General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWithin 10 Years Most Workers Will Be "Task Rabbits". R. Reich.
Beware of the new economy now facing most workers in the longer term. The trend is to make most jobs contingency or contract jobs just like Uber. Employers are more about getting rid of jobs rather than creating more jobs. And they are on a roll to eliminate jobs that have the traditional protections that jobs used to have
Such trends mean major job "insecurity" for most workers and virtually no protections. What we see is Reagan hath wrought and intended in the 1980's. I do not understand why workers are willing to accept this fate and remain so anti union.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Kath1
(4,309 posts)I am experiencing that personally right now. I need 4 more years to reach 30 years there to retire and they are putting us through so much shit it is unbelievable. They really want to make conditions so miserable that long-time employees like me quit. I'll spare the gory details. It is a major insurance company and they are ruthless and heartless with employees just as well as their customers.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)settles in for good. I will personally be there myself. Given that I am getting by on two extra jobs to supplement my pension and even then, shit, I will be ready to march. People will only watch their kids go hungry so long while the fuck sticks laugh at us. Hence, the primal scream of Bernie and Trump.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)in the future. Even those holding jobs they feel are immune to this will find their jobs whisked away. And to take it a step further, about any job can be performed, eventually, in the future by software and/or robotics. One day the discussion will become, what is the worth of humanity. I hope that will be able to be answered in a mature and responsible manner. The current concept of what a job is will be totally obsolete in the future.
appalachiablue
(41,132 posts)and what does it take to convince and try to prepare them I wonder. Many are unaware, the corporate media has no compunction to inform them, the government is compromised and they will be blindsided.
Nay
(12,051 posts)dollars when they are in their 30's or 40's to prepare for never having a decent job again. Corporate people, of course, know it's gonna happen because they are the ones directly causing the loss of jobs. They don't care. We are just a cost to them, and as soon as they can make us go away, it'll be more money for them. They don't care if we go die in a corner somewhere -- in fact, that's preferable; we should go die quietly and get out of the way of our betters. No entity, whether govt or corp, gives a RAT'S ASS what happens to all us bottom feeders/losers/useless eaters.
appalachiablue
(41,132 posts)I know exactly what it means and 'the race' esp. for the young ones, of my own and others.
easttexaslefty
(1,554 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)That sounds crazy, but it's exactly what's happening. I work in UC Berkeley which isn't supposed to be a corporation. It's one of the most famous institutions of higher learning. But it's rapidly being turned over to an administration that is cut back to the barest of bones, all jobs being done online and believe it or not almost off shored. There are hundreds of us who in the past were part of each department doing the administrative work keeping each department viable. Then along came the concept of what Mitt Romney's Bain company did.
The Chancellor et al, because our state budget had been cut back for a few years in a row so badly that the university had to come up with something to stay afloat hired contractors, advisers to study and come up with ideas. They spent 3 million dollars doing this. To make a long story short they eventually decided to make the contractors into a department that would save the university millions (!!!!), yes, millions (!!!!) of dollars in just a mere half dozen years.
They created a thing, a kind of monstrous entity that took every person from each department that did the same things and ripped them out from the departments and housed them in a type of warehouse far from the campus to do these jobs. These were the jobs that were the very heartbeat of each department. Reimbursing research travel and entertainment (millions of dollars worth), hiring the important graduate students who actually do the teaching and the research, running the financial and budgetary issues and doing all the purchasing of scientific research essentials, and they basically off-shored them dozens of blocks away from the campus and departments.
and now, because they actually haven't saved any money and their debts are coming due, they have told us, the very people described above that there will be hundreds of layoff. Most of us find it quite questionable whether they can do this and succeed in any way. There are things about universities that don't lend themselves to the corporate way of doing business, and those of us in the trenches know this. Corporations are in the business of making a profit. Research universities like UC Berkeley are in the business of spending money in the pursuit of the betterment of humanity. But just like all this didn't matter or even cross the mind of Mitt Romney's Bain corporation because the whole point was for the company, and in this case the university is to fail.
I weep for my job which will probably be gone soon, but I also weep for the entire concept of the UC Berkeley education and research in whose students have to pay outrageous tuitions for a more mediocre education, limited by the loss of institutional memory and heart.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Kath1
(4,309 posts)It sucks for me, too. My job, which I am still doing, is moving to Georgia and I couldn't even apply for it. Apparently they pay people less there. People mean nothing and profits mean everything. Corporate America sucks.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)I know someone who retired from UC Berkeley a year or so ago. It looks like he got out in the nick of time, but the woman he lives with still works there as far as I know.
