"Ignoramus30510" wrote in message
...
On 2011-04-22, Ed Huntress wrote:

BTW, unions have had nothing to do with what is taught in schools. That's
mostly state and local school boards, with some federal standards if you
want federal money. And if you think that they teach "nothing but
'self-esteem,'" all you're telling us is that you're talking off the top
of
your head, one who probably hasn't sat through school classes or more
than
one or two school board meetings in his adult lifetime.

That's the truth of the matter, isn't it, Rich? You haven't been there.
All
you know is what you hear on TV. You're just blowing smoke.



Ed, my son goes to a elementary school. My impression is that the kids
are learning something useful, but at the same time, I would not call
it super great either. At least my son is in advanced placement, and
they get a little bit of extras that they learn. Altogether, it far
from horrible, at least in AP, but I would not truly consider it very
rigorous and excellent schooling. I am "satisfied", but wishing for
more. At the least, I wish they had more homework and they were asked
to put solutions on paper, not just answers.

You're obviously an involved parent, so I can pass this along from
experience.

Getting involved with the system is your main pathway to
getting the education you want from public schools. Attend
a few Board meetings and find out what drives your local
schools -- people who know what they're doing and who are
trying to improve education, or retirees who need something
to do on Wednesday nights and who think there is entirely
too much education going on.

Talk to teachers about the amount of homework and what they
would like to see. Your situation is a bit of an anomaly: Over the
past ten years, suburban schools have been giving too *much*
homework, to the point where psych associations and so on have
spoken out against it. My kid was swamped with homework until
our local schools pulled back a bit so the kids would have a life
left. By fourth grade, he often had two or three hours of homework;
by ninth, it was four hours. Too much.

Talk to teachers. If you're going to disagree with what's being done,
either at Board meetings or in person, come armed with research.
Today's buzzword is "evidence-based." Education research tends
to be neatly packaged and easy to communicate, once you get past
the litany of jargon. Most of it is available from one place:

http://www.eric.ed.gov/

Get your kid involved in competitions -- math, writing, etc. My son
won third prize in the state teachers' writing contest for 4th to 6th
graders, when he was in 4th grade. It turned him into a writer. He felt
he had to live up to his talent. That's why he was All-State as a baseball
pitcher, and All-County in soccer, too. d8-) He had to live up to his
own image of himself. It's a great motivator.

Anyway, it all worked for me. Good luck to you.


I heard about religious kooks trying to dominate school boards.
Apparently, locally that is not a problem, where I live.

i

Texas, Kansas, and a few other states have that problem. They have my
sympathy. We had one kook on our board who argued that "intelligent
design" should be taught alongside of evolution in biology. We hooted him
down so badly at a board meeting that he kept his mouth shut for weeks.
g Mockery and derision are the best medicine for that. Forget trying
to change their minds with reason.

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:28:14 -0500, Ignoramus30510
wrote:

On 2011-04-23, Califbill wrote:
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?

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 **** 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DNjJd2YfA

Nasty! It's too bad the gov't won't pay to move the people (-if- they
would accept it) out of that horrible air.


But they're starting to use some of our money to clean it up, build
hydroelectric dams, put up windmill farms, set up solar, etc.
wiki http://goo.gl/MQPyn &
http://goo.gl/VRAk Shows the most hope.

--
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

On 4/23/2011 3:21 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote:

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.

Hardly. Machinists without computer skills are unemployed. Nobody
programs anything from drawings today.

Really? Small shops do, like where I work. I've gotten sketches on
napkins and a shim traced onto the bottom of a cardboard box with no
dimensions and then that image faxed to us. Of course, the faxing meant
all scale was lost. I called to get some dimensions and they said they
had sent the box with the tracing over. Someone had shown up at our
loading dock and, without explanation, handed the empty box to
"someone". I wonder how long that box bounced around the dock before it
was canned? With a little guestimating, I was able to make a DXF we
could cut. I measured the round box manufacturer's logo showing on the
FAX, compared it to similar logos on other boxes, and came up with
numbers close enough to fractional dimensions to make a dimensioned
drawing to send to the customer for approval. It worked!

They went the way of the Dodo a decade or more ago.

You'd be surprised how many dodos there are still out there.

Software is just another productivity tool.

Yes, once you have something to load into the software.


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.

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.

