Looking Back On Unemployment, Punk Rock Style (Update & Re-Post From 6/5/13)

 

<Now Then... (1983): Original Cover Artwork>

Reckoner's Note (6/18/23): What a difference a decade makes, eh? This is a re-post, actually, after I noticed this particular entry had disappeared, for some reason. After a brief stab at some sort of detective work or other, to figure out why, I threw up my hands, and said, "Right. There's only one option left: re-post."

But I'm quite fond of this entry, simply because it marked the first of what's become a running theme here -- the personal essays on all manner of big topics. By then, I was well into my sixth year of self-employment, with the peaks and valleys that accompany it. So it only seemed natural for me to revisit my various forays with unemployment through a classic song by one of my favorite bands, Stiff Little Fingers. 

"Welcome To The Whole Week," the song referenced here, is on Now Then... (1983), the last album released during Stiff Little Fingers original five-year run. As singer-guitarist Jake Burns has suggested, the song aims to turn traditional views of joblessness on their head: "Why should they be made to feel guilty because, through no fault of their own, they had no employment. They've got as much right to be happy as anybody has -- that was the idea (Stiff Little Fingers: Song By Song)."

I'm not hugely familiar with Now Then... itself, which marked a lower-key, more muted version of SLF's trademark fiery punk attack. Not surprisingly, longtime fans found it a disappointment, prompting the band to fold its tent shortly after the accompanying tour (over to you, Jake, for the epitaph: "We felt we had to stretch our wings a bit, and our audience at the time was not willing to accept that").

I'll have to check out the sonic evidence for myself -- surely, you don't want your heroes chucking out minor variations of the same thing, right? But in the meantime, enjoy this re-post, which attracted 69 views. My original post follows below.

<October/November '82 UK Tour Advert:
Aural Sculptors blog,
http://auralsculptors.blogspot.com/2020/07/20-from-8212-stiff-little-fingers.html>

And now and then, when I'm in the mood
I might get up at the crack of noon
Then take a wander down to the arcade
Might as well clock up a great high score
>"Welcome To The Whole Week"<

<i.>

For better or worse, Americans have long defined themselves through their jobs. As that guy on "The Honeymooners" can attest, our identities come from being known as the providers, whether it's as the head of a household, or the "better half" of a couple. To entertain other notions gets you in trouble; during my college days, my father would get irritable, because I'd never ask what my friends did...or planned on doing...with their lives. "But, Dad," I'd say, "that's like asking somebody, 'What's your sign?' There's more to life than work..."

Naturally, Dear Old Dad would roll his eyes, and scoff, having worked for much of his life. As we all know, however, a lot of folks are getting more time on their hands lately -- like it, or not. According to a June 21 article in The Washington Post, unemployment applications are holding steady, at around 387,000 altogether (give or take). The nation's unemployment rate hovers stubbornly at around 8.2 percent, but might dip to 8.0 percent, according to the minds at the Fed.

<Found via eBay: Print ad for "Bits Of Kids,"

a single that preceded Now Then..., 

and regarded as one of its better songs>

If you don't mind, I've decided to live my life
Well, it's always something to do
My girl comes round and all we do is talk
For hours on end, or we don't talk at all
While we more, or less, do as we please

<ii.>

Mind you, that's the best case scenario. If that's the best, who wants to stick around for the worst? The Washington Post's article also mentions another interesting statistic: consumer spending fuels roughly 70 percent of the economy. While the recent gas price dips may help people feel a bit less pinched -- within the last three weeks, our area has seen a decline from roughly $3.75 to $3.46 -- it's safe to say that nobody's banging the pom poms just yet.

Given this current downward spiral, does it even make sense anymore for people define themselves by what they do for a living? Having lost three jobs in the last decade, I know the drill. Though I never defined myself through a job (too punk rock for that, sorry!), each swing of the layoff scythe made me wonder what the point had been.

What meaning could the latest job have, I'd ask myself, if my livelihood could be destroyed so easily -- to be crushed and tossed aside like a $2 paperweight from your friendly neighborhood airport gift shop? In that split-second gut-kick, I could feel myself go from Provider to Nonperson overnight. No more fripperies like health insurance and low co-pays, let alone steady income (which is always welcome, no matter how crappily you're paid -- don't let anybody tell you different!).

