No Demand for Skilled Jobs: “Millions cannot find work because the jobs simply are not there”

by | Feb 12, 2015 | Commodities | 188 comments

Do you LOVE America?

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    Sinking Economy

    Update: The original source cited for this article was incorrect. This article was originally published by Daniel Drew at Dark Bid: Truth In Dark Markets.

    Editor’s Note: As this article points out, the scheme announced by Obama to make community college free will not make America prosperous or fully employed. While have a well educated, skilled and knowledgeable populace is worthwhile, there is already a glut of over-educated degree holders – including many with master’s degrees and other specialized qualifications – who cannot find work in their field.

    Why? Because the jobs just aren’t there. America doesn’t do much of anything anymore but consume. More and more skilled jobs are paying wages as low as fast food joints, and are so flooded with applications, that the job may as well not be there. There is too much demand by a workforce for work that isn’t there… so most have lowered their standards, and become adjusted to skating by with low wage, low skilled work when they have already over-achieved in the educational field. Student loans don’t get paid back this way, and the economy doesn’t bounce back either.

    Unless the other side of this equation changes, there will be a continued downward slide, while millions more graduate with nothing to do, no where to go.

    Fired Before Hired: How The Economy Has Killed The American Dream

    The latest corporate scam is to blame workers for the high unemployment rate. They say there is a skills gap. Even President Obama is in on the joke.

    In his most recent State of the Union address, Obama called for Congress to make community college free. Because nothing will get you a job more than an associate’s degree from your local college.

    The real skills gap is the other way around: too many skills for the low-wage menial jobs that pervade the labor market. The person who makes your coffee or your Big Mac might be able to design the next major bridge or write for The New York Times. Instead of high school kids cooking up your lunch, true professionals are behind the counter, and the future of the country is behind it too.

    If this doesn’t qualify the United States as a third world country, what will?

    The longer they stay there, the odds increase that America will take a permanent backseat in global power. In one short century, we have gone from superpower to super size me, a plutocracy, a nation that wasted its most valuable resource: the energy and innovation of its own people.

    As you send your resume for the latest job ad, do you ever feel like the labor market is rigged against you? The job boards have turned into such black holes that we need Stephen Hawking to come work out the equations for us. You send your resume in, and it disappears.p

    In 2012, Eric Auld, an unemployed 26-year-old with a master’s degree in English, decided to find out what was on the other side of the black hole. He created a  fake job ad as an experiment:

    Administrative Assistant needed for busy Midtown office. Hours are Monday through Friday, nine to five. Job duties include: filing, copying, answering phones, sending e-mails, greeting clients, scheduling appointments. Previous experience in an office setting preferred, but will train the right candidate. This is a full-time position with health benefits. Please e-mail résumé if interested. Compensation: $12-$13 per hour.

    If you have ever applied for a job like that, I offer my condolences.  You have better odds at the casino. Auld received 653 responses in 24 hours. 10% of the applicants had more than 10 years of experience, and 3% of them had master’s degrees. Presumably, one of them would get the job.

    But what does that mean? It means that all the other experienced applicants and master’s degree holders would remain unemployed. That is about 64 experienced workers and about 19 workers with master’s degrees. The only way to get a job like this is if you are sleeping with the human resources manager. And this is for a job that pays $12 in Manhattan.  If this doesn’t qualify the United States as a third world country, what will?

    Peter Cappelli, author of Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs, received an email from an employee who said their company accepted 25,000 applications for a single engineering job, and the human resources team said no one was qualified. Cappelli said, “Not being able or willing to pay the market price for talent does not constitute a shortage.”

    A New York Times reporter wanted to find out if the  skills gap was real. He visited the engineering technology program at Queensborough Community College in New York City. There are no excuses here. This isn’t medieval literature or art history. This is engineering.

    It is also a community college, which will soon become free if Obama has his way. In this particular tech program, the goal is to create manufacturing employees who can keep up in the era of automation. This is a textbook case for Obama, who said 80% of manufacturers have jobs they can’t fill. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that there are 600,000 jobs waiting for anyone who has the right skills.

    Well – what they really meant was the right skills and the desperation to work for McJob wages.

    The New York Times reporter quickly discovered how much of a sham the skills gap really is. Eric Isbister, the CEO of GenMet, a metal-fabricating manufacturer near Milwaukee, said he would hire any skilled workers who showed up. He received over a thousand applications, but only 25 had the alleged proper skills.

    Eventually, he fired 15 of them. Apparently, they were not happy at work. Perhaps it’s because he started them out at $10 per hour. If you had an associate’s degree, you could get $15. If you were lucky enough to still have a job after a few years, you might get $18 per hour – depending on performance. The local McDonald’s manager makes $14.

    Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, called their bluff, “If there’s a skill shortage, there has to be rises in wages. It’s basic economics.” But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of skilled jobs has declined along with wages. There is no demand for skilled jobs. The true demand is for McJobs.

    Think those manufacturing employees were unlucky to be doing high-skilled work at McJob rates? Think again. According to the  Economic Policy Institutefor every two American college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, only one of them is hired into a job in their field. In an analysis across every industry, they offer some important conclusions for us:

    • Millions cannot find work no matter what they do because the jobs simply are not there.
    • Workers with a college degree or more still have unemployment rates that are more than one-and-a-half times as high as they were before the recession began.
    • In every occupational category demand for workers is lower than it was five years ago.
    • There are between 1.4 and 10.5 times as many unemployed workers as job openings in every industry.
    • In no industry does the number of job openings even come close to the number of people looking for work.
    • In no occupation is there any hint of wages being bid up in a way that would indicate tight labor markets or labor shortages.
    • There are simply no structural changes capable of explaining the pattern of sustained high unemployment over the last five years. What we have, instead, is an aggregate demand problem.”
    • Paul Krugman called the skills gap azombie idea” that should have been killed by evidence but refuses to die. He said if there is really a skills gap, then “show us the money.

    Stop making excuses for an economy that punishes workers.” Peter Cappelli said employers want to fill their positions without any training. The only way to get a job is if you already have that exact job somewhere else, and at that point, you probably wouldn’t want it anyway. In the 1990s tech boom, only about 10% of people in IT jobs in Silicon Valley actually had tech degrees.

    According to Taleo, about two thirds of all jobs are filled by new applicants, rather than through internal promotions. A generation ago, 90% of jobs were filled with internal transfers and promotions.  The employers demand loyalty, but they don’t provide any reason to be loyal to them.

    The next time you see a McJob worker getting your donut, don’t be surprised if they graduated with honors. And if community college becomes free, then even more uber-educated Americans can make Big Macs.  30% of college graduates are consistently underemployed.

    They can calculate the volume of your supersized drink, but they can’t make more than minimum wage while doing it because there is a “skills gap.” I think I know where the real gap is: According to Credit Suisse, if wealth were evenly distributed across every adult in America, each adult would have $301,140.

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      188 Comments

      1. Hey this is kinda cool. I always was kind of a loner. The first will be last and the last will be first. I maybe first and last. Trekker Out.

        • When we signed on with NAFTA, we killed ourselves.

          Ross Perot was right. When we signed NAFTA, the giant sucking sound that we heard was American jobs going overseas.

          How can a country prosper when it dosn’t produce anything?

          We are so screwed.

          • An how about a side of TTIP to go with that NAFTA !!! should end well !

            • Went to a little country gas and tire station to get my tires rotated. Best prices on new tires anywhere in the county, but he doesn’t stock many, so there is a wait period of a day or two for ordering sometimes.

              Old guy is super nice but not very educated. Kinda like my Dad in that he mis-pronounces words a lot.

              When I asked him if tire prices had come down any, due to the drop in fuel costs, he said; “not much, if any, and all imported tires have gone up because of a “terror tax”. I didn’t try to correct his speaking, but I knew he was talking about an import tariff.

              How apropos in this day and age that he said it that way…a tariff is now a “terror tax”. Of course he just didn’t know how to spell, or pronounce “tariff”, but I found it funny just the same.

              And btw, the new ‘terror tax’, has run the cost of a new imported tire, up, by an average of ten dollars. In some cases, this makes the cost of some series of top brand, quality tires, made in USA, to be about the same as less quality imports.

              It pays to shop around.

              • Who needs jobs? We’ll just all live off the gubmint.

            • NAFTA

              Nother
              Afternoon
              Fùçking
              The
              Americans

              • Death to the New World Order!!! 🙂

          • There’s where you’re wrong RL. Look at all the fine leaders we have produced that have created the greatest country in the world.

            • “The latest corporate scam is to blame workers for the high unemployment rate.”

              Mac, that’s just flat out wrong. Dem, this article has done its job in ticking me off. Grrrrr….

          • @RL,
            No, Perot said the jobs would be going south of the border to Mexico, not overseas. They did but now the large foreign corporations are gone from the Mexican border towns as the economy is bad worldwide. The factories are empty in Juarez as they are in the US rust belt.

            • Globalization has really hurt the prospects for good paying jobs when you no longer mfg anything. If we were to make our own stuff again and sell it we would see jobs created but there’s another problem as well. That is that we are in a global depression. Debt levels are so high for most that they can’t take on anymore debt which is why all the QE and inflation won’t help.

              With not enough people buying there isn’t a need for as many workers. It’s far better to be self employed than looking for a decent paying job.

              • Inflation as well as QE will have a more negative effect on the economy because it will raise cost of living and asset prices which for many will prices out of reach.

                The other problem is deflation and that’s why the central banks want and need inflation to pay off future debt. Deflation kills off debt but inflation kills off those consumers who can’t take on anymore debt.

                We are at the end game of this Ponzi scheme.

              • One of the reasons we lost so many jobs is because so many Americans are cheapskates. I own a small business and buy all my supplies locally, even though they cost more. I always was told, buy it at Walmart, it’s cheaper. I would always say to folks, if you don’t support American business, your job will soon be gone. Huh, now we know why so many jobs went away…people just buy cheaper quality shit made in China. And we’re surprised our jobs disappeared why?

              • Okay, but even if you are self employed, where are you going to get the clients if they are unemployed and can’t pay for your services?

                • Thats why you should have multiple skills. If one has no demand use another. A lot of people are specialists in one field and think that will carry them through life, they are finding out the hard way. Hell you can put an ad on craigslist buying gold and silver for under spot then sell it on ebay for over spot. Salvage metal or old batteries, buy stuff cheap and sell it less cheap, make moonshine, there are thousands of ways to make money you just have to put your mind to it. I bet a lot of the people saying they can’t make money are the kind I described, stuck on one profession. Ignorance is NOT bliss lol 🙂

              • No longer manufacture anything? I am SOOOooooo sick of hearing that lie. How many cars and light trucks are still made in the USA. How many foreign car makers have put up NEW plants in the USA in the last 15 years? You know why they do that? Because, (as long as you stay clear of the effing UAW), they consider the USA to be a LOW LABOR COST site. Dammit, I was there! 1993 to 2009 in the industry. We make airframes, we make aircraft engines, we make heavy construction equipment, we make farm machinery, we make oilfield tools and machinery, we make pumps and valves, we make high tech steel, we make aluminum, we make high tech medical, we make pharmaceuticals. European plastics companies are setting up to build new processing plants in my area to use the cheap natural gas for feedstock for bulk plastics, which will go to American manufacturers to be made into more automotive interiors and hoods and trunk lids.

