The Internet Destroyed The Middle Class

Methadras said:
There is nothing wrong with wealth inequality. The word inequality here is being used as a pejorative not as a neutral descriptor. If everyone was wealthy, then no one would be rich.
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But it's generally accepted that populations are the happiest and most peaceful when the distribution is more even, for whatever reason.

Also the difference between an economically developed and less economically countries is usually the size of the "middle", not the wealth of the top. Even the poorest nations will have a significant upper wealth tier, just the middle tier will be significantly smaller.

So. A simplified view is that the size of the middle scales with the economic development of the nation. Which would be why the shrinking middle might be seen as a cause of concern.
 
roaf85 said:
You can't open your own shop if there are like 100 hair cut places in an area. I have a supercuts, great clips, hair masters, garbos whatever you call it next to me and all are around the same 10-14 for a hair cut.

Yea there are places I could pay upwards of 25 to 30 for a hair cut, but why? Maybe if you are a teenager or some shit, but if you have ever been to a super cuts or great clips they are busy all the time and that is mainly do to the low prices they charge, but you wont see any of the stylists driving Lambos. They get paid shit.

Plumbers don't make what you think. Sure there is a demand for some plumbing but most plumbing jobs are probably only 1 to 2 hr jobs. And most are unionized so they are pretty much all charging the same rates. Without new construction it is hard for a lot of plumbers to make it just solely of trying to chase 1-2 hour jobs a day.

Most new homes don't have plumbing issues. It isn't related to pooping, most pooping goes down indestructible PVC piping, most copper piping has no issues, toilets are pretty much non issues, depending on shower valves and faucet valves they should go for years and years.

About the only thing you need a plumber for is toilet hardware.

Can almost say the same with electricians.

A carpenter is a far better trade.
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Ssshhhh, don't even talk to that person. They're the same type of people that thinks "Oh, everyblody can be rich! They're just too lazy to do the work!"

For some reason, there is a belief that everyone can just open a business and be rich, except that competition would guarentee a majority of them would shut down by lack of business. And even then, there's only so much people will be willing to pay for something like a haircut, or a plumber's services. What you're really seeing is people just trying to self justify the money THEY make over what someone else makes. Then the same thing gets repeated by people who don't understand that it's a logical fallacy.
 
This guy is an idiot. I can poke holes in his theories all the way through this interview. Everything he says is based on complete misunderstanding of people.

The poor are poor because they don't work, most because they don't want to, some because they don't have ability, and some minor amount because they can't find jobs but are willing and able to work. The numbers of poor were lower than they'd ever been up until 2008, when the unsustainably forced "sub-prime" mortgages failed because poor people couldn't afford to pay their mortgages. The poor are poor for various reasons, good reasons. Some don't deserve to stay there, and those transient poor will work they way back out, usually on their own.

The rich are rich because they either inherited it or made it from hard work. Nobody becomes rich and stays rich by stealing it. Some rich get richer by stealing it, yes, but nobody goes from middle class or poor to rich by stealing it. It's just not sustainable.

The middle class is stronger today than it was in the 60s and 70s. There are more people going from middle class to upper class today than ever before. The distribution of wealth is a passing thing, and most wealth can't be measured by numbers. The middle class is comfortable and stable, and producing more wealth for the wealthy. That's why the numbers are where they are. Most of the middle class isn't pushing hard for more because they have what they need, and more.

I make a nice wage, somewhere between the mean and median of college grads in my age bracket. I have everything I really need, and many of the things I want. My job is sustained by skill and knowledge. My position is stable in the country, if not exactly stable in my company. I know of I get laid off that, even though the job market is a bit poor, I could find a job in months doing close to what I'm doing now and paying close to what I'm getting now. It's not "some kind of license or some kind of ratcheting scheme that allows people to keep their middle-class status."

The big problem is that some of the artificial middle class, those in union supported manufacturing jobs, have lost their jobs because the economy has killed off susceptible companies and the people who lost those jobs are unwilling to learn a new skill and get a new job. There are TONS of jobs out there that need filling. Job that people of average intelligence could learn and fill. They're being shipped overseas and filled by non-prime people simply because people in this country refuse to sit down and learn how to do them.

I just had a discussion with a coworker about how he'd gone over to India a few years ago to teach people there how to take support calls for a well known computer company. The Indian support people had spent two weeks in training courses and picked things up easily, yet they left within months for other jobs. Most companies with Indian outsourced jobs are spending more on those jobs than they would paying three times as much in the US. Not because they're paying more, but because they keep having to spend more and more on training. Most companies, including all major PC manufacturers would prefer to move those jobs back to the US, but they just can't find the people to fill those jobs here.

