Peak Oil News and Message Boards

KaiserJeep wrote:Niether should you. The purpose of automation is to make goods and services cheaper to all. That way, more people can buy more stuff.

The person who hangs around a dead town with no jobs is a loser.

The person who does not get retrained for another job is a loser.

The person who insists that what he wants to do is a job that no longer exists is a loser.

Here's a clue: They call it work for a reason. They are going to pay you to do something they need done. It might not be what you want to do, or where you want to do it, or in the company of people you want to associate with. You are pretty lucky if you have any of those things.

You take the money and do the job, or quit and please yourself. It's not slavery, you have a choice.

Technological change continues, and always will. Be flexible and willing to learn, or live on the dole, or become homeless, those are the choices.

Everything you say is true.

IMO, however, at least in much of the corporate world, at least in the US, there has been one BIG change re dealing with managing a career since the 90's.

Prior to about the mid-90's many corporations wanted to have and keep good, reliable employees throughout their careers. Thus, they would help them in their careers with guidance, encouragement, and most importantly formal training for better jobs, keeping up with technology, etc.

Much of that went away with MANY old-line companies as the goal of saving money in the short term became number one. So for training, there was little, if any. People were told to take classes on their own dime while on vacation, if they wanted training. Encouragement and guidance? As far as careers, that pretty much went away too.

So you're right -- and the responsibility does rest ultimately with the individual. But it is much more difficult as things are now, at least for the vast majority of US people who were fortunate enough to work for relatively paternalistic corporations before roughly 1995.

Again, the book "White Collar Sweatshop" does a decent job documenting much of the scale and the nature of the way things changed for roughly 80 million white collar workers around that time.

You are entirely correct. Perks like medical insurance, company picnics, corporate housing, and so forth entered the American job market during WW2 when there was an acute labor shortage. They did not exist prior to that point, and never existed in places where there was never a labor shortage.

My career spanned the late 1970's to 2015 when I retired. Although I saw some of what you describe, there are major exceptions such as Silicon Valley where the starting salary for a new EE for example is likely to be $100,000 or more, and after a few years if you are not making $200,000, you are probably no longer in demand in your specialty.

The dark side of this red hot labor market is housing costs:

The asking price for this burnt shell of a house was $799,000. The actual sale after a bidding war was $900,000+.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/19/burned-shell-of-a-home-sells-for-more-than-900000-in-san-jose/

Although condemned and uninhabitable, this Fremont home sold for $1.2M.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/16/condemned-house-sells-for-1-2-million-fremont/
There are a few other markets where high tech is still driving the economy. Austin Texas and the Greenwhich Connecticut area are mini Silicon Valley tech centers, not so extreme.

As for employee "perks" in this area, I worked for a company that sweetened their regular and generous vacation policy with an extra paid six week "sabbatical" every four years, to encourage employees to reflect upon their career goals and possibly make changes to such. Game rooms, luxurious workout centers, subsidized mass transit, gourmet cafeteria cuisine with professional chefs, personal assistants to fetch your dry cleaning and stand in line at the DMV, etc. are common.

Anything goes, as long as it increases productivity. High Tech profits pay for it all, and jobs are available here.

But the first major expense you face is paying off your college loans, because you are not getting a job here without a degree and talent for hardware or software design. I was fortunate to only owe $16,000 when I got my BSEE degree, I lived the frugal lifestyle paid for by the original GI Bill, at $300/month. Then I used the loan entitlement from the VA to buy my first home. But I "paid" for those benefits with 42 months in uniform, and was so not fond of that lifestyle that I volunteered for isolated service in the Arctic in return for a 6-month reduction in my actice duty time.

I paid for two more college degrees for the wife and kid, while working. The wife is now deeply immersed in the career track mentality of Silicon Valley, she changes the subject when I talk of moving. Then I cheat by reminding her that she can provide a Grandmother's loving childcare while her daughter works to allow them to buy their own home....

I stand to make more than $1M profit on the home I bought for less than $124K in 1986. But the high tech lifestyle is also full of stress. Not to mention, I was moved to new locations three times in my career, which came at a considerable personal cost.

TANSTAAFL.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1008732
90 per cent of the planet is breathing in polluted air – World Health Organization

Besides giving up flying, meat, dairy, and general over-consumption, getting away from car culture is another crucial move:

13 cities that are starting to ban cars

http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/cities ... ban-2017-8

What are towns, cities, counties...doing in your region to encourage biking and pedestrians and to discourage driving?

"What are towns, cities, counties...doing in your region to encourage biking and pedestrians and to discourage driving?" it is not really my city (live upstate) but NY city has really set up extensive public bikes called "Citibike". for a small fee, you can ride for a certain period of time. That is something the traffic congested city needed

Yes, this kind of thing seems to have spread to many cities. A friend of mine helped set up the system we have here in the Twin Cities, called 'Nice Ride.'

Someone on another blog pointed out this variation on that theme:

https://www.co-bikes.co.uk/

Self-service Electric Bikes! This is in Exeter, UK, but I'm assuming other places are going this route, too, especially where hills are a problem.

dohboi wrote:Yes, this kind of thing seems to have spread to many cities. A friend of mine helped set up the system we have here in the Twin Cities, called 'Nice Ride.'

Someone on another blog pointed out this variation on that theme:

https://www.co-bikes.co.uk/

Self-service Electric Bikes! This is in Exeter, UK, but I'm assuming other places are going this route, too, especially where hills are a problem.

Well, Nice Ride sounds great. But the irony of the cold/snowy weather for many months of the year in the Twin Cities doesn't escape me.

So maybe nice, widely available, efficient, well run public transport would be a far better thing for anyone in the US who lives north of, say, Florida, or at least Atlanta.

...

The point I'm making is various isolated efforts are nice, but to make a practical system, some serious thinking and serious resources need to be put in place to BEGIN to make not needing a car a reality.

It's doable in a relative handful of big cities in the US. Elsewhere, not so much, at least as things currently stand.

pstarr wrote:Electric bikes? Laughable

Electric trains? No doable, not in the face of American resistance to good government, public transportation . . . and even a hint of commonweal ie socialism. A viable solar economy requires truly democratic institutions, an educated and free people, and a consensual process. The Military Industrial conspiracy would need to be crushed. Ha ha ha ha.

Not possible in the United States. We are captive. And in awe of our Masters.

Bull's eye or is it Denier"s eye

Yes, we would basically need in haste to convert into a totalitarian State, where everbody had their marching orders. Chances of that happening in the US are zero to nothing. Heck, I don"t even think in China it would work. They already have a taste for freedom and the happy motoring lifestyle