Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Armageddon wrote:As many as 63 of the 135 coal fired power plants in India have 2 days or less of coal supplies.

China has been having blackouts also recently.

Supply crunches.

Breakdown of trade and the existing order is happening.

Right now 16% of london gas stations are without fuel....last week it was 12%.

The Bank of England is warning of a global sell off.....

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -says-bank

Is that what we’d expect in a post peak world?

You know, I wonder how much of the worker shortage is real? I read a post on Reddit, yesterday, that purported to address this question. This person said they went ahead and called the bluff of employers who were complaining the most about the worker shortage, so their sample was biased. They didn't apply at places, for this sample, that didn't complain. Anyway, they put in fifty applications, they said. They got one interview appointment. The results would seem to support the summation they made, that those employers were more missing something about the power they enjoyed under the old paradigm. I don't know about that.

At my job we aren't fully staffed. There are a lot of people. There has never not been enough people, but it has been close. I have had to work harder than I would otherwise. I worry about my employer using that appreciation of the "new normal" to get me to expect to provide that sort of output all of the time, forgetting anything about how wages are bargained for a certain expectation of work. All employers hate when employees relate to them that way, as if they are separately functioning agents that have their own worldview and agendas. Employers hate for you to point out their weakness, that their business model can't, maybe, afford you.

You might think this would lead employers to advances with HR, toward potential employees. History is leading us in a different direction. As we go along, there is a greater and greater realization that marketing, in this case, is like putting lipstick on a pig.

In under two years I expect larger work places to undergo greater automation at a greater pace than had been taking place previously. The change will probably still be slow enough that folks won't make the connection. It will happen at larger work places because they experience the results of a more oligopolistic market than most that have many more smaller players dictating what goes on. There will be a race to do things cheaper, cheaper all the way round, using automation where it will bring results. It will be the result of a "lesson."

I look at the employer/employee wage bargain balance like this, I compare it to how I buy stocks. When I buy a stock, I often have an idea of a price range I need to buy it at in order to both cut down on risk and leverage better any potential gain.

Well, I can get greedy. Sometimes, the share price is a good share price, but I fell in love with some number that I am now invested in enough that I didn't wind up buying any shares. I wanted the stock to fall enough in price that I would really get a bargain. It didn't fall that far. What's more, I didn't adjust. I lose. When that happens, it's my fault. It isn't the stock's fault. To think otherwise is to think like an abuser.

Evil,

Have heard similar stories. But I also heard different stories from folks who were impacted by the shortages. I was asking waitress’ about it and hot some pretty hot responses. From their perspective it is very real. I think everyone I have talked to who is personally involved reports shortages. I know I am having a very difficult time hiring folks to help with the renovations.

I don’t know how to reconcile these contrasting reports.

While the help wanted sign has been out almost continuously for decades at the local MickyD's the starting wages have gone up from $10/hr to $16/hour now. What is different is the $1000 bonus sign at the KFC up the street from it.
Back in 1990 my wife took a job at McDonald's for the then minimum wage of $3.80/hr. She worked her way up to store manager but the salary came with extra unpaid hours that made the raises insignificant. We as a growing family of five needed the money then so muddled through but apparently today few are that financially stressed. Of course inflation may soon return us to that stress level.

Global energy crisis could halt factory production in the UK - industry leaders.

Lebanon has run out of power and is in total darkness


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... byFaj_Lbzo

Armageddon wrote:Lebanon has run out of power and is in total darkness


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... byFaj_Lbzo

Next up is India....

randomguyonabike wrote:

Armageddon wrote:Lebanon has run out of power and is in total darkness


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... byFaj_Lbzo

Next up is India....

Yup

vtsnowedin wrote: She worked her way up to store manager but the salary came with extra unpaid hours that made the raises insignificant.

That's the great American corporate trick.

At IBM, when I started about 40 years ago, my original letter stating the terms of my employment said I'd receive my hourly wages for a 40 hour week, and time and a half for overtime.

Which seemed perfectly fair and normal to me.

Then less than a year later they promote me, and suddenly, I'm on "salary" and NO overtime applies unless there is some formally approved "task pay" for massive overtime over several months or more. Which is something they failed completely to point out to ANYONE who started below a formal salaried position which was almost everyone taking their first full time job.

And I kid you not, when my manager told me I was promoted, he said I "could work all the overtime I wanted to", since he'd restricted me to 5 hours a week after I blew up the department budget working 90 hours a week for months to get my first "critical" project done on time (it was four months behind when I arrived).

Then, a few more promotions, and there is no more task pay no matter what, but the level of responsibility and complexity and stress with the job is HUGE compared to what it was before, with each promotion. (But the pay increases are rather minor, in comparison).

For successful younger folks who have skills but little long term loyalty to any one corporate employer, I can't blame them. The corporations earned that lack of loyalty, generally. The book "White Collar Sweatshop" showed me that at the time I read it in the mid 90's, that there were about 80 million white collar US workers experiencing similar deterioration of job conditions and massive overtime expected as I saw a lot of at IBM, in all sorts of industries.

https://www.amazon.com/White-Collar-Swe ... 039332320X

Obviously, there may be exceptions, especially with smaller privately held firms where management treats employees well (like IBM generally did, before 1993 and the new Gerstner era of cutting costs is always priority one).

It's amazing how much the workplace can change for most workers over the course of a decade, much less several decades.

The last massive change in the early to mid 90's was largely due to fast global networks (for big computers, not the internet being common yet) -- that massively changed the supply/demand dynamics for lots of tech workers, which has spread since as tech. has spread.

Newfie wrote:Evil,

Have heard similar stories. But I also heard different stories from folks who were impacted by the shortages. I was asking waitress’ about it and hot some pretty hot responses. From their perspective it is very real. I think everyone I have talked to who is personally involved reports shortages. I know I am having a very difficult time hiring folks to help with the renovations.

I don’t know how to reconcile these contrasting reports.

The guy across the street chose to build a major extension onto his house, a pop up, just before the pandemic hit. At first, the progress was fast. Then lumber prices went not only up, but way up. They did what they could. They worked on the stuff that got around the high prices. When it came time, they got lucky. Prices started to fall just about when they couldn't hold out any longer. I guess it is a comparison to business in the sense that they kept at it. Businesses have to keep at it. They are going endeavors. It's got to be hard on everybody. I wonder where the sweet spots, if there are any, appear?

I guess the guy across the street could have had a better relationship with the local lumber yard, as it was the supply on hand, they said, that was the cause. We have to understand, though, that whenever marginal effects knock the price up, it goes up pretty much everywhere. There isn't a lot of lag. There can be lag in the labor markets. People are funny, the way they see the world. I am no exception. I don't think that wage costs actually act in the rational manner that economists think they do, not from the employee side. They only sort of do, as some do act that way, and some don't.

CHINA RUST-BELT PROVINCE WARNS OF MORE SHORTAGES IN ENERGY CRISIS

THE LARGEST PROVINCIAL ECONOMY IN CHINA'S NORTHEAST RUST BELT FACING UP TO 20% POWER SHORTAGE