slngsht
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Posts posted by slngsht
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I only knew about Great Falls. Thanks.
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Looks like it's machining plastic
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Filled up at 2.47. Suburban liked it
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Thanks for starting the Christmas grins early!
Had to laugh at myself....I 1st thought she looked too familiar...
Then I noticed the date.
Merry Christmas to all!
you have a good memory!
Merry Christmas
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I like how they started modding one thing, and ended up redoing the whole car. LOL
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Don't drive like my brother
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LOL. Storker
Electrics will bring hotrodding back - I hope
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I am surprised you have any intact limbs left Mazda? Especially given your love for an angle grinder! Where is that famous photo of you?....
It's been so long, I can't even find that pic. It's around here somewhere. And yes, I'm lucky to not be permanently disabled. :lol:
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ouch. On the air hose to face!
I have a similar looking cut on my index finger as the original poster. Mine is above the nail though. Happened 25 years ago. Still a minor scar to remind me.
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Buffy , wanting to earn some extra money, decided to hire herself out as a "Handywoman" and started canvassing a nearby well-to-do neighborhood.
She went to the front door of the first house, and asked the owner if he had any odd jobs for her to do.
"Well, I guess I could use somebody to paint my porch," he said, "How much will you charge me?"
Buffy quickly responded, "How about $50?"
The man agreed and told her that the paint and everything she would need were in the garage.
The man's wife, hearing the conversation, said to her husband, "Does she realize that our porch goes all the way around the house?"
He responded, "That's a bit cynical, isn't it?"
The wife replied, "You're right. I guess I'm starting to believe all those dumb blonde jokes we've been getting by e-mail lately."
A short time later, Buffy came to the door to collect her money.
"You're finished already?" the husband asked.
"Yes," Buffy replied," and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats."
Impressed, the man reached into his pocket for the $50 and handed it to her.
"And by the way," she added, "it's not a Porch, it's a Lexus."
:rofl:
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I agree there are different opinions on this... more importantly, I don't want to alienate anyone on a topic like this (and on a site dedicated to cars we all love). None of us have the ability to change it so no sense in pissing someone off about it.
As far as middle class jobs being replaced with lower paying jobs, there are many articles on it.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-jobs-growth-by-industry-wage-type-2014-6
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-recession-tech-kill-middle-class-jobs-051306434--finance.html
people only get alienated when name calling begins.
the jobless recovery mentioned in one of the articles - it's not really a recovery. It's marketed as a recovery, but it's really a market reaction to over supply of money by the fed.
I think the lack of jobs recovery is as much caused by government policies that are unfriendly to employment growth, as the blame technology gets. There are all kinds of disincentive for businesses to cross various employee count thresholds. So that drives businesses to find creative ways to not hire.
One of the articles points out growth in low paying jobs growing and mid pay jobs not. Wait till the $15 minimum wage is put in place. All of a sudden technology will be blamed for displacing even more minimum wage jobs.
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I agree on growing the pile... and yes, we don't have crystal balls to know the future. But it doesn't take a professional economist to understand that it's not just manual, low skill jobs that are disappearing anymore. And actually, evidence does show the net loss of middle income jobs; with technology playing an ever increasing role. Individual examples of career changes expressed here would be hard to replicate on a mass scale (equal to the jobs being eliminated).
I can also see "whole new companies" appearing for new things.... but that wont include lots of employees; quite the contrary. Each new company will use technology to reduce the amount of employees necessary.
Don't get me wrong. I love technology and look forward to advances that make our lives easier. I don't suggest "keeping the horse and buggy" or "make work" jobs. I'm just saying that there will come a time that most things will not require human labor and we will have to recognize it's not a matter of education or people being too lazy to change that will prevent employment.
The models of the past will not apply.
I agree time will tell. I just don't see it that way. It seems to me that the more we innovate, the more we will create new problems that must be overcome. And don't get me wrong, I long for just cutting loose from the rat race and living in the mountains.
"evidence does show the net loss of middle income jobs"
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I'm sorry but we can't all be entrepreneurs... someone has to buy the product/service. Saying the answer is more education is incorrect because, as the video demonstrates, computers are learning faster than what is being taught. Or better said, it's getting easier to teach a computer than a person.
The real question is what do we do when there is not enough demand for labor (including management)? Can't keep cutting wages due to abundant workers; who's going to buy products? Technology is advancing at an ever increasing rate. I see the have/have nots gap increasing. Some type of huge dynamic social change is going to have to occur. This is not the same as previous advancements. It probably won't affect most of us much but the next generation is in for quite a change.
Despite what the video shows, evidence right before our eyes shows that advancement in technology has not resulted in net loss of jobs or shortage of things to do.
It is exactly the same as the last generation of changes and the one before that. We will be replacing one set of problems with another. The typewriter repair man will have to find something else to do - through no fault of his own, and there will be someone starting a business replacing cracked iPhone screens.
If we happen to perfect the art of making self replicating machines, that market will be insanely competitive. It will drive the need for technical innovations in energy storage and many other fields that will be huge job generators. There will be whole new companies who will join the "have's".
The gap between the haves and the have nots - is it bigger today because the have nots have a lower standard of living than 200 years ago? 500 years ago?
There are countries in the world where the gap isn't so great. Are our have nots willing to move to other countries so they'll be closer to the haves? I'm betting not.
