The US health insurance system is a major obstacle to entrepreneurship, as well. How likely are you to try bootstrapping a small company if you know you will face a minimum of $800 per month in health insurance premiums for a family of four? That’s a burden your company has to carry from day one. It’s not viable for most people, unless they breath the same rarified air as venture capitalists.
So much for the American Dream.
I wouldn’t be too hard on the lad. I contributed to a few, but had to use the money therein for one damnable emergency or other. So I’ve nothing.
Thanks! That comes up surprisingly rarely.
The lack of basic safety nets only helps large corporations or those with strong profit margins. America isn’t all that small business friendly.
I hear what you are saying, and I am not disagreeing with you in any substantial fashion.
I don’t need or want to be cock of the walk. But I do want to see skellig michael, and mont St Michelle, and Madagascar. Cause I get one brutish and short life.
I won’t short change anyone, and I think my actions when it comes to empathy and generosity speak for themselves.
So I will continue to toil. So I can experience the majesty and wonder of this rock while I can. (But better health care would be hella nice :D)
Technological unemployment is my fear du jour currently. I am a professional however I see large parts of my current job being replaced but by technological solutions and role substitution to quicker to train, cheaper to pay workers.
I am keeping all this in mind with future work directions.
Great podcast here, coming out of the recent World Summit on Technological Unemployment:
http://c-realm.com/podcasts/crealm/495-our-secret-shame/
Living in China was a very interesting experience in this regard. You see how stacked things are in your advantage, just by being white, male, English speaking, having a western passport etc. You hear about privilege in the West, but there you have to be willingly blind to miss it. Talking to people who have given everything for the chance to toil in a dangerous environment for a small fraction of my own income as a lower rung worker. A smart engineer who spent his savings and risked being caught for chance to work illegally in California as a masseuse. In Nigeria, I met a computer engineering student in a university without computers or books. Even when he graduated, he knew that he couldn’t get a job because they would go to someone with family connections to someone in power. He was thinking of illegally immigrating to Europe because the risks along the way in order to have a slim chance at a crap job were worth it.
Looking at people like this, I realise that I’ve already had a better life than many of these people could hope for. I expect standards of life that they can’t get with any amount of work. It’s humbling and while I’m not going to spend my life feeling guilty, it’s changed my perspective in a number of ways. I am so comfortable, relatively speaking, and I owe the rest of the world a debt I can never repay.
(And I also want to see Skellig Michel before I die)
They also have better preventative healthcare, less risk of industrial accidents, greater freedom to leave an abusive workplace, greater self-determination in their worklife (more important than you’d think; see the Whitehall Studies), etc. etc.
All of which means that those accidents are much less likely to occur. They also have a much greater ability to build a financial buffer; a life-changing financial catastrophe for the poor is often no more than a temporary inconvenience for the not-poor.
The Barons may not be the King, but it’s still a lot better than being a peasant.
Yes. Yes yes and yes. I am not happy that I have a certain amount of greed. And I not only try, but succeed at paying it forward. And in thirty years I’ll be dust, and hopefully some portion of peeps will be better off because of it. (Honest to FSM, I want to be tomato fertilizer. I will be delicious)
This is exactly my current situation. For many years I was viewed as an exceptional technical talent and received many accolades for my work but after reaching the top of the individual contributor role I basically had nowhere else to go. (Super Senior Engineer?)
I am now a “manager” as it’s really the only way to be seen as progressing thru the ranks even though I’m not really excited about it. As I continue thru my mid-40’s I don’t expect that my aging technical skills will be highly sought after - instead I’m hoping managerial experience combined with previous (obsolete) technical skills will continue to keep me employable.
You and me both, brother!
Not all heroes wear capes! 
And thinking about it, there’s another group of people that are even worse off. How many places have you been where the admin has been the most useful person in the room? I’ve spent more time shmoozing them than I have execs, because a lot of times they’re the ones who get things done…and what’s their career path?
It’s funny you say this because my wife has been an administrative assistant for most of her career (they called them secretaries back when she started) and is now a Senior Executive Assistant. She describes it as basically a glorified baby-sitter for executives who can’t figure out how to tie their shoes without help.
She is perfectly satisfied with her job though. She tells everyone she gets paid very well to do an easy job and she has no desire to climb the ladder. I do think she deserves more credit though. Her boss is an exceptionally decent person and a great leader but he is practically an infant dealing with simple daily tasks like keeping a schedule or buying airline tickets.
And @anon81034786, hay! don’t forget about your younger brother!!
Damnit I hate management so much.
She is talking about me again?
Just make sure they don’t hear you say that.
Oh, they know. And they hate me too. It’s why we get along.
Pfft. I just lived the life of an outlaw for a couple years…
Can’t get blood from stone.
Are you a programmer?
When I was very little, you could only do work at work. There was a separation, a boundary that we had no control over. When I was very little, housework took time. Ringer washing machines. Clothes driers. Floor wax polishers. Because of this, for many the week was structured. Monday, the washing. Tuesday, the ironing, etc. Time was allotted for these tasks because they demanded it and everyone respected this. Work was hard and therefore leisure was valued. No one would think of doing laundry in the middle of the night or working on a Sunday.
But now, because most tasks are easier and quicker, because everything takes about 15 minutes and can be done at any time of day at any day of the week and anywhere we do not need to structure or budget. And we no longer think of the tasks in the same way. We can respond to things in an immediate fashion and have to plan less. We forget that these seemingly instant tasks are not actually instant. But we do not feel the need or urgency to budget these tasks or keep them within the confines of an 8 hour day.
Because things take less time and are easier to do, we expect to do more. And others expect this of us too. Though I am too poor to be without a job, I have to work. But this is not the reason I work longer hours. I find myself working longer hours because I have forgotten how long things take. I let my co-worker’s “You gotta minute?” become a 20 minute meeting. I agree to take on tasks at every meeting because each task will only take 15 minutes, forgetting the pile of 15 minute tasks already on my desk.
We do not work longer hours because we need more money or because we love our work. We work longer because we are actually lazy - we don’t want to do the work required to say no or to budget our time accordingly. And it is harder to say no and do this because people don’t understand when we say we are too busy to take on their seemingly simple and quick task.
And don’t get me started on the time I spend watching cat videos in the office.
A couple of years ago I found myself musing about how in my childhood the factory workers in my small town were able to buy houses and go to college and such. Now, of course, they’re only just scraping by.
So, I ran a few numbers. According to google and a few inflation-calculators, those workers would be earning $30/hour today if their wages had kept up with inflation. And, if their wages had kept up with productivity gains, they’d be making $73/hour.
That was when I stopped thinking in terms of ‘slow wage growth’ and started thinking in terms of ‘theft’. Capital is stealing $58/hour from those meat packers.
