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Bad Choices
If two people are dying from liver disease, one 25, the other 65, and there’s only one liver available for transplant, the old one dies.
There’s one economic variable that’s highly predictable; demographics. In all of the industrial countries the aging population is now weighing on the economic outcome. Japan was the first country to go down the tubes from this phenomenon. Europe is behind Japan, but rapidly catching up.
The US has a huge headache with an aging population. The number of oldsters is big, and rapidly rising. Add to the size of the aging US population the fact that the promises made to these people are enormous. Other countries, like Canada, Russia and even China are struggling with the problem.
The USA is in now in year three of what will prove to be a twenty-year mega-trend of an aging population. These facts have been know for a long time, I’m amazed that the US has been so slow to come to grips with the implications of what is clearly in our future. Thanks to the Fiscal Cliff debate, the financial implications of the graying of America are now being discussed, and Washington is talking about “solutions”.
So what are the solutions that the deciders are zeroing in on? Simple. The proposals (and what we will get) are extensions of the ages that benefits become available. Both sides have suggested that pushing out the age for Medicare and Social Security benefits for an additional two years is appropriate. The Administration has said it would be willing to do this; John Boehner (and other big Republicans) has flat-out insisted that it happen.
At some point in the next year (I don’t think this will be part of the fiscal cliff resolution) the eligibility changes will take place. The changes will be phased in over 10-15 years. When the ink is dry on the new laws, the bean counters in Washington will declare success. The end result will be a 3-4 year extension of the lives of both the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.
Where does this “fix” take the country? That’s easy to forecast. Older people will be forced to stay in the workforce for years longer. The retirement age will be pushed out, the benefit checks will also be smaller on a relative basis. (There will be cuts to inflation adjustments) Once again, the deep thinkers in D.C. are “okay” with making old folks wait for a few years for benefits; the thinking is that people live longer, so make them work longer.
My fear is that the solution to one problem is going to spill over and aggravate another problem. The fix on retirement benefits will cause a long-term erosion of youth unemployment. That outcome could prove more devastating than the aging problem.
Its not hard to find evidence that these big trends are already moving the needle. Last Friday’s NFP is a case in point. Zero Hedge has the details (Link) and (Link). This chart shows what happened in November. A disaster for those 22-54, the 55-69 group were the winners.
It wasn’t just November. Consider the changes since 2009.
What does a government do when it is faced with high youth unemployment? It sends them to school with borrowed money. This won’t work much longer:
This is the worst kind of whack-a-mole problem solving. Washington will take steps to address the fiscal consequences of the aging population, but those steps will create a multi-decade drag on what is already a serious problem.
We are far from the point where rules on transplants should apply to choices on economic policy, but we’re getting closer. The policy choices that are being made today are running counter to the rules on transplants. They favor old over young. We are a long way from being balanced on this issue; longer still toward policies that actually tip the scales to the next few generations.
If you asked the question, “How do we create opportunities for younger workers?” The answer would be to lower the retirement age. Create the opportunity for upward mobility. We are on a path 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
I don’t see a way around this. Demographic changes are powerful forces. The problem is we are on the third rung of a twenty-foot steep ladder, and we’re already making bad choices.
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And who decides who gets the liver today, and who gets the ICU bed, etc. tomorrow?
Palin was mocked for her use of the phrase "death panels". Doesn't seem so far-fetched now.
We have death panels now and have had them for sometime.
They are run by the insurance companies.
Geezus, get a clue.
Seems to me that the only death-panel is the dollar. Who has them and who doesn't. Don't want to die because you can't afford a liver? Work harder in school instead of loafing. Work harder in college and get a degree in something fucking useful. Work harder at work and work for a company that treats you well. There, problem solved.
We have death panels now and have had them for sometime.
No we don't. Bambam, Tina Fey, and Jon Stewart told me so.
Obviously you've missed the news stories where insurance companies deny treatment/care/surgery over the judgement of a patient's physician...
Insurance company death panels have been in effect for many many years.