Some of you have got it in for me
I don't need that or your sympathy
So I have no job, welcome to the whole week

<Live, Brixton Ace, 1982.
Left to right: Jake Burns, Brian "Dolpin" Taylor,
Ali McMordie, Henry Cluney:
YouTube.com>

<iii.>

I'm not rerunning the movie in my head as much nowadays, but that nagging feeling of being sold a bill of goods (What...Was...The...Point...Of It All?) has never completely gone away, either. That's why I like this song, "Welcome To The Whole Week," from Stiff Little Fingers. When this song came out in 1983, there were roughly three million Brits out of work as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pursued her single-minded monetarist vision...the populace be damned, if they didn't happen to agree.

This lyric -- of which I've quoted portions above -- is brilliant, for two reasons. First, it turns the whole idea of feeling guilty about being jobless on its head. As the narrator who gets up "at the crack of noon" makes clear, he's not going to waste time feeling that way, when he can finally do things that make his life tolerable (his girlfriend, his LPs, and the local pub).

By implication, he also doesn't feel any stake in a system bent on denying his humanity, let alone his existence ("I never said that this was my ideal/But still I'm gonna feel and make it real/So I have no job, welcome to the whole week")...but that's OK, because he's decided that he should be as happy as anybody else. In a society stuck on test-driving the hoary conceit of trickle-down economics...that's pretty powerful stuff.

Ironically, I never actually heard this song until recently -- as it's tucked away on Now Then... (1983), which remains largely unheralded...presumably because the band called it quits shortly after its release (that is, until the first of many reformations kicked off in 1987). The kitschy early Mac-style computer graphic cover doesn't help matters, either.

Hearing these sentiments when I lost the latest job would definitely have bought some comfort, if not a smile...because the absurdity of investing your identity around your career would become apparent in a heartbeat. You'd realize that you were trapped on some eternal midway, where the carnies run thicker than flies, and there's always a gangling six-foot-tall goon with meth mouth to point out the marks, and hit on their weaknesses with all the subtlety of a flying mallet.

Maybe someone will convince Stiff Little Fingers to reissue "Welcome To The Whole Week" for the U.S, where there's 12.7 million people living in enforced idleness right now...at least there's plenty of company, right? The more things change...the more they stay the same.--The Reckoner

        I never promised you I'd go away

You can't ignore me cos I'm here to stay

So it's too bad, let me at the whole week...

<Live in Brixton, 1982:
Check out Ali's print shirt --
Slightly out of sync with the band's punk vibe, isn't it?
But it was the '80s. after all.
Henry (right) keeps his head down,
and does his best
to get the "dots" (frets) right!>

Links To Go (Why Don't You...Listen...To Your Heart?):

Live At The Brixton Ace, 1982:
Channel Four ("Whatever You Want," 2/83):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqYg7SRMLa4

Fascinating clip from the much-maligned Now Then... era. Having checked it out, I have to say, I don't find those songs so dismissable, but you can judge the results for yourself.

Rock & Roll GLobe: Jake Burns: 
Nobody's Hero: Stiff Little Fingers' Jake Burns At 65:
https://rockandrollglobe.com/punk/nobodys-hero-stiff-little-fingers-jake-burns-at-65/

Sputnik Music: Now Then... Album Review:
https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/85620/Stiff-Little-Fingers-Now-Then.../

Life's Little Injustices (Take IX): I Work Two Jobs (But Have No Money)

<That familiar sinking feeling...?>
<Picture: http://advice.careerbuilder.com/posts/8-tips-for-juggling-parttime-jobs>

Like many of these rough snapshots, this one starts simply enough. There's a gas station on the corner that I patronize semi-regularly for my pop, whenever I'm traipsing back from my latest assignment. It's also a good opportunity to check whatever stories might have run already.

Eventually, on Sunday and Monday nights, I notice a different type of cashier working there: a burly, graying gent with black horn-rimmed glasses...I'll call him Rick, whose presence here is something of a surprise. Here, you're most likely to see teen and twentysomething women -- minority, more than often not -- manning the register. By contrast, I've only seen three guys treading these particular boards. Including Rick.

Bit by bit, I get into little sidebar conversations with Rick, who doesn't seem to mind. (Anything to move the minute hand, right? Been there, done that.) More often than not, our talks focus on the election. We bond over something simple: Rick hates Clinton and Trump, and isn't voting for either of them. As I've explained here, neither do I.

Tonight, though, the talk shifts elsewhere. I pick up a paper, crack a joke about "Breaking Bad," and get ready to pay for my latest pop. "Not too sure about that one -- I watched it a few times, didn't do much for me," Rick volunteers. "I like 'Bones,' though. 'Body Of Proof,' stuff like that. That's really good."

