Jobs - here today, gone tomorrow

The recent primary in Michigan raised the question of unemployment at home and good jobs that have been lost overseas. Senator McCain said that some jobs would not return. He talked about retraining. Governor Romney claimed that he would encourage business to generate new jobs. I fear that Senator McCain was the more realistic. The United States is loosing more than blue-collar and industrial jobs. Large engineering companies that serve the oil industry have been moving work to other countries for years. They do not call it “outsourcing”. Instead work is assigned to “value engineering centers”. These “value engineering centers” are usually in countries like India, the Philippines, Turkey or the old Eastern Bloc. These countries all have one thing in common – educated workers who are paid less than the same skill earns the United States, Europe or Japan. So, US companies use them. European companies use them. Even Japanese companies use them.

When engineering outsourcing began, companies only exported easy and routine tasks. Later, simpler design and drafting were relocated. Now, those foreign centers have the skills and experience to engineer large parts of any industrial plant. The US, European and Japanese companies are still in control but they need fewer employees with higher skills and experience. Work is migrating to the management parts of their organizations. At the entry-level, US employees compete directly with young people at those “value engineering centers”. It does not need an economics degree to predict who will cost less and where the work will be done.

What about the future? Managers get their jobs because they have experience and ability. But, if all the junior jobs are outsourced, how will young US employees get the experience and skills they need to become managers? They can’t! The people working in the “value engineering centers” are just as well (maybe better?) educated as us. They are now getting the training and experience that was given to juniors in the US before outsourcing. Their kids, not ours will be the people who will build the future.



At one time this welder might have been working in USA. This photograph was taken in Korea. Skilled white-collar jobs are leaving US today just as this blue-collar job left US shipyards years ago.

Senator McCain’s proposal for more retraining may be a band-aid but it is not a cure. We need to change our business model. If we always demand the lowest cost then work will travel to people prepared to accept a smaller paycheck. It applies to the goods we find in Wal-Mart and it applies to design of major industrial projects. The jobs that once made televisions, toys, clothing, shoes, light bulbs or toasters will never return to the US. Only education and a willingness to pay a little more will keep the jobs we still have. Right now, the US is the market to the world. Maybe there is something to be said for import tariffs if they can stop the specter of our children and grandchildren with no livelihood. Certainly free trade has not brought the average worker the rewards that we expected.

Watching politicians at work

I have been watching the progress of the presidential hopefuls as they move from state to state and try to respond to questions without really saying anything. Questions about health care particularly interest me. I do not agree totally with Mayor Giuliani’s recent comment that our system is “the best in the world”. I think he forgot to add, “if you can afford it”. Governor Romney also proposed revisions to the health insurance market. He suggested his government will introduce a form of universal insurance similar to his plan in Massachusetts. I do not know the details of that system but I recognize that competition and market pressure work wonders for efficiency. Even so, I am not sure I really want my illness treated by the lowest bidder.

I am more saddened by the candidates’ answers to questions of pro-choice. Most profess concern for the life of an unborn fetus - and stop there. Their concern seems to end once a child is born. Have candidates ever talked about care for unborn children not in danger of abortion? The Center for Disease Control website states that in 1998 the United States ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality. That’s bad! In 2006, CNN reported that we have the second-worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world. We managed to do better than Latvia to avoid last place. Why don’t candidates comment about these deaths as well as those of the unborn? CNN also notes that we have more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than other developed countries. This fact is in line with Mayor Giuliani’s comment about our great health system. However, it seems this wonderful system is not working for the children who need it.

I have been blessed with a wonderful grandson. That’s us exploring. As I watch him grow from an infant to a toddler and now to a “little boy” I give thanks that he has access to good health care. I also pray for the millions of grandchildren who do not have that "luxury". Health costs are reported to be one of the major reasons for bankruptcy in US. They are also reported to contribute to stress, debt, impoverishment and loss of homes. I am sure those stresses also contribute to the break-up of families. I admit that State health care my not be the “best in the world”. However, when my children were tiny and we lived in Europe we did not worry about the costs of pre-natal examinations, delivery or visits to the doctor when they suffered childhood illness. State health systems can work and access for all children should not be a “luxury”.