There are always deciders. The difference is when there is only one decider and that is an unelected, unaccountable, lifetime government employee. I just can't figure out how these socialists come to the belief that somehow if you work for business you are evil and government workers are saint-like, and will do no wrong. You are a fool if you put all your eggs in one basket. A person should be saving for security as an important hedging strategy against risk. Hire a body guard, give him a lifetime job with guaranteed income for life, and see how long you live. You should not depend totally on insurance or your government for security. People constantly talking of gold and guns and food, but then turn around whining about insurance, and the perfected government run agency. really? Haven't we learned anything about insurance yet?
>>>The difference is when there is only one decider and that is an unelected, unaccountable, lifetime government employee.<<<
Yes, the unelected, unaccountable, lifetime employees of the insurance company (who no doubt get a bonus for every dollar saved in denying care) are so much more preferable when they over-ride a physician's oders for patient care.
>>> Hire a body guard, give him a lifetime job with guaranteed income for life, and see how long you live.<<<
Yeah, bodyguards are real effective against cancer.
Do they let you out alone to travel the streets?
Death panels, bring 'em on.
A couple of problems: the government created bubbles followed by a crash caused by central bank policy has devastated older people's savings and now ZIRP is further eating into their retirement nest eggs as low risk investments pay zip for interest.
They have to work.
Definitely hold that transplant from some experienced doctor or business owner aged 65 and give those organs to some young unemployed user.
When SS had a surplus ,the White House or Congress would grab it, instead of forward thinking we have can kicking...How about posting the names of the Congress who approved that?
I live in Cali and they brought in the State lottery for the schools,but seeing it was a cash cow,they grab the cash and handover an IOU. Same as it ever was...
last i heard they were working on a way to forward borrow on future lottery receipts. i know Arnie refinanced California's debt at the time he took office, which a lot of us complained about. i wonder how well that is working out? the interest on the new bonds was supposed to be paid by a cigarette tax, (god help us if the smokers ever quit) i do know that there was a special provision in the bill, if the state couldn't meet the interest payments on the new bonds, they could reach into the general fund. and now powerball is moving into CA, which will take more away from the Ca State lottery?
but i think in the end the feds will throw the medicare problem back to the states, who in CA, simply confiscate your wealth, in order to pay your medical bills (robber says "your money or your life" - famous Jack Benny line - "well i'm thinking.."
the old guy doesn't get the liver unless he's a rock star, or a japanese gangster. (Larry Hagman RIP, he was a gentle soul really and well loved - according to his obit in the paper, Jack Nicholson turned him onto pot after his liver gave out from drinking, and he never looked back -except for the cops)
one bothersome point about raising the retirement age is that it gives seniors more time to draw unemployment benefits. are people suddenly going to stop aging, just because the government decrees it? its like daylight savings time, move the clock around, the sun goes down when it always did.
if people could live to be 200 would they feel any differently? (most people, exspecially those whose lives were filled with a natural vitality, actually welcome death, when its time arrives) we have to know what it is we're doing here, (other than cheating the grim reaper out of a little time by playing a game of chess - see The Seventh Seal..- what did that accomplish? the knight managed to save the day for the juggler his wife and baby. the youngest of them all actually)
We have to live forever. How else will we ever pay back the debt? I guess we could be absorbed into the matrix, or maybe we can get soilent credits when we die.
"If two people are dying from liver disease, one 25, the other 65, and there’s only one liver available for transplant, the old one dies."
Its much more probable that the 65 year-old will get the transplant. The 65'er has Medicare and probably have health insurance that will cover the costs. On the other hand, the 25'er probably does not have health insurance nor is he\she eligible for Medicare.
"One bothersome point about raising the retirement age is that it gives seniors more time to draw unemployment benefits."
Retirement age increases will not effect those 55 and over. The increase is targeted at the younger generation so they can continue to pay for the entitlements of existing and near retirement workers.
Ideally the best of option is to be a boomer:
1. With the decline in food quality and over consumption of processed foods, the younger generates will have a much shorter lifespan. We can see the Obesity, Diebetes, cancer, and many other diseases linked to poor diets is taking a huge toll.
