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 sebster wrote:
Looking back to the recession in the early 2000, you see that the jobs lost there were never actually replaced. The economy stabilised so that it returned to creating jobs as fast as the population expanded, but it never made any real recovery back to the highs of the late 90s. The same thing is happening now in the wake of the GFC, the economy is back to creating jobs about as fast as the population expands, but it isn't looking like recovering the jobs lost in the GFC, let alone returning to old heights.

If you look at the chart of individual disposable income (for most, this will probably take actual work; finding nominal disposable income then deflating via personal consumption expenditures) through that 'last leg' period 2000 onward, you see that "real" disposable income continued to tear higher all the way through 2007. There's been some research done that suggests demographics shifts during that timeframe, i.e. women opting out of the workplace to be at-home domestics simply because they could afford to and early-retirement age individuals in good financial circumstance took the option.

i.e. underutilization of the labor pool as a result of prosperity

That's why I don't think it's accurate to say 'the job loss following the 2k recession were never replaced'; to some extent, it may have been Haves succeeding while Have-Nots languished, but it seems at least equally likely that individuals simply didn't have to work as much or those 'on the cusp' opted for early retirement, especially as their portfolios, if invested in equities in any way whatsoever, would have performed fantastically.

 Melissia wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
If I remember correctly he TeaParty pretty mch obeyed the laws to.

Plenty of Tea Party members broke the law. Many times during protests as well.

Really? Can we have some examples where Tea Party members actually broke the law while protesting? I'm curious as something like that would have made the national news like when OWSers went on their rampages in cities such as Oakland Ca.

 Zathras wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
If I remember correctly he TeaParty pretty mch obeyed the laws to.

Plenty of Tea Party members broke the law. Many times during protests as well.

Really? Can we have some examples where Tea Party members actually broke the law while assembling to promote their views?

Well the Tea Party protest I saw certainly violated several fashion laws.

 Ouze wrote:

 ShumaGorath wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
One class and a apprenticeship program for aviation.
or
A VOTech catering to it. SC will give you access to the high end airframes = more cash

Surgtech like a 4 month program. Start off in Central Processing to learn the instruments and sets be my advice. With the SC you gain access to certain type of hospitals

HVA school like 3 months. Everyone loves their AC and heat.

some require tech school not a degree

If you skydive and in excellent shape go for Smoke Jumpers or the fire crews to. Unlike me I'm a paratrooper and in no longer in perfect shape....dang the IED

Another off the wall job not many people think of but its a 8 month program. Train logistical coordinater. Thats start 23 an hour. You have to be selected for that.

I'm not sure these jobs are common enough to absorb the 12 million people currently looking for work in America. I really doubt that even if they filled every available slot in every industry in every one of the areas you listed it would bring down employment by .01%. I doubt enough aircraft frames need repair. Niche jobs and cottage industries are nice, but they're not a realistic answer to the current systemic issues with employment and education in America.

In Jihadin's defense, he stated there were several profitable fields one could get into without a degree. When called on it, he produced some jobs. Now he's getting called out because those jobs can't fix our nations unemployment problems... that is some serious goalpost moving.

In any event, I agree with the core preposition - I work in IT and there are an awful lot of jobs that requite a bachelors that would be more appropriately filled by someone who had a few months worth of professional certifications. For example, one highly skilled technician lost out on a program manager position he applied for to someone simply because she had a degree and he did not. I'm not sure how much use an IT professional actually gets out of a degree in hotel management, but that's how my shop rolls.

Spoiler: she wound up being really terrible; this not being a hotel.

I agree that it's goalpost moving, but I didn't set that goal, kronk did. The discussion of individual examples as kronk repeatetedly wanted was kind of a silly one in the first place. I had asked kronk specifically to list jobs with significant upward mobility in them. Jihadin jumped in with his own, but most of them missed the wider issue of structural unemployment, inflated hire requirements, and low pay. Certainly, jobs out there exist that break the mold, but they don't exist on a scale that provides meaningful answers to current poor conditions. If they did there wouldn't be the heavily documented issues being discussed.


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The idea would be that for the 500 people employed in working on aircraft, you'd probably have another 1500 odd employed in supporting that business, as reception, management, finance, all that stuff. Then all those 2,000 people would spend their pay cheque into the local economy, and generate another 2,000 odd jobs.

I know you're saying that's probably a niche industry, but unfortunately the reality is that if you want to protect high wages you have to look to specialist industries. The only way to compete on bulk industries is to pay Chinese wages.

