Inflection Points: Some History, Some Speculation

[peristaltor]

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when a simple observation of mine, that the GOP has a plank in its platform stating its aim to "explore a greater role for private enterprise in appropriate aspects of the mail-processing system", blew up into such a kerfuffle. The GOP, after all, has long been the party supported by anti-union forces in

Comments

[gunslnger]

My mindset has blinded me to mindsets that lack this simple understanding about human nature

Or maybe your condescension has blinded you.

Listen to the radio. The songs on heaviest rotation mostly date from within 10 years of the 1969 Summer of Love.

Depends on what stations you listen to. The 80's are much more influential than the 70's in general though.

The only factor that decides wages is the market of participants; where there are more workers, those workers will get less. They will compete against each other to drive down the compensation all will eventually scramble to grab.

This is empirically untrue. There are more and more software engineers every year and average wages are rising. You should be able to see that you are leaving out at least one factor.

[peristaltor]

There are more and more software engineers every year and average wages are rising.

Software is a growing industry, so the amount of work for programmers is growing, just not as quickly as programmers are trained. Supply and demand. If a major software provider started resorting to sweat shop tactics to whip the code monkeys into faster coding without more money, you might start to see coder unions (if they can pry Atlas Shrugged out of their RSD-numbed fingers; seriously, what is it with Rand and code monkeys?!?)

Depends on what stations you listen to.

True. I should have noted that most of the music I hear (when not from my own collection) comes accidentally-from the phone hold music, from the market, blasted out of others' radios. Most of the accidentally heard music fits that ten-year window. Really, how many times when you were a kid did you think Creedence, the Beatles, the Stones, or even "Seasons in the Sun" would be played when your hair was grey

[gunslnger]

If a major software provider started resorting to sweat shop tactics

If? What do you think the outsourcing to X-istan or Taiwan or India is?

I would question your summary of the accidentally heard music, as there is likely to be some selection bias going on there.

[peristaltor]

Actually, I suspect the bias is more to do not with my hearing but with the consolidation of the radio industry. As more and more stations are owned by fewer and fewer, the formatting of programing has become more formulaic, leading to a narrower and narrower band of content options.

Furthermore, those options are generally aimed at more and more well-researched demographic niches, and the Boomers are the biggest.

[root_fu]

Good post.

I haven't found time to read through all of it though. : X Later, later.

[peristaltor]

That's why I throw in the pretty pictures.

[harry_beast]

Great post.

Here is an article with some perspectives about the state of unions in Canada, if anyone is interested.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-weakening-state-of-canadian-labour-unions/article4515873

Observations:

Ronald Reagan ... shift away from socially-minded philosophies and toward a more competitive, personal pursuit for wealthOn the other hand, one could argue that the shift in the Reagan era was away from the narrow minded perspective of individual greed and sloth that sapped American productivity and competitiveness with its drive for reduced productivity, lower quality and unsustainable increases in wages and benefits. It could be viewed as a shift toward the more social minded perspective that, for the common good of the country and of the Free World, the United States needed to modernize, innovate and meet the challenge of places like Japan, who were eating their

[peristaltor]

On the other hand, one could argue that the shift in the Reagan era was away from the narrow minded perspective of individual greed and sloth. . . .

Now, now; if you're going to lambaste with a broad brush, you really should get your descriptors correct. Since the Reagan era started to concentrate wealth away from the workers and toward the employers, the perspective of, as you called it, "individual greed and sloth" on the part of workers was not a "narrow" minded one, but a "broad" minded one. A philosophy that channels wealth to a more narrow band of the population is the narrow minded one.

And my rallying cry was not for labor, but for individuals to use in avoiding labor. I aim for a more self-sufficient future, one where work is not the only source of wealth and consumer behavior not the only source of enrichment, essentially the future based on the past before WWII.

[mahnmut]

4 (now 5) commendations => Recommended.

[peristaltor]

Good news from the Shrike!

[paft]

P: Yep. This man actually made the claim that younger generations should be thankful that seniors today, despite isolating themselves from the rest of society to the point where they refuse to pay taxes to fund schooling, are willing to give up their body parts to research . . . after, of course, they no longer have a use for them

[peristaltor]

One can note that it's the Baby Boomers' "fault" without holding a grudge against them for being born, just as one can hold the BBs' parents at fault for bearing them in one 20 year pulse. Still, the economic consequences of the pulse might prove significant to the point of being historically unprecedented. That is reason to be concerned without the finger pointing.

I do agree, though, that most media coverage of the economic effects of the pulse has been, like most media coverage of, well, anything, has been dumbed down to hysteria backed by quickie google searches.