I think you missed his point. The savings isn't in electricity, it's in
labor. The only reason we don't run lights out all weekend is that we
have to have a LASER operator checking to make sure the machines are
still cutting properly. If a machine loses its cut, we can end up with a
weekend's worth of scrap. We have 14kw among our 4 LASERS and keeping
the lights on is trivial, but we can get lots of cutting done with
almost no labor.

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.

No shortage of growth, it's just not occurring within our borders.

David

On 4/23/2011 11:16 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
David R. Birch wrote:
On 4/23/2011 3:21 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote:

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.

Hardly. Machinists without computer skills are unemployed. Nobody
programs anything from drawings today.

Really? Small shops do, like where I work. I've gotten sketches on
napkins and a shim traced onto the bottom of a cardboard box with
no dimensions and then that image faxed to us. Of course, the
faxing meant all scale was lost. I called to get some dimensions
and they said they had sent the box with the tracing over. Someone
had shown up at our loading dock and, without explanation, handed
the empty box to "someone". I wonder how long that box bounced
around the dock before it was canned? With a little guestimating,
I was able to make a DXF we could cut. I measured the round box
manufacturer's logo showing on the FAX, compared it to similar
logos on other boxes, and came up with numbers close enough to
fractional dimensions to make a dimensioned drawing to send to the
customer for approval. It worked!

I've been flat out refusing that sort of work for five years and
discouraging it for a decade.

Sometimes large customers have small jobs for us. Or its another shop
that we cut for as a favor, and they mill or turn gratis in return.
Sometimes there are donuts involved...

Any customer that can't tell me what they want isn't a customer with
the exception of people who want to contract for product designs.

You should see some of the artwork I've turned into something we can
cut! Keeps me from getting bored doing yet another GE Medical cabinet.

I do some of that but it isn't "included" or for free. Pushing costs
down the chain onto vendors is the oldest trick in the book. Unless
someone wants to pay for it, I won't do it anymore and it's less and
less expected.

No donuts for you!


They went the way of the Dodo a decade or more ago.

You'd be surprised how many dodos there are still out there.

I don't think I know even a single one. They can all use
micrometer's as well and if they can't, they aren't machinists. They
are button pushers.

I know a 75 year old tool & die maker who uses AutoCAD in his one man
shop for design, but all the cutting is manual. He's barely competitive,
but still can do things an engineer with CAD/CAM and 5 axis machines can't.

Software is just another productivity tool.

Yes, once you have something to load into the software.

Or like your example, create it.

At some point, someone has to create it. One of our biggest problems is
the clowns just released into the world with an engineering degree who
don't know how to design stuff. I had to point out to the D&E dept of
one of the two largest mining equipment makers (both local to Milwaukee)
that it was a bad idea to have the 1/4-20 screws holding on an access
panel go into holes tapped in 14 gauge steel. They agreed with my
suggestion for weld nuts on the inside of the assembly.



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.

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.

I think you missed his point. The savings isn't in electricity,
it's in labor.

No, you did. There isn't any labor on the premises because there
isn't anything for that labor to do. Peeps would be working if there
were. What Dan said was that the purpose of arranging things this
way was to save the cost of electricity expended on graveyard.
That's ridiculous and ignores the fact that the labor component in
the actual process is tiny.

So you're saying that the savings is electricity is more than the
savings in labor by not needing anyone working on the premises? Silly
me, I thought the main point of lights out was the savings on labor.


The only reason we don't run lights out all weekend is that we
have to have a LASER operator checking to make sure the machines
are still cutting properly. If a machine loses its cut, we can end
up with a weekend's worth of scrap. We have 14kw among our 4
LASERS and keeping the lights on is trivial, but we can get lots
of cutting done with almost no labor.

You can sense all of that. Modern MAZAK's, for example, will know if
they lose a cut and restart.

Two of our four LASERS are modern MAZAKs and if you think that's how
they work, guess again. Or do you believe what the MAZAK salesmen tell
you? My boss did...at first.


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.

No shortage of growth, it's just not occurring within our borders.

Manufacturing output continues to climb. So are experts but its been
a little up and down. As I said, there are a lot of structural
impediments to hiring right now. Capital formation has been given
huge incentives at the expense of profit taking and labor.

Yes, fewer people making more, which means fewer to buy what's made.

David

On 4/23/2011 2:20 PM, John R. Carroll wrote:
David R. Birch wrote:
On 4/23/2011 11:16 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
David R. Birch wrote:
On 4/23/2011 3:21 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
wrote:

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.

Hardly. Machinists without computer skills are unemployed. Nobody
programs anything from drawings today.

