The Story Of Our Lives

" I went down to look for a job, I had no training, no experience to speak of.  I looked down at the holes in my jeans... and I turned and headed back."
-Mike Ness/Social Distortion, "Story of My Life"

To give you an idea of what the job market is like where I currently live, here's a WFMY News 2 story about the new Cheesecake Factory that opened 8 days ago in Greensboro, North Carolina, about ten miles from me.  7500 people applied for the 255 jobs the restaurant brought.  Any time you have enough people to fill a small city applying for a restaurant job, you know there's a serious jobs issue in the region.  This is right now, October 2016, in the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina, eight years after the start of The Great Recession.

A couple nights ago, I saw a national TV news story where a woman interviewed five former steel workers in Ohio.  The steel plant that once employed much of their town, was closed, shuttered, rusting, and decaying.  The once devout Democrats were either voting for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, hoping he would somehow bring their jobs back, or still undecided.  They weren't worried about ISIS, Iraq, or the environment.  They just wanted good jobs, like the ones they held in the steel factory years before.  Near the end of the segment, they showed one of the men at a job retraining class, with rows of computer monitors.  The man was confused by the lessons being taught.

There are a lot of serious issues in the United States right now.  But good jobs are an issue that tens of millions of people have right now.  I'm one of those people.  In my particular situation, it's become apparent that I need to create my own job.  With my age, weight, health issues, work history, and overall situation, there's almost no chance of me finding a good paying job in this area, of Central North Carolina. As I've read about, studied, and looked into the U.S. job market and, I've come to the conclusion that millions of Americans are going to have to create their own jobs to get this country going again.

That's what this blog is about.  What's happening now?  Where did the jobs go?  Why aren't they coming back? And who could possibly create enough jobs to rebuild the American middle class?  I'm going to look into the background of this whole issue.  But more than that, I'm going to look for viable alternatives for YOU and ME to start making a decent living again.  Buckle up, I'm pretty sure it'll be a bumpy ride.