"The Volt" May BE SCRAPPED!- NEVER BUILT!!

[Jammer]

I honestly believe if the Government had not stepped in last fall, that we would be in a Depression bigger than 1929 at this moment. I read for one moment on a certain day in fall 2008 that all money STOPPED being traded around the world- the credit had halted and nobody was loaning money to anybody else- and THAT was just before the election and we all heard from the President (2008) how they had to prop up Wall street, AVG, the banks and all of that stuff. Like most people, I feel things might of got carried away a little to far with all the spending trying to save key industries and our economy. However, some very wealthy business men have praised the actions of both Governments to help avoid a Depression we were looking at- and many I know honestly feel were are in a depression here now. Gosh, when I think of all of the "fixed income" (entitlement programs) right now and look at who actually has a job and what kind.... well it's a sad picture. I do not mean to get into a red flag issue. -I still have family and friends in Michigan, and yes some are lucky enough to have jobs, but the stories I am getting sound extremely bad right now for Michigan.. So, it's not just what skills a worker has, it is also got much to do with what part of the Country you live in.

CNN reported that most of the recent college grads were working at MC DONALD'S! They sited they had good health insurance. In fact I do happen to know of a couple younger guys that have their bachelors but their major was not in a field they can find work in.

I have little doubt if I minded my manners and never said anything bad about the Government of CHINA, and if I already happen to of lived in CHINA, then I doubt most any job at any skill level could be got. That does not mean one would be paid enough to buy anything bigger than a bicycle to drive, and some don't get paid really anything because they are in prison for what we take for granted- like calling the leader of a government a nasty name.... It's really different. But we are told that it's an improvement for most of their way of lives.

What I do not understand are people that seem to feel America only wants top white collar jobs. If we were to have a country full of imported Doctors, Engineers, Scientists or any other high level white collar level service job, who is supposed to pay them? We need a diverse economy and we really need to start building things to sell other countries again. There is no way we are going to be able to re-train tens of millions of middle-aged/senor people for the high level service jobs. Plenty of Americans are willing to work the lower class jobs as well, but we have many companies that claim they can not find Americans that want to work, so they can get away with paying ileagle immigrants maybe $4.00 an hour. This also compounds the problems. Such companies should have action taken against them when it turns out they are hiring ileagle aliens (and normally paying a less than legal hourly wage to boot).

Sometimes I do not think it matters what career one has, if the present course does not change were going to have some serious bashing of income classes in this country. I honestly do think we are heading to be a Country more like Mexico in a few decades, or maybe the new Russia would be a better example- We will have the extreme poor, and the extreme wealthy with large electric bars and fences around their homes. I recall a trip to Key West Florida many decades ago when I was a kid and that was how it appeared in Key West in the 70's. I hate to think of the rest of the country going that direction.

haha- Did I mention that my friends normally think I'm the positive one? I guess it's true, because their hard-luck stories are worse than mine. Every weekday right now I'm getting job leads, filling out applications, having interviews, and I am NOT picky. I am considering driving a fair distance if I can get back in somewhere. (That's why I got the best car on safety and MPG that I could buy) Later I might move due to the cost of gas. The biggest cities here are not so bad, but recently I have noticed people from a large city here starting to send in resumes and apply for work out here in the sticks and small towns with industrial parks near the freeway- and that's a very bad sign to me.

One problem we have here where I live, is that it's NOT a densely populated location, and everyone knows everyone else's business. I could explain many situations here where our med size companies are breaking a whole bunch of laws regarding how they hire/fire and treat their workers, but they do what they want because they figure were all to poor and desperate to get involved in a lawsuit that would not get us anywhere any way. I have had 2 jobs here in which I was suddenly being pressured to quit, but I bit my lip and keep on doing my job the best I could. I was never late, always early, did my job as good as anyone else could- and in both cases when they seen I would not quit, they started writing me up for "going to slow", while the poeple around me were going slower (production work). Somebody cooked the numbers on me and I finally was let go, but I know in my heart it was not me, and to make it all the worse in both of those cases the very next day after I was left go a member of a bosses FAMILY got MY job! It's cut-throat here.

Ok, sorry for getting off track and getting into a rant in my own thread!! I do not wish to argue with anyone. I just wanted to explain how the economy is for ME.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cfg83

I like to say that our university system is the last educational gem we have left. We always saw "waves" of foreign students in our architecture department.

It's more than waves in engineering & the hard sciences. I remember one graduate physics class where the instructor tended to answer questions in Chinese, because there were only two non-Chinese in the class - and the other one was from Russia.

Recently I spent a couple of years working on a project for an industry lab (the sort of place where everyone's disappointed that the guy down the hall didn't get a share in the Nobel Prize), where about 2/3 of the researchers are foreign-born - not because they had any prejudice against hiring Americans, but because they just can't find qualified people. And why can't they find qualified people? Because in contemporary American culture, it's cool to be dumb.

