losthellhound

Greenspan notes 'unease' about jobs

Central bank chairman says worker education is the key to helping displaced workers find jobs


http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/20/news...ex.htm?cnn=yes

Some highlights

Greenspan, for all his education, has no clue.. Do you tell someone who just lost his or her job to a new call centre on the other side of the earth that "dont worry, your grand children may live better lives for this" and " you may even 'eventually' find 'comparable' wages!!

Im insulted by the idea that Greenspan thinks that what people do is so "low tech" that it must be gifted away to other continents as a gift, so North America can reap the rewards of BETTER tech (and even with this reasoning, tech support supports all technology, and programming programs all technology)

Go back to your gentlemen's club Greenspan, at least there your ivory tower futurists can agree with you..

bah

(yes, Im in technical support, yes there is a constant fear that some day my job will be in the pacific rim, and yes Im slightly bitter at all my friends at other companies losing thier jobs and being told to "buck up"

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"Life is possible only with illusions. And so, the question for the science of mental health must become an absolutely new and revolutionary one, yet one that reflects the essence of the human condition: On what level of illusion does one live?"
-- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Dostoevsky

Well, as someone who has been HEAVILY schooled in economics, I have to agree with Greenspan. Although the United States has absolute advantages in the production of almost all goods and services, we don't have comparative advantages in them all. For the sake of efficiency, it is important to allow the market to work properly and to re-train workers who have become unemployed due to frictional unemployment. This may mean that some workers hit a short-run rough patch financially, but in the long-run, they, the economy, and the world will all be better off. By allowing the market to naturally dictate the distribution of industries world wide, the global standard of living will increase and people will become better off.

Sorry if your position is in jeopardy, but this is how free market economics will create the most for everyone involved.

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Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned.


It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

kurty[B]

Sad But True. I hear the Porn industry is always seeking "rise to the occassion" types of individuals!

floydthebarber

Have you considered retraining for a job that doesn't deal with outsourcing? This might be the time to retrain.

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wish you were here

onetime2

Greenspan is correct. You can't fight the tide of the global economy. We can pass laws, put up restrictions, and punish those companies who "outsource" all we want but they will be weaker against their global competition and we will get bitten in the ass in a couple of years.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

sexymama

The problem is retraining cost money (tuition, books, etc.). Not everyone has the money to retrain. We have been creating a larger and larger gap between classes in the U.S. This will make the gap bigger and less "crossable."

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onetime2

Part of Bush's State of the Union speech discussed resources for retraining. Whether anything comes of it I don't know.

Do you see an alternative besides retraining (whether government or privately financed)?

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

123dsa

You could always move overseas to work in an Indian call center . This is the way america works. Nobody cries about the loss of horse-drawn buggy maker positions in the US.

LSD

pan6467

Yes, by phasing the jobs out slowly, while the company or government retrains.

It's bullshit that education is getting cut as people lose thier jobs and we talk of "retraining" but have no intention of helping to pay for it.

How can you tell an unemployed person they need to find the money to not just eat but to go to school to be "retrained", as our great president cuts education, cuts unemployment benefits and makes it harder to afford school.

To say that ANY job is ok to ship overseas, (as we are facing high unemployment, a massive deficit, and a bankrupt educational system being surpassed by every other major country,) is freaking NUTS.

Ok here's Econ 101 and something we have lost sight of..........

If your country has factories and workers your tax base goes up twice. First by the factories producing goods sold, secondly by the employees that get paid liveable wages for the jobs they do. In the 50's - 70's this was how this nation became great. We had the highest standard of living, a standard of education that still has not been surpassed, everyone got decent healthcare and affordable medicines, an infrastructure to be proud of, cities in which people could live safely and so on.

When a country no longer produces its own goods, that country eventually perishes into poverty faces a 2 class system and loses its tax base. That's what it seems is happening to us now.

For these baby boomers to have used the system and gotten as far as they have only to turn thier backs on it and let it become obsolete and bankrupt is not only selfish, destructive to future generations and showing greed, but suicidal to the very country they say they love so much.

How you keep on top is very simple. As one generation works and provides for the next, the education system is constantly updated and restructured to make sure the younger generation can get the jobs of the future.

It is not happening today, our public educational system is being gutted people. Children are reading textbooks 10-20 years old, that is not keeping up with the rest of the world, that is falling behind.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

onetime2

How would you phase jobs out slowly? Would you pass laws to require US corporate helpdesks to be maintained in the US? What's to stop companies from changing their headquarters to Bermuda (as many choose to do)?

Factory jobs are no panacea. How do you propose that US companies compete globally when their labor costs are higher by multiples?

Do you realize that textbooks have always been outdated? Or that textbooks do not supply all the required information anyway? They are to be aids not the sole source of knowledge. Teachers and outside resources are part of the equation.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

pan6467

I would think that a company that has the best interests of the country and its workers in mind could phase jobs in and out without muchado. The government could offer tax abatements or grants to help keep jobs while training for new technology

China and Japan do not make that much on the steel sent here, Actually they show losses. So why continue to send it here? Because thier cheap steel is destroying our industry. Why, we make better steel? Because they get taxed very little importing into this country while our steel is taxed overseas to where it is unaffordable.

That is indisputeable FACT. The right doesn't care "free market" but once our steel industry is gone we are at the mercy of other countries.

As for cheaper labor............... I'm all for the exploitation of the kids in Malayasia.

Lesson, if we need to tax others imports as they tax ours.


My stepmother is a teacher of an affluent suburban public school system, has been for 30 years. She's also a Republican, BUT even she admits that education standards are nowhere near what it was even 10 years ago let alone 20 years ago.

Teachers are low paid, yet expected because of financial constraints at the schools, asked to buy any "extra outside the book" material for class. Teachers are told how many copies a year they can make. Extracurricular activities are becoming less and less.

I don't know, maybe I'm stupid. But when I went to school we had textbooks that were published within the last 5 years. We were able to go on field trips and experience museums and art galleries.

Voters aren't passing school levies throughout the country because they pay enough in taxes. Unfortunately that tax money is going into things like an illegal war, investigating a president's extra marital affairs and every aspect of his entire life, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for big businesses that ship jobs overseas.

The money the government gets SHOULD be put into bettering the country NOT for making an elite few richer and shipping jobs overseas. Those are the same people that complain they can't find hard workers or people intelligent enough to work.

It's pointless..... go ahead ship the jobs overseas. Hell just close the industries over here because we are all overpaid and other countries you can find cheaper labor................

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"