Sawmill Creek At Work

[Dan Hintz]

Funny thing is, Dan, that it sounds like you have decided to see only "your" red cars....

Maybe you failed to read my entire post... I said I could find both types if I looked in the right direction. But if I wanted to bury my head in the sand, I could change my viewpoint to one or the other and see exactly what I expect to see.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

I have "enough". More is not better, just more. I have enough to enjoy the rest of my days in my jeans-and-t-shirt sorta way, and now I can think about pampering my wife, or setting up my dream shop, or heading off to Utah for a week in the Westfalia, or playing with the dog, or putzing around with the house projects, or going to see family and friends, or helping with a weeks-long sailboat delivery, or putting together a case of $10 bottles at my winesmithy, or finally learning to play my guitar, or wandering the farmer's market and coming up with a knockout bargain dinner, or ___________. The non-work stuff.

Wow!
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Jeans and t-shirt in Colorado?

Isn't that during the summer, when you have a picnic on that day?

[Derek Gilmer]

I still don't buy the "we are getting lazier and that leads to jobs going over seas" argument as valid. I'd say "we are getting greedier and that leads to jobs going over seas".

When someone can buy an entire screwdriver set from HD for $19.95 that was made in India/China/etc by someone with 0 benefits, getting a few dollars a day, has little quality control needs or quality of life (compared to us) OR a equal or similar quality $25 screwdriver set from HD that was made by a North American worker who has lots fo benefits, making at least $7 an hour and sadly of late seems to have little quality demands from his company the choice most make is going to be the cheaper set. Those numbers are generalizations I know. But that kind of mentality in consumers pushes jobs to where they are the most profitable for a few. I've read a few articles of China beginning to lose some work as it moves to even cheaper areas of manufacture.

And sadly buying American isn't as good a guarantee as it once was. I've gone through 3 "Made in the USA" nail sets in a week. Each one broke on the third light hammer strike. So the corporate greed comes in. "Made in the USA" has become a marketing ploy in some arenas. If you look closely or research it many things are "Made in the USA with some foreign parts" which can boil down to everything being made in a 3rd world country then put in a package here in the US. Or quality is severely comprimised by US made items in order to hit a price point that satisfies consumer trends.

Thankfully there are companies like LN, LV and many others that buck this trend. And continue to show that a craftsman made tool has a place in the world.

So in summary consumer and corporate greed is more a factor than worker drone laziness in jobs moving over seas.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Joe,

Unfortunately your initial premise lacks reinforcement.

The jobs that moved overseas were manufacturing jobs. Most of the folks who perform those types of jobs didn't have access to the internet on the production lines.

More importantly....manufacturing was moved overseas by companies for a multitude of reasons including cheaper labor, lower taxes and fewer environmental regulations to meet...............then you also have to figure in the greed of campanies, company executives and shareholders as other reasons those plants were moved too. The sad part is that none of those involved want to acknowledge or accept their responsibility in the process. They don't look at the oveall effect....they just look at what they perceive is good for themselves.

[Joe Angrisani]

Not only do I concede Derek's and Ken's points, but I agree. I do not have my head in the sand and I do not think it's all one or the other. My "seeing jobs move away as a kid" is certainly not a "posting on internet forums instead of working" point and more a "lack of regulation" one. I never claimed to be the president of the debate club. But we're getting into another discussion, where one side is corporate greed (self explanatory), and the other side is worker greed (sorry, the guy who sweeps the floor doesn't deserve $25/hr). My original post was simply an indirect observation that people waste time at work, and we (collectvely as a society) think it's ok because somehow we (collectively) think that time is ours, not the employer's.

But I do have to say a little about Ken's corporate board- and shareholder-bashing. I find this a lame excuse that is too often tossed into discussions. The average American consumer has decided they want Walmart-y cheap and disposable, with price the one and only driving factor. The masses choose this, then the people who run and own the companies provide what the masses want, then the masses curse them. The consumer has created the situation, not the companies. All the companies do is act on that market. I know. I was a "little guy", and fought the price-only, quality-be-damned mentality all the time at my business. But I never blamed the board rooms.

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Joe,

Unfortunately your initial premise lacks reinforcement.

The jobs that moved overseas were manufacturing jobs. Most of the folks who perform those types of jobs didn't have access to the internet on the production lines.

I disagree.
Thousands of engineering, programming and tech services jobs have gone over seas.
And thousands more just disappeared and if they were resurrected it was out-sourced.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Joe.....