Dell moved their high level support jobs back here to the US specifically because of that. They get higher quality people and higher quality work and pay less, even though the people are paid more. They just can't fill the jobs for the rest of their support positions here in the US. In India, they have to train tons of new people, paying them for a month of training while they get no profit out of them, constantly while maybe a third of their workforce there is actually working at their jobs.

Many software development jobs are sent overseas, or like with my company foreigners are actually moved here, simply because there aren't enough Americans to fill the jobs. There are tens of thousands of software development jobs in the US that are sitting unfilled, and eventually get moved overseas because of a lack of candidates.

Why do they have such trouble filling these jobs? Because Americans refuse to actually sit down and learn how. There are plenty of people who are more than capable. It doesn't take genius level intellect to learn how to do this. (I only do this because I had the genius level intellect to sit down and leanrn how to do most of it in a couple days. It's a piece of cake, and my lazy butt can do it without going through college, and I do it very well.) It takes dedication to go through the training. It's the same with software development. Sure, it might take someone in the top 60% of the logical reasoning intellect bell curve for software development. Where do you think these people come from in India? They aren't super geniuses. (Believe me, I know this quite well, having to support them, Many are complete idiots.) It just takes sitting down and doing it. Many Americans are just too lazy to actually do it.

There are other jobs, Medical office management, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering jobs, nurses, Medical technicians, (the guys that run the MRI and CT scanners) and others, that are out there, waiting to be filled, if people just sit down and learn how.

The middle class isn't dying, and it certainly isn't artificial. It's sitting there waiting for people to step up.

The wealth charts are a unique type of lie. They show the dollars. So what? More money in the hands of the select few actually means stable jobs. More for the super rich to reinvest and stabilize their companies. Who cares how much they have, so long as those working get enough for them to have the life they want. The real wealth for the middle class is having a stable job with income at the level that keeps them where they want to be.

This "ambition" thing, to strive to get higher and higher on the ladder, is such a total waste of time and effort. This want for more and more material wealth is a total delusion. "Oh, so-and-so has a BMW, I want one!" Foolish. "Oh, a new iPhone came out that has a 5% bigger screen." Idiotic. Live your life, have fun with your family, and keep others from taking it away.

The big problem is that the government has endangered, and nearly ruined, what we have as the middle class. Taking away the money from the super rich, except those that don't deserve it like many of the executives in the movie and music industries, and giving it too the poor who refuse to work and do better for themselves just destabilizes the entire structure of the world we've built. That much wealth int he hands of the business owners is a GOOD thing. It means the companies will stay stable and we middle class people will be able to keep our jobs. The rich only use so much on themselves. Much of what they spend and invest is on US, to keep US in jobs.

Just looking at the stupid numbers on who has what is shortsighted and idiotic. Trying to force the poor into the middle class is equally stupid. Attempts to force this to change will just destroy what we have built, make us all poor, except for the limited ruling class.

Just look at China. You complain that 92% of the wealth in the US is in the hands of the top 20%. How about 99% of the wealth (property) in the top 2% of the ruling class, while 90%+ live in poverty, like in China? China is a rich country, with an economy nearly as large as our now. Yet most of the people live in poverty, and are staying in poverty. The minor ruling elite keep the property for themselves. The manufacturing jobs are moved there because they can pay half to certain ruling class people and the other half to the thousands of workers they employ, and pay less overall than what they'd pay elsewhere. It's the ruling class that is getting rich and living large, not the regular people. The ruling class has taken all the power away from the people.

Socialism and communism are nothing but thieving delusions.
 
The free-market is a truly fantastic vehicle when left alone.

Automation, which people say 'destroys jobs,' actually frees human capital.......capital that can/should be used to innovate and compete to deliver the best product possible.

If I can automate 3 people's jobs, that allows those 3 people or another 3 people (with the desired skillset) to innovate and dream. This is how we advance.

Imagine that 10 people live on an island and 3 people are tasked with collecting coconuts. These 3 people work hard and eventually, they've built a contraption that collects coconuts more efficiently and much faster. Only 1 person is needed to run the coconut contraption.

Are these 2 people out of work since they're no longer needed to collect coconuts? No. They're free to be utilized in a different manner, a manner of their choosing.
 
I posted my thoughts there and I'll add them here:

Kodak may well have invented the digital camera but they pretty much stagnated after that. If you don't continue to innovate in the business world, you go extinct which is what happened to them. I don't see any mention of Canon or Olympus or Nikon, all of which have continued to thrive in the post digital world of photography. They made good equipment, they kept it updated and made it easy to get quality photos for laymen. Kodak put out middling cameras that lagged behind in terms of features and were saddled with poor AI so to get good photos you had to enter into manual mode. Manual mode for a layperson = death. No-one wants to spend five minutes fiddling with the settings on a point and shoot camera, it rather defeats the whole intent of point and shoot.

