Economic Conditions This Morning

Taking stock of the world this morning, the first issue that comes to mind, on a local perspective is that our city remains paralysed with a transit strike. This makes me cite again those words that so often one hears in the context of city government: 'what a bunch of idiots'. Usually its quoted in reference to the quality of 'leaders' that take up residence at city hall, but in this case you can throw the transit union in there as well.

I'm amazed with all the unions pushing hard on their employers to get big raises and 'job security' as the world economy goes into a spin. There seems to be a brazen disregard for their own future as they try to drive their own organizations into the ground.

And let's not forget other folks as well. Every morning the radio news is full of the hardship being caused by this strike, as the most vulnerable sectors continue to suffer the most - all (apparently) because the workers want to be able to pick and choose which shifts they work. Well nobody else does that in the world. Oh wait, yes they do. "You want me to work at a 7-11 from midnight to 6am? I think I'll work elsewhere." There, someone just chose their own shift.

One finds the work that matches their abilities, and its proportional to the skills and effort they've put into their own future. However, too much of our society is full of this concept of entitlement. "I'm 22 and have finished my MBA, so I'm ready to run your billion dollar company. I've no experience or knowledge, but hey, how hard can it be?"

We don't teach the concept of repercussions for your actions. If you don't put the work into learning skills, you can't get a job requiring skills. If times are good, and you're raking in better pay than most of the people of your background, it's probably a good time to develop skills for when you don't have that position. As the auto-sector falls apart, I've seen lots of interviews with auto workers facing the loss of their jobs, singing sob stories. Then it comes out that three generations of the guys family have worked on the same mindless assembly line. You'd think the first guy would have said, "Hmmm, maybe my son should get some skills to do better than this." But I guess humans become complacent too easily.

Kids should be encouraged to first develop interests then find skills and education that support those interests. Too many people seem to have no interests at all. That must start at childhood when their parents fail to be encouraging and support expressions of interest.

My sense is that the average adult male, given $10k to pursue an interest, would basically get a bigger TV and maybe put a gaming console in each room of his house. TV - yeah, that's my hobby. "I want to develop skills and confidence in my ability to watch TV. And those bastards are going to lay me off too, or take away my right to choose the shift I work in my job."

Well, I think those things might actually be related.

Researchinator turns toward the skills and interests that currently consume the hours of the day...