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A Nation Of Truckers
Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
Oh how the country has changed in the last 36 years. We were a nation of farmers, secretaries, and machine operators in 1978. The family farmer was still the backbone in the Northern Plains and Midwest. The internet didn’t exist, so letters needed to be typed, copies made, mail distributed, dictation taken, and coffee brewed. So every business was loaded with secretaries. The country still manufactured goods here in 1978. We sold them domestically and internationally. Globalization and NAFTA hadn’t become the buzz words of Ivy League educated MBA’s yet.

A look at the most common jobs today reveals how the country has changed. Corporations bought up most of the family farms and older farmers died off. Independent farmers are now a dying breed. The internet all but eliminated the need for secretaries. They became the buggy whip of the 21st Century. There is no need for machine operators when all the machines and manufacturing plants are located in China, Vietnam, and the rest of Southeast Asia. The Ivy League MBAs gutted American manufacturing and sent all the jobs to Asia, where they could produce the same products 80% cheaper and drive their corporate profits sky high, along with their own stock based compensation. So we are left with a nation of truck drivers transporting cheap Chinese produced crap to the millions of retail outlets, where the low wage slaves borrow to buy the crap. The American Dream achieved in 36 short years.

This is how you turn a nation of producers into a nation of consumers. And it couldn’t have been accomplished without the prodigious amounts of debt aided, abetted and distributed by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street owners.
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did computers turn secitaries into truck drivers.
the extinction of farmer is sad.
Does riding truck drivers count as a driver or health aide? Just askin
Who needs to manufacture anything, that is so 1990's
Layoffs / Closing: http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
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Waiters and Bar Tenders are coming up fast behind you, good buddy.
Just thinking.... how thin do you think supply lines are stretched that we need so many truck drivers?
It's 'distribution' and the slow death of rail. When's the last time you saw a new rail right-of-way come through your area?
Talk about casual effects/affects. If all them jobs is truckers, with snow impeding consumption in the east and a port strike in the west, how many of the truckers are gonna have a really really bad first quarter?
Lots and lots
And if it's true that they comprise... oh, y'all gets the pictures.
I got my CDL in 2009 as an “oh shit” plan. I vowed then I'd be the last person driving Chinese junk for peanuts in order to survive. I don't drive now thank God, but it's still an option, at least until the robots take over. I'd rather stand and fight with my brothers, but most can't stop watching reality shows and sports long enough to peal their asses off the sofa. So here we are... in a death spiral to hell believing it'll be reformed into heaven whenever we get there.
My wife watches a bunch of the reality shows so I catch a bit of them along the way. American Idol's elimination rounds from 48 to 24 was quite a show - powerful emotions of joy and elation, and deep sadness, even despair. Actors generally can't imitate these levels of feeling, of people that have no Plan B, of people who are desperate to help their families. It maybe america's distraction, but damn, it's sad. And there are even moments of remarkable character, dignity and courage. Watching some of this you really can see the state of america. Never thought I would say that.
Goddamn it, I wish ZH still had that junk buttton...
Junk that thing above your post.
American Idol? What the fuck.
As a Driver for over 40 years, I can truthfully say, Finding a job has never been hard to do. With over 4 million miles & still counting.
But I refuse to take any blame for the Federal Reserve or Wall Streets debt.
Oh Yea, I almost forgot .........FUCK the N.S.A. ,,l,,
See Ya !
Where did the convoys go?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5ZLJWQmss
Convoy and Star Wars were the first movies I remember ever seeing.
Convoy taught me at a very young age to hate law enforcement and Star Wars taught me to hate the government and side with the terrorists (rebels).
i cant believe texas and south carolina are the last 2 states for farmers....im a proud member of any current public school graduating class...
That was good enough I had to actually log in and up vote ya.
Don't just downvote someone because he likes American Idol! rlouis has a point, though I personally prefer the audition round. I love the look on a precious snowflake's face when told, in the first honest appraisal he's ever received, that in a POW camp his singing would be an egregious violation of the Geneva Convention.
Americon Idol? Leave that shit at the door.
There's 50 states of America.
Not according to that idiot in the white house.
I doubt BO is that stupid. Probably was an inside joke. Perhaps he's including the top closest Mexican states as well.
time to trade in the wife
I'm sorry, I don't see "Welfare Recipient" on the list.