Yeah, so ease of use killed off the film camera and there is collateral damage along the way. Transistors killed off tubes. IC's killed off transistors. It's the way of evolution. Get on board or get left behind because it won't wait for you.
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akg102 said:
The free-market is a truly fantastic vehicle when left alone.

Automation, which people say 'destroys jobs,' actually frees human capital.......capital that can/should be used to innovate and compete to deliver the best product possible.

If I can automate 3 people's jobs, that allows those 3 people or another 3 people (with the desired skillset) to innovate and dream. This is how we advance.

Imagine that 10 people live on an island and 3 people are tasked with collecting coconuts. These 3 people work hard and eventually, they've built a contraption that collects coconuts more efficiently and much faster. Only 1 person is needed to run the coconut contraption.

Are these 2 people out of work since they're no longer needed to collect coconuts? No. They're free to be utilized in a different manner, a manner of their choosing.
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Trouble is that when you free up too many people you end up with nothing for them to do and invention isn't in every persons skillset.
 
So they live on an island that is just shared without any rent, debt, or taxes and they just barter?

It isn't that hard to find hardship for displaced agricultural workers.
 
lcpiper said:
Kodak didn't lose 14,000 jobs to instagram, they lost 14,000 jobs to memory manufacturers running clean room factories in Singapore, Taiwan, and other little 3rd World countries
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Do you even know what a 3rd world country is?
 
I know quite a few chicks that work at a place like super cuts only make like 11 an hour plus tips.
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And in contrast my wife cuts hair at an Army base where the hair cuts go for $8.50 or so, but she cuts many more of them a day. On a busy Sunday, in 6 hours she will do a hundred haircuts or more. A sunday like that is a $500.00 day all on it's own. She is also tired as hell at the end of a day like that but those jobs are out there.

My Dad complains because he needs skilled tradesmen to do work that he is getting too old to do himself anymore. Pour concrete, put new windows in the house, normal home construction stuff. He always runs off the workers cause they can't do the jobs right, they don't know how anymore. We are loosing over a hundred years of trade skills in a few decades. The sad thing is that people really will pay for good work, they just won't pay for bad work if they know better.
 
WorldExclusive said:
I also point to this article:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/12/10-reasons-why-2013-will-be-the-year-you-quit-your-job/

Less people are needed these days to run a business, especially a tech biz. It's time to build something for yourselves.
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this, the world needs to adapt to a new style. the whole point to civilization was to hit a point where we can primarily pursue leisure. Work was just supposed to keep the world going...but if we automate that, then its time to monetize passions etc.

granted the shit stifling the startup currently is a nightmare and is blocking a lot of that transition, but hopefully will come.

and as stated, there will always be demand for those who keep the automations running or develop more efficiency etc. so either get really creative and sell that, or get really good at science.
 
madmat said:
Trouble is that when you free up too many people you end up with nothing for them to do and invention isn't in every persons skillset.
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Invention doesn't have to be in their skillset. The person without the ability to invent can run the contraption, while another invents.

There is always something to do. The key is finding that something and being willing to learn.

An island with no invention/inventors is doomed. Fortunately, humanity has an abundance of creative potential.
 
Back in my day, we had a whole slew of workers cutting ice blocks out of the lake, hauling that stuff up on big ol' horsed carriages, and more employees to transport it to the customers ice boxes, and people making those ice boxes, and more guys cleaning and feeding the horses, and creating the stables.

Now we got that damn 'frigeration made in Korea.

DAY TOOK ARE JERB!
 
akg102 said:
Invention doesn't have to be in their skillset. The person without the ability to invent can run the contraption, while another invents.

There is always something to do. The key is finding that something and being willing to learn.

An island with no invention/inventors is doomed. Fortunately, humanity has an abundance of creative potential.
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Why would I want to employ a worker to run something when I can use a machine ... any job that is automatible will eventually be automated ... it is harsh but it is reality ... until we figure out a way to expand our horizons (like moving into space) there will be larger and larger portions of society that become unemployable

I would agree that people better get used to changing professions or become proficient in the few jobs that can't be automated or outsourced ... workers also need to abandon some of the legacy ideas of a 40 hour week and work life balance ... again, just the harsh reality of the modern working world ;)
 
ballistic90 said:
Ssshhhh, don't even talk to that person. They're the same type of people that thinks "Oh, everyblody can be rich! They're just too lazy to do the work!"

