Well, in that case, I'm doing my part to help the economy...

Can I volunteer to sit on unemployment for 2 years? (in case it's been missed -- the bill to extend unemployment 20 weeks passed this week.) This isn't a criticism of the unlucky folks out of work. This is a criticism of the system that is paying and continually renewing benefits, producing what you'd expect ... a nigh-permanent underclass of folks that are getting by doing nothing while most of the rest of us get by and have to go to work all week (and has been pointed out already, we're picking up the slack for the missing workers).

But I thought increases in productivity always brought increases in the standard of living? That's what my economics professor harped on repeatedly.

GoodyearPimp: Can I volunteer to sit on unemployment for 2 years? (in case it's been missed -- the bill to extend unemployment 20 weeks passed this week.) This isn't a criticism of the unlucky folks out of work. This is a criticism of the system that is paying and continually renewing benefits, producing what you'd expect ... a nigh-permanent underclass of folks that are getting by doing nothing while most of the rest of us get by and have to go to work all week (and has been pointed out already, we're picking up the slack for the missing workers).

Oh, I see. The company that's not hiring people isn't because it's cheaper to just have you work harder instead of hiring someone else to pay, it's because those people are getting unemployment.
I learn something new every day.

"Do more with less"

/or find a new job
//Chinese overtime

Bunnyhat: All of this is being justified in the name of Capitalism and greed with the theory that is what is good for the stockholder, is good for the country.

Only because kids were taught that the word capitalism makes it good and word socialism makes it bad. Never mind what is going on is government approved corporatism which is a hybrid of the two. It would be reversed if the opposite had been taught, and the same sort of crooks would be ripping the public off and consolidating wealth and power.

Whatever the form of government or economic system the clever and strong eventually rise to the top and they stay there only until the great masses finally have enough and dispose them.

I really am disturbed by where we're going as well. I'm on the verge of just moving to Costa Rica to become a farmer and opt out of this system.

Tomorrow will be 7 weeks without a pay check (I've been given about $300 randomally as a thanks for waiting to get paid.) My hours have gone from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm 5 days a week to 9:00 am till often 10:00 pm on weekdays and 10:00 am to 6:00 pm on weekends. I have had 3 days off in the last 7 weeks. Only ones getting paid are the temporary contractors.

I'm glad I at least still have something to stay focused on but I'm beggining to think if it's going to go under anyway, and I'm not going to get paid anyway - why not just opt-out and collect some unemployement while working on some personal projects.

In faireness, the management and owners are putting in even MORE hours than me - they're literally here all the time in this grumpy angry "what are we doing wrong" stupor.

But people can't spend what they don't have.

Beware_Me: But I thought increases in productivity always brought increases in the standard of living?

It has. Overall. Millions of Chinese workers now have a few ounces of chicken to go with their rice bowl. Several thousand executives have also had massive increases in their standard of living. The fact that 1950s-70s Middle America gets wiped out is more than balanced out.

/ fun while it lasted

GoodyearPimp: Can I volunteer to sit on unemployment for 2 years? (in case it's been missed -- the bill to extend unemployment 20 weeks passed this week.) This isn't a criticism of the unlucky folks out of work. This is a criticism of the system that is paying and continually renewing benefits, producing what you'd expect ... a nigh-permanent underclass of folks that are getting by doing nothing while most of the rest of us get by and have to go to work all week (and has been pointed out already, we're picking up the slack for the missing workers).

Dude, this water and Ramen is SO DELICIOUS.

The salt just melts away in your mouth, and that artificial chicken flavor is indulgence defined, let me tell you.

After this, I'm going to sit in my naturally air-cooled northeastern bathroom and then enjoy the gentle, luxurious buttwipe of 7-11's finest paper towels.

Afterwards, I will retire to my master bedroom draped in Wal-Mart's finest upholstery and sporting the latest in 1990s technology to laugh in glee at the plebes scraping by with their "jobs".

BWHAAHAHAHAHAHA MUAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!

Significant productivity gains are one of the first signs of a job recovery as employers will start to take on new employees once they max out the amount of work they can squeeze out of their current staff.

xanadian: Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

It's gonna happen.