                Couple of things you don’t see made here are iron castings, (thank you the EPA), and sweatshop goods like Mikes and the kind of clothing you buy at WalMart. Consumer electronics fits that bill nicely – Apple needs 500,000 Chinese just for assembling iGadgets. They have 50,000 doing nothing but final inspection of iPhones. Fifty thousand. (My old employer has been commissioned to find a way to automate that process, which is how I know that.) If you want your iPhone cheap, (is $400 cheap?), live with it being built in China. American standard of living would quintuple the price. If you want more jobs in the USA, get rid of the UAW (United Against Work) and the rest of the union gangs, get rid of about a million Government regulations, and get taxes under control.

                /

                • Nikes.

            • They were going south of the border until later trade agreements -all led by the original one, NAFTA- have moved them everywhere else as well.

          • Ross Perot was the spoiler that ushered Clinton into office who despite campaign promises signed NAFTA. GH Bush promoted it but did not have the political horse power to deliver. The Main Stream Media chastised GH Bush for NAFTA but was conspicuously silent with Clintons doing an about face on the issue once in the Presidency. When Ross was climbing in the polls and was a real viable contender he sabotaged this campaign having no intention of actually becoming President. His mission was to deliver Clinton and therefore NAFTA. Mission accomplished.

            The Powers That Be, play the body politic like a musical instrument.

            • I disagree. What I think happened was Ross was considered a joke UNTIL he started climbing in the polls, and it looked like it could very easily throw the election into the House (a 3-way tie).

              At that point, the PTB went to Ross and explained the facts of life….that the choice of President was determined by a small group of folks that really run things and put their own puppet in the show, and Ross could accept that, or get “JFK’ed”.

              Ross departed the stage….and STILL got 19% of the popular vote.

              THAT is what convinced me that voting in national elections was not just a complete waste of time, but actually lends credibility to a completely corrupt system. In my opinion, you’re being more patriotic to NOT vote. If enough people would quit participating in the scam, it would be seen for what it is.

              • Spot on Andy

              • I agree, I voted for McGovern and have been disgustedever since.

              • In the end GH Bush could not deliver NAFTA and Clinton could and did.

                This is nothing new. Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party put possibly the worst President in US history into the White House Woodrow Wilson.

                Remember what FDR said, “Nothing in politics happens by accident”, “If he happened it was meant to happen that sway”. TPTB are far ahead and Ross Perot was an insider from the days of EDS putting in the computer system in Iran. Think Us Intelligence didn’t have a very cozy relationship with him?

              • TnAndy is right, the same thing happens time and again, but we never see anything but the media spin. How about Sarah Palin… not gonna run for anything… John Roberts, first he was against OCare, and then (according to reports) rushed into the Supreme ct, desperate to find a way to make it into a ‘tax’…first it wasn’t a tax, then like magic, it was…(O’s people argued that it wasn’t…)

                Notice how all the muckedymucks surrounding the Pres, are all Council of Foreign Relations alumni. Same w/Jimmy Carter and his cabinet choices that got derailed, and how he desperately ran a Presidency of micromanagement…

                Do you all wonder why the Federal Gov is grabbing all the land it can, and the Federal Reserve is buying all the MORTGAGES?

                Wonder why The Phoenix is now burning down his own nest?
                He will arise from the ashes, more powerful than before…

                But then, I don’t know why I bother to care anymore… the one thing that would cure all this crap, we are unable to do. Which, is UNITE… they have us all either cowering in the dark hoarding food, or fighting each other over unimportant crap, divide and conquer, while we surrender to the one thing keeping us divided; HOPE.

                America, as a Constitutional Republic, must fall, before the New World Order can arise. And that, will probably take a war to eliminate about 6 billion ‘useless eaters’…

          • Blaming NAFTA is like crying over loose change when a stack of fiat is burning. The reason we are so screwed is that federal and state governments are over-regulating and over-taxing its citizenry. There is simply NO reason to start a company today. The risks are too high. And without a vibrant small business sector, an economy is doomed to die. 63% of new jobs in the US economy are created by small business.

            Given an even playing field, the old-school American worker demanded a fair wage and gave more than his fair share of work. Unfortunately, wages have become distorted by an out-of-control federal government sticking its unconstitutional finger into every piece of the economic pie. One man working one job used to be able to provide for a family of five. Is that still possible today? Increasingly not. Why? Wages haven’t kept up with the REAL inflation rate created by the government and its lackey, the Fed.
            At the beginning of the 20th century, the US had the smallest federal government among industrialized nations and the highest per capita income. Coincidence? Not by a long shot. The Progressive era, with its nanny state mentality, socialist ideology, and out-of-control budgets funded by fiat dollars produced by a corrupt central bank is what has led us to this ‘predicament’.
            Who to blame? Progressive politicians and the capitalists and bankers that decided it was easier to play along them. If our Founding Fathers were still alive, I know what they would suggest we do with them all!

            “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants.” — Thomas Jefferson. No wonder they don’t teach about the Revolution in schools any longer!

            At any rate, yeah, NAFTA isn’t perfect. But free trade helps maintain a free economy. You want to nuke it? Sure, why not? But let’s take care of the #1 problem with our country first — the Feds and the FRB.

            Greece is the canary in the coalmine. The reset is near. Get readier… 🙂

            Mal

            • Even worse, there are now more US businesses going under than being created. The new progressive regulations make it illegal to put up a lemonade stand, and prevent farm kids from working on the farm doing chores.

            • Mal

              “At any rate, yeah, NAFTA isn’t perfect. But free trade helps maintain a free economy.”

              Free Economy? I don’t understand what that is? Free to abandon civilized rules like OSHA and the EPA? Free to drop wages to a level that affords the employee a hut devoid of electricity and a fish head with a bowl of rice? Thats the third would standard of living that tariffs for generations protected us from and we did real well.

              When you compete directly with third world labor you become by default third world labor or no labor at all. Regarding wages Free Trade has done more to suppress it than any domestic policy of the Federal Government. One need only to look at Allentown Pa at the steel industry and you you hear, “Well they wanted too much money”. Well just look at the US Textile Industry, low paid at $12 to $15 hr which is far too great when 25 cent virtual slave labor is available duty free.

              • Kevin2:

                I know I run into a wall when I defend free trade here, but I’d rather have true free trade than a government deciding what imported products should be taxed at what rate. You don’t really think the tariffs are there to protect the little guy do you? Or the middle class? No, they’re there because big business told government to put them there.
                Also, your argument on wage rates assumes the American worker is competing with 3rd world labor manufacturing the same product and that low wages are the only factor in determining the final price. This simply is not the case and there isn’t enough space here to offer a complete retort.
                Simply put, the American worker produces ‘stuff’ like high end aircraft, medical instruments, etc, etc. He is not competing to make low end widgets that can be produced be lower skilled workers in another country.
                Productivity is also a factor. American workers have tended to be among the most productive workers in the world. The old Puritan work ethic, combined with excellent infrastructure and utilities, as well as medical care, help offset the higher wage commanded.
                So it’s not an apple to apples comparison.
                In the end, tariffs tend to benefit nobody but the government collecting them because they are reciprocal in nature. Raising tariffs to protect national industries is one of the main reasons the Great Depression lasted so long. (Read about the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act). You see, when the US puts a tariff on another nation’s product, that nation retaliates by putting an equal or greater tariff on US goods, making our products uncompetitive in their country (whether against a local product or another import).
                This country is blessed with many, many natural advantages and it was once blessed with a majority of people with that had that old fashioned Puritan work ethic. You get the government out of the way, and get rid of the freeloaders, and we can once again have the highest per capita income in the world. Recreate a playing field that encourages risk taking and rewards hard work, and we can prosper again.
                BTW, you really don’t think the EPA and OSHA are a good thing do you? Unconstitutional alphabet soup agencies are the enemy. Let’s rediscover state’s rights again too.
                So, again, I’m trying to get folks to look at the CHIEF reason we are suffering. And that reason is none other than the US Federal Government.

                Have a great night,
                Mal

                • “At the beginning of the 20th century, the US had the smallest federal government among industrialized nations and the highest per capita income.”

                  Hey Mal,

                  I like that statement. Do you have a linked, layman-readable credible source that makes a solid evidential argument that I can add to my list of good stuff?

                  • @Free Slave; try this again I hate this effing laptop and damn mouse…don’t get the “auto-post and fail” HP-9000. This is all that I could find
                    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/11/07/the-federal-government-now-employs-the-fewest-people-since-1966/
                    The article title is misleading, though the percent of GDP shows that the government over time, REGARDLESS of number of employees has gone up, thus the “gobernment” HAS gotten bigger. Mal’s assertion is that the gobernment has grown is true. The number of employees doesn’t register with the average citizen, BUT the cost of the feds DOES register. Also, not speaking for Mal, a contextual reading of his post would indicate that he “intended” that to be 21st century, not 20th. He can clarify, but the graphs shown indicate that is what he intended and what he says is true. I base that on the fact that in 2000 the U.S. had the highest average DISPOSABLE INCOME (not income, different tax rates) and I don’t care what the gross number is and neither do you…it’s what you get to take home that matters. Another POV is that the biggest loss of job positions in the private sector, is in “office jobs” due to the enhanced productivity afforded by the digital age. The majority of the gobernment are those kinds of jobs, yet they can’t roll out website that anyone on a REAL budget could do for one percent of their cost. They have 25 year old computers, hire the most porn-watching, useless pieces of shit, and do the worst job. And still compared to the private sector they haven’t been able to come into the LATE 20TH CENTURY, and cut those types of jobs that have been significantly reduced in the private sector. Also, NOT shown is the effect that all the regulations cost industry and small businesses. When I was a kid, my doctor had a lady up front, a nurse and himself. My doctor today has a lady up front, a nurse, himself, an office manager, a lab tech…….and 3 insurance clerks. And then have to comply with all sorts of BS. If they don’t have all this, they could go to jail for medicare/medicaid fraud (just from simple paperwork errors), ADA, HIPPA….blah blah blah. That cost is not shown as a cost of the gobernment to us, but it is. Mal is correct.

                  • FS:

                    Not the best link, sorry:
                    http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-per-capita-in-1900

                    We can argue whether Australia and New Zealand were industrialized nations in 1900 if you need to. 🙂

                    But at least notice all three are English speaking with strong histories (until recently) of individual rights and natural law.