For some reason, there is a belief that everyone can just open a business and be rich, except that competition would guarentee a majority of them would shut down by lack of business. And even then, there's only so much people will be willing to pay for something like a haircut, or a plumber's services. What you're really seeing is people just trying to self justify the money THEY make over what someone else makes. Then the same thing gets repeated by people who don't understand that it's a logical fallacy.
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1. that is exactly it. People can open a business and make money. It takes time and work, and more than a little wisdom, to get that income to be sustaining, but it certainly can be done. It's done all the time. Most of the time by people who are not particularly smart or capable. They still make it. Why? Because they do what they must. Many people, a great many people, get in a little trouble and just quit. They fail because they aren't willing to do what they have to do to make it.

It doesn't exactly have to be a big business. It doesn't have to be unique. My dad tried starting an insurance business. It didn't get into profitability. So, he used his contacts within insurance to move into a different business. He's now flipping houses. He doesn't just buy and then sell. He puts in a lot of work, a LOT of work, to repair and remake the houses so they're salable at a profit.

It takes a lot to get rich. There's no doubt about that. What's the big deal about being rich anyway? It just means more headaches. It means a responsibility to reinvest the money to stabilize a company and keep people working. It means being under the scrutiny of most other people. It's not a position to envy.

I'm happy at middle class. People don't have to be rich. They don't have to have everything. To strive for that is foolish. Strive to be happy. Live a stable life, have fun with the family and friends, have a stable job. That's fine for most people. It can be attained, and fairly easily. You just have to do something to get there.
 
dgingeri said:
This guy is an idiot. I can poke holes in his theories all the way through this interview. Everything he says is based on complete misunderstanding of people.

(snip )

Socialism and communism are nothing but thieving delusions.
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While I agree with the vast majority of your post, I must comment that *many* of these huge companies (with govt influence) are making it impossible for competition to exist in their niche/sector. Not to mention the rubber-stamping patent office.

From today's news on this site for one example:
North Carolina Banning Tesla To Prevent Unfair Competition?
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http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1761795

There are only so many niches to break into out there, and "big business" has their eyes on them with much deeper pockets than the would-be inventor/businessman.
 
This is a good blog post about the decline in demand for more physical (ie: less intellectual) jobs.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/339673.php

The Forbes link on retirement as an outdated idea is also very good.

Basically, the best jobs and in many cases, just plain "jobs" are moving toward more intellectual work and less "strong back" work and there are large groups of people for which this is very bad news.

Not everyone can "retrain" to be a sysadmin or dental hygienist or HVAC installer or whatever.

So what we do with these people and their role in society will continue to be a big question mark.
 
dgingeri said:
1. that is exactly it. People can open a business and make money. It takes time and work, and more than a little wisdom, to get that income to be sustaining, but it certainly can be done. It's done all the time. Most of the time by people who are not particularly smart or capable. They still make it. Why? Because they do what they must. Many people, a great many people, get in a little trouble and just quit. They fail because they aren't willing to do what they have to do to make it.

It doesn't exactly have to be a big business. It doesn't have to be unique. My dad tried starting an insurance business. It didn't get into profitability. So, he used his contacts within insurance to move into a different business. He's now flipping houses. He doesn't just buy and then sell. He puts in a lot of work, a LOT of work, to repair and remake the houses so they're salable at a profit.

It takes a lot to get rich. There's no doubt about that. What's the big deal about being rich anyway? It just means more headaches. It means a responsibility to reinvest the money to stabilize a company and keep people working. It means being under the scrutiny of most other people. It's not a position to envy.

I'm happy at middle class. People don't have to be rich. They don't have to have everything. To strive for that is foolish. Strive to be happy. Live a stable life, have fun with the family and friends, have a stable job. That's fine for most people. It can be attained, and fairly easily. You just have to do something to get there.
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I wouldn't call flipping houses a career. Flipping houses takes a lot of money upfront and most people are ignorant about the market as well as don't have the cash on hand to go into a house. Its not like one day I can just be like "oh there is a home for 80,000 in a 200k neighborhood, let me just go get a loan right now"

Many times there are real estate companies who specialize in this to basically cash offer listings before they even hit the market.

But that is the besides the point. The point is that people need to be rich, or they need to obtain so sort of lifestyle beyond the current middle class. Purchasing power of the middle class has fallen and relative to inflation we have actually seen middle class wages go down, while costs and expenses go up.

You may think you are "middle class", but the truth is with things like current medical expenses and tuition costs for your kids, the cost to raise kids and finally the cost of you being in an assisted living home etc. people have absolutely no clue how much they need to save now for things 30 years from now.
 
