On 7/03/2012 12:25 PM, A Moose in Love wrote:
> On Mar 6, 4:32 pm, > wrote:
>> On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:17:12 -0500, "Jean > wrote:
>>> Dave Smith wrote:
>>>> On 04/03/2012 2:43 PM, Jeßus wrote:
>>
>>>>> Aside from general pollution concerns, when you have fake plastic rice
>>>>> and eggs, melamine adulterated milk, bleached mushrooms, bean sprouts
>>>>> grown with antibiotics, etc. all coming from the one place... well,
>>>>> I'd rather just steer clear of any foods from there.
>>
>>>> I had a talk with the produce manager are our local grocery store and
>>>> expressed my concerns about the increasing amount of Chinese produce
>>>> they were stalking. His answer was that the Chinese have to eat too.I
>>>> told him that I would not buy produce from China, and that if I had to
>>>> go to a different store to get non-Chinese produce I would be getting
>>>> all my groceries there.
>>
>>> Sounds like a good thing to voice. I think it is crazy to become
>>> more and more dependent on other countries for food--especially
>>> basics, and especially China. Also, how about foods that may
>>> emanate from the area affected by Chernobyl, etc., etc.?
>>
>> Agreed, more people need to vote with their wallets and buy locally
>> produced food from local businesses.
>>
>> That's what I do these days. Not doing this can only perpetuate the
>> current trends. I know it gets hard for those on limited incomes to
>> resist lower prices, but I often wonder just how hard they are really
>> trying (not all of course).
>>
>> It's insane how product is shipped overseas, then comes back again to
>> the state or country or origin. Not to mention the loss of local
>> employment and infrastructure.
>
> We have lost much work here. Arrow shirts, John Forsythe shirts, Huck
> glove, many meat packers; the only one left is Schneiders, and it is
> now only a distribution center, all of our rubber is gone, 3 Uniroyal
> plants, BF Goodrich, Goodyear tire, textiles are gone, leather
> tanning went a long time ago. but still in this region, the economy
> is chirping along. you just need to be very skilled, and you'll make
> out. having said that, the larger machine shops are/have been

Most machine shop work has been automated to a fair degree. Even the
jobber shops are getting into CNC. If your job or career path is under
threat, you can either allow yourself to become redundant or you can
re-skill. That applies in all fields of endeavour, not just the trades.
I just need to see the changes over my working life to know that with
just the one employer for my entire working life, I am indeed a
dinosaur. Admittedly, I did work in many different jobs and in many
different departments with the one employer.

> restructured, and many metal workers are out of work. RIM, is not
> doing so good, although it used to be primo. There was a time, when
> you could get out of school with a grade 10 education, and make decent
> money; about $25 in today's wages. not any more. Even RMS (an

About 60 years ago, when I first started work, that was true here in
Australia too. I had a year 10 education and started in the department
as a gopher. About 30 or so years later, with a few degrees behind me,
I was running the place. You might start out with a basic education but
you need to update and improve that education else you will remain at
the bottom of the heap.
Nowadays you need a degree minimum just to get a start.

> independent arm of Uniroyal; they worked in conjunction with Uniroyal
> tire on Strange street; Rubber Machinery Shops) has shut down. And
> they had very skilled machinist/fitters working there. One of our
> best automation tooling plants was going along very well. The owner
> controlled the majority of shares (he started repairing dies in his
> garage, and worked it up to a $100 million company) always made sure
> that in bad times, his good workers never got laid off. Then he died,
> and the bean counters took over. They started putting up communist
> style banners all over the shop such as 'Every Day is a New Day', and
> laid off the weekend shift, laid off the night shift, canned the
> machine shop foreman (who brought much to the company) etc.

I know all about bean counters. Every time we have a change of
government, out come the bean counters looking to see where savings can
be made in my department. Lots of intangibles in my department and they
invariably stuff up and get rid of valuable people, even in the face of
advice to the contrary. A year or three later, the error of their ways
becomes patently obvious and they're out hiring again. Trouble, those
really good people usually only want to return as consultants at 3 and 4
times their original salaries. The skill-set in my department is so
specialised that you simply cannot pluck these people with the required
skills from anywhere. Typically you end up with people, who have taken
early retirement, returning as consultants on their own terms.

These days any employee needs to keep up-skilling and, more importantly,
cross-skilling if you expect to stay off the dole queues.

--

Krypsis