                    Mal

                • Mal,
                  I agree with 99% of what you say, I think the EPA and OSHA have had some positive effects, but being government agencies they have become nothing but bloated bureaucratic organizations overrun with a multitude of Barney Fife type characters who can’t wait to use their ONE bullet. When you said the biggest problem of the common man is the US Federal Government, you could not have been more CORRECT!!

                • Mal

                  (Read about the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act)

                  Smoot Hawley was directed at nations in the 1930s with a somewhat comparable standard of living in the developed world which is comparing apples and rocks to 50 cent per hour slave labor devoid of any civilized environmental or safety laws.

                  The US textile workers in the south were largely non union hard working and low paid at $12-$15 / hr. Those facilities are gone because 25 cent foreign labor employing children (something abolished around 1900 in the US) became their unfettered free trade competition. You can’t outwork that.

                • Mal, we don’t have FREE TRADE. We have managed trade; and it is managed by NAFTA, GATT, TPP, TAP, and WTO to the benefit of the Uber Rich, who use cheap labor and manipulated currencies to undermine the American worker who is among the most productive in the world.

                  We haven’t had FREE TRADE since the Indians sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $24 in trinkets and manufactured goods.

                  If we really had a fair system, where entities were FREE to TRADE in a win/win market situation, production would flow to the most productive workers. The table is tilted. The game is rigged.

                  Death to the New World Order!!! 🙂

                  • I agree, DK. We have managed trade. And all the alphabet agencies and organizations you mentioned are run by Big Government and the UN.

                    Death the the New World Order indeed!

                    Mal

                • Mal

                  “BTW, you really don’t think the EPA and OSHA are a good thing do you?”

                  I worked three decades in both the Pet Chem and oil refining industry. You think benzine, aniline and asbestos is good for you? The Delaware river was effectively dead in 1970 before the clean water act. Fish now again call it home. DuPont had roughly 600 cases of bladder cancer at Chambers Works from chemical exposure prior to OSHA. Thats 600 cases in a plant of 10,000 at the time. Thats not a common cancer that was all too common there and very high for those specifically exposed. You might want to pose your question above to the survivors, if there are any survivors.

                  I seen these industries from the inside.

                  Oh to answer your question. Yes.

                  • Mal

                    “BTW, you really don’t think the EPA and OSHA are a good thing do you?”

                    This Is What Happens When You Don’t Regulate Them And This Is What We’re Expected To Compete Against. I think OSHA and an EPA might have benefitted these people? Don’t you?

                    Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way in and around the shanty towns located near the plant.[2]

                    Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release.

                    • On the big issues like you mention, I have not problem. When OSHA writes regulations that enable an avaricious GM safetycrat to hold up a multi-million-dollar installation because my machinery uses .05cc of a special silicone grease in a sealed assembly that no-one will ever open, I have to take umbrage. Yes, it really happened. Fact is, the little shit wanted a bribe, and I was damned if I’d do it. Instead I wasted about $15,000 worth of GM executive time (right up to the VP-Mfg level) to get him shut down. THAT is what OSHA and the EPA have become.

                  • Mal

                    I like to be 100% correct. DuPont found over 300 cases of bladder cancer (not roughly 600) by 1981. I’m assuming more followed.

                    300 is still an extremely substantial number multiple times that which would be expected.

                  • Too bad, Kevin. So you’re in favor of an intrusive federal government. My last question to you is why can’t the states manage their lands? Why must it be the Feds all the time? Where do you find it in the Constitution that the Feds have the power to create such agencies? Hint: It isn’t there!

                    There’s plenty of articles on how these agencies have exceeded their mandates and are stomping on the rights of the citizenry. Please read up on them. I think I’ve seen several on this site over the years…

                    Mal

            • No.
              Wages are in ‘wage deflation’ that is the result of the ‘free trade’ treaties. It is Karl Marx’s prophecy coming true… that, “capitalism will sew the seeds of its own demise”.

              You need to read something more than just Ayn Rand, a little history perhaps?…

              The Fedgov, is The Phoenix, doing as its told by its bankers. The hand that gives is higher than the hand that receives.
              To paraphrase;

              “Let me issue a nations currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”
              –A. Mayer Rothschild

          • I remember having the same frustrating arguement once. My co-worker, thought that this was some kind of great evolution going from a manufacting economy to a service based economy. In her mind, it was an inprovement to be a “paper pusher” sitting in front of a computer. And we would be so good at selling services that there would be no real need for manuel labor, make things jobs. Sure, she gave lip service to buying American, but still loved to get her cheap stuff at Wally World. She refused to admit that a country still needs to make stuff that other people will want to buy. But, since I didn’t have a BA degree like she did, I didn’t know any thing.

            • NewVegasBadger

              It reminds me of the scene in Apollo 13 when Jack Swagart said, “I think were coming in at the wrong angle”. Lovell replied, “Jack they have half of the PHDs on the planet working on this, how did you come up with it”. He said, “I can add”.

              Obvious is obvious.

            • I once talked to someone that was guiding Chrysler workers that lost their jobs and they were telling them to seek employment in the, “Hospitality Industry”. I asked this advisor where the wealth was going to be created to feed this, “Industry”. The woman was dumfounded neither understanding my question or having an answer for it.

              Hospitality Industry, no such thing. In the absence of real industry the word is being used as a replacement.

              • HAH! An ex-UAW goon working in a hotel where he/she has to be civil to the customers! Oh, spare me! Oh, my sides hurt!

                • The Old Coach

                  I worked in an oil refinery for most of my life. That was a very highly skilled and for the most part intelligent work force across the board. My wife was UAW in Mopar shipping parts not assembly. I can say from meeting many of them and her stories (and shipping was a cut above assembly) they were rough. No way the majority of them could it in the refinery.

                  Yes its putting lipstick on a pig.

              • Economy=mining, manufacturing and agriculture.
                Everything else is ‘servicing’ them…
                as in subservient…

                Without the Three Legs, our ‘information economy’ is finally delivering on its Promise, to The Elite.
                When we are all broke, they will profit from the misery they have sewn.
                The only way to win an economic war, is, to kill all the suits.

                • The “service economy” serves the real wealth creating economy.

          • Can you hear that giant sucking sound Ross Perot talked about Amerika.

            I bet you can NOW

          • Yes. That and allowing corporations to skirt taxes like Burger King.

          • This is complet bs.I drive truck and see the small plant making all kinds of hi-teck stuff and it’s the ones who get layed off who did it.This country is not NAFTA bound.

          • Add in H1B visas and those few that do get jobs compete with, and are paid like the foreign workers we import even though we have so many here who could do them. Just not at those wages.

          • Yep, we ship our manufacturing jobs to Mexico and other S. American countries and they send us all of their people who are too uneducated or stupid to work. What a deal!

        • Being Self-employed for more than 20 years, I have some observations.
          *I set my own hours,
          *Pay myself first,
          *No Drug Tests,
          *All the work I can Handle,
          *Get paid 100% for performance
          *I keep all the Profits, Besides Taxes,
          *Never unemployed,
          *I am the Boss Dammit,
          *Don’t have to punch a clock,
          *I can sleep in every day if I want,
          *Do not have to fight any morning or daily commutes,
          *Don’t have to take any shit from anybody,
          *Take as many breaks, lunch hours, or days off I want.
          *Take as many paid vacation as I want,
          *Can tell anybody to go Fuck Off when ever I want,
          *Can take Tax Deduction for a home office,
          *Write off my cable, Internet, cell auto as biz expense,
          *I can make business decisions on a dime, to adapt.
          *Don’t need any college degree, although I do have one,
          *I get to wear all the hats, pay all the bills, and make all the decisions, and can sell any products I want, when ever I want, and sleep well at night.

          So when I read articles like this, I laugh, cause Life is about choices, if you don’t take control of your own life someone else will. Just saying…

          • @WWTI; Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Be Well.

          • Yeah but the isolation can be more grueling for many than 20+ years of commuting, if one is alone.

      2. Sorry Daniel, but it also seems there was no need for your article. Trekker Out. Anybody Out There!

      3. What if you wrote an article and nobody came. Trekker Out.

      4. How’s that old saying go. If you wrote an article in the forest and nobody read it, does that mean you really never wrote an article. Trekker Out.

        • Or if you read an article and it was never written would you hear the sound of typing?

          BigB

        • MT- I thought the saying was “If a man goes out into the woods with out his wife, and he says something, is he still wrong?” lol

      5. So why are we still importing foreigners to come work here? Why do we pay for their children to go to school here, their healthcare, and then heaven forbid if they have children here we grant them citizenship.

        The corporate fascists have determined that if you don’t like the wages offered and hold out for a better deal, then your replacement will simply be imported. H1b and such are corporate welfare and obviously unnecessary.

        Oh but you still get to pay for all the social services that your replacement will receive when they bring their family with them. The employer won’t pay the full cost of the employee brought in to replace you, and thus they seem cheap.

        We cannot allow open borders as long as we have a corporate welfare state.

        • To answer your question as to “why”?…..

          There is one simple answer….corporate lobbyists backed with fat, under the table, wallets, and shoved into the pockets of politicians.

          They sold us out for greed. Ain’t nothing we can do to change it now. Divine intervention is the “only” way out of this mess. I believe it is on it’s way, and we should see the first major wave of it about September and October of this year.

          Everything has it’s breaking point. Everybody has their own breaking point, or a point at which they get broken down. For some to wake up, they have to be broken down.
          A financial breakdown gets people’s attention quicker than anything. A financial/economic fall, is on the horizon.

          “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

          “The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.”

          • Why? So there will be more democrats.

            BigB

          • Rebel in ID – They keep importing illegals because the US Military needs a fresh supply of dumbass morons bodies with no hope other than fighting wars for their citizenship. See most Americans know these phony wars are all BS for the Fascist State.

            • Rome tried this and it didn’t work then either.

      6. Back in the sixties a high school diploma was actually worth more than college degree is today. Those who are touting education. They are in the education business. They must keep recruiting students to fund their parasite job. Those graduates receive a worthless diploma that’s as common as tree leaves. All they really get from college is a huge student loan debt to repay.

        • OG, you are exactly right. I swear I was just having this conversation with a coworker tonight.

        • Exactly right, oldguy.

          This new generation of 18 to 30 year olds, have been indoctrinated and spoiled by their parent/parents/grandparents, to the point that they have an “I am too good to do manual and menial job tasks” attitude.

          In other words they think a four year degree should automatically put them into, big office leadership roles called “top management”.
          They feel entitled because they have a s0-called education and therefore have already paid their dues in college.

          Nobody wants to “make stuff” anymore. They want others to make stuff and do the manual labor while they sit back and reap the rewards, by pushing a few pencils.

          Not everyone can be a bean counter and pencil pusher.
          Somebody has to actually do the physical work, so therefore we have all the “less entitled feeling” immigrants doing the menial tasks and getting promotions and job advancement. And people say…”where have all the jobs gone”?