Really? Small shops do, like where I work. I've gotten sketches on
napkins and a shim traced onto the bottom of a cardboard box with
no dimensions and then that image faxed to us. Of course, the
faxing meant all scale was lost. I called to get some dimensions
and they said they had sent the box with the tracing over. Someone
had shown up at our loading dock and, without explanation, handed
the empty box to "someone". I wonder how long that box bounced
around the dock before it was canned? With a little guestimating,
I was able to make a DXF we could cut. I measured the round box
manufacturer's logo showing on the FAX, compared it to similar
logos on other boxes, and came up with numbers close enough to
fractional dimensions to make a dimensioned drawing to send to the
customer for approval. It worked!

I've been flat out refusing that sort of work for five years and
discouraging it for a decade.

Sometimes large customers have small jobs for us. Or its another shop
that we cut for as a favor, and they mill or turn gratis in return.
Sometimes there are donuts involved...

Any customer that can't tell me what they want isn't a customer with
the exception of people who want to contract for product designs.

You should see some of the artwork I've turned into something we can
cut! Keeps me from getting bored doing yet another GE Medical cabinet.

I use Interflux for this sort of thing.
I understand you can get DXF out of scanned images using Illustrator
directly but it was always such a pain.

Yup, raster to vector is usually iffy but with most artwork precision
isn't a big deal. OTOH, I had a customer complain about a curve on his
sign not being smooth enough when he looked at it from 10". The sign was
intended to be 15' off the ground. Sigh...


I did my apprenticeship as a mold maker in the sixties.

I don't know of any apprenticeship programs anymore locally.

Manufacturing output continues to climb. So are experts but its been
a little up and down. As I said, there are a lot of structural
impediments to hiring right now. Capital formation has been given
huge incentives at the expense of profit taking and labor.

Yes, fewer people making more, which means fewer to buy what's made.


That's what will change.
Beginning in the late 70's it made good sense to give capital an advantage.
We began a tech revolution that needed a lot of investment.
That is not the case today but tax and capital structures haven't caught up
with reality.
They are going to start. When? I don't know.

I'll hold my breath.

A lot of the productivity benefits that have flowed into capital and profits
are now going to have to be redirected into labor or the American consumer
will be to feeble to drive the economy forcefully.

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

What happens in an economy 70 percent driven by consumer spending has
financially impaired consumers is what we are seeing today.
Poor performance in recovery. Unfunded government. You know, bad stuff.
No first world economy operates with the income disparity that has grown up
in America.
It's the hallmark of a banana republic, which is what America has become.

Hey mister tally man, tally me banana, daylight come an' me wanna go home.

David

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:14:18 -0700, Winston
wrote:

anorton wrote:

(...)

Comcast has very poor customer service rankings, and after my experience
I am sure it is due to their inflexible computer system. I think if
Comcast managment had more faith in their people and less in their
computer, they would do a much better job.

It ain't their computer IMHO.

Soon after moving into our current home, I contacted Comcast
to install cable and high speed internet. They jerked me
around for a week, offering any number of transparently bogus
excuses* in a tone of voice that indicated that I was
'entertainment' not a 'potential customer'.

I've experienced companies that cannot manage to support their
products once installed but Comcast is one of those exceptional
organizations that couldn't give a crap about signing up new
customers to begin with.


* I needed to talk to a *specific* person in Sales! WTF?

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.


Good luck with that! I have had an open work order for 16 months on
an intermittent phone line. Sometimes I can't get a dial tone, or it's
so noisy that I can't use it, but it's still not fixed.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:33:33 -0500, Ignoramus30510
wrote:

On 2011-04-22, azotic wrote:

I don't understand why they are not funding education so people
can keep up with current job markets. Continuing education is the
key to being employed in our times. What is going to happen to
that 80% that are left behind?

Well, they are "funding education", of course, but education is not
the full answer. If you take a dumb person and teach him or her to do
arithmetic, that still does not make them better than a computer, at
any given job.

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!


More from the 'All stupid children pushed ahead' crap.

--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:12:53 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


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


Good luck with that! I have had an open work order for 16 months on
an intermittent phone line. Sometimes I can't get a dial tone, or it's
so noisy that I can't use it, but it's still not fixed.

When its noisy...simply attach a variac across the line and slowly start
bringing up the voltage. (use an amp meter)

When it suddenly goes to zero...you have done your job.

That should burn out the bad splice and they should be able to find it.

Ah..dont tell em about the variac.

