Slashin' jobs is slashin' wrists, an open letter to our 'community'.

[Mr. Flibble]

(of America or whatever we should be calling our country these days...)

60k more tech jobs down the drain, I gather...

Corporate America might be getting a short-term profit-laden jolly off of their doings, but long-term repercussions will be tantamount to America slashing its own wrists - to such an extent that it will be impossible to stop the hemorrhaging.

Our economy is based on consumer spending AND trained people adding new ideas into the system AND doing hard work to ensure things keep running smoothly. We are ALL a part of it. Not to become apart from it by the actions of a blind few.

If you take away well paying jobs, leaving only piddle retail part-time minimum-wage slave-death crap that seems to be popping up all over the place, people will not be able to afford ANY of the things that drive our economy.

In other words, the blood runs out and we die.

Last time I checked, a proper LIVING wage was tantamount to $15/hr (which will soon increase). That means a single person needs to work part time 3 jobs to make that amount. (90 hours a week, sounds like slave driving to me.) And the jobs are part time because that keeps corporations from having to spend money on "benefits". (oh yes, the health care issue will hardly go away until it's re-regulated and filled with COMPETENT doctors. After all, frivolous laws and frivolous professionals always tend to induce frivolous lawsuits.)

Even a poverty wage ($10/hr) is TWO jobs. 60 hours a week. Now I know CEOs and politicians are so cozy with their salaries and 80 hours a week playing golf and schmoozing that they might just be just a little bit out of touch with reality, and I feel sorry for them.

Not just all of that, but when the corporations who have the real power in America do this sort of sleazy stuff, it tells the rest of us NOT TO BLOODY BOTHER TRAINING IN THE FIELD. So, we don't spend money for the education. Why bother? Our job will likely be taken away in the name of a CEO's latest pay increase or special bonus. (a glib generalization, but hardly inaccurate.)

I am not anti-CEO or anti-business. I am Pro-America and pro-worker. Workers and America HELP businesses, not harm them. Without laborers, no wealth is made. Abraham Lincoln said something to that effect as well. So why not treat them right? Instead of plunging this country's economy and prestige down the already clogged toilet for short-term gain?

It's going to come back to haunt us, and if you remember the last time your toilet overflowed, it was a disgusting smelly sticky mess.

Edit: Subject line

[Danocrat]

1. I just wish I had one

$5 an hour job right now.

[Anakin Skywalker]

2. Very Well Said. Bravo!

People need to hear things like this more often.

[KharmaTrain]

3. Blaming "Competent" Doctors? How about Insurance Companies?

Let me say, I agree with a vast amount of what you've written and it's a shame the middle class has been put into near servitutde for the greed of the large corporations. Sadly, people don't relate this issue when they want cheap TVs and instant gratification.

How about looking at the insurance companies that have to make a profit above the welfare of the patient...playing doctor and "god" in many cases...sometimes against the wishes of the doctor; leading to substandard treatment and/or possible lawsuits.

Medical malpractice is a boogie man used by a lot as a reason for escalating medical costs, but that's the end-result of a system based on profit and not public health.

Yes, this is a serious problem, and I've seen how many excellent doctors have been driven from their practice, forced to curtail who they serve or limit their services due to insurance company liability. Also look at that Houston case...it was the insurance company, along with a heartless, chickenshit, hypocritcal Texas governor who passed a law that allows the insurance companies to pull the plug on life support if they find it's not in their economic interests.

[Mr. Flibble]

5. I appreciate your input immensely. I couldn't think of all issues, and...

there are many good doctors out there. I now know five personally.

But there are many more bad ones, who simply look up their book and do "medicine by numbers". They are otherwise known as charlatans or QUACKS and I've been misdiagnosed many times because of them. (one doc decided my symptoms were merely manifestations of ANXIETY when a simple blood test would have shown a B12 deficiency, of which anxiety and other problems are created or made worse BY the deficiency. And if not treated in time, nerve damage caused by B12 deficiency is irreversible. Don't doctors take a class on this sort of thing? One would think it's mandatory, the first thing ANY doctor should do is run a COMPLETE vitamin/mineral test to make sure everything is within normal ranges and that if one number is off, check anything related to that and look for anomalies or near-abnormal levels. Sounds like common sense to me.)

True, maybe I was harsh in my assertion. But not all people have the greatest of times with their doctor. But from stories my friends and acquaintances and I share, I'm hardly alone with getting 2nd rate treatment, misdiagnoses, and so on.

[brokensymmetry]

4. Yep.

Only it gets worse. As our young people realize that there is nothing to be gained by a college degree - particularly one in a technical field - they opt for other careers. Those with lower investments of time and money.

So, ultimately, we have a nation that produces nothing and that is poorly educated. Such a nation cannot support the costs of empire, nor the demands of independence. Such a nation will implode.

But what the hey. Cheaper consumer trinkets is all anyone cares about anyway.