The Future?!?

[CP/M User]

Borderline Rant I think.

I invisioned the future yesturday while I was down at the local shopping centre. I thought one day jobs will come down to one guy who's connected to this computer & his thought processes are sent to this computer which controls all the facets of a shopping centre. You do the wrong thing - the Computer will deal with you. Or Perhaps when people enter that era everybody will have a chip attached to their brain which controls their thought processes - so no security. Shops will still exist, but perhaps is all self motivated - this chip maybe what everyone will live on, their expenses come from this, no money (just credit) - Banks will slightly change their role - the thoughts are endless.

Anyway, jobs do seem to be disappearning - a machine seems to have replaced the person in the ticket box. Boy what'll happen when machines can fix themselves - the end to technicans. Perhaps machines will not turn against humans (in human slaughter) - but taking people's jobs is exactly how they are turning against humans - a machine doesn't need to get paid for instance. Just more examples to fuel the argument that the Government is trying to make Australia more like Asia - mass production, low wages, long hours, less time with your families.

As Bill Lawry would say "It's all happening here!". Yeah mate & Australia is supposed to be the lucky country! ;-)

As it is, another exmaple I've seen is the checkout person. One of our big department stores has done away with Checkout service & you basically use your card to checkout (hence the idea in future that everyone will have a chip with will automatically check yourself out - perhaps if you have no credit on this chip - you die on the spot!).

Some of those ideas from Dr. Who though could become reality (well maybe not the alien invaders), but things like throught processing - people attached to a machine (e.g. The Mind of Evil, The War Machines & The Green Death). Yeah! ;-)

[Zmatt]

Yeah its called the matrix Mr. Anderson.

[Unknown_K]

When the last trained tech dies (or retires) the machines will slowly grind to a halt and since everybody on the planet will be a burger flipper or MBA degreed pointy hared guy the world will revert back to the stone age.

[CP/M User]

"Unknown_K" wrote:

> When the last trained tech dies (or retires) the machines will slowly
> grind to a halt and since everybody on the planet will be a burger
> flipper or MBA degreed pointy hared guy the world will revert back to
> the stone age.

That's just the thing - they'll keep enough Humans in reserve (in case
something goes wrong) as a form of backup.

I just saw the self-serve machines at the local department store the other
day & boy they do not look friendly at all. All computerized - but there's
more - it's like some larger computer you'd find from the 1960s - even
though the Computers in "Dr. Strangelove: Or how I learned to stop
worrying & love the Bomb" look much friendlier & make sense.

What has the public done to deserve this?!?

CP/M User.

[Terry Yager]

What has the public done to deserve this?!?

Easy...they've priced themselves right out of the job market by constantly demanding more & more of the employers, to the point where automation is the only viable alternative (machines just get cheaper as they get older, not more expensive every year).
Ever seen a contract come up where a union just says "That's kewl, we don't want anything more this year, we're just fine right where we're at".? They have to justify thier own existence somehow...

--T

[Unknown_K]

The public wants the cheapest product, so they get the cheapest product a computerised system.

[Unknown_K]

What has the public done to deserve this?!?

Easy...they've priced themselves right out of the job market by constantly demanding more & more of the employers, to the point where automation is the only viable alternative (machines just get cheaper as they get older, not more expensive every year).
Ever seen a contract come up where a union just says "That's kewl, we don't want anything more this year, we're just fine right where we're at".? They have to justify thier own existence somehow...

--T

Unions fight for atleast the cost of living increases. If you make the same amount of money this year as last year you have lost buying power because of inflation. I also think executives pay raises are way above what the ran and file could ever hope to get.

Look at it in simplistic terms. You have a company with 5 workers (union) and 1 Boss. During the year sales and profits soared, so the workers want to see a cut, and management will get a cut also (larger percentage). Next year sales are down, 2 union guys are downsized, no raises or maybe even consessions from the remaining 3 workers who have to work harder, and the Boss gets a bonus to stick around. Is this fair?

The flip side is that just about all the smaller companies with unions who cannot grow anymore have a real hard time meeting obligations they stuck themselves with while they had explosive groath (and profits). Once an industry matures into a commodit and profits are much lower (and people start retiring sucking down pension funds) the company is in trouble.

