From: cwm54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Pessimism
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 20:55:29 GMT




>
>>>>      In a capitalist society there are always going to be fewer jobs
>>>>     than workers.
>
>>>Why?  Ever hear of a labor shortage?  For example, Miami has one right
>>>now.
>
>>  Miami is a unique community. When everyone who is qualified for a job can
>>  get a job come talk to me, otherwise shove your "labor shortage".
>
>Well, you claimed always.  I provided a counterexample.  If you claim
>always I only need one.


    Extremely weak arguement. There may be a labor shortage at the local
    bowling alley but in toto my initial statement still stands and if
    you don't know that EVERY economist would agree then you aren't worthy
>   to tie my shoes,let alone debate me. Economist will disagree on the
    extent of unemployment but not that it is a built in function of
    capitalism.


>burgers, etc. becasue they couldn't find people locally.  I'm not sure
>if that situation has changed or not, but it is another counter-example.

      Again you're speaking locally AND to use a fast food chain as
      an example is pitiful. The only thing those jobs are good for
      is pocket change for a teenager. It is not a job people can live on.
      I guarantee you there are no shortages local or otherwise for jobs
      paying enough to live on. With millions of people unemployed do you
      really think it's because they're lazy? How many jobs have you seen
      vacant because no one is qualified?


>
>On the other hand, it is totally clear that they can start out naked
>with nothing and build themselves houses and farm land and domesticate
>wild animals and that both can end up mcuh better off than they were
>before.  In that sense you are totally wrong.


	You've been watching to many westerns. The world has changed. In the
	old days a down and out fellow could go west where no one lived and
	build a house from trees, hunt for his food,dig a well and open
	up a rest stop for people traveling further west etc..The economy
	was in fact expanding. A homeless or unemployed person NOW cannot
	get land,food or anything else. Just being willing to work hard is
	no longer enough. Being better off is a misleading term. I may be better
>       off than a person in Africa  but worse off than a white person of
	less ability.Am I happy?  It all boils down to you believing that
	racism exist but it isn't bad enough to keep us from being anything
	we want to be. I say it's worse than you could ever imagine.

>>>>     When I open a restaurant someone else
>>>>     goes out of business because there are only so many dollars to be
>>>>     spent on entertainment. These are the cold hard facts. But you NEVER
>>>>     hear those with a voice explain this reality. This is the core of
>>>>     the problem.
>
>>>Actually, they don't explain this 'reality' because it is not reality.
>>>If it was then our average standard of living would be the same as it
>>>was 2,000 years ago - after all, how could it possibly improve if
>>>every success was accompanied by an equal and opposite failure?
>
>>   Ever hear of a mature economy, dope.
>
>Sure, and in fact in a zero growth economy you would be right.  We
>don't have a zero growth economy.

       The point is I really don't believe the economy will ever grow
       the way it did before other countries began modernization.
       Americans are not superior beings. World-wide competition is
       here to stay and Americans must learn that they will most
>      probably have a reduced standard of living. With what do you
       replace high wage factory work. I don't see a substitute with
       or without a college educated populace.



  With westward expansion followed
>>   by modernization sure there is going to be a rise in the standard of
>>   living,however there comes a point when the economy changes to one
>>   of maintenance when most people have their VCR's, two car etc..Then
>>   they buy products less frequently.
>
>Ever hear of planned obsolescence?  People who have to have the newest
>models of everything?  Yuppies?

      Your first legitimate point EXCEPT that I will argue that there is
      a huge difference between the rush created by the introduction
      of the CD player and the people who will purchase a more advanced
      model. Also, I don't see how that helps the US very much since as I
      stated before, developing countries can buy the technology and run.
      I don't see how we(?)can stop them short of serious protectionism.



>>   Added to that problem is the
>>   modernization of the rest of the world lagging behind. When those
>>   countries,like Korea,begin to build factories,your precious capitalist
>>   without regard for social concerns,take jobs there. Why would a business
>>   man pay an American twenty dollars an hour when he can pay a Korean three
>>   dollars a day.
>
>No reason at all.  Why should an American be paid twenty dollars a day
>unless he can produce 6.66 times as much as a Korean paid three
>dollars a day?


     What's your point? My point is the US IS losing jobs to korea et al.
     I see NO incentive for that trend not to continue. You blow it off
     as if it isn't a major concern. Millions of people think otherwise.

>>   If you expect the US to do what no other country EVER
>>   has, that is continue to have an ever expanding economy, you're as stupid
>>   as I think you are.
>
>Well, we haven't done that either.  A recession is a period of
>negative economic growth and we have had our share.  On the other
>hand, the West as a whole has been steadily growing for the past 1,000
>years.  Individual parts have had economic downturns, but they have
>always caught up and continued to grow.  If you think that's going to
>change I think the burden of proof is on you.