          Those that are in this age brackets I put forth and those parents that have kids, yes I do mean kids, because most are still immature, in those age brackets; will defiantly disagree, but it is true for the most of them. And I would say, PWTW was correct in his guesstimate, that about 90% of the 18 to 30 year olds, fit perfectly into this “indoctrinated” category. Especially those that are going, or have went to a four year college. Liberal ideology and political correctness has taken many of a good kid and “abstracted” their minds from reality and spiritual direction.

          Hence, we have a society in moral and economic decay. Many factors play a role, but the main factor starts at home, while kids needed leadership and guidance, they got scooted out the door to play, so parents didn’t have to worry with entertaining them.

          People/parents/grandparents won’t take the blame. I know many that cast the blame on their kids classmates and friends, or their ecucational systems where they actually pay for them to go. Others blame it on society at large, or government. But, the real blame has to start at home where the responsibility really falls.

          Until that changes, we keep digging ourselves a societal pit that becomes a snare to our very souls.

          • I agree , learning to work starts at home.
            But kids are pushed hard by their grade schools to go on to higher ed , with dreams and promises of the BIG bucks.
            Its bullcrap.
            I have a real difficult time finding guys that wanna WORK , and an even harder time finding a truely skilled carpenter.
            It seems working a manual labor job is not to popular these days. Hell , last summer i had a guy working as an unskilled helper who had an MBA , and only wanted 10hr .
            And he wants to come back again this season ???

            • If I was still able to work, I’d be sending you my resume…damn. Just my luck.

            • Well, I can tell you from experience that if you go through the temp agencies here in Indiana and start at the low rung, you can get into one of the factories. It takes a MONTH to get used to working if a person isn’t accustomed to being expected to do something. Most have decent benefits, bonuses, and within five years the wages are pretty good. The problem is, we see our fair share of gimmes that want to stand around and play on the phone for their pay. They don’t seem to feel like they should be working as hard as everybody else. Mike Rowe showed that there were jobs out there if you were willing to work for them. That’s still the case in a lot of pockets of our country. Of course, Indiana is a right to work state, so that may be part of the reason. We can’t keep enough workers in the factories, and they’re looking to hire 400 more in a few months. The problem with finding a skilled carpenter may be similar to around here – construction jobs attract druggies who don’t want to be randomly tested.

              • “construction jobs attract druggies who don’t want to be randomly tested. ”
                Yep , I am also very rural, so i travel a ways to get to my jobs .
                Alot of them dont have drivers licenses either.
                There was also a giant exodus to the big cities around 2008, go figure.

          • oicu812

            It’s my money and I want it now! Hahahaha!

            Those who do not have a job are in poor shape. Those that have a job, and can keep it, will work till they die.
            Cut all the benefits of unemployment, EBT and SNAP and we would the have the best educated rioters ever. They want to start at the top and think they are entitled to that spot.
            When the Invisible Soup Lines stop, all hell will break loose.

          • Yup, it’s hard to even find a kid to shovel snow from your sidewalk or mow the grass if you’re away. If you can’t give them $20-30 for less than a half hours work, they won’t do it (if you can get them to consider it in the first place).

            Another thought on the manual labor. People think I’m odd because I don’t hire out my yard work, house/wall painting, small repairs and so on but do much for myself including my own cleaning, sewing and cooking (eating out is a treat, not a usual). My parents taught me all sorts of life skills and I passed these on to my son.

            Hmm, I should move out of this metro area and live amongst more rational country people. Be nice to have a real garden. And space for woodworking or quilting.

        • Just like the vaccine bullshit. Get a college education and you’ll have a grand job. Get a jab(vaccine) and you won’t get sick.

        • When I was in high school back then doing precalculus and four by four equations I wish there were some friendly numbers like in common core math now. I would like to see common core math do one of those equations that took four pages to figure out. Calculus now is an EBT app on your Obamaphone. Calculus how much I got left dis month. Gnome sane?

      7. The only solution I see is fort the 1% to come up off of some of that green. Which doesn’t seem likely.

        • or at least stop sabotaging businesses who want to hire and expand in this shit-hole country…

          • Well the reason why they sabotage businesses is the smarmy little regulators and their supporting choir of lobbyists. Small business is being totally soaked. Obamacare is preventing growth, and Joe the Plumber was run off in shame for all the wheeling and dealing that congress did behind the backs of the people to make sure the rules are too tough for newbie businesses to come in. Heck, the tax rates in some areas are totally prohibitive while others get sweetheart breaks. You know where breaks come from right? Yep, your grandkids – the ones not even born yet in some cases. Anyone who believes there are actually a dem party and republican party are being taken for a ride. They’re figureheads that represent a false sense of choice. Watch them wear their red and blue ties and pretend to be in lockstep with one side or another and then behind closed doors, they all support whoever is sprinkling pennies in their pockets or giving their family members jobs and benefits. There is nothing to be done except keep your head down and keep on keeping on. The country already fell to other authorities sometime before I was even born. Now we gotta adjust until the next wave.

      8. We really became a borrowing nation starting in the 1960’s with LBJ’s guns and butter policy. Money that would have otherwise been lent out to American factories was instead lent to the government to fund its spending. By the 1970’s American factories could not afford to borrow money to retool or expand. It was the Japanese who out produced us. Now it is the Chinese. We’ve been a net importing country ever since 1976. The jobs that go along with production and exporting will never come back until our federal government stops hogging up all of the capital that factories need.

        • Our production jobs wont come back period.
          War will bring a push but it will never be as strong as decades gone by

        • And from about that same time, it has seemed like no matter how much I made that it never kept up with inflation and taxes. I’m really worried about ever having enough to retire or if it’s possible now.

      9. I thank God I’m not looking for work! The folks younger than I are in for a very rough ride when it comes for jobs.

        My son has a bitch of a time with them. He was in Las Vegas for the BOOM, and worked there till the Bust. Back in Illinois works for a couple of weeks or just before he can get into the Union and then let go. I’ve seen this happen to a lot of young guys/gals working in the area.

        TPTB have sent them over sea for cheaper labor. Like China, and India now they are catching up with the USA, and there is no one to sell the products to.

        There is a big CRASH coming. If we don’t have WW3 first, or maybe at the same time!

        Sgt.

        • Sgt

          Correct you are

          Take a look at all those apple products all made in Malaysia/China etc at real slave wages…then sold here for 4-500 $ a pop..maybe more..

          Everything is offshored and then shipped back here and all the western cultures for consumption..all the while our media portrays the Chicoms as the evil empire…what a joke..!

          Why hire an engineer educated here for 40-50k starter wage when you can hire the same degree engineer for 15 k from India?

          Nearly all the jobs created are in service sector and healthcare..and most less than 30 hours to prevent paying benefits to boot.

          I work in healthcare as a chef…company posted an administrative assistant position for 32 hours a week @$14.00 and hour…over 125 applicants many with bachelors and masters once making 6 figure incomes..

          Middle management has been decimated

          So have the trades overall…most small contractors here have downsized to limited crews and are surviving..chasing the dollar though…especially with all the so called ‘dreamers” with cheap white vans offering the same services much cheaper..

          It appears those of us with survival instincts will always at least prevail..

          Prepare accordingly

          possee

          • The evil empire is comprised of all those who have and do occupy Washington DC

        • Well, that may be his first and continual mistake, depending on the unions.

          • Mor:
            Illinois is a Union state. You have to be in a union to work. It is no a right to work state, but that maybe changing.
            Sgt.

            • Left Illinois to come to Indiana. I don’t miss it. Unions used to be great things but they now make sure Jimmy Bob can hold onto his job while sleeping half the day away and get paid just to show up when there’s no work. They protect some of the most negative jerks on a site while stuffing their pockets in the name of fairness. The wages aren’t that much different when you think of cost of living adjustments accordingly. In Illinois, most of the union jobs were coal mining, and Obama has put an end to a lot of that, so here we are. I know a lot of guys who were mad that I would dare take a job that started out under $24 an hour. Those jobs are looooooong gone. The guy next door was ashamed of himself talking to me about how he and his wife got pensions, paid for not working, and took vacation after vacation and spent money on all sorts of ridiculous crap. Now, they are talking about the pensions going away, and he’s crying about how he can’t afford to live (for what I work hard to bring home, and there are four of us). He was embarassed though that he sees me putting in all the hours I do to help pay for the bailout that kept his union check coming. My kids and grandkids are going to be paying for his huge garage that he piddles in, his vacations with the wife, and going out to eat all the time. After all, this monetary insolvency our government is doing to keep a portion of the retired folks so cushy is why the deficit scares the hell out of any sane individual. Meanwhile, they say there are two illegals for every one job created since 2000. *shakes head*

              • KRM, saw much the same thing Mich when the car industry was going well. People could afford to toss their furniture on the curb and buy new every other year. (Okay, it was Furniture Depot stuff, not high end, but definitely not the cardboard junk from Wally World.) Always new clothes and a new car or two in the driveway. With the pensions and bennies they never had to save either.

                I could have gotten such a job (while they lasted) but thought I should do something with my mind instead of a factory line job. My life is quite satisfying despite the financial issues at times.

            • Illinois has a majority of their jobs, what few there are, as non union. The only union jobs are in the construction fields and those are mostly limited to Cook County only. You don NOT need to be in a union to work in Illinois, that’s a load of bullshit. The truth is unions have been dying in Illinois for decades.

            • Really? 25 years ago I worked for a Rail Road contractor. I ran equiptment and drove truck. Non Union we worked on the UP tracks all over southern ill.

          • College after high school was a waste of time and money. People need to go out into the work place and see how far you can get with out a college degree. I continued my education even though not full time. After working for about 10 years, I went back to school with a 3.75 GPA and crammed about 2 yrs of school into a year and a half. My ultimate goal was to own my on business, and sure enough through failures and success I hit on a career I been doing for 20+ yrs. Each failure I learned a valuable lesson. Keep trying, never give up and keep looking for a better deal. Always be curious to learn more.

        • SD,

          Always appreciate your posts. I, too, am currently in the People’s Socialist Thugocracy of Illinois.

          Here’s a thought. If your son is young, why not encourage him to at least explore overseas somewhere. I’m not saying he should volunteer for Yemen right now, but why not explore Singapore, Kenya, Estonia? As you may know, I am a dual US/Canadian citizen. At one point I took a job in the far north, where no one else would go. You know what? I had a GREAT time. Places like Yellowknife, NWT, or Whitehorse in the Yukon are FULL of young people. If it doesn’t work out, and he is young and unmarried, so what? When we moved to the US, I worked in Gary, IN. for a few years. Commuted there every day for two years. I live in Aurora, IL., so it was 175 miles round trip every day for two years. Here’s the thing: at the time, Gary (as you probably know) had been voted THE most dangerous city in the US nine out of the previous ten years. So, no one wanted to go there. Plus, HQ was in Schaumburg, so for just about everyone, it would have been a similar drive.

