A question for Browncoats outside of the United States...

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, July 23, 2005 07:55
VIEWED: 4665
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CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 9, 2005 2:18 AM

Here in the United States the middle class is disolving. Jobs that used to be respected have become regarded as almost worthless. If you're not a 'Department Head', you're expendable. Grey areas are in the process of being synthesized into only black and white with the help of computer analysis. Once friendly work environments are turning into 'I watch my back, you watch yours' nightmares. Our government is only interested in the bottom line: keep profit up for corporations to keep our place in the world economic food chain. Our leaders preech 'Family Values' while they cut services that help the very young and very old to survive.
This country is right on the razor's edge of becoming the de-humanized world depicted in the movie 'Robocop'
(minus the cyborg hero, of course).

My question is, is it just here in this country? My family moved to the small American town we now live in, in part, to get away from some of that, and it's made major inroads here in just the last three years. Have the corporations and computers and ruthlessness infected the communities of the whole planet?

Fearfull Chrisisall

RUE

Saturday, July 9, 2005 3:31 AM

Not an answer, but coincidentally I was wondering if it was just me thinking the workplace had gone exponentially ruthless over the last few years.

Also, in the US, ppl with college and college+ are now the largest sector of long-term unemployed. So I do think the middle class is especially threatened now when it never was before.

SIGMANUNKI

Saturday, July 9, 2005 4:09 AM

Canada is poised in that direction but the only thing that I've felt of this was b/c of rumors of the company going under and not typical work environment (it was and it did).

That being said, I would think that a major contributor to downsizing, etc is not necessarily laws/gov/etc, but the companies themselves.

They hire people to do the work, then they hire more middle/upper managers to do high level stuff. So, far so good.

BUT then when things start to happen the managers start hiring disproportionally more managers than workers. Times then get tough b/c of being top heavy and then they layoff far more workers than managers (if they layoff any managers at all).

This makes the company even more top heavy and the cycle continues until the company finally folds.

Then other companies will pick up the slack from the ones that folded compete and then fold themselve (the above process).

After a little while, there are only a small number of companies left (ie effective monoply) which leads the company to not care about its employees b/c they are a dime a dozen.

A backstabbing, watching out for only yourself environment is not far behind.

Interesting thing is this is really a product of a capitalistic society. Which is why I think that it is really predominate in the US and only starting to rear its ugly head elsewhere.

So, to answer your question, it is here in Canada, we're just behind that curve that the US set. It is also starting to show up in Germany (or so the wife tells me).

Yes, I tend to ramble

----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 9, 2005 2:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Interesting thing is this is really a product of a capitalistic society.

Once upon a time, capitalism was like mining for gold; if you were a little adventurous you could get rich.
Now capitalism is very fear-based. Fear of losing profit, fear of losing your job, fear of losing your company. What these fools don't realize is when every decision you make is based on your fears, you only make the things you fear come true all the more quickly.

If al-Qaeda wants to destroy the United States, they should give us free oil for a year, then cut off the supply and ask us to pay again. Greed and addiction would blow us apart (corporatly speaking).

Omni Consumer Products CEO Chrisisall

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 9, 2005 4:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Not an answer, but coincidentally I was wondering if it was just me thinking the workplace had gone exponentially ruthless over the last few years.

Rue, over the last few years I've seen the pressure in buisness go up through the roof. Never before have I seen management so frenzied and worried. Blame for errors is always aimed downward, and incompetance at upper management level is at an all time high. Computerization only ups the ante, in an attempt to micro-manage managers from great distances. Paperwork has more than doubled, while downsizing of staff is occuring. I'm only just realizing that the events of 911 have speeded up this process. It's all fear.

Quote:
Also, in the US, ppl with college and college+ are now the largest sector of long-term unemployed. So I do think the middle class is especially threatened now when it never was before.

For every person with college doing what they were trained for, I know five or more paying off their student loans working at near minium wage jobs. Two people working, with at least one working two jobs, per family is the norm around here.
Yep, gotta love government for the people, don't ya?

