seabeckind
seabeckind's JournalTable 2 is absolutely disgusting and says much more
If you look thru that list of "companies" there are quite a few that began life as public utilities. In their case the term "YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT" very much applies. Some guy with the money took value and gave us bigger bills (like the "harvesters" like Romney).
We the people built that infrastructure. By putting our money and support into it, we put our blood and tears into it. We are the ones who supported the eminent domain to buy the right-of-ways -- it was our land that was "donated".
And then some politician, a temp worker, came in and decided it had some value, so he sold it. Even tho HE didn't own it. Sometimes he asked us tho many times our objections were ignored.
Like that bridge that the big controversy is about...how much of port authority is us and how much goes to line the 1% pockets? Or parking meters in Chicago.
When someone says take back our country, how about we start with this? If eminent domain worked to take away the right-of-ways, it sure should be able to work to take back our infrastructure.
Then maybe I can tell Comcast and Verizon to shove their cables and towers.
</rant>
There are multiple factors at play in the jobs situation
I think what's happening is that you are not looking at the totality of the problem, that you are looking for the silver lining and ignoring the rest of the cloud.
My reference to unpaid internships is an example of the tactics employed by the unscrupulous to reduce their labor cost. It was not meant to be a factor in this article. Eg:
"But in practice, there is little to stop employers from exploiting interns. The Labor Department rarely cracks down on offenders, saying that it has limited resources and that unpaid interns are loath to file complaints for fear of jeopardizing any future job search."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/unpaid-internships-dont-always-deliver.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The point m by cabrona is more related to the assertion by businesses in their justification for H1B visas. There are many of us who feel that justification is a total crock because anecdotally anyone having any connection to the IT industry know there are many, many out-of-work technical people. Many of us know students who graduate from top schools but can't find a job. It's a buyer's market when it comes to labor. Eg:
"The tech industry, through lobbying organizations such as Compete America, argues that there is a skills shortage in the U.S., which justifies the need for H-1B visas. The claim of a skills shortage is in dispute, however.
Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, argued in a column Monday that the idea of a skills gap is something "that should have been killed by the evidence, but refuses to die."
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247241/Offshore_firms_took_50_of_H_1B_visas_in_2013
And now back to this particular case. It is a feel-good attempt to make us think something i being done to solve the job problem in this country. It will do nothing other shove money at trade school training with no guarantee of a real job afterwards. Any "manufacturer" in the area (of which there might be few) who hires these workers will get a freeby. Instead of a couple weeks or months in ojt, they're productive right away.
The entire salon article is full of maybes and couldbes. Saying an intern might make $50k a year is great but hen saying the USA doesn't use them much is kind of a buzzkill, isn't it?
Long ago I thought making the head of a corporation which was a leader in outsourcing our jobs czar (Immelt) was a very bad idea. Haven't seen any reason to change my mind yet.
So whatcha think of the Heinz business?
That one "taxpayer" word really got you worked up, I see.
I know exactly who funded FDR's New Deal...a whole new set of taxpayers who hadn't been paying taxes. The 1%.
There was also a law enacted, short lived unfortunately, which only allowed corporate deductions for reinvestment in the US.
That's where the money came from...not those without jobs.
The idea of the New Deal that you seem to miss is that the entire thing was an investment in the infrastructure of the USA. Electrification, dams, roads, even buildings (Timberline Lodge is impressive). The gov't commissions decided where best to spend money to make jobs. It may have asked for advice from corporations, but didn't hand over millions to let them improve their bottom line.
This giveaway is just trickledown by another name.
Now let's look at what this "investment" is. It is an investment in the status quo. An example might be to teach workers how to build and maintain ICE. Great for today but what about the future? Instead of teaching what is, our education should be to sow the seeds for innovation. Not a better GPS display for a Toyota.
The New Deal was an investment in the future. That is until the reagan crew came to town and started selling it off. Now we have our own dem congresscritters selling awesome buildings for a song that are then turned into condos for rich people.
Quit looking at Biden for what he has. Look at his roots. That's why I said he should know better.
As a little quip, maybe they can stop by the Heinz hq and talk about training the replacement workers for those being let go.
The argument isn't about the goal
the argument is about the path...and whether that path will get us to that goal.
I saw a piece of Rand Paul's speech on Rachel or Chris the other night...he was saying some things I really thought were great goals.
But then he said what we needed to do to get there and I rejected his position. More tax cuts, more trickledown, less regulation, etc.
The problem we have in achieving these lofty goals is getting the vast populace to agree on what the goals really are and whether the path will really get us there or even farther into the swamp.
Couple examples: NSA spying -- yep, pretty nasty thing but NSA is subject to public policy. Private corporations aren't. I'm more worried about Verizon and Comcast than NSA. With NSA all we have to do is shine a light on it and reinforce the rules that are there. We can't even get into the private concerns because of "trade secrets".
End corporate welfare? -- Great idea. Define it. There's a piece on DU that talks about some new jobs training program. I think we'd be much better off applying that money to a new infrastructure project and let the jobs be a by-product of that project, not to mention the possibility for some technological breakthrus that would spawn a whole new industry. Kinda like the idea of broadband as a public utility (ala Rural Electrification) with infrastructure standards or a new electrical grid.