And what about "Inmate"? Is that a job? I mean, they get health care benefits, don't they?
They also produce durable goods and miscellaneous state-use products (in Texas).
They do it for the feds too. Under contracts where the feds guarantee them a number of prisoners. Our judicial system is a fraud and nothing more than cover for America's gulag.
Totally! ~ If anyone reading here actually is driving a truck or van around on a daily basis, what you'll pass several times each day are crews of prison inmates on trash patrol & even performing landscaping & maintenance duties on the public highways.
The inmates make a very small wage for what they do, but their meager earnings are almost 100% spent on insanely over priced items in the 'for profit' prison commissaries.
That would be the primary occupation in DC
What happens when autonomous trucks replace the drivers?
Might be the least of your worries: The Military are already interested in autonomous fighting vehicles, with the Black Knight AFV having been developed years ago (2007) http://www.dailytech.com/BAE+Systems+Semiautonomous+Black+Knight+Armored+Combat+Vehicle/article9592.htm
So, by the time that autonomous tech reaches us plebs, we could have far more to worry about, especially in mind of all those small-town Police Departments getting their grubby mitts on this sort of technology.
If you are really (un)lucky, it might be a Russian-built AFV you are being chased by . . . . http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a10511/russia-wants-autonomous-fighting-robots-and-lots-of-them-16787165/, and hoping the build quality is "as bad as the Lada" might be wildly optimistic!
The only job left for humans will be working in heavily radiated environments where robots fail. All the clean-up of blown up NPPs and in nuclear waste facilities there is lots of work for humans.
Lada's aren't bad, but Nivas kicked ass.
Only had one encounter with a Lada and it got me from Montego Bay to Negril. Struck me as Russia's concept of a Fiat.
Whole lot of freight goes missing.
We just need to get the Chinese asses stuck to THEIR sofa, more that ours are, and tax Horrywood.
New? Hell, here even the old ones have been turned into bike trails.
Amazing. All in a nut shell
When do we all turn into a bunch of hookers?
Oh wait.....
When the trucks start driving themselves in 10 years... duh.
That's sorta what I was thinking. Gonna be a lot of unemployed former truck drivers then. When would we the people get the benefits of all the increased productivity? Just kidding, I know the masses get gassed and the richest will inherit the earth. Until the AI bots kill them off too.
Then truck drivers become become truck washers.
Then the ex-truckers won't be able to pay the lot lizards. Cascading unemployment.
Notice how grocery stores are always restocking in the middle of the day, blocking all the aisles and getting in your way? Or have already run out of produce in the morning because trucks are late?
Perhaps they restock during the day so they don't have to pay anyone to work overnight? Some places have shift differentials. Every fiddy cents counts.
They stock during the day because these days most women work and so are not home to shop during the day. They have to pay extra to stock and night. It is more economical to stock during the day in preparation for the evening rush as harried housewives get home from work and try to squeeze in the shopping. There were some real benefits to the feminist push for equal opportunity. There are some real donesides to the choices made. With both spouses working the cost of everything went up and the time to do anything shrunk. Overall stress increased.
I'm expecting Security Guard to race to the top soon. Go to any shitty, 3rd world country and you'll realize a huge portion of the employment is security services as crime overruns the ability for civil services to keep up. Once the point comes, ever joint in town will need a guard with a gun and billy club to prevent it being overrun like a liquor store in Ferguson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHyug2PvpB8
So the trucker delivers the beer to the bar then the bar tender delivers the beer to the unemployed. Makes perfect circle sense.
Tax the trucker and the bartender more so that the unemployed can drink more beer and the economy runs like a charm. Bob's your uncle.
I'd forgotten about that web site. Thx
Rubes.
It's obvious to everyone that they didn't BTFD.
Shame, shame, everyone knows your name.
So we just move food around and call it job creation , just like wall street and the stock market. The new Amerca , where everyone has a paid vacaton including the police a long as you play by the policys.
So, cooks outnumber truckers in Hawaii.
No surprise; nowhere to truck anything to, but lots of tourists need to eat...
Which still doesn't answer why they have interstates in Hawaii.
If you ask questions like that the Matrix will fail.
Who asked that seditious question?
