OnePercenter
Gold Member
- Apr 10, 2013
- 23,667
- 1,880
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Automation increases productivity, and thus more production, and therefor WEALTH created.
That wealth was never seen, because of Illegals, because of outsourcing, because of monopolies laying people off, and raising prices.
This is CRAPitalist America, and it's even worse than Soviet Russia.
At least in Soviet Russia they didn't funnel all the jobs into foreigners hands who despise them.
I don't see how we're not going to "NATURALLY" collapse in the near future, if we don't end up killing each other in the streets first, and therefor "ARTIFICIALLY" collapse.
I'm glad I'll be off this planet by then; at least out of the workforce. I wouldn't want to be a person in the future with no aptitude to earn a higher education and try to make it on manual labor alone.
Millennials earn 20% less than Babyboomers did at the same age, Millennials have a net-worth 50% less than Babyboomers did at the same age.
(Of course adjusting for inflation AKA Real Wages)
This is startling, and shows the system that we have isn't working.
That can be attributed to a lot of things. For instance perhaps you read the conversation between Manonthestreet and I. Right now our industry needs over 30,000 more drivers that they can't find. They are turning to foreigners to take these jobs Americans won't do. And I can tell you some of those are pretty good paying jobs if you're willing to do the work.
So I think attitude has something to do with it as well. As a baby boomer myself, I can testify several times I had more than one job, or a job that I worked on Saturday as well. At one time I had three jobs. I'm no hero because several of my friends did the same thing. In fact one very close friend works at the company I do. He's been working two full-time jobs for over 30 years now.
You don't see that kind of effort to get ahead out of the millennials as you did in our generation. When we were younger all we thought about was money. How to make more, how to get a better job, work or hours was no hurdle for us.
The trucking industry has always been short of drivers because of the job itself. It's being exacerbated now because with ELD's (electronic logging devices) making it difficult, if not impossible, to cheat on HOS by playing logbook roulette.
The other two factors are detainment at shippers and/or receivers and receiving pay for the load.
In my mind, drivers that are detained should receive a $100.00 comm check after two hours of detainment for each hour and part of an hour of detainment.
Pay should be within 24 hours of a load. Factoring should be illegal.
Actually the problem with trucking is being away from home all the time and government. Government makes it harder and harder for us to make a living because truck drivers are not entitled to constitutional rights. So we are constantly getting pulled over, searched, inspected, and then handed a warning or even a ticket for stupid shit that doesn't mean anything. It's called quotas.
I'm a local driver so I'm home every night, but OTR guys have to tolerate these assholes almost every week. Now instead of having DOT (Department of Transportation) police hassling you, they are training state troopers to do the job because only a trooper can issue a ticket. DOT guys can only give you a warning. Now they are all over the place, and the more of them you have, the more you are likely to get pulled over. When I first started out over 25 years ago, you'd run across a DOT guy once every month. Now you come across 10 or more a day.
If you want to ruin a good thing, just get more government involved.
Most drivers do get layover time after one hour.
What do you think the sentence "The trucking industry has always been short of drivers because of the job itself." means?
Every vehicle in the "Great State" of Texas has to be inspected. Not California, nor Nevada, nor the majority of States. So that means (according to you) living in Texas means you have less "constitutional rights?"
Most truck drivers DO NOT get detention pay.