Hey everyone.. we got home yesterday from out east.. JOBS JOBS JOBS

[Peacetrain]

Eleven days of moving, meeting and greeting, and just plain no TV, no newspapers, I just checked my emails once.. just talking with folks.. It was wonderful, but I missed you guys too.

Really good to catch up with what other people are reacting to outside of my little bit of Iowa.

There is a real anger building towards corporates not reinvesting the monies they have in the country.

Jobs Jobs Jobs.. it really is the economy stupid.. to quote Carville.

Something really cataclysmic in perceived proportions has seemed to happen to the job market.

Would love some feedback from people on this one.

We have all talked about the information age..being like the industrial age and jobs shifting from one focus to another.. industrial .. ie farm to manufacturing and all that is involved in that.

Here is the crux..the computer age may have moved us into an era that jobs as we know it will never come back.

Unions may very well die out because of the computer.

Technology has moved us all to the positions that we are all now our own industry. Almost back to what it was in the pre-industrial age.

Unions really grew up with people moving to factory type of positions, where large numbers of people were grouped together and could band together. Outside of very hard industries such as the auto, and big machinery.. we can start to produce out own stuff in our own residences cutting out many people who used to do those jobs.

Cases in point.. Photo development.. photos shops.. Print shops, print needs.. Card producers.. newspaper.. printers, book dealers bookshops etc etc etc.

We shop on line and things are delivered. Schools, colleges.. all can be accessed on line.. cutting down on the need for teachers etc.

Here in farm country, we have lost over half of all family farms.. bought up by corporates or malls.

We have green industry growing.. but private industry which used to be the creator of over 70% of all new jobs.. I just do not know if that will happen again. Because we all do it ourselves now on our little PC or Macs..

I was being not really all that facetious with this op yesterday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x418920

[Cha]

1. Hey Peacetrain..good to see you again~

Yes, lots more changes are in the wind..we sure do have to be flexible for this new Century.

I'm glad we have a President who is about Change..& who is actually helping us with the transition.

:hi:

[Peacetrain]

2. Hey Cha!

Good to be back..the more I think about the green job initiative..the more important it will become to the new economy makeup..

[quiet.american]

3. Hey Peacetrain - glad it sounds like you had a really nice break!

You know, I hadn't thought of it in terms as plain as "those jobs are never coming back," but your premise of how the information age may have permanently eliminated some jobs makes sense -- e.g., how the book and newspaper industry is operating on a wing and a prayer that Amazon's Kindle and other e-readers (ironically) will revive their revenues.

I agree with what you said in regard to the Green Jobs initiative -- Obama puts a lot of emphasis on that every time he talks about the economy, e.g. stressing that we need to START NOW to catch up with the cutting-edge industrialism that other countries (who don't have an ass-backwards Republican Party who block everything because they hate science) are already well into -- even in the current West Wing Week episode, there's a clip of Obama speaking to this -- saying that when batteries for electric cars are built, he wants to see "Made in America" on them); then there's his goal to double exports in the next few years, which also speaks to shoring up manufacturing in this country; his goal to produce more scientists and doctors from the country's students, speaks not only to innovation, I think, but also to stemming the need/justification for outsourcing; and one of my favorite things that's been done under his watch is government-provided funding for bringing broadband to rural communities. Years ago, Bill Clinton talked about an idea of his to replace jobs that rural communities were losing by locating call centers not in India, Mexico and Russia, but in rural areas here. I always wondered why the ball never got rolling on that, and then realized that many of those communities didn't have access to the technology that's needed. So, I was very glad to see that http://www.recovery.gov/News/press/Pages/20100325_DOC_Broadband.aspx">the Recovery Act is finally filling in that gap.

But let's face it, while I'm really happy to see the forward thinking being done right now, the results from these strategies are not going to happen soon enough to save everyone. I just hope too many don't have to fall through the cracks during this much-needed transition to "a new economy." I know Obama is working as fast as he can, but even he admits there has to be a transition period... which would probably go a lot faster if Republicans stopped wailing "what about the small businesses" while they systematically vote against every single thing that would benefit small businesses.

[Peacetrain]

6. It was moving my son

quiet.american..but we did go to Lancaster for a little break..