You did.
If we build it,
the graft will come.
If it's not called an interstate, there's no federal funding -- get it?
They have interstates in Hawaii because the Eisenhower interstate system required that interstates connect military bases to one another. Oahu (the only Hawaiian island that has interstates....the rest of the islands have state highways) has three interstates (H1, H2, and H3) that connect the military bases to one another.
So, basically, they got fed funding b/c they qualified. Any other state would have done the same. In fact, they all did.
I always enjoyed the great Honolulu to San Francisco interstate, great ocean views!
sarc
LOL
I've been driving up n down the left coast you many years.
But, I have yet to find that on-ramp.
Can you give me a hint as to where I might find it.
Thank You in advance for the clue.
LOL
Well, the Wookie does visit there often, and we've all seen the size of that ass...
Plane driver or bounty hunter should be the #1 there.
repo men, bail bondsmen and bad debt collectors/ top jobs of the near future
Yeah, computers turned secretaries into muther truckers.
bullish for mobile working girls!
Now here is a perspective, I am in basic manufacturing. CNC machining and still trying to produce a "product line" here in the grand ole USSA. Made in the USA and all that shit.
The truckers days are numbered as we see Google and Amazon trying like hell to get into driverless vehicles. Think Distribution. OK. Progress and all that crap. Pickup your sweet little smart phone. Do it at lunch and try to mentally add up all the jobs that have been eliminated or are dying as a result of this great "technological advances". Great, just great right?
Start adding up the losses in basic manufacturing of true hard goods, or services this technology and the "internet" has undermined or outright destroyed. Call me a Luddite if you want, but people, the masses, need to have function in a flourishing economy with a reasonable wage. They shop. They buy stuff.
These unwashed masses can't all go to college and learn coding, or work for the government, it simply is not a big enough a market. Many don't have the capacity. Or the whole effort is inefficient as all get out that "we the working, taxpaying people" have to support in some manner, usually our dollars.
Or its implementation ends up eliminating 10x the physical jobs it now "made more efficient or productive". I guess that makes me a Luddite but let's face it folks. You have to add real "value" in some manner. Making things from products that were mined or refined add true value. Shuffling paper back and forth is simply pushing on a string, someone wins and someone has to lose and there is a small "fee" in the middle.
Today it seems the "system" or the criminals are the ones winning in this space generally using theft and subterfuge to get thier "fair share".
The NAFTA economy has ravaged the American countryside. There are no more manufacturing jobs in most cases in most of rural America. The rural population used to farm, then the manufacturing jobs came, and they left farming. Then those jobs were sent to Mexico and beyond, and now those rural americans have public charity, selling their tattered wares at a flea market, and meth to while away a lifetime.
So the next time some filthy fucking progressive or black bigot makes fun of a southern redneck, white trailer trash, meth head, I hope you'll skewer that motherfucker to the cyber wall. Just sayin.
NAFTA forced many poor Mexican farmers to go north to the US. Notice the next time you visit a Walmart, the Mexicans you will see there will be from the poorest Mexican farms states like Chapas!
NAFTA and Mexico pale in comparison to the WTO and China. Go to Chinese Wallmart or Home Depot and count how many items are made in Mexico vs. Made in China. Mexico is a drop in the bucket.
Our criminal bankers and Wallstreet crooks paid U.S. politicians to get China into the WTO; leading the charge was Clinton, stroking his WallyMart card.
The loss of small business and manufacturing has carved the country into a hollow shell. And that hollow shell is held together by the once mighty USD (FRN).
Before Alaric charges the gates, "private security" will be the next largest job category. Hidden, of course, under "domestic services".
Thanks Jim
Is okay comrade. US.gov is going to need soldiers, lots of soldiers. Is better plebs do not have jobs. Let machines work and build weapons for soldiers.
Your not and a lot of what is taken as economic dogma including a lot of Schumpter's work on 'destructive capitalism' and a fair amount of Friedman's work is going to be either severely altered or completely thrown into the ash bin of history in the next 50 yeras. Likely a lot sooner.
>The truckers days are numbered as we see Google and Amazon trying like hell to get into driverless vehicles.
Right up until the point someone dies after getting hit by an autonomous vehicle. Then the lawsuits, then the backlash.
