GOOD FOOD - GOOD SHELTER - BAD JOB MARKET
In survival training the first things we were taught involved shelter from the elements, water and food. For many Americans "live in" has changed to "survive in". We may be looking for shelter and we may be closer to food than previously imagined. We might have to grow our own as prices go up. We might even try cave living as these folks have done convereting a cave into a modern 300,000 dollar home.
In a bad job market as we have now, folks might find themselves in another career field. In Florida since so much of the business is tourist driven, fast and faster foods still do business and offer jobs on the lower levels. We call it the hospitality industry.
This is about the food industry and how it relates to the rest of the crisis in this country. Like parts of a great puzzle, the food business is like "bees, an indicator of an environment". Food is very important in my state.
For the 8.2% millions of Americans (low estimate) out of work, this has meaning. It might mean, literally to live, you might be in food services serving.
I'm not belittling the food industry, it got me through school, and it made a fair, challenged, might be a better word, cook out of me. It relaxes me, I love to eat, entertain, I write about it. and I volunteer for charity events and so forth. I am a fan of the food channel, and the epicurean talent these professionals have. Regardless of who you are or where you are from, we have something in common, we all love to eat.
YOU CAN'T REBUILD WHATS NOT THERE
It's very apparent many of the jobs held by high tech folks have vanished. About 35,000 in our two counties, Pinellas and Hillsboro alone. I do not see them returning unless the next governor gets off his posterior and promotes the great workforce in Florida. But the companies that had these high tech jobs are either gone or off shore.
Rick Scott became the next Governor and he is so far a disappointment. We lost jobs, we lost government money for a rail line, we lost teachers and other important positions for the future but the right wing nutcases like him. Thats why he enjoys a 29% favorable rating. He will be a one termer if the state can survive him.
When you live in a state like Florida you realize how important the food industry is. We only have (due to the idiots in both Tallahassee and Washington) two major industries. Tourism, which is all about eating out. And agriculture, which is all about growing the stuff you eat when you eat out if the weather, namely Mother Nature allows us.
Global warming is real and droughts to floods are common now more than ever. George Bush II told us global warming was a farce. The only farce was his Presidency.
So we have people leaving the area for jobs elsewhere. That leaves the service food places even more empty. All the small sandwich shops around Eckerds and Jabil are gone. Fortunately two of the best made it. I know I eat there.
WE HAVE LOST RESTAURANTS
But the skilled workers in the industry in this area are also getting short changed. We lost about 18% of our restaurants in the Tampa area last year. No business. Cold freeze winter, unreal hot spring and summer, and an oil spill slammed the door on quite a few locations. These were family style mom and pop, professional chefs and cooks who knew their trade. They were literally replaced by the giants of fast food, unskilled kids hired, fast training, big turnover and lousy food.
The smaller entrepreneurs couldn't afford to stay open and almost everything in the food chain today is part of a chain. Finding a family owned Mom and Pop eatery is like looking for the Holy Grail. Just like the photo industry becoming overrun by the big box stores, the food stores are mainly chains now. We lost not only the middle class, but everything else it stood for, like good, wholesome, great plebeian food.
FUTURE TIMES
We are facing tough times. The jobs promised from Clinton on, as we embraced the NAFTA treaty, and the sellout of America during Bush I the Savior and Bush II the Conqueror, never materialized.
As we shipped our middle class jobs off shore to China, Korea, and India, they also ramped up the high end jobs we were supposed to inherit in electronics and computers, and they quietly off-loaded those better jobs to their country.
So we got caught with our pants down, basically told to bend over, SHAFTA allowed phony imports, the products get final assembly in Mexico and brought across the border tax free. Result, high end and low end jobs are gone.
Jobs and the future are not as clear as they were. It seems the world we had is gone. The question is, is it lost or did someone steal it? It's both. We lost it due to voter apathy, we lost it due to greed, we lost it to incompetence, we lost it to complacency. The second question is how do we get it back. No one seems to have the answer.
I do. Tell those companies if you like offshore so much, move off shore. Kill their tax advantages, tariff the products. Sooner or later an new emergence will rise in the U.S. for the U.S. and we'll have less problems with contaminants and lead poisons. That will help us. Whether McDonalds can learn to cook chicken, or just serve it raw, the jury is still out.