More corporate welfare
Happening all over. What it really is is the shifting of specific job related training from the company needing that specialized talent
to the taxpayer.
Education should be for the principles and operations in a generalized situation. Eg, workflow management, plant management, HR, etc. Then the company should provide mentors, intern classes, etc, to apply those generalized principles to their specific operation.
That's the way it worked long ago. And, it worked very well because what the company got was an employee who might be able to improve the operations. Make the plant work better. Come up with a better way to do parts consolidation. But like so many other things in the backwardsassed 21st century corptocracy, the last thing that MBA wants is someone who might compete for his position internally in a few years.
Or one that might want a little more pay.
This is all bullsh!t. More extortion by companies by dangling jobs.
Let them do their own training...instead of listening to the f'in CEOs, read up on the New Deal.
(on edit) C'mon Biden, you know better. I'll give POTUS a pass cause he might not know better, being a ivy league guy aand all, but you??? C'mon, Joe.
MBA solution to a corporate culture disease
Having a review step after the fact is worthless because at that point the investment has already been lost.
The problem is that for the last 40 years the primary focus is on increasing profits by reducing quality and cutting labor. When I saw the parts described on the news it was obvious that the switch had been designed within barely acceptable tolerances instead of being overengineered to reduce potential failures.
Exactly the same as is happening in just about all of the products we have available today. Ref: crappification.
This is a systemic problem that this CEO is facing...then again, perhaps she is a result of that same corporate attitude. I have no doubt that there is probably someone much more competent than she but in the face of the exploding pay in the corporate board world the truly competent cannot be afforded. Then again, the truly competent wouldn't accept the environment.
Long ago the CEO might have faced a labor force that would refuse to produce a shoddy product. Outsourcing sure eliminated that conflict.
I agree
The true innovator may not be able to do the specific task but he knows why that task is important and how it relates to the overall effort. He also knows the principles behind that task.
Based on what I have seen in the workplace, too much emphasis seems to be placed on "how" something is done rather than "why" it is done. And I've noticed that the industry doesn't even realize what they are doing...that they are destroying their own future.
The training proposals I have seen out of this admin reinforce that concept at the expense of academic goals.
If I'm not clear, I'm sorry. I can't seem to find the right way to say it. An example might be the PC guys long ago. They learned, mostly on their own, the concepts and principles of computing on a personal level. Just about all formal education and OJT involved mainframes and analog business machines. These innovators, and there were thousands, me included, managed to adapt those high level concepts to the desktop. In order to do that they needed to be the "jack of all trades" (at least in that arena) and make all the different parts fit together.
They needed to know what was going on in the industrial engineering area, the media lab stuff, the PARC, DARPA's stuff, Usenet, the IBM PC group, etc. And all of that was happening outside the conventional corporate environment.
That's exactly what I said
Eg, "understanding things like basic project management".
That is education that transcends a specific job requirement. If a company needs a bunch of widget constructors, they won't waste time teaching those employees the interaction of that widget with the trivets coming from another factory, nor will they teach that employee or the general concepts behind workflow management.
It's not worth the expense and even worse -- the hidden hazard. After they have taught that employee those things he can leverage that knowlege by threatening to take his talents to another employer. Or, heaven forbid...increase his salary.
But from a macro standpoint...a societal standpoint, that's exactly what WE want.
If you're looking for a new technology you don't focus all your training on the current technology. You teach {on edit, train was the wrong word} for the concepts and principles behind the technology. Corporations make their profit from the current technology. There is no bottom line benefit from something that doesn't exist.
In order to do that you need a force that isn't driven by the profit model. There was no profit from our space race...only afterwards and as a subsidiary benefit.
Obama is wrong. He's not listening to the people who have altruistic motives. He's listening to those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Afterthought...
The GI Bill provided the means for much of our citizenry to obtain an education that prior to the war would not have occurred.
Maybe Obama should quit talking about how much the people need to go get training and provide a strong gov't drive to help give the student a direct incentive. Determine those fields most necessary for our national interest and give aid and fellowships with a contractual obligation to do public work. Eg, medical training with a placement in needed locales that would eliminate the education debt when the contractual period is over.
Next -- start using executive orders to get rid of that old state's rights idea that the corporations use to bypass national interests.
Vouchers indeed -- but this time for societal needs, not some ....
Long ago our entire eduational thrust shifted because of a beep from space.
Specialized training kills innovation
Innovation happens because the education is broad. A person who has specialized training doesn't necessarily see the principles behind the operation. That person also doesn't get the opportunity to see other implementations and is therefore bound to a particular method.
This whole training business is just one more way the corporate culture is trying to shift more of their cost of operation to the employee or our commons. It's a great deal for them and really hurts the macro model.
Maybe Obama might learn more about how to create a good job environment by talking to people other than those who have made the situation what it is. Maybe he needs to offer a little more leadership. Provethose morons who say that gov't can't create jobs wrong. Our entire advancement of the middle class was caused because of gov't leadership and a vision of what we could be.
And then build the infrastructure that those corporations have been robbing to line their pockets. Ala the Rural Electrification Project. The interstate highway system. The canals. The dams.
A new New Deal.
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