The solution you ask? Define what each job title is worth and pay that rate. Give cost of living increases every year to keep that buying power. have the union vote on what healthcare plan they want while letting them know what the company can afford (workers pay the rest). If a company does well then reward everyone with a profit sharing check, but no raises.
If you want more money you need to advance in the company or work the overtime (when it is available). There is no reason somebody doing the same job over 20 years (one that they master withing 6 months) should be getting paid many times their starting salary (adjusted for inflation).

[CP/M User]

"Unknown_K" wrote:

> The public wants the cheapest product, so they get the cheapest
> product a computerised system.

But what's also happening is the Banks are cashing in on these automated
systems. Sure my bank gives me a rebate, but once I over exceed
myself (which I usually do unfortunately) it comes out of my bank
account. All this ETFOS caper is the banks way of say if you want
convience - it's going to cost ya! I try to avoid this system myself, but
there is just times where I need it for an emergency.

And the public are accepting this. I mean people complain about the price
of things in general - but there's this funny perception that it's okay to
charge us small amounts to our bank accounts (it all adds up I might add).

IMO Banks are the winners for the future - but it's in small areas where
they seem to be closing down branches for their benefit - their just in it
for the numbers & not the service some of those banks & I'm glad I'm not
part of them.

CP/M User.

[CP/M User]

"Unknown_K" wrote:

> Unions fight for atleast the cost of living increases. If you make the
> same amount of money this year as last year you have lost buying
> power because of inflation. I also think executives pay raises are way
> above what the ran and file could ever hope to get.

The other problem though with this is while the poor Aussie Battler gets
his Minimum wage & one small pay rise per year - Inflation is occurning
more than once per year & the price of stuff seems increase by a larger
amount than somebodies pay increase.

And then there's the crappy Petrol Stations which just sets the price
based on "World" market prices (a barrel of Oil) & slowly drop the price
when the price of Oil goes down. But their always quick when it comes to
increasing the price - do you see what I mean?
This is what's currently happening in Australia.

CP/M User.

[Terry Yager]

Unions fight for atleast the cost of living increases. If you make the same amount of money this year as last year you have lost buying power because of inflation. I also think executives pay raises are way above what the ran and file could ever hope to get.

...And, after increasing everyone's salary, the employer has to recoup his "loss", by passing his extra costs along to the consumer, which raises the cost of living, so that (if they're lucky) the union members may break even, but guess what? Non-union workers (89% of America's workforce) get smacked with those same price increases, so they can't even break even, they just get poorer...
I've never been fortunate enough to be a member of any trade union, and therefore have never benefitted in any way from thier existence. AFAIC, all they've ever done is take more money out of my pocket with each new contract they "negotiate".

--T

[Terry Yager]

And the thing that nobody seems to want to admit is that unions today are businesses too, and all too often are guilty of the same "sins" that they accuse the evil employers of (What's the average salary for a union president these days?)...

--T

[CP/M User]

"Terry Yager" wrote:

> And the thing that nobody seems to want to admit is that unions today
> are "businesses" too, and all too often are guilty of the same "sins" that
> they accuse the "evil" employers of (What's the average salary for a
> union president these days?)...

Not sure how the Unions operate down under - I just assumed that for sometime they were functioning perfectly - but now it seems they have been brought out & fall down when it came to equal rights. The Government seems to be the most responcible culprit in a sense they have brought foward these pollicies which more or less date back to the dark ol' days of work rights - by trying to eliminate peoples rights & do more work.

It's all really part of a stragety of getting Australia onto the cheap labor bandwagon & produce things cheap - as a result of Australian produce companies pushing their business overseas & get more cheap labor for their supplies.

The way I see it when Businesses are moving overseas in responce to this - pressure will mount from other areas.

Which is why next election the Australians need to vote this Government out.

CP/M User.

