On Sunday, October 13, 2013 2:38:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 03:34:29 -0700, "Bob F"

wrote:



Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Sat, 12 Oct 2013 22:11:35 -0700, "Bob F"

wrote:



Dean Hoffman" wrote:

According to the Carpe Diem site one had to work 885 hours in

1959 to earn the same goods as one can earn working 170 hours in

2013.



More he http://tinyurl.com/lrq8suo



One would work about 28 hours to buy a gas stove in 2013 compared to

almost 91 hours in 1959. He has ten other examples of decreasing

work hours needed to buy given items.



If only one could find a job. What did we export then? What do we

export now? Why don't we have decent jobs - because we exported all

the manufacturing.



And how many hours did we have to work then and now to buy our

current largest manufactured export - gasoline and diesel fuel?



When nobody can get a middle class job, who benefits by low prices?



Some, but not all of the unemployment is exporting manufacturing jobs

in favor of cheap labor. Many of our economic problems are still the

after effects of the housing bubble that was caused by banks and

sleazy mortgage brokers.



I've been trying to hire a person for a trainee type maintenance

position. I get two types of applicants. One is the 60+ year old guy

that was making $25 or more an hour. The other is the young guy that

did not finish high school and has a difficult time spelling the name

of the street he lives on. .



As for how much are we paying for oil products, not much. Gas was 22¢

a gallon in 1963. Gas is now 16x that but my wage is 21x what is was

then so I'm ahead.



Lucky you. College grads are having trouble find anything much better than

minimum wage jobs, if that.



Actually, if they are willing to get their hands dirty, there ARE

jobs out there that pay a half decent wage. They will be tired at the

end of the day, too.

The jobs are not plentiful, but try to hire a mechanic today. And even

with the burst housing bubble, getting good building tradesmen is NOT

easy. Getting GOOD truck drivers is not easy either - but nor is

finding trucking companies willing to pay a decent premium for a good

driver --.



A college degree is not a pre-requisite for these jobs - but given

the choice between thenabove-mentioned applicant who can't spell their

street name and a college grad - the grad has the better chance.

I'm probably better qualified to be a mechanic than most college grads, but I wouldn't presume to be legitimately good at it without some more training. There's lots of specialized stuff in today's cars that requires tools and knowledge that I just don't have even though I've done extensive amounts of work on older cars.

That said, it is looking like a possible future career as I'm completely burned out on working for big companies.

nate