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> Is it because we're all making those sweet 1% salaries in tech? Probably. People need to realise it's not the normal state of affairs, nor will it last fore
by Mikeb85 10y ago
> Is it because we're all making those sweet 1% salaries in tech?
Probably. People need to realise it's not the normal state of affairs, nor will it last forever.
Where I live, everyone was making 6 figure salaries out of school working for oil companies. Now unemployment is over 10%, and every single person my age who worked for an oil company was laid off, most are back to being bartenders and servers with no future in sight. Many are in tons of debt, a few on the verge of declaring bankruptcy now that they have a car/house/whatever they can't afford anymore.
When you look at economies in the western world as a whole (take out a few boom towns), it's pretty dreary for our generation (I'm on the upper end of what's considered a 'millennial'). Globalism and automation have decimated entire industries, where jobs still exist wages are being driven downward, inequality is increasing, leaving the 'working class' to struggle.
We'll survive, but the future won't look like the past, we'll have a lot less than our parents did (comparatively speaking). No single salary supporting an entire family with 2 vehicles and a single-family home. More like dual income, 0.5 vehicles and a tiny condo.
It's not the apocalypse, but people need to start listening to economists, open their eyes, and boomers need to take responsibility for the shit-show they've created.
Also, as an aside, every single left-wing party in the world right now needs to take a hard look at their policies. It's no longer good enough to be barely right of centre, and support a token progressive cause. Right-wingers want to fix the job situation by destroying globalism, putting up tariffs, and strong-arming companies into bringing jobs back. And you know what, it'll work. It's sound policy economically, in a game theory "fuck you, I've got mine" sort of way, though far from progressive and won't build a better world. If left-wingers ever want to realise their vision, it won't be by crying over straw-men (Russians, Nazi frogs, etc...), they need to become truly progressive economically. This means guaranteed income, an end to our lottery society. But right now, the left doesn't have answers (well, they do, but not the political willpower). The right does, and all across the western world nationalist governments are going to pop up. The writing's on the wall.
- MicroBerto 10y agoGiven the energy policies our President is going to be taking, I'm willing to bet your friends in oil will be employed within two years. We'll see, but there's quite a bit of excitement with my chemical engineering friends.
- Mikeb85 10y agoI'm not so optimistic. I live in Alberta, Canada, and we have a few things going against us. For one, not much conventional oil. The cost of extracting oil from bitumen is still very high. Second, most of the lost jobs have been white collar jobs in Calgary (2016 was far worse than 2015, and 2017 is looking dismal). Oil companies have packed up and left town altogether. They're not coming back, because why would they? They're all massive multinationals, wound down operations, and can administer whatever activities they engage in from their offices abroad. So in the case of our city, a slight oil 'comeback' won't help us. Trump's policies won't help us. Even though oil prices have stabilised and drilling is resuming in many places, companies are still laying people off here and commercial vacancy is still increasing.
- MicroBerto 10y agoAhhh, my bad, I didn't dig enough to see that you were Canadian. If Trump's policies "work" with respect to employment, you may certainly see similar dominos fall. TBD of course.
- Mikeb85 10y agoNo worries. As far as Trump's policies go, I think they'll work well enough domestically. Not too long ago, tariffs and deregulation were fairly orthodox economic policies. And his pro-pipeline stance will be good for Canada, though for Alberta macro issues affect us more than any policy issues.