The focus should be on growing the pie, not debating about how to split it.
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It proves once again, the key to a job is more education. Somebody has to be the guy who invents, buys, or directs these machines...... be that guy.
more importantly, don't put policies in place that makes it very very difficult to be that guy.
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Honestly, I don't know what the alternative is. But I guess we need one. And I kind of feel bad that I am personally contributing to the problem. As Operations Manager it is MY job to save cost and make the company more profitable and accordingly we put in some automation (mechanical/handling, or or just more computerized functions) as well as just better and more effective processes that reduces labor in all areas. The company (electromechanical measurement equipment) has doubled in output since the 90s but still the same number of employees. At least we are still in the US and did not move offshore.
The call for better education, while essential for the country , may help but will not solve the problem of making people redundant. Some people just don't have it to be an engineer or any other of the fabulous new technology jobs without their own fault or being lazy. Some of the people whose jobs are lost may have the smarts but are too old to be employable after a career change (say...40). I am not talking about the people who beat the odds but the majority.
So, if there is nothing left for them to work what are they supposed to do? Obviously they could start a criminal career or go on welfare or shoot themselves. And guess what, that is what you can see happening. For the rest of the simpler work that is still done by humans, the market price drops to below a minimum to exist and since we don't usually let people starve, these folks need public assistance, too.
As mentioned in the beginning, I have no clue how to fix this. But I see a growing problem that we undo all the improvements of fairness and equitability of the last 100 years.
Well, what would you do if you were out of a job and couldn't land somewhere doing what you're comfortable with? You'd adapt, right? Learn something new, take a pay cut, do something else and climb again. This is not a hypothetical for me - i've lived it twice.
I don't believe I'm any better than anyone else. It is not my job to solve other people's problem, with the exception of the disabled, elderly - people who are truly unable to take care of themselves.
It is perfectly natural for someone who used to be successful at making a living in a certain field to be out of work due to innovation or market forces - no fault of their own. The more society is expected to protect their job, the worse off we all are. Same goes for minimum wage. The idea of minimum wage jobs becoming a career is ridiculous. Those are supposed to be undesirable jobs to people with work experience. Starter jobs.
Anytime you find yourself needing to "protect" a job sector, by definition you're doing something that you're not very efficient at (some other country or technology is doing it better). Everyone is better off by not protecting their uncompetitive sectors. It's simple logic.
There is only one "fix" . remove barriers to market force and let the market sort it out. Fiddling with the market does not solve any problem. It just shifts problems from one part of the economy to another, and in the process creates a bigger central authority - one that can be bought, lobbied, etc... The example is right in front of us now.
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Unlike the horse, humans will adapt and invent. Except those looking for a "living wage" working a minimum wage job for a career.
What is the alternative?
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I don't understand how any group can think their way is the absolute right way when they have to use force, not reason, to get people to go along.
um, you just described most of human history.
I'm no expert, but not all forms of socialism "believe in a fixed amount of wealth" for the rich. In fact, I've never seen a cap on what you can earn in a socialistic society (now communism is another thing all together). I believe the goal of a socialistic government, like Norway for instance, is more a minimum level of services for all in society. And some of the rich don't see how this benefits them. Kind of the "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of thing.
"minimum level of services" - who determines this? what do you do with people who just take it and contribute nothing? I have not seen a cap on wealth creation either, unless you call 75% - 100% tax rate a "cap" (see France).
As for ISIS - the problem is chaos on the ground, and lack of clarity from people who can stop them. Again, this is true for most human history, whether it's country, group or individual behavior (think of how you personally treat filing your income tax, vs paying sales tax on internet purchases - both are required by law, one comes with a big stick).
Just like Hamas and Israel, when one group has the stated goal of wanting to completely destroy a whole people, that's the end of negotiation. You don't go to war on a whim, but when you go in, you have to go to totally dominate until the enemy is COMPLETELY defeated. We are not willing to fight that war - therefore groups like ISIS, Taliban, [fill in the blank] exist and continue to morph.
ISIS will only respond to getting its butt kicked - that is what they understand. They have a goal and they're willing to do anything to achieve it. Anything. They're a small army with no navy, no air force, no capability to make weapons, and they're killing innocent people while our leaders are busy playing golf without a plan.
Nations in the middle east are not ready for democracy. The institutions and way of thinking required by the common man for a civil society to thrive do not exist there. It's not a coincidence that it doesn't work.
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oh, they're around...
interestingly I was talking to a French cop who works just outside Paris. In her opinion, the real extremists are actually French born (to immigrant families), not those who actually migrated themselves.
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have fun, keep the shiny side up
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Did anyone see that poll that shows 16% in France, 7% in Britain, 2% in Germany actually support the savages at ISIS.
I'm actually having misgivings about having gone to Britain on several holidays and bought my British car from a British dealer.
not much surprises me anymore :nonod:
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Lol
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Scot gave me a ride in his Superlight R around Summit Point a number of yrs ago. Yellow-orange. Believe he lives in Northern Virginia. Trying to track him down to ask some questions about his car. Appreciate it if anyone has any contact info for him.
Thanks,
Jim
send me a PM, I'll call him and give him your number.
Thanks.
Dang the Luck!
in Off Topic
Posted
Lol