Wont harm the phone company..they are fused..but it helps solve the
problem once and for all.

Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)

On Apr 23, 11:32*pm, "David R. Birch" wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated? Does he work
faster? Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

The owner invested in new equipment in order to raise productivity.
The worker got paid for the work he did, but he did not do anything to
raise productivity.

I like more money as much as anyone, but always thought I had to find
ways to be more productive to justify getting raises. So I did things
as teach others how to do my job so I could move on to jobs that
required more skill. Or came up with better documentation so when
something happened, I could find out the reason faster.

Dan

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Larry Jaques wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:14:18 -0700, Winston
wrote:

anorton wrote:

(...)

Comcast has very poor customer service rankings, and after my experience
I am sure it is due to their inflexible computer system. I think if
Comcast managment had more faith in their people and less in their
computer, they would do a much better job.
It ain't their computer IMHO.

Soon after moving into our current home, I contacted Comcast
to install cable and high speed internet. They jerked me
around for a week, offering any number of transparently bogus
excuses* in a tone of voice that indicated that I was
'entertainment' not a 'potential customer'.

I've experienced companies that cannot manage to support their
products once installed but Comcast is one of those exceptional
organizations that couldn't give a crap about signing up new
customers to begin with.


* I needed to talk to a *specific* person in Sales! WTF?
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.


Good luck with that! I have had an open work order for 16 months on
an intermittent phone line. Sometimes I can't get a dial tone, or it's
so noisy that I can't use it, but it's still not fixed.



That sounds like a resistor problem.


--

Richard Lamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~capri26

" wrote:

On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. Birch" wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated? Does he work
faster? Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

You nailed it on the last one.
No it is not harder to find a replacement
and the entire economic system has been structured
to produce that result.

In the last 25 years the changes to
the political system has been a grand assault on the working man


The system is broke for only one reason:

The American consumer has been driven to
a sufficient level of insecurity that
they aren't going to play the game anymore

The American consumer is insecure about the fact
they don't know if next week
their job, home, health ins. and retirement will disappear

And they can't even dream about a raise
despite having to work harder and produce more than ever

But now is time to pay the piper...
\
The American consumer is on strike
The strike has been going on for 3 years
and is likely to continue indefinitely
until the underlying problems are addressed





The owner invested in new equipment in order to raise productivity.
The worker got paid for the work he did, but he did not do anything to
raise productivity.

I like more money as much as anyone, but always thought I had to find
ways to be more productive to justify getting raises. So I did things
as teach others how to do my job so I could move on to jobs that
required more skill. Or came up with better documentation so when
something happened, I could find out the reason faster.

Wages have not much to do with productivity.
If it did wages would have increased more -
a whole lot more - since worker productivity
has skyrocketed in the last 15 or so years.



Dan

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Larry Jaques wrote:

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:33:33 -0500, Ignoramus30510
wrote:

On 2011-04-22, azotic wrote:

I don't understand why they are not funding education so people
can keep up with current job markets. Continuing education is the
key to being employed in our times. What is going to happen to
that 80% that are left behind?

Well, they are "funding education", of course, but education is not
the full answer. If you take a dumb person and teach him or her to
do arithmetic, that still does not make them better than a
computer, at any given job.

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!


More from the 'All stupid children pushed ahead' crap.


My wife calls that "No teacher left standing" . Guess what she does for a
living ?
--
Snag
Learning keeps
you young !

On Apr 24, 9:13*am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:


Wages have not much to do with productivity.
If it did wages would have increased more -
a whole lot more - since worker productivity
has skyrocketed in the last 15 or so years.

Wages has everything to do with productivity. Worker productivity
has not gone up in the last 15 or so years. The manufacturing
productivity has gone up, but not do to anything the average worker
did. That was my point. The average worker gets the same relative
wage because what he contributes is pretty much the same as what he
did 15 years ago. The owner bought new better machinery which
increased productivity. The average worker did zip.

My wages went up because I invested time in learning and devised ways
to improve the speed with which I accomplished my job.

Dan

Snag wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Larry Jaques wrote:

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:33:33 -0500, Ignoramus30510
wrote:

On 2011-04-22, azotic wrote:

I don't understand why they are not funding education so people
can keep up with current job markets. Continuing education is the
key to being employed in our times. What is going to happen to
that 80% that are left behind?

Well, they are "funding education", of course, but education is not
the full answer. If you take a dumb person and teach him or her to
do arithmetic, that still does not make them better than a
computer, at any given job.

