Why there are less blue collar jobs

C. O. Thompson wrote:Odd that the "bean counters" are cost center labor in that you don't need one to get your widgets out the door but... they conveniently overlook that while telling you to cut the QA Dept or the Line Maintenance Crew...
I had a boss who said he would rather have a healthy bottom line than a flashy quarterly report.
Education and experience are undervalued for long range plans and when the seniority of the experienced worker also equates to higher pay... the modern trend is to down size and hire someone straight out of school.

We have lost nearly 5,000,000 factory jobs in the US since 2000

WeirdlyWired wrote:Some time in the 90s the bean-counters decided employees were liabilities on the P&L, expenses on the ledger sheet. Education and experience had no value. Hire employees for as cheap as you can.

IMO, that is one smart boss. Is his company public, if so, can you provide a name or ticker symbol? IMO automation, etc. is going to increase the importance of good investing, and decrease that of being a good employee. There will also be an increase in the number of people who follow the "Mother Earth News" pattern of producing necessities outside the money economy. I'm doing some of both.
I graduated from LeTourneau, which started when RG LeTourneau decided his worker's skills needed upgrading (IIRC, in the 20s or 30s) and provided night schooling for them. Later he had a chance to start a technical school about half a mile from his newest factory. It is now a technically oriented university with a good reputation among many employers. Many of us worked our way through college at the factory. The teachers had a reasonable tolerance to night shift workers who fell asleep in class, provided they kept their grades up
The primary system was allowing us to work three days a week and go to school the other three days - for some of us that didn't provide enough income, hence the sleepiness

quote="C. O. Thompson"]Odd that the "bean counters" are cost center labor in that you don't need one to get your widgets out the door but... they conveniently overlook that while telling you to cut the QA Dept or the Line Maintenance Crew...
I had a boss who said he would rather have a healthy bottom line than a flashy quarterly report.
Education and experience are undervalued for long range plans and when the seniority of the experienced worker also equates to higher pay... the modern trend is to down size and hire someone straight out of school.

We have lost nearly 5,000,000 factory jobs in the US since 2000

WeirdlyWired wrote:Some time in the 90s the bean-counters decided employees were liabilities on the P&L, expenses on the ledger sheet. Education and experience had no value. Hire employees for as cheap as you can.

[/quote]
IMO, that is one smart boss. Is his company public, if so, can you provide a name or ticker symbol? IMO automation, etc. is going to increase the importance of good investing, and decrease that of being a good employee. There will also be an increase in the number of people who follow the "Mother Earth News" pattern of producing necessities outside the money economy. I'm doing some of both.
I graduated from LeTourneau, which started when RG LeTourneau decided his worker's skills needed upgrading (IIRC, in the 20s or 30s) and provided night schooling for them. Later he had a chance to start a technical school about half a mile from his newest factory. It is now a technically oriented university with a good reputation among many employers. Many of us worked our way through college at the factory. The teachers had a reasonable tolerance to night shift workers who fell asleep in class, provided they kept their grades up
The primary system was allowing us to work three days a week and go to school the other three days - for some of us that didn't provide enough income, hence the sleepiness
[/quote]

Douglas...
No the company is not publicly traded and that man is also retired with his nephew taking over as President/CEO...

munroburton wrote:We're basically in the middle of a second industrial revolution. Just like the first one, a tiny caste accrues enormous wealth regardless of the enormous changes to society.

This one is different, though. The first one at least created new jobs and required people to learn new skills, perhaps best explained by Henry Ford's realisation that his workers had to be able to buy the cars they made. It was a simple force-multiplier that at least got spread around. Horses replaced by internal combustion engines, electricity generated for most, etc.

So, our second revolution isn't the same. Increasingly complex repetive tasks can be automated. We then end up with too much productivity for our needs, so they cut back on labour - which is usually the largest cost - to maintain a supply just ahead of the demands and maximise profit.

It begins a vicious feedback circle. As soon as unemployment gets to 5-10%, wages start to plateau.

I think globalisation has unfairly taken a hit for this. It's actually responsible for slowing down the process, because companies can outsource to even cheaper humans instead of high-capital-cost machines.

The demands for protectionism and repatriation of exported jobs won't result in those outsourced jobs returning. It will only force the corporations to embrace the new revolution faster.

Amazon's delivery drones and self-driving cars will wipe out delivery and taxi drivers. That's about two million jobs in the USA at risk from automation, yet safe from globalisation.