I am not bashing corporate board rooms or shareholders......I am a shareholder and have a lot of money tied up on stocks and bonds..... and I just retired from one of the largest corporations in the world.

But it is still the decisions of all persons.....labor, management, shareholders and yes the consumer that caused what has happened....... and none of them has bellied up to the bar and accepted their portion of the blame....... and there is a certian amount of selfishness on everybody's part that has caused it.

In the end it is a capitalistic society but we have stretched it to an extreme. The different parts of a company....labor , management, shareholders, boardroom...have all become compartmentalized, selfishly looking out of their own interests with little regard to the effect on the overall company or the national economy.

A word you never hear when discussing stock dividends, company profits, corporate executive salaries or employee wages is.... what is reasonable?

The consumer has added to the problem ....what's reasonable?

It is unreasonable to expect a tool that costs 1/10th of the cost of an alternative to have the same quality as the more expensive one. Sorry....it's unreasonable. If it does....Great! But it's an unreasonable to expect it to have the same quality or perform as well.



Bill,

The engineering jobs, programming and tech services jobs were some of the last to go overseas and it was for the same reason....cheaper labor..and people with the desired degrees.......fewer US college students are pursuing engneering degrees........not due to people accessing the internet.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Folks,

A little friendly reminder. We will allow this discussion to continue only as long as we keep personal attacks out of it and it remains civil.

Personal attacks violate the TOSs.

Thank you.

[Joe Angrisani]

Thank you Ken. It will make no sense to someone reading this thread now that you tastefully removed "John Doe's" posts, but my only wish was to have a little "hanger talk". This will be one of those cases where we agree to disagree, I suppose.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

First,

The TOSs make it perfectly clear that personal or professional attacks are not allowed.

Secondly, I was trying fairly remove those posts that were attacking you and any posts that referred to those attacks become no longer germane.

Sorry if you disagree.

[Steven DeMars]

I do not consider myself as a contributor to the economic downfall this country is seeing . . . I have been working since I was 12.

Steve

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Bill,

The engineering jobs, programming and tech services jobs were some of the last to go overseas and it was for the same reason....cheaper labor..and people with the desired degrees.......fewer US college students are pursuing engneering degrees........not due to people accessing the internet.

You said...

I said...

You said...

It still amounts to a bunch of people here taking exception, like they'd been
accused of something, when regardless of these peoples personal
situations, more and more companies are denying internet access and
cell phone use while people are at work. Especially companies that can't
ship things overseas, i.e. hospitals, trucking companies, etc.

They must see the lost value of not stoping these practices. So you
have to believe that companies who can send it overseas have one more
excuse to do so.

[John Coloccia]

With all due respect, Joe, when I said that our generation likes to talk about problems instead of solving them, I was referring to you. I don't think there's anything wrong with early retirement, and I congratulate you in being able to do it, but it's difficult to take you seriously in regards to our nation's lack of productivity. I used to tell my younger engineers, "You're not in school anymore. Don't come to me with problems. Investigate and come to me with a recommendation, even if that recommendation is to hand it off to someone more experienced to handle it. This isn't amateur hour...you're a pro, now. Act like it." They soon get the picture that things get done by doing something, not by talking about doing something.

So do something. Start up a company, turn off their SMC access if you think that will help, and create some jobs here that won't have to go overseas. It's like voting. If you leave it up to everyone else, don't complain when you don't get what you want.

And as per Ken's last comments, please don't take this as any sort of attack. It's not intended that way. I just don't know how else to say it.

[Derek Gilmer]

I say we find the labor union organizers. The best of the best even. And double their salary if they will go to china, mexico and other "cheaper than should be legal wages" countries and get some very strong unions going. That'd help bring the cost of foreign manufacturing back into line with the rest of the world

[Joe Angrisani]

Ken.... I do not disagree. I agree 100%. I just wanted my thank you post to make sense since there was no longer any context. Thank you again.

Steven.... Please don't focus on particulars. I never intended to single out individuals, or even imply I was singling out. I only proposed an observation of the "averages" and any personal attack was never in my mind.

John.... See, everyone? John made his point, and clarified it, without getting rude. In response, I was productive. I made jobs. And I don't suck the teet of society now; rather I have removed myself from the workforce (freeing up a job for someone else), while still paying in via property taxes, taxes on investment earnings, taxes on car registrations and day-to-day purchases, mentoring, and volunteering. And my OP was never specifically about SMC.