2. Boomers lived through Western Civilizations Golden age. A time when Energy, Water, and food was abundant and cheap. That chapter is coming to end as younger generations will have a much much lower standard of living.
3. Boomers are likely to get the Peak of entitlements. Its impossible to imagine that younger generations will see a dime from entitlements.
+1
The herd must be thinned except for ObamPhone people.
Young people voted for their serfdom.
they voted for their SURFdom, pick up your check and head for the beach. DUDE
It seems funny to be surrounded by a collaborative system, "You grow the food, I'll fix the plumbing, and some one else is the doctor", but, man, at this point, it's all DIY whenever called for, you might still get an Arduino to help you automate your greenhouse, but, don't count on your specialisation providing you with exchangeable credit for another need you have. Ironically executive orders siezing all edible commodities aside, this neccessary contraction of exchange for survival's sake may prove to be the best thing that ever happens, especially when it turns out that when food ain't thy medicine, it's thy undoing. All the best.
in economic terms can we call your collaborative system, a service economy? a service economy is much more competitive than the older production economy. medicine will be largely self service, you will triage yourself by answering some questions, then submitting the proper tests. no one has written a futuristic novel in years, all that passes for the genre is parodies like futurama, a jetsons like view of the future from the viewpoint set back in the 1950's. but survival will no longer be an issue, and hasn't been for a long time, as we double the global population in a hundred years to end around 2050. like always we need to adapt to different enviroments, such as the thin atmosphere on Mars.
the boomers are going to get a push on this, but the life expectancy will double in a hundred years, and they will look back at us like dinosaurs, the way we look at the lives of our grandparents, who had a lot of work and very little fulfillment. stem cell research and tissue regeneration will change everything almost before the politicians are notified. the real question again (in a world without pressing needs - to work and survive) is what are you going to do with all this time?
All of that shit will come to a screeching halt when resources become scarce, as energy is becoming.
Yeah sure. Dude put down the bong. Jack Nicholson went crazy from the THC in pot. Fact. F****** pot makes people do crazy things. Jack is a typical arsehole baby boomer too. Goes to Lakers games. Fool. Media/Hollywood propagandists for our dear mullah.
Life expectency in Amerika will drop. O wants to thin the herd especailly old whiteys.
Two killed at alleged Washington pot house on first day of legal weedhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-two-die-at-alleged...
A free market economy would cope with aging workers with no problem whatsoever. It is the Socialist governments of the Western world that are having trouble coping. Misallocation of resources, complex entangled rules and regulations, special interests, corruption, and demagoguery are hamstringing us ... not demographics. Do not look to the government for a solution to a non-problem.
Me thinks that solution would involve poor people dying from being unable to purchase life saving meds/surgery, but maybe that's the way it SHOULD be. Who am I to say. I certainly don't expect someone else to pay for my poor hand in life, whether its self-inflicted or not. Shit happens and you die. You won't live forever, might as well not bring the rest of society down with you. If, at any age, I am stricken with a terrible disease that will cost me my life unless expensive measures are take, you bet your ass I'll be assessing from an economic standpoint if I'll be able to provide more for my family by living (assuming I have the resources to pay for said expensive measure) or if my dying and leaving them the money that would have otherwise been spent on a life extension measure would be the better choice.
That choice has been removed, or at least obfuscated, by the State by making it appear that the money to save one's life is free or was paid for some time ago through SS and medicare taxes, when in reality the current older generations are milking the current tax payers and futur tax payers. In essence, their own children and grandchildren, which is something they likely would NEVER do if it was know to them.
,bitchez
Ultimately, the only solution is for SOME group in society - the one that eats the most taxpayer money, the retirees - to CUT THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING.
Casino owners will be at serious risk. Last time I was in one it was full of Social Security dollars hard at work. Only young people in the place were the barmaids.
"the one that eats the most taxpayer money, the retirees - to CUT THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING."
