[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'D')oes this mean college grad's will start out at $13.00 hour?

[Sixstrings]

Huh.. some cute houses there for only 26k!

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'H')uh.. some cute houses there for only 26k!

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'H')uh.. some cute houses there for only 26k!

[jasonraymondson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'H')uh.. some cute houses there for only 26k!

[heroineworshipper]

Unless you want to switch to cannibalism, you're better off moving to Hong Kong & working on semiconductors.

[wisconsin_cur]

I spend $150 a year on LP. That is for hot water and to heat the house when we are gone for more than a day.

Last year I spent <$15.00 in gasoline and a second hand chainsaw on heat.... a few years ago their was an initial investment of $2000 for a bigger wood burning stove, $30 for plumbing supplies so I could drain the pipes to the upstairs. If the last five years are indicative I should be able to heat the place on the downfalls on our 10 acres.... two neighbors would let me trade labor for access to their wood lots as well.

Not an option for everyone I know... but one reason for choosing this place is because it gave us this option.

Sometimes your luck chooses you; sometimes you choose your luck.

[americandream]

How long before these new startups run away to China? Anyone fancy venturing a guess.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'H')ow long before these new startups run away to China? Anyone fancy venturing a guess.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'H')ow long before these new startups run away to China? Anyone fancy venturing a guess.

[frankthetank]

Won't the poor just turn to crime? Start stealing everything they need from people who have the means?

Someday there will be the rich and the ultra poor... no one will be in the middle.

[Plantagenet]

Not only will the people in the new "green" jobs earn $12 bucks an hour, they get to see their taxes go to subsidize the $45 bucks an hour paid to the autoworkers at Government Motors.

[MarkJ]

Some of my tenants left $8 to $9 per hour manufacturing jobs with no overtime, no benefits and frequent layoffs to work for the Wal-Mart distribution center where they started at around $14/$15 per hour and now make around $18 per hour with benefits.

While many wages in their region have stagnated or fallen since the early 90s, rents, housing and property taxes have doubled or tripled, plus the supply of decent affordable workforce housing is much tighter.

This is why so many people working low paying unskilled manufacturing, construction and service industry jobs and/or part time or seasonal jobs live with relatives, friends or room-mates.

Those that can't afford their local cost of living often commute, work two jobs and supplement their low incomes with welfare benefits like public/private subsidized housing, food stamps, WIC, cash assistance, child care, medical care, transportation assistance, vehicle purchase/repair, HEAP, Emergency HEAP, lifeline landline/cellular phone, free cellular phone/minutes, soup kitchens, food-banks and other local/private benefits.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'H')ow long before these new startups run away to China? Anyone fancy venturing a guess.

[patience]

Sixstrings,

Agree. The few professionals will probably get their lives eroded also, as time goes by. Some years ago, it looked obvious to me that "globalization" meant that all workers compete with all other workes, wherever they are, subject to only the limitations of physical geography. I saw it start in manufacturing a long time ago, and began to strive for a place in agriculture, the only field I could think of that the US has advantages not as subject to global competition.

That was a comfortable step down for me in income, to far less than I made as an engineer, but I did it on my own terms, and I do fine now. Had I stayed where I was, there would be no job. That reality has been a wake up call for the unprepared lately, with more to come. Lots of pain on the way.

[MarkJ]

Our nation's largest private employer Wal-Mart is hiring 22,000 workers due to new construction and expansion.

These are the types of jobs that will be available for the future uneducated, unskilled, inexperienced job seekers.

[deMolay]

I have to take a contrary view on this one. Yes we will end up with the Gubmint workers the new elite ruling class on top. But as Peak Oil hits its stride, the cost of shipping will end Globalization. And we will see a relocalization of jobs and manufacturing to some extend. The same with farming and food production. China will benefit only by its huge domestic market. China for example will be hard pressed to move iron ore from say Brazil to China. Make a product and then ship it to North America and still make a profit. It will be more profitable for a US company to make a product locally and sell it locally. But I do agree that high paying blue collar jobs will be a thing of the past.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MarkJ', 'O')ur nation's largest private employer Wal-Mart is hiring 22,000 workers due to new construction and expansion.

These are the types of jobs that will be available for the future uneducated, unskilled, inexperienced job seekers.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'S')ixstrings,

Agree. The few professionals will probably get their lives eroded also, as time goes by. Some years ago, it looked obvious to me that "globalization" meant that all workers compete with all other workes, wherever they are, subject to only the limitations of physical geography. I saw it start in manufacturing a long time ago, and began to strive for a place in agriculture, the only field I could think of that the US has advantages not as subject to global competition.

That was a comfortable step down for me in income, to far less than I made as an engineer, but I did it on my own terms, and I do fine now. Had I stayed where I was, there would be no job. That reality has been a wake up call for the unprepared lately, with more to come. Lots of pain on the way.

[patience]

I spent something over 30 years developing what we called "hard automation", and implementing robots into manufacturing functions. Past member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and involved in their Robotics group in Louisville, KY, where Vern Estes of GE at Appliance Park in Louisvlile, was a pioneer in the field. I can state unequivocally that the effect of robots in the workplace has always been to ADD jobs, when they are successfully implemented. The result is greater output, and the need to have more highly trained people look after the robots and automation. If these are poorly applied, the company pays a big cost for the failure and returns to the old ways.

The Japanese are noted for their failures in CNC applications, as they are with the grand promises of robotics. Lots of big hype, short on delivery of results, like the "futuristic" cars that the automakers display each year, but never put in production. CNC machining and robotics provide consistency and higher quality where they are correctly applied, like programming, garbage in-garbage out. Lots of machine shops in the US went belly up trying to use CNC to do one-off jobs best suited to manual methods, and as many went uner trying to compete with CNC in its' best applications of making 5 to 500 pieces of something, before people learned the right ways. Robots are currently best at painting cars, welding mass produced items, and doing dangerous handling tasks, like loading a forging press with red hot steel parts.

The problems with inadequate nursing staffing go far beyond demographics. (Wife is a nursing drop out.) The business model of hospitals and nursing homes, which is basically ROI oriented, is at the root of it, followed by the insurance model, litigation, and many other woes. Robots do what they are programmed to do, by people, who invariably screw it up. (Old saying--To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.) Both robotics and computers are means of leveraging human effort. If robotics can be WELL applied to some aspect of medicine, we will like the results, but the simplistic idea of directly replacing a nurse with a robot ignores the basic function of a nurse, which is human judgement, a typically Japanese error. It is fine to scrap a few thousand parts getting a manuacturing line set up and running smoothly, but nursing does not have that margin for error. People get irritated if too many die while trying to get a thing worked out, and medical care is fraught with the problem of unique problems--the antithesis of programmed responses.

The same fears were hyped about computerization taking away jobs, and came out the same way--growth resulted, not job losses. Mexico has banned the import of a lot of heavy equipment out of the same fears, that it would put a lot of peon laborers out of work, and cause disruption. So, they stew in their poverty. The steam engine and factories in England met with the same resistance, because the cottage industry of handcarving wooden pulleys for sailing ship rigging was decimated. Yes, job losses happened for a time, but that was the start of that little thing we call the Industrial Revolution, in hindsight.

The future will require us to adapt, an uncomfortable thing for complacent humans, but necessary. Our jobs will change, and we will, too, like it or not.