MacLeod said:
It's called evolution. Our economy is constantly changing. I'm sure there were a lot of great companies that made covered wagons. Things change. Kodak didn't die because of the internet, they died because they couldn't adapt to the change to digital. Canon and Nikon seems to have done alright with adapting.

Things change. If you can't change with them, you get left behind.
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This is exactly what happened, they shot down ideas that would keep them at the forefront of photography and they ended up being left behind and it ultimately cost them the company.
 
SomeoneElse said:
This is exactly what happened, they shot down ideas that would keep them at the forefront of photography and they ended up being left behind and it ultimately cost them the company.
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So they didn't become a cell phone company? Instagram is free and its a start up and it sold to facebook, who over paid for it? Why? Because facebook is an advertising company that generates revenue through adds and information. Facebook cares little if instagram is a photo service or if it is one that sells turds as long as it has a strong user base that is what Facebook is paying for.

Basically Kodak should have developed a facebook or cell phone company.

The problem with digital photography, to which not many understand is that most average users care little about photo quality they just want a device that they can carry that can snap a picture when the time arises and a cell phone fills that need.
 
roaf85 said:
I wouldn't call flipping houses a career. Flipping houses takes a lot of money upfront and most people are ignorant about the market as well as don't have the cash on hand to go into a house. Its not like one day I can just be like "oh there is a home for 80,000 in a 200k neighborhood, let me just go get a loan right now"

Many times there are real estate companies who specialize in this to basically cash offer listings before they even hit the market.

But that is the besides the point. The point is that people need to be rich, or they need to obtain so sort of lifestyle beyond the current middle class. Purchasing power of the middle class has fallen and relative to inflation we have actually seen middle class wages go down, while costs and expenses go up.

You may think you are "middle class", but the truth is with things like current medical expenses and tuition costs for your kids, the cost to raise kids and finally the cost of you being in an assisted living home etc. people have absolutely no clue how much they need to save now for things 30 years from now.
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My parents are sure making a living at it, being semi-retired. I don't think my dad could ever be fully retired. Social security sure wouldn't cover everything.

I never said everybody could do flipping houses for a living. Some do, and do very well at it. Many fail. They should do something else.

That's one of the many big problems with welfare, universal health care, unemployment, and a nanny state. They don't allow people to fail enough to get it through their thick skulls to do something else. They get to sit around saying "woe is me, I can't build cars anymore!" They never think "hey, I did pretty well building cars, how about I find work repairing them?" or "I did my job on the assembly line pretty well, and that is about the same logically as putting together a computer program these days, how about I go to school and learn how to program?" There are many things that people can do, even if they don't have talents in many areas, most people do have some talent in something. A newspaper writer could do work remotely for a news agency web site. A mechanic could customize cars or restore old cars, or even do computer support. An English teacher, ah, heck, I don't know what use an English teach would be. What they teach is pretty useless for most people anyway.

As for me being middle class, you obviously have a completely wrong idea on what middle class is. Middle class in the 50s were the ones who had a 3 bedroom house that cost twice their yearly income for 5 or 6 kids, a single car, and a single income amounting to about $30,000 per year adjust for inflation to today's dollars, living to about 60-70. Middle class in the 70s were the ones with a 3 bedroom house that cost twice their yearly income for 3 or 4 kids (like my parents) with one major income earner and one minor income earner, maybe two cars, making about $45,000 per year, living to about 70-75. Granted, those things haven't changed that much since the 70s. Mostly, the major earner/minor earner thing has reduced to two equal earners and kids spending more time in daycare than with their parents. However, most people are still within that range, and are living with cheaper and better entertainment and food, and far bigger cars using about the same amount of gas. We're all better off than we were previously to the 70s. Life expectancy is far longer, which creates more of a problem. The middle class is far, far more than it used to be.

Assisted living wasn't a factor, because the kids took care of retired parents. Medical expenses weren't so much. Lawyers are to blame for that BS. Living past 80, and all the medical expenses behind that, weren't an issue because people simply didn't live that long often enough to worry about them, and those that did lived healthy enough that they weren't a worry. These days, we have people in their 60's at 400lbs, that should have died of heart disease long ago, but drugs and surgery keep them around. To define that as part of being "middle class" is just asinine. If people think planning for a long retirement beyond 80 is part of being middle class, they really need to redefine things.
 
roaf85 said:
The problem with digital photography, to which not many understand is that most average users care little about photo quality they just want a device that they can carry that can snap a picture when the time arises and a cell phone fills that need.
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This is so true.

It is also very true for other areas as well. And it kind of sucks actually.

For instance, most users do not care to have the best visual experience when watching movies at home. Therefore, the quality of HDTVs has not really improved since 2007/08. This may be an affront to your senses, but for the most part, it is true.

