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To: Rande Is who wrote (906)	9/23/2005 3:10:41 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1118

One of my brother in laws is a COBOL computer. He hates computers, doesn't have a PC, and refused to learn any other language unless his employer paid for it. He's now unemployed. Has been for a couple of years. I think he's just being stubborn. His IQ is quite high. There's no reason for him not to try something else. But he says nobody wants to hire him because he's too old. That might be true. Or it might be that he has given up. Because the economy is booming, and unemployment remains low. Or maybe he's just too proud to start over? I don't discuss it with him. But I did see it coming a long, long time ago, when he started complaining that he wasn't being sent to training for new languages, yet refused to pay for his own re-training. I told him to do something about it then. He just would not listen to me.

To: Rande Is who wrote (906)	9/26/2005 10:23:42 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1118

I have yet to hear anyone . . . politician or otherwise . . . offer up a feasible solution. Washington refuses to even recognize there is a wage / buying power problem. . . for fear of being asked to offer up a solution. I see myself as a liberal Liberal. I do not see any contradiction between economic liberalism and financial discipline on the one hand, and fairness and social justice on the other. I don't see WalMart as evil. They do a terrific job of giving their customers what they want - better quality goods at better prices - giving their customers a higher standard of living. They treat their employees fairly. I don't think that if you are evil, you can succeed. Evil destroys itself. If WalMart were evil they would fall apart Their employees would lose their enthusiasm. You can't be evil and succeed in the manner they have for so long. In contrast, I can't see a Bush (43) type government lasting very long. I think they are falling apart. Having said all that, I agree with those on the right (I don't enjoying doing that), but you can't expect government to do that much. They can't grow the economy. You can't just focus on blaming the government for not having a job. About the only thing that we can really expect government to do is to provide a safety net against the most unfortunate circumstances. The rest, you have to do on your own. Unfortunately, whenever there is major change in the economy, as we are undergoing, there is tremendous dislocation. Cobol programming and a lot of other technical jobs are not that much more than manufacturing jobs. That is not where you want to go and if you are there, you have to let go and move on to something else. Most people will make that transition. Just look at the Japanese and Germans right after World War II. they couldn't go back to the old ways. They couldn't just hang on. They had to move on. What did they have that they could move on. They had education. What an education should do for you, instead of just teaching some trade, but gives you the ability to learn. So all those Cobol programmers, once they stop feeling sorry for themselves, they will find that they have skills that are transferable and they are not starting from scratch. The point is don't look to government to fix things for you on a personal level. It is a waste of time.