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I left home before I graduated from high school because my mother was abusive. I earned my HS diploma and enrolled in college. I managed to live in my car (which I had earned the money for myself), and I completed about 2 years of college.
What was your graduation year?
Answer- Sometime in the 60's or 70's?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
During this time I worked as a delivery boy for a diaper service company. It was my job to wash the dirty diapers for hundreds of infants...luckily I only had to do that on Tuesdays and Thursdays--and I was a driver on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It was a very stinky and yucky job. But I only worked part time.
How much did you make in real dollars indexed to 2009?
Answer- Probably somewhere around $9-$10 an hour. A similiar job now will pay less then $7.
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Originally Posted by dcashley
I was then able to get hired as a police officer for a big city. Four years later, I was severly injured.
What was a civil servants pay as a percentage of cost of living?
Answer- My guess is that civil servants made much more as a percentage of cost of living. Police officers now rarely make enough to live in the cities they serve, and many precincts now require bachelors degrees to join.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
I ended up on welfare for about 8 months...it was horrible.... So, I borrowed money and went to school and learned to be a computer programmer. ...
What was the cost of college then in real dollars indexed to 2009? How many computer programmers were around them?
Answer- 1. Far less then it is today. 2. Almost none.
Today, you pay more for a degree, and find more competition amongst other laborers in the market with the same skill.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
mind you I didn't just "go to school" I memorized the entire IBM operations manual, and learned 4 computer languages. I worked by butt off in that trade school. So then I got a job as a computer programmer at a bank.
How many programmers from trade schools are hired at a bank now? Or any high profile job?
Answer- None. There are ten out of work or underemployed programmers with bachelors degrees or higher for any graduate of a trade school.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
One thing led to another, and I was working only 50 to 60 hours a week. After about 4 years I got promoted to project manager.
Chances of becoming a manager of anything without a bachelors degree today?
Answer- Slim to none. It pretty much requires a bachelors degree to manage a McDonalds today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
My first job after that was as an assistant director at a large computer department for a chain of hospitals.
What do you think your first job with an MBA would be today? My guess is probably assistant controller if you are lucky. Salary? Maybe 45k if you are lucky.
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Originally Posted by dcashley
I did that for about 6 years, and got a job as director.
I wonder how many companies today would hand the reigns of director to someone with 6 years under their belt.
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Originally Posted by dcashley
ok....so ...if I could make it so can you...
10,000th time....this isnt about ME its about the state of the USA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
the first thing I had to do was recognize the reality that I was part of, and that I couldn't change the reality...all I could do was adapt to it, and look for opportunities. I made a bunch of stupid mistakes gettting started, but eventually because I kept shooting at my target, I accomplished what I thought was a pretty good result.
All conveniently began when the GINI index was 10 points lower.
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Originally Posted by dcashley
Not once did I whine that I had it worse than my parents. My parents were awful--truly awful--and they never helped at all--not even with words of encouragement. Once they even "borrowed" $3,000 from me--and I never saw the money again.
You are a member of the last generation that had it BETTER then their parents on average. You have nothing to complain about. It is my generation, and the generation my generation is producing that are getting screwed by your generations excesses and hoarding of wealth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcashley
So, I'm telling you from my experience, decide you are going for it, and then don't stop until you get it or you end up dead. ...then, and only then, will you achieve what you want. Nobody's going to help.
Your experience 30 years ago is not applicable to 2009.
Instead he is trying to make it and is having a tough time, but once he gets a piece of the pie he will be trying to teach other people how to get it too. It's the American way. I'm going to go leave him a rep right now.
Wrong. I will still be fighting the same fight I am now. People like you, and Dcash like to limit an argument to yourself, or one person. However, you clearly missed my baseball team example.
I WAS the best player, I won MVP, I led the team in every offensive statistical category. Why was I like this? Well, I was born tall, and I probably got some of my strength and speed from genetics. I also practiced for years. So, I became "rich" so to speak.