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!


More from the 'All stupid children pushed ahead' crap.


My wife calls that "No teacher left standing" . Guess what she does for a
living ?


Herds feral cats, then waves them goodbye at the end of the school
year.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Apr 24, 11:15*am, "Ed Huntress"

What you're describing is the capitalist hell that Marx described. Humans in
general don't become much more productive with time. Capital equipment does.
Thus, all growth accrues to capital, and you wind up with a division between
filthy rich and a relatively declining working class, which eventually
becomes an *absolutely* declining working class.

This descent was broken with the laws of the Progressive era, and again in
the 1930s. It worked until the end of the 1960s.

Progressive taxation is the main tool for fixing this problem, but there are
others.

--
Ed Huntress

It is not a capitalistic hell. The workers are not doing all that bad
and are certainly better off than they were fifteen or twenty years
ago. Back in the sixties, color tv's were trendy. Now workers all
have cell phones, microwave ovens, and large flat panel TV's. Safer
cars too. It is hard to think of anything that everyone needs that
they do not have.

But the workers have not gotten more pay as a result of increased
productivity. Because the workers are in general not more
productive. From the thirties to the sixties, the workers did become
more productive. Labor changed from mostly unskilled to skilled.
Relatively a big change. Being a high school graduate was necessary
for many more jobs. But more recently there has not been a big
change in the skill level necessary to do jobs. At least in the
United States. In third world counties labor is still changing from
unskilled to skilled.
So there is no reason why labor in the U.S. should be reaping the
benefits of increased productivity.

And progressive taxation is not going to be the answer. The bottom
half of of the people do not pay any income taxes now.

This is not an argument saying this is a good or bad thing. It is
just a statement of how things are. Labor is not scarce, and the law
of supply and demand is working.

Dan

wrote in message
...
On Apr 24, 11:15 am, "Ed Huntress"

What you're describing is the capitalist hell that Marx described. Humans
in
general don't become much more productive with time. Capital equipment
does.
Thus, all growth accrues to capital, and you wind up with a division
between
filthy rich and a relatively declining working class, which eventually
becomes an *absolutely* declining working class.

This descent was broken with the laws of the Progressive era, and again in
the 1930s. It worked until the end of the 1960s.

Progressive taxation is the main tool for fixing this problem, but there
are
others.

--
Ed Huntress

It is not a capitalistic hell. The workers are not doing all that bad
and are certainly better off than they were fifteen or twenty years
ago. Back in the sixties, color tv's were trendy. Now workers all
have cell phones, microwave ovens, and large flat panel TV's. Safer
cars too. It is hard to think of anything that everyone needs that
they do not have.

Security.


But the workers have not gotten more pay as a result of increased
productivity. Because the workers are in general not more
productive. From the thirties to the sixties, the workers did become
more productive. Labor changed from mostly unskilled to skilled.
..Relatively a big change. Being a high school graduate was necessary
for many more jobs. But more recently there has not been a big
change in the skill level necessary to do jobs. At least in the
United States. In third world counties labor is still changing from
unskilled to skilled.
So there is no reason why labor in the U.S. should be reaping the
.benefits of increased productivity.

And progressive taxation is not going to be the answer. The bottom
half of of the people do not pay any income taxes now.

This is not an argument saying this is a good or bad thing. It is
just a statement of how things are. Labor is not scarce, and the law
of supply and demand is working.

Dan

What's "working" is the natural tendency of capital to acquire most of the
benefits from the economy. Surely you've heard that real wages for labor
have been stagnant for decades and that the incomes and assets have been
filtering up to the top. Labor is on the run.

That's Social Darwinism and the natural tendency of capitalism. You either
throttle it, or build a walled compound for yourself. And it's not clear how
long the latter would last.

--
Ed Huntress

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.

The owner invested in new equipment in order to raise productivity.
The worker got paid for the work he did, but he did not do anything to
raise productivity.

I guess you haven't worked with people who take pride in doing a good
job and finding ways to do it better.

I like more money as much as anyone, but always thought I had to find
ways to be more productive to justify getting raises. So I did things
as teach others how to do my job so I could move on to jobs that
required more skill. Or came up with better documentation so when
something happened, I could find out the reason faster.

I never said he should get raises just for longevity, but the raises he
gets are a far smaller part of the increase in wealth than his
contribution to the increase in productivity. Management pays itself,
then makes capital investment and if anything is left, it trickles down
to the employee. I feel sorry for you if you think employees are always
replaceable and anyone you can hire for half the wage is going to be
just as good as the experienced worker he replaced.

