Re: How times change - thank goodness

Good evening Bruce, I work seven days a week for a pitiful pay, but am glad to do so, it could be worse, one day I may not have the physical capacity to do so at which point the rate of pay will pale into insignificance when stacked against the restriction of incapacity.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

Don't you understand? sure it costs jobs in in one area but it creates jobs in other areas.

The steelworks I worked at employed 23000 people in 1983; when I left it 5 years ago it employed less than 5000 and produced twice as much steel. So where is that mass of unemployed people? they are employed elsewhere. We are bringing in over 180000 immigrants a year but unemployment remains about 5% which is supposed to be full employment.

Technology creates jobs and wealth; if we didn't have cars we wouldn't need car mechanics, or service stations, detailers, salesmen etc. The car put farriers and stable hands out of work but the technology employed millions of people, drove the price of the down to the point now where my 20 year old kids all buy new cars, something I could never aspire to at their age.

You are looking at a country that is bankrupt and blaming the fact on technology when it is in fact poor leadership and fiscal incompetence combined with the inability to grasp opportunities where and when they exist. Britain's parlous state is nothing to do with technology but poor management and downright stupidity.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

It doesn't create enough jobs and the jobs it does create are either poorly paid or things that people who have lost their jobs cannot do.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

Back to the taste of food, I think the food out of the ground isn't as good as when I was a child.
Farmers today force growth, and fields are not left fallow anymore, continuous growth takes the goodness out of the soil, and what do they put in ruddy chemicals.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

You cannot halt progress, that is a Luddites mentality.
Jobs have always been lost to progress, there is nothing we can or should do to halt that.
The problems arise when there is nothing to fill the void.
I live in the North West where people depended on industry for their livelihoods. Since the years of coal and cotton being kings have gone, nothing has replaced those jobs and so we have sections of the community who have known nothing but a life depending on the benefits system.
The government are now demonising and punishing the unemployed for the financial mess of this country.

It has come to the point were a local shop is offering an apprenticeship to a sixteen year old. How long of an apprenticeship does it take to learn how to fill shelves, stock take and work a till. Will they have a day release and go to college and gain a qualification, I think not. This shop is taking advantage of the governments apprenticeship scheme. Okay, you may say it's a job, and so it is, but that is what it has come down to in this part of the world.
The only alternative is to stay in education, which some will not be capable of or don't want to do, or try desperately to find work, or sink into a life on benefits.
I know it paints a bleak picture but that is the way it is for some.

Yes things are much better, even for the less well off but not comparatively so, the gap is getting bigger by the day.
We probably have more homeless people than at any time in the past, and since no country will know for sure how many homeless people they have, I can only base my assumption on what I see with my own eyes.
I'll step off my soap box now.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

Sadly I agree with every word you say there. We are storing up problems for the future and it is just beginning to bite us now IMO

Re: How times change - thank goodness

Agree with your evey word Mall, one rule for the rich.

Re: How times change - thank goodness

If Australia is taking in that many immigrants a year - it will probably end up like us - its a matter of catching up....it seems they will..

Re: How times change - thank goodness

Of course I understand and I also understand that if technology created jobs in other areas, then we wouldn't have the unemployment problems we have.

At Cadbury's, prior to automation, a couple of hundred people would work on the belts putting chocolates or biscuits into tins and then sealing the tins. Ditto with all the produce of Cadbury's. Then automation came in and people lost their jobs with just a few people retained to keep an eye on the machines. That is several hundred people made redundant from just one company. The state of affairs may be very different where you are, I can only comment on what is happening in Britain - if you doubt it, try talking to people who live in the NE.

Many people on low incomes can't afford cars - either to buy them or to run them, that's why car manufacturers have thousands of cars sitting waiting to be shipped once the market picks up again. With regard to your children buying brand new cars, I can only assume cars are much cheaper in Australia or your children are very high earners.

(quote] You are looking at a country that is bankrupt and blaming the fact on technology when it is in fact poor leadership and fiscal incompetence combined with the inability to grasp opportunities where and when they exist. Britain's parlous state is nothing to do with technology but poor management and downright stupidity.[/QUOTE]

As I have already said - technology is one aspect of unemployment, I haven't stated it is the only reason but argue as you will, technology, by definition, replaces people - that was the whole point of factories bringing it in.

My brother lives in Australia and has done for nearly 40 years; he would love to move back to England but won't because, in his words, his standard of living would fall; you can't equate what is happening in Australia with what is happening here as your population and market growth is more in equalibrium than ours is.