During the Bush years, many of you partisan jackasses out there derided the 2003 recovery as being ‘lackluster.’ For some strange reason, you felt Bush, in all of his awesomeness, had control over the economy. The end result of the Bush economy was a grande crash of epic proportions, which helped pave the way for the Obama regime.
Just like Bush, Obama has no control, whatsoever, over the US economy. It’s run by corporations, for the corporations, and there is very little government can do, other than offer temporary stimulus.
Having said that, I’d like to acknowledge today’s jobs report as “the new norm.” They were terrible and will continue to be terrible because your stupid kids aren’t prepared for the 21st century. Keep telling them it makes sense to be a cop or a god damned fireman, or even a doctor. They’ll hate you for it later.
Jobs are being exported because corporations want cheap labor. If you want a high paying job, forget about a manufacturing plant and learn to code. If you don’t want to code, learn how to play this stock market racket.
The Federal Reserve will continue with QE. This morning’s numbers solidified the fact that the economy is still too weak to grow on its own. The rich will get richer and everyone else will fall by the wayside.
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The kids are screwed.
In the spirit of N.W.A, “Efil4EQ”
I have told my nephews and nieces (too late for my kids) to get a job with the Federal Government.
Nice vacation and personal time, retire in your early 50s, great pension and healthcare, etc., 9-5 (no overtime or weekends).
As an added bonus- you will not get laid off and short of being found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl (and even then) you will not get fired for being incompetent.
What’s not to like?
The firefighter across the street is 50 and retired. He must have an awesome pension. He just bought brand new cars for the fam. Porsche, Audi, etc. It’s unbelievable. Sometimes I think I should have been a firefighter…lol.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic here, but I’ll let you know my experience. Working for the feds may not be all that (you think) it’s cracked up to be.
I graduated with a undergrad degree in biology in 2003, and less than 2 weeks later I landed a contract job at a federal government facility where research on the ocean and fisheries takes place.
Eventually I became an integral part of a research team, having developed and constructed a state of the art laboratory, and yes as Fly mentions, did all the mother brain computer coding (I had to teach myself how, as the feds weren’t allowed to pay a contractor to take training). Essentially I was/am the only one who knew how to turn this new laboratory on, and I was finally given a federal term position. This was after 8 years of being a contractor, 8 years where I basically got paid the exact same amount and sometimes less depending on the contracting vehicle. Also, I almost never received any benefits as a contractor.
Now I have a term position which disappears every 4 years. Presently there is an agency wide hiring freeze which means that there are basically zero new positions, permanent or term.
I work more than 40 hours a week all the time, I just don’t get paid overtime. We are allowed to make up for time (comp time) as our schedule allows, however.
And we get decent vacation and benefits I suppose. Plus the added bonus of a two-plus week surprise paid vacation every time the gov’t shuts down.
20 years ago I would be set for life, but today I would tell your nephews and nieces they will need a Ph.D or at least a master’s degree if they want to do anything technical or sciencey for the feds.
And I have no clue how you become a mailman anymore. All the mailmen I see these days are minority races.
Actually I am basing this on a couple of friends who worked in the Justice Department and a close relative who worked for the CDC in Atlanta.
I noticed that the salaries being paid are higher than the private sector (wasn’t like this 20 years or so) in entry type positions.
I side with the Fly on this one. Federal jobs won’t be there in the future. this federal deficit will force cutbacks. The state governments don’t have ability to print at will and the federal government’s hand will be forced. All the debt payments will increasingly go overseas to pay interest on the debt.
The federal government will be forced to contract. The private economy won’t do much in the “jobs” front either as everything is going to be moving in the direction of “automation”, “outsourcing” and robotics.
The industrial revolution got us out of the great depression and the internet/robotics/tech revolution will get us out of the next one.
Best bet for the LONG term is something related to technology: Internet, robotics, software, cyber security,etc
I work for NOAA and that’s really all I know about. I think these days salaries also rise pretty quickly in early ears of service before flatting off based on level and education.
testing… testing… why are my comments awaiting moderation?
Caddy, I understand your point of view, but I think anyone seeking to get into a government job now is doing so exactly at the wrong time. There are ridiculous excesses there (in my state, and many others, we have fire chiefs and similarly situated folks “retiring” at age 50, taking a six-figure pension that they goose to the gills in their last year before “retiring”, and being hired back to do the same job as a “contractor” for the same pay).
My wife’s mom just “retired” at age 45 from some bullshit school district administrator job. She’s not rich, but she has a pretty good pension, health care, etc., and only worked 20 years on a 9-5 basis. Now can do whatever the hell she wants for 30 years or so. Pretty ridiculous.
The excesses have to come out in the future though — or, at least, I wouldn’t bet on a young person getting a government job now being able to enjoy the ridiculous gravy train that government employees have had for the last 30 years.
Fly, pretty sure a computer is a lot easier to build overseas than a factory…
Who is talking about building computers?
How dumb are you, seriously?
Do people code on race cars these days? I’m saying computer programming is already starting to go to places like India and eastern Europe because a company can put a computer anywhere that has minimal infrastructure and then pay the people a quarter what they will here. The only reason this isn’t happening is because knowledge of how to code is more limited in the 2nd world at the moment.
I’ve been a sotware dev for over 20 years. You don’t have to worry about India. Everyone is bringing stuff back in house or back to the US because they can only do exactly what they’re told. They’ll knowingly provide bad code if someone wasn’t clear enough in their requirements. And the type of work shipped to them is soul draining and not something anyone would want to work on long term. The Indian devs that are competent get promoted into management positions or get sent to the US. The only concern with being a developer is that the government drops all Visa requirements and lets everyone come here and work.
I 2ed that. From the dev team here i hear the same exact thing. They only do what they’re told and they take everything literally, so when it hits QA everyone is like “WTF?” and starts freaking out.
My goodness you are sounding very progressive this a.m.
please…fireman?? retire early(20 and doney – is the saying) have side businesses because they are off more than they work- they drive firetrucks to lunch for christs sake! Those fuckers got it made!
The U.S. financial system is the only thing in this country worth saving. It is all we have left. There are plenty of decent jobs available, but if you want to make more than your neighbor, you best be in financial services. Banking, PE, deal structuring, etc will never be replaced by code or some buy in India.
There are some jobs you can’t export. like construction, mining, farming, forestry etc. The corporations are getting around that little obstacle by claiming they can’t find enough skilled workers and importing workers under some kind of “foreign skilled workers” program.
Do you still want your kids to pursue a career outside of finance?