          A couple points: a.) they paid VERY healthy mileage, and I drove a junker, so I was making quite a bit every month just on that; b.) yes, Gary was bad. But I worked in the hospital, only stayed on Grant St., and that street was as safe as any other street anywhere else in the world (patrolled, and besides, they knew who worked at the hospital, so those folks were never messed with, as they might need you later that day!) The people I worked with there were WONDERFUL, and I made great money. Never once did I feel I was in the remotest danger at all; c.) the distance made it unattractive, same as when I lived in northern Canada. Well, so what? I brought tapes (back then it was tapes) to listen to; in my northern Canada work, I took nice trips. Right now, I am doing health care work in a small town in Indiana. Away from my wife a few nights, which I don’t like, but given that the only jobs left in IL. are licking Emanuel’s and Madigan’s boots, I had to get creative… again!

          My suggestion, for what it’s worth is that – while not being reckless – maybe your son look farther afield. I don’t know what that might look like, as I don’t know his background, but sometimes you have to get creative. In my case that meant working in northern Canada, then moving from BC to Ottawa, ON., then moving to the US. I also completely changed fields four times, along with a number of smaller changes within those major changes.

          Hope at least one of these suggestions is of use!

      10. Mr Drew’s article is filled with facts and statistics. Mark Twain said “there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics.” Google “stem jobs availability” and see what you get. What he says is true…the barrista that serves your coffee at Starbucks is probably overqualified, but not because of a STEM degree. Go back and look at all he presents…there isn’t anywhere where he gives SPECIFIC stats that show any problem with STEM jobs. There aren’t enough STEM applicants for the STEM jobs available. The “over qualifieds” are in the “soft sciences”….and that’s being generous. Tell you what, watch “Wheel of Fortune” and listen to what the people say about their education. It will be something like “I’m pursuing my masters in music”, “I have a masters in communication”, “I’m a philosophy graduate”, “I teach ‘Human Resources'”. Yeah….that’s who can’t get a job. If you weld, are an electrician, in IT, can do CNC machining or better yet manual machining, certified mechanic of any kind, engineer (any kind of hard science), physicist, any sort of medical technical person, anything that PRODUCES SOMETHING WITH A REAL OUTCOME, then you can get a job. Will it be an ideal job….prolly not. But if you come out of HS with a vo-tech orientation, by the time you’re 25, if you have been following a career path, you will be making good money in any of the non-degreed technical fields. Welding, 35 years ago welding was “dead”, robots will be doing that. If you’re a welder and can pass a cert test, you have a job. You can work in house for $25-$35 an hour or up to $65 an hour on the road. If you’re a degreed STEM, you can get a job. This article is full of BS. People that have REAL SKILLS CAN GET A REAL JOB. There has to be someone that can actually PRODUCE something in industry to keep things going. These people have jobs. Be Well.

        • there is a degree of truth in what you say

          HOWEVER

          by way of my locality
          the hospital here USED to hire virtually every single RN who graduated from the local college
          if you were breathing and weren’t a serial killer you had a job

          now ???

          some years they may hire only 3-4

          we used to have app 200 traveling nurses here

          now ???

          ZERO

          one of the smaller hospitals has closed
          two others in nearby counties are on the verge of bankruptcy

          they ain’t hiring !

          local factory here used to have over a thousand employees
          skilled work in a variety of trades

          now???

          about 2 hundred still employed

          there’s another factory that is doing fairly well,it manufactures plumbing fixtures

          starting wage ???

          wait
          wait for it

          a big whopping $8.50 an hour

          and they post ads with that $8.50 an hour with exclamation points following it

          WTF ???

          I could go on…….

          • That is everywhere,
            Its amazing, but hey, let the border go unrestricted, allow in “refugees” from across the pond, ship all our manufacturing overseas etc etc etc,,,,
            Anyone who doesnt see what is really going on is blind

          • Let’s not even forget about the shortened hours for nurses. They also take nurses close to retirement and scoot them to less than optimal positions to stress them out. Our local hospital is not accepting overnight patients anymore. The next closest hospital that does is an hour away. Healthcare is over-saturated.

            Factories are getting more robots; they don’t want to mess with people so much, and it’s not because they’re being cheap. A lot of the folks hired in act really entitled or seem to not want to work. Staying smaller is easier on the Obamacare tax, and the local taxes are getting out of hand for businesses as well. Healthcare went up really high, so a lot of factories have to deal with fewer employees because they want to supply them with healthcare and benefits.

          • @Satori; Certainly wouldn’t disagree with you there. Having spent 22 years in the med/tech field and the memsaab being a high-end nurse, I understand what you say, living in a smaller city. If you want to stay in a small locality, it minimizes your chances. Most small town hospitals, aren’t really hospitals anymore. They are “infirmaries”, as they cannot afford the CT, MR, cath lab, various x-ray rooms, US, nuke med and so on, plus the labs and the pharmacies. Just the CT, MR, Nuke and cath lab will total more than 4 million (on the light side $$$). If you are in larger “cities”, where hospitals, not in metro areas, have congregated (100k where I am and 250k county) the story is different. My wife quit the traveling market some 3-4 years ago and she gets calls and emails every week, sometimes every day, for travel assignments. She’s a BSN, and she’s good at her specialty. Floor nurses are prolly not that high in demand. Her son worked with his dad as a frame carpenter…yeah, he got smart and learned to weld and now works in house for $30/hr as a cert. welder. Assistant welders or helpers are making as much or more than being Mgr at Mickey Dee’s. There aren’t enough diesel mechanics, or manual machinists to fill the jobs in my area. Ha, I’ve bought a lathe and trying to find an end mill myself for that very reason. Can’t find anyone to teach me manual machining that isn’t dragging around an O2 bottle, but using YT, books and failure for training. The one off or custom order, manual machine shops, are almost nonexistent. Small towns, less than say 30k and down that are close enough to larger cities, will die unless they have good community leaders and do something to pull people in and develop the area. I am A+ cert. and an EE tech and I can find a job, if I wanted one (ret. field svc and mil.). I made sure I was out of debt and own everything I have. If people have bought into the “more is more” BS of modern finances that is also a problem. If someone WANTS a skilled job they can find one….it may not be where they want, but there are jobs. Be Well.

      11. After stealing everything we own that has any value, the 0.1 % of the population wants to exterminate 90% of us and enslave the rest.

        Making a thesis statement from every historical, economic and political thing I’ve read in the last 25 years, their outline is:

        manipulate us into unemployment
        homelessness
        hunger

        when the food riots begin, when bank windows are broken, that’s their excuse to take the gloves off, to have their uniformed thugs murder us in wholesale numbers.

        Many who frequent this site can summarize what I said in your own words. If I’m even half right, what do I propose one can do about it?

        Exceedingly few people have the personal wealth to buy their way out of the gathering difficulty. Voting one’s way out is futile. If elections changed anything they’d be illegal.

        Make alliances with like-minded people. Hone your skills. Provide for life’s necessities.

        If you want real change, be prepared to turn the state’s eagerness to do you violence upon them. Not by a frontal assault. They’d like that. Be smart about how, where and when.

        It saddens me that people who make money off their (stolen from us) money, which in many cases does not even physically exist (derivatives) make out like fat rats while people who bust their humps every day to make real things suffer.

        For the where and when, that’s up to you. But for the “who” targeting information, when the time comes, take a look at the Federal Reserve regional Boards of Directors and the blue chip corporate law firms. Their web sites. Sample client lists. Their banking practice. Their mergers and acquisition practice. Their administrative law practice. The people who can hire a law firm at $500 an hour when they look at us see … servants.

        I’m not saying the corporate attorneys are one percenters themselves. A few may be. Most are well-compensated white collar working class. The point is, those money-center bank directors, hedge fund managers and venture capital people ARE one percenters themselves or are hirelings in their inner circle.

        Another source for targeting information would be Ivy League websites and alumni publications. Not every Ivy Leaguer is a Wall Street shark. One is more likely to find the 0.1 % there than at a tractor pull.

        The people oppressing us need to feel they, personally, are in danger. But they don’t know where or when. There have to be sanctions on them that they can’t buy their way out of. Or send a flunkey to fall on the sword in their place.

        In case anyone has taken this exercise in free-association seriously, I am only expressing a melange of conclusions I have culled from years of paying attention. I have no SPECIFIC action in mind.

        You tyrant suck ups have been gathering information on all of us for years. To eventually do something WITH the information. Well … you do it to us. Some of us are doing it to you. How do ya like it?

        • JA. You’ve said that well bruv, well done. I’m convinced that the whole fuckin’ shebang from the pigs through to the tiptop Elitists are ALL involved in freemasonry to one degree or another. I’ve given two of those sly fuckers a good kickin’ in the past… I know violence ain’t the answer to everything but its about the only way I know of to get back at these sinister bastards… There were five main reasons for a peasants uprising in medieval Europe,1,an increasing gap between the rich and poor. 2,declinning incomes of the poor. 3,rising inflation and taxation. 4,the crises of famine, plague and war. 5,religious backlashes… Sound familiar! Tiz time for another common revolt, something the overlords are shit scared of. Kick their fuckin’ heads in.

        • That whole murder thing can go both ways, last time i checked humans are not bullet proof nor blast proof and burn quite well too
          Just sayin

        • You could start with LinkedIn dot com.