[Terry Yager]

Trouble here is (and prob'ly in Oz too), you vote-out one govt, and it's been replaced by another that's exactly the same (except for "campaign rhetoric" that nobody takes seriously anyways),

--T

[CP/M User]

"Terry Yager" wrote:

> Trouble here is (and prob'ly in Oz too), you vote-out one govt, and it's
> been replaced by another that's exactly the same (except
> for "campaign rhetoric" that nobody takes seriously anyways),

Yes well, down under we've incorporated the Westminister system - which our mother country (The UK) uses. The trouble is much of the same party has taken over the lower & upper houses - so gets more control as to passing acts. Policies are created, more problematic ones in recent times, which effects everything around us.

Usually it's the big parties which get in (the Libs or Labs), I think more people should do their research as to what policies these parties are really looking at making & decide on which one sounds best. I wouldn't discard the little fella as well - but the trouble seems to be their votes go to these large parties (they virtually buy their votes).

In Australian political history there has never been any other time when a party has had so much power.

CP/M User.

[Zmatt]

another problem is that the unions force the buisnesses to pay the employees more and give them bemifits that make their employees expensive and this contributes to outsourceing people think that the workers aren't getting paid nearly as much but its more that they are socialistic and the companies don't have to pay for pension or healthcare which means that the company makes a larger profit, grows faster, and the economy benifits. Unions are one of the problems faceing the US's standing in the world market it simply costs too much to base your buisness here. Another problem is that American's have developed a falde sense of themselves to when they have the opurtunity to get a job "it's not good enough for them" and if they do get hired they expect their employers to pay for health care and everything else, it dosne't work that way. Now along with loss of economic standing we have terrorists attaking our international intrests, (i have a few muslim freinds and naturally the denounce this but that is for another day), and we have a decaying of ethical and moral standing of our people can anyone say enron? Our government can't function because we have radicals on both sides fighting amongst them selves and the populas is blind to all of this! We a fast becoming less important and soon not just America but also Europe and the rest of the west will become lesser and Asia will rise. This should come about within the next 100-300 years we are now at the beginning of a slow and painful decline and are blind to the lessons of our predesessors Rome, go read a history book, history is repeating itself , the age of prosperity is gone and we will loss influence and eventually capitulate, this ofcourse is assuming that today's advanced means of communications and travel won't interfere, but i doubt that. This can be stopped and reversed but it will be hard and complicated and the American people had better be willing to make sacrifices.

[Micom 2000]

Most of this thread is patently nonsense. It parrots the 10second blurbs of Fox TV, the PR mouthpiece of the rabid right and their corporate sponsors.

Unions have been one of the few vehicles of defense for american workers since the robber-baron industrialists of the 19th century. The decline of unions has paralleled the rapidly growing disparity between rich and poor in the US where 38% of the weath is owned by 1% of the population. The rabidly anti-union Walmart with minimum wages, benefitless part-time jobs, and no rights for its employees has become the model aspired to by all the corporate greed-heads. An Economy which only benefits the rich is a crippled economy. Meanwhile one American adult in five is in poverty compared with one in fifteen in Italy. The benefits don't even trickle down anymore.

" The American economy is built on sand (or, more precisely, other people's money)."The modern American economy is in hock to international bankers with a foreign debt of $3.3 trillion (28 percent of GDP)" "For many Americans the promise of a better future is a fading hope. Contemporary mass culture in the US is squalid and meretricious. No wonder so many Americans turn to the church for solace."

"Americans work much more than Europeans: according to the OECD a typical employed American put in 1,877 hours in 2000, compared to 1,562 for his or her French counterpart. One American in three works more than fifty hours a week. Americans take fewer paid holidays than Europeans. Whereas Swedes get more than thirty paid days off work per year and even the Brits get an average of twenty-three, Americans can hope for something between four and ten, depending on where they live. " So much for the once hoped-for shorter work-week and decent vacations championed by Unions.

" The US is an excellent place to be rich. Back in 1980 the average American chief executive earned forty times the average manufacturing employee. For the top tier of American CEOs, the ratio is now 475:1 and would be vastly greater if assets, not income, were taken into account. By way of comparison, the ratio in Britain is 24:1, in France 15:1, in Sweden 13:1.

