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 Frazzled wrote:
Thats a remarkably right wing viewpoint.

Thing is, I believe in competition, and in the market. I know enough about economics to know that government involvement is needed in many areas to produce the best possible market, and so to a lot of people that makes me to the left of Mao. But ultimately I'm a big believer in open competition.

InquisitorVaron wrote:I thought america was right further right and extreme right?
Confused

Pretty much. It's all social constructivism, and much of America is still living in something akin to Thatcher's regime.

In America, screaming, "SOCIALIST" is considered a valid political argument.

 LoneLictor wrote:
In America, screaming, "SOCIALIST" is considered a valid political argument.

In many countries around the world, shooting people in the face is just as valid.

djones520 wrote:
In many countries around the world, shooting people in the face is just as valid.

And on Grobnar IV all political disputes are resolved in ritual jelly wrestling combats between the finest Grobnarian women.

What's your point?

djones520 wrote:

 LoneLictor wrote:
In America, screaming, "SOCIALIST" is considered a valid political argument.

In many countries around the world, shooting people in the face is just as valid.

Well, there's always something worse, ain't there?

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Testify wrote:
Yet...you still think these people can't figure out that work pays better?

English people would love to have many of the jobs that immigrants take, and for the same wages too - the main issue is conditions. English people simply don't stand for gak the way that foreign workers will.

Even during an economic boom we had masses of unemployed, they could have walked into jobs with their eyes closed, but didn't. Why was that?

Because employers favour foreigners? The idea that you could stick up a sign in a jobcentre saying "factory operatives wanted" and not receive hundreds of applicants is alien to me.

I rather doubt that employers favor foreigners. That's never been my experience.

It's never been your experience because it's borderline racist rubbish. I've worked in low-skill, low-pay jobs for years before graduating - I was a cleaning supervisor during my studies, for example. The fact is, non-immigrants don't tend to apply for jobs like that. It was certainly the case in the company I worked for. I was told that explicitly by management. Young British people don't see themselves as cleaners. That's not the fault of immigrants, or their employers.

 Albatross wrote:
Young British people don't see themselves as cleaners. That's not the fault of immigrants, or their employers.

To be honest I don't either. I worked all kinds of minimum wage crap jobs and as I knew that I could do much better I was never enthusiastic nor motivated by these jobs. With the result that I was less than a model employee, in fairness its hard to be motived by washing dishes for 9 hours a day. I knew that I could do much better though and I have.

If I had no prospects of finding a better job I would have been more diligent, I would still have hated those kinds of jobs though. In 2003, so in the middle of the boom, I was unemployed for 9 months, despite applying for dozens of jobs. I know just how difficult it is to live on benefits alone; there is no way that I could have sustained that for years.

 Albatross wrote:
It's never been your experience because it's borderline racist rubbish. I've worked in low-skill, low-pay jobs for years before graduating - I was a cleaning supervisor during my studies, for example. The fact is, non-immigrants don't tend to apply for jobs like that. It was certainly the case in the company I worked for. I was told that explicitly by management. Young British people don't see themselves as cleaners. That's not the fault of immigrants, or their employers.

Pretty much, yeah. In addition to a lot of people simply not considering work in fields like cleaning, there's also the issue that when you give young people a lot of opportunities to develop a skilled career (either through higher education or an apprenticeship), then the ones that fail to take those opportunities will, frankly, tend towards being lazy (that doesn't mean all local people who never developed a skill are lazy, there's plenty of people who went through some form of training and then couldn't get a job out of it, who then find it difficult to retrain as something else, but as a general rule it seems to me to hold true for a hell of a lot of unskilled labour).

And so when you're looking for workers for jobs that need unskilled people who are willing to work really hard, they'll tend to be pretty thin on the ground unless you start looking for workers from other countries.

Palindrome wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
Young British people don't see themselves as cleaners. That's not the fault of immigrants, or their employers.

To be honest I don't either. I worked all kinds of minimum wage crap jobs and as I knew that I could do much better I was never enthusiastic nor motivated by these jobs. With the result that I was less than a model employee, in fairness its hard to be motived by washing dishes for 9 hours a day. I knew that I could do much better though and I have.