        • Alas, alas, John_Allen says;, all is lost. One should buy some cheese, eh? I would never say “there are NO conspiracies”, as that would be untruthful as there might actually be one. However, if one needs more than one or two fingers to count the conspiracies that seriously affect how one lives their life, then there is a need to rethink the critical thinking skill set being used. One must be one of the 99%, I think, to be that way. Didn’t the 99%’ers have some marches a while back. Is that the 99% being referred to? I have written this missive before. Anyone can make excuses for their own shortcomings and failure by blaming someone/something else for it. WE, AS A NATION ARE DUMB! Anyone want to challenge that? Go park at wally-world and watch the idiots…you’ll know them, they are the ones meandering down the parking lot, staring at their “whatever phone”, CLUELESS, oblivious to the fact they are about to be run over, EXCEPT AND ONLY EXCEPT THAT IT’S ILLEGAL. And go in and spend what little money they have or “za-zing” slide that plastic on crap. You know, if we boycotted wally-world for two weeks, Chinese factories would come to a standstill. But, what are the odds of that? Challenge? Anyone? Anyone? “I have seen the enemy, and it is us”. Search “precinct meeting” here for previous well written rants explaining what those are. WE DON’T PARTICIPATE IN OUR OWN GOVERNMENT, WE DON’T GO TO PTA MEETINGS, WE ACCEPT MEDIOCRITY FROM OUR CHILDREN, OURSELVES, CHURCHES AND OUR GOVERNMENT (if only they were THAT good). WE HAVE LET US GET WHERE WE ARE….EVERYTHING THAT GETS DONE IS DONE BY THE FUCKING FEW THAT WILL GO DO IT….IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO DO IT. It may be that some don’t think that I’m all that smart, because I love my country, because I’m not broke down and desperately poor, that I support my local LEOs or whatever. I was born a “poor black child” in Mizzzzippi (thas a joke…arrrgh! the black child part), my sorry-assed father abandoned my mother, left her with two boys to raise and no job. I was raised in a state that fought with Al, La, and Ar for last place in education. I could go on and make you cry and do that “ohhh, woe is me” shit and say all the stupid shit about the 1%, bankers, corporate lackeys, the gubment, and on and on, and OH, OMFG don’t leave out the Jews, yeah they caused all my problems. I’ve noticed one thing in my life…when my life was fucked up….I DID IT…NO ONE ELSE DID IT. ME, I DID IT. It is way easier to bitch about something than to do something. I bought into all this shit (I presume since you mentioned 25 years you’re in mid 40s, though not relevant) in my teens and up to about mid 20’s. Broken home, poor, uneducated (no HS diploma)…alas, alas, until I realized…THE ONLY PERSON THAT CARES ABOUT ME, IS ME and I’m the only one that will do something about it. I have worked more shit jobs than I want to remember, joined/was drafted into the military, got a HS diploma (aced the ASVAB and MS gave me a diploma), had a near 40 year career in the military and a 22 year career in field svc in the medical imaging industry. “Oh, you’re just lucky”…yeah, I couldn’t get laid in a whore house, I couldn’t sell a gold brick on the corner for $3, if I bought 99 of 100 raffle tickets I would lose. All I could do, was not do stupid shit and blame it on others, and that’s what I did. I’ve been screwed so many times it just goes foooooossss when I fart. You fall down (or tripped by someone) you get back up. That’s all I’ve ever done. I guess I’m just too stupid to bitch about who’s fault it is. If I was that bad off….well I guess I’d take my S&W M27, load a round and sit in a dark closet with some vodka and take some shots….eh?

          • @ Tripod XL

            That one thumb up is mine. You got a professional degree in the School of Hard Knocks.

            Make sure those vodka shots go inbound and the pistol shots go outbound.

            • Hahahaha, you got it. Good egg. Be Well.

      12. Remember what NAFTA did to America?

        The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will do it again.

        Notice in the speech below how it’s being promoted to Europeans as good for Europeans. You don’t hear anyone in an American leadership position trying to promote it here do you?

        http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-4182_en.htm

        Fact sheet to allow lawyers to practice on both sides of the Atlantic:

        http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/january/tradoc_152999.2%20Services.pdf

        Dispute mediation will be confidential:

        http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/january/tradoc_153032.pdf

        Some gems:

        “The [institutional body to be defined] shall make the ruling of the arbitration panel publicly available in its entirety within 10 days of its issuance, unless it decides not to do so in order to protect the confidentiality of confidential information. ”

        “The arbitration panel shall meet in closed session when the submission and arguments of a Party contains confidential information. The Parties to the dispute and their advisers shall maintain the confidentiality of the arbitration panel hearings where the hearings are held in closed session. ”

        “Mutually agreed solutions shall be made publicly available. The version disclosed to the public may not contain any information that a Party has designated as confidential.”

        Another speech that delivers for Europeans:

        http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2014/may/tradoc_152451.pdf

        “We wish to eliminate as many tariffs as possible.”

        “And we need to establish a level playing field in public procurement.”

        “That means making existing rules in these sectors converge where possible. It also means making sure EU and US regulatory authorities work better together earlier and more systematically, so that we avoid as much as possible future non-tariff barriers.”

        “The World Trade Organisation already provides many of the rules we need. But there are still gaps. That is particularly the case with regulatory issues. It is also the case for issues like how to treat state-owned enterprises, or energy and raw materials exports or how we can use trade agreements to uphold the protection of labour rights and the environment – what we might call rules.”

        “And we are right now consulting the public on one of the most sensitive issues in these talks – investment
        protection.”

        “National governments gave us our mandate to negotiate and we have held over 40 different meetings with their representatives since the talks began in July last year. ”

        “American and European consumers both breathe some of the cleanest air, drive some of the safest cars and have access to the most innovative, safest medicines and medical devices anywhere in the world. So we both need to make sure that nothing in this agreement undermines existing protections… … or our ability to make new laws to protect citizens in the future. ”

        “That is why meeting our third challenge is so important: Making sure that all the people involved work cooperatively. In Europe that involves the European Commission, 28 national governments, the European Parliament and the whole range of stakeholders who see an interest in this deal. In the United States, it means not only Ambassador Froman, but also the two houses of Congress, the 50 state administrations, and the stakeholders on their side. That will of course be complicated. That many people on both sides of the Atlantic can’t possibly agree on everything. But what we can agree on, I believe, is that a deal that benefits us in so many ways – economically and strategically – a deal that protects and even strengthens our values for the future – is in all of our interests.”

        The US Constitution and the Emoluments Clause could stop this but our representatives don’t represent We The People anymore.

        What the heck are Emoluments you ask? Try this:

        http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/68/emoluments-clause

        This starts to put things into perspective as to why the US government is so into the Ukraine –it’s good for the Europeans.

        Here is a related aside: the European elite were making laws for the European Union long before the EU came into conscious existence for the average European person. The EU now claims its formation to have been not long after WW2.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#Structural_evolution

        Case in point are firearms laws:

        http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/justice_freedom_security/fight_against_organised_crime/l14011_en.htm

        In the meantime the British progressively cracked down on firearms with their laws in 1988 and 1997.
        So what can you imagine will the TTIP bring to Americans when it goes from economic integration to political integration?

      13. Ok , right now I’m covered up in work. I’m going thru 1 to 3 people a week on my job sites. People will not work. Or they’ll work 2 or 3 days, make a payday then quit. Never bring a lunch or have gas money. But they have smokes at $4. a pop.go figure.

      14. I work in the HVAC trade (25 years). In my time I’ve see the gradual degradation of just about every major brand being produced here in the states. Just about all of the circuit boards are either Chinese or Mexican manufacture as well as fan motors. The sheet metal that makes up the exoskeleton of the equipment are now very thin. Even the Japanese brands of equipment (Sanyo) are being manufactured by the Chinese (and they hate each other).

        • YA , And heat exchangers made of tin foil.
          No wonder we need hard wired carbon monoxcide detectors now.

          • Yup, just changed one out yesterday. Unit only twelve years old. Rusted and split right down the weld seam. But its hard to stop a Trane!(wanna puke every time I see that commercial).

      15. Thank you mister president, keep up the good work you piece of crap.

        Can’t imagine what our country would look like if you had not been elected by all the stupid idiots that voted for you.

        Hope some day your fat ass daughters bring you the news that they are pregnant with a white catholic gay transsexual mans baby that has to be aborted because it has stupid looking ears like you have, and the monkey face of your fat ass wife.

        • @Americanism; You know that kinda talk is just not right……BUT IT WAS FUNNY AS HELL.

      16. When you work for someone the first 90 days or so you are on trial no one is gonna get in the union if they stink. I know I’m in the union I’ve said this before it’s a business not a soup kitchen if you have no value it’s not gonna work out .

      17. You need the qualifications, the connections and the look. I am sure that the great majority of those applying for that job were qualified or over qualified.

      18. I’m not looking for work but should be. Union pension was cut in half and who knows how long social Security will last. I have no bills but the monthly ones are still going uo as is gas and food. I’d tell these young kids to get skills other than computers(brick layer,plumber,stonemason, something that is in demand.) Go in the service and let uncle sam train you or uproot and try overseas. Its no party here anymore.

      19. Today’s History Lesson

        Israel Murdered U.S. Sailors and Tried to Sink Their Ship … A Failed False Flag Attack Against the United States

        http://www.blacklistednews.com/Israe…38/38/Y/M.html

        • link doesn’t work.

        • Satori: Remember the Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin, and Hell there are way to many times the U.S. has done that, but alas that doesn’t count. Every country is guilty of the very same thing. Also how about all the Jew bankers surviving the Nazi’s in Germany back in WW2. Again we all are guilty of doing False Flags.

      20. From article:

        “In one short century, we have gone from superpower to super size me, a plutocracy, a nation that wasted its most valuable resource: the energy and innovation of its own people.”

        ‘We’ haven’t ‘gone’ anywhere. ‘We’ were put here by a parasitical tribe that took over in 1913. The control goes back further, but in 1913 they got control of our money, corporations and universities. It was a planned take-down via immigration – they imported a bunch of new people who went along with whatever because whatever was better then where they came from. Most were too ignorant to understand what was going on on a macro level anyhow. This same plan still works today and is why we are being flooded with ‘illegal’ immigrants while the .gov welcomes them. Dilution of ideals. Disintegration of the Nation.

        The author is missing the real reason we’re in the state we’re in. Like it was an accident, or something. Like the American people just layed down for it. We didn’t. All along, conservative-minded Americans lamented what .gov was doing, but were marginalized at every turn until they are now completely irrelevant. The tribe isn’t conservative … nor are they liberal. They are tribe and they now own the world.

        America was taken and subjugated.

      21. The US govt is allowing US companies to fire US workers so they can bring in cheaper skilled labor on H1B visa’s.
        Also zer0 is allowing 5 million more illegals in, so they can do the “unskilled” jobs. Contractors now use illegals in construction jobs that Americans once held, so they can make more money for themselves…. Our own govt and US companies are screwing us. This is one of the reasons I cannot find a job and I have been unemployed for the last three years…..

        • So let me ask you this… How many Americans do you see in the agro business fields picking fruit a nd vegetables for minimum wage? How many ammericans do you see busting ass in the summer as roofers in the southwest? Just examples….. Americans are too fat, lazy and entitled to take those jobs. Jobs are out there. Americans just won’t do them. In a lot of cases they feel the jobs are beneath them.

          • These illegals are occupying decent paying construction jobs, jobs in stores, car dealerships, doctors offices etc. Illegals are taking over the better jobs. This also hurts the lower socio-economic minority folks who are US Citizens. Your “Americans won’t take lesser paying job” in other than agriculture is total BS. Those jobs are paying less because the use of illegals are destroying the wage base here in the US…..

            • 21Bravo, You are so full of crap. Businessmen are going to hire the legal versus the illegal worker any day all things remaining legal. The so-called “good jobs” you are talking about are being filled by illegals (construction – yes, others – not so much), it is because lazy-ass, dope smoking, entitled white asshats won’t take the jobs or are not qualified or are simply not willing to work that hard. I know several contractors of different types who don’t even bother looking for white guys anymore. They only hire Mexicans, because why? They bust their asses and can pass a drug test. AND by the way, these contractors pay close to union wage so they can keep these great non-white workers. And these workers, if illegal, are trying to become legal. Which is more than I can say for butt sore, whining old men……

              • Labor like everything else sold is based on supply and demand. If you increase the supply under constant demand the cost drops. If you increase the supply under decreasing demand the cost drops even more.

