I have been reading recent media news reports, from here and abroad, which contains much lamenting about the current credit crunch and propheyising the demise of the USA economy. As we all know, manufacturing jobs have moved off shore, service jobs seemed to have filled the void at lower than manufacturing job pay and no benefits. Illegal immigrants take jobs nobody wants at the wage or working conditions available. While this litany plays to the electorate and may have some validity, I am having some difficulty reconciling what is being portrayed in the news, and what my experiences have been over the past 2 months. On our recent travels, and frequent truck stops to fill the gas tank of Big Red, we saw a lot of long distance truck drivers, many of whom were visibly foreign born (Seikes with head dress, Muslim men in head caps, etc.) and accompaning driver families: mom, dad, and young child(ren). At least on the roads we traveled East/West: San Francisco Calif. to the South Shores of Delaware, US Highway 36 and 50, Interstates 90, 80, 70; North/South US 101 and Interstate 5 to Vancouver on the West Coast and I-75 and US 23 &33 through Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, Highway 9 on the Delaware Shores, this summer there were signs advertising employment, truck companies hiring long distant drivers, stores, shops hiring. We met Eastern European people working East Coast jobs who have made the European/USA crossing to work here in the USA for several years now. Our cruise ship, The Statendam, had Filipino and Indonesian staff exclusively; highly trained and seemingly enthusiastic about their jobs, with very little turnover from year to year (our dinner waiter had been on the Statendam for 16 years). The cruise ship would do the Alaska tour, then the Mexican Riviera, then the Carribean, then start all over again. Crew members would sign on for 10 months at a time and would be flown to their home country and back to the ship at the start of the new cruise. The ships would have major overhaul time with the ship's crew (vs the hotel and restaurant crew) remaining with the ship during the refit.
The credit crunch in the subprime mortgage financial markets has effected people mostly living in urban areas such as Detroit, Cleveland, Gary Indiana, St. Louis, Atlanta, New Orlean, Oakland, etc) people with poor credit histories, those with high credit card debt, had taken out interest only loans, people who fraudulently claimed income so called "liar loans", speculators, many of whom were home owners and were using their homes for collateral to purchase second and third homes and speculating on the housing market to go up, all these people suffered a collapsed all across the nation when their loan's interest readjusted upward. Of course the prime interest rate has not change, the only thing changed was the interest rate on the subprime loans as spelled out in their contracts. The news media states that people who had subprime loans who lost their homes, had previously lost their jobs, or they were duped into taking out loans by "predator" lenders. What is evident to me is that: the unemployment rate has steady between 4.5 and 4.6% for the past 5 years; that the people effected by interest rate adjustment on their loans were people who made bad decisions and now the consequences of those poor decisions were coming to fruition. After some noise from Congress, many subprime lenders that were still in business have made adjustments in interest rates downward somewhat, although this recent change has not helped the folks who are already in foreclosure or have lost their homes altogether. Also, loans rebundled and purchased by hedge funds, banks of Germany, France, Japan and China are not as easily unbundled to allow good faith repayment efforts by some homeowners.
I wonder, why are there so many people, legal and illegal working in the USA? why are USA jobs still going begging? Granted, high paying jobs such as millwrights, drill press operators, punchpress operators, lathe operators, assembly line workers and setup man requiring less than a high school education are no longer available. Although, there still are manufacturing jobs in the USA, such as there is a severe shortage of tool and die makers who can read blueprints and are familiar with computer programs that run modern tool operations ($100,000 per year to start). The educational level of the worker seems paramount to having any entre into the job market. I observed that Long distance truck drivers require a high school education, a "clean" driving record, no prior drug arrests, and a willingness to work persistently within the rules. I guess there are not many USA qualified workers for this field and trucking companies are going to India and Pakistan for such workers, paying US wages and benefits to these foreign hirees for driving in the US.
Even in the health care field, personal off work bad behavior is leading to disqualification to the lowest on the rung of patient care providers: a health aide. The Michigan State Police have a web site for entry level workers prior criminal dosiers to be used by hiring health, day care and educational institutions. The issue of worker's on the job and off the job behavior also involves the more highly trained individuals. In Los Angelas, the hospital that was established after the Watts riots almost 40 years ago, the 1600 hospital staff has been repeatedly cited by Federal inspectors over the past 3 years as the very worst in the US and incapable of providing Federally mandated minimum patient care and saftey. The avoidable patient infection rates, handwashing, cleaning surgical equipment, unexpected patient deaths, disregard for patient's basic needs including patients lying on the hallway floors, disregard of monitor alarms, using hospital phones and computers for personel calls and doing personel business while "on the clock", providing fraudulant credentials are some of the listed personal behaviors that were observed. Inspite of an infusion of almost 1 billion dollars over the past 3 years, intensive education and training, the reason for closure of the hospital was its having failed repeated scheluled inspections, and failing in every category at some time or other during unannounced inspections by federal hospital inspectors. The major reason for the three year hiatus in closure, was that the hospital was a major employer of the community. Compounding the tragedy is that these 1600 former hospital workers have been reallocated to other county activities/jobs. If their work ethics and behavior were a major reason why the hospital failed, they are now working in other areas of Los Angeles county, bringing the same behaviors and work attitudes, "bumping" other workers who have less seniority.
Maybe, just maybe, what the global financial markets are reflecting in their current gyrations, is their uncertainty that the USA economy can sustain its economic leadership while some of its work force is unable to perform in a world market economy. For those in the USA who are the poor decision makers, those with poor work habits and ethics, unable to utilize or recognize common opportunities to benefit themselves, in a global economy they will fail, repeatedly fail and go on to lament and blame and accuse others for their misfortune, dissapating energy in excuses. A very dark road to travel indeed.
I do not have "the answer" to a poor performing work force. I believe that this portion of the work force will change or become part of a permanent underclass of citizens, whom no government will be able to help, no world location will be willing to recieve, are vulnerable to itinerant demegogues and soil their own nest with riots and self inflicted social wounds.
We may already be seeing the development of this underclass outcome as reflected in the latest survey of life expectancy in the USA compared to other countries (41st ranking). The major contributor to the 6 year disparity between life expectancy in white men and black men is homicides. Midwestern white women living below the poverty level have a life expectancy 10 years greater than black men in urban areas (79+ years compared to 69 years). Income, health insurance, access to medical care, chronic disease had minor impacts on the disparity amongst 8 different groups studied. Homicide was the major contributor to the life expectancy disparity, and profoundly influenced our ranking in the world of nations.
Maybe the development of a permanent underclass has already begun in the USA. Repeated attempts to blame one person or group of people for this situation is fruitless in effecting positive change. The people who are likely citizens of this impending underclass I see as having to implement change themselves regardless of external circumstances. However, people change only when they want to change, and then, usually, only when the situation is desparate enough. Before one begins the 12 step recovery program of Alcoholic Anonamous, one has to reach "rock bottom". "Daddy, are we there yet?"
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