Long Winter Ahead

Posted: December 11th, 2008 | Filed under: Community, Culture, Features, Politics | No Comments »

So I’m thinking about the economy. And wondering when it bottoms out and takes a turn for the better, where the jobs are going to come from?

The number of human beings necessary for commerce has been on the decrease for decades.

I remember a comment from the guy in my office in the 70’s charged with hiring and firing. It was the advent of electric typewriters and rudimentary word processors. He was one of those liberal, humanist types, but his words resonated. “I’m not going to allow efficiency get in the way of hiring real people to do our secretarial work.” That’s a paraphrase, but close enough.

That’s a long time ago.

Machines and technology have taken over, and it’s not only in the manufacturing sector where robotics is the name of the game. Think about banking. In the days of yesteryear, the basement was filled desks and people, collating and ledgering checks. By hand. Now it’s all done by scanners. And that’s when paper checks are used at all. We are way beyond the advent of the era of paperless money transfer.

Remember a row of tellers when you walked in your local bank branch? No more. Banks would prefer you use money machines entirely. And, if you must deal with a human being for day to day transactions, use the drive thru. For security reasons, you understand.

Not so long ago, I went into my branch. I forget why I needed to have my transaction handled by a real person, but I did. Several customers were waiting in line to see the single teller on duty. I noticed that she would service a drive thru customer before someone in the bank who had been waiting longer.

Never the bashful sort, I brought it to her and her manager’s attention that we had been waiting longer than the drive up and they’d best wait on us first. You’d have thought I’d donned a mask and pulled out a Glock.

This is the trend in all areas of commerce. At Best Buy, there’ll be ten guys to sell you the 60” plasma, but only one person at check out for a line winding back to the cellphone section.

My point is this. When the economy turns better — Sooner or later it absolutely will. It is the nature of this cyclical beast we call Economics — where will the jobs be? Computers are a marvel. I’m writing at one right this second. And will post this online for anybody in the world to read without ever leaving my desk or having contact with another human. But these marvelous machines also have sapped the world of hundreds of thousands of jobs, many more it seems than the ones created.

I’m not an economist. Nor do I pretend to know much about the subject. What I remember about taking the subject in college is minimal. And peripheral. The textbook was written by a guy named Samuelson. Years later the prof was in charge of the committee wise enough to hire Denny Crum to coach U of L’s hoopsters. And All-American linebacker Doug Buffone was in my class. No dummy, he. Later, when his career with Da Bears was complete, he started a fan ‘zine, one of the first. Now that’s knowing your dollars and cents.

All of which is to say I’m worried about the future. An economy based on credit, as ours surely is, will fail because of undue stress on it’s spindly underpinnings. Human beings have to work to make money to be able to purchase cars and bread and homes and shoes and entertainment. What will they do? A PhD with no class to teach can’t earn money as a barista if the coffee houses are closed.

Where will the jobs be? How many roads can we build? How many government buildings can we construct? Will an NRA redux make sense?

What I know is there’s something to be said for keeping the economy alive today. Don’t cut back this holiday season, buy more. But buy from local businesses, locally made products if possible. If you must buy online, have it shipped UPS. Don’t forget charity.

The Film Babe and I are certainly doing our part. Whistling past the graveyard perhaps.

We just bought a sectional we didn’t really need. But it’s nice. And it was from a totally locally owned store. And I bought a new piano I don’t really need, as great as it sounds. Again it was from a totally locally owned store.

Anyway, happy holidays. Be generous in your gift giving. Don’t forget to furnish the pleasures of your home. I’m afraid the avalanche will come after the first of the year. Having all the accoutrements of cocooning in place will be a wise move.

It’s going to be a long, hard, cold winter. Literally and figuratively.

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