[Pops]

It's a pdf in a google viewer, here is the url:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... -102-2.pdf

I had a hard time finding that...

[Cid_Yama]

Sounds like people are getting mad about rumors about how much people are being paid.

And surprise, surprise, most of these rumors are being spread by conservatives in service to their corporate masters ever in search of even cheaper labor.

There is no middle class. TV families are not real. The people is the McMansions are in debt for the rest of their lives. Slaves to the system.

There is no middle class - it has always been a myth to get working class managers to side with the leisure class against the interests of their own class.

[Ludi]

State services are being cut back severely in Texas due to budget constraints. The Dental School in San Antonio, where my dad used to teach and now mentors, cut out a lot of departments. Some were consolidated, but a lot of people lost rank (and payscale) or were laid off. Imagine how many more .gov workers will be laid off if Texas secedes!

[Plantagenet]

State governments are separate from the federal government.

State government salaries are similar to what workers get in the private sector in some states (Texas) and are much higher then people get in the private sector in other states (California, Illinois, New York).

Federal salaries have exploded along with the federal deficits, and are currently about twice private sector salaries.

[ian807]

3rd world America is right in front of us if we look.

In your neighborhood, how many of the houses built during the boom are empty. On Washington Avenue, about 1/2 mile from my nice little Houston neighborhood is a condo complex whose construction stopped soon after the crash hit. It sits, unfinished, torn Tyvek flapping in the wind in the middle of an otherwise finished well constructed block. Luxury houses across the street from me have been for sale for two years now.

But that's urban decay in a nice neighborhood. I went back to my hometown recently. About half of the storefronts in the town have no stores. The few that have anything have state aid programs, small restaurants or beauty shops. The town has no significant industry. It's all been shipped overseas. The doctor's office where I went as a child is now for rent, presumably after they fix the broken windows. The nice hotel in town, where my father would take us for dinner occasionally, is now a falling wreck, too dangerous to enter. The largest building in town, a former school which I attended is now owned by a church that maintains as much of the building as they can afford to (i.e. not much).

When I was growing up, this was a prosperous rural town where everything was well kept, well maintained and everyone was employed by a diverse set of local industries that actually made stuff. Globalization killed that as it has killed rural life in so many countries. Poverty is pretty much the norm. Almost everyone is underemployed and so, they don't show up in the employment stats.

Welcome to the new America.

[Lore]

Just as textile factories in New England moved the south due to cheaper labor, they eventually moved to Mexico and Asia for the same reason, ain't nothing new, ain't gonna change, everyone wants cheap socks. It's happening in every industry except .gov and I think you might have noticed some people are getting mad about it.

Between union scale (public and contract), OSHA, EIS, EPA and all the rest, nothing is getting done but filling potholes, certainly nothing big like public transit. Funny thing is, I'm "for" all that stuff.

But we're at the point things are starting to fall apart and we can't afford to fix them because we've middle-classed ourselves to near-extinction. If we routinely pay people $25/hr plus benefits to do a job that takes no skills, education or training whatsoever then blithely turn around and say "all we need is a Manhattan Project and 1,000 nuke plants and we'll be all set for for peak fossil fuels", we're fooling ourselves.

So your answer is we're suppose to pay workers a maximum of $11.75 an hour and little or no benifits? How is that suppose to help the U.S. economy or repair infrastructure? That still will be too high compared to emerging nation wages, and will make it impossible for the average person to qualify for a new loan on a Chevy Volt. The actual facts are that real average wages, adjusted for inflation, have only increased by 10% since the 70s.

The problem is not only does everyone want cheap stuff, they also want a lot of it.

[mattduke]

To understand why Fort Worth's pension system is such a financial disaster, look at one month's list of recent retirements.

In January, a 53-year-old policeman retired with an annual benefit of $90,312 for life, plus $256,000 in a lump sum payment. Another policeman, 57, got almost $74,000 annually, plus $313,000 in a lump sum. A 54-year-old firefighter got an annual pension of $90,130, plus $178,000 in cash.