I reach for three singles. "Well, maybe you check out 'Better Call Saul,'" I suggest. "I've been watching it three years now, and it seems well on its way to surpassing 'Breaking Bad,' since we're seeing most of those characters before the drug world overtook them."

"Yeah, now that you mention it..." Rick's fingers dance over the cash register, like they've done a million times before, always one step away from a permanent flirtation with carpal tunnel syndrome.  "I did see the first episode of that, on demand. Seemed pretty good."

"Caught any since? I know it's on Monday night, and that's when you're here, so I could see where that's a problem."

"Well, actually..." Rick curls his lower lip into a sheepish smile. "It's because I can't always keep the TV on."

I don't know how to respond, at first. Then it dawns on me: oh, shit, he means the cable TV, not the regular TV. Rick finishes ringing me up, and pushes my two two-liters over to me. "I work two jobs, but have no money," he shrugs.

I fumble for something incisive to say, but can't muster more than, "I'm sorry to hear it. Hope your situation gets better."

But that's not likely to happen in the short run, for Rick and too many millions of others like him. His fiftysomething face is one that I increasingly see at jobs like these, at church food pantries and community dinners, free dental clinics and sliding scale health care programs, the face of resignation that signals -- when you stand by them in line -- life wasn't supposed to end like this. 

As for me, I'm paddling as best as I can. What infuriates me, though, is seeing more and more graying faces lining up with me, for food, medical care and all those other necessities you can't exactly think of going without. They didn't ask to roll these crap-laden dice that have condemned them to running harder and harder in place, yet falling further and further behind.

They didn't want to play the heavily-stacked hand that sent them tumbling down the rabbit holes of disappearing jobs, steep cuts in social benefits, or the smoldering wreckage of a pension plan gone haywire. They knew what ruin lay around the corner when some higher authority punched a calculator of his own -- remember, it's usually a "he' that makes such decisions -- and punched them a ticket to permanent employment oblivion.

No, the Ricks of the world didn't expect -- nor ask for -- any of these things. But for the next four years, no matter who wins, that's exactly what they'll be expected to do. And that's what aggravates me the most. --The Reckoner

Links To Go: Click Now (Before You Need A Fifth Job):
CNN Money: I Work Four Jobs And I'm Still Struggling:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/12/news/economy/4-low-wage-part-time-jobs/

CNN Money: Sick Days: A Luxury
Many Hourly Workers Don't Have:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/06/news/new-york-sick-days/index.html?iid=EL

U.S. News & World Report: The Part-Time Recovery:
http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/08/23/the-part-time-economic-recovery

Life's Little Injustices (Take VIII): One Foot Out The Door (Always, Always)

<i.>

If you're stuck in this particular movie, you know the script already. On this sweltering summer day, The Squawker and I find ourselves marooned in a never-ending line, in some big box store that prides itself on its massive nature -- even short walks through these places feel like traipsing on the U.S.S. Saratoga -- but on this day, the C-word (choice) that America cherishes seems to have run aground. We've come to get a couple of exotic commodities -- like hearing aid batteries -- that we haven't found at the last couple stores. That makes them exotic.

Ahead of us, a mom who's filled her shopping cart to the rafters -- mostly with the usual ghastly processed foods that these places tout in their TV adverts -- unloads her items, one by one, onto the now-silent conveyer belt. She doesn't seem in any particular hurry.

Neither is the cashier. Aside from the odd sidebar conversation with this customer -- and another mom in front of us, leaning on her half-filled art  -- the cashier makes no attempt to engage anyone. She just stares blankly at the register, going about her task with a grim, mechanical air, fixating on the numbers and decimal points that she's tapping out.

Minutes tick by, though you'd never know how many, since clocks are an equally exotic commodity in these places. Do they really want you to know how much time you're stuck wasting? (For further reference, see the above graphic.)

Finally, we get our turn at bat. When I ask the cashier, "What took so long?", she just sighs. It's the management, she explains. Seems that this store's long-standing practice of docking cashiers for minor violations has ratcheted up. If you get six points in your first 90 days, you're in deep you-know-what.  "Do they let you work them off?" I ask.

"Six months," the cashier responds. "They're losing people here left and right. But I ain't waiting on them that long. I've already got two job offers this week, and once I figure out my schedule, I'm out of here. I can't take it anymore."