One point, though. Research universities ARE in the busness of making profits, regardless of their stated mission. The multiple administrators get huge salaries and perks. And the lowest priority is educating undergraduates, as far as I can see.
greymattermom
(5,754 posts)at the University of Kansas Medical Center. The professors are supposed to account for all of their time, and they only allow 1 hour to prepare for a lecture. Soon everything will be old podcasts and no one will care. Doctors from India are cheap and willing to practice in the outback. Why have education at all when it can be outsourced?
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Oh, hold that thought..... just been called for DU Jury Duty.....
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)
Thread winner. Sadly.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts) Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)We'll be put to work maintaining the robots. We'll keep them all shiny and new.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)More reliable, and don't require that 8 year development plus nine months in the womb before they become useful.
Face it. We're all screwed.
Even our current 'overlords'.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Or maybe not. They'll just let us all die. Problem solved.
But what happens to the overlords of the robots?
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)since the mid-1970s. Henry Kissinger was saying 40 years ago that the people he referred to as "useless eaters" were going to have to be dramatically thinned out and that manipulation of food supplies was the easiest way to do it. He was talking about the Third World then. Now it's going to be turned on Americans.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)
Response to Xipe Totec (Reply #7)
1000words This message was self-deleted by its author.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)
MowCowWhoHow III
(2,103 posts)Javaman
(62,530 posts)that's how they will take over.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Yes, more people may have jobs but yes, they are too often contract jobs with little or more likely no benefits
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)Hardly sligned with your claims.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Median income is not increasing.
As for uninsured, you might have heard about this thing called "Obamacare".
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)mythology
(9,527 posts)If you go back to 1967, median income has increased 21% after accounting for inflation.
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Real-Median-Household-Income-Growth.php
That said, obviously the growing income inequality is a significant problem and more needs to be done to address it.
JonLeibowitz
(6,282 posts)LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)The other 99% have been screwed.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)Sometimes, moving the goalposts does not actually produce any knowledge.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
hatrack
(59,587 posts)
DebbieCDC
(2,543 posts)"consumers didn't spend as much shopping on black Friday this year"
Well who the hell can afford to shop on the less than living wage most people make?
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)getting a degree because it's the only way to get a job above Junior Sales Assistant and spending money on rent!
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Over the past decade and a half or so, I've been noticing a firm steady push of management practices that scream "Taylorism", and with increasing levels of micromagement to monitor it. It's so obvious.
They say ( business...fucking "job creators" and such ) want skilled employees. That's just public relations BS fluff: They just want compliant/scared/desperate drones that do what they say at every juncture. It's the very essense of Taylorism: To de-skill work.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)You can go back to the whole Luddite thing with that. Probably even further back if you want.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Few workers understood what going to a service economy meant in 1981. But we are seeing the culmination of the Reagan Revolution. Tham means workers get screwed. A "service economy" is a generally low wage and low job security kind of economy. And the attack on unions was crucial to that transformation.
A "task rabbit" or "contingency" frees employers from paying Social Security, unemployment insurance, workman's compensation, and benefits that traditional jobs provide. "Task rabbit" jobs push all those costs on to the worker. The problem is that the wages paid for the work DOES NOT cover those costs and the saving for the employer go into PROFIT.
kentuck
(111,097 posts)Why did he leave the Clinton Administration?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)He reached what I call the Popeye point - "I've had all I can stands and I can't stands no more."
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Millennials scorn UNIONS?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Nope.
TBF
(32,062 posts)we in socialist circles have been talking about this for years. There has got to be a better way to manage resources on this planet for the good of everyone (not just the 1% of capitalists who own/control everything globally).
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)There, I said it.
None of these anti-human developments are bugs of capitalism, they are designed-in features.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Greed/capitalism and religious superstition, both of which humanity should have long outgrown by now, are the twin altars at which the species is gleefully, idiotically sacrificing itself.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)What does that even mean? Are we on some predetermined ascension? By this year we should be at X, the next year at Y? Our concept of time only exists in our imaginations anyway. As real as God. There's no 2015, or 21st century.
Wanting to fix a broken leg, or increasing crop yields year after year, or wanting more and more people to live longer, these, among other things that are part of human progress, are all examples of greed. They're all things that we use to out-compete other species, and are helping to change the environment as much as the pay of CEO's.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)thanks to the Greeks, before the Library at Alexandria and its irreplaceable treasure trove of knowledge were destroyed by xtians who regarded all sclence as literally diabolical. That, and the slavish desire to make the whole of the world serve an invisible skydaddy, set the west back more than a thousand years. There was no real recovery in Europe until Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo, with Newton coming along shortly thereafter.
The profit motive, especially as currently constituted as the only motive that matters, need not have hijacked the entirety of the human race in the last 150-200 years.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)And every organized effort wants to make the world in its own image.
Profit can be defined in numerous ways. One can be money. Another can be making the end of a stick just a little sharper. Or finding a longer stick. Figuring out what seeds to plant when and where. Finding a cure for cancer. Also greed.
