OK, Global Warming, show me your stuff! Shane drove up in a big white van this morning and started unloading boxes. And some more boxes. Pretty soon, he had some sort of new-fangled fiberglass pad laying on top of the dirt between the house and my brand new concrete walkway. Yeah, right where I had planned to grow some herbs and mint plants. Being the curious get-in-the-way kinda guy I am, I just had to ask about it.
He told me the pad was the latest thing in lay offs. Well, what he actually said was it takes the place of the older concrete pads that needed to be formed up and poured, usually by a crew of several guys. But you know me - I always look at things from a realistic point of view. Labor saving gizmo's like this, mass produced in China and shipped to this country, are just the ticket to long lines of unemployed people.
It wouldn't be so bad if we could figure out how to make them here, but the EPA probably has a problem with anything made of fiberglass, and besides, all the empty buildings in Detroit, and most other places capable of cheaply housing the production facilities, are in slum areas; who wants to work there? Answer: Lots of guys would probably be willing to do that. I'm just sayin', ya know, the buildings are there, the people want work, we need the product right here in the USA.....
It did, however, speed the installation of the rest of the stuff in the boxes, our new air conditioning unit.
As I made Carolyn's breakfast, Shane was busy drilling holes in our beautiful weatherproof home and scuttling around in the attic crawl space above us. By the time we had finished eating, the electrician was running wires from the service entrance to somewhere close enough to energize everything. He was gone before noon. Todd, one of the owners of the heating and cooling place, came by with the correct condenser. We needed, and had ordered, one with a vertical orientation, but it came with a horizontal one instead. Thank Goodness the guys had the one we needed laying around the shop.
We fired everything up at 1:45, signed that it was good, and were alone in our home by 2:00. Wow.
Goes to show we can make things happen in this country. American workers are bright, resourceful and willing to do a good job. I don't know what has gone wrong here, but I'm pretty sure it's not the fault of the guys in the trenches. Somewhere along the way a bunch of guys who wear suits in New York and Washington DC have found virtual monkey wrenches and have tossed them into the gears of the system. They've broken the hell out of our way of life.
If there's a buck to be made by breaking something - anything - these suits are willing to break it. No matter they're breaking America and the decent working people who are just trying real hard to get by. They've got theirs, by golly, and they want more. They just don't care what they're doing to everyone and everything else. We have a couple of senators http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=332491 and a couple of crusading REAL reporters http://dailybail.com/home/matt-taibbi-justice-department-has-no-appetite-to-take-any-c.html who are starting to put the names of the responsible parties on a list.
The list will wind up in one or another court one of these days, but I'm not holding my breath while waiting for a trial and firing squad. Mostly, I think, it'll all be swept under the rug. But, I'd hate to have my name on that list. Like dirt that is swept under the rug in your home, the list, and the names on it, will survive to be dealt with later. Depending on when this particular dirt is dealt with, we may not have functioning courts.
We will have judges.
Pay people a living wage, treat them with respect, and they'll care about their jobs.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons people have been running around saying, "it must all be private sector, government can't do anything," is because government CAN do something, and they know, in their money-grubbing hearts, that government can do it better than they can.
I have talked with manufacturing types on the net, and they say that one reason manufacturers like to outsource is that manufacturing management is, like, HARD, and they don't teach it at Harvard Business School. How much easier to just have the manufacturing done as cheaply as possible, anywhere else, so you can treat it like a black box, and spend all your time thinking about marketing strategy and working out distribution deals.
Manufacturing is failing, health care is failing, education is failing, because the elites that have been running them have become incompetent and ingrown. They've forgotten that they're here to serve us, and only help themselves. I suppose some of them think, in their heart of hearts, if it all falls apart there'll still be safe harbor for them in Jamaica or Costa Rica or Switzerland. I hope they're wrong.
Boomer. Yes, it's all comming apart and the degreed, but inexperienced MBA's and CEO's, have destroyed the base of knowledgable manufacturing people who used to take the reins when the "old guy" retired. We'll have to start all over, and they can't teach that at Harvard. It's learned on the floor of the factories that no longer exist.
ReplyDeleteIf able, and when freed of my present task, I'll be happy to travel to Jamaica, Costa Rica and Switzerland. I'll have a sailboat, remember? Just call me "The Judge."