we manufactured buggy whips instead of cars. Let labor be used where it is most needed. An ESS sight is probably run by at keast a small hoard of IT people.

Your right it will cost someones ASS, but that is the case no matter what they do. IF they keep the status quo, they are hiring people to move paper around that could all be done electronically. So they pay people to move this paper around, rather than use their salaries to toward building and selling cars. If you are concerned about the number of beancounters they have, maybe you should take away their computers and make them do everything with pencil and paper. That would not doubt boost headcount in that dept. Technology is moving forward and these lowend beancounter jobs are being replaced by most likely higher paid IT jobs. IN the end it is good trade.

I would say the first step is to let the 2010 contract start now. IF both parties have already agree their labor is uncompetitive and needs to be amended, why wait another year when the company is in financial crisis.

And that contract does not go into effect until 2010. Looks like the clock ran out before the contract can even be used.

You do realize that D3 have received big money to keep plants open. THey are also on the dole of local government as well. Yes I do. There are plenty of labor laws that exist today that protect the worker. I think the transplants are quite aware of what it takes to attract and keep qualified workforce.

Only if we are discussing quality, but the conversation was efficiency.

Yes gains have been made, but the D3 are still behind. And most of the gains have come from trimming the workforce via the massive buyouts that have occurred in the poast couple of years. Even the lastest harbour reports stat the UAW is paid more and does less.

I believe it is JD power that does quality reports. It is the harbour report that does industry efficiency reports. If JD power does efficiency reports, I will stand corrected.

I have no concerns about getting and keeping a job that pays me well. Of course it could all change, but I am ready for that as well.

Look at Detroit and then look at where the transplants are located. It is not hard to figure out whose economies are doing better. The transplants are doing something right and something in Detroit has gone terribly wrong.

Yeah read the harbour reports. The d3 are consistently behind the transplants in productivity. Last year the D3 close the gap pretty good, but only because of the massive buyouts to get rid of excessive employees. As far as you contract goes, it is 2200 pages and weight 22 lbs, so no I have not read it and I doubt you have either. But my guess is with a contract that large is not hard to make things inefficient and bloated.