The Middle Class RADICALLY shinking

[alkemyst]

I also think the whole dem vs rep thing is over, it's only stopping us moving forward and making many rich.

We do banking online...why not single issue voting?

 

[drebo]

As have you. They need those wages to be able to pay for your overpriced services.

What is it that you think I do?

I work for other companies. I'm a consultant. I don't deal with the general public.

My job can't be outsourced, and I haven't met an illegal or H1B yet that can do it half as well as I can.

 

[drebo]

we need to stop allowing every fucktard to make it to college.

This is the only thing you said that is correct.

Everything else (isolationism) WILL mean the death of our country.

 

[alkemyst]

Drebo...I know 10 CCIEs. More CCxP's.

If you can say this you must be working under the table or for under $30 per hour.

Answer what the fuck you do or don't comment.

Some specialized skills do pay, but it's not a common thing like you are trying to imply unless you factor into my first statement.

 

[alkemyst]

This is the only thing you said that is correct.

Everything else (isolationism) WILL mean the death of our country.

not if we all suck it up.

We can rebuild the US easily,we have a fucking lot of land.

 

[Generator]

We're all one bad Steve Job's idea from falling into an awful abyss...living next to a black person.

I don't know what to think of the white locust that is the middle class. It probably was always unsustainable, but at least it was American. Now thats been sold out to something more honest, greed. A choice between the middle class of America or greed. I choose greed.

What is also bewildering are ideas of some revolution. Who would fight in this revolution? The deported Mexican? The imprisoned black? I doubt it, not like minorities benefited much from this consumer class.

Unfortunately it looks like we're going to be neighbors, maybe then the United States will become a truly united country.

"Won't you be my, won't you be my...my neighbor." - Mr. Rogers

 

[BoberFett]

Scored some good stuff, did ya?

 

[SammyJr]

What is it that you think I do?

I work for other companies. I'm a consultant. I don't deal with the general public.

My job can't be outsourced, and I haven't met an illegal or H1B yet that can do it half as well as I can.

Here's the problem with your logic.

1. What happens when the companies you work for lose money due to the collapse of the American middle class and can't pay your wages? What if they decide to just head overseas since they don't have any reason to stay in the U.S. anymore?

2. Who says an H1-B can't equal or exceed your ability? Anyway, it doesn't matter. You're more expensive than an H1-B. Things will catch up to you.

Your faith in Free Trade and your own ability won't save you from the reality of the situation.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Scored some good stuff, did ya?

For a minute, I thought it was a new incarnation of Moonbeam.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

What is it that you think I do?

I work for other companies. I'm a consultant. I don't deal with the general public.

My job can't be outsourced, and I haven't met an illegal or H1B yet that can do it half as well as I can.

What is your job function, if I may ask?

 

[drebo]

Drebo...I know 10 CCIEs. More CCxP's.

If you can say this you must be working under the table or for under $30 per hour.

Answer what the fuck you do or don't comment.

Some specialized skills do pay, but it's not a common thing like you are trying to imply unless you factor into my first statement.

I run an ITSP that I built from the ground up. Cisco classes don't teach you how to do that. Hell, I'm not aware of any classes that do.

I also provide software programming and network engineering, but my main function is to develop and implement new telephony technologies for my customers (mostly businesses, though we're expanding into residential).

That being said, a guy in a chair in India can't diagnose a failed network drop in a dental office in California. Nor can he repair it. There are some things he can do, but there are a lot of things that outsourced people cannot do. Outsourcing is not the biggest problem our economy faces, because the vast majority of jobs cannot be outsourced.

You can't outsource a gasoline attendant or a greeter at Walmart. You can't outsource a janitor. You can't outsource a stockroom attendant. Paying them market wages should be our priority. If we pay them inflated wages, we will suffer inflation which makes us automatically less competitive in the global market.

Buying power (the only measure of wealth that matters) does not increase for the lower class (minimum wage or slightly above earners) as minimum wage increases. It stays the same. However, when minimum wage increases, buying power is REDUCED for the middle class, because it's unlikely that their wages will be affected (those that make between 2 and 4 times minimum wage), yet everything they buy will increase in price. THIS is what is destroying the middle class.

 

[Phokus]

You can't outsource a gasoline attendant or a greeter at Walmart. You can't outsource a janitor. You can't outsource a stockroom attendant. Paying them market wages should be our priority. If we pay them inflated wages, we will suffer inflation which makes us automatically less competitive in the global market.

GOSH GOLLEE, we can't outsource walmart/janitor jobs?!?!?! Whew! For a second there i thought the middle class was in trouble!

 

[drebo]

GOSH GOLLEE, we can't outsource walmart/janitor jobs?!?!?! Whew! For a second there i thought the middle class was in trouble!

Sewing clothes and basic, minor assembly is not, and never was, middle class work.