People care more about marketing gimmicks. Right now it is 3d technology (some may like it, i understand, but try to understand my point rather than get hung up on this). Back in 2007/08 it was all about whether or not the HDTV had 1080p or not. Even though there were TVs out there that had better picture quality at 720p, than other tvs at 1080p. There is more to picture quality than just resolution (especially if you are greater than 5-7 feet away from a 42" screen, etc., you cannot actually tell the difference between 720p and 1080p at that distance).

The Pioneer Kuro 8g was widely regarded as the best TV around in 2007/08. Pioneer got out of the business though. Why? It was not profitable for them. They put in quality parts, made a great HDTV, and had to sell it at a high price. Stores like best buy run content from split sources to the TVs. It is hard to tell the difference between a quality TV and a lesser quality due to split sources and the bright flourecent lighting. The manufacturers that made cheap TVs, but marketed them as top tier TVs, sold about as many as the badass Kuros, but the cheaper TVs had a much higher profit margin.

At the end of the day, the market decided that cheaply manufactured HDTVs are better than higher quality HDTVs. The main reasons why? Most consumers either could not tell the difference (because the in store conditions suck for comparison); or most consumers simply do not really care about high quality.

The Pioneer Kuro from 2007/08 is still regarded by home theater enthusists as the reference HDTV to compare everything else to. Nothing out compares to it. Supposedly this year Panasonic will be releasing an HDTV that will be equivelent to the Kuro (specifically in the Kuro's excellent black levels). But Panasonic is getting out of the industry as well. Apparently they cannot compete with the cheap HDTVs either.

Why am I talking about HDTVs when we were discussing Kodiak? Because this is just another example of Roaf85's point. Most consumers either do not care about high quality, or they cannot easily differentiate between a lower quality and a higher quality product due to the common sales methods of our Brick and Mortar stores. Who needs a nice digital camera? We have cell phones for that. High quality photography is a small niche market. Once in which others than Kodiak compete well in. Kodiak was all about bringing us cheap photography to the consumer. Again, we have cellphones for that now.
 
lcpiper said:
And in contrast my wife cuts hair at an Army base where the hair cuts go for $8.50 or so, but she cuts many more of them a day. On a busy Sunday, in 6 hours she will do a hundred haircuts or more. A sunday like that is a $500.00 day all on it's own. She is also tired as hell at the end of a day like that but those jobs are out there.

My Dad complains because he needs skilled tradesmen to do work that he is getting too old to do himself anymore. Pour concrete, put new windows in the house, normal home construction stuff. He always runs off the workers cause they can't do the jobs right, they don't know how anymore. We are loosing over a hundred years of trade skills in a few decades. The sad thing is that people really will pay for good work, they just won't pay for bad work if they know better.
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So your wife in a 6 hour day cuts 100 hair cuts or more:

60 * 6 is = 360 and then you divide that by 100 for simple math sake to get something that is 3.6 minutes a hair cut.

Factor in a minute just to call someones name, them to walk over to the seat, sit down, put on the clipping vest and for your wife to get her tools.

This isn't even factoring in the time she spends to clean the tools unless she has like 100 clippers.

Basically your wife is cutting hair for around 2.5 minutes per person?

No one she makes 50k I mean if she has that many customers she must cut good hair at Guinness world record pace.

Or you are full of shit.
 
roaf85 said:
So your wife in a 6 hour day cuts 100 hair cuts or more:

60 * 6 is = 360 and then you divide that by 100 for simple math sake to get something that is 3.6 minutes a hair cut.

Factor in a minute just to call someones name, them to walk over to the seat, sit down, put on the clipping vest and for your wife to get her tools.

This isn't even factoring in the time she spends to clean the tools unless she has like 100 clippers.

Basically your wife is cutting hair for around 2.5 minutes per person?

No one she makes 50k I mean if she has that many customers she must cut good hair at Guinness world record pace.

Or you are full of shit.
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Do you really think an Army haircut takes more than 2.5 minutes? It's more like around a minute, especially for someone practiced at it.
 
roaf85 said:
So your wife in a 6 hour day cuts 100 hair cuts or more:

60 * 6 is = 360 and then you divide that by 100 for simple math sake to get something that is 3.6 minutes a hair cut.

Factor in a minute just to call someones name, them to walk over to the seat, sit down, put on the clipping vest and for your wife to get her tools.

This isn't even factoring in the time she spends to clean the tools unless she has like 100 clippers.

Basically your wife is cutting hair for around 2.5 minutes per person?

No one she makes 50k I mean if she has that many customers she must cut good hair at Guinness world record pace.