With an average age of 50 for the police and 54 for the firemen in this group, they're likely to spend more years in retirement than they worked. An analysis for the City Council, presented in July, projected that the retiring policemen would collect $3.1 million in pension pay.

You don't have to be an actuary to know that this pension plan will end badly. The technical phrase is "trending toward insolvency."

The Fort Worth government is broke. Soon, they'll point their guns towards the few remaining taxpayers.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/09/04 ... -will.html

[efarmer]

Corporate and consuming America have all largely got what they wanted by trading sustainable longevity for immediate gratification. They want to see a scapegoat punished followed by a hero that will turn on the fantasy life machine again so they can stop worrying and go back to being jealous and greedy, and bored most of the time.

Blow the bubble and duck the pop.
This is the game for those on top.
If it pops while you're up high,
Roast you goat, and wave goodbye.

Where is Mr. Bubbles when you really need him? Come on Mr. Bubbles, just one more big one and then we will be just fine.

I believe we are in for a thrilling, humbling, and unpredictable rebuild from the aftermath of our nation being driven insane by profit fever and terminal credit cancer.

Huffington pimping "surd vorld Ahhmerica" is about as honest as Hannity pretending he transcends being a Neocon hack, and to me is simply more of the bullshit duality of attempting to find a scapegoat magnificent enough to roast in atonement for a nation that screwed itself out of a future in line with the ingredients it has had to work with, in single minded pursuit of the fastest cheap thrills it could lay it's hands on.

Well it was all about being rich, and oh, if it is anything, it sure as hell is very rich tale to tell.

We have a lot of ingredients left to build with, and people capable of the task once they get over pretending they are victims instead of having been participants in quantum self deception.
And yes, we can all say: "But everyone was doing it!"

[Pops]

I'm saying two things mainly, sorry I'm stepping on your toes, correct me where I'm wrong:

#1
Mid class, mid level, mid skilled, mid schooled, mid income jobs are quickly going out the window, they started going with carbon paper, typewriters and rolodexes - it doesn't matter how much we bitch and moan about how unfair it is, they are going just as sure as Uncle Neds profession went.

#2
We can't afford to repair our infrastructure, which seems to be getting a D- from all reports, I assume, because of the cost. If we can't even put our kids in a real live school building instead of trailers, or simply repair our existing infrastructure, there is no way we can afford to rebuild it for a fossil fuel free future.

If anyone wants to correct those two points, feel free, I'm an old school, look out for the little guy 'rat and would be happy to believe it's the 'pub's fault, the corp's fault or something other than simple greed that makes all consumers want it all and now and super-sized and 50% off.

Again, here's my thinking (in 4 points ):

1) It's indisputable that we haven't been maintaining what we've got, let alone show the capability to make significant change today
2) Unless the Energy Fairy pulls a great big plum out of her ear pretty soon we (at least in the states) are going to need to make some big changes.
3) Globalized trade is going to go on just as long as the difference in labor/overhead cost outweighs the difference in transport cost.
4) Either the cost to restructure comes down or restructuring won't happen.

[Outcast_Searcher]

...Arianna Huffington, the author of the just released book "THIRD WORLD AMERICA" makes the same point as I do----she was interviewed on the PBS newshour tonight and said BOTH the dems and the republicans have done a crappy job when in power----AND although she is on the left, Huffington is at least intellectually honest enough to admit that Obama and the dems are in power now and doing a TERRIBLE job of fixing the economy ---- facts that you and most of the liberals and leftists who post here seem, for some reason, to be unable to admit.

(red text highlighted by me for emphasis)

+1, and thanks for the pointer Planetagent.