    For the past thousand years you guys have always found someone to exploit.
    You've run out of Indians.


>
>>>Well, that may be true at Chemical Abstracts Services but it's not
>>>true where I work.  In a competitive environment you can't afford to
>>>have that attitude.  I'm doing new product development right now so I
>>>don't have people working for me, but a year ago when I was a
>>>development manager for one of our financial products I was barely
>>>hanging on by my fingernails.  I guarantee to you that the only things
>>>I worried about in the people who worked for me was how much work I
>>>could get out of them and how good it would be without making them
>>>decide that their salaries just weren't worth the pain.  I didn't give
>>>a damn what sex or race they were.
>
>>>If people at CAS have time to worry about that kind of irrelevancy
>>>maybe you are overstaffed.
>
>>    As employers go Chemical Abstracts is a pretty nice place to work. I have
>>    worked at places not so pleasant or tolerant. It has it's problems but I
>>    was not speaking about CAS.
>
>So CAS is an exception to your rule?  How many exceptions are there?
>Are they the rule rather than the exception?

      Chemical Abstracts is the exception primarily because there are
>   and extraordinary amount of people who are originally from other
    countries. Whites don't dominate numerically like they do in most
    companies BUT even so they dominate in managerial positions. It is a
    nice place to work RELATIVE to many other places but it still is not
    "right".

>>    You know, every white person I know "doesn't
>>    give a damn about sex or race". It's always "someone else".
>
>Well, in general, you can't afford to be racist unless you have a lot
>of excess capacity arround.

	    Bull

>
>>    Though EVERY
>>    statistic shows we don't even approach getting our fair share of the
>>    pie, we must be imagining discrimination.
>
>1.  Ther eis obviously some racism, the question is how much.


	  Ahhh..there it is. Trust me, there's enough to make this whole
>     country explode if things don't change and if people like you don't
      stop telling us we're imagining perceived wrongs.


>2.  It is equally obvious that there are plenty of other possible
>causes for blacks having a smaller than average share of the nation;s
>economic pie besides racism.


>             Such as?
>
>>      I no longer believe capitalism is an impartial,color-blind "religion"
>>    that rewards people solely on their ability.
>

>Well of course not.
>
>1.  It isn't a religion.
>
>2.  It doesn't reward anybody.
>
>3.  Luck, shmoozing, having rich parents, and marrying the boss's
>daughter are all just as important as having ability.

	1) Did you see my quote marks...jeez
	2) Oh really?
	3) It's difficult to schmooze in restricted clubs
	   Because of racism not too many of us have rich parents.
	   Heaven forbid the boss would let me marry his honey p...
	   little white girl.

       Darn, again we're out of the loop.

>
>>    If that is true then the
>>    corollary is that blacks are a dumb or lazy group relative to ALL
>>    others because we certainly don't get equal rewards proportionately.
>
>So then what do you think the cause is?  After all, I gurantee to you
>that the economics itself can't even tell what color your skin is,
>never mind discrimminate based on it.

	     I'm dumb. Please explain.

>>>>      that they "only need that piece of paper" and being devasted when
>>>>      a white high school graduate with less senority, who they trained
>>>>     0 becomes their boss.
>
>>>Well, if they think that that piece of paper is all they needed then I
>>>am hardly surprised that they didn't become managers.  A diploma gets
>>>your foot in the door.  That's it.
>
>>       For us it gets our mop in the door. That's it.
>
>My.  Maybe you should tell that to some of the blacks who work in
>important positions in Oracle.
>
>> We rarely get promoted like whites but thats probably because we're either
>> stupid or don't work as hard.It couldn't have anything to do with color?
>> Nah, never.
>
>Well, if color is the only reason then why aren't blacks all building
>their own companies?  The answer is that some are (TLC Beatrice, for
>example) but most aren't.

	 Color is not the only reason but it the dominant reason.
   The owner of TLC Beatrice is an extraordinary man, a harvard grad etc.
   The majority of any race is not that extraordinary. I'm not worried about
>  those sort of people. It's the rest of us.(even so he had to have been
   lucky enough to have run into liberal white benefactors, a noble but
   dying breed.
	I know nothing of Oracles inner workings. If blacks are in
	important positions in significant numbers it IS the exception


>>>seniority should be a factor when it's promotion time?  Maybe in
>>>places like IBM, but not in companies that are growing.
>
>>  Not THE factor but a factor.
>
>Why should it even be a factor?  Promote based on ability, not how
>long people have served.

    At this point in our history I would rather be judged by an objective
    criteria than one so abstract as ability. There's room for mischief
    with ambiguities.
>Promotions should be based on ability, not how long you ahve served.
>
>>  Last hired and all...
>
>Again, not in growing companies.