Not going to happen. Boomers + Retirees are the biggest voter block. Any Politician that even hints at cutting entitlements will get voted out of office. The poliicians that will get elected are the ones the promise bigger better entitlements. The will pay for them by printing money, and continue printing until the dollar dies.
In the near future we will probably see the gov't cut funding for other programs, but not the entitlements. I think NASA and other science programs will get eliminated in a few years so their budgets can be diverted to entitlements. Education, Miltary etc will follow after.
Couldn't agree more. And I didn't say it was going to happen either!
Gary North wrote a piece saying that "the oldsters will be stiffed" by younger voters fed up with tax increases. That WILL happen, but timing...don't know...
Today's retiring boomers have a standard of living that is unheard of in the annals of history. If they cared for the children and grandchildren they would stop stealing from them. Stop voting for what is best for themselves but what is best for their legacy.
Guess you're not getting an inheritance, huh?
Actually, you're wrong, it IS going to happen. It just may not be honest or voluntary. If it can't be done agreeably, it'll be done by force or misdirection at some point or another.
Well, think about what Medicare goes hand in hand with. Medicaid. Who get's Medicaid? The poor. An ever increasing voter block. Ain't gonna happen. Been listening to this shit for years now and will still be listening to it in 20 years from now. You blame the Boomers, right? For not stopping the crooks in DC. So, you're up at bat guys, WTF are you guys doing to stop it? Whining here on ZH? I know the answer. You can't do anything about it same as we couldn't many years ago. Future gens are gonna be blaming you.
" So, you're up at bat guys, WTF are you guys doing to stop it? Whining here on ZH? "
Nothing! The system is broken and unfixable. Trying to fix the system is like trying to catch a falling knife blindfolded.
The only logical option is to wait for it to fail and prey we can pick up the pieces after. My plan is simply to find a nice quiet place that is distance from any major population centers. When the dust settles, then I will help rebuild, just as long as the replacement system promotes liberty and sensible economics. If not, I stay in my nice quiet place.
I agree it's unfixable and will eventually collapse. However, everyone foresees this great mad max happening. The collapse may very well happen over a long period of time. TPTB will never relinquish control. Look at what's happening now, the markets rigged, banks in control of everything and ZIRP. This is all planned out albeit they're not quite sure how it's gonna work out yet. There will be a great depression. Mad Max? Civil War? I doubt it. Before this happens though..........
World War III definately! Look at the Islamic Countries in the ME. Islam has it's own laws and will institute them if the government isn't stronger. That's why there's never been a democratic Islamist State. So, starting with Iraq, why would we want to take down dictators who would never allow an Islamic take over (especially a terrorist extreme element). We keep going, Iraq, Afganastan, Libya, Egypt, (Saudi Arabia next).
Now we have a fight! No nukes! China and Russia will sit on the sidelines. Remember Jihad had been declared for hundreds of years. So "Rally around the country!" to rid the world of these unjust governments. Of course, we will have to institute the draft again. Takes care of the 5 or so million youth that are unemployed. Generates productivity, We start up factories again. Catching on yet? Good luck to you.
I don't blame the Boomers *specifically,* no, but they've been a dominant voting bloc for a long time.
I blame a fascist government and the maintenance of the two dominant parties. A two-party system is incredibly stable because they can so effectively crowd out any new party challenges in a "first past the posts" electoral system.
I suppose if you can only understand a really dirt-simple analogy, I'd have to say I blame the rich. The rich are the folks most personally responsible for deciding how life in the USA is going to be. It's a tiny number of people--they finance our political campaigns, own our major corporations, and sit in the highest positions of political power, although not usually at the same time.
+1
Nothing in your post I can disagree with. Yes, greedy boomers are in charge. But 99.9% of them aren't. LOL, if there was a third party candidate who had a chance, he'd be killed. Wish there were no political parties cause even if you're a good guy elected, they will corrupt you during "orientation" (play ball or you're a one term congressman). Problem is that it's been like this from the start. Our "founding fathers" were TPTB. They didn't want to pay tax and be controoled by the Brits. They promised the serfs freedom if they fought the revolution. But, of course, only land owners could vote after they won. States were suppose to be self governed and autonomous but the Civil War changed that. It's always been fixed.
