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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Keep on moving or you stagnate


Okay I am going to do something I seldom if ever do. I am going to preface this rant with a little modifier. I am not an economist. I am not a sociologist. Hells, I am not any sort of -ologist. What I am about to put forth is simply my opinion based of my own personal experiences and observations over the years. Take it for what is worth and don't take me to task because I claim no professional expertise in this matter.
The above article and so many others that I have read talk about how times are getting harder and harder for the Middle and Lower Class. This trend has been exacerbated by the recent Great Recession, but the trend existed long before that. People who had lived a certain way their entire lives were suddenly finding that they couldn't do it anymore. This is a trend that is only getting worse as time goes by.
Fer example, Sherman set the Way Back Machine for 1950 something. My father never made it out of elementary school. He lacked any sort of formal training for specialized jobs. I seriously doubt he ever made more than minimum wage (If that much) his entire life. Despite this, he married and raised three kids. He owned his own house and a mind boggling eclectic number of odd cars and trucks. Except for a very short period of time when I was very young, he never took public assistance for anything.
If you go back 50 or so years you can probably find hundred of thousands of stories like my fathers. Stories of people who worked hard all their lives, raised a family and lived well if not great. Those were times when a Man or Woman with no formal education or training could earn enough money to keep things together.
Unfortunately, times like that are rapidly fading away. With the globalism of industry and the loss of more and more jobs to automation and better techniques, jobs and places where someone like my father could earn a decent living are vanishing faster than ice in Nevada. Unless you have prior training or education, getting anything more than the most mediocre jobs is practically impossible. As the job market shrinks, more and more people are trying for the same job so even with the training or education, it is still harder to get a job.
People lament that jobs like mining and lumber have been the way their parents earned a living and their grandparents did too. They complain that modern techniques and machinery is making it impossible for them to work. They complain that things should stay the way they were so that they can work and feed their families.
In truth, being at the beginning of my second 50 years, I empathize with them. However, things are not going to go back to the way they used to be no matter how much some people might want it. Times like when my father raised me are fading fast and once they are gone, they will never come again. People are being faced with two choices. They can either adapt or be left behind.
Sure that sounds harsh, but it is the truth. The world isn't going to stop moving forward. Technology isn't going to stop advancing. The world and the way we live in it is evolving at a startling rate and unless we learn to evolve with it, we are going to join the Passenger Pigeon and the Dodo. So instead of lamenting about the way things were, do something to prepare for the way things will be.
Send your kids to some sort of school. I personally feel that most college degrees are kind of useless, but you can send them to technical schools where they can learn new skills. Hells, forget how old you are, You can go back to school and learn something new. Just do something, anything to keep from being thrown to the wayside. Do your best to keep up because the world isn't going to wait for you.
End of Rant

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