Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<We MAKE big business feed them if necessary.>> Dream on... there is no way that will happen. We all know that businesses just pass increased costs onto their customers.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Dream on... there is no way that will happen.<< Oh, it's gonna happen. Marx was right about a few things. Society doesn't go quietly into slavery ...
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Oh, it's gonna happen. Marx was right about a few things. Society doesn't go quietly into slavery ...>> Yea right... Obama is probably one of the more liberal presidents we've ever had and Wall Street LOVES him!! It is hard to even take comments like yours seriously. Get back to me when you want to discuss reality.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip That is why this country is so SCREWED. Conservatives have no desire to change anything and Liberals have no real clue how to.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< We all know that businesses just pass increased costs onto their customers. >>> So, are you also against the notion of the minimum wage? Many of the same arguments both pro and con apply.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<So, are you also against the notion of the minimum wage? Many of the same arguments both pro and con apply.>> Some minimum is necessary, and the market has already priced-in and adapted to the current minimum wage. Some increase is certainly necessary... something along the lines of 10-20% wouldn't be too big a shock to absorb. But to double it overnight would be a major mistake.
Originally Posted By SuperDry re #57 and #58: apparently the reading comprehension problem is worse than I thought.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Quit drinking the kool-aid, RT. <<Yes, they need to be fed by SOMEONE because they don't have the training or skills to be successful in this job market.>> Even if every single high school student graduated with honors in our nation, there still wouldn't be enough skilled labor positions to employ them all. Those jobs have left the country and continue to leave the country! Why do you keep insisting that this is the worker's problem? Why do you keep adhering to this fantasy that every single worker in a service job is uneducated and/or unmotivated to do better? There's simply not enough good paying jobs to go around. Folks are working in retail because there's nothing else for them to do! Light manufacturing jobs built up the American middle class for decades after WWII. All you needed was a high school diploma, sometimes even less, and a willingness to do OTJ training. And millions of Americans did very well in those good paying jobs, providing middle class lifestyles for themselves and their families. BUT. THOSE. JOBS. HAVE. LEFT. THE. COUNTRY! Why are you so damned reluctant to accept this basic fact? And keep those damned one-off statistics about how there are all these skilled machinist and plumbing and electrician jobs available but not enough skilled people to take them. This is about lack of OTJ training for those jobs. That doesn't exist anymore. If you want to work in those fields, you have to go to technical school, which are all for-profit. And the cost of going to a school like Wyotech to learn those skills is astronomical. Unlike taking on student loan debt for a college degree, taking on student loan debt to become an electrician's apprentice is riskier. The starting pay isn't as good as working in business or technology with a college degree. And most of these so-called skilled jobs don't pay much better than Starbucks for many years while you practice your trade. Who the heck is going to be stupid enough to take on $20K to $50K in student loan debt for a job that pays no better than barista wages? <<And in the end, the government bears much of the responsibility for the problem. By fostering an economic, regulatory and tax environment that encourages U.S. companies to ship jobs overseas, they have created the problem.>> It's not the tax issue, RT. It's the plain and simple fact that a light manufacturing job here in the U.S. that used to pay between $12 and $15 per hour pays only $2 per hour in China. That's the real reason these jobs are leaving the country, like the Sensata auto sensor manufacturing jobs once done in Freeport, Illinois. Romney moved the factory to China, to save on labor costs. So much for creating jobs here at home, when he couldn't even figure out a way to keep the ones that were under his direct control.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip And as usual skinnerbox, you offer NO solutions. And please at least read my posts thoroughly if you are going to comment on them. I didn't just mention tax environment, I indicated regulatory environment. Tax the hell out of imports coming from countries where it is determined that workers are not even paid what would be considered a subsistence wage in the U.S. Imports from European countries would not be impacted, imports from China would. This would minimize the advantages of cheap labor in China and bring manufacturing back to the Unites States. WalMart would actually have to sell American-made goods. People don't NEED to be honor graduates from High School... just basic reading, writing and math skills would be nice, and a significant number of people come of out our schools without them.
Originally Posted By hopemax > We all know that businesses just pass increased costs onto their customers.< This assumes then, that businesses aren't currently pricing at "what the market will bear." They can TRY to pass costs onto customers, but most likely they can't pass ALL of it to their customers, because if they could do that, it means their goods and services are currently underpriced.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Obama is probably one of the more liberal presidents we've ever had and Wall Street LOVES him!!*** This apparent disconnect doesn't make you stop and think about your angle, RT? I swear, I think you've been brainwashed by your surroundings a bit. I don't mean that offensively, I see it in my Dad too (living in rural New Hampshire, not too different from your space lol). Wall Street loves him because he is, in actuality, NOT very liberal at all.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Yes, they need to be fed by SOMEONE because they don't have the training or skills to be successful in this job market<< You can't train people with IQ's of 100 or less into STEM careers. They just aren't smart enough. And even we could train all of them to be engineers, etc., there wouldn't be jobs for them anyway.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Wall Street loves him because he is, in actuality, NOT very liberal at all. << +1
Originally Posted By EdisYoda If we could do away with some of the employment visas there would be jobs for them. My company alone about 90% of the engineers are from India... both onshore and offshore.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>If we could do away with some of the employment visas there would be jobs for them. My company alone about 90% of the engineers are from India... both onshore and offshore.<< I think most of those jobs would just end up going offshore.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "Old Economy Steve" <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.quickmeme.com/Old-Economy-Steven/">http://www.quickmeme.com/Old-E...-Steven/</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<You can't train people with IQ's of 100 or less into STEM careers. They just aren't smart enough. And even we could train all of them to be engineers, etc., there wouldn't be jobs for them anyway.>> I'm not talking advanced calculus here. I'm talking about basic reading, writing and math skills that can be learned by most even with below average intelligence if they make the effort. They will never be engineers, but they will be able to get entry level clerical jobs. Those jobs will never make them rich, but pay considerably better than retail and are typically full time.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I'm not talking advanced calculus here. I'm talking about basic reading, writing and math skills that can be learned by most even with below average intelligence if they make the effort.<< And those people will be lucky to make $10/hr. Most likely they'll get minimum wage. Retail is full of literate people with non technical college degrees, many with high GPAs. Making $10/hr. Being literate doesn't get you much anymore. Any job that pays more than minimum wage has a laundry list of very specialized skills. I've even seen this trend in engineering. Used to be that employers were more interested in problem solving skills. Now the job descriptions have dozens of prerequisite skills. They expect you to hit the ground running on the day you start the new job. And don't expect any on the job training, because you won't get any. Amd if the requirements change after you start and you need to learn a new programming language for a new project? You can train on your own time and dime. See Old Economy Steve above.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Clerical positions, even in the Springfield MO area which has wages much lower than the national average, tend to start at about $12 per hour as opposed to retail which are almost always minimum wage. Also, there are many clerical positions in government, which tend to offer excellent benefits.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Being literate doesn't get you much anymore. Any job that pays more than minimum wage has a laundry list of very specialized skills.>> For entry level clerical positions that is generally a working knowledge of Word and Excel... something most kids have these days by the time they are in 6th grade.