The problem is that these niche industries aren't opening up fast enough to match the growing US population. This graph shows the number of people in jobs relative to the total US population, and tells a rather unpleasant story;

I think an issue is that these niche industries are following the same path as every other in their own time. Apprenticeship based fields are dwindling to nothing, while fields like heating repair or surgical technicians are so flush with candidates right now that the institutions handing out the degrees are adding to unemployment by advertising fields without demand but with significant growth.

Relapse wrote:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/16/13891055-one-year-later-what-ever-happened-to-occupy-wall-street?lite

I guess being able to crap in the streets and cost cities and tax payers thousands of dollars in cleanups isn't the draw it was a year ago.

It's a complicated question, but I think the answer lies somewhere with 'they ran out of money' and 'initially anyone with a gripe over anything could find a home'.

The constant calls for direct action, the lack of an over-arching strategic vision and no hard goals or timeline, and the culture of Demonstration/Occupation for the purpose of Demonstration/Occupation all served to create a brushfire movement that was inevitably going to burn itself out.

Organizations never subsist on discontent alone; eventually you have to have achievement milestones and purpose, which OWS as a 'horizontal, leaderless movement' didn't really have. That was probably fine as long as the money lasted; discontented people, especially young ones with few obligations beyond familial, can go for as long as the free food lasts.

I don;t know, considering before OWS all we were talking about was the Debt; I think the movement was pretty successful in changing the dialogue in the national media. 1 year later, the dialogue change continues to hold.

However, I think the 'energy' of the OWS movement has been rechanneled into standard electoral politics. This is really common in American Politics and one of the beauties of the system. Protest movements and political frustration get funneled to the ballot box, instead of into revolutionary movements. Thus, stability.

I think Occupy Wallstreet did cement social inequality into the public discourse, but I think that's all it really did; increase visibility for this one topic. (Lasting impact, anyways, the whole thing was riding on the wave of Arab Spring and success of many protests internationally)

By the time they adopted more concrete messaging like reinstate Glass-Steagall and 'money out of politics', it already seemed to me like the whole thing had already been pretty radicalized and had lost a lot of steam, both as a credible source of 'discontent' and in membership.

Agreed.

However, cementing 'social inequality' in the social discourse is a pretty big step considering before it wasn't even on the radar.

The TEA party did the same thing with the Nationl Debt.

 sourclams wrote:
I think Occupy Wallstreet did cement social inequality into the public discourse, but I think that's all it really did; increase visibility for this one topic. (Lasting impact, anyways, the whole thing was riding on the wave of Arab Spring and success of many protests internationally)

By the time they adopted more concrete messaging like reinstate Glass-Steagall and 'money out of politics', it already seemed to me like the whole thing had already been pretty radicalized and had lost a lot of steam, both as a credible source of 'discontent' and in membership.

A protest that changes the national discourse is a wildly successful protest.


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 Easy E wrote:
Agreed.

However, cementing 'social inequality' in the social discourse is a pretty big step considering before it wasn't even on the radar.

The TEA party did the same thing with the Nationl Debt.

And it had the misfortune of lasting too long and electing broadly incompetent officials which caused the tea party itself to eventually become largely unpopular after starting off with a rather high approval rating.

 sourclams wrote:

Relapse wrote:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/16/13891055-one-year-later-what-ever-happened-to-occupy-wall-street?lite

I guess being able to crap in the streets and cost cities and tax payers thousands of dollars in cleanups isn't the draw it was a year ago.

It's a complicated question, but I think the answer lies somewhere with 'they ran out of money' and 'initially anyone with a gripe over anything could find a home'.

The constant calls for direct action, the lack of an over-arching strategic vision and no hard goals or timeline, and the culture of Demonstration/Occupation for the purpose of Demonstration/Occupation all served to create a brushfire movement that was inevitably going to burn itself out.

Organizations never subsist on discontent alone; eventually you have to have achievement milestones and purpose, which OWS as a 'horizontal, leaderless movement' didn't really have. That was probably fine as long as the money lasted; discontented people, especially young ones with few obligations beyond familial, can go for as long as the free food lasts.

The article also talks about a lot of the energy of the movement being lost in debates whether they should use violent tactics or not. I wonder how many got turned off by the more violent members of the movement and walked.

Relapse wrote:

The article also talks about a lot of the energy of the movement being lost in debates whether they should use violent tactics or not. I wonder how many got turned off by the more violent members of the movement and walked.

Basically, from what I observed on the OWS forums, tons. Absolutely tons of people got really disenfranchised by the more radical elements. Any dissenting voice was labeled 'troll' by a screaming, vocal minority of really left-leaning, anti-capitalism radicals, and the organizers/mods were absolutely rampant in censorship. Radical party line, or GTFO.