If I had no prospects of finding a better job I would have been more diligent, I would still have hated those kinds of jobs though. In 2003, so in the middle of the boom, I was unemployed for 9 months, despite applying for dozens of jobs. I know just how difficult it is to live on benefits alone; there is no way that I could have sustained that for years.

This is all part of the special snowflake society that we have become. We are told that class is dead and we can be anything we want to be. Some will take this so literally as being any job except that of soapstar or multi billionaire is beneath them.

We still have a big ho ha over apprenticeships. Chatting to my father in law the other day he was astounded at what apprenticeships have become. He was an engraver, and spent his apprenticeship working his way up, from sweeping, to setting tools out, lifting and carrying, along the way he was taught the basics, then got his own station doing minor work, to prove himself, eventually becoming a full fledged engraver. It was a job and something he had to do, but he took pride in his work. I fou were good enough you progressed, if you were lazy or didn't fit the bill you found something else.

Now, apprenticeships have changed, to all intents and purposes being either a fast track scheme or an avenue for companies offering apprenticeships to exploit your labour and to milk funding. It is assumed that these modern apprenticeships will lead to jobs, they don't always do so and I think that lot of apprentices are there because they are told to be as part of a back to work programme. In a lot of cases there is no interest in working hard.

 Mr. Burning wrote:


This is all part of the special snowflake society that we have become.

Actually in my case, and probably most peoples, it was because the work was gak. Truly gak.

Have you ever spent 48ish hours a week washing dishes? 40+ hours a week doing what is essentially house work? Getting up in the dark to shovel gak all day? I did that for about 6 years and it is not something that I ever wish to do again.

Some people like to blame 'entitlement' for the reason why people don't want to do those jobs when in reality they are simply terrible jobs. If I was still doing that kind of thing when I am 40 I would probably be an alcoholic.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Now, apprenticeships have changed, to all intents and purposes being either a fast track scheme or an avenue for companies offering apprenticeships to exploit your labour and to milk funding. It is assumed that these modern apprenticeships will lead to jobs, they don't always do so and I think that lot of apprentices are there because they are told to be as part of a back to work programme. In a lot of cases there is no interest in working hard.

Thing is, if there's no interest in working hard, no training program is going to fix that.

That's kind of why I'm not really that bothered by that portion of the long term unemployed who are, frankly, long term unemployed for a reason (as opposed to the long term unemployed who are genuinely trying to find work). If they don't really want a decent working life for themselves, then guiding them through training programs and giving them subsidised apprenticeship after apprenticeship is frankly kind of pointless.

Cheaper and easier for everyone to send them a cheque for however few dollars welfare pays, and bring in some folk who are hungry to do some work.

sebster wrote:Cheaper and easier for everyone to send them a cheque for however few dollars welfare pays, and bring in some folk who are hungry to do some work.

I'm glad you used the "hungry" metaphor, because it's amazing the kind of terrible, hazardous, low-paying job a starving man will do. Just gotta make sure that there's lots of starving people, and then you can *really* get 'em to work for cheap.

Or, y'know, someone with either an education or else skills training can have some pride and decide not to shovel gak for minimum wage because it really is beneath him, as either an educated and/or skilled worker.

 azazel the cat wrote:

sebster wrote:Cheaper and easier for everyone to send them a cheque for however few dollars welfare pays, and bring in some folk who are hungry to do some work.

I'm glad you used the "hungry" metaphor, because it's amazing the kind of terrible, hazardous, low-paying job a starving man will do. Just gotta make sure that there's lots of starving people, and then you can *really* get 'em to work for cheap.

Which is why you have an extensive range of protections in place covering pay and working conditions.

Or, y'know, someone with either an education or else skills training can have some pride and decide not to shovel gak for minimum wage because it really is beneath him, as either an educated and/or skilled worker.

And so he's welcome to keep looking for better work. And when that leaves a shortage of hardworking, unskilled people, as it inevitably will, then it makes sense to look to fill those jobs with immigrants.

Palindrome wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:


This is all part of the special snowflake society that we have become.