It's already happened, ask any salaried employee. Forty hours of work is no longer the time commitment, 50 hours a week minimum with no overtime pay is what my industry has moved towards for salaried managers.

EvilToni
It's already happened, ask any salaried employee. Forty hours of work is no longer the time commitment, 50 hours a week minimum with no overtime pay is what my industry has moved towards for salaried managers.
===================================================

I'd bring that up with the BBB or the government... since... that's illegal.

So they lay people off, double or triple the workloads of the remaining employees, reduce their salaries and benefits, increase their hours and laugh at their fear as they are forced to pump out more and more widgets.

It is only a matter of time before the overworked will crack and their employers will be left with zombie, sick, unproductive, vindictive, mad-cow crazy workers who will undermine their businesses. Oh yes, they will turn against their employers and they will have their revenge. Karma really is a severe biatch.

50 hours minimum with no overtime. Been there done that. If I cant have comp time, bonus or any other perk for salary work beyond 40 hours a week you would have to hold me at gunpoint to work more than about 45 hours per week. Decided long ago that I work to live and not live to work.

//remember kids globalization is good for all.
//pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

jake3988: EvilToni
It's already happened, ask any salaried employee. Forty hours of work is no longer the time commitment, 50 hours a week minimum with no overtime pay is what my industry has moved towards for salaried managers.
===================================================

I'd bring that up with the BBB or the government... since... that's illegal.

No, in fact they expanded the type of jobs that qualify as exempt, exempt as in exempt from certain labor laws, like overtime etc.

Give it time, people. In 20 years, we'll all be making $8 and hour selling up shiat they make in China.

All in the name of productivity.

Chiad: jake3988: EvilToni
It's already happened, ask any salaried employee. Forty hours of work is no longer the time commitment, 50 hours a week minimum with no overtime pay is what my industry has moved towards for salaried managers.
===================================================

I'd bring that up with the BBB or the government... since... that's illegal.

No, in fact they expanded the type of jobs that qualify as exempt, exempt as in exempt from certain labor laws, like overtime etc.

Doesn't matter anyway: the money isn't on Toni's side. The BBB and the gov't would be perfectly happy to address his concerns once he's done filling out ten years' worth of ever-changing paperwork in black ink in triplicate, with additional entries and applications online. Then they'd slam him for failing to report promptly.

Bunnyhat: What's that old quote "Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."


You can't have them all. Pick two.

EvilToni: xanadian: Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

It's gonna happen.

It's already happened, ask any salaried employee. Forty hours of work is no longer the time commitment, 50 hours a week minimum with no overtime pay is what my industry has moved towards for salaried managers.

If only there were some way of people organizing to market their labor in return for better conditions. A unified approach to ensure that workers won't be exploited.

To the barricades!

Wait did I get the correct memo?

There is a serious problem in the United States today, we have too many. The reason we have too many is due to the United States having to double or triple its output following the Second World War to prevent a Third World War thus we enacted the GI Bill so we could level or acceede the output pre World War I. We should have stopped in the 1970s when Japan and Europe got back on its feet and Nixon, Ford, and Carter tried to do that. Instead we had to fight communism to prevent the balance and Reagan choose to take Carter's plan of deregulation and increase the military budget. In theory, the end of the second post war boom ended in 2001.

We need to balance our act such as increasing college standards, end the GI Bill and have the government regulate the loan industry so that those who can't afford college won't go to college. Cap and Trade will destory the American Dream and decrease the standard of living. There will be massive unemployment, but millions of Americans will have to get used to it. We really need to move in the wrong direction for the good of the world, but millions don't understand what's outside our own borders. The United States needs to move back what the country was back in 1914 and head towards an isolationist stand where there are the rich and greedy and then there's the poor who work.

5.0/10

Halfway decent troll there.

^ That was referring to Funk Brothers

Funk Brothers: There is a serious problem in the United States today, we have too many. The reason we have too many is due to the United States having to double or triple its output following the Second World War to prevent a Third World War thus we enacted the GI Bill so we could level or acceede the output pre World War I. We should have stopped in the 1970s when Japan and Europe got back on its feet and Nixon, Ford, and Carter tried to do that. Instead we had to fight communism to prevent the balance and Reagan choose to take Carter's plan of deregulation and increase the military budget. In theory, the end of the second post war boom ended in 2001.