Voter block? I guess you were not paying attention in 2012 and to a lesser extent 2008. There are no "elections." Notice how the Democrats still held onto the Senate so we can have 5 years of more with no budget? Even 2010 was kabuki because the GOP got the House but not even close in the Senate. It is all smoke and mirrors.
Your vote? Keep watching TV and Hollywood's crap because your viewership keeps them in power. Sheep. The wbe news said Jamie Fox is on TV joking about how he enjoyed killing white people in his new movie and the audience cheered.
Welcome to the party pal!
They don't care about seniors or baby boomers now. They don't care what baby boomers or seniors think now. They are going to take your IRA and 401K soon.
The public is so stupid. Keep watching TV and Hollywood because your viewership keeps them in power. Stupid serfs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD94dVu8lqQ
"Notice how the Democrats still held onto the Senate so we can have 5 years of more with no budget? Even 2010 was kabuki because the GOP got the House but not even close in the Senate. It is all smoke and mirrors."
DNC gained seats in both the Senate and the house in November. The GOP is dying, and will likely lose its small majority in the House during the Mid term elections. The more people collecting Wealthfare and Entitlments the more voters will choose the DNC.
"They don't care about seniors or baby boomers now. They don't care what baby boomers or seniors think now. They are going to take your IRA and 401K soon. "
Only for people 55 and younger. The Boomers will be grandfathered in. Of course they care about boomers and seniors. The problem is that they only care about those receiving Gov't benefits and will screw over dwindling working class.
There is an infinite tunnel of deceits with respect to the "bad choices." When people do not agree, but nevertheless are forced into conflict, then they fight. Those who are the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, then tend to win that fight. Follow that line of development out for thousands of years, and one ends up with our current system. Social decisions are made by the people who are the best at lying, for their own benefit.
The REAL human ecology is based on the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories dominating public debates, so that false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals are so wide-spread as to be almost totally taken for granted. Impossible ideals actually make the opposite happen in the real world. It is practically impossible to underestimate the magnitude of the collective "bad choices" which are being made, since those who make the decisions are almost always the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, and their opposition tends to be controlled to agree with the same set of false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals as those in power are promoting.
The result is a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything is backwards. It all makes sense from the point of view that energy goes down the path of least resistance, which means the path of least morality in the human world. We almost automatically always make the worst possible decisions. Our basic system was debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, whose runaway "success" has generated debt insanity, on the edge of starting genocidal wars, and imposing democidal martial law.
The basic concepts of human ecology are almost totally banished from public debates. All of the most important social facts are systematically lied about, as much as possible, by those who benefit from those lies. Therefore, the major manifestation of the death control decisions are now the bogus "health care," that is actually a profit from disease system. The murders done through medicine are now about an order of magnitude greater than the murders done through overt militarism.
It is practically impossible to imagine any way to fix these problems ... the deeper paradoxes of conflict being resolved by fights in which those who are the best at deceits end up prevailing is built into the fundamental structure of energy laws, and information systems. In theory, we would have to have a sane debate, based on more objective social facts. In practise, the entire established system is astronomically sized financial frauds, backed up by the threats from using weapons of mass destruction, to be the force that backs those frauds up.
Therefore, all efforts to imagine a saner public health policy are non-starters, since the fundamentals are more deeply screwed up than we can barely even imagine. In fact, medicine is inside militarism, and the monetary system is inside militarism. Therefore, the money is backed by murder, and making money from medicine has become one of the most perversely tangled up forms of murder that currently exists.
In theory, we would have to have an overall sane human ecology, inside of saner industrial and natural ecologies, so that our decisions made sense within the real environment. However, in practice, our society is actually controlled by the Fraud Kings, who are the best organized gangs of criminals, that direct the use of public powers for their private benefit, in ways that tend to destroy the health of society, and the environment as a whole.