Wow, as a libertarian who hates the overspending nad intransigence of BOTH parties, this sounds like a good read. Watching Arianna on newscasts over the years, she generally seems to lean way left to me. It will be nice to hear a (possibly) balanced criticism of the results we now see (I leave that judgement on balance open until I read the book).

edit - fixed typo

[Lore]

I'm saying two things mainly, sorry I'm stepping on your toes, correct me where I'm wrong:

#1
Mid class, mid level, mid skilled, mid schooled, mid income jobs are quickly going out the window, they started going with carbon paper, typewriters and rolodexes - it doesn't matter how much we bitch and moan about how unfair it is, they are going just as sure as Uncle Neds profession went.

I agree with this point, but I would add, that not only are mid level jobs going out the window, but technology and globalization is gutting out the upper skilled labor set as well. The computer software job you thought you were going to get when you graduated a couple of years ago has already been outsourced to India. Even Wall Street is not immune. In a few years young brokers will be waiters and waitresses again, if they're lucky, due to electronic high frequency trading.

What's the out of work mid skilled at 50 going to train for? How to be a better big box store greeter? Meanwhile these poor folks are being treated as welfare pariah for taking extended unemployment, which is the only thing keeping them from picking up a collective full time job of rioting. Probably the only real incentive government has for extending the benefit.

#2
We can't afford to repair our infrastructure, which seems to be getting a D- from all reports, I assume, because of the cost. If we can't even put our kids in a real live school building instead of trailers, or simply repair our existing infrastructure, there is no way we can afford to rebuild it for a fossil fuel free future.

This is a result of a poor allocation of assets on all fronts, from the government, business and personal stand point. We've spent 65 years of living one hell of a life with the expectation that the party would go on an on. Now we're left with no money and a bunch of malcontents that can't stand the idea that sacrifices will necessarily have to be made for anyone’s future to exist. Who in government would have the balls to stand up and suggest we all must pay more taxes, drive one car if any, stop buying the fourth and fifth TV, computer, cell phone, IGadget, rent not own a home, have only one child? To live essentially a monastic existence. Even if there was a brave soul who did, who would listen? Rather politicians and corporations are still singing the Siren song of business as usual even while the ponzi capitalist experiment, as we know it, is essentially dying and we sit in a media stupor of denial.

The solution is easy to articulate but hard to perform and that is to sacrifice and practice self-control. Something we as a people have forgotten how to do a long time ago.

[Newfie]

I think that this is a bit of a strange thread considering the number of Doomers here who regularly decry our current culture and structure.

I do think there is a LOT of miss information about the Davis-Bacon argument and how that relates to 'state' employees. Two very different things. I'm not even gonna try to clear THAT up.

As far as I can see the whole culture we are in is a damn mess. Nothing makes any sense anymore. So why should the pay rates?????

The US, more than Europe, has an entire culture built on the internal combustion engine. Much of Western Europe, or that part of Germany and France I have seen, still has the vestiges of old towns and town centers, with clusters of farm land around. Their high fuel taxes have encouraged more logical development. For instance train travel, small interurban street car type trains, are more abundant because they can feed population clusters.

In the US the suburbs are spread out over unwalkable distances. There are no recognizable 'downtown' other than malls and strip malls. It is difficult to have useful stations because the people do not aggregate into moderately tight living cells. There are exceptions, for example in DC. When you get a Metro stop you have mushroom development around the stop as land prices soar and high rises and office blocks develop. But this is an exception to the rule where development follows transit. Where development has already occurred you are pretty much screwed for public transit.

I firmly believe that we have seen the zenith of public works development. We will not be able to maintain our roads and bridges. Many of our transit systems are already falling into disrepair as are our electric lines, sewer lines, water pipes, gas distribution lines, off shore drilling platforms, etc., etc., etc. We don't have the talent, let alone the dollars or the manufacturing base to keep this game rolling.

I don't know how steep the slope will be so I'm not making any 'doom and gloom' predictions. I'm saying that, taken on balance and from the long view, the future trends are clear. There was a strong injection of very cheap calories, we have spent it, we have over spent it. As calories become more and more expensive there will be an inexorable push, like gravity, pulling things down. At the moment we are sort of like a ball thrown up into the air that has reached the peak of its cure, it is in limbo, forces are nearly in balance, slight wind pressure can move it laterally. But, sooner or later, gravity will grab hold and do its deed.