Almost on cue, a manager walks briskly over and starts chewing out the door for some alleged infraction or other, just as Squawker and I are bagging up our stuff. We know what's going on well enough not to ask...even if the cashier already has one foot out the door.

<ii.>

Back home a day or so later, I'm treated to a curious sight. It's not the moving truck that arouses the attention of Squawker  and myself. It's the tenant, a now-former charter school principal, whom I've met at  several events. This time, however, he's not wearing his suit and tie, but shorts and a T-shirt.

At first, I think he's helping someone else move on his day off. That's a common enough scenario here, as more and more people are getting priced out of our fair town. "Hey, how's work going?" I ask.

The principal exhales. "I had some discipline problems with some kids in my class. When I tried to tell them how they were supposed to behave, some parents complained." From the way his brow furrows, I guess the oncoming punchline, and I'm not wrong. I wish I was.

"I got called into the school leader's office a couple of days later. (That's what charters call their particular pyramid toppers, as opposed to superintendents.) 'Based on what I've heard,' the leader says, 'you can either resign, or you can be fired,'" the principal recalls. "I took the first option."

"What happens now, then?"

"We're moving to Saginaw," the principal explains. 

"Never been there," I respond. "What's over here?"

"Nothing, just family. I'm going to stay with them for awhile." 

I can hear how the rest of the conversation might go, in his head, the unspoken part: I'm back in Mom and Dad's nest for the first time, in ages. We'll see how that feels after a few weeks, until if (or when) I get the next chapter figured out. If I figure it out.

"Gee, that's too bad," I offer. "Well, good luck." 

As lame as my response sounds, I can't think of anything else to say to this person who's on his way to becoming just another ghost in my memory bank. However, it fits the script that's been written especially for this occasion. Just like an all occasion greeting card, it serves a purpose.

A week later, on another sweltering Saturday afternoon,  I watch the principal (plus his wife and kids) make the usual endless multiple trips to fill the truck with their life story. As you can guess, they look distracted and preoccupied, so I don't try to talk to them.

I wake up Sunday afternoon, having pulled another all-nighter. I go outside to take out the trash, and notice a blank space where the moving truck stood all day. They're gone, that's all she wrote. In work, and in life, we're just step away from going out the door...always, always. --The Reckoner

Resilience is Futile

Resilience is Futile: How Well-Mean Non-Profits Perpetuate Poverty

"We all began speaking in her language: protective factors, asset based organizing, personal resilience. We started to absorb this woman’s idea that changing people’s behavior was the solution to their problems, which meant absorbing the idea that people’s behavior was the source of their problems. But I knew at the core of me this was false. The problem had never been that I didn’t know the right number to call. It’s a lack of resources that produces a lack of resilience, not the other way around."

Too many poverty programs claim that "good behavior" will turn people rich. They are wrong. Sadly there are entire programs being written where they claim the poor are poor from something they are doing "wrong" instead of being poor simply because they lack money. --The Squawker

The Vanishing Male Worker

The Vanishing Male Worker

"Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list.

"As the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, many of those men and women are eager to find work and willing to make large sacrifices to do so. Many others, however, are choosing not to work, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides a detailed look at the lives of the 30 million Americans 25 to 54 who are without jobs.

"Many men, in particular, have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment.

"At the same time, it has become harder for men to find higher-paying jobs. Foreign competition and technological advances have eliminated many of the jobs in which high school graduates like Mr. Walsh once could earn $40 an hour, or more. The poll found that 85 percent of prime-age men without jobs do not have bachelor’s degrees. And 34 percent said they had criminal records, making it hard to find any work.

"The resulting absence of millions of potential workers has serious consequences not just for the men and their families but for the nation as a whole. A smaller work force is likely to lead to a slower-growing economy, and will leave a smaller share of the population to cover the cost of government, even as a larger share seeks help.

“They’re not working, because it’s not paying them enough to work,” said Alan B. Krueger, a leading labor economist and a professor at Princeton. “And that means the economy is going to be smaller than it otherwise would be.”

Read this one carefully: it's the New York Times, the economy is NOT recovering from the Great Recession when most of your population is unemployed fools! You ever notice that constant discrepancy in our news? The elites who manage our news, see this as business as usual. The article is cloying in it's acceptance of this as the norm.

Notice the age of the men with no jobs, begins at age 54. 20 years ago, they were the 34 year old and below crowd being labeled as "slackers". They are Generation X and the millennials! That is the thing being ignored in this article.