Major assembly (auto, etc) is middle class work. However, in case you failed to notice, we're not really outsourcing this kind of labor.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

That being said, a guy in a chair in India can't diagnose a failed network drop in a dental office in California. Nor can he repair it. There are some things he can do, but there are a lot of things that outsourced people cannot do. Outsourcing is not the biggest problem our economy faces, because the vast majority of jobs cannot be outsourced.

You might be right in terms of the sheer number of jobs which would be too difficult or impossible to outsource; however, the examples you used illustrate the problem:

1. We can't outsource janitors
2. We can't outsource Wal Mart employees (or retail in general)
3. We can't outsource gasoline attendants

Ok, what do these jobs or categories have in common? ANSWER: Low pay and few or no benefits. How can society thrive if the middle class is largely reduced to having to take those jobs? Jobs in those categories have traditionally been filled by teenagers, retired people looking for a little extra $$, or unfortunately, people who have no other skills and must accept them.

Engineering and IT functions are being outsourced. Tech support is being outsourced. Heck, even many legal functions are being outsourced. And I haven't even begun to mention manufacturing. It's great you have your own successful business, but you are in the extreme minority.

We MUST have a thriving and successful middle class. To those who ignore that point or say "it isn't my problem" ignore reality.

 

[SammyJr]

Sewing clothes and basic, minor assembly is not, and never was, middle class work.

Tell that to the Southeast. They used to have make clothing, towels, and other textiles as well as furniture. $12/hr plus benefits is solidly middle class in many, many communities there. But yet, I'm sure it is better for someone that all those people are now on welfare/disability and pray for a minimum wage call center or Home Depot to open.

 

[1prophet]

Just because it seems that everyone forgot...

American consumers could have nipped this in the bud by buying American made products when the great outsourcing began. Everyone wanted their cheap shit though, and now we're paying the price. We've imported cheap electronics and shoes, and exported our future.

You can blame those big, nasty, evil, corporations and their wealthy overlords if you want. But they just gave Americans what they begged for. More cheap shit.

Americans never begged for anything, corporations using Edward Bernays psychological tricks of enabling our hidden desires were able to manipulate people into believing what is best for the corporations was actually best for themselves.

People who are undisciplined or lacking in intellectual or definite moral principles, are vulnerable to unconscious influence and thus susceptible to want things that they do not need. This is achieved by linking those products and ideas to their unconscious desires.

In order to see through and resist such temptations requires a strong mind capable of critical thinking and the self discipline to resist immediate gratifications and cheap temptations today at the expense of tomorrow.

Unfortunately such a person is abhorred because their thinking naturally questions the herd mentality that is constantly promoted today through the schools, media and advertising.

One of Bernays' favorite techniques for manipulating public opinion was the indirect use of "third party authorities" to plead his clients' causes. "If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway", he said. In order to promote sales of bacon, for example, he conducted a survey of physicians and reported their recommendation that people eat heavy breakfasts. He sent the results of the survey to 5,000 physicians, along with publicity touting bacon and eggs as a heavy breakfast.
Bernays also drew upon his uncle Sigmund's psychoanalytic ideas for the benefit of commerce in order to promote, by indirection, commodities as diverse as cigarettes, soap and books.
In addition to his uncle Freud, Bernays also used the theories of Ivan Pavlov.
PR industry historian Scott Cutlip describes Bernays as "perhaps the most fabulous and fascinating individual in public relations, a man who was bright, articulate to excess, and most of all, an innovative thinker and philosopher of this vocation that was in its infancy when he opened his office in New York in June 1919."

The Engineering of Consent

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"The Engineering of Consent" is an essay by Edward Bernays first published in 1947.[1] He defines "engineering consent" as a weapon which is used to manipulate people; specifically, the American public, who are described as "fundamentally irrational people... who could not be trusted."[citation needed] It maintained that entire populations, which were undisciplined or lacking in intellectual or definite moral principles, were vulnerable to unconscious influence and thus susceptible to want things that they do not need. This was achieved by linking those products and ideas to their unconscious desires. Ernest Dichter, who is widely considered to be the "father of motivational research," referred to this as "the secret-self of the American consumer."[citation needed]
In other words, consumer psychologists have already made the choice for people before they buy a certain product. This is achieved by manipulating desires on an unconscious level.
The central idea behind the engineering of consent is that the public or people should not be aware of the manipulation taking place.
The "Engineering Consent" chapter of Christopher Bryson's book "The Fluoride Deception" describes how Bernays helped the water fluoridation campaign in the USA.