Just for an example (and I apologize if this verges on politics), look at how Obama's fans enthuse about how he's so intelligent, and such an intellectual giant, yet the guy only went to LAW SCHOOL, fer gawdsakes. Sure, he did well, but law just ain't rocket science.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Jammer

CNN reported that most of the recent college grads were working at MC DONALD'S!

To some extent that's always been the case, because most American-born college graduates get liberal arts degrees, and the most important words for a liberal arts grad in the the job market are "Do you want fries with that?"

But look at employment rates for graduates in engineering and the hard sciences. Not as good as they were, sure, but still a long way from working at Mickey D's.

If we were to have a country full of imported Doctors, Engineers, Scientists or any other high level white collar level service job, who is supposed to pay them? We need a diverse economy and we really need to start building things to sell other countries again.

The problem there is that more and more, it's not people building stuff, it's machines. That's why you can buy standard stuff - say a disk drive or iPod that's mass-produced by the millions - for next to nothing. There just aren't going to be the sort of repetitive assembly-line jobs that can easily be unionized to pay artifically high wages, because they can be replaced by machines - or by people in China or wherever who'll work cheaper.

There is no way we are going to be able to re-train tens of millions of middle-aged/senor people for the high level service jobs.

Err... Why not? I've been doing it myself, off and on throughout my life. I didn't even get my BS degree until I was well into my 30s (thanks to military service and a few other things), and these days - while my contemporaries talk about early retirement - I'm working on a PhD in a field that didn't even exist when I got the BS. Brains fail from disuse, not over work.

[Jammer]

jamesqf: Man, from what I read from you in this thread, your like from another planet to me. I mean no offense to you by saying that, but please realize that MOST of us likely are DUMB in your eyes. Shesh, I come from a world in which many people never made it to the 12th grade of High School! I have friends here without even a GED, and some of them MIGHT could learn more if they went back to school, but not all of them. I have more than High School, but if your going to rag on a man with a measly Harvard degree you sure will not be impressed by my education. YES Americans are that dumb! But it's not "cool" to see the world that way. It sounds to me as if you have been Blessed with a brain that most of us do not have. Gosh how I wish so many older people could just go back to school and learn all of these trades that you speak of so highly. However you can not teach a dog new tricks- There is really a lot of truth to that you know,? The older we get the more difficult it is to learn. Many of us just want a job, we do not all have the brains to get these degrees you speak of. Surely you can understand that the average American just can not get these degrees you speak of, especially at middle age and older.

I have tried going back to school to get this or that, and at my age I just "can't learn" as I used to. I can not get "my learn on" any more. haha - Wow I had never before meet a person that felt that a law degree from Harvard was anything less than an awesome thing. Count me in as one that also feels The President is very smart. I feel most anyone with a degree such as he has is smart. It would not matter to me what political party they were a member of. See, we come from two entirely different worlds. I'm almost speechless.

Oh: Re: The robots and machines replacing jobs- Gosh most of my previous jobs involved running the machines! There only tools of the trade they still need people to run and maintain the robots, and believe me, one does not often need a big degree to run or make minor adjustments/repairs etc to such machines. The robots did not take our jobs away, CHINA did!

I now understand why the economy does not seem so bad for you. (because it's not!)

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

...but law just ain't rocket science.

...unfortunately America has a glut of Lawyers and too few scientists...when you compare their numbers against our population.

...although worded rather poorly, I have to agree, a law degree just isn't what we (America) need; we need more scientific and engineering degreed people at the top. Ever notice how many of those "people you love to hate" in Congress are Lawyers??? And what proportion of them would you honestly like your children to "emulate?" None is my answer.

...math and science is "too hard" is what I hear too often...but, seemingly it's not that way for all those foreigners! If *I* can go back to college and get an engineering degree some 20 years after high school, then it can't be "...impossible!"

[Jammer]

Funny you should mention "engineering". With only trade school training and a few years working in electronics I actually scored me a job that had the title of "engineering tech." - I think some places around here want people with the smarts of a Master's degree, or whatever fits here, but they try to hire people without the degree so they can pay less $$. At least that has been the way with a couple of the larger companies I worked for. Gosh at one very large company (I wont name the name, but lets just say they are a very popular name of computer printers) I worked at, it seemed their engineers were all very good looking females that had only High School- Yet they were trained by the company to do, mainly time studies it seemed, and next called engineers. Around this area some high tech companies (the few around here) do not look for people with degrees because they do not want to pay higher wages, so they try to train high school grads instead. -Needless to say, it does not always work out for the companies or the employees.

Also I would like to point out that I feel it is great if a person can go back for higher education after 20 years out of High School. But for every person I know like this I can count about 10 others that could not hack it. Once again everything is relative to the lives we live and the people and experiences we know.

[gone-ot]

...the road of life has many paths, which we choose to follow is an individual's choice.

...I'm not claiming it's easy, just that it's not impossible.