There were two other team captains, arguably the second and third best players on the team. They liked to go about bragging about their skill, they liked to put down the poorer players, tell them they sucked, and it was their fault the TEAM was losing. When given the chance to create their own solution to the losing, their solution was to disclude the poorer players even more. They did not care what kind of damage they caused the poorer players, or if they were erasing the poorer kids chances to succeed by increasing their playing time. To them, it wasnt a team thing, nor was it about helping the poorer players get a better chance. It was all about them, and them making it. That sounds exactly like people like you or DCash. DCash even made the suggestion that I basically throw other people under the bus to claw to the top. What the hell is that?
Any how, to continue the story. Last game of the season, I used my wealth to protest the treatment of our poorer players. That is how I am wired, and this is not how you nor DCash is wired. I dont blame you. America is full of people like you, at all income levels.
That is exactly why the rich have no problem peeling more wealth off the backs of the poor, and the poor sit there and take it. This is why the average person will sell their "friend" out for the price of a Big Mac, and they will walk right by someone who needs help. Noone cares about the big picture, they all have "me, me, me" tunnel vision.
Don't know why I keep trying, but wondering your thoughts on this:
Ok, there's only a certain number of companies in the country. Let's say the total developers that can be employed are 500. And there are 500 developers living in America all employed by these companies. Now all companies hire developers in India. So all 500 jobs go to India. What do the 500 Americans do? There's nothing they can do. It's not like you can compete w/ them. It's not like ok American vs. Indian, whoever has the better resume or better qualifications or works harder gets the job. It'll be the one in India who gets it. The competition is gone and those 500 people are out of a job. They can't work harder or do better. It's done, game over for them.
Move to India? lol... We just have to agree to disagree. People have over consumed and lived waaaay beyond their means and that is what caused this deep recession. It was the greed from rich people, poor people, most people. The housing market is what caused this. People were simply buying MCmansions they could not afford. The quicker we realize that we over consumed and extended too much credit to UNDESERVING PEOPLE the quicker we can move on.
The answer is not to keep going further and further into debt and continuing to throw money at problems. We need to address what caused this(Greed/over consumption) and go back to basic fundamentals. Go back to not giving out home loans unless someone has 20% down and good credit for example.
How much did you make in real dollars indexed to 2009?
Answer- Probably somewhere around $9-$10 an hour. A similiar job now will pay less then $7.
What was a civil servants pay as a percentage of cost of living?
Answer- My guess is that civil servants made much more as a percentage of cost of living. Police officers now rarely make enough to live in the cities they serve, and many precincts now require bachelors degrees to join.
What was the cost of college then in real dollars indexed to 2009? How many computer programmers were around them?
Answer- 1. Far less then it is today. 2. Almost none.
Today, you pay more for a degree, and find more competition amongst other laborers in the market with the same skill.
How many programmers from trade schools are hired at a bank now? Or any high profile job?
Answer- None. There are ten out of work or underemployed programmers with bachelors degrees or higher for any graduate of a trade school.
Chances of becoming a manager of anything without a bachelors degree today?
Answer- Slim to none. It pretty much requires a bachelors degree to manage a McDonalds today.
What do you think your first job with an MBA would be today? My guess is probably assistant controller if you are lucky. Salary? Maybe 45k if you are lucky.
I wonder how many companies today would hand the reigns of director to someone with 6 years under their belt.
10,000th time....this isnt about ME its about the state of the USA.
All conveniently began when the GINI index was 10 points lower.
You are a member of the last generation that had it BETTER then their parents on average. You have nothing to complain about. It is my generation, and the generation my generation is producing that are getting screwed by your generations excesses and hoarding of wealth.
Your experience 30 years ago is not applicable to 2009.
A lot of what you say is probably true, but you're not allowing for the fact that times change, and we need to change with the times. What worked for a long time, may not work anymore, so you change gears.
Nothing could have been more devastating for the US economy then the South after the Civil War. Talk about not doing as well as your parents did! Some went under and ended up as tenant farmers, but many rolled up their sleeves and started busineses and made out quite well. Sitting around crying about what used to be didn't help, but energy, flexibility and hard work did.
I saw several years ago that the BA/MBA costing thousands in student loans was not going to work much longer. Too many of them around. We moved to a lower cost state where my son is in trade school for a trade that will do much better when the recession ends than an MBA will. No cost to him. DS will go to a community college for two years and then finish up at a state college, for a marketable skill, so she'll have no loans either. I figure they're ahead of many of their peers -- marketable skills, no loans, low COL.
