Moved

So I've moved out of the Bay Area. I spent 4 months after losing my job to internal politics (and being right too much of the time always grates on people) seeking work, applying all over the place and got exactly ONE interview (Tesla) and couldn't find anything that paid my rent. My lease ended in October and they wanted $1500/mo. to re-up. Kindly no.

So I packed up my stuff and put it in storage where the job market was no worse than the Bay Area and within a short drive of my aging parents. I've got a good dozen applications processing there so I'm pretty much waiting for a call for an interview. Assuming I get the job, since I'm good with old people and there's a ton of those nearby and kids working these sorts of sales jobs hate them (not realizing old people living in those communities have money and pay their bills) so they're a good demographic for me. There's several applications (half a dozen, more) processing up here in the gold country too. The Gold in Gold Country is literal btw. I'm sitting on the side of a mine. They're not empty mines either. Still a couple billion in gold down there, about two miles deep. Will take 2 years to pump the water out so you can get to it, but the water has to be cleaned up and treated before it can be released into local streams and that's a pretty big cost. Thus the mines are still closed, for now. I think that will end in time.

I registered to vote once I moved back up here, a few days after I arrived. I want to vote for Romney because I didn't vote in the last election, not liking either guy, and Obama has been BAD FOR AMERICA. "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" asked Al Gore during Clinton's re-election campaign. Ask yourself that question today. What's the answer? Worse. America is teetering, its middle class has shrunk drastically, 48% of college graduates live with their parents because they can't find good paying jobs, and real unemployment is 24%, real inflation (including food and gasoline and rent) is 12.5% annually. Quantitative Easing could very easily tip over the world economy into a true global depression that shuts down the factories in China, where they make our lightbulbs because we don't make them in the USA anymore. Ponder that.

And the Middle East is still filled with yahoos who would kill each other given half a chance because Middle Easterners love their grudges, whereas Gaelic types like me mostly gave that stuff up couple thousand years ago. When we finally get an electric car battery that doesn't require rare earth elements, we won't need to give the Middle East anymore money and they can starve to death as they clearly deserve. All the easy money has enabled a lot of crazies. Take the money away and they die off as they richly deserve. The one bright spot of the Greater Depression is eventually the US$$ will be too weak to justify Mexican Mafia slipping drugs across the border anymore so the drug problem will dry up due to lack of funding. And won't that be hilarious?

Don't get me wrong. There's still some jobs advertised in the Bay Area. $10-12/hr. You can live on that, with a 40 mile commute and a bridge to cross twice a day, if you're half a couple and sharing rent expenses. I'm solo, however, and those costs are non-trivial with gasoline finally at $4.50/gal again. The October Surprise is once again slaughtering the Middle Class right before the election. "Are you better off now...?" Ahem. I wonder how people will vote?

My elderly father was looking at tiny fuel efficient cars last week, after seeing the pump price jump. He's got a car that gets 34 mpg highway. He doesn't have to commute except for groceries. My car, which is 14 years old, needs tires and its struts replaced, around $1300 all told, gets 32 mpg highway. I don't plan to replace it. You can buy a LOT of gasoline for the cost of a new car that's slightly better fuel economy. When the time comes and it jumps past $15/gal. the shock to the economy will be so huge that Uhaul will be doing brisk business as people give up and move back to the farm, with the economy tanking and people just plain unable to stay afloat, kids or not. That's sort of where I am now, only this is a nice retirement community I'm squatting in, not a farm, and I'm going back to work just as soon as one of these job-advertising yahoos calls me. Lots of jobs advertised, not much follow through. Modern HR people seem lazy and largely incompetent, or overworked and lacking the basic follow through "no thank you" messages earlier HR had, barely 10 years ago.

Kids these days are just worthless. Sigh. They really dumbed down the colleges. College today is High School of Yesterday. Many of the jobs I see are paying Minimum Wage or not listing pay because they pay Minimum Wage. The trouble with that is turnover is murderous and the other employees spend all their time training the new kids who are going to leave the minute it gets hard or something better comes along. We really are becoming like Jamaica, aren't we? Folks in the Mountains are kinda rough, unshaven, eyes high from pot or meth, many with obvious signs of hangovers or other ailments. The visible body piercings and tattoos and weird hair colors make you unemployable in most settings. I don't have those, but I never get far enough to be interviewed. My last job really hurt my reputation. Sweat Shops will do that to you. These days I'm looking hard at IT jobs and applied to several. I can do the Desktop Support because memorizing the current problem bugging everyone is easy enough, and being nice to Users who are confused and need help is easy. I don't have to lie to them or sell them something they don't want. Just fix the problem, explain as needed and move on. I guess that's my niche.

I recently bought a used mountain bike with a full suspension at a garage sale benefitting the local high school debate club. After fixing it up I realized it was too small for me, so we're (me and Dad) giving it to my Nephew. He lives somewhere biking is sensible and we think he'd really like it. We hope. Its pretty nice, full suspension. A springer, not real shocks, but it absorbs the bounces well enough on the rough roads and its not too heavy. A good bike for a kid, better than I had. I always had steel hardframe bikes and I was the suspension. Kinda wish I could work at a bicycle shop or a scooter shop if I'm stuck at Minimum Wage anyway. I won't be getting an apartment if that's all I can get for wages. And that's pretty tough. That's the economy today. Way too many jobs are scams, pay nothing, are part time, or ask so much but don't pay enough to make up for the requirements that they aren't serious in the first place. That's the economy today.

India took most of the IT and call center jobs that middle class Americans used to do. I look forward to war in India, one WE aren't involved in, to return jobs to America. I don't even care if there's megadeaths there. I know lots of Indian people. Not good folks. I look forward to so payback, or seeing it on TV/websites. Stuff America isn't involved with anymore. Bring the troops home. Let the world burn. To hell with them; we've got our own problems here. I'd be happiest if bringing the troops home DIDN'T make WW4 worse but cooled things down. I really wonder if our thinking on international politics is just Dead Wrong. Interventionism is costing us so much. Pull out, let them finish their slaughter. Its not our problem.

China took all the manufacturing jobs that the Poor used to do. So our poor are unemployed thanks to China and the Middle Class are unemployed thanks to India. Any war distracting them from business would be good for America, I think. Next best thing is trade tariffs that END BUSINESS DEALINGS WITH BOTH. If we had manufacturing jobs here, the Poor would be working. If we taxed the everliving hell out of multinationals so only domestically hiring companies could afford to work here, there would be jobs worth having for the Middle Class again. Employment problems are solved by ending business with India and China, full stop. They can sell to other people, just not us. Hell, we're at (economic) war with both, we just pretend we aren't because its uncomfortable to admit since we're clearly losing. In a world with $4.50/gal gasoline and a shrinking Middle Class, something significant must be done.

Food posts to follow. Just needed to get this coffee fueled rant out.

"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Al Gore 1996 presidential election speech.

*from my mother's sewing room*