The deeper problems are the paradoxical ways that energy systems actually work! By and large, those basic truths are the most denied and suppressed central facts. Thus, there IS, and MUST BE, a murder system, which maintains the money system, that pays for the murder system to back it up. In that REAL context, there is a medical system which has become almost as perfectly perverse as it is possible to become.
A sane debate would have to begin with some sense of the real environment, and what level of life was possible to be maintained. However, none of that has the slightest real chance of happening, since history has driven those who were the best at deceits to be directing what happens. In the real environment, nothing can be made out of nothing, nor sent to nothing. Ordinary people live inside of that ordinary world, because they have to work for money. They have to labour, or sell something, in order to make money. However, the money supply itself is made out of ntthing, as debts, and returns to nothing when the debts are repaid or defaulted upon. Therefore, when one attempts to follow through the economic choices made inside the context of medical practice, one eventually goes to the source of the money, which is now runaway frauds, backed by force.
Thus, the real sovereign powers to rob, and to kill, have been almost 99%+ privatized, but that operates triumphantly through the maximum possible social deceits, whereby those doing that benefit greatly from their frauds, and being able to force everyone else to accept their frauds. Thus, the mass media, brainwash the masses of people to be muppets, and the politicians are puppets, who are all adapted to live inside of the triumphant runaway financial frauds, backed by the force of the state. The power of the state to rob (taxation), and to kill those who resist, has already been more than 99%+ privatized, and that process is now picking up more and more speed through the madness of a medicine which is inside of that money/murder system, and therefore, inside of the infinite tunnels of deceits that operate that money/murder system.
The financial crises and the demographic crises are inseparably linked. We have a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, and that system is more and more taking over the medical systems, and therefore, we can practically guarantee that every decision that actually gets made in the future, with respect to basic demographical problems, will be pretty well the total opposite to anything that makes abstract overall sense, since every decision will actually be taken inside of the context which rampant runaway social frauds already control almost everything!
These paradoxical problems turn and turn and turn, around and around and around, the more that one studies them, and understands them. However, we can be quite confident that the public will refuse to understand any of that, and the elites that dominate that kind of society will continue to try to make sure that the public does not want to understand that!
Truly, there is no end to how deep the infinite tunnel of deceits go, through and through the money and murder systems, and that shows up its profoundly paradoxical nature quite clearly in the areas of medicine and public health, where those in control are the worst parasites, destroying the health of the whole system, as they meanwhile develop even better ways to spout immaculate hypocrisy about that, ... and are mostly able to get away with that, because their faked, controlled opposition, does the same things.
Our culture specializes in looking at its Bizarro Mirror World view, while driving backwards, faster and faster, as it continues to believe that what it sees in that mirror is correct, rather than BACKWARDS! That was the cumulative result of thousands of years of society being controlled by the people who were the best at being dishonest and backing that up with violence. Everything we are doing is just more and more of that ... The theoretical solutions are usually the opposite to everything we think and are doing ... However, the actual results are likely to see us crash this collective craziness system.
Everyone inside of the established systems tend to benefit in direct proportion to the degree to which they promote the huge lies backed up with violence, that are the fundamental basis of that entire system. That includes, in proportion, those who pretend to be the opposition to those established systems, to the degree that they also benefit from the overall systems of organized lies, operating organized robbery, delivering to them their shares of what they need, or believe they need, to survive ...
The magnitude of paradigm shifts that human sciences would need, throughout all of the monetary, military, and medical systems, etc., are far, far, far beyond what are remotely being contemplated by those entrenched within those established systems! Those paradigm shifts are more sublimely paradoxical than anyone can actually encompass. We are apparently not making the slightest progress towards those kinds of necessary paradigm shifts, while the established systems are still growing, on the basis of their fundamental frauds, towards their consequent psychotic breakdown, due to believing in everything in ways that are pretty well perfectly backwards, and steering every decision we therefore make in pretty well perfectly backwards ways.
