I grew up in the era of the god of efficiency, and preached the work smart not hard line for years.
But, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the workforce lose more and more jobs in the name of greed for higher profits, increased by the growth of new investors of funds who did nothing to produce anything. This bothered me more and more as time went by. I saw the era of training customers to do work that companies once paid employees to do, like cleaning up there mess at fast food joints and parking your cart at the grocery store, etc.
Next came the job training that companies once were responsible for being dumped on the taxpayers in offering more and more classes, to do that training for them in our public schools.
The public was sold and bought lock stock and barrel. The spin that automation would make products cheaper, but lessen the quality at the same time and, again, did increase the size of profit for the owners and investors. Like the insurance industry, paying for laws requiring the use of safety belts, air bags, etc, that cost the buyers more and them less in payouts, yet did not decrease the cost of insurance one bit. This went so far as to making many activities go the way of the buggy whip. This done by raising the insurance premiums so high that the activity could not longer be profitable.
It”s funny that folks just sit by and accept all the automation and marvelous high-tech stuff, and still not wonder why we can fly the planes we travel on without a pilot and only a computer doing the work yet, can”t build a carburetor that makes 50 and up mpg. in our cars a normal event.
Somewhere in time, I have no idea exactly when the people of this nation and others, lost site of the importance of this gift of life, was to raise a family, enjoy the time spent with family and friends, eat and live well, all gained from putting in a days hard work, with a couple of days in the week set aside to enjoy the same and a bit of rest to start a new week. This, with lesser amount of worry and despair then this modern era seems to have brought us.
So I question this modern era of high-tech, consumerism and greed as being an improvement to our living standards of the past. The more unemployed in our world is not the making of the citizens of it, yet it will be them who will suffer more and more in the future. Like nature when it is out of balance, things can get very bad and the same goes for those things that make man”s living standards enjoyed by fewer and fewer of the citizens who live on this earth.
An adjustment is needed, but, I think it still is far into the feature that it will be made, as things will get a lot worse before adjustments are demanded. It could be done now but, the not-in-my-backyard thinking of most folks will keep that from happening. Kind of sad when the god of compounded interest is running our world.
Jim Hall
Clearlake Oaks
