Thread: What is wrong with America

Originally Posted by MichaelP

Most of the first world is now in a post-full-employment era, the issue is that our societies aren't geared to deal with it.

If you look at the productivity gains through automation since the 1970s, there's no chance of seeing the manufacturing jobs come back. Even if all the manufacturing was to come back, it wouldn't employ half the people that had those jobs prior to the 1970s. The US population has grown by 50% since the 1970s.

The same thing is now happening to white collar jobs, which is honestly no big surprise. Management by MBAs is applying the same "successful" pattern to white collar jobs as it did to blue collar jobs. So employee morale and engagement is at an historical low, which impacts the bottom line, which is speeding up the process. White collar jobs are now supposed to recycle in the "service industry".

In the past three years, my team was halved while the workload quadrupled. We're now declared a productivity bottleneck by the management (against all metrics), so we're getting outsourced in the next 18 months.

Now that is the bitter truth. None of the old solutions will fit either. Sorry to hear that you are being outsourced.

Bob

When ever I see a problem I head right for the basics, the root of it, if you will. It's all in the people we have placed in power. Even more basic than that is the fact we really don't have a choice in that. They present us with these characters who own stock, sit on the boards of corporations, profit from the market. They politicians also vote on and create laws on how to control all this.

The results come out daily on your television set. Reminds me of the start of a show :<0) "You have lost control of YOUR television set "

I could sit here and make a plan with you guys that would save the world BUT,,, who would listen ? Who would make a sacrifice to get the gains ? Who would build me a bullet proof bunker to live in the rest of my life ? They would shoot me , don't you think ?
They are the ones who prosper in this environment . Some good some not so good. It's a big machine that need a wrench thrown into the gears.

Those that can do something about all this are comfortably numb.
I didn't mean to rant, but all these problems we face can be solved. We can even use the system we have, but organizing, focusing and doing it , seem to elude us.

Back to my point, where to start, basically.

Yeah we have a bit of the same where I grew up... ever since it was decided that manual trades were for losers and you had to have a college degree. I keep seeing people with degrees and no marketable skills. The BA/BS is the new high-school diploma and the MA/MS with top grades/awards is what you need for the good entry-level jobs, partially because of grades/degree inflation. I keep getting candidates claiming experience not able to perform the most basic task in the job, or even able to perform a simple division without a calculator. Last month, I was in a recruitment event where a 21 years old fresh out of school was boasting about how his skills meant he should go straight for one of the top paying jobs in the field... and yet he couldn't answer the most basic questions.

America doesn't need to import foreign workers because of a lack at home, that's a red herring from the corporations. The corporations need to import foreign workers because there's a lack of qualified people willing to work extended shifts for a low salary and unlikely to complain. The STEM shortage was triggered largely by the lack of opportunities paying decent wages and the fascination with finance. Given the choice between busting your proverbial posterior to maybe pay back your student loans before retiring (STEM jobs) or having the possibility to retire debt-free while still in your 30s (Quant, HFT), do you honestly know many people who would take the first option? There's a similar brain drain for MBAs, with up to a third going straight to wall street or stock-market related jobs after graduating (look up the "HBS indicator" for a funny theory on the subject).

The radical solution isn't carpet bombing the rest of the world but rethinking the distribution of wealth.

Even in the US tax system money is prioritized to labor and it is a reflection of the larger trend - money is far more valuable than work and the rewards for the creation of wealth are distributed with the lion's share going to the money involved and the crumbs to the labor.

The standard approach from the past of 'let the market price everything' is not a long term solution because the increase of productivity means that the labor side is systematically weakened while the money side is systematically strengthened in the process.

Education is important because it develops the skills that are relevant for the new economic reality which are more cerebral and less physical. Of course, there is bad education and good education.
But skilled white collar worker is still a worker.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

When ever I see a problem I head right for the basics, the root of it, if you will. It's all in the people we have placed in power. Even more basic than that is the fact we really don't have a choice in that. They present us with these characters who own stock, sit on the boards of corporations, profit from the market. They politicians also vote on and create laws on how to control all this.

And from first hand experience, new untainted players get contacted by the corporations as soon as they have a position.

What's wrong with America? Good post idea.