Did the Baby Boomers not retire? One chart I saw accompanying this showed the over 55 and above crowd, as having good jobs unless they had retired already. How come Generation X hasn't been able to move into those jobs of people who were more numerous? It blows my mind. We are playing big time for the selfish Baby Boom generation who have 47 times more the wealth.

Look at that poor guy in the picture, he is probably living at home with his Mom! One sees this so often now, shamed 40 and 50 something people living at home with their parents.

The job system is failing when a man can't even get a job to support a family. This came for the ghettos first and now it is across the spectrum. Get in a time machine, what kind of country do you see when a man can't get a job. They don't marry, don't have children unless they are illegitimate, can't buy a house or build a community. When you have nothing but low wage work, your life is reduced down to survival, not building a future. The future will suck, and the blame for this will lay at the feet of the greedy who have destroyed livelihoods for millions--The Squawker

UPDATE: CTA Kicks Workers To The Curb With Rules Crackdown

At times, the ever-mobile art of blogging demands an update of the original material. In this case, it's a timely reminder of the latest employee bloodletting at the Chicago Transit Authority, which we first documented in this post, "CTA Kicks Workers To The Curb With Rules Crackdown" (9/9/12):

http://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2012/09/cta-kicks-workers-to-curb-with-rules.html

As today's update suggests, the average CTA worker's lot is apparently continuing its backslide under the unforgiving gaze of Forrest Claypool, one of many well-connected political insiders who gets to decide the direction of a city...while those below him, apparently, are expected to gaze in wonder as he ponders and rules.

In any event, read the updated post and link for yourself...then repeat this mantra under your breath: "The more things change...the more they stay the same."  At least, that's how the view looks from here, anyway.  --The Reckoner

Would You Work Here? Decide For Yourself:

CTA Reviews @ Glassdoor.com:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Chicago-Transit-Authority-Reviews-E10056.htm

Chicago Tribune: 

Problem Solver: Ex-Felon Feels Job Squeeze At CTA:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-felon-denied-cta-job-problem-0824-biz-20140822-column.html

NBC Chicago: Union Blames CTA Delays On Manpower, Morale:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/Union-Blames-CTA-Delays-on-Manpower-Morale-238977751.html

Forever A Bum To Your Own Family

                                         [picture from drphil.com]


Remember those old Dr. Phil shows where he would yell at the "mooches"?

I often thought I wonder how many of them are mooches by choice. Sure some of them probably were lazy, "didn't want to work", spent their days hooked up to a meth pipe or pot bong, and playing Warcraft or something...

but what about the ones who simply could not get a decent jobs that would pay for a decent enough apartment, car and life?

While the economy implodes and our newcasters lie about the actual employment rates, how is it to be the person whose family has done well and they have not due to a variety of reasons?

It can be hell on earth.

Many do not understand.

Among some narcissists and some baby boomer types who never suffered, your own lack of financial success is always laid at the foot of your own shortcomings, even if you went to college and worked hard for years at jobs only to be laid off or had your health implode, such things do not matter if the dollars never poured in.

Poor people with better off families are told they are "no good" often for years. You can get a college degree, whip up the resumes, move to seek to improve the almighty career, and then when you are left holding an empty bag, realize those old time social connections aren't there either anymore.

I really worry about young people today who may have had parents do well, and then they go out into a work world that simply doesn't want to know. I went through the same thing but at least I could get a job to pay for a rented room, ramen noodles and milk crates. If there is no job though at all, one is in trouble and can't even manage that.

You're the bum, the elephant in the room no one wants to see or exist. To some of these people they got their first job about of school at the age of 18 and never faced the unemployment line. Maybe they have the right personality, right "look" for modern American. Maybe they did work hard but they also were given the opportunity and pay-out for their hard work.

It disturbs me how if one ends up in "throw-away" status in America, today it's not just the human resources manager looking at you with a jaundiced eye at your cheap suit or dulled shoes but your cruise taking, shopaholic family that definitely sees you as an "embarrassment" too. It can be emotionally devastating. Some people may have kind relatives who want to help them who care, but one thing I have noticed about some within the upper middle class world is they only want to keep company with their own kind. Your concerns are off their radar.

There's too many people out there who realized they became too poor even to be accepted, included or loved by their families, but then that one comes from the moral decay in America, and from the prevalent narcissism that is in many ways collapsing the economy from the top tiers to begin with.