Actually in my case, and probably most peoples, it was because the work was gak. Truly gak.

Have you ever spent 48ish hours a week washing dishes? 40+ hours a week doing what is essentially house work? Getting up in the dark to shovel gak all day? I did that for about 6 years and it is not something that I ever wish to do again.

Some people like to blame 'entitlement' for the reason why people don't want to do those jobs when in reality they are simply terrible jobs. If I was still doing that kind of thing when I am 40 I would probably be an alcoholic.

You know those little labels on fruit, like apples. You'd think a machine would stick them on wouldn't you? Done that and I have had my hands shredded through ripping potati sacks open to put them on a convyeor belt. All for minimum wage. Those jobs paid for me to stay in college.

Work is gak, it's very rare people do something they actually like, let alone following a dream.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

Work is gak, it's very rare people do something they actually like, let alone following a dream.

I like my job as it happens.

Not all work is gak by any means. Minimum wages jobs though tend to be and its just this sort of job that people are reluctant to do. If the work itself is poor and the wages aren't good its no suprise that people don't want to do it.

Yep, I like my job too. Hell, it meant I flew to Nashville last week, all expenses paid. I fething LOVE my job!

 Albatross wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 dæl wrote:

 Testify wrote:
Yet...you still think these people can't figure out that work pays better?

English people would love to have many of the jobs that immigrants take, and for the same wages too - the main issue is conditions. English people simply don't stand for gak the way that foreign workers will.

Even during an economic boom we had masses of unemployed, they could have walked into jobs with their eyes closed, but didn't. Why was that?

Because employers favour foreigners? The idea that you could stick up a sign in a jobcentre saying "factory operatives wanted" and not receive hundreds of applicants is alien to me.

I rather doubt that employers favor foreigners. That's never been my experience.

It's never been your experience because it's borderline racist rubbish. I've worked in low-skill, low-pay jobs for years before graduating - I was a cleaning supervisor during my studies, for example. The fact is, non-immigrants don't tend to apply for jobs like that. It was certainly the case in the company I worked for. I was told that explicitly by management. Young British people don't see themselves as cleaners. That's not the fault of immigrants, or their employers.

You're British. If you were in the US and me, you would have lived to see the displacement of domestic workers in a mass variety of industries.
Agriculture
Construction
Restaurants
skilled and unskilled trades
manufacturing.

 Mr. Burning wrote:


Now, apprenticeships have changed, to all intents and purposes being either a fast track scheme or an avenue for companies offering apprenticeships to exploit your labour and to milk funding. It is assumed that these modern apprenticeships will lead to jobs, they don't always do so and I think that lot of apprentices are there because they are told to be as part of a back to work programme. In a lot of cases there is no interest in working hard.

I'm going to have to disagree on this slightly, straight from school I went to a college offering apprenticeships, and at the end of the year, as you say, they didn't find any kind of job at the end of it as they'd promised (5 job positions between 80 apprentinces... And they claimed to have a success rate above 90% ). I went to another college the next year, doing another course and did get a job out of it at the end (Everyone on the course got a job this time, bar one, who had planned on going to Uni instead). I've now advanced to a third college doing higher education, in conjunction with work. My experience of the people in the colleges have been mixed. In the first college there were a fair few that seemed to fit your description, most of these had left or been kicked out well before the end, although a few remained. In the other colleges I've been to, especially the current one, there is no-one with that attitude at all, the vast majority want to be there, they want to get the qualifications and they work hard to complete assignments etc.

I know this is all anecdotal, and obviously others may have different experiences with different colleges or companies apprenticeships schemes, but I personally think apprenticeships in colleges are the way to go for people leaving school. Most of my friends have gone to various universities around the country, and while they are having a great time, and will come out with degrees, they will also be coming out with about £20,000 debt or more... Some of the courses are £9,000 a term... I mean, feth... How the hell can someone afford that after coming out of school?

Going the apprenticeship route, and assuming you get a bit lucky and get a decent job at the end is the way to go. I've never been in debt, I enjoy work (mostly ) and they're paying for my higher education. I may be missing out on all the fun uni shenanigans, but I'm certain not regretting my choice.