A privileged minority has access to the best medical treatment in the world. But 45 million Americans have no health insurance at all (of the world's developed countries only the US and South Africa offer no universal medical coverage). According to the World Health Organization the United States is number one in health spending per capita—and thirty-seventh in the quality of its service. As a consequence, Americans live shorter lives than West Europeans. Their children are more likely to die in infancy: the US ranks twenty-sixth among industrial nations in infant mortality, with a rate double that of Sweden, higher than Slovenia's, and only just ahead of Lithuania's—and this despite spending 15 percent of US gross domestic product on "health care" (much of it siphoned off in the administrative costs of for-profit private networks). Sweden, by contrast, devotes just 8 percent of its GDP to health."

These were just a few of the issues confronted by and overcome by the heavily unionized worker in both Canada and the EU. Sure there are bad unions just as there are corrupt politicians. But the majority fight for workers rights and well-being, just as the corporate lobbyists fight for increased profits, generally at the expense of the common American.


Much of the source for this was from

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726#fn2

but there is a multitude of similar info online.

L.

[carlsson]

Often a 10:1 ratio between CEO and average employee should be well enough, in particular if the CEO doesn't hold more responsibility than one day he or she can get kicked by the board, get a huge negotiated final payout and walk away, ready to take on another company in three months of time.

Btw, I read in my union's monthly magazine that Wal-Mart in the USA have suggested to raise the minimum wages across the country. The minimum differs depending on state. However, the sole reason Wal-Mart wants to raise the wages is so people have more money to spend on .. Wal-Mart. I suppose they themselves are a slight bit beyond the minimum already, so they would not be affected.

On the topic of health care and money spent, there surely are objective comparisons between tax financed systems (like here in Sweden) and individual health insurance (like in the USA). Probably the figure how much quality you get from the money is averaged over all inhabitants, including those who can not afford health insurance. Otherwise, if only the "afloat" people are counted, that is a truly scary figure.

[NathanAllan]

I took my car to get worked on yesterday, and he was really busy so he told me to come back tomorrow. In a nutshell, he told me that my injectors needed to be cleaned and he would be happy to take the car and have it done but not that day, come back later. I told him it was critical and asked him to tell me the person he takes it to so I could go there directly since he was busy and he told me that he wasn't going to tell me the person's name cause he wants to do my work for me and he wants to take my money "plain and simple." So my car's still not working right, and I'm not going to go back to him for it.

Is this a symptom?

When I work on a computer (or tower, or general machine thing) and I come across something that is out of my scope, I bring in someone else, also. But I don't do like the mechanic, and keep the information secret cause of my own want of money. I openly tell the person what the deal is and concentrate on the objective: repairing whatever it is. My objective is not to satisfy my own greed (as his was, and the machanic has plenty of work) but fix whatever it is. Are my objectives wrong or is the mechanic right? This was my business for a while and I did good. It wasn't lack of business that made me stop doing it.

[Terry Yager]

Lawrence,

My comment was not necessarily aimed at unions in Canadia or elsewhere in the world. I was referring to unions in the US, which are a hotbed of greed and corruption, with many controlled by the Mafia. I'm aware that the unions in your country are a whole 'nother animal than they are here.

--T

[Terry Yager]

Nathan,

You're absolutely right and the mechanic is dead wrong. Subbing-out work to another shop may be a common practice these days, but most mechanics should be smart enough to not admit it to your face. That's a certain way to lose business, AFAIC.

What you should do now is spend a little time on the fone and find that shop that does the work. Mebbe the local dealership could even recomend someplace?

--T

[DimensionDude]

Nathan,

Several years ago I took my Volkwagen GTI to the dealer to get the injectors cleaned. They said they'd be happy to do it, but I should first try some injector cleaner. They specifically recommended Chevron with Techron. After two bottles (approximately $7 per bottle then) the car ran perfectly. That dealer has had my respect, admiration and business since then.

Kent

[Terry Yager]

Of course, cleaning your own injectors shouldn't be beyond the scope of most shade-tree mechanical-types. Usually, just pulling them, (they screw right out) and soaking them overnight in a good solvent should do the trick. If you can change your own spark plugs, you'll be able to do this job as well.

Are we talking about your IROC Z? I didn't know they came with port-injection...

--T