When I began this blog in 2001, I was appalled by President Bush's headlong rush to an illegal war (we were not in fact under attack). As time wore on and Bush began his assault on the Constitution and any people bold enough to criticize, I believed that "the republic is endangered more by actions of our own government than by those of any terrorist." With the election of a high-minded, compassionate, intelligent man like Barack Obama, my fears have ceased.
"Honor them with peace, not war"
United for Peace
Sunday, September 05, 2004
The nursing home problem: With the population becoming healthier and healthier, not dying from infections and diseases that used to kill us, we risk all reaching the end in which senility takes us slowly down; a burgeoning population of 95-year-old zombies populating nursing homes, their assets spent, subsisting on state aid.
Now come reports on workplace stress, stating that the new economy, which is utterly unsettled and more and more demanding of workers' time and attention, is creating a raft of health care problems, according to a Sept. 5, 2004 New York Times article, Always on the Job, Employees Pay With Health.
It's a worldwide phenomenon among office workers.
Most workers today will change jobs on average 11 times before they retire, in comparison to 35 years ago, when a man who switched jobs even three times was considered unstable and a risk to hire.
A work place that constantly changes tilts the advantage to younger workers, because they tend to learn more quickly than older workers, whose principal advantage is experience. Experience becomes less advantageous,the more things change. So older workers will be losing the advantage of experience just when the retirement age is increasing. Older workers, no longer able to compete at high-payhing jobs, yet unable to retire, will be forced to take jobs once held by high school kids. Walmart, here we come!
The obvious solution is to get people to go back to dying at a younger age. One solution would be to introduce long-term war, although this tends to kill off people a bit younger than desired, while they are in their prime as workers. Creating an older warforce ameliorates this slightly (many of today's fighting forces are in their 30s, not late teens) but not enough.
So, a more ingenious method might be to introduce stress, which is not easily attributable to any one cause, and which may kill unpredictably (that is to say, without libility on the part of the company onwers) and almost always at an older age than war.
They wouldn't do that deliberately, would they?
Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
Answer to the nursing home problem...?
The nursing home problem: With the population becoming healthier and healthier, not dying from infections and diseases that used to kill us, we risk all reaching the end in which senility takes us slowly down; a burgeoning population of 95-year-old zombies populating nursing homes, their assets spent, subsisting on state aid.
Now come reports on workplace stress, stating that the new economy, which is utterly unsettled and more and more demanding of workers' time and attention, is creating a raft of health care problems, according to a Sept. 5, 2004 New York Times article, Always on the Job, Employees Pay With Health.
Sixty-two percent say their workload has increased over the last six months; 53 percent say work leaves them "overtired and overwhelmed."
Even at home, in the soccer bleachers or at the Labor Day picnic, workers are never really off the clock, bound to BlackBerries, cellphones and laptops. Add iffy job security, rising health care costs, ailing pension plans and the fear that a financial setback could put mortgage payments out of reach, and the office has become, for many, an echo chamber of angst.
It's a worldwide phenomenon among office workers.
American workers are not the only ones grappling with escalating stress and ever greater job demands. European companies are changing once-generous vacation policies, and stress-related illnesses cost England 13 million working days each year, one British health official said.
"It's an issue everywhere you go in the world," said Dr. Guy Standing, the lead author of "Economic Security for a Better World," a new report from the International Labor Office, an agency of the United Nations.
White-collar workers are particularly at risk, Dr. Standing said, because "we tend to take our work home."
Most workers today will change jobs on average 11 times before they retire, in comparison to 35 years ago, when a man who switched jobs even three times was considered unstable and a risk to hire.
A work place that constantly changes tilts the advantage to younger workers, because they tend to learn more quickly than older workers, whose principal advantage is experience. Experience becomes less advantageous,the more things change. So older workers will be losing the advantage of experience just when the retirement age is increasing. Older workers, no longer able to compete at high-payhing jobs, yet unable to retire, will be forced to take jobs once held by high school kids. Walmart, here we come!
The obvious solution is to get people to go back to dying at a younger age. One solution would be to introduce long-term war, although this tends to kill off people a bit younger than desired, while they are in their prime as workers. Creating an older warforce ameliorates this slightly (many of today's fighting forces are in their 30s, not late teens) but not enough.
So, a more ingenious method might be to introduce stress, which is not easily attributable to any one cause, and which may kill unpredictably (that is to say, without libility on the part of the company onwers) and almost always at an older age than war.
They wouldn't do that deliberately, would they?
Palema
6:19 AM
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Copyright © 2001-03 Pam Shorey
(except the specific sources credited in quotes)
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