Being in the IT industry and specifically in software development, I know I've killed off a lot of jobs. We used to have two full time accountants - they've been replaced with good software and a clerical worker. We used to have a full middle management staff to generate and ride herd on our production schedules. A couple of those people moved up, most moved out. Good scheduling software kind of wiped them out. In a nutshell our business volume has more than doubled and our employee count has stayed about the same and the proportion of skilled to unskilled labor has dropped. I guess I feel hypocritical complaining now that IT workers are getting the axe due to changing capabilities and economics. My sympathies to the blacksmiths and typewriter repair people as well... I just remembered at one time I was a pretty hot shot tube TV repairman... I think I need lunch - my brain seems deprived of something necessary... So, what about that IBM and RedHat subject line, eh? Kent Sam MacDonald wrote: > Willie Nelson (country singer http://www.willienelson.com ) said in a > documentary during a Farm Aid benefit. I'm paraphrasing but the spirit > of what he said is in it. > "For every 5 farms that fail around a small town, 1 business closes." > > I'm sure everyone would take a smaller income so they could keep their > jobs. Not one executive thought of that, why, because the executives > have invested in the companies where the jobs are going. So it's a > financial advantage for them, they care about their investments more > then they do the American people. > > Sam. > > > > David Alitz wrote: > >> So, you think all of those healthcare workers and lawyers will be in >> the streets and all of the good apartments will just sit empty? The >> price of goods and our standard of living :( will have to adjust to >> something more in line with the rest of the world. Hopefully it will >> take a while to drop that far. >> >> This has become a bit of an obsession for me and I could spend hours >> in explanation, but this is getting pretty far OT. Take a look at >> www.myfootprint.org . Read "Your Money or Your Life: Transforming >> Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence" by >> Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin and "Stepping Lightly" by Mark A. >> Burch. I've read dozens of books on the subject, these two sum it up >> well. myfootprint.org and Stepping Lightly will give you some great >> perspective and Your Money or Your Life help plan what to do about >> it. Your Money or Your Life should be required reading for everyone. >> >> Back on-topic... It's just this re-balancing that I believe will >> drive people to open-source. The small business I'm working for >> couldn't possibly afford the services I've set up if I used M$ >> software. I'm afraid Apple still wants too much for their hardware. >> That leaves Linux and i386 class machines. :) >> >> Dave Alitz >> >>> Healthcare? Lawyers? Who can afford a doctor or lawyer when they >>> don't have a job? Those jobs go away too. Service jobs go away with >>> the money. If people can't afford the service, they do without. >>> >>> The jobs that are left usually don't pay a living wage. >>> I mean, a cheap apartment in the bad part of town could be had for what? >>> $400/mo? _assuming_ that your job is within walking distance (most >>> aren't, that is why rent is so cheap there) $0 for car/bus, you still >>> have to pay $100/mo for food, $35 for phone (a real requirement these >>> days), $25/mo for electricity/heat, $30/mo for clothes (laundry still >>> has to be done), >>> $20/mo(average) for health care. Sitting at $610/mo. These are >>> lowball numbers in general, and I know that you can cut your rent by >>> having >>> a live-in-thief, um I mean roommate. But even at that, you would be >>> just scraping by at minimum wage. Assuming nothing bad happens. >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list