The middle class is not going away, the successful ones are just switching gears.
To them, it wasnt a team thing, nor was it about helping the poorer players get a better chance. It was all about them, and them making it. That sounds exactly like people like you or DCash.
Really? Then why am I on here trying to give advice to people not to live beyond their means? To work hard and be diligent? Are you saying that I should just quit working and spend all my time & money trying to change the government for the poor people? I'm not on here to pound my chest that I'm wonderful. I'm trying to teach people the things I have learned in life to help them out.
I have told you many times before I was one of the poor people. I was very poor when I was a kid and was poor in my early adult years. It gets old man. Trying to whine and complain to get more of the "rich peoples" money is useless. Trying to get the government to change certain laws, etc. is pretty much useless as well. So I went out and earned my own money. I didn't step on anyones head to do it either. I have saved like a mad man and made many sacrifices. I find that this is the easier way.
You have some kind of agenda you are trying to push to help poor people. Thats cool. I'm trying to help poor people too. We just have 2 different views on how to do it.
A lot of what you say is probably true, but you're not allowing for the fact that times change, and we need to change with the times. What worked for a long time, may not work anymore, so you change gears.
Nothing could have been more devastating for the US economy then the South after the Civil War. Talk about not doing as well as your parents did! Some went under and ended up as tenant farmers, but many rolled up their sleeves and started busineses and made out quite well. Sitting around crying about what used to be didn't help, but energy, flexibility and hard work did.
I saw several years ago that the BA/MBA costing thousands in student loans was not going to work much longer. Too many of them around. We moved to a lower cost state where my son is in trade school for a trade that will do much better when the recession ends than an MBA will. No cost to him. DS will go to a community college for two years and then finish up at a state college, for a marketable skill, so she'll have no loans either. I figure they're ahead of many of their peers -- marketable skills, no loans, low COL.
The middle class is not going away, the successful ones are just switching gears.
Brilliant! Bravo....high fives! Very smart way of looking at it. The world has changed and yet you and your family have adapted & evolved and aren't missing a beat. That sounds strikingly familiar.
A lot of what you say is probably true, but you're not allowing for the fact that times change, and we need to change with the times. What worked for a long time, may not work anymore, so you change gears.
The problem is that there are few gears to change to, and not everyone can change to those gears.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
Nothing could have been more devastating for the US economy then the South after the Civil War. Talk about not doing as well as your parents did! Some went under and ended up as tenant farmers, but many rolled up their sleeves and started busineses and made out quite well. Sitting around crying about what used to be didn't help, but energy, flexibility and hard work did.
How could you possibly compare the US in its infancy to now? There was no Walmart, it did not require an education to do almost anything. Land was expansive, and dirt cheap in most cases. A man could take an axe out west and construct a life for himself that was better then the average American, largely by the work of his own hands and under the influence of noone else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
I saw several years ago that the BA/MBA costing thousands in student loans was not going to work much longer.
Sure it does, however, now it is required to get a job with decreasing prestige, resonsibility, and money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
Too many of them around.
There is too many of just about everything around, therein lies the problem. We have all taken it upon ourselves to go in to tens of thousands of dollars of debt competing for a small handful of "good jobs", and the result is a huge excess of highly trained, educated and skilled people working in the left over crap jobs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
We moved to a lower cost state where my son is in trade school for a trade that will do much better when the recession ends than an MBA will. No cost to him.
Are you sure about that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
DS will go to a community college for two years and then finish up at a state college, for a marketable skill, so she'll have no loans either.
What skill is that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
I figure they're ahead of many of their peers -- marketable skills, no loans, low COL.
Ironically, they are on the level of about 35-40% of their peers, and when they graduate, they will probably be on the same financial level of most of their peers who didnt bother with college or training.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colleeng47
The middle class is not going away, the successful ones are just switching gears.
Are you kidding me? Now you are just denying the existance of contrary evidence.
Last edited by Randomdude; 03-26-2009 at 11:22 AM..
Gold was not a medium of exchange, it was held by the federal government and used TO BACK the money in circulation. Dollar bills were printed to "represent" the gold. There was always enough gold held in reserve to match the amount of dollars in circulation. That system worked for centuries.