I was mostly just questioning your use of the word should. Should according to who? To what? There's no objective right or wrong. Right and wrong have always depended on who wins. That's why people came up with God/gods/whatever in the first place. It's our attempt to give existence objectivity, which it doesn't have. It's why we came up with money. Trying to standardize objectivity. Money has value because we all agree that it has value. Or, enough people agree that everyone has to agree. We all agree that it's 2015, even though no such thing exists outside of our heads. Talk about a slavish serving of an invisible concept.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)the Iron Age maunderings of random Middle Eastern goat-herders by now.
These people thought the entirety of the cosmos was a few hundred miles all watched over by a genocidal and psychopathic skydaddy of their own invention.
Continuing to believe 2000-3000 year old myths is not compatible with any kind of moral or intellectual progress. A Church of Elvis would make more sense. That Elvis actually existed can be proven..
I am ready to join the church of Elvis if you're starting one.The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Moral and intellectual progress isn't a given. It's another idea of our own invention. Maunderings of random people in a non-existent 21st century.
Some people think a skydaddy should exist, others think something else should exist. Evolution and adaptation aren't linear. It's not going in any one or certain direction. Some people discard things, others don't. Diversity is messy.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)During the Roman Empire, the water wheel, one of man's greatest invention, was known at the time of Christ in the Middle East, but took almost 500 years to reach Gaul. The heavy plow was known in Asia Minor about 200 bc, but did not reach Western Europe till the Slavs took it to Western Europe in the 600s. Without the Heavy Plow, farming north of the Alps was almost impossible. With the plow, what had been pasture during the Roman Empire, came to be farmlands, even as the world's temperatures decline after about 300 AD.
While it appears Rome had the Ball Bearing (they were used on Ships built by Nero) there is NO evidence of that knowledge being shared till the 600s, when what we would call the modern axle came into use. The modern Axle is a solid axle that does NOT turn, instead ball bearings are installed when the wheel and axle meet and the weight of the axle is transmitted to the wheel via the ball bearings. This ONLY became the norm in what is commonly referred to as the "Dark Ages'.
The horse collar is another invention of about 900 AD, given little weight for like most such invention it helped the lower 99% not the top 1%.
Chinese Iron manufacturing, a much better system then the European Iron making methods, entered Europe in the 600s, as Christianity took over Europe.
We do not think of Hay as an invention, but prior to the 600s it did NOT exist. Your animals ate what they could find when BEING used as a beast of burden. Hay permitted keeping more animals over the winter, thus permitting more horses and oxen to survive to haul items.
If we go into the High Middle ages (1000-1500), you have the invention of the Rudder. Technically the Chinese had a type of Rudder during the time of Christ and the Arabs were using a variation by 900 AD, but Europe improved on these to make the pintle-and-gudgeon rudder around 1180.
The introduction of Linen paper into Europe in the 1300s, lead to the invention of movable type in the 1400s. The reason for this was simple, the primary paper prior to Linen was parchment. Parchment is animal skin. Yes books prior to the 1300s would cost more then a leather Jacket, for that was the alternative use for the animal skin people wrote on to keep records. Papyrus was a competitor to Parchment till the 400s, but Papyrus do not last as long in wet climates as does Parchment and was only produced in Egypt. Thus writings prior to 1300 was rare for books cost a lot of money, books written before the 1300s were intended to be read by readers who were paid to read the books to large groups. People either paid the reader to hear the stories in the books OR the reader read the books because he had been paid by its Author (This is why Caesar wrote his commentaries. they were propaganda written to be read to his supporters among the Roman Lower Classes, for he knew he needed their support and that support could be obtained through keeping his name in front of them).
Linen Paper made printing books for sale to more people possible. Linen comes from Flax and it was the same material used in shirts before Cotton became the norm for Shirts. Pulp Paper, the paper we used today was NOT invented till 1801 and not into general use till the 1820s (and one of the reason for the invention of the Public School Systems in the US in the 1830s was for the first time you had the ability to produce books people could read and then toss away, something people could NOT afford to do even with Linen Paper).
The above inventions have one thing in common, they helped the poor. The button is another invention, unknown to the Ancient Romans but entered common use during the 'Dark Ages'. It appears that many of the above inventions were spread by the Missionaries sent to convert people, and since these missionaries had access to the above knowledge, people would seek them out, get this new information in addition to the teachings of Christianity. This all lead to the spread of the above inventions and Christianity after 300 AD.