I really think the whole idea of small businesses opening to create new jobs is being held up by the Republicans right now.. to keep job creation low.. and big buisness has its own reasons to hold on to a trillion dollars and not hire..again to get republicans in to rewrite tax legislation ..


Of course 5 years from now a book will come out showing everything they did and the people behind it, and everyone will go .. oh what a shame.. should have done something..

[quiet.american]

8. Hello! "...everyone will go .. oh what a shame.. should have done something..." nt

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. I keep hearing commentators on NPR say that business is sitting on...

more than a trillion dollars, and not putting it back into the economy. Some seem to think it's just business protecting it's financial health, but others believe that this is payback for an administration they believe is unfriendly to them. My fear is that if business has decided that Dems and Obama are the enemy, they may wait out this administration, to effect election outcomes. We've got so many things working against us right now, and Citizens United certainly didn't help. Couple that with a bought off media, and the people lose.

[Peacetrain]

5. That was the scuttle I was hearing ...

That buisness is making a calculated decision to withhold hiring to try and get the Democrats out of office so that republicans will get in and extend the tax cuts..The cuts are going to expire as written in law now.. so they need their minions in their to rewrite new legislation

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. Spot on! It's a travesty, but what can the president do about it, other than...

make the case for business to help out their fellow countrymen in these tough times. But, any olive branch extended to business is met with jeers and cries of "corporatist", and other such nonsense. How is any sitting president, whether he be Repuke or Dem, supposed to create jobs without the cooperation of business?

Let's admit that some of the anti-business rhethoric from the left has been absolutely unhelpful, and we may all pay the price for that.

[Hekate]

9. Welcome back, Peacetrain. Good to hear from you again.

:hi:

[Peacetrain]

10. Morning Hekate!

Good to be back..:hi:

[ismnotwasm]

11. It seems I remember this being predicted

In some class or a series of articles or something, I read years ago. One of the reasons I appreciate Obama's 'green industry' approach, because it will create jobs--but not enough to fill the gap at least not in the time frame we need

Factory farms came with their own set of problems; the recent salmonella outbreak as you pointed out is a case in point. 'Free range' animal tend to be pricier, and people with low paying or no jobs are just going to hit the local store and buy what's cheap. Smaller independent family farms struggle, struggle and often go under.

(There is an interesting article in the summer edition of "Ms." magazine about "The Feminist Food Revolution" about the 'grow your own' movements, and the increase in women farmers (a 19% increase in 2007, vs a 9% increase in farmers overall) These tend to be small diversified farms that sell to local 'farmers markets')

(And a bit OT, I have a book called "Dirt; The Erosion of Civilizations" that traces the history of civilizations relating to how we farm, the conclusion is we still don't take good enough care of our soil, the erosion is over such a long period of time that it's easy to ignore, but you can't ignore it when you're top soil is gone. Think the factory farms care? I hope to hell they do)

Same thing with anything that can be mass produced and cut costs and increase profit. I have nothing against certain kinds of mass productions. My favorite sci-fi author points out that many of us live akin to royalty of old, with metal spoons and music with dinner. Our trade agreements, something I certainly don't fully understand, are not on the side of the worker. CAFTA for instance, simply puts one poor country in competition with another poor country.

One thing interesting about photos from what I understand (from a couple of friend who are photographers) is that digital photographs don't last like the old kind, so it's kind of part of the 'throwaway' culture

And education. We want everyone to be educated right? It seems to me that the system of education needs to evolve along with the population being educated. On-line classed are great, but I suspect there will be something missing without face to face human interaction, but while we move toward more and more technology, what should we be educating our people in? Not the technology itself, if those jobs are elsewhere. A problem. Big one. We have far to many inequities as it is in race and class as it is and our society could easily take a huge destructive step backward if even those who manage to get an education, can't get a job.

On unions, I work as a nurse, one of the things I also think about unions is their own successes --combined with media negativity- have worked against them. I talk to a younger (and not so young) generation of nurses--who work in an open shop, who take union victories either for granted or as something abstract, about what could happen, and I'm afraid we'll have to lose before we get more participation. What the sliver lining is, nurses WILL fight, when they get their backs up, of that I have no doubt. So that's one 'job market' that can hold on to union representation.

We've got a lot of work to do, don't we?