Or you are full of shit.
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On a military base I can see it being that fast. They generally have a three options - shaved, high and tight and a 3rd slightly longer but still short.
 
dgingeri said:
Do you really think an Army haircut takes more than 2.5 minutes? It's more like around a minute, especially for someone practiced at it.
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Yes I do, when you factor in all the overhead there is no way you are doing 100 hair cuts in 6 hours. Sorry unless you had 100 people lined up before you even opened your doors and you were ready to go no sorry not realistic.
 
roaf85 said:
Yes I do, when you factor in all the overhead there is no way you are doing 100 hair cuts in 6 hours. Sorry unless you had 100 people lined up before you even opened your doors and you were ready to go no sorry not realistic.
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I used to have people think that about checkouts at Target way back when I was a cashier sup. So, one day I spent the entire day, with management permission, on a register. 6 hours on the register total, 136 customers, and I was off by 2 cents on my cash count. (I probably dropped two pennies taking out change for customers.) When cashiers I was training start complaining about being over 60 customers in a shift, I'd whip out that report, almost a year old by the time I left cashiering there, and leave them staring. I told them that all it takes is focus and practice.

In that same store, working the floor in Housewares, I once rebuilt 28 endcaps in one 8 hour Saturday shift.

As I got into computer support, I got a task of building systems during off hours for the admins to use the next day to upgrade people. I got to the point where I could do 64 systems in a night, while still answering calls. (Over 5000 people worked in the building, and this project was upgrading systems for almost 1000 of them.) Installing Windows NT 4 on P3-550 machines that quickly takes practice and expertise.

My haircuts usually don't take longer than 20 minutes, and that is with pretty unexperienced stylists. I've had an experienced stylist doing it in less than five minutes. That's just #4 clippers on the side and evening it up on top, no sideburns. It's pretty basic and easy.

Focus and practice make all the difference. Experienced, practiced people can do things far faster than you think.
 
lcpiper said:
Yes I do dgz, I been in plenty of them and lived in a few.
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I think he was questioning your lumping Singapore (which is now considered a developed country) and Taiwan with the nomenclature 3rd world ... these days the 3rd world designation isn't really used and when it is it is applied to the really low countries (Africa, Bangladesh, and the like) and not most of the Asian ones which are developed or closed to being developed ... the more common term used these days is OECD and non-OECD (since that doesn't have the pejorative status of 3rd World) ;)
 
60 * 6 is = 360 and then you divide that by 100 for simple math sake to get something that is 3.6 minutes a hair cut.

Factor in a minute just to call someones name, them to walk over to the seat, sit down, put on the clipping vest and for your wife to get her tools.

This isn't even factoring in the time she spends to clean the tools unless she has like 100 clippers.

Basically your wife is cutting hair for around 2.5 minutes per person?

No one she makes 50k I mean if she has that many customers she must cut good hair at Guinness world record pace.
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roaf85 I fully understand your sceptism, I do. But it isn't BS. She is Korean, she knows what hard work is and that girl has fast hands. Furthermore she knows why she is there and it's not to chit chat or walk the halls, she is there to cut hair and make money.

And yes, they are lined up outside the door when it opens particularly on a Sunday cause this is a training base and the trainees are required/pushed to get a haircut every 2 weeks and they will be inspected on Monday.

It's more like sheering sheep then giving a quality haircut but she knows what she is doing and she is good at what her job is supposed to be. Older soldiers, if they still have any hair left worth worrying about, usually go somewhere else for their hair cuts. I was losing mine before I joined so i never cared as long as it was cut close to the skin and was fast i was happy.

But the point I was trying to make is that you don't have to jump in the deep end and swim with the pack in order to make it. Like others have said, construction and other trades are still very much needed, pay decent, and the ones that require real skill are very profitable as long as the economy is rocking.

As for the guy who's Dad is flipping houses, someone said most people don't have the capitol for that. His dad probably didn't start with that capitol either, he had to build it up, took awhile too I bet.

Too many people have it in their heads that they go to school, then go to college, and walk out the door and into a job. Man .... all I can say is no one is just going to give it to you, you gotta go work for it.
 
kbrickley said:
I think he was questioning your lumping Singapore (which is now considered a developed country) and Taiwan with the nomenclature 3rd world ... these days the 3rd world designation isn't really used and when it is it is applied to the really low countries (Africa, Bangladesh, and the like) and not most of the Asian ones which are developed or closed to being developed ... the more common term used these days is OECD and non-OECD (since that doesn't have the pejorative status of 3rd World) ;)
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From what I remember of my human geography classes back in college, it goes something like this:

First world: developed, technology and economy state of the art, developed manufacturing, natural resources full utilized

Second world: less developed, older economic model, somewhat lower technological capabilities, developed manufacturing, natural resources fully utilized

Third world: undeveloped, economic model not developed or stable, at least 100 years behind in some technological fields, undeveloped manufacturing, underutilized natural resources.