Your lack of money is seen as a personal failing and if it lasts too long you are resented, hated and rejected.

In America today there are these class divisions between families. To the liberals who yell "First World problems" at poor or working class people in America who dare speak of their problems, sometimes the Third World sounds like a better deal, at least you are not hated or rejected for things that are beyond your control, your kinfolk are in the same boat with you. Many of the immigrants are smart because they share resources, there's no such thing as Mama or Sis living in a McMansion while their disabled or poor adult child lives in a broken down trailer with no running water or in a cardboard box in the street.

Even if you have a family that may have helped you years ago, there's a pound of flesh to be extracted. As the merciless employers rip out the carpet beneath you or your husband, rejection often comes from the family too. You are not a source of pride but someone to be ignored and hidden away. They help you with a car repair to keep you from the streets and their front stoop and their resentment grows and your self-respect dies. There is never enough money, only shame. Another job lay-off and the invitations dry up. These types who will tell you "We worked hard!" when you tell them not to be so down on the poor, will tell you straight to your face, people are poor because they deserve it. They will tell you that you are "entitled" if you desire a job that will keep a roof over your head and a car to get there.

                                          [picture source]

And that is a horrible fact of modern American life, rich relatives aren't so nice to the poor ones. Your Tea-Party loving shark uncle will write that all poor people are losers, as he is brainwashed by the elite to blame the victims of the economy while paying homage to the bankers and multinational corporations outsourcing all the jobs. Your mother who never went to college and got her good job via nepotism, and who won the insurance Lotto, will roll her eyes with disgust at you for years as she shops til she drops and buys a second home in Florida. Your sister will tell you that your 800 square foot working class apartment [even in a decent area] is "too small" for a visit and look down on you from turned up nose for eons. She was C and D student but because she married a six-figure executive...so she rose up the ranks in the family forever more.

                                         [from Zero Hedge]

Younger people forced to move home, sometimes will deal with the parents who will say "When are you going to move out?" as they struggle to get a job or an affordable apartment. Often the families are as merciless as the bosses who cut hours or wages. Older people face the middle life crisis of realizing they will never make their parents proud, they will be the family "bum" and that success has eluded for far too long. Hope taken away as one remembers one's old life where opportunity at least seemed to reigned supreme and one seemed to have a good future. Sad faced regretful 40-somethings living with disgusted elderly mothers. 20-somethings with heads hanging down low trudging down the basement stairs coming home from low-paid jobs telemarketing or doing day-care or filling out job applications with their father screaming "Mooch! Loser! Bum!" So many left unaware of what awaits them as they exit the college world into the you're just another number in line unless you have connections. One ponders how did some relatives do so well? Doors opened to them with ease, as the padlock on yours seemed to grow bigger.

Years of knowing you never could afford decent presents for nieces or nephews or vacations to see anyone. Knowing that you are forever a bum to even your own family because the jobs were as disloyal as they were.

Poverty is a scythe that cuts into relationships.  DNA doesn't always cross the class barrier.---The Squawker

War on Homeless Graphic

                                                                [from poverty infographics on Pinterest]-- The Squawker

Just Get a Job!

This one made me laugh, but there is sad truth in it---The Squawker

Throwaway People

Throwaway People

We have too many in this society.

What does one do in a society where you are told YOU DO NOT BELONG and ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE A LIVING for the most minute of differences? I faced this when I got sick, said illness denied me high paid enough, sustainable employment which made the health problems worse. I have seen so many talented people set aside via the bean counters. It's a travesty. Right now we have a growing underclass of all kinds where they know they do not belong.

Sure, I am disabled myself, but I am thinking of past days, where one wanted a community to have some loyalty and you were willing to give the same loyalty back. Where has that gone? If you are a little different, too smart, too slow, too old, too young, not conformist enough, not thin enough, not mainstream enough, today they don't seem to want you. I suppose some of us become experts at finding outside niches but I wonder at a society where it seems that out there only a growing number of people are being deemed "acceptable" for employment. Sure, they will make the "everyone needs education" claims, but we have the most educated society ever, no what is happening is a new class structure where only those who are already well heeled, connected and have the right looks and attitudes need apply. The "owning class" [see below] is tossing the rest out the door.

Both I and the Reckoner have pondered the reality of how many soul-less minions behind desks have determined our reality with the very economic foundations of our lives determined based upon their whims.