In simple terms, if you looking at things that benefitted the bottom 99%, look to the Dark Ages and Christianization of Europe. If your concern is things that affect the top 1% then look to Ancient Times, and mostly the Roman Empire. You can NOT build on mud, and without the poor benefiting from the technology you are building on Mud. That was one of the problems of the Ancient World. The bottom 99% had less knowledge of the Science being used then, then we do today, and the reason for that difference is the Inventions of the Dark ages, 300 AD till 1000 AD in addition to the inventions of the last 300 years (going back to the Watt Steam engine of the early 1700s).
As to the Great Library of Alexandria, here is a site that says all the evidence we do have points to Julius Caesar in 47 to 48 BC:
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm
We have some other candidates, but most are ignored for if they destroyed the Great Library, it does not help anyone's agenda of today:
In 391 we come up to the 'Christian Destruction" of the Library:
That web site then goes in the Arab Burning of the library and dismisses it.
Wikipedia also tends to point to Caesar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_Alexandria#Decree_of_Theodosius.2C_destruction_of_the_Serapeum_in_391
Here is a web site that makes the point that the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus "destroyed' the library as part of his policy of cutting costs (austerity) and thus it was NEVER destroyed, it just rotted away from deferred maintenance. Marcus Aurelius died c 180 AD, given the problems that hit the Roman Empire after him, I doubt the library survived till 250 AD let alone the Christian Era:
http://io9.com/the-great-library-at-alexandria-was-destroyed-by-budget-1442659066
My favorite story of what happened to the Great Library of Alexandria is that it was sent to Constantinople by the Emperor Julian. The Great Library of Constantinople had been founded in 330 AD by Julian's Uncle Emperor Constantius II (son of Constantine). There is some evidence (and I admit one or two sentence is very small evidence and that is all we have) Julian had arranged for the books to be transferred to Constantinople. Julian opposed the Christianization of the Empire that Constantine and Constantius II had embraced, but he supported the increased centralization of power that was part of that policy. Thus Julian wanted as much what we would call 'Data' or 'Information' around him as possible, which was also the policy of Constantine and Constantius II before him (Through Constantine and Constantius II saw Christianity as something to unite the Empire, Julian rejected that position).
Anyway the theory is Julian stole the books and the books arrived in Constantinople while he was on his campaign against the Persians. In that Campaign he was killed by a Persian in combat. At his death he had no children so the Army elected one of their own as Emperor. The new Emperor turned out to be Christian who then furthered the policies of Constantine and Constantius II, including the Christianization of the Empire. Now, the new Emperor wanted the books stolen from the Great Library in Constantinople but he had NOT ordered it, Julian had. Julian being dead, there was no benefit to the new Emperor to give credit to Julian and since the New Emperor could not claim it himself, the books were put into the Great Library of Constantinople till it was destroyed, either during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 (the only crusade CONDEMNED by the Vatican as it was proceeding) or the taking of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks. The sacking of Constantinople in 1204 was followed by a massive increase in Greek and Roman knowledge being seen in Italy, it is the start of the Renaissance thus it is possible the books of the Great Library of Alexandria survived in Constantinople till 1204, and then slowly moved to Italy during the "Latin Empire" of 1204 till 1261 AD.
http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=1730
Sorry, Gibbon appears to be the person who invented the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria by the Christians in 391, for he did not want to blame Caesar. Some commentators say Gibbon did not want to blame the Arabs, but Gibbon was anti-Catholic (and Anti-Orthodox) not really Anti-Christain. Gibbon attack both Catholics and Orthodox when he attacks 'Christians' in the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' but it is clear he is NOT attacking the Protestants of his own time period (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ends in 1453 when the Turks take Constantinople, more then 50 years before the start of the Protestant Reformation, thus Gibbon could use the term 'Christians" and the people of his time period knew that meant Catholics and Orthodox NOT Protestants).
Once you understand Gibbon's prejudice, it becomes clear why he is considered Anti-Christian. Gibbon disliked the poor of his time period, for they tended to remain Catholic much longer then the wealthier segments of English Society. Thus Gibbon blamed the poor for not supporting the Roman Empire and why the Empire fell. Gibbon puts this rejection of the Empire on the Poor due to the Poor's adoption of Christianity NOT the overall decline in how the poor were living and treated under the Empire. i.e. Gibbon said Rome could not fight its enemy for Christianity made the Roman People to weak to want to fight the barbarians. Modern Scholars see the economics of the Empire leading to economic decay of the lower classes and the lower 99% respond to that decline by abandoning their old religion and embracing Christianity. In effect modern Scholars see the Christianization of the Empire after Constantine as the people of the Empire reacting to economic and military decline NOT the cause of that decline.
I bring up Gibbon for his book is the first book to mention the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria. It is a story that has survived to this day, but the sources Gibbon cites do NOT support such a story. It is an example of someone saying something and people accepting it to be true even when it is not.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)
Octafish
(55,745 posts)We have to pay for our equipment, room and board, oh, and health care.
Ask about charter schools.