David

" wrote:

On Apr 24, 9:13 am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:


Wages have not much to do with productivity.
If it did wages would have increased more -
a whole lot more - since worker productivity
has skyrocketed in the last 15 or so years.

Wages has everything to do with productivity. Worker productivity
has not gone up in the last 15 or so years. The manufacturing
productivity has gone up, but not do to anything the average worker
did. That was my point.

Your point is both wrong and irrelevant.


..
The average worker gets the same relative
wage because what he contributes is pretty much the same as what he
did 15 years ago. The owner bought new better machinery which
increased productivity. The average worker did zip.

My wages went up because I invested time in learning and devised ways
to improve the speed with which I accomplished my job.

Sure let's pretend
you are the only one
with increased productivity.


Nevertheless, all that is completely irrelevant

You can funnel all the money you want
to employers pockets
but it aint going to help

They still can't sell their products and services

And your mistaken opinions
aren't going to do anything to change that

On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:10:44 -0500, "David R. Birch"
wrote:

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

As a side note..Ive been in far too many machine shops where that simply
doesnt hold true. Unfortunately.

Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:19:25 -0700, Rich Grise
wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:

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

That's odd. If _I_ had to do _MY_ life over, I'd change the
things I did wrong, which, as it turns out, is essentially
_everything_.

Thanks,
Rich


"If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't know what I know now" - so
if you had to do it all over, chances are very good you'd make all the
same mistakes - or at least just as many!!

On Apr 24, 7:34*pm, jim wrote:


Your point is both wrong and irrelevant.

You need to present cogent arguments that show that I am wrong.
Simply saying I am wrong is not much of an argument.

I am a little puzzled about why my point is irrelevant.

.



Sure let's pretend
you are the only one
*with increased productivity.

I did not say that I was the only one with increased productivity.
But I was one of the ones with the most increased productivity, and
also one of the ones that got higher raises.

Nevertheless, all that is completely irrelevant

You can funnel all the money you want
to employers pockets
but it aint going to help

They still can't sell their products and services

And your mistaken opinions
aren't going to do anything to change that

Actually companies are selling their products and services.

Dan

On Apr 24, 7:10*pm, "David R. Birch" wrote:


I feel sorry for you if you think employees are always
replaceable and anyone you can hire for half the wage is going to be
just as good as the experienced worker he replaced.

David

In my experience it is better to pay above average wages and hire
above average employees. One really good engineer is worth four or
five average engineers. The same is true of other workers.

But I also believe that there is a big difference between 15 years
experience and one year of experience repeated for 15 years.

Dan

" wrote:

On Apr 24, 7:34 pm, jim wrote:


Your point is both wrong and irrelevant.

You need to present cogent arguments that show that I am wrong.
Simply saying I am wrong is not much of an argument.

Your claim is a diversion. It doesn't matter


I am a little puzzled about why my point is irrelevant.

irrelevant because it ignores reality.
Whether workers measure up on your personal yardstick
is irrelevant to why the economy is in the toilet




.


Sure let's pretend
you are the only one
with increased productivity.

I did not say that I was the only one with increased productivity.
But I was one of the ones with the most increased productivity, and
also one of the ones that got higher raises.

Nevertheless, all that is completely irrelevant

You can funnel all the money you want
to employers pockets
but it aint going to help

They still can't sell their products and services

And your mistaken opinions
aren't going to do anything to change that

Actually companies are selling their products and services.

Not.

Production is well below capacity.
If businesses were selling products and services
there would not be so many people out of work

The shoe or car salesman would have his job back
if people were buying shoes or cars
the waitress would be serving meals
if there weren't empty tables
they would start up the 3rd shift at the widget factory
if widgets were selling

etc. etc. etc.

On Apr 25, 8:11*am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:

Production is well below capacity.
If businesses were selling products and services
there would not be so many people out of work

The shoe or car salesman would have his job back
if people were buying shoes or cars
the waitress would be serving meals
if there weren't empty tables
they would start up the 3rd shift at the widget factory
if widgets were selling

etc. etc. etc.

As you say all that is completely irrelevant.

Dan

In article ,
Martin Eastburn wrote:

They used to do precision resistance from each end and determine
the break point.

It has been 40 years or so for me to hear the words - Varly / Yarly or
something like that.

It's "Varley": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._F._Varley.