The other day I saw this quote:

"The problem is not work. Work is FUN when you do it for yourself. Work can be rewarding and you feel proud of your accomplishment. Nothing feels better than taking a well deserved bath after a day of hard work and then eating a comforting supper.

No, the problem is employment and job hunting. There is no dignity for the worker and job seeker in the process. Work has been hijacked by the owning class and has been rebranded as “employment”. They are not job creators, they are work usurpators.

If the capitalists, the owners and the rulers were not in the way, anybody could immediately pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The fact that you need to be hired before you can do any kind of productive work is the problem that must be ended. Nobody should have to sell himself or herself before he or she can contribute to society."  

One thing I ponder is how much human potential is being thrown out the door, as these employers tell endless lines of people they are not a good fit. Some may contribute via writing or volunteer work and unpaid activities, but how many are being denied decent livings out there, because of the blockades put in their way? When did human beings become mere commodities?


I find the whole hiring process to be more about weeding people out rather then finding the "best"or allowing people to contribute. The other day I was talking about this with a friend when people lived in communities lifelong and when there were family and other long-term ties; things were far different, in terms of business decisions. One's community was taken into account, the extreme "free market" types will never discuss how those farmers they praised for so much self-reliance, worked together to raise barns and more. People worked together, and I am not talking about the controls of Communism but SPONTANEOUS relationships and interactions, ones formed by God's creation not directed from above....

I tend to think people were seen even differently. It wasn't all about fitting in and SELLING yourself to those who may NOT BUY. It was about being alive and being part of a community.--The Squawker

The Jobs System is Failing

To make the above picture accurate for today's job market, you'd need around 1000 players
and one chair sitting there.


In the video ignore the use of the word "Recession", more like a Depression. They are more hopeful about new jobs being created then they should be. AP IMPACT: Recession, tech kill middle-class jobs

NEW YORK — Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears. Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market. What's more, these jobs aren't just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren't just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers. They're being obliterated by technology. 

Year after year, the software that runs computers and an array of other machines and devices becomes more sophisticated and powerful and capable of doing more efficiently tasks that humans have always done. For decades, science fiction warned of a future when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines; an Associated Press analysis finds that the future has arrived.

More Jobs Predicted for Machines, Not People


A few years ago, I wrote on  a message board, that technology was doing away with a long list of jobs and there was nothing being put in place to replace all that. Is all technology a good idea? Is progress making life easier or nicer? I don't think so. You'd think human beings would be more wise. A bank like the one shown in the video with automated tellers sounds like a nightmare.

I refuse to use those self-check out stations, those things drive me crazy, where the weight has to be consistent and it constantly bleeps at you if you do not move fast enough. Think of all the cashiers now out of a job because of those things! More of us should refuse to use them on principle. So shopping becomes even more impersonal and the disabled and elderly have more work to do, just to get out of the grocery store. So what's great about that? Less service, more work for the customer and now someone is out of a job. The days where one could ask for a fill up for their car were BETTER, though they still exist in New Jersey.

One thing life has become far more utilitarian, think of the 1970s even where an endless amount of leisure activities from roller skating to hiking filled the advertisements. Who has time or money for any of that? In the 1980s, people actually collected knickknacks and minatures!Can you imagine that in our days of low expendable income?

In the 1950s, one could find hat shops, shoe shops and many more businesses there to serve your needs. Now they have outsourced everything overseas. Some of you like me may have grown up even shopping for FUN with Mom and Dad taking you to the mall, now such an idea is really strange to think about, spending money on things you don't need? Well with all that wiped away so is a slew of jobs that dealt with those services, leisure activities and items.

Newspapers are dying, the publishing world is on its last breath, printers have to worry about those electronic books, killing their industry, who makes anything here anymore? Even farming has been taken over by mega-corporate conglomerates that even have the cows milked and eggs turned and collected via machine. Did anyone think this stuff out, where the machines would take all the work away? What would be the result of all the jobs being sent overseas for cheap labor? In the 1980s, they sang the praises of the "service" economy, but whose left to serve when no one can afford the extras of life? I haven't had my hair cut since 2004, it's easier just to whip out the scissors and cut it off myself. There's only so many rich people left to service restaurants, cruise ships, and luxury hairdressers for.

The colleges are so out of touch it isn't funny, selling degrees, you know there are no jobs for. I remember an ad that ran a few years ago, where they would teach you design video games. How many video game designers does one nation need? They are there to keep their money flowing in though they barely pay the adjunct professors anything who often need food stamps when they thought their Master's degrees and PhDs would mean a middle class life.