This folks, is what Peak Oil looks like. It is here. Enjoy the brief time we have remaining at the top, even if the ride is a bit bouncy. It's all downhill from here.

[polka]

I do think there is a LOT of miss information about the Davis-Bacon argument and how that relates to 'state' employees. Two very different things. I'm not even gonna try to clear THAT up.

Ah, someone gets it. Part of my point (not stated very well) was that government workers do not even receive Davis-Bacon wages--it is for contractors only. The intent of it, however over-done it may be at present, is to guarantee that private workers' wages are not cut to nothing in a world where government contracts must go to the lowest bidder. Kind of the opposite of what Pops was using it to lament... Then everyone piled on.

But whatever... It's the workers to blame!

[Pops]

Yea, sorry, I thought I made the distinction between contractors and gov employees but I guess not. I don't know if it matters though, here is a long article about public vs. private employees' wages. Just as it's taken a while for the downside of the global economy and tech advancement to come home to US private workers, it will eventually come home to government workers and contractors too.

But whatever... It's the workers to blame!

If that makes you feel better... whatever.

But playing the martyr doesn't pay the bills. About 15 years ago I got tired of my salaried job, borrowed $20k and bought a computer to do print graphics. At the time just about everyone was still using an Xacto and glue pot and a pro logo could cost $1-5k and take weeks, I was lovin it because I could do one faster with more comps and revisions for $500 and still make $50-$100 an hour. Needless to say the old guys who wouldn't change went out of business pretty quick - which sucked because a couple of those guys had taught me everything I know about print when I was a kid.

All those glue pot guys are gone, along with maybe a half dozen skilled hand trades that used to take a designers idea and make it ready for the the printing press - and more and more even the offset printing press is replaced by a kid hitting "print" on a digital printer.

Last year I was pretty hungry for work and thought I'd try a couple of the online freelance sites where clients post jobs and designers make their pitch - long story short you can't get a logo job unless you do logos for $50 because that's what the people from India/china/wherever bid - they are lovin it, they can make $5/hr.

We are in a global economy and not one of us can do anything to change it, we can blame workers, wet-backs, liberals, fat-cats, Republicans, corporations or 14 y/o Chinese girls but it ain't gonna change.

Worst of all, you and I voted for it when we chose the Made in Japan label over Made in USA sticker.

And just so I'm not too off topic:
The reason we can't afford to repair our old infrastructure is because the economy that built it is gone - and we won't be able to build a new infrastructure until we accept that fact and design a new economy.

[efarmer]

I knew that was a homer from the moment your bat touched the ball Pops.

The last bubble that popped in 2008 was a humdinger. Take all of the consumers and all of the people who would live above their means if you would let them, and give them all the credit they can eat because the rules are long gone that keep casino bankers out of mortgages and the rules that said you can't repackage financial garbage in gold foil packets with jive AAA stamped on them to sell to suckers all over the planet in a one time blowout based on 100 years of reputation, simply did not exist.

It is the bubble where the kid on his bike has chewed all 12 pieces of gum while he rides down the trail, and he works them up till all the sugar is gone, and then he forms the wad and starts to blow until a big pink sphere grows out of his head until he can't see where he is going and it pops right as he rides off a cliff.

The kid survived but he is all beat up, he is also out of gum and wary of chewing any more, and the bike, well the bike is a salvage job rather than a fixer upper.

I bet if we interviewed the kid, he would tell us the story of when his bike was new, and he road all over the neighborhood showing it off and passing out gum to all the homeboys.

[Revi]

The only way to survive is to do what they do in the third world. I lived in Guatemala and everything was recycled. Tin cans turned into kerosene lamps, old tires turned into sandals.

We are going to have to take the detritus of industrial society and turn it into something of value.

