My run-in with a Kool-Aid drinker tonight...

[BiggJawn]

I gotta stay out of that parking garage, last week it was some free-loader trying to ride my bumper out for free....Anyway....
Tonight I was riding up the lift with a woman who said "I wish I was staying to hear Lech Walesa speak."

Me: "Oh, that's right, that *IS* tonight. I'd like to ask him how his labour organization changed Poland when ours can't seem to even save our jobs."

"Oh, but they DID! 80 years ago."

"Yeah, 80 years ago, but now they seem to roll over and pee like puppies when Management growls."

"Oh, but if they'd push for EDUCATION for their members instead of 10 cents on the hour more shift diferential, Management would 'roll over' for them!"

"So how much education do you need, exactly, to make cars or washing machines or lay bricks? We can't *ALL* be supervisors with nobody to supervise."

"Oh, no, there's plenty of new service jobs!"

"Yeah, we become a nation of minimum wagers with Master's degrees, selling hamburgers to each other...Mmm-Huh..."

"Oh, no, why, 'A man's home is his Castle', and security systems are going to become in great demand, along with people to install and repair them!"

"Wait-you're telling me I'm going to get rich installing burglar ALARMS? Lemme tell ya, lady, $15 an hour, which is the going rate for 'Installers' of ANY kind, is *NOT* 'Good Money', unless you're working at Walmart. I *HAVE* a degree, and I'm not even making $40,000. So what do you tell people out there who have their Master's in computer science and just saw their third job in 6 years go to India? Lady, I don't know where you're coming from, but it's a LOT diferent down here in the trenchs..."

"Well, I have to run, I can see I really should talk to you more....By the way, I'm in the trenches, too, you know!"

"S'Yeah, but I'll warrant MY part of the trench is a lot muddier than yours..."

I forgot to ask her if she knew what happens to wages according to the Law of Supply and Demand when you still have plenty of Supply (able workers) but all the Demand (jobs) has gone to China and India?

Oh, boy, we're all gonna be selling ALARM SYSTEMS to each other! We're gonna be RICH!!!
Ain't GAWD GOOD to Murka?

Just who's going to need all these new alarm systems? The housing market's gonna bust in a year.

Burglar alarms. Service jobs. Yeah, maybe I could get a job working for "Geek Squad"...

[MisterP]

1. security systems + spatula flipping = burger alarms

welcome to the 21st century

[BiggJawn]

3. Yeah, they ever figure out how to keep the Krabby Patties hot...

...on their plane ride over from Bangalore or the Marianas...

I should have waited to see what kind of SUV she hoisted herself into... Escalade, I'd bet.

[Warpy]

2. Don't worry, the stupid bot will get hers

if this bunch in both parties stays in power. Every job that can't be shipped overseas will either be mechanized (look at self check outs in the super market) or given to a Mexican recruited especially as a guest worker.

[BiggJawn]

4. Yeah, but I'll "get mine" before her.

She's got Party Membership and a 6-figure hubby at home to keep her busy...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Political Penthouse Forum.

[this_side_up]

6. Ha! Including shipping, we paid $435

for ours which included an extra siren.
Spouse installed it himself.

WE do the monitoring, so no monthly bill for that.

This is what the Republicans wanted. Now they have it
and it will increase. They need to Shut Up! and Stop
Whining!

[BiggJawn]

8. Yeah, I mean it's not exactly ROCKET SCIENCE.

I'm SURE there's a large segment of the population that has NO clue on which end of a screwdriver to hold, but it's not that esoteric.
Thus, the job won't pay that much. You don't need a BS or MA to turn screws, twist wires, and drill holes.

I wonder if this woman's husband owns an alarm company?

[Jamison]

7. She sounds more clueless than anything.

A true Kool-Aid drinker would have went on some crazy, long diatribe about how unions are communist & evil, and they would have said "Americans are not entitled to a job" or some crap like that.

[Bushwick Bill]

9. Hair cutting, fried chicken, and open heart surgery

I love the way Jim Kunstler puts it.

What will happen to the economy connected with the easy motoring utopia - the building of ever more McHouses, WalMarts, office parks, and Pizza Huts? Over the past thirty days, with gasoline prices ratcheting above $3 a gallon, individuals all over America are deciding not to buy that new house in Partridge Acres, 34 miles from Dallas (or Minneapolis, or Denver, or Boston). Those individual choices will soon add up, and an economy addicted to that activity will be in trouble.

The housing bubble has virtually become our economy. Subtract it from everything else and there's not much left besides haircutting, fried chicken, and open heart surgery.

And, of course, as the housing bubble deflates, the magical mortgage machinery spinning off a fabulous stream of hallucinated credit, to be re-packaged as tradable debt, will also stop flowing into the finance sector.

We face a series of ramifying, self-reinforcing, terrifying breaks from business-as-usual, and we are not prepared. We are not talking about it in the traditional forums - only in the wilderness of the internet.
http://www.kunstler.com/spch_petrocollapse.html

[raccoon]

10. Thanks for the link; article looks great. I haven't read it yet,

but this jumped out at me:

"I maintain that we may see leaders far more dangerous in our future than George W. Bush."

Oh, God, I hope that will be after my lifetime.

[ShortnFiery]

11. The people are starting to wake up ...

When the Average American sees that MANAGEMENT can back professionals into a corner, then they may begin to wake up. Maybe.

I don't know about you, but I don't want my Delta Pilot to be nursing a bad attitude. :scared:

[BiggJawn]

12. Great article!

Thanks for posting the link, I'm passing it along. I could commute by rail if only there was something to ride. The infrastructure is already in place in my town. Just Add Rolling Stock.

At least my daughter's secure. She cuts hair. Damn good at it, too. No need to learn how to hook up alarm systems in vacant "Spec" McMansions...