Coronavirus:

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[robert.]

"the number of patients with heart attacks and strokes at many hospitals is considerably decreased. Probably cause and effect." How about the stress of a daily job has gone away? For the last 2 months.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

"the number of patients with heart attacks and strokes at many hospitals is considerably decreased. Probably cause and effect." How about the stress of a daily job has gone away? For the last 2 months.

Two very different cause and effect scenarios. One medical and one between the ears. Sadly a very large portion of our population has been on a spend it all, save nothing, and carry a lot of debt trip for years thinking that nothing will every come to call them to task. Now they are faced with a day of reckoning.

[robert.]

". Sadly a very large portion of our population has been on a spend it all, save nothing, and carry a lot of debt trip for years thinking that nothing will every come to call them to task. Now they are faced with a day of reckoning." Rufus. But it not their fault! My mother has lived her life this way. It's har to believe the lady holds a masters in finance. I called it the 3m. Mom's magic math. I'm 180 degrees opposite of her. I can squeeze a dime out of a nickle.many companies are facing a day of reckoning. The next 2-3 years will be real interesting. Not to mention hard on many.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

".

Sadly a very large portion of our population has been on a spend it all, save nothing, and carry a lot of debt trip for years thinking that nothing will every come to call them to task. Now they are faced with a day of reckoning."

But it not their fault!My mother has lived her life this way. It's har to believe the lady holds a masters in finance. I called it the 3m. Mom's magic math. I'm 180 degrees opposite of her. I can squeeze a dime out of a nickle.many companies are facing a day of reckoning. The next 2-3 years will be real interesting. Not to mention hard on many.

Nope. Most of it is their fault.

I have kids that did exactly what I stated regardless of their being told the result. One sort of listened. Their friends are far worse off. Nothing in the bank, no cushion, no savings to live on, and tons of debt that they really did not need to incur on credit cards with 18-22% APR. Any forget about saving to retire...... Jobs that are 30-35 hours/week w/o benefits with pay so low they have to work 2-3 of them to make ends meet. BTW, that why the jobs numbers last year were so good and also why they look even worse now. All it took was a small push on the house of cards and this aspect of financial instability in our economy is revealed.

I think we may find that this going to be a period where companies take full advantage of the mass layoffs to only call back the really required employees, up the automation and work from home, and cut employee costs to the bone.

[HONDO74]

I think we may find that this going to be a period where companies take full advantage of the mass layoffs to only call back the really required employees, up the automation and work from home, and cut employee costs to the bone.

Rufus, you have said before that we went from a manufacturing economy to a service economy...
After they cut employee costs to the bone, they might not survive. Then what

Will we still be able to allow thousands of migrants into the country with no jobs available for them

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I think we may find that this going to be a period where companies take full advantage of the mass layoffs to only call back the really required employees, up the automation and work from home, and cut employee costs to the bone.

Rufus, you have said before that we went from a manufacturing economy to a service economy...
After they cut employee costs to the bone, they might not survive. Then what

Survival is not a requirement of capitalism. What we have going on now is another display of unchecked abuse of the liquidity of finances by companies and now the bills are due. Except now they all want to get bailed out......by you and me. Cutting employee costs actually should promote survival with increased automation. Our economy has been very brittle for many years.

Will we still be able to allow thousands of migrants into the country with no jobs available for them

Someone has to do all the jobs that our citizens won't do. Those jobs will still need doing. Maybe our citizens will remember what a day's work used to be and go back to work.

[HONDO74]

Someone has to do all the jobs that our citizens won't do. Those jobs will still need doing. Maybe our citizens will remember what a day's work used to be and go back to work.

Doubt it. For many years now our young people have been taught in school to get a college education so they don't have to do those menial jobs.

How many young people do you know that can set at a workbench and build those models that you are working on

In my youth I was always building models. Built several of the buildings from my Model Builders Handbook for my train floor layout. Until I became more interested in flying model airplanes. Built a lot on model airplane when I was young..

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Someone has to do all the jobs that our citizens won't do. Those jobs will still need doing. Maybe our citizens will remember what a day's work used to be and go back to work.

Doubt it. For many years now our young people have been taught in school to get a college education so they don't have to do those menial jobs.

Long overdue to change. It's a failed paradigm and produces degreed students unprepared to do anything. We keep harping about bringing manufacturing businesses back to the US; we don't have the bodies to do those jobs. Maybe we need to recreate the CCC.

We do need to stop handing out student loans for degrees that do not serve the country. Loans need to be subject and qualification targeted, and also tied to actual need, and then coupled to rewards for performance.

How many young people do you know that can set at a workbench and build those models that you are working on

Surprisingly to me, several. But with a twist. One top of the list is doing 3D printing, has 2 printers, and is running a business in high school. We may be too quick to write off young people - yes, they my not be like we were, but they are looking for hobbies and are approaching them differently that we did.

