Middle Class[Income] Jobs ain't Coming Back?

[bUU]

Or rather, please don't argue against nonsensical extreme perversions of what people write, which you make up in your own mind, just because you don't want to address the actual points they made.

Can we go back to discussing the issue, now?

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU Or rather, please don't argue against nonsensical extreme perversions of what people write, which you made up in your own mind, just because you don't want to address the actual points they made.

[bUU]

Predictable.

[Bestwifeever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo OK everyone, please ignore any statements made by any poster that don't actually mean what they say.

And who also continues to discuss something after they suggest others stop discussing it? :d

Loving this thread.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU There's no real need to worry about who should and shouldn't work: Everyone who can, should. If society incurs lower productivity from that, so be it. There are no dividends to society from increased productivity at the expense of utilization. Productivity must be able to stand on its own, to be worthy, not steal from full employment.

Da, Tovarisch.

[brewer12345]

Sometimes I would really love to see the "leader board" of which posters were most ignored by other forum participants.

[ziggy29]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU To the extent that's the case, it makes what ziggy29 said all-the-more important.

Thanks, but I'm still trying to reconcile statements like these with a suggestion that "everyone who can work, should work." That seems to contradict the opinion that we are entering a new economic reality that is increasingly rendering labor as obsolete.

[bUU]

What you wrote was this:

Quote:

The bottom line to me is that we can't both have a prosperous society in labor becomes less and less necessary *and* a society that continues to demonize the chronically underemployed as slackers who don't deserve our help.

It is the inconsistency that is invalid. My question earlier was ignored, but is critical in this... I asked: Who here believes that welfare is better for the poor than good jobs? It is clear that a lot of people here don't like the idea of society's responsibilities, because they know that if they're part of something that has responsibilities it means that their own personal advantage is thereby limited, but the answer to this question is critical. On the left you have the people who think that welfare is the right approach. On the right you have people who think letting people die in the streets is the right approach. What you point out here is that the extremes are both wrong... supporting a compromise perspective that respects both those who have good paying jobs and respects those who want them. It seems that respect is the biggest loser in all this, in more ways than just those we're discussing.

[Keim]

This. Is. Hilarious.

I will now go on for several posts explaining the context (real and imagined) of the above claimed hilarity while growing increasingly agitated.

[NotMyFault]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Sometimes I would really love to see the "leader board" of which posters were most ignored by other forum participants.

I have never "ignored" anyone because I assumed it would make the threads disjointed and hard to follow. is this not the case?

NMF

[ziggy29]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bUU My question earlier was ignored, but is critical in this... I asked: Who here believes that welfare is better for the poor than good jobs?

No one.

But you can't wave a magic wand and conjure up good jobs out of thin air when the market is saying it doesn't need any more of them. And even if you conjured up all those good jobs, you'd also have to "conjure up" the education and training the poor would need to successfully compete for them.

[Bestwifeever]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotMyFault I have never "ignored" anyone because I assumed it would make the threads disjointed and hard to follow. is this not the case? NMF

No need to use "ignore" to make certain threads disjointed and hard to follow .

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotMyFault I have never "ignored" anyone because I assumed it would make the threads disjointed and hard to follow. is this not the case? NMF

No, it actually greatly improves the experience in any cases. If you think you are missing something, you can always selectively look at individual posts of the ignored. Generally after looking at 2 or 3 posts I am reminded of why I put them on ignore in the first place.

[bUU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29 No one. But you can't wave a magic wand and conjure up good jobs out of thin air when the market is saying it doesn't need any more of them. And even if you conjured up all those good jobs, you'd also have to "conjure up" the education and training the poor would need to successfully compete for them.

Correct. That's the challenge for society, to address those things you've written as problems it is obligated to address - not as foregone conclusions that society callously disregards.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NotMyFault I have never "ignored" anyone because I assumed it would make the threads disjointed and hard to follow. is this not the case?

I took advantage of the ignore feature a few minutes ago. Contrary to your concerns, it markedly improved a number of threads, especially this one.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29 Creative destruction is still in play -- but it doesn't work the way it used to for two main reasons: 1. It is occurring on the global economy, not a single nation's economy. So even if "obsolete" good jobs are replaced by theoretically "better" jobs elsewhere, they are still flowing to where labor costs are lowest. So it no longer helps a laid off worker in a dying industry in their home country the way it used to. 2. Many of the software and "information" jobs do not scale in terms of jobs to demand. If you triple the demand for a software product or an information service, you don't need 3x as many people to "build" them. In fact, you barely need more jobs at all as when demand was 1/3 as high. Contrast that to the "old" economy where usually, when demand tripled, you needed close to 3x as many people to build product to meet the demand. (And I haven't even touched on the growth of robots in manufacturing to further dampen the job growth with increased demand.)

Good points. Probably stating the obvious, but doesn't #1 suggest standard of living is going to have to converge among global competitor countries? That's a foreign (pun intended) to most Americans/westerners. There have always been emerging countries, but not of the scale we're seeing now, and that genie isn't likely to go back in the bottle.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Good points. Probably stating the obvious, but doesn't #1 suggest standard of living is going to have to converge among global competitor countries? That's a foreign (pun intended) to most Americans/westerners. There have always been emerging countries, but not of the scale we're seeing now, and that genie isn't likely to go back in the bottle.

Perhaps, but if so at what level will the convergence take place? Seems to me places like China and Brazil are working on cinverging toward 1st world levels.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Perhaps, but if so at what level will the convergence take place? Seems to me places like China and Brazil are working on cinverging toward 1st world levels.

I would assume it has to be someone in between, but if that's not true, better for all concerned. I assume the lack of real pay increases for the middle class is in part the leveling of standard of living between the west and emerging/BRIC countries. Where creative destruction in the US worked well when it was almost entirely in the US, now it's destruction of mature industries in rich countries often with creation in poorer countries it seems. As many have pointed out, less so in the case of leading edge/innovative industry where creation offshore is more difficult if not impossible for a time. But I am not positive...

[bUU]

While it isn't a zero-sum game, I suspect that the first tier is so far above the second tier that there simply isn't any way, even in the medium term, for the convergence point to be at or above our level (which, of course, is already reflection some of the downward pressure).

[samclem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo +1 Tiresome to see yet another thread where someone apparently wants to bicker for sport.

It's not even as good as that. I think we've been found by a 'bot that generates random contradictions and plausible-sounding but entirely nonsensical platitudes.