                Economics 01

                The influx of illegal aliens has accomplished the above. Their wages largely under the table do not pay taxes and if they did their dependents would negate anything going into government coffers. Their children are a tax burden at lest to the tune of $10,000 a year per child for education.

          • Hey, think about this— sometimes you might not get hired for a construction job or a field crop job because you don’t speak the language used on the job site.

          • “How many Americans do you see in the agro business fields picking fruit a nd vegetables for minimum wage?”

            Farm workers are exempt from the labor laws including minimum wage and overtime. Slave wages require a slave work force.

          • So here we have spud harvest (that’s potatoes for all y’all not from Idaho) where they even close schools for two weeks so kids can help out. Since we homeschool it didn’t matter but our 15yo daughter got a job harvesting spuds. Tough work right?

            I told her that if they said anything other than she was the hardest working employee they had ever had I would see to it she regretted it enough to mention it to her grandkids.

            So one of my co-worker’s (a mexican) 17 yo son worked at the same place. He quit after 10 days because it was too hard. My daughter was asked to stay on for a third week.

            My co-worker is still embarrassed that her 17yo mexican son was outworked by a 15yo white girl.

            Oh and she still did all her chores and went to her part time job as a dance instructor in the evenings. Her stories of how fast she could wash the dirt off and get into ballet outfits is pretty funny.

          • I used to do the work they claim americans wont do I worked road construction. out in the heat & cold & wet. Was paid very well for doing finish work with a dozer& road grader. Then they started using Mexicans and lowered the wages. I never got an hours. They only let me make overtime when my finish skills where needed to sell the job. I quit and went to driving semi truck.At lathe truck had air condition & a heater. only a idiot would do that kind of work for minium wages. Yet Mexicans do?

      22. I do not know of many good plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanic,machinest, stonemason, etc that are out of work in my area. Most stay busy and usually swamped since there is not to many people doing those kinds of jobs anymore. They are not glamorous jobs. They will not make you a wealthy, but they provide a good living. I am sorry, but I am not looking for a business or english major with a PHD to install my HVAC system, do some wiring for me, install a new door,etc etc. If you are willing to actually work,get your hands dirty, get hot and sweaty in the summer, freeze your ass off in the winter instead of looking for some office job, I bet your odds of finding a job just went up.

        • I bet your odds of finding a job just went up—mostly if you speak spanish…

        • I second that. Our across the street neighbor Is an HVAC guy and has more work than he can do. The local contractors( the Good ones) are likewise busy. Also stonemasons and hard scape guys. Yes, they have Los Hombres Morenos Pequenos ( little brown men) working for them, but the owners are primarily imports from FL, LA ( after Katrina) and the Rust Belt. Those are the ones doing the best job….so they stay busy!

          • And I’m in East TN too!

        • East Tenn;
          Let’s don’t forget that the trades you mentioned are not learned over night.

        • Especially concrete around here. I was looking for someone to pour a 9×15 slab in the barn I built for a milking area. Not only were the prices outrageous, but none could come sooner than 2 months. Probably half of the places I called didn’t even bother to return my call.

          I never had it that good when I worked construction.

      23. Things are not going to get better, they are going to get worse.

        As you go through your day, observe everything and every one working at something and ask yourself “How many of these jobs can be replaced by computers and robots?”

        If you’re honest, you will find the answer is going to be “most”.

      24. I use the local paper as a guide. Medium sized city based newspaper in a population area of several hundred thousand.

        Used to be, you could look in the want ads and find a full page or more of Help Wanted ads during the week, and more in the Sunday paper.

        I looked yesterday, and there were a total of 9 ads…NINE. And one of them was the perpetual one the paper runs for paper carriers. Maybe employers are using different means now for finding employees, but my take is there simply isn’t near as much going on as there was in years past.

        • And most are part time

        • Employers rarely use newspapers anymore. It is much more effective to use things like Craig’s list. Sign of the times.

      25. Yet the fed gov is breaking records giving out visas to foreigners who have specialized degrees,,,
        Any more doubts that the government doesnt really want a prosperous educated population?

        • They sure don’t want a prosperous AMERICAN population, that’s for sure…especially if you’re white and male.

          American, white and male…three strikes you’re out.

          • That is the biggest cop out of all time. And the biggest excuse for riding ion your ass on the couch and not taking charge of your own life. Lo, the poor pitiful white man……

            • Lucky for me, I’m not a white male…

      26. Old engineering joke:

        What’s the difference between a pizza and an engineer?

        A pizza can feed a family of four.

      27. There will be a few jobs in the Industrial Military Contracts field now that the criminals are going to send bombs, and boots on the ground in Iraq to ” degrade and destroy ISIS” , (which is just a cover for regime change in Syria).

      28. I was told long ago that only service sector jobs will remain and it seems true, but what a strange cycle it becomes, services for people who only create money and nothing else

      29. Vets!

        Can’t find a job?

        Simple sign-up for another tour of duty.

        You already know the terrain and routine and have the training.

        No jobs at home except McJobs.

        Problem solved.

        • States that were deploying guard units to the sand box would call other states to fill positions that were unfilled in the unit that was being deployed. Arkansas sent a full platoon of folks to a state that needed the spaces filled. Most soldiers in that platoon had multiple deployments under their belts and wanted to deploy so they could be employed for another year.

      30. Not one mention of technology?
        I had 2 men when I moved here collecting the garbage.
        Now, one man drives while the garbage can is mechanically emptied.
        We smart engineers have screwed ourselves.

        Welcome to the 21st century, folks.

        Just for one minute contemplate the jobs lost to technology since 1960.
        My first job upon graduating from HS was a file clerk that filed for ladies using pencils to record data (inventory) in ledger books for Washington Manufacturers, a jeans company.
        The computer alone destroyed the economy of this nation.

        • I once took a job driving a garbage truck that lifted the metal dumpsters over the cab and dumped them in the back. when the weather got hot some how the smelly odor Premeaded into the cab. My clothing & hair absorbed the stink. I was actually sick and would throw up. I had a family to support. I quit and went to work at a pallet mill. tail ending a gang saw for less money.

      31. The best way to understand this is to look at the big picture. Sadly, people take all of this personally. The simple fact is the job market became global in the 90s and that meant things could be made anywhere in the world that was cheap and offered the best deal; and employers could hire anyone from anywhere for whatever they could get away with. The world is filled to the brim with degree-holding people desperate for a middle-class job. India and China alone pump out hundreds of millions with engineering and science degrees. In India, for example, these kids do not aspire to make their country better but to leave and get a job in the West. They could not care less there isn’t clean water or flush toilets in the home country: they want out and will lie, cheat and steal their way into the West.

        The UK just admitted the Muslim population increased by a million in just ten years. And most of them are living in the poorest areas, heavily dependent on welfare. So, they aren’t even coming in and creating jobs or filling the demand for workers: they are just leaching off the welfare state. This is happening across the West. It is a mass-scale migration of people from the third world to the first world, eventually turning the first world into the third world. Just as the politicians want it.

        • The big picture is the populations of the so called ‘Democracies” and “Republics with Democratic Principals” are not represented by their respective populations. The middle class being the greatest in number has the least amount of political control. No industrial worker in the developed world wanted to give up their employment to the third world to further the goal of globalization. The free trade agreements were passed throughout the world regardless.

          If the largest group does not have political control then who does? The wealthiest. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” its obvious, because the few in number control the many that the first part has been achieved with power corrupts. The second part is happening as we speak.

          In reality NAFTA, GATT and China Free Trade are just symptoms.

          • BINGO!
            Broken machine, can change parts here and there but they become broken as well thus perpetuating the mess some call DC

            • That mess is worldwide.

        • It is mind boggling that we would import our replacements and pay for it to boot.

      32. I remember, before I got my current job, I was actually rejected for a job as a manager at Chuck E. Cheese. They said I was over-qualified, even though I’ve never held any management position before.

        Until that point, it had never occurred to me that I would ever have to lie on my resume to make myself seem LESS than I actually am.

      33. The biggest problem is our own government does not support it’s citizens. Why hire Americans into skilled jobs when a company can use the H1B visa program and hire indians or pakis for half the pay and pretty much in a “indentured servant” status? The other thing is networking.. Friends who are working know when jobs come open, they will put in a good word for you. It’s not what you know (college degree), it’s who you know (friends).

        I worked IT in the military for 20+ years. I have no degree. I have something most snot nosed educated kids don’t have- experience, base knowledge that exceeds anything taught in college, an excellent work ethic. The first year retired from the military sucked, no job and a tiny retirement check. year 2 and 3- worked for a construction company picking up trash. Shortly after getting laid off, I received a call from a friend- their IT guy had just quit. Within 15 minutes, I had an interview, a job application and my resume on hand. This happened on a Wednesday, the following Monday I was employed and back in the saddle again. The biggest kicker- they had already interviewed 25 other highly skilled and very well educated applicants, all of them were expecting $40-60/hr; all of them turned down the job offer when they were offered $20/hr. I took the job for what they offered because I hated sitting at home. It went from just a job to my dream job.

        The company I work for is a prepper’s wet dream. The perks of working here- able to purchase merchandise at wholesale cost, access to highly sought after merchandise (ammo) before the stores, free to almost no cost slightly damaged or no longer carried merchandise.

        You bet I come to work everyday on time, with a smile, good attitude, and do the best I can to fulfill the company’s needs.

        • That’s a great story!!

        • Great story! Ex-military too: I also took a job that was in my dream area, albeit for a lot less than most people would do it. It has led to a career that has taken me all over the world, basically bedding the best-of-the-best women. But I asked why I got the job in the first place and they told me they couldn’t get anyone from Harvard, Yale etc. to do it. All wanted three times the pay and wouldn’t put up with the working conditions (considered hardship). The dumb f#cks didn’t realise the job paid tax-free salary, free everything – food, housing, travel etc. – and I saved a mint.

      34. Speaking from the hiring side….. I have led recruitment efforts for my clients. I search for accounting professionals for them. What is passing for educated, qualified on paper professionals in this country is a joke. I was recruiting for an entry-level bookkeeper at $20 per hour for a small firm in a major northwest metropolitan area with top tier universities and community colleges. What passed for applicants was appalling. We got hundreds of resumes and trimmed it down to 10 people to interview. We did not hire any of them. They had all graduated with business and/or accounting degrees, had extensive work experiences, but there was one huge catch. NONE OF THEM could tfell me the parts of a balance sheet or how an income statement relates to it. This basic stuff. This the first thing you learn in Accounting 101.

        The bottom line I have found over and over is that people who are not steadily employed are not for a reason. If you want good employees you have to recruit them from another employer. You WON’T find viable candidates from among the unemployed….

      35. Around here, there seems to be a shortage of people willing to do real work. I am going to have to wire my greenhouse and another outbuilding for electricity myself because I haven’t been able to get an electrician to come to my house for anything in ten years. At least it’s legal here to do my own electrical. It would be much quicker for a real electrician to do the job, but I’ll get it done sometime, hopefully before we lose electricity.