[bob turner]

I have always been good with my hands, as in car/airplane maintenance and of course locomotive model building. I was even a landscaper at age 19. But I would be absolutely useless as a real mechanic, or a strawberry picker, or ditch digger. There is a guy weeding my yard right now who is not much younger than me - I am healthy and moderately fit, but I could not keep up with him. I was well suited for the jobs I held - seated in front of a desk or an insrument panel.

When I see these folks in the fields in our Central Valley, I know I would have not made it for a week.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I have always been good with my hands, as in car/airplane maintenance and of course locomotive model building. I was even a landscaper at age 19. But I would be absolutely useless as a real mechanic, or a strawberry picker, or ditch digger. There is a guy weeding my yard right now who is not much younger than me - I am healthy and moderately fit, but I could not keep up with him. I was well suited for the jobs I held - seated in front of a desk or an insrument panel.

I spent a couple of years working for a landscaping sod farm company doing the dawn to dusk 6 days a week drill pushing idiot sticks and all that fun stuff. You gain a little appreciation for what it takes to do those jobs. That was after I had a job splitting firewood; $10/cord loaded on the truck.

When I see these folks in the fields in our Central Valley, I know I would have not made it for a week.

Few would make it through a day.

[chuck]

It isn't a lack of manufacturing that has caused the loss of jobs. We still manufacture a lot of stuff, just not the same way. Automation has taken over big time. Even basic operations like linking chains is now being handled by "robots". Not Robby the Robot of "Forbidden Planet" or Rosie the Robot of the Jetsons, but Arduino driven modules with machine vision micro cameras and basic bending jigs. There are a few highly skilled individuals programming the robots and performing quality control checks and a few more grunt level jobs which are low skill and low pay to feed the machines and to load final products for shipping.

As a society we are going to have to come to grips with the looming situation that there isn't that much a need for a 40 hour work week and that everyone involved is going to have to actually think and be adaptive in terms of their work. Even agriculture has undergone a revolution in terms of labor/technology. The guy driving the tractor has a mini processing plant towed behind him that picks and rough packages stuff and automatically drops full carts for another guy to pick up and drive back to the "barn" where those carts contents are transferred to a 45 foot trailer for transport to a warehouse or processing plant that has even more automation. No more "I put on every other lug nut on the right hand tires" as the car comes down the line. Even white color jobs are being phased out by AI supervisory programs (accountants/clerks are being forced out). Knowing advanced Excel is no longer a guarantee of a job, much less a career. I see a 36 hour work week on the horizon with four nine hour days and a choice of either Mondays or Fridays off.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

It isn't a lack of manufacturing that has caused the loss of jobs. We still manufacture a lot of stuff, just not the same way. Automation has taken over big time. Even basic operations like linking chains is now being handled by "robots". Not Robby the Robot of "Forbidden Planet" or Rosie the Robot of the Jetsons, but Arduino driven modules with machine vision micro cameras and basic bending jigs. There are a few highly skilled individuals programming the robots and performing quality control checks and a few more grunt level jobs which are low skill and low pay to feed the machines and to load final products for shipping.

As a society we are going to have to come to grips with the looming situation that there isn't that much a need for a 40 hour work week and that everyone involved is going to have to actually think and be adaptive in terms of their work. Even agriculture has undergone a revolution in terms of labor/technology. The guy driving the tractor has a mini processing plant towed behind him that picks and rough packages stuff and automatically drops full carts for another guy to pick up and drive back to the "barn" where those carts contents are transferred to a 45 foot trailer for transport to a warehouse or processing plant that has even more automation. No more "I put on every other lug nut on the right hand tires" as the car comes down the line. Even white color jobs are being phased out by AI supervisory programs (accountants/clerks are being forced out). Knowing advanced Excel is no longer a guarantee of a job, much less a career. I see a 36 hour work week on the horizon with four nine hour days and a choice of either Mondays or Fridays off.

And that's the automation I was referring to.....at the plant where there a man and dog. It's the man's job to feed the dog and the dog is there to keep the man from touching the machinery

[webenda]

"the number of patients with heart attacks and strokes at many hospitals is considerably decreased. Probably cause and effect." How about the stress of a daily job has gone away? For the last 2 months.

Duh!
"Patients with heart attacks, strokes and even appendicitis vanish from hospitals."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/p ... story.html

Cardiac units are now filled to overflowing with COCID-19 patients. Ambulance drivers don't even try to get heart attack patients into hospitals anymore. (Not true in Tucson... yet.)

[bob turner]

Back to the numbers - I don't mean to be an alarmist, but there looks to be a spike in today's numbers. From 10 AM to 6 PM my time the death count increased almost 2000. May just be an anomaly - got my eye on it.

I am not a "Capitalism" expert, so don't know what it needs to thrive - but I personally think we need an economic system that takes care of the least among us and does not depend on growth. I have no idea what that would be. Seven and a half billion is enough - we should level that off now. Opinion.