Fourth world: same as third world, but less natural resources to use

Fifth world: same as third or fourth, but no notable natural resources to utilize.

Doesn't this make many African countries and Bangladesh Fifth world nations? Taiwan and Singapore would definitely be first world countries. Even Vietnam would be considered a Second world these days.
 
... the more common term used these days is
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Well I do date myself on occasion ;)

But the point remains, we have done things, or allowed others to do things, that have resulted in the lose of a large piece of the country's manufacturing base. We really should work to get it back. We really don't need to import foreign workers, we need to get the ones we have on the job.

All that being said, there are business models that need to be examined, modified, and if needed, replaced in order to make things work. But the global economy is and it isn't what some people see it as. We have allowed the fast talkers to sell us on this idea while completely ignoring the simple fact that if 40% of your population isn't working, then it's just a weight around the rest of our necks. We got to get them in there swinging with us and there is no reason anyone should feel second class about not being an IT guy or a developer cause most,(not all), of us who are, couldn't fix a car to save their ass.

And for the guy who thinks we are all supposed to work in order to have more leisure time, the most satisfying times of my life involved knowing I did a great job at work where I know I pulled off something not many could have done. It is hard to beat the satisfaction of knowing and being able to show others that you are worth something in this world. It sure as hell beats out a good movie although killing Uber-Diablo solo was pretty kick-ass, for a few minutes at least :D
 
Dreaz said:
Whooooooooooooosssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

there goes the point.
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I think that the point he is making is that if the rich didn't have the "freedom" to crush everybody else under their boot heels, that then the rich will have no reason to exist, and that would be evil. :D
 
DeathPrincess said:
But it's generally accepted that populations are the happiest and most peaceful when the distribution is more even, for whatever reason.

Also the difference between an economically developed and less economically countries is usually the size of the "middle", not the wealth of the top. Even the poorest nations will have a significant upper wealth tier, just the middle tier will be significantly smaller.

So. A simplified view is that the size of the middle scales with the economic development of the nation. Which would be why the shrinking middle might be seen as a cause of concern.
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That's because once all the money goes to the top, we've just recreated a modernized version of Feudalism or Monarchy-like state. That's a serious regression, because it's something that, in history, has been the catalyst of many bloody wars in the world.
 
But the point remains, we have done things, or allowed others to do things, that have resulted in the lose of a large piece of the country's manufacturing base. We really should work to get it back. We really don't need to import foreign workers, we need to get the ones we have on the job.
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This so called "loss of manufacturing base" assumes that being a manufacturing country is desirable ... it is dirty and low skilled most of the time ... high skilled manufacturing (or high risk manufacturing) has stayed in the US ... lower skilled and lower risk has moved offshore ... that is actually how the modern economy is supposed to work ;)

The global economy has presented new opportunities but some people haven't stepped up to take them ... also, you are right that people assumed a college degree was better than a skill ... I think Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) did a great speech on this to Congress about the value of skilled laborers and the need to encourage people into these professions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NwEFVUb-u0 ) ...

the hard part of a modern economy is it requires people to change more than in the past ... you have to change professions more, travel and relocate more, and update your skills more ... most people who have been willing to to those things are doing well ... others who haven't are having issues ... that is unfortunately how capitalism works though :cool:
 
This so called "loss of manufacturing base" assumes that being a manufacturing country is desirable ... it is dirty and low skilled most of the time ... high skilled manufacturing (or high risk manufacturing) has stayed in the US ... lower skilled and lower risk has moved offshore ... that is actually how the modern economy is supposed to work
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Do you think there is a way to employ 90% of the country without maintaining some low skilled manufacturing?

The service industry certainly employs a good percentage but what about the rest?

I know it sounds like a great idea to ship off all the low end work, but I am not so sure there isn't a place here for some low end manufacturing that could remain profitable and provide jobs in large population centers for people who need a job, should have a job, but either don't have the aptitude for more demanding work or simply don't want it.

Maybe not having such an option to "entertain" those that fit this scenario provides more "distractions" then we should want.

For instance, if operating a factory in Detroit to make tires at no profit employs enough people to lower the crime rate by 20% and maybe decrease the dropout rate for high schoolers by 10%. Is this not a form of profit that we should see as beneficial? Would it not translate to the corporate bottom line elsewhere on the ledger?

Just food for thought.
 
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