...summary: too many lawyers, not enough science and math people.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I think this is àpropos to this thread:


(click on image for link)

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Jammer

jamesqf: Man, from what I read from you in this thread, your like from another planet to me. I mean no offense to you by saying that, but please realize that MOST of us likely are DUMB in your eyes. Shesh, I come from a world in which many people never made it to the 12th grade of High School! I have friends here without even a GED, and some of them MIGHT could learn more if they went back to school, but not all of them. I have more than High School, but if your going to rag on a man with a measly Harvard degree you sure will not be impressed by my education. YES Americans are that dumb! But it's not "cool" to see the world that way. It sounds to me as if you have been Blessed with a brain that most of us do not have. Gosh how I wish so many older people could just go back to school and learn all of these trades that you speak of so highly. However you can not teach a dog new tricks- There is really a lot of truth to that you know,? The older we get the more difficult it is to learn. Many of us just want a job, we do not all have the brains to get these degrees you speak of. Surely you can understand that the average American just can not get these degrees you speak of, especially at middle age and older.

I have tried going back to school to get this or that, and at my age I just "can't learn" as I used to. I can not get "my learn on" any more. haha - Wow I had never before meet a person that felt that a law degree from Harvard was anything less than an awesome thing. Count me in as one that also feels The President is very smart. I feel most anyone with a degree such as he has is smart. It would not matter to me what political party they were a member of. See, we come from two entirely different worlds. I'm almost speechless.

Oh: Re: The robots and machines replacing jobs- Gosh most of my previous jobs involved running the machines! There only tools of the trade they still need people to run and maintain the robots, and believe me, one does not often need a big degree to run or make minor adjustments/repairs etc to such machines. The robots did not take our jobs away, CHINA did!

I now understand why the economy does not seem so bad for you. (because it's not!)

Really? So I got laid off because...?

Lets see here. ShopVac, a company I used to work for, spends some 4 million to replace trimming operations with bots designed to do specifically that... then lays off 100 workers across 3 shifts.

Later, they setup more bots to remove parts from molds, making more workers' jobs obsolete. Now, only a few years later, the company is down from 300+ machine operators to ~30 across 3 shifts, and 10 of those are "floaters", who only work when called.

Hm.. really seems like the robots needed us to work, doesn't it? Instead, they needed a programmer. 1 programmer.

You're a fool if you think otherwise.


Your views on not being able to learn past a certain age are exactly the result of the sedentary lifestyle that most Americans live, as well. There is, and has never been, an age at which a person stops learning. It doesn't happen. What you've lost is not the ability to learn, you've lost the willingness to learn. Your age makes absolutely no difference. Your brain does nothing but mature until you allow it to become sedentary. I.E. when you stop using it for thought processes beyond what you normally do.

If your logic were correct, people like Steven Hawking would have given up long ago. Einstein would be a myth. Hell, even most of the world's greatest thinkers would have just been stories on your bookcase... or maybe they wouldn't, because no one would have been smart enough to have thought of them or written them down.

I don't mean to jump on you about this, honestly. But your view on education reminds me of a 6 year old saying "Do I have to??", or "I can't do it!".

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hi,

I think this is àpropos to this thread:


(click on image for link)

Christ: I read your post. Please check your mailbox here. I do not feel a comment in this thread is needed because all it will do is further inflame you and continue to take this thread OT.

I am very happy to see the thread take a turn back to what it was supposed to be about. It's all too easy to sway away from the thread topic, and I take full blame for derailing this one. So, in that spirit...

I read the article related to the picture and found it interesting.

I don't recall getting a look at the rear of a Volt before.... Now it's pretty clear The Volt prototype is, well, imho, well it appears to be the size and shape of a Prius. Also I realize now that ALL of the prototypes seen are the same color- I hope if the car makes it to production they have other colors.. I mean, it's NOT stainless steel is it?

In the article it mentions how "unusual to see such cars running undisguised this far ahead of production". Maybe so, maybe not. I have to take note here of all of the articles in car mags that show pictures of many prototypes on GM's proving grounds that only have a black bra on the front and rear of the car- I never understood what purpose that is supposed to serve other than hiding just a small part of the car. It reminds me of that little black eye-mask The Lone Ranger wore to hide his identity. So, I guess I feel that saying this car is "undisguised" in the picture is a debatable matter.

One thing is for sure though. I have never in my life known GM to test a car and allow it to be seen as much as The Volt has been seen being tested in the public's eyes before. I am starting to think, it's got nothing to do with Science and everything to do with MARKETING. (just speculation of course) I am starting to feel as if GM might be doing a lot of this so called "testing" to get promotional value out of the car building up years before it finally gets to production- if it does. Another part of me wonders if just maybe GM is right on the fence in making a serious call to proceed to production or not- maybe they working 24/7 trying to find a way of making this car viable the first year... And for some really far off speculation I can also picture a scenario in which GM is allowing The Volt to be seen all over the mid-west while they secretly work on an entirely unrelated project to surprise the competition with, if that's possible.

Ok, I am trying to stay on topic now. It's too easy to go OT. I admit this post is mostly speculation on my part, but that's just part of me. I like to guess a move before it is made.