Thoughts about retirement...

[dirkwright]

Originally Posted by M Gregg

Thats a very interesting comment..

Are we free people? Its the needs of the person and the wants of the people that keep us tied to a working environment..However without that need there would be no industry, no jobs and no retirement..



Regards
M. Greggch

Here in America, the school system has been for training good factory workers since about the year 1900. The schools are set up the same way as a factory, with start and stop bells, being forced to sit and obey, etc. Likewise, college has become just another career training ground instead of actually educating people in being human.

[mr_push_pull]

Originally Posted by dirkwright

Here in America, the school system has been for training good factory workers since about the year 1900. The schools are set up the same way as a factory, with start and stop bells, being forced to sit and obey, etc. Likewise, college has become just another career training ground instead of actually educating people in being human.

and this reminds me of one thing a teacher told us. went along the lines of
"the purpose of the school is not to teach, it's to prepare and train you for what comes next".

[jacco vermeulen]

Originally Posted by mr_push_pull

I have no idea. don't have the answers, maybe I never will.

You think that's a smart choice ?

Seems to me that the general message across this thread is that planning ahead wisely, and not taking anything for granted any longer, is increasingly important all over the globe.

Back when I started university for an MSc degree, I was 26, figured I had to keep going till age 70.
Reality makes it a decade and a half earlier, at some point, the issue is no longer where to get it, but where to put it.
Seems easier than the other way round.

[BudP]

In the 1950s, the USA was the leading manufacturer in the world. That continued through the 60s, but started to turn in the 70s with the advent of high quality Japanese electronics, and later automobiles. (Japanese automobiles in the 60s were of very poor quality.)

Anyone here heard of Edward Demming? He is the sole reason that manufacturing was able to move offshore. His QC and manufacturing process teachings were utterly ignored by the US manufacturers, until the Japanese declared him a national treasure and subscribed to his mandates.

The US response was to move mfg rather than learn something new. The first to move are the most successful today. Without Demming, Singers flounder in Mexico would have been true of all other attempts at off shore manufacture, in places where there were no middle class bred managers of manufacturing.

Until we actually implement Demming's proposals in the US we will not be able to compete for manufacturing in the world economy.

Bud

[TheGimp]

We studied Demming, Juran, Ishikawa, etc at TI in the early 1980s.

[BudP]

Did TI implement his teachings? Is that why they still exist?

Bud

[TheGimp]

They sold the division I was in. I'm not sure how widespread the teachings were in other divisions.

The Custom Manufacturing group was able to compete with Chinese manufacturing in the late 1980s. TI kept that group when they sold the Industrial Controls Group and moved custom manufacturing to Texas. Unfortunately, the people who moved got spread between two or three locations which TI attempted to buildup for custom manufacturing, but failed.

The Industrial controls Group that was sold is still in operation today.

[AuroraB]

Bud --I don't think that will solve the problem of production export....that's all in the spirit of Milton Friedman and Gordon Gekko.
Not that the ideas of Karl Marx was any better, but I seriously do think that the future truth must be somewhere halfway between both extremes.
Wew all know that any firm or company must make a profit to survive, but in general terms, total lack of greed control mostly brought us 2008, and the world is still lickin' its wounds.

[BudP]

Competent manufacturing owners and managers will go where they can make the most profit . Cutting returns and rejects turns out to be a key component to profitability. Placing your manufacturing concern in a location where others in the chain are also at zero defects just multiplies your profitability.

The single threat to this scheme of moving where you can manufacture most profitably is the cost of transportation. Just three years ago the world was looking at a hydrocarbon ceiling. Today that ceiling has essentially disappeared. So, those locations willing to implement Demming's procedures will continue to manufacture in the most profitable locations.

The 2008 kleptocracy might, in a few tens of years, prove to have been beneficial. The effect has been to inflate the money supply by huge amounts, just to ensure that we all continue to agree that pieces of paper equal chickens. Were we unable to also provide goods for those new bank notes to purchase, run away inflation would be an absolute. The commodities that make up into goods are beginning to see a ceiling, which will be evaporated by new and more difficult mining procedures, deeper dirt digging and sea floor scooping. To get to a stable supply of commodities we must get off planet. We must do so commercially. Elon Musk and his competitors are in the right place doing the right thing. hopefully their efforts will be built by companies that subscribe to Demming. The money supply inflation would have had to happen to allow enough liquidity to support this off planet excursion. Interesting how we monkey's went about it, without noticing this crucial outcome.

Bud

[jacco vermeulen]

Deming