StrangeSox

god-damned mystery

Yeah that was in there. It's a god-damned mystery why african americans don't vote for Republicans.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013...-finger-mlk-day

Probably the battery. You can bring it to Autozone or equivalent and they'll test it for free. Gas could be bad, too, but if it's starting up and running that's probably not the problem.

Inauguration 2013: Lupe Fiasco leaves concert after antiwar rant not sure what they were expecting

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 12:20 PM) No, it wasn't a job for $12 an hour. And as I said, the lesser paying jobs that I did apply for, I was told I was overqualified for. What would you have me do? I actually applied for some jobs with a resume that did not include my legal education, because that seemed to frighten employers in many jobs. Nothing different, my point was that it's unsurprising that jobs paying $12/hour for skilled labor aren't being filled rapidly. Basic econ 101 S&D. There's little incentive there. Be happy with your own success, absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm happy with mine, but I also recognize privileges that have enabled me to succeed with the amount of work and effort I've put in where others have worked just as hard and still struggle daily. We get right back to square-one with your last sentence: that those who haven't been economically successful have done little or nothing. That's the consistent theme in my posts: plenty of people bust their asses just as hard as you but have s*** to show for it. I focus a large amount of empathy upon those who have been systematically disadvantaged and who are often judged by those who come from different backgrounds as being lazy and irresponsible, as having done little or nothing. someone posted this in a pretty similar discussion on another mb recently (the concept of racial privileges were more in the focus of the discussion there)

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 12:12 PM) what does someone DO with $57,000? haha as someone who's breaking $20K for the first time at age 26 - I can't imagine what my quality of life would be like with 2.5x that. lol I've seen articles or reports before that, no matter where you pick along the income line, people pretty reliably define 2x their income as "well-off."

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 12:09 PM) I understand there are people in poverty that do not include recent college grads refusing to work at the local Applebee's because it is beneath them. But that is a separate argument than the one being made in this thread. At least as far as I understand it. The OP's original point seemed to be targeting those individuals that were of "average" income or above the poverty line. Maybe I was mistaken. The OP was about a whole bunch of stuff, most of it not related to jobs. eta: everyone should refuse to work at Applebees because that restaurant needs to die a horrible death

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 12:00 PM) No, it paid $57k and a 15% potential bonus. It certainly wasn't a terrible compensation package. However, I did have to spend 6 months just learning about the industry before I could actually perform the job I was hired to do. I did give up the life I had in Chicago and all my friends and family and move clear across the country where I knew essentially no one. I did put the $100k education (which I took out school loans for, mind you) on hold to take a job in an entirely different field which I knew virtually nothing about. Now I could have sat at home on my parents' couch and complained that I couldn't get a job as an attorney making a salary commensurate with my level of education. And I could have scoffed at the notion of taking a job making $40k, because "that is what I could have been making coming out of undergrad!" But I applied for all sorts of jobs in retail and the food and beverage industry, making essentially the same $36k I was making before I went back to undergrad, but was told I was overqualified. I took an unpaid job in a startup company. Ultimately, I realized the opportunities seemed few and far between and took the first good one I had, even though I had to move all the way across the country for it. I realize there are plenty of people doing these things today, too. What I did, and what others did, is not some Herculean effort or anything. It is called taking responsibility for your lot in life. We'd like to see a lot of others do it too, instead of complaining so much, that's all. Ok, so it wasn't really comparable to a job paying less than half of that and that likely didn't offer any benefits. There's little incentive to undertake substantial changes in your life for a $12/hour job with a limited ceiling and that's always on the brink of being outsourced.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 11:51 AM) I think a very general point we can make is that human beings are blessed with very capable minds, that allow them to do many, many other things when focusing on immediate survival needs is not necessary. The standard of living for many Americans has reached a level where for a few generations, immediate survival needs were usually not a concern. This has created a sense of comfort and a lack of awareness of just how hard some of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents worked to put us in this position. Now that many of us have been accustomed to not worrying about food, shelter, etc, we have been blessed with the luxury of worrying about being famous, or wealthy, or powerful. There isn't necessary an appreciation just to have a roof over our heads or to know where our next meals are coming from. This doesn't equate to a "moral failing" or even necessarily outright laziness. It's just a level of comfort that has always been there for many in our times. I guess where I'm coming from in these discussions is for the significant number of Americans who aren't at that level and do have to worry about survival day-to-day or week-to-week, and that there's a lack of awareness of just how hard many Americans right now have to work just to keep their heads above water. When the conversation focuses on "personal responsibility" or "laziness," it misses an overwhelming majority of the people in poverty and unfairly frames their position as one of their own failures.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 11:40 AM) The last bit gave me a chuckle. Funny that you posted that article about law schools and lawyers...I graduated from law school in May of '07, right before stuff got pretty rough...I applied for numerous jobs to which I was told I was "overqualified." I ended up taking a job with a startup company for $0/hr and working for 8 months and getting paid absolutely nothing, ever. I then moved all the way across the country to take a job in an industry I knew nothing about. So basically, I put my legal training on hold, moved across the country, and took a job in a field I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact, before hearing about the position I ultimately took, I didn't even know such a job existed. Five years later, I have more than doubled my salary and am one of the youngest managers in my company. So yes, I suppose I could have sat around and waited for a more efficient distribution of my legal skills...and I'd probably be haggling in traffic court right now, but instead I chose to do what I had to do at the time and am better for it. Was that job paying $12/hour after you went through several months of additional training? edit: can't find it again, but there was some legal firm that was offering paid internships--as in you pay them to job-shadow.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:59 AM) If he did, the jobs would get shipped back to China again. Americans don't want their jobs going to China, but they also don't want to do them, either. They don't want their jobs to go to China, and they don't want to make Chinese-level wages.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:57 AM) I don't know who qualifies for unemployment insurance, I was just taking your lead. You get unemployment insurance for a number of weeks (was extended to 99, not sure if it's still in place) when you lose your job. UEI is based on what you were making (60% or something like that). I'm going to tell you I haven't seen anything to indicate that this is the case for a significant portion or that it makes more sense than pointing to the overall high levels of unemployment and meager job growth we've had for years now. I'm sure glad I graduated when I did and not a few years later. Do we have an epidemic of unfilled table-waiting jobs? Should these grads move half-way across the country to take some crappy manufacturing job paying $12/hour? I'm still not seeing a "personal responsibility" problem here.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:54 AM) The point is, sometimes we have to accept that life is going to be hard for a temporary amount of time, and we may not like having to accept working two jobs to make ends meet, but that's life. We do it anyway. OR, we don't do it and b**** about life being unfair and hard and how you coulda' been a contender. So where's the responsibility on the plant owner's part to offer competitive wages to attract people to the jobs? The labor market is a two-way street, like you said earlier.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:53 AM) A university study that shows the university degrees they sell aren't really getting people anywhere? I'm not holding my breath for that data to every be collected and correlated to the real problem. Here's one prominent legal professor who's been exposing the problems with law schools and the legal field: http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/ But I don't really see how your comment is relevant to what I said.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:47 AM) See, then you and Balta cannot come in and make your "world is ending" speeches if many kids simultaneously have the luxury of having unemployment insurance or other options other than working. I don't know that "many kids" qualify for unemployment insurance. I still don't see any support for the idea that there's millions of lazy ass-sitters and all of these open positions that they could have if we successfully lecture them about responsibility, though.