[edit] Women's Smoking

Edward Bernays was responsible in the late 1920s for converting attitudes towards women's smoking from a social taboo to a socially acceptable act. Indeed an act seen as attractive and even desirable by society.
He did this by associating women's smoking with the ideas of “power” and “freedom” which he did by using the slogan “Torches of Freedom”, during a famous parade in New York City.
The idea of "Engineering of Consent" was motivated by Freud’s idea that humans are irrational beings and are motivated primarily by inner desires hidden in their unconscious. If one understood what those unconscious desires were, then one could use this to one's advantage to sell products and increase sales.
[edit] Influence

The Engineering of Consent also applies to the pioneered application of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts and techniques to business—in particular to the study of consumer behavior in the marketplace. Ideas established strongly influenced the practices of the advertising industry in the twentieth century.
The techniques applied developing the "consumer lifestyle" were also later applied to developing theories in cultural commodification; which has proven successful in the later 20th century (with diffusion of cultures throughout North America) to sell ethnic foods and style in popular mainstream culture by removing them from geography and ethnic histories and sanitizing them for a general public.
Ernest Dichter applied what he dubbed "the strategy of desire" for building a "stable society," by creating for the public a common identity through the products they consumed; again, much like with Cultural Commodification, where culture has no "identity," "meaning," or "history" inherited from previous generations, but rather, is created by the attitudes which are introduced by consumer behaviors and social patterns of the period. According to Dichter: "To understand a stable citizen, you have to know that modern man quite often tries to work off his frustrations by spending on self-sought gratification. Modern man is internally ready to fulfill his self-image, by purchasing products which compliment it."

 

[BoberFett]

Stop making excuses, pathetic loser.

 

[Engineer]

Sewing clothes and basic, minor assembly is not, and never was, middle class work.

Major assembly (auto, etc) is middle class work. However, in case you failed to notice, we're not really outsourcing this kind of labor.

From someone who worked in automotive for 17.5 years, I LOL at you for the last statement.

 

[drebo]

From someone who worked in automotive for 17.5 years, I LOL at you for the last statement.

Plants closing due to lessened demand is a symptom of the problems I'm describing, not the cause.

Nummi is closing because of lack of demand, not because Toyota is moving its production off-shore. Hell, some Asian car companies have OPENED plants in the US in recent years.

 

[Engineer]

Plants closing due to lessened demand is a symptom of the problems I'm describing, not the cause.

Nummi is closing because of lack of demand, not because Toyota is moving its production off-shore. Hell, some Asian car companies have OPENED plants in the US in recent years.

While I'm sure that demand plays a part in the recent closings, there was much offshoring up until mid 2008 that had absolutely nothing to do with demand (as record car sales ensued every year for most of the decade up to that point). Also, there are far more "automotive" manufacturing jobs than just the automotive assembly plants that foreign companies have opened in this country (thank God they are at least moving some of that here).

I can assure you that the 8 plants that my company opened in Mexico while closing down 5 US plants had nothing to do with demand and everything to do with cheap Mexican labor. The same goes for closing down my tooling plant with 35 people (over 1,000 years of experience) only to move the tooling to Mexico and Korea.

 

[drebo]

I can assure you that the 8 plants that my company opened in Mexico while closing down 5 US plants had nothing to do with demand and everything to do with cheap Mexican labor. The same goes for closing down my tooling plant with 35 people (over 1,000 years of experience) only to move the tooling to Mexico and Korea.

Blame that on NAFTA (which I also oppose).

 

[Engineer]

Blame that on NAFTA (which I also oppose).

How about the skilled trade machine builder jobs from my plant going to Korea?

How about the importation of 25% of the tubing from China while closing down a plant in Michigan that makes (not to mention laying off 50% of another plant in KY that also made the tubing)?

What about buying the presses and other equipment from China (even though it wasn't worth a shit) and not buying it from the trusted sources in the US that had done it right and at a fair price for decades?

 

[dmcowen674]

Blame that on NAFTA (which I also oppose).

Yes, it is still that "Giant sucking sound" an old man by the name of Ross Perot warned Americans that his fellow Politicians were about to do.

Americans didn't stop it so this is what you get.

Get over it. Leave the country, you let it be destroyed.

 

[StageLeft]

Plants closing due to lessened demand is a symptom of the problems I'm describing, not the cause.

Nummi is closing because of lack of demand, not because Toyota is moving its production off-shore. Hell, some Asian car companies have OPENED plants in the US in recent years.

Domestics have employed slightly less expensive Canadian labor to create vehicles that are imported into the US. In any case, cars are unique in that they are expensive to ship. Many things are not, which is why many manufacturing companies in the US have outsourced production to other countries and then import the product back to the US.

I can assure you that the 8 plants that my company opened in Mexico while closing down 5 US plants had nothing to do with demand and everything to do with cheap Mexican labor. The same goes for closing down my tooling plant with 35 people (over 1,000 years of experience) only to move the tooling to Mexico and Korea.

Of course it did.

 

[Engineer]

.Of course it did.

Not sure which part you are referring to, lol?