If I recall from an old AT&T publication, the trick was to measure DC
resistance to the short from both ends of the cable, plus end-to-end
resistance of the wires, gathering enough information to solve for
distance to the cross, despite not knowing the actual resistance of the
cross (not all are zero ohms).

Joe Gwinn

" wrote:

On Apr 25, 8:11 am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:

Production is well below capacity.
If businesses were selling products and services
there would not be so many people out of work

The shoe or car salesman would have his job back
if people were buying shoes or cars
the waitress would be serving meals
if there weren't empty tables
they would start up the 3rd shift at the widget factory
if widgets were selling

etc. etc. etc.

As you say all that is completely irrelevant.

sand sand sand sand
Head
sand sand sand sand
sand sand sand sand

On Apr 25, 10:04*am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:


sand sand sand sand
* * *Head
sand sand sand sand
sand sand sand sand

completely irrelevant.

Dan

wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:19:25 -0700, Rich Grise
Larry Jaques wrote:

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.'

That's odd. If _I_ had to do _MY_ life over, I'd change the
things I did wrong, which, as it turns out, is essentially
_everything_.

"If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't know what I know now" - so
if you had to do it all over, chances are very good you'd make all the
same mistakes - or at least just as many!!

Of course, I meant, If I could do it all over, _while still knowing
what I know now_, I'd change a lot of stuff (like almost everything).

Like you said, if I went back and was rendered as stupid as I was then,
there wouldn't really be much point to it, would there? :-)

Ever seen "The Butterfly Effect?"

Thanks,
Rich

Martin Eastburn wrote:

They used to do precision resistance from each end and determine
the break point.

It has been 40 years or so for me to hear the words - Varly / Yarly or
something like that.


If I can prove which cable is bad, they will replace it. Of course,
it's a different crew for each of the two cables, and neither is part of
the group that takes care of residential phone problems.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

Joseph Gwinn wrote:

In article ,
Martin Eastburn wrote:

They used to do precision resistance from each end and determine
the break point.

It has been 40 years or so for me to hear the words - Varly / Yarly or
something like that.

It's "Varley": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._F._Varley.

If I recall from an old AT&T publication, the trick was to measure DC
resistance to the short from both ends of the cable, plus end-to-end
resistance of the wires, gathering enough information to solve for
distance to the cross, despite not knowing the actual resistance of the
cross (not all are zero ohms).


Any DC in the ground path can upset the calculations, too. BTDT, had
to dig up more wire to find it.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

" wrote:

On Apr 25, 10:04 am, jim "sjedgingN0Sp"@m@mwt,net wrote:

sand sand sand sand
Head
sand sand sand sand
sand sand sand sand

completely irrelevant.


Have you ever seen a troll that was relevant?


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.



--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:39:35 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.


I can back up that with a large handful of companies in the LA area that
I do work for.

Some of them have Latinos dragging their feet, a far smaller number have
whites dragging their feet.

But people in many shops..do drag their feet..people who have been there
many many years.

Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)

Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:39:35 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.

I can back up that with a large handful of companies in the LA area that
I do work for.

Some of them have Latinos dragging their feet, a far smaller number have
whites dragging their feet.

But people in many shops..do drag their feet..people who have been there
many many years.


Then they get upset when the company has to close for good.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:46:14 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:39:35 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.

I can back up that with a large handful of companies in the LA area that
I do work for.

Some of them have Latinos dragging their feet, a far smaller number have
whites dragging their feet.

But people in many shops..do drag their feet..people who have been there
many many years.


Then they get upset when the company has to close for good.

Yes...indeed they do. They most often start ripping off the company for
mics, calipers and just about anything not bolted down.

Buddy of mine is part owner of such a shop and he has been loosing such
items now for a couple months.

Dont think he will go tits up..but I rather suspect that some people
are going to get laid off pretty soon. He has been building a loyal and
hard working group who are putting out. They will stay.

Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)

As with his father, his approach to any situation is to
complain.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"azotic" wrote in message
...
Congressman whines about jobs that will soon be obsolete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=T5GNB-gLgy4

Rather than complaining about the iPad, or saying that it's
killing jobs,
why isn't Jackson encouraging more such innovation which
creates new jobs? A
techonological rapture has occured and once again
it seems some of our luddite members of congress have been
left behind.

Best Regards
Tom.

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
As with his father, his approach to any situation is to
complain.


I guess they haven't figured out a way to extort enough money from Apple.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.