Damn that's a scary chart. I think it's not just the US but the rest of the "developed" world as well.
But look at the bright side: lots of truck stop ho's.
Dude...I'd tap Beiber before a Lot Lizard. Jus sayin'.
By the numbers [percentages], absolutely.
That helps explain the obesity rate.......
Truckers: eatin'' all them tastey homeless fuckers.
homeless dont fuck. they understand the plight of the humancondition and see no need to procreate.
Mo money.
"A nation of --uckers"
Of what?
MBAs are taught that you can increase the value of a company by taking on more debt. Debt is an asset, and you can increase your leverage by repurchasing outstanding shares. More debt = more leverage = more value (up to the point where the cost risk of a bankrupcy equals the marginal cost of capital).
Well that is political orthodoxy straight from the Party, no?
Cig:
+1000
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/leveraged_buyback.asp
So what happens when no one can afford the crap anymore?
Miffed;-)
Shhhhh.
They are already recruiting for one way trips to Mars.
It's a big honor;)
Oh silly me, I signed up for that thinking that it was a new ride at Disneyland! And To think how smug I was when I resisted the sales pitch for OnStar. *sigh*
Miffed;-)
They're throwing in an iPhone, laptop, iTunesthingamajig, iWatch and a 10,000 sq ft plasma screen with cable connections to 5,798 HD stations, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter and the PlayboyHDChannel
One way trip to Mars thats hillarious. I mean I watched people audtioning on some MSM channel.
Some of us, had we been of better vintage, would have jumped at the chance to be the first to Mars. Not everyone wants to live to be old and die in their bed when there are new unexplored places to see.
This Mars thing is a joke we have 3 bases out there , had them since the 80's.
He said: Easy like a trip to Mars.
So?
So I thought we only had that one rocket that blew up.
Aw, women don't know nothing about current affairs.
The Marching Morons
by
Cyril Kornbluth
Miffed, we've long past the event horizon of productivity.
indeed, Overshoot
47% of the population is on food stamps.
That can't be true. If it were, the country would be bankrupt, and the economy would be collapsing.
Sorry I meant 47 million. 1 in 8 Americans is on food stamps,and 1 in 4 children.
Look around, this is what it looks like.
"The Future is Already Here, It's just not evenly distributed"
But the crap is the most expensive? There is a saying, Poor People Cannot Afford Cheap Things.
Financialization = Armagadon
Bwaaaa, look at Hawaii...now a state of cooks. Give em their damned independence already. It and PR are the most blatant manifestations of colonialism, and their peoples are generally cold if not hostile to Anglos. Sorry for the off topic rant.
Primary school teacher in West Virginia, Florida, and Alaska.
That's just too funny.
Hey! Leave Florida out of this! They import their teachers from the Bronx!
So anyways, I posted this in the AM and got no bites...
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/
...they're in everyones cell phones, in case no one knew...lol.
We got it nemewn.
Can you hear me now?????
Yes
Well, fuck you!
No, I can't hear you're endless coat'tail riding banter.
.
You do know I was paroding Verizon, and the NSA don't you? that FU was not at you...maybe I was not clear about that.
If it's transmitted over the airwaves, you never know who is listening in. Encription or not.
Our planet is surrounded by a 50 light year radius of radio and television programming.
When the aliens see Laverne and Shirley, they will surely vaporize our solar system.
Squiggy just gots to go.
Yeah wtf? Truckers at least perform a service and provide the companies they work for wealth. Teachers? Just one more drain on society. Unless of course, you happen to work at a PRIVATE school. Then you are obviously perfoming a service that someone WANTS.
...But, that explains why schools there are more better!
In southern Florida you have to say "mas mejorer", I think. Half of the primary school teachers here are probably ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages).
Yeah. They churn them out at places like Hostos in the Bronx.
As soon as the latinos graduate they immediately migrate south to get away from the cold..
Frankly, i'm surprised the map isn't filled with "daytrader" yet. Maybe 2015...
Didn't I just recently read robots are soon to drive big rigs?
iTrucks and drines don't need drivers
Can't wait to see Amazon's drones launching mssiles at Apple's iTrucks.
War of the worlds
to War of the Nerds
There's been a growth in butch lesbians. Truckers <-- Secretaries.
truck drivers are going to get destroyed by automated vehicles that'll be deployed within 20 years. And then what?