        My brother is working at a high tech manufacturing job. He said that when he got the job, the boss told him that he was the only person out of thousands who applied that actually had the electronic and mechanical skills and knowledge to do the job. He said the applicants didn’t even know Ohm’s law (E=I x R).

        There are no overqualified workers at any of the fast food places around here. They have a hard time counting change even with the cash register telling them the amount. I think someone could make a fortune if they designed a cash register that would tell the clerk exactly how many of each coin and bill to give back to the customer.

        We don’t need more college graduates with useless degrees. And we never did need millions of engineers. That market is saturated. What we need is more people with useful, job oriented degrees, such as nurses, doctors, pharmacists, computer programmers, etc. We also need more people trained in how to actually do things, such as mechanics, welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, HVAC people, etc.

        I have carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work that needs to be done at my house and can’t get anyone to show up because the ones that are left only want to work new construction. In my old location, I wanted to add a room onto my house. I couldn’t even get a contractor to show up for an estimate. So, 25 years later, that house still doesn’t have the extra room it needs.

        • I hear you. Reference my rant above. The unemployed are that way for a reason. There are jobs out there. If you are even merely competent at what you do, you can find work. Jobs are out there. He’ll, I routinely turn clients away because I don’t have the bandwidth in time to provide services. People won’t take the initiative now and do what is necessary to get themselves hired. Conversely, they think a degree is all it takes to make big money. News flash – you may have to start at the bottom and make shit money for a while before you eventually make bigger bucks. It’s called life.

        • Actually been that way for quite a while. I did remodel work for about 20 years before I retired several years ago. I remember one addition I put on a house 10-12 years ago…converting a deck to a sun room, bricking the lower section for a storage room, new wiring, added a heat/air unit, etc…I think it ran about 15k. I asked when I was done and they’d paid me how my price compared to anyone else. They replied “No idea…you’re the only one that ever showed to even give us an estimate”

      36. The most commonly held job in the US is truck driving. Saw a chart the other day that showed the changes over recent years to the most common jobs in all of the states. You can’t outsource driving to another country. But they didn’t show the nationality of the drivers. I worked a shipping dock at ORD for 20 years. Very few American born drivers. A lot of drivers are working for cash as private contractors. Usually low pay.

        • I spent my last working years driving a truck. I did Ok because my employer had his own DOT authority and cargo insurance. I received 25% of the Gross revenue. Drove over 500,000 miles in 3&1/2 years. I now draw social security Ponzi check.

      37. Funny stuff,
        Sad but true,
        Worked the trades for years, got real sick of the contractor telling me i needed to pass on my knowledge to the young guys,
        Screw that, most of them didnt give a shit and thought they knew it all already anyway,
        Too bad so sad, not my problem you cant use a transit or figure concrete yardage,
        It got to where i just didnt want to do what the contractor forced on me so did a social experiment to see how much crap they would put up with, finally had to just quit,
        Apparently they will put up with a lot more than me.

        • KULA-
          I go outta my way trying to pass on my knowledge.
          But it involves work.
          Nobody cares .
          Someday carpenters will be able to just name their price because there will not be any competition.

          • Your right carpenters will be go, if you don’t love Jesus ,go yo hell…

      38. Two decades ago when NAFTA was passed a friend of mine with a BSME was in the power plant control room touting the benefits of “Free Trade” and how it will strengthen companies making them more competitive bla, bla, bla. I told him your not immune, he shrugged.

        Fast forward a decade. The same guy is reading the trade magazine Mechanical Engineering, in the same seat, in the same control room, but now he is muttering and lightly shaking his head from side to side. I said, “Chuck, what’s up”? He gave what was almost a speech regarding the outsourcing of engineers to India via the internet and how its diminishing opportunities in the US. I reminded him of our conversation the previous decade and tossed in, “You can run but you can’t hide”.

        If your a professional that never has to leave their office that office will end up in India. X rays are being read by radiologists outside of the US. One needs “educated hands” in demand. A friend went to the railroad, its skilled and there is no outsourcing. Power plant operations is pretty good if you in a utility as is water / waste water treatment.

        • This is true: the technology has advanced so far it is a matter of just having a software engine somewhere running 24/7. It needs periodic maintenance, inputs and supervision, but that can be done by a guy in Bangladesh as much as it can be done by a guy in California. You do not need to run the risk of running the engine on servers in Bangladesh: just keep them in the safest place you can find (Scandinavia for example) and the Bangladeshi guy logs in to the engine and does their work. If the web goes down in Bangladesh, the maintenance is delayed but the engine does not suffer because it is not in Bangladesh.

          I would say probably one of the best areas to move into right now is interior decoration and green home conversions. None of this can be done on an outsourced basis and everyone wants a nice place to live in that does not cost much to run. Grab a copy of Dwell magazine, get some aesthetic taste, expand your vocab so you can back-and-forth with the hot babes who want a nice apartment (“Riiiiiight: Jane, if I can get you correct, it is a little bit Mies van der Rohe meets Oscar Niemeyer. But with lots of colour and an Alvar Aalto chair in the center.”).

      39. I wonder if these new skills of the day will be coming because of the WORLD WIDE ECONOMY ?

        MURDER, RAPE, and PILLAGE ???????? 🙁

      40. “The master planners devised the strategy of a merger – a Great Merger – among nations.
        But before such a merger can be consummated, and the United States becomes just another province in a New World Order, there must at least be the semblance of parity among the senior partners in the deal. How does one make the nations of the world more nearly equal? The Insiders determined that a two-prong approach was needed; use American money and know-how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living, to the meager subsistence level of the socialized nations of the world.
        The plan is not to bring the standard of living in less developed countries up to our level, but to bring ours down to meet theirs coming up… It is your standard of living which must be sacrificed on the altar of the New World Order.”

      41. If the Republikins would stop putting up roadblocks to President Obamas policies to create jobs we would be just fine. He’s still cleaning up Booshs destroying our economy.

      42. The big companies are rich enough to bribe politicians who then fix the tax laws to their advantage. Small businesses pay a hefty federal income tax but the giant companies pay either no tax or 8-12%. The reason the rest of us are going broke is that the cost of running the country is falling on us.

        Economist Richard Wolff said that 20 years ago, for every $1 from taxpayers, corporations paid $1.25. Now for every $1 we pay, corporations pay 25 cents. I’m still waiting for Americans to wake up and realize how the very rich are screwing us.

      43. Last but not least.

      44. Reminds me a story I heard yrs ago. A college professor lost his teaching job after many yrs and started looking for another and couldn’t find one to match his experience, so he started looking at less than desirable jobs and was told that he was over qualified until his last job app was for truck driver. He got the job, only because his job app looked and sounded like an 8th grade graduate.

      45. The entire cause of this calamity can be placed at the feet of Bill Clinton. He promised in 1992 to NEVER give Most Favored Nation trade status to China, Around 1998′ or 99′ he needed to replay the IOU he had received for Chinese assistance (money) in the 96′ election and went against his promise – by repaying his campaign debt to the Chinese.
        He in short, sold out America and every native born citizen in this country. He’s personally responsible for bringing this country to it’s knees and destroying the greatest economy on the face of this planet. Look it up.
        Oh, and don’t forget to vote for his dumb ass commie wife in 2016!

        There is a price for ‘indifference’.

        • It was Clinton but his position on free trade was quite orchestrated. GH Bush posted for NAFTA but could not get vital democrat support. Clinton appeasing to his labor supporters naturally was against it. Perot made it an issue pulling far more votes from Bush than Clinton who was during the campaign in agreement with Perot. Clinton the winner did a quick 180 degree change in position, twisted democrat arms for support and NAFTa became law. The Main Stream Media was silent. Once the democrats felt no wrath from their core supporters China Free Trade and the demise of Glass-Steagall sealed the fate of the middle class.

          Presidents don’t come up with this tuff. They’re salesmen of policy’s developed by an almost omnipotent power elite.

      46. On the plus side, they are currently hiring like CRAZY for travel agents for Michelle-Marie Antoinette Obama, people to help Obama crony Jonny-Boy Corzini find that “lost” $1.6 bn, and for caddies for Obama.

        Also, a GREAT market for pilots to fly Air Force One to exotic destinations.

      47. I never finished high school and never got skills. Now, I can’t find a good job. I felt liek it was my falt. Now I know, it’s Obamas falt! I used to feel bad cause I supported my boy and his mom with food stamps, food banks, and free government cheese, but since it is all Obamas falt I feel better.

      48. Maybe the jobs don’t pay much because the employees are so apathetic, think they’re Gid’s gift to whoever is lucky enough to hire them; they’re unskilled, didn’t retain anything they learned, undependable, uncaring, set limits on commitment, call in sick weekly, fake injuries, need an advance, have attached wages, don’t give a damn and need another raise, so………..perhaps business owners have cut all the responsibility out of the positions so that any untrained monkey could do it…at least until it’s automated.
        Suck it up pilgrims. It’s only slow for them that’s slow.
        You get paid for what you’re worth…..want more money? Create more value.
        What a piece of crap article.

      49. True, there are more people than there are jobs, which has been true for at least the past 25-30 years.

        BUT, many of these skilled college graduates are unwilling to relocate to wherever the job is. They are unwilling to leave their familiar turf behind, leave their friends behind, leave their personal world behind — for the sake of having a decent job and career.

        In other cases, they have a personality born of daycare, too much childhood TV, too much spoiling by double-income parents, and not enough wisdom from time spent with grandparents who came up the hard way. They have an entitlement mentality, they lack tenacity, they lack a willingness to truly work hard, they don’t like criticism, and they are disrespectful of longstanding, traditional norms and standards. They want to shack up with some easy girl, let her collect welfare as a single “mother” while they both know they are married for all intents and purposes, but simply want to milk the system, and they couldn’t care less about the morality of any of it. And they are too dense to realize that personal lifestyles like this do not indicate to an employer that they are going to be reliable, trustworthy, dedicated employees who are worth the investment cost of training and mentoring.

        They don’t appreciate having a steady job. They don’t appreciate the opportunity to even have an opportunity to have a job that gives them an opportunity to prove themselves.

        They have come of age in a society that has known nothing but good economic times since the time they were born. They haven’t had to struggle for anything more substantive than time in the high school weight room.

        Yes, there are fewer entry-level professional positions available across the country and many large employers have implemented hiring freezes — which is always a bad sign — but there are still jobs out there. It’s just more competitive because….there are more people than there are jobs.

        Deal with it.

      50. HERES WHY ARE AREN’T THERE:

        The United States has accepted two new immigrants for each additional job created since 2000, according to federal data.

        The data shows that 18 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the United States from 2000 to 2015, while only 9.3 million additional jobs were created, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors a reduced level of immigration.

        After subtracting deaths, departures and retirements among the immigrants, the working-age population of immigrants grew 12 million since 2000, according to data at the Bureau of Labor Standards, said Steve Camarota, the author of the CIS study.

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