We need to balance our act such as increasing college standards, end the GI Bill and have the government regulate the loan industry so that those who can't afford college won't go to college. Cap and Trade will destory the American Dream and decrease the standard of living. There will be massive unemployment, but millions of Americans will have to get used to it. We really need to move in the wrong direction for the good of the world, but millions don't understand what's outside our own borders. The United States needs to move back what the country was back in 1914 and head towards an isolationist stand where there are the rich and greedy and then there's the poor who work.

I've never seen a head assplode before.

thisispete: If only there were some way of people organizing to market their labor in return for better conditions. A unified approach to ensure that workers won't be exploited.

Yeah, that's worked so well for Detroit. Don't let your employer walk all over you. If you don't like it you can negotiate a better deal with them or elsewhere. Unless of course your only ability is turning a wrench clockwise at three different angles. Then you are pretty much screwed.

oneodd1: Unless of course your only ability is turning a wrench clockwise at three different angles. Then you are pretty much screwed.

I guess that's why GM and Chrysler bolted to D.C. when things got ugly.

/ heh-heh, get it? "bolted". Get it? Huh?

xanadian: Mark my words. Give it another 10-20 years, and you'll see a return to 12-hour work days 6 days a week, debtor prisons, no overtime for extra hours worked...we'll be returning to the 1800s (and earlier), quality-of-life wise.

No. We're looking at the same info, but you're drawing the wrong conclusions, as is subby. (DNRTFA, I already read about this earlier)

The first thing that happens at the end of any recession is that companies are getting purchase orders but are leery of hiring new staff -- so they will stretch thin what they have left. Inventory stocks will be kept low, worker hours will go up. This NEEDS to happen; it's THE reason why employment is a lagging indicator.

What happens next is that eventually companies HAVE to hire more staff to handle the increase in orders. The first wave of hirings will come from companies that did late-stage "panic" layoffs where they got pessimistic late, and need to hire back workers quickly. After some months of dragging, optimism picks up, and the economy grows again.

The rise in productivity means companies are stretching their staff to the limit, but that only goes so far for many, many practical reasons. For example, at the company I work for, shipments go out once a day and many of the last-minute shipping changes are done same-day. Given there's a 6-hour window (at most) to process shipping, stretching the shipping guy's hours won't do a damn thing. If he gets overwhelmed, the company will have to hire another guy. Similarly, at the automotive firm I used to work for, the engineers are already worked 70 hours a week. There really isn't much productivity left to squeeze out of those poor guys.

Any return to 1800s style labor depends on how many people get suckered into buying investor-class talking points about "competitiveness". People talk about unions as if every single one is as bad as the UAW, but one of their biggest contributions (left) is their powerful opposition to any legislation that DOES repeal our labor protections. Arlen Specter pretends to be labor-friendly but voted against the EFCA; whether you like that bill or not, my point is that he's targeted for a primary next election. Dick with labor in PA, and you get counter-dicked. The anti-union Farkers say the unions are obsolete because most of what they fought for was put into law, but yeesh. . . you think laws can't be repealed?

To be clear, I'm not in favor of entitlement, which is something labor unions spend WAY too much time fighting for. But it is a fact that one of the biggest obstacles to a repeal of labor laws is that unions are still politically powerful. If the little guy's outrage stood for anything, bankruptcy reform wouldn't have been as absurdly smooth as it was (thank you, Joe Biden).

One of these days I'm gonna script myself out of a job.

//Unix admin.

jjorsett: Bunnyhat: What's that old quote "Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible."


You can't have them all. Pick two.

Henry Ford was able to have them all.

WOW, 36 responses and no mention of the proper use of the "Ironic" tag. Is that some sort of record?

/Subby

Elvis has left the building: //remember kids globalization is good for all.

Globalization really has nothing to do with it, its an effect of the recession, and no, the recession was not caused by globalization.

/Its a ridiculously overstated trend anyways.

Beware_Me: But I thought increases in productivity always brought increases in the standard of living? That's what my economics professor harped on repeatedly.

Ceteris Paribus: two very very important words that many students tend to gloss over.