	 Wrong!!!
>
>>  but it's funny how
>>  when a HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE with less senority becomes your boss all of
>>  a sudden "you do a great job, it's just that we feel Bob has more of the
>>  traits for supervision..." Hmmm, go figure.
>
>Yeah, do.  Do you really need a college degree to supervise a bunch of
>burger flippers?  Is it even relevant?  Probably not.  To be a
>programmer?  Usually, but interestingly enough I know a highschool
>graduate who is a quite senior manager at a software company.
>Interestingly enough, he is black.  Just for another datapoint, Larry
>Ellison, the CEO of Oracle (and a white) also never graduated from
>college.  Hmm, go figure.

	Master ellison proves my point don't you think?
     For all the blacks who have made it fairly or otherwise there
>    are thousands who have not gotten a fair shake. EVERYBODY in
     this country isn't a racist and I would be stupid if I said
     there were NO opportunities for blacks. But the difference
     in tratment generally is so obvious that there are over twenty
     million angry people who are amazingly restrained. It want always
     be so if things don't change.
 >>>When I became a manager I became the boss of a guy with a year and a
>>>half more experience than I who had trained me when I joined the
>>>company.  Nobody said that was racist because we were both White.
>>>Would matters have been different if he was Black?
>
>>>>      I no longer am one to stress education as the
>>>>      key to equality. We should be educated to be better informed but
>>>>      we should not delude ourselves into thinking we "can be anything
>>>>      we want to be".


>>>but I'll need three promotions in that time to match where he
>>>is now.
>
>>     The standard arguement. Can you spell TOKEN?
>
>Sure, except I know these people.  They aren't tokens.  They have
>reputations within their companies as people who do good work and who
>you come to if you want advice on a problem.  Tokens get shunted into
>HR and other non-critical areas.


    A token does not to be a goof off. A smart company will USE a very
    competent person to say," Look how fair I am." They are in those
>   positions because they are black even though they and a few others
    probably should have been there years earlier.


>>Besides,
>>I never said ALL whites are racist just you and millions of others.
>
>Now, on what basis do you draw that conclusion about me?

       To insinuate that we aren't where we should be because of reasons
       other than race is by extension saying we are inferior beings. For
       no one could reasonably argue that we  approach parity in any endeavor
>      with whites of comparable qualifications.To me that spells racist.

>>>Well, in that case you mean forever and you might as well curl up and
>>>die.  The people I know who have succeeded don't give up that easily.
>
>>>>        In short if everyone in this country has a college education
>>>>      then college grads will be cleaning toilets and sweeping streets,
>>>>      and guess who that will be. Until Americans admit that because of
>>>>      our economic system(I make no judgements on the right or wrong of
>>>>      it),"the poor will always be with us" and because of racism the poor
>>>>      will always be disproportinately black; and poverty breeds
>>>>      violence.
>
>>>Mind explaining why I can't substitute Chinese for black in the
>>>sentence above?
>
>>     Whites always try to equate other ethnics to us. Orientals do not
>>   come with the baggage of "inferiority".
>
>They did 100 years ago.  What changed?

    I beg to differ. Oriental came with the baggage of" difference" not
    inferiority.
>
>>   In our glorious,perfect consti-
>>   tution Chinese aren't three-fifths a person.
>
>Interestingly enough, blacks weren't either.  Slaves were.

       Jeez...name me a few of those white slaves. Your arguements are
       usually wrong but not THIS weak.
>
>>   Different motivation for being
>>   here etc..
>
>Well, that's something internal to the group in question, not
>external.  Are you finally admitting that some of America's racial
>problems are not linked to current racism?

       Another weak one. Without EXTERNAL acceptance or tolerance it matters not
>    how smart,how much ability etc.. That is the whole point.
     Anyone who equates the Chinese experience with ours should not be
     writing in this net.

>>If you can't use a token throw the "model minority at us ,eh?
>
>I'll throw anything I have to to convince you that things are not
>nearly as simple as you seem to think.

       I have never thought things are at all simple. Racism is a durable
       complex well-oiled machine. YOU are the one who seems to think things
>      are simple, "Just get an education and work hard and things will come
       your way regardless of the obstacles".

>>>>      When I go
>>>>      to a store or a restaurant and still get "the look" I can understand
>>>>      why.
>
>>>You'll get the look as long as crime and poverty are
>>>disproportionately black.  These are chicken and egg problems.  The
>>>only way to beat them is to work on both at once.
>
>>>--  No, it's a cause and effect relationship and you'll never understand it.
>
>So which is the cause and which is the effect?

      Whew...after all I've written you still don't know then..all is lost.
      I grow weary of the battle.  Goodbye


				 Carlyle


	   These views are unfortunately mine only and not those of CAS.