Many of the problems mentioned so far in my opinion, are symptoms of a larger and deeper crisis. Atheists and non-religious will most likely roll their eyes or dismiss the following, but objective truth is dead in America. Morality in America is now relative and truth is subjective.

We in America are in large part stupefied by our own hypocrisy. We snuff out any mention of God like a spent cigarette butt but in the same breath scoff with "moral" or politically correct superiority at what we think is "wrong" about another's actions. You can't be amoral and claim morality at the same time. I'm in sales and have the opportunity to talk to many people one on one. It's a great part of my work. Many many times in the last handful of years people I talk to bring up some shocking and heinous news bit or other things that could fit in the category of the degradation of our society and end rhetorically with: "What is going on with the world today?" and a shake of the head....

Sure some will argue something like: "Society can be civil without objective truth/religion. Humans know the difference between "right" and "wrong" innately. Our system of laws, although flawed in many ways, overall is sufficient in being the framework of our "morality" and society evolves. Majority rules."

Humans don't know the difference between right and wrong innately. Ask any cop that has to deal with people who are literally devoid of a conscience daily. If laws are the highest form of morality in a society then we're all just a bunch of animals. I actually don't mind the concept of majority rules in theory; unfortunately humans en masse are manipulated all too easily and are too easily convinced that the the ideas they share with most others are their own.

I believe we're on a fast track of degradation as a culture. We can't be offended by or call each other out on most any type of behavior now. My truth is not your truth and vice versa. If we are going that way, let's at least please stop as a culture with pseudo-morality. That's like an old man standing on the sidewalk shaking his fist and yelling at hoodlums to "get off his lawn" when in reality he has no lawn or no home to claim any longer.

Chris L

Originally Posted by BobH

Now that is the bitter truth. None of the old solutions will fit either. Sorry to hear that you are being outsourced.

Bob

It's cool, I see it as an opportunity to grow. I'm also contacted by recruiters all the time, there's just no emergency yet for me to take anything below my dream job

In the great USA, we need to quit voting in career politicians, and start voting in public servants, the way it was designed to be!! We also so need more educated voters as well, but the problem with that is the news media is where most of us are getting our info,from papers, news, magazines and the like, and they don't just report the news anymore. They report news with a spin that helps promote their own agenda, be it conservative, or liberal. We can't just write our congressmen any more because we don't have as much money as the lobbing groups!! Politicians just don' listen to the people that they represent any more!!

Originally Posted by ChrisL

I believe we're on a fast track of degradation as a culture.

I guess it depends on what one considers moral and immoral. One hundred years ago it was immoral to marry outside of your ethnic group. A hundred and fifty years back it was moral to own other human beings and treat them as property (a view endorsed in the Bible).

Icons of American capitalism made their wealth and moved this country forward by leaps by stealing and cheating.

When I compare to the past I don't see moral degradation, I see that the current generation are in some ways better people than the past ones, in other ways they are exactly the same just expressed in a different form.

YTMV
I am in favor of personal thought about a subject and these are only my personal reactions to society as I see it.

Watching local small town politics over the last 50+ years; I now see the third and fourth generation of these guys.
Where the ancient was a bit shady, each generation, it seems, has less ethics. Seems each of the generations get away with more than the last because there is no strong deterrent in the family structure.

I have no opposition, personally, to a spiritual position. Watch the old WWII Victory at Sea" or " War In the Pacific," or "The Army at War," or similar real documentaries. You see faith in action and non-denominational Chaplains to be of service first, to their men, and then their country. As it is said, there are few atheists in foxholes or watching a suicide aircraft coming toward their ship.

That said, many of the patriotic persons get slaughtered in any war and the shady guys find ways to get deferred. I came out of service in the 60s and re-entered college. I watched the folks that babied out or went to another country and those who got deferred by becoming teachers..Yup! They are the administrators of our schools and public systems. And the politicians in the Service seem go higher while the worthy guys get out and back to family and friends.
After retirement the Generals are hired immediately by Mega Corp and are past masters at manipulation of the politicians they lobby.

Just some of my thoughts, because I still believe this country can be turned around by local understanding of politics.
and thoughtful voting. The local guys are the ones that go up the ladder and may actually do some good for a school system or local needs.
As I say, Your Thoughts May Vary; put yours to use locally!
~Richard