Our civilization is rushing backwards, faster and faster, being steered by people who do not understand that everything they are looking at in their rear view mirror is backwards, and disproportional. The chances that our civilization will understand the degree to which it is all a Bizarro Mirror World system appears to be practically impossible to occur, before it crashes itself first, due to the consequences of those mistaken beliefs.
Of course, I am just another useless passenger, sitting in the back seat, looking out the rear window, at where were are going, while the drivers and navigators are sitting in the front seat, looking at their rear view mirrors, while steering without understanding that everything in their mirror is backwards, and distorted, as they accelerate faster and faster backwards, while they tell us we are going forwards. Obviously, living inside a civilization almost totally dominated by frauds, backed by force, is quite the wild ride!
Bad choices to infinity and beyond!
Fuck...we're all one toke over the line!
Indeed, the definition of "life" has come down to insurance company actuarial tables of "life expectancy'
It is clear that most people have bought in to this definition. A definition that distorts any other possibility, and keeps us in fear.
How much money do insurance companies make based on the fear they create? How much of our productivity is wasted in an attempt to assuage the fear they create?
We do need a paradigm shift. We do need to get our heads out of our asses. We do need to recognize the lies that are perpetuated constantly and without question.
We need to be able to recognize the means by which we are suppressed.
There are three types of lies.
Lies
Damn lies
and statistics.
Dude. Start your *own* blog...
... not only do I run my own "blog" ...
I run my own registered political party:
www.marijuanaparty.ca
Start your campaign against Boxer now and I'll step to the front of the line with donations ... The Republicans don't seem to be able to hold their own
nobody reads posts that are that long
I normally don't, but that one was worth it.
I don't get it. I've heard over and over for the last 10 years about employment discrimination against older workers. How evil corporations were letting go the overpaid older workers and adding cheap, young labor. Now companies want to hang on to the older workers?
What changed?
corporate america dumbed down the job. jobs which used to require a worker to use critical skills and judgement are now completely boxed in, which is to say anyone can be trained to do them, and any skill which might separate one workers ability to the job from another workers has been systematically removed and those special skills are phased out, mostly incorporated into training skiils which all workers can use (read Scientific Management, at wikipedia) when any worker has the skills to do a certain job, or the potential skills, you hire the one who will work for the least amount of money. but remember this didn't just happen, in the middle ages everything was a craft, and people had special skills, (and there was no public education). management skills will soon be reduced to computer programming. in some cases the job actually gets more complicated, a janitor for instance, must know a lot more than the same person knew 50 years ago, chemical and environmental issues. a janitor is actually more important than a CEO, who can go fishing and no one cares, the janitor doesn't show up and the building stops.
I hesitate to enter such an acrimonious discussion.
However, at the risk of being flamed, I think two reasons that older people are being hired more than younger people (not the only reasons, but two of them) is that:
1) Older people have better basic skills for most routine tasks (not using the lastest technology of course) but things like reading, math estimation, making change, dealing with the public (i.e. politeness, phone etiquette, etc.). The horrible mess that our public schools are in and the lack of basic social skills of young people is appalling.
2) Older people have a better work ethic.
Certainly, having hired both young and older workers, I would always opt for an older person if possible.
President of a manufacturing company (automotive related) I know hired 90 new workers in mid September. He said around 58 are still working today.
He estimated that 15 were canned because of drug related issues, another 10 because they lacked discipline (getting to work on time, taking multiple cell phone calls during work, couldn't work in a team setting, did not have social skills). The remainder simply did not like the type of work and quit. Majority of those 32 that are no longer employed were between the ages of 20-35.
When 35% of new hires can't suck it up for jobs with beginning pay is between $16 - $18 per hour there is a major league problem.
It's similar to the story I read in the San Diego paper years ago about an employer commenting about the lack of work ethics of young adults: " He didn't come to work Friday and I asked him why. He just said "Well dude, the surf was up."
Never forgot that. It's worse today.
illegals & women are taking our jawbs!
upvoted.