The young people are promised jobs and careers that simply aren't there, or are so short in number that the thousands of graduates released into that particular field don't know what awaits them. The people who have the math brains, and mechanical know-how and technological aptitude for so called STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math careers], have more of a fighting chance, but even there IT lay-offs and more outsourcing has made that less of a guarantee. Unless you have big bucks to get through medical school or exceptional talent or financial resources to open your own business, then obtaining the middle class seems harder then finding that needle in the proverbial haystack. Don't think law school will solve your problems either. It is well-known a glut of unemployed lawyers exists out there. That was one worry I had as I went to paralegal school.

Some of the employers claim there are jobs out there but many of these are highly specialized and technical jobs that you can't even imagine someone even finding a proper school to teach them the in's and outs of. Anyhow all that nonsense about how we need more education in America, is a joke. We already have the phDs on food stamps and hundreds of thousands of college degreed people working as waiters, and house cleaners.

Take a look at the job listings sometime. Your kid's college isn't preparing them for this. The only decent paying jobs there are seem to be restricted to the techno-engineer class, that only a few sliver of a percentage of American people even have the ability to do. Usually one can read those job ads and not even understand what they want, they are so extremely specialized. What on earth is an ETL Administrator? Within that toss out a few college bubble threatened college jobs that you probably need connections to get like admissions director, a few decent paying health care jobs, truck driver jobs, warehouse jobs and then notice, the professional line kind of ends there and the rest are all low-paid jobs from $8 dollar an hour health care staff to various office assistants and waitresses etc.

If you have a young person, have them go to "indeed.com" pick whatever city you live in or they desire to live in, leave the job space empty, and see what comes up. There you will see what really exists and it's getting more and more narrow by the year. It's not the stuff your high school guidance counselor is claiming nor your college admissions director.....

So what happens in a society where you are expected to hold a job, and pay your bills to be a responsible adult? I am disabled, but I remember the scraping and begging I had to do just to get jobs that barely fed me and provided no health insurance. This involved out of state moves, combining 4 part time jobs, and worse. Some may say, "You failed" due to inherent faults, or your poor health, but then I've seen it happen to too many others, some bogged down with a lifetime of student loans to pay off coming out of school with immense high hopes, only to have that balloon popped, by the fact there are far more people then there are jobs, even the low level ones. A system like that seems pretty unfair.

How many people judge those as jobless or underemployed or only part time employed as failures? How many fines, punishments and daily crushings come about just due to your shortage of money? How many get a new burden of depression, feeling like the world threw them out the door and there is no place for them? What about those laid off into nothing and poverty after 15 plus years of hard work, based on the whims of a soul-less boss? The Jobs System is failing.

Should just having a job be run like the Lotto, where only the lucky and connected get in the door? Should 10 dollar an hour jobs, have such an extensive weeding out process, that they require a resume and two interviews by committee? Should only people with high-level math and extreme technological aptitude be the only ones allowed to make decent middle class wages?

This is not to offer a solution such as the more Communist inclined may offer which is a lifelong dole for everyone, it is just to say what is, and so what is to be done? One thinks about all the talented people who see nowhere for their talents to be expressed. Some express them anyway for free, better then living a life with no expression, your so call starving artists still do art while starving but this is a trend that is definitely going to be costing a lot of people.

How many smart people are there, seeing the utilitarian landscape of the falling jobs system, realize the promises held on to them from the time they were a youngster were all a lie such as the "DO WHAT YOU LOVE mantras? The biggest trap for a kid to end up in adult poverty is to focus on "doing what they love" especially when there are only 15 jobs for 10,000 college majors in the nation in that area. Some take the gamble and lose, I did but being young, naive and upper middle class in my raising, I never really understood how hard it was to make a living. Both parents never were unemployed even ONCE! One sees too many young people told to dream big dreams, but not everyone can be a famous singer, rap star, actress, and all the other fantasy based answers to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  

That said, the jobs system is failing. Jobs are being wiped away via technology, jobs are being wiped away via outsourcing. It's all become a crap-shoot, a game of musical chairs, where the music plays and there is a giant crowd and only a small circle of CHAIRS [decent jobs] they are all competing for. The music plays on, and many find themselves standing, outside the circle, alone, told they belong nowhere. Some play desperate attempts to run from room to room, or state to state to find a place to BE. What does this do to a society in the long run when most remain standing, when the chairs are all taken up?---The Squawker