Hi colleeng47,
It is difficult to say against which era in history you are speaking about but this is largely a myth. There have only been two times the US had a gold standard and both times lead to the worst economic times in our history know as the Long and Great Depressions. Also at these times fractional reserve banking was practiced and thus gold did not back each and every note. This was however restrained due to regional banking.
The restraint not to print too much was more effective in regional banks since saturated markets would cause people to retrieve their gold and invest it outside the region. This was explained by Adam Smith and certainly a principle behind the Austrian school who abhor a central bank for this reason. As a monopoly it does not need to produce specie. A detailed explanation is here. Banks could not print beyond their reserves.
However since 1913 there has never been gold backing up the majority of dollars in circulation because now banking is a monopoly. Previous to that silver was also used as money. Silver actually was the main monetary unit of Europe just like copper was in Rome from its main source Cyprus.
Up until Nixon closed the gold window Bretton Woods was again an international/regional standard where gold settled balances between countries which did again restrain the printing of the dollar to some degree.
Quote:
The speculation of the 20s resulted in the great depression. But even with that borrowing to purchase stocks, the average citizen did not buy household furnishings, clothing, cars, vacations, groceries, and entertainment with credit.
Speculation was enabled by the new banking monopoly created in 1913. FRB lost is regional check in that banks could not print beyond their reserves since the notes would be called in. Once its national they no longer are exchanged for specie locally until the market is saturated. Its no fluke the speculative bubble started after 1913 anymore than a bubble was started after Nixon closed the gold window. However, predictably, gold was leaving the US as the US printed too much and Nixon made it an international monopoly. Also the debt matters less than the fact that it is our money supply. There are those who see another's debt as irrelevant but is is when it is used to conduct trade. If you and I trade with the debt of a third party their debt is our problem. The debt of the stock holders mattered to the average person because it inflated prices and then deflated them corrupting the value system that is money even though most people had nothing to do with the debts of speculation.
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Being in debt prior to the 1950-60s was not something the average family did. Yet aside from regular cyclical recessions, the economy was pretty stable until the Great Depression.
You can get credit flowing again, but with people losing their jobs, having mortgages underwater, overextended on credit cards, etc., I don't see a return to where we were 10 years ago. And according to how the economy is structured now, there simply won't be enough non-productive jobs to keep unemployment low.
The ability to expand the money supply through consumer debt is a very short run indeed. Thats were we are. The only thing that will expand is government obligations. Banks will loan so long as the government takes the risk. This is what we are seeing and what we will see for quite some time. Its the Wall Street tax and we may as well accept that is our government now.
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Why do you think the Chinese economy is growing so rapidly? Because they are producing "stuff." Then they sell it, get the money, purchase more raw materials to make more "stuff" and grow their economy. I think it's extremely dangerous to grow an economy based on debt. It's like a house of cards, nothing substantive is holding it up.
Agreed but they also use FRB and central banking. It is certainly better to create capital but this also burns out because it leads to an over production of capital. It does not help to make stuff no one buys as we see now. Even FRB toward productive capital can't keep up with the interest. The solution to move dead capital will be to increase consumption and that means growing the consumer economy and the only way to do that with FRB is consumer debt. Japan refused to play hence the continuous depression. They keep the factories running by seeking consumption elsewhere. It will be interesting to see what China does. If China does not shake its debt based money system they share a similar fate. Either dead capital seeking consumption or a bankrupt consumer economy. That is the fruit of a debt based money system.
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Again, my caveat -- I claim no superior knowledge in economics, I'm just stating what represents common sense to me.
Common sense does not work anymore than observing a snake swallow a mouse. If you see a snake swallow a mouse then one may assume its common sense the same will occur if it swallows its tail. You need to understand the money systems we have used and the one we have now. The one we have now is anything but intuitive.
The money system we have is actually like a hard currency I can imagine. Its like a uranium backed money. Its hazardous and good to keep it way from you and it eventually kills people that use it but we can't get rid of it because its our money. An uninformed observer would think its crazy to carry uranium but its the money. Its good to be out of debt but we can't because we made it the money. My suggestion is to stop using debt or uranium as money.
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