What has been known on ZH for years about labor substitution is now being embraced by the likes of summers and rubin (they were in DC yesterday talking about this topic). You can see the fear in their eyes as they have zero clue what to do when 50% of labor in the US becomes zmp or negative marginal product labor in 15-20 years.
20 years and most of the baby boomers will be dead. That will help. WWIII will take a toll too. Throw in a pandemic, famine, and a race war and I think things will average out just about right.......
Hey, as a boomer, although late one, I resemble that remark! That is not helpful at all lunatic fringe!
OK, sign me up for the pandemic and lunatic fringe. Marla can take the weekend race wars and food riots
I'll up that, with the default and bank holiday...I'm your Huckleberry.
Not to mention no one can afford it.
Late boomer here also. Yeah, 20 is wishful thinking probably. That'll put me at 80. I might make it to 90 but I'd not bet on it. I bailed out four years ago and have been living large on a small budget. Frugally enjoying what life has to offer at this point. We've all got to cash in our chips at some time so I don't mind my turn is comin' round. It's been a hoot and a great run. I really wouldn't want to be 20 or 30 with the way things are. I hope those following behind me have the same opportunity to live out their natural lives in the same manner I was lucky enough to. Sooner or later, IMO, some generation is going to see some shit happen that I really don't want going down on my watch. Best of luck to all you non-boomers.
I hate to sound like a broken recod since I throw this out there all the timee on here, but as someone in my mid 20s whose in the corporate work force at the moment..i can say that you are a lucky man.
i work with a guy whose in his late 40s or early 50s and i tell him quite a bit, you're lucky you got started when you did because 90% of the millenials will NEVER have it as good as he did
He's clinging onto this job but little does he know, he's being replaced by someone in our southern location for probably half the price.
I'm not scared, I know im better than most people my age but I can't move a mountain by myself.
Try something smaller. Maybe a stone or a pebble. Get some fiends to help.
My wish is that economists, politicians, lawyers, etc. will soon be automated into retirement, if not extinction.
You forgot bankers. They all need maximum demotions.
No doubt to be replaced with Judge dread and his posse of enforcers
Never gonna happen. That and a million other idea that won't get done.
Ya, and I'm still waiting for my Flying Car
without truckers, who will murder the prostitutes?
Well They got one right. The word "Cook" in the middle of the desert in Mexico.
that would be...Hawaii
One man's desert is another man's Hawaii.
LOL, I guess so...
What's Hawaii doing in the middle of Mexico? Does that make Obama a Mexican, rather than a Kenyan?
Maybe he is Mexiyan?
I'm thinking Mexican "cook" was a Breaking Bad reference...............
eastbound and down-jerry reed: http://youtu.be/_HpmlIDIXPs
Jerry Reed was a genius on guitar. If you don't think so just watch him play Jerry's Breakdown or Lightning Rod on youtube.
As someone who spent 20 years as a double clutching, gear jamming, coffee drinking nut I always preferred Hghway Junkie by Gary Allan as the anthemic truck driving tribute song.
http://youtu.be/JSPMiGPUJWY
My fav
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMWCxt8ABNg
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Six Days On The Road
Raise ya two days... :>D
Clearly we have room for more Lawyers.....
Being a lawyer ain't what it used to be... used to be you killed yourself for a couple decades, made partner and then got to ease off and play golf.
No more.
if you're not producing billable hours you're gone. AND you're doing your own typing and 'secretarial' work now.
Yet despite the drop in job appeal, the US still produces too damnn many lawyers..... the real screw ups end up as politicians
Convoy. C.W. McCall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJEeHND_lQ
As I was growing up I despised the 70's. Lame tv, lame music and horrible clothes but now I'm starting to re-think the whole thing...no cell phones, smartphones, computers or internet. Hmmmm, maybe the 70's weren't such a bad decade after all.
Sure seems like we are past the point of no return. What I don't understand is how these jobs are allowing people to keep their heads above water these past 7 years. Seems hard to believe it hadn't collapsed. The math doesn't add up !!!
You really dont want to know. Homeless drivers.
The lucky ones are owner-operators with sleeper cabs.
"we trucked some folks...."