I live in northern CT after 20 years in RI ((the cradle of the American Industrial Revelation) is now the rust belt)
I am a member of the town Economic Development Commission and had a career of nearly 30 years in industrial management and ten years at the end as an auditor/educator who evaluated ISO types of programs.

I also have enough study into what makes a profitable process that I could publish for a Masters but... among the things I want to focus on are... the mills which were built and profitable from 1800 - 1950 would not be presented by a design company if you were to build a similar size plant today... running raw materials, work in process and finished goods up and down elevators adds bottlenecks or pinch points that will contribute to overhead/cost center dollars. This is likely what led the most proactive corporations to begin to relocate to the sun belt. Also, we need to consider that the longevity of line workers brought many to the pint of peak earning and vacation benefits... much cheaper to shut down an operation and hire dirt poor share croppers than to pay the union wages and benefits. Also, many of the plants that were re-occupied were neither required to hire the same work force at the same rate and when they also moved out left a legacy of toxic (brown field) sites.
We have a mill building with near 750,000 square feet that also is in the midst of a study about asbestos and heavy metal contamination and which has trees growing from loose bricks at the roof of one stair well and which is entering receivership... Life long residents of the town still see this property through the glory day lenses and count it as an asset not a liability.

In the Regan Administration, at about the time that the US decided that semi-conductors did not represent a national security issue and could be "outsourced" to Japan, the president made a speech and informed us that we were shifting to a service oriented economy. A lot of us thought that meant that jobs would be shifting to servicing robots on our assembly line but it seems that it was a for-shadow of "Do you want fires with that?"

Globalization and multi national corporations are today's version of the "bad guys" in the Honor Harrington Universe.

I agree, but how do you combat them?
High tariffs just cost the consumers more and make you less competitive.
One thing that can and should be done is to ensure that the multinationals pay their full tax in the countries that they earn their profits. Needs all significant countries to agree and pass legislation. One example we had was the $20M pack of photocopying paper that one bought from their Singaporean corporate cousin. Result was $20M not paid tax on here, but paid at miniscule rates in Singapore.

C. O. Thompson wrote:Globalization and multi national corporations are today's version of the "bad guys" in the Honor Harrington Universe.

Daryl wrote:High tariffs just cost the consumers more and make you less competitive.

They also are an incentive to keep production and the associated profits in the country, as a consequence the profits are at least more accessible to taxation.

Daryl wrote:One thing that can and should be done is to ensure that the multinationals pay their full tax in the countries that they earn their profits. Needs all significant countries to agree and pass legislation.

And what is the difference to a tariff in effect (other than having a pretty permanent excuse why it's never going to be implemented)?

Daryl...
Tariffs are not the issue... it is when the government permits "off shore banking" where corporations avoid taxes and too many other loopholes... You are correct to say that all significant nations should enforce policy that reduce or eliminates these loopholes.

For example, did you know that ISO 14000 (a voluntary non-binding) set of regulations prohibit a company from moving out of a nation that has meaningful environmental regulations to one that has none or only weak ones?
So... if there were a global regulation that made it illegal for steel mills from being shut down in the US and Canada and moving operations to Mexico rather than modernize the older plants to scrub the exhaust... the industry would still be in Bethlehem and other sites.
Our government (likely controlled by a shadow government)made it easy for corporations to move assets out and to shut down the manufacturing plants while saying the EPA Regs made it too expensive to do business here.

Daryl wrote:I agree, but how do you combat them?
High tariffs just cost the consumers more and make you less competitive.
One thing that can and should be done is to ensure that the multinationals pay their full tax in the countries that they earn their profits. Needs all significant countries to agree and pass legislation. One example we had was the $20M pack of photocopying paper that one bought from their Singaporean corporate cousin. Result was $20M not paid tax on here, but paid at miniscule rates in Singapore.

C. O. Thompson wrote:Globalization and multi national corporations are today's version of the "bad guys" in the Honor Harrington Universe.

C. O. Thompson wrote:Daryl...
Tariffs are not the issue... it is when the government permits "off shore banking" where corporations avoid taxes and too many other loopholes... You are correct to say that all significant nations should enforce policy that reduce or eliminates these loopholes.

