From: cwm54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Pessimism
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:48:30 GMT




In article <1992Sep28.211217.3952@oracle.us.oracle.com> you write:
>In article <1992Sep25.190754.3705@cas.org> cwm54@cas.org writes:
>
>>      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".



>>     It is the nature of competition. If I "pull myself
>>     up by my own bootstraps" I necessarily displace someone else down
>>     to my previous position.
>
>Depends on how you define position.  If you mean rank order of income
>in population, then certainly.  If you mean income and standard of
>living then no.
>

  Da..what?


>
>>     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. 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. 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. 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.
>
>>      Those of us who are "black professionals" know
>>      that no matter how educated,how rich,how nice the suit, you're
>>      still just a n....
>
>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. You know, every white person I know "doesn't
    give a damn about sex or race". It's always "someone else". Though EVERY
    statistic shows we don't even approach getting our fair share of the
    pie, we must be imagining discrimination.We must stop that.( Whether
    you voluntarily stepped out of management or were politely shoved I
    thank you for not being in that position anymore.)
      I no longer believe capitalism is an impartial,color-blind "religion"
>   that rewards people solely on their ability. 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.


>>      I have seen so many people ruined by thinking
>>      that they "only need that piece of paper" and being devasted when
>>      a white high school graduate with less senority, who they trained
>>      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.
 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.





>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. WE have historically not been promoted
  because of senority systems. Last hired and all...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.




>
>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?


     Idiot, could anyone have said it was racist?  Geez!

     Maybe you just sucked up better. It's the American way.

>
>>      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".
>
>You should tell that to some of the Blacks (not n...'s) I know in the
>software industry... like the woman I went to college with who is a
>year younger than me, who is working for a bank software company, and
>who keeps teasing me because she's making more money now than I was a
>year ago...  Or the guy I know at another company who doesn't even
>have a college degree but demonstrated technical competence as a
>consultant, and then joined the company and proved that he was also a
>grade A manager.  This guy is only three or four years older than me
>but I'll need three promotions in that time to match where he
>is now.


     The standard arguement. Can you spell TOKEN? I, of course cannot
 judge the relative merits of the individuals you mention above, but
 practically every company of some size has those individuals who they
 can throw up to us and say," Look, we treat our blacks well." Besides,
>I never said ALL whites are racist just you and millions of others.



>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.


   I, will neither curl up or die because of racism. I fight and try to
   educate cheerleaders like you.
>
>>        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". In our glorious,perfect consti-
   tution Chinese aren't three-fifths a person. Different motivation for being
   here etc..If you can't use a token throw the "model minority at us ,eh?
>
c>>      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.
						    Carlyle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	THese are my views only and not those of CAS.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american,soc.culture.african