"azotic" wrote in message
...
Congressman whines about jobs that will soon be obsolete.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=T5GNB-gLgy4

Rather than complaining about the iPad, or saying that it's
killing jobs,
why isn't Jackson encouraging more such innovation which
creates new jobs? A
techonological rapture has occured and once again
it seems some of our luddite members of congress have been
left behind.

Best Regards
Tom.

That (extortion) may very well be the next step, after the
complaining. You display great wisdom.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"ATP" wrote in message
...

"Stormin Mormon" wrote
in message
...
As with his father, his approach to any situation is to
complain.


I guess they haven't figured out a way to extort enough
money from Apple.

Gunner Asch wrote:

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:46:14 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:39:35 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.

I can back up that with a large handful of companies in the LA area that
I do work for.

Some of them have Latinos dragging their feet, a far smaller number have
whites dragging their feet.

But people in many shops..do drag their feet..people who have been there
many many years.


Then they get upset when the company has to close for good.

Yes...indeed they do. They most often start ripping off the company for
mics, calipers and just about anything not bolted down.

Buddy of mine is part owner of such a shop and he has been loosing such
items now for a couple months.

Dont think he will go tits up..but I rather suspect that some people
are going to get laid off pretty soon. He has been building a loyal and
hard working group who are putting out. They will stay.


He needs a multi channel DVR to find the thieves, and keep a couple
guns in his office for when they get drunk and come back to cause
trouble.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.

On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:52:29 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:46:14 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:39:35 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


"David R. Birch" wrote:

On 4/24/2011 7:24 AM, wrote:
On Apr 23, 11:32 pm, "David R. wrote:

So far, they've been redirected into the owner's pockets, productivity
goes up, profits go up, the guy doing the work at the bottom gets the
same real dollar value as he did 15 years ago.

David

So explain why the guy doing the work should get more real dollar
value than he got 15 years ago. Is he better educated?

Yes, he's had 15 years learning the best way to get his job done the
most productive way.

Does he work faster?

Yes, what he has learned to do now takes 1/4 the time to do it as when
he started and has been given other duties that he's mastered.

Is it harder to find a replacement if he quits?

Yes, because you can't find a replacement with 15 years with the
company, anyone you hire is 15 years behind and, based on what I've seen
lately, will never catch up.


Bull****. Sometimes a new hire is more productive than the guy who
was there for 15 or more years. I've been threatened with physical
violence for outworking the old timers, and producing better work. One
job took the 'expert' 7.5 hours per unit. They only took me 18 minutes.

I can back up that with a large handful of companies in the LA area that
I do work for.

Some of them have Latinos dragging their feet, a far smaller number have
whites dragging their feet.

But people in many shops..do drag their feet..people who have been there
many many years.


Then they get upset when the company has to close for good.

Yes...indeed they do. They most often start ripping off the company for
mics, calipers and just about anything not bolted down.

Buddy of mine is part owner of such a shop and he has been loosing such
items now for a couple months.

Dont think he will go tits up..but I rather suspect that some people
are going to get laid off pretty soon. He has been building a loyal and
hard working group who are putting out. They will stay.


He needs a multi channel DVR to find the thieves, and keep a couple
guns in his office for when they get drunk and come back to cause
trouble.

I had that happen once, to one of my clients. I was in fixing a
machine..and a terminated employee..big big guy..latino..came in all
drunk and ****ed off and started threatening the owner..who was a very
attractive middle aged female. (widow)

I tucked my Armalloyed (silver) 1911 in my pants, where he could see
it..over her shoulder...and caught his attention..which slowed down his
ranting and threatening rather quickly..and as she turned around to look
at what he was looking at..I slid my coat back over it and was standing
there looking interested in the situation..pistol hidden. When she
turned back to the guy, I uncovered..and made finger motions for him to
shut up and leave quietly. It took all the wind out of his sails..and
he left.

As I turned around..I noticed one of the leadguys (also latino) had been
standing beside me with his hand under his apron like he was holding
something shootable as well G. He smiled at me, I smiled at
him...chuckle...

So the drunk got the idea rather quickly that such behavior would not be
allowed. The lady never did figure out why he deflated and we saw no
reason to tell her.
I never did ask if he was actually holding a weapon..or simply had his
hand in place. VBG

Last I knew..she and the lead guy were dating outside of the company and
were doing very well together. VBG


Gunner

--
"If I say two plus two is four and a Democrat says two plus two is eight,
it's not a partial victory for me when we agree that two plus two is
six. " Jonah Goldberg (modified)