For example, did you know that ISO 14000 (a voluntary non-binding) set of regulations prohibit a company from moving out of a nation that has meaningful environmental regulations to one that has none or only weak ones?
So... if there were a global regulation that made it illegal for steel mills from being shut down in the US and Canada and moving operations to Mexico rather than modernize the older plants to scrub the exhaust... the industry would still be in Bethlehem and other sites.
Our government (likely controlled by a shadow government)made it easy for corporations to move assets out and to shut down the manufacturing plants while saying the EPA Regs made it too expensive to do business here.

Daryl wrote:I agree, but how do you combat them?
High tariffs just cost the consumers more and make you less competitive.
One thing that can and should be done is to ensure that the multinationals pay their full tax in the countries that they earn their profits. Needs all significant countries to agree and pass legislation. One example we had was the $20M pack of photocopying paper that one bought from their Singaporean corporate cousin. Result was $20M not paid tax on here, but paid at miniscule rates in Singapore.
"="C. O. Thompson"Globalization and multi national corporations are today's version of the "bad guys" in the Honor Harrington Universe. /"

You mean we are not just over-regulated, but some of them are actually bad regulations
I like having better laws and less regulations

<snip>
You mean we are not just over-regulated, but some of them are actually bad regulations
I like having better laws and less regulations

Douglas Hvistendahl
Retired technical nerd

Dumb mistakes are very irritating.
Smart mistakes go on forever
Unless you test your assumptions!
<snip>

Good regulations would prevent fracking in US Forests or oil pipelines through sensitive aquifers... they would also seek to mitigate the worse impacts on public and environmental health which are by products of industrial activities... because (as Ed Houseman pointed out in the Safehold series) there are too few industrialists who care about their employees beyond warm bodies to feed machinery.
Companies like http://wincofoods.com/winco-jobs/ are too few and far between while companies that gouge employees and tell them they should be happy they have a job are not only too prevalent but have support in congress that rewards corporate greed including by structuring taxes and providing loopholes that let them ship jobs over seas.

C. O. Thompson wrote: <snip>
"You mean we are not just over-regulated, but some of them are actually bad regulations
I like having better laws and less regulations

Douglas Hvistendahl
Retired technical nerd <snip> "

Good regulations would prevent fracking in US Forests or oil pipelines through sensitive aquifers... they would also seek to mitigate the worse impacts on public and environmental health which are by products of industrial activities... because (as Ed Houseman pointed out in the Safehold series) there are too few industrialists who care about their employees beyond warm bodies to feed machinery.
Companies like http://wincofoods.com/winco-jobs/ are too few and far between while companies that gouge employees and tell them they should be happy they have a job are not only too prevalent but have support in congress that rewards corporate greed including by structuring taxes and providing loopholes that let them ship jobs over seas.

Look who got the best workers in Charis! This doesn't stop fools from this and bribing officials for bad laws. One advantage to laws with an honest government is the large amount of input during the discussions. Lazy law makers > regulations ssss. I'd like to see all laws have an assumptions review in every regulation One I really like is where they require anyone taking water from a stream or river to have the intake downstream from the return Not in the USA, sigh. Another possibility is to require employer payment of ALL expenses including pensions for survivors, etc. from ANY personal or other accident. This would bankrupt the worst Remember how much BP and some other companies paid after the gulf of mexico oil spill? They didn't even pay for all the damage

BTW, Henry Hazlitt was very poor and ignorant early on, so he took whatever work he could get. His report was that he knew nothing, would learn at least a little before being fired less than a week later, and got another job (pre min age & wage) in a day or so. Moving from one poor job to another can keep anyone eating, including any who quit because of bad employers. After my college graduation, (post min wage) jobs were very hard to get. My pattern was: Day labor from opening till about 10AM, job service until noon, anything honest I could find door to door until late, then the library for more study until closure. The days were long, with plenty of healthy exercise I ate nutritious food and had a cheap hotel room until employment improved

From: http://constitution.com/police-fire-dep ... socialism/

Nearly everyone who goes into politics broke is now filthy rich and every program they’re in charge of is broke or going broke. Funny how that always happens…

We know about Obama's pen and phone because he bragged about using them. Is it true that congress has excepted itself from the law in several ways, and excepted bureaucrats from a number of the regulations


From: http://www.gallup.com/reports/198923/no ... cline.aspx

A report identifying the roadblocks to national economic recovery, detailing the damage brought by slow recovery and offering a new growth strategy.

The study finds there is no recovery. Since 2007, U.S. GDP per capita growth has been 1%.
The Great Recession may be over, but America is dangerously running on empty.