Homelessness is a bad example of what we're talking about because it's tied pretty heavily to mental illness.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:41 AM) HAHA Not having to immediately take whatever possible job you can find and being able to find something that actually matches your skills is one of the primary reasons for unemployment insurance.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:39 AM) That's their businesses problem then, isn't it? If they refuse to pay a competitive wage, they won't get workers, and they'll go bankrupt. That's life, a two way street. So that's an example of wages not being set appropriately (probably because they can't pay decent wages without getting underbid by overseas competitors), not, imo, widespread ass-sitting in hopes of dream jobs.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:40 AM) Oh come on, you two both need to admit when you are wrong once in awhile instead of making up this nonsense. I don't think I'm wrong here and I don't think you've made your case. You gave me an article that talks about low-wage-but-skilled jobs not being filled. That's not evidence of a meaningful number of people sitting on their asses waiting for their "dream job"

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:36 AM) If she cant support herself being temporarily unemployed, or is sucking off government teat, then yea she should go be a Sandwich Artist until she gets her architect dream job. Nothing is beneath any of us, gotta do what you gotta do. It's not about being "beneath" someone, it's about the most efficient utilization of resources. Her taking that sandwich job means someone without her skill set who needs something like the SA job can't fill that position and that some of her time will be spent at this job instead of looking for more productive work.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:35 AM) Well then it just must not be as bad as you and some others think then...because last I saw, $12/hr equates to some reasonable meals and lodging at least. But I suppose it would be better to just siphon off of someone else. That's not really relevant to whether there would be more interest in the jobs if they paid more. $12/hr working 52 40-hour weeks is just under $25k/year. You're still going to be relying on public assistance to get by at that level.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:27 AM) Or maybe there are people sitting on their couch, because this isn't their dream job. So now you and Balta are going to argue that they are not sitting on their couches doing nothing, they are just holding out for better pay? I'm going to point back to Balta's post indicating that having 3M unfilled jobs at any given time isn't an indication of widespread laziness and that it's far below where a healthy economy would be. I'm going to say that I remain skeptical that the existence of skilled-but-low-wage jobs proves that there's a significant number of people sitting on their couches who could or should take these jobs. There's training time and costs (some companies are doing a training program, but how many of the 3M jobs are offering that?), relocation, etc. If there's a failure in a particular labor market, it's not necessarily because of lazy labor. To some extent, we don't want people who are temporarily unemployed rushing to take the first available job they can find--should a licensed architect rush out to fill these low-wage manufacturing jobs, or should she wait until there is a position available where she can actually utilize her skillset and experience?

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:26 AM) I made it to "Companies that want better workers need to pay more". That's just not how it works, This is basic S&D. If they were offering $50/hour (for extreme example), there would be lines of people out the door.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 21, 2013 -> 10:20 AM) Which is better than $0 per hour. Not if it involves significant personal expenses of training and moving.