Just keep voting the status quo, right? Chrisisall

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, July 9, 2005 11:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by lynchaj:
I watched my parents struggle while I was growing up and I know we have it much better off now than they had it then.

Maybe you need to make a change?

Yeah, I remember eating mustard sandwiches when I was young, because that was all we could afford for food. Today I have a great job in middle management and a big house on a hill with a scenic view of the countryside. I don’t know what Chris and other anti-capitalists are doing wrong, but I doubt it has anything specifically to do with this country.

If you can't succeed and find a way to be happy a country where a family can go from being below the poverty line to being upper middle class in less then 30 years, then I don't think you can succeed anywhere. Blaming it on the country isn't going to help you.

Just my opinion.

-------------
Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

CHRISISALL

Sunday, July 10, 2005 5:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I don’t know what Chris and other anti-capitalists are doing wrong, but I doubt it has anything specifically to do with this country.

Please don't mistake me for being anti-capitalist, anymore than I am anti-television. There's a lot of crap on TV, but there's always the possibility of getting a "Firefly'.
I am anti-greed. I am anti-fear.
People on this board like you, Finn, and Andrew represent the best and brightest and most self-sufficent. I don't think the 'average' person can even keep up in here.
I worry for the children of the not-so-shiny of intellect. They may even be bright themselves, but many will be dulled by poverty, and the eventual slide down the economic ladder is happening in this country.
I don't blame this country, I blame big business and the political stooges they own. When is it enough? Two yachts? Four?
The one who dies with the most marbles, wins.
I'm sure y'all must have seen that bumpersticker on the occasional BMW.
Let's pay some more taxes happily, and secure the well-being of the children of this country, that's all I want to see happen.

Chrisisall

CHRISISALL

Sunday, July 10, 2005 5:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by lynchaj:
I cannot complain at all, have a wonderful job for many years, a happy healthy family, and nice house in suburbia

I'm happy for you, really. You're a man with a good heart (that's why you like Firefly), it's just that I've seen too many lose their jobs to downsizing or takeovers and lose much that they've had to help others stay rich.
Maybe I live in the wrong part of the country? The northeast is slowing, economically. My friends in Virginia are always tellin' me to come down there, or North Carolina. Is it really different down there? Where do you live, if you don't mind tellin'?
P.S., my initial post painted things real dark, I was lookin' at where we seem to be goin', not where we'll DEFINITLY end up, there's always hope for a turn-around, but it'll take compassion, not greed to get us there.

Hopefull Chrisisall

ROCKETJOCK

Sunday, July 10, 2005 6:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

Once upon a time, capitalism was like mining for gold; if you were a little adventurous you could get rich.

The gold-mining analogy is well chosen; my feeling is that the reason capitalism worked so well in the United States for so long (despite an intrusive and interfering government) is that we had an expanding frontier, a place where the misfits and risk-takers could go to stir up trouble and produce new wealth.

Unfortunately, the American frontier has been sealed for the better part of a century now, which had the effect of reducing domestic capitalism to a zero-sum game; overseas adventurism and exploitation have substituted for the last fifty years or so, but as globalism increases, sooner or later the whole planet will be one economic unit, and we'll all be reduced to trading the same Monopoly money back and forth in a parody of true capitalism.

Luckily, there is another frontier available, straight up; an endless source of new wealth waiting for the first group with the courage to go and claim it.

I used to have faith that that group would be the U.S.A.; now I'm not so sure, although Spaceship One and similar private spaceflight projects still give me hope.

"It's raining soup out there, but the bean counters are telling us we can't afford spooons until everybody has already eaten." -- Jerry Pournelle

CHRISISALL

Sunday, July 10, 2005 10:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
I used to have faith that that group would be the U.S.A.; now I'm not so sure, although Spaceship One and similar private spaceflight projects still give me hope.

"Space, the final frontier..."

James T. Chrisisall

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