The cars that are going to be abandoned could be turned into housing. The Hummer for example could make a nice bedroom, and a box truck for a barn.

We are past the point of fixing the old infrastructure.

Time to figure out how to live in this new world.

Turn your minivan into a bus, like they do everywhere else.

Turn your refrigerator into a business. In Guatemala they had beer, choco-bananos and raspberry helados to sell to me right across the street, all from a refrigerator that would be very common in the US.

Learn how to cook beans.

Welcome to the third world. It's not so bad.

[highlander]

In third world countries, as things head down the toilet, TPTB circle the wagons. Gov't employees make more money, police and military jobs are usually the last to go. I think we are seeing the start of that here, although the local gov't typically threaten to cut police and fire unless they get more revenue. infrastructure will continue to fall into disrepair. The gap between gov't and private wages will continue to widen (especially federal jobs). It may be like falling down stairs with several landings. Every two years, there will be a sudden and precipitous fall, followed by a lull of a year or three. These falls will mostly follow the election cycle.

[Plantagenet]

The only way to survive is to do what they do in the third world. I lived in Guatemala and everything was recycled. Tin cans turned into kerosene lamps, old tires turned into sandals.

We are going to have to take the detritus of industrial society and turn it into something of value.

The cars that are going to be abandoned could be turned into housing. The Hummer for example could make a nice bedroom, and a box truck for a barn.

We are past the point of fixing the old infrastructure.

Time to figure out how to live in this new world.

Turn your minivan into a bus, like they do everywhere else.

Turn your refrigerator into a business. In Guatemala they had beer, choco-bananos and raspberry helados to sell to me right across the street, all from a refrigerator that would be very common in the US.

Learn how to cook beans.

Welcome to the third world. It's not so bad.

If you are over 50, thats good advice.

But for young people just going to college, its time to pass on the philosophy and communications and business degrees and work a bit harder study engineering, medicine, chemistry, programming, earth and environmental science, physics, nuclear engineering, etc. etc.

Even in third world America, there are going to be spots for highly trained doctors, engineers and scientists.

[cephalotus]

The only way to survive is to do what they do in the third world.

...

Turn your refrigerator into a business. In Guatemala they had beer, choco-bananos and raspberry helados to sell to me right across the street, all from a refrigerator that would be very common in the US.

Learn how to cook beans...

Imho that's very bad advice.

Besides capital your main advantages in a global world are the already existing infrastructure (built with cheap energy) and the education of your people. You can throw away both advantages within one generation, but why should you do so?
Do you really prefer to live in a 3rd world country?

(ok, there's also the military dominance, but I'm not sure that it will be worth so much in a post peak oil world. It didn't work so well in Iraq and Afganistan)

[Newfie]

The only way to survive is to do what they do in the third world.

...

Turn your refrigerator into a business. In Guatemala they had beer, choco-bananos and raspberry helados to sell to me right across the street, all from a refrigerator that would be very common in the US.

Learn how to cook beans...

Imho that's very bad advice.

Besides capital your main advantages in a global world are the already existing infrastructure (built with cheap energy) and the education of your people. You can throw away both advantages within one generation, but why should you do so?
Do you really prefer to live in a 3rd world country?

(ok, there's also the military dominance, but I'm not sure that it will be worth so much in a post peak oil world. It didn't work so well in Iraq and Afganistan)

The infrastructure is already pretty rotten. In the global economy the infrastructure is transportation which means ships, connected on each end of the line by rail and road freight. Because we are so dependent on oil the supper hot spot on Earth is the Straits of Hormuz, which is heating up pretty quick. Research "M Star." To keep the shipping lanes open you need an effective Navy.

As to education I don't think Revi was dismissing that. In fact I take him to say that we need to be MORE educated in more practical matters. I can go on for hours about friends who live in condos and can't flip a circuit breaker - literally. Extremely well educated and nice folks who are totally clueless. I can equally well go on for hours about uneducated, illiterate folks who get tough shit done on a regular basis. Tough and smart, but not 'educated.'