From: phil osborn (philosborn@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 16 2000 - 20:34:50 MDT
>From: Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net>
>The will-work-for-fooders stand out there on the corner,
> >with all limbs in apparent working condition, while Burger
> >King is *crying out* for someone willing to just push a
> >mop and wipe tables. And they will hire *anyone* no
> >questions asked, dog kickers, mass murderers, whatever.
> >They hire the mentally retarded, but oddly enough, there
> >arent enough of them either. And the fast food gets steadily
> >slower, because there arent enough people working the
> >kitchen. Meanwhile the floors and tables get ever dirtier.
This is a very real problem at all levels of the economy. The solution at
the top is to keep raising the wages, with management - no matter how
incompetent - getting astronomical money with noone noticing that they are
usually the least competent people in the company.
The next teir down - the engineers, researchers, etc. - who actually do most
of the work and actually make most of the decisions that management takes
credit for and gets paid for, have gotten very slight monetary increases,
and huge increases in work load. The next level - the blue collar and white
collar grunts who mostly just "do a job" - have gotten less than nothing in
pay increases in real buying terms for over a decade now, even as their
productivity has skyrocketed, and the hours have gone up as well.
So now we are seeing the result. The idiots we often see in management that
get huge salaries no matter how badly they perform - maybe because the other
guys, also in management, authorize these increases, knowing that if one
manager gets a raise then all eventually have to to remain competitive (all,
including them) are starting to reap their just rewards - eg., Firestone.
(And note that Firestone managed to top its own original idiocy by failing
to set up secure verification of returned tires, so that now people have
been reselling the same defective tires just so that the buyer can go to his
or her tire dealer and get a complete set of new tires for free (at
Firestone's expense).) Hint to Bridgestone - bust every Firestone manager
back to the work floor and move the workers into management. Let the
workers elect the new managers.
Meanwhile, the engineers, etc., are getting damned tired of 80 hour work
weeks without corresponding pay, so they are burning out and quiting in
large numbers. And the grunts are starting to listen to the union
organizers.
>
> >Engineering teams dissolve because the young PhDs
> >cannot afford the rent. Those who argue that National
> >Missile Defense is an impossible task never do site the
> >*real* most difficult hurdle facing it: keeping teams together
> >in areas that are too expensive for those working the project.
> >For those who have managed to acquire a home, of course,
> >it is like winning the lottery in slow motion.
In many urban areas, such as Los Angeles or Orange County, a lot of people
have found that they can live at work very cheaply. At the same time that
housing cost have gone thru the roof, business space has been getting
cheaper or going up much more slowly. In most areas, this is illegal, of
course, but that doesn't stop people. Some people actually switch around
day to day between two or more offices to disguise the fact that they are
sleeping there - and it's still less expensive than an apartment.
>
> >So here in Silicon Valley we see a foretaste of a future
> >in which wealth is distributed ever more based on technical
> >ability and insight, steadily less on the number of hours worked.
> >I can see that what must happen here is that the techno-have-nots
> >must abandon the valley, being replaced in the short run by
> >commuters from the outlying areas, these being replaced in
> >the long run by androids. All this looks great from the point
> >of view of a techno-have, but I can scarcely imagine the
> >anguish of the other half. My solution is to not be one of
> >them. Other ideas? spike
>
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