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That having been said, as of today I am officially unemployed, and when I rejoin the workforce in nine days, I will have done so taking more than a 50% pay-cut.
I am nervous as hell about the fact that I have no health insurance at the moment, given the state of my lumbar spine coupled with the fact that I'll be engaging in heavy physical labor over the next week.
And I did this voluntarily.
May the gods / flying spaghetti monster / etc have mercy on my soul...
Originally Posted by Joe Perez
Just gonna try not to paralyze myself between now and Monday, July 17.
No pregnancy. I took steps to prevent that a few years ago.
But the minimum wage in San Francisco has officially been raised to $15.
It will be interesting to watch how this plays out over the next year. I'm torn between the half of me that wants to be proven right with a repeat of the Seattle situation, the genuinely benevolent half of me that wants humanity as a whole to improve, and the pragmatic half of me that realizes this is unlikely to occur on the basis of government artificially increasing the cost of labor.
(Yes, my psyche has three halves. You think it's easy being this awesome?)
Also, we have a nun in Studio 2 right now cooking some good-looking stuff on the midday show. Judging by the aroma wafting up into the machine room, she's definitely worth more than $15/hr in the kitchen.
This evening on the way home, I heard a story on All Things Considered talking about the minimum-wage, and how it's likely going to be a major issue in the next congress. Here's the full segment: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/68175...cost-of-living
During the segment, the interviewer, Audie Cornish spoke with David Cooper, senior economic analyst for the Economic Policy Institute.
"When the minimum wage was first established, back in the 1930s, it was intended to be a living wage. The problem is that, over the years, we've raised the Federal minimum wage so infrequently and so inadequately that the gap between where it is today and where it would need to be a living wage is enormous."
Er... come again? The US Federal minimum wage was established in 1938, at $0.25 per hour, which is equivalent to $4.78 in inflation-adjusted value. The highest which it has ever been was in 1968, at $1.60 per hour ($11.65 in 2018 dollars.)
Things like this make me wonder whether Mr. Cooper is deliberately lying, or if senior members of the Economic Policy Institute really are that badly misinformed.
Last edited by Joe Perez; Jan 2, 2019 at 08:26 PM.
It's been around 15 years since I've worked in a factory environment (excluding the time in 2010-2011 I spent as an outfitter at the Meyer-Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, as that was a temporary assignment.)
And, to be perfectly honest, I kind of prefer being in a tactical-management role. Eg: I'm #2 in the chain of command. Other people deal with the board of directors and come up with the broad strategy, I figure out how to actually implement it, and then run a team of smart people who make it happen.
This is a comfortable place for me. I get to do lots of fun stuff, but am shielded from much of the corporate politics.
That said, I still feel a certain sense of nostalgia watching people do real things in a real factory.
My intuitive sense is that nobody in this video has an engineering degree, and yet I'm also fairly confident that none of them are earning anything even remotely resembling minimum wage. Largely because they are actually willing to show up every day, sober and on-time, and do quality work:
My intuitive sense is that nobody in this video has an engineering degree, and yet I'm also fairly confident that none of them are earning anything even remotely resembling minimum wage. Largely because they are actually willing to show up every day, sober and on-time, and do quality work:
Some don't realize how many truly stupid and/or unmotivated people are out there. Everyday I work with people who's entire life career has amounted to a gas station manager making $45k a year. Most of them are decent people, but they still 'don't get them computer things' and drive 20 year old cars that aren't roadworthy.
Some don't realize how many truly stupid and/or unmotivated people are out there. Everyday I work with people who's entire life career has amounted to a gas station manager making $45k a year. Most of them are decent people, but they still 'don't get them computer things' and drive 20 year old cars that aren't roadworthy.
Go back to being 19, jobless, high AF, and just show up for work for the next 15 years.
Most of them work 60+ hr weeks because the above 19 year old doesn't bother showing up.
Go back to being 19, jobless, high AF, and just show up for work for the next 15 years.
Most of them work 60+ hr weeks because the above 19 year old doesn't bother showing up.
My intuitive sense is that nobody in this video has an engineering degree, and yet I'm also fairly confident that none of them are earning anything even remotely resembling minimum wage. Largely because they are actually willing to show up every day, sober and on-time, and do quality work:
In each of those videos the workers come from an area of the world where to even be allowed on the factory floor as an employee they would’ve been through a multi-year apprenticeship. The apprentice program is designed to accomplish a number of things: 1. Ensure the person has the requisite mental skills, 2. The inclination to work in the job/field for a number of years and 3. The technical skills needed to perform the tasks needed. That apprenticeship typically took 2-4yrs to complete and would’ve included working in a repair shop/tool room that would’ve been the “hands-on” classroom.
The European programs do a wonderful job of weeding out the person who “doesn’t get it” yet may have gotten through the initial testing. The US used to have them in industry. At the start of my career, when I had no idea what I wanted to do, I spent 3 years as an apprentice machinist at a US company that was one of the last to abandon the program as too expensive.
The US economy would never embrace the European programs as they would be deemed too “socialist”.
We call them (as a catch all), Community colleges but the programs are really nothing like the full blown European programs.
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