I think many people expected a friendlier, bohemian version of the tea party. The anarchist fringe seemed to subvert a lot of the movement.


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 ShumaGorath wrote:

 sourclams wrote:

A protest that changes the national discourse is a wildly successful protest.

Sure, that's why a year later it's a dead movement.

Calling that a successful movement is like calling whatever band wrote 'Hey There Delilah' a successful music franchise.

They rode a catchy slogan during a period when mass protests were very much in vogue and there was a lot of national anger that could be harnessed, and burned out once the money dried up. I don't think it actually changed the national discourse so much as gave it a bunch of memes.

One hit wonder band

 Mannahnin wrote:
I agree with you both, although I'm not sure why Seaward is referencing Rick Santorum, rather than the current candidate who also prominently advocates technical and trade schools as an alternative to a default assumption that college is the only path.

I think demanding that of seaward is a little unfair. Just be happy he's talking about an issue that actually means something.


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 sourclams wrote:
If you look at the chart of individual disposable income (for most, this will probably take actual work; finding nominal disposable income then deflating via personal consumption expenditures) through that 'last leg' period 2000 onward, you see that "real" disposable income continued to tear higher all the way through 2007. There's been some research done that suggests demographics shifts during that timeframe, i.e. women opting out of the workplace to be at-home domestics simply because they could afford to and early-retirement age individuals in good financial circumstance took the option.

i.e. underutilization of the labor pool as a result of prosperity

That's why I don't think it's accurate to say 'the job loss following the 2k recession were never replaced'; to some extent, it may have been Haves succeeding while Have-Nots languished, but it seems at least equally likely that individuals simply didn't have to work as much or those 'on the cusp' opted for early retirement, especially as their portfolios, if invested in equities in any way whatsoever, would have performed fantastically.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim that the problem with the US economy in the 2000s was that people were too prosperous.

And I just cannot agree with any economic model that starts with the idea that jobs are as much a push thing as a pull thing.


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 sourclams wrote:
Sure, that's why a year later it's a dead movement.

Calling that a successful movement is like calling whatever band wrote 'Hey There Delilah' a successful music franchise.

They rode a catchy slogan during a period when mass protests were very much in vogue and there was a lot of national anger that could be harnessed, and burned out once the money dried up. I don't think it actually changed the national discourse so much as gave it a bunch of memes.

I agree, they didn't impact much on the national discourse. This is because unlike The Tea Party and the Republicans, there was little outreach or cross-over between the Democrats and the various Occupy movements.

The ultimately irony of the whole thing is that in the wake of The Tea Party movement people are calling it a success for its ability to influence Republican policy... when its whole reason for being was to be outside of conventional two party politics.

Of course the Tea Party members really don't mind so long as their views and ideas gain traction. Staying seperate from the political system is only important so long as there is a difference of opinion. Once the view becomes mainstream they'll fold back into the system with no issue.


I do kinda find the OWS movement kinda laughable now. In my hometown where it once took up the whole town square its now regulated to a single 10x10 tent that only seems to be occupied every other weekend. And I think the only people hanging out there are a half dozen homeless hippies. And Yuppie pretty much describes the whole town

 Grey Templar wrote:
Of course the Tea Party members really don't mind so long as their views and ideas gain traction. Staying seperate from the political system is only important so long as there is a difference of opinion. Once the view becomes mainstream they'll fold back into the system with no issue.

No doubt. I mean, if I wanted to rapidly inject a series of polices into the national discourse I'd copy the The Tea Party model almost to the letter.

But it's just funny when a movement is all about being outside of the establishment, and then it turns out it succeeded because unlike its left wing equivalent it was always attached to the hip of a major political party. And then everyone who talked about it being independant from the Republicans just ignores all of that as much as they can.

I do kinda find the OWS movement kinda laughable now. In my hometown where it once took up the whole town square its now regulated to a single 10x10 tent that only seems to be occupied every other weekend. And I think the only people hanging out there are a half dozen homeless hippies. And Yuppie pretty much describes the whole town

I went to Wall Street in May this year. The smattering of protestors sitting in the 'free speach zone' bleachers were just sad.

sourclams wrote:I think many people expected a friendlier, bohemian version of the tea party. The anarchist fringe seemed to subvert a lot of the movement.

This is basically what my mother (a blue dog liberal) and I expected. She was hopeful that a liberal tea party that opposed the incestuous relation between corporations and regulators but promoted her liberal ideals would be what came of OWS. It became really unfortunate the way things turned and I found the movement as a whole disgusting and subversive as a result.