- 26 Jul 2015 17:20
#14586735
Construction workers still do reasonably well, but they suffered hugely in the last recession and a lot of people simply left that business. It's much more stratfied now. Retail, except for unionized grocery clerks, were never all that high paying unless you owned the business. Small mom and pops are a thing of the past. That's technological. However, a lot of back office service work used to be middle class, and has now moved off to India. I finally got a team to help me. One guy in KC, but two others are in Czech Republic and India respectively. For example, call center jobs would have been unprofitable overseas before Global Crossing on just the taxes alone. However, VoIP + fiber made it possible to outsource entire divisions of companies overseas. I said that would happen. That's where I see all the pressure.
Yet I have to pay for things like Worker's Compensation and Disabilty--things that are serious matters and very needful if you have occupations like mining, logging, smelting, and other heavy industry. In computer science, it's overhead. It just makes more sense to go hire someone from the Czech Republic, because you don't have to deal with all that red tape.
The problem is that you can't do that without hurting the poorest first. There's an interesting read called, "The Second Machine Age, that deals with automation very well. When I talk about the return of "Driving Miss Daisy," I'm not kidding. However, it will be more technologically driven, like Uber, and thus inherently more efficient. The tax code isn't structured to favor that sort of thing. Uber just competes with taxis now, but it won't be long before local delivery services get revolutionized along those lines. Imagine a service that comes and picks up your laundry--knowing what belongs to who--takes it off site, washes, drys, irons and/or folds, returns and stores hangs, etc. That will always be a working class job, but it would certainly be in more demand if it were a tax deduction to procure services that can't be outsourced.
What we ultimately need is cost reform. People are forced to go to a doctor for everything. Nurse practitioners are gaining in popularity, but so much can be done without a doctorate. It's insane that we have such an inefficient system. What we need is incentives to get costs down without sacrificing quality. Most of that involves administering tests and interpreting results. Many tests do not require a doctor.
Well they spoke of "trade offsets" for TPP, but I think the country is close to a tipping point as the promises of GATT, NAFTA, MFN status for China, etc. have not led to much structural reform in the US. The old welfare system is built on nationalism, and those days are behind us.
Yeah, but it's more than that. We have problems like Marines, unarmed by regulation, getting shot to death at recruiting centers. We have a black man getting killed over supporting the Confederate flag, because he sees it as a symbol against the federal welfare state. We have young millennials that shoot up, black churches. We have more blacks killed every year by other blacks than the Iraq War. We have a riot-inciting president. We have a do-nothing Congress. We have a Supreme Court that finds "gay marriage" in the Fourteenth Amendment when sodomy was illegal in every state until 1961. We have Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner depicted as a "hero." All of this seems to be aimed at hiding the fact that 90M people are out of work, and ObamaCare has made working class people have to take two part time jobs with no healthcare benefits. The 20th Century welfare state is potentially nearing collapse.
Drlee wrote:You know I feel the same way. I am sure you will not agree with this but here is one thing that has happened. We destroyed our middle class. The middle class once included clerks, retail workers, construction workers, medical technologists of one kind or another and such. These people have all been relegated to the working/underpaid classes now.
Construction workers still do reasonably well, but they suffered hugely in the last recession and a lot of people simply left that business. It's much more stratfied now. Retail, except for unionized grocery clerks, were never all that high paying unless you owned the business. Small mom and pops are a thing of the past. That's technological. However, a lot of back office service work used to be middle class, and has now moved off to India. I finally got a team to help me. One guy in KC, but two others are in Czech Republic and India respectively. For example, call center jobs would have been unprofitable overseas before Global Crossing on just the taxes alone. However, VoIP + fiber made it possible to outsource entire divisions of companies overseas. I said that would happen. That's where I see all the pressure.
Yet I have to pay for things like Worker's Compensation and Disabilty--things that are serious matters and very needful if you have occupations like mining, logging, smelting, and other heavy industry. In computer science, it's overhead. It just makes more sense to go hire someone from the Czech Republic, because you don't have to deal with all that red tape.
Drlee wrote:The move for an increased minimum wage is a great start. One argument against it is that it will push jobs overseas. What jobs? Every little Middlesex, village and farm in the country will be better off.
The problem is that you can't do that without hurting the poorest first. There's an interesting read called, "The Second Machine Age, that deals with automation very well. When I talk about the return of "Driving Miss Daisy," I'm not kidding. However, it will be more technologically driven, like Uber, and thus inherently more efficient. The tax code isn't structured to favor that sort of thing. Uber just competes with taxis now, but it won't be long before local delivery services get revolutionized along those lines. Imagine a service that comes and picks up your laundry--knowing what belongs to who--takes it off site, washes, drys, irons and/or folds, returns and stores hangs, etc. That will always be a working class job, but it would certainly be in more demand if it were a tax deduction to procure services that can't be outsourced.
Drlee wrote:I agree with Trump about single-payer. It would stimulate our economy by about 900 billion a year (if we spend 1.5 times what the UK does per patient).
What we ultimately need is cost reform. People are forced to go to a doctor for everything. Nurse practitioners are gaining in popularity, but so much can be done without a doctorate. It's insane that we have such an inefficient system. What we need is incentives to get costs down without sacrificing quality. Most of that involves administering tests and interpreting results. Many tests do not require a doctor.
Drlee wrote:Or that money could be used to pay off government debt, fund social security....name your poison. Most importantly it would remove a huge burden from business and allow them to create jobs rather than worry about benefit costs.
Well they spoke of "trade offsets" for TPP, but I think the country is close to a tipping point as the promises of GATT, NAFTA, MFN status for China, etc. have not led to much structural reform in the US. The old welfare system is built on nationalism, and those days are behind us.
Drlee wrote:I think the main reason that this is a "weird place" now is that people are genuinely fearful about their future.
Yeah, but it's more than that. We have problems like Marines, unarmed by regulation, getting shot to death at recruiting centers. We have a black man getting killed over supporting the Confederate flag, because he sees it as a symbol against the federal welfare state. We have young millennials that shoot up, black churches. We have more blacks killed every year by other blacks than the Iraq War. We have a riot-inciting president. We have a do-nothing Congress. We have a Supreme Court that finds "gay marriage" in the Fourteenth Amendment when sodomy was illegal in every state until 1961. We have Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner depicted as a "hero." All of this seems to be aimed at hiding the fact that 90M people are out of work, and ObamaCare has made working class people have to take two part time jobs with no healthcare benefits. The 20th Century welfare state is potentially nearing collapse.
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