Employment: The Struggle for Life

I ran across this story earlier in the day and just wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267953/Job-seeker-Vicky-Harrison-commits-suicide-rejected-200-jobs.html

You should go and read the story in full since it is a powerful tale of the effects of an economic recession made all too real by its impact on the individual.

I do not claim to fully understand how the grading system works in England, but from what information I looked up, it seems as if Vicky Harrison was an average or an above average student.  She went to college and it did not work out and then proceeded to actively look for work over the course of 2 years and found nothing.  No job would take her after 2 years of searching.  The story also mentions that she applied to over 200 positions.

It is sad when an individual who is willing to work cannot find work.

Some people may say that there is always work available for a young woman who is down on her luck, but I do not believe that it is appropriate to second guess Vicky on apparent choice to not pursue professions that are available to all attractive young women.  I am of course referring to adult entertainment and escort services where work is always available.  That type of employment is frowned upon in most cultures and she may not have wanted to pursue such employment.  Again, I do not believe that it is appropriate for anyone to comment on this, so I ask that if you comment on this story, you simply do not comment on this aspect of it.

However, I feel that it is appropriate to comment on the situation of the world as a whole.  Experience opens doors and educations gives them a nice shove.  That is the way I view the world.  An experienced job seeker will generally have no problem finding a job.  If you are a proven worker who can make a positive impact from day one, companies will find someone to fire so they can bring you on if needed.

Education helps too, although not as much as the quality of an education is questionable from institution to institution and the actual amount of practical knowledge can vary greatly.  So, post-secondary education is a plus, but not always a deal maker.

I have found that overall, it is not your experience or your education that affects your chances for a job. It is your confidence and your ability to carry yourself.  I was technically completely unqualified for my current job.  But, I talked my way through the interview, the company had a position they needed filled quickly and were willing to give me an opportunity to shine or crash and burn and I made the most it through hard work and determination that no matter how overwhelmed I felt, that I was given a chance and was going to make something of it.

I hope that Vicky had the same attitude and frankly most people do on some level have that same attitude.  However, I am appalled at the fact that no one would even hire her to do menial jobs.  Frankly, if you have a high school graduate who wants to do menial work because they do not want to accept a government handout, you as an employer should think of it as an opportunity to allocate a miniscule amount of resources and use the opportunity to have that person work in your place of employment and prove themselves worthy of a higher position.

Overall, this story is just sad.  Sad for Vicky’s family, sad for her boyfriend and most of all sad for all of society.  Here was a woman who wanted to work, was willing to take any job and no one was willing to give her something to do.  We should all look at one another a little more closely and see the potential in one another before dismissing people who want to work.

War Economy: A Primer

War is an expensive business. Always has been, always will be.  You have to pay to train your troops, pay for their weapons, pay for their transport, pay for their food, pay their wages and then they can go out and get killed and all that invested value will be gone.

As technology advances, the costs of fielding an army also advance.  In ancient times, a fighting man needed a weapon, perhaps some personal protection and rations to subsist on while on campaign.  These days, the average fighting person needs the weapon, the protection and the rations, however, they also need transportation, medicinal supplies, cultural training, support personnel and a million other things.

The complexity of the supplies used in war has also increased.  In ancient times, armies could just bring livestock and grain with them and rely on the countryside they traveled through to provide anything they ran out of.  Looting has become a culturally unacceptable practice, so the amount of rations brought has increased.  The complexity of the ration has also increased.

It used to be that a can a baked beans would suffice for a meal, the meal would be eaten from the can and the soldier would just have to deal with it.  These days MREs contain dehydrated food, condiment packs, desert items, cutlery and even a chemical heating unit to provide the soldier with a hot meal.  I mean just look at the difference.

Note that there is a strawberry dairyshake powder packet.  Yeah, I’d like to see Patton popping open a C-ration and chugging a milkshake.

I am not saying the soldiers today are more pampered or anything like that, but you have to admit that all of this complex space age food costs more than a tin of meat and beans.

There is also the difference of weaponry, let’s compare a WWII era weapons with a 2010 era weapon.

What we have here is the M1 Garand, one of the best rifles ever used by the US Military. It was reliable, rugged and accurate.  Now let’s look at something a little newer.

This is the M4 Carbine, a modern rifle used by the US Military.  Frankly, holy shit.  Just look at all the shit you can bolt on to this damn thing.  And all this stuff actually works together.  Want a grenade launcher, a hollow stock, a sniper scope and a silencer, just go for it.  Yeah, again, lots of very expensive stuff.  And based on what some of my army buddies tell me, this thing is accurate as hell and if maintained properly, as reliable as anything on the planet.

You might be asking, where am I going with all of this?  Military spending has gone up, really up.  And it isn’t unreasonable spending mind you, you have to keep ahead of the other guy or he ends up with a bigger stick and ends up beating you up with it and you can’t stop him (or her, let’s be fair and balanced).  But how high of a level of spending can a country afford to have?

If history has anything to teach, then it is that as technology advances and the cost of maintaining a given military force outpaces the resources of a country, then that country must make cuts.  If the cuts are not possible due to military needs, then the country goes bankrupt.

The Roman West and the Byzantine East both show this at different times in history, but the result is always the same, you force the issue with spending that is not advisable and the entity doing the spending eventually falls.

So, the US Military can win any stand up, drag out fight, but the cost is so high that generations after the war end up paying for it.  You can win every war you fight until you can no longer afford to pay to go to war and you lose by forfeit.