I consider myself to be a Christian. I believe that the Bible means what it says. I suppose that also makes me a fundamentalist. In my Bible James, who was a very practical and plain spoken Christian wrote,

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to apply this concept of “put your money where your mouth is” to our health system. What use is any candidate who gives the “correct” answers about the unborn fetus if they have no thought - or plans - for the health care needs of the child and mother once the baby is born?

$100 Oil

January 2008 brought $100 per barrel oil. Local newspapers are full of expert predictions about what this means for the world economy, US drivers and airline tickets. Almost nobody has observed that oil is priced in $US. That means the decline in the value of our dollar has added to this price rise. Look at some comparisons with 9/10/2001 – a date our President said things changed.

On 9/10/2001 the price of oil was $27.63 a barrel. That was equivalent to Euros 30.40 a barrel. On 9/10/2001 one US dollar bought 1.10 Euros. Today, our dollar only buys 0.68 Euros. Today, January 7, 2008, a barrel of oil costs $97.91, equivalent to 66.60 Euros.

Since 9/10/2001, oil prices have increased 219 percent if you are French and are paid in Euros. For an American paying in US dollars the price has increased by 354 percent. But, 135 percent of that dollar increase is simply because our currency is worth less. The blame for that part of the increase does not sit with the oil companies, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. It lies in Washington! (The blame for some other premiums that we all pay might also belong in Washington - but that is a different subject.)

Not everyone here is unhappy with $100 oil. In south Texas it has brought a revival to many old oil fields owned by individuals or small companies. It has also brought new subjects to photograph. I’ve watched the activity in an old field near my home with great interest. Abandoned pump jacks like the one above are being replaced by new machines as high oil prices make this field profitable again. I took the photograph below on an Easter Sunday. That day, the light breaking through the dark clouds and new machines where all was forsaken made me think of re-birth and the Resurrection.

What is the future for this old field? I think that $100 per barrel oil brings with it the seeds of its own destruction. I will not be surprised to see oil prices decline in 2008 as poorer people around the world are forced to cut demand. Maybe December 2008 will see prices closer to $60 per barrel than $100. If that happens then this field will probably decline again; an unlikely victim of our free market economy.

Lightroom - managing photos the easy way

I take a lot of photos of events and programs at my church. Often flash is not appropriate. The low light in church brings problems of wide apertures and narrow depth of focus and slow shutter speeds can lead to blurred subjects. In addition, high ISO settings bring the risk of increased noise. The mixed lighting at church events also causes difficulties with white balance – which has not been helped by the new paint color schemes recently adopted by our decorating committee. My strategy for all these concerns is to shoot RAW and use Adobe Lightroom as my primary post-processing tool.

Lightroom imposes a logical work flow on my post processing. Equally important, modifications to the images are maintained as separate files. This keeps the original files from the camera intact. Lightroom imports my RAW files, quickly allows me to crop and straighten, provides a one-click white balance adjustment and has powerful exposure enhancement tools. It even permits red-eye removal and simple retouching. Even better, it works well with JPG files from Point & Shoot digital cameras and can often bring enhancements when those JPG settings were not the best. Lightroom is not a replacement for Photoshop but I am finding it quickly handles almost all the adjustments I need to make to the many 4 x 6 prints regularly displayed on our church notice board. Lightroom also has a legion of very clever supporters who have produced and distributed

excellent add-ons. Among these are user-friendly interfaces for web–based slide shows. Simpleviewer is one Flash viewer that is very user friendly and I’ve tried on our church web to document recent Christmas events. Others (check here) are HTML based and are equally easy to use. Best of all many of these add-ins are free.

Too Much Information

Setting up this blog started me thinking again about digital cameras and megapixels. My hobby is photography and I switched from film to digital back in 2002. My first digital camera was an Olympus C-2100UZ. It had a 2-megapixel chip but sported a large 10x zoom lens. That lens was stabilized making it easier to take sharp photographs at the longer zoom range. I used that camera for several years both for pleasure and at work. I discovered that 2 megapixel photographs were the ideal size for inclusion in reports. Printed at 300 pixels per inch, two photographs from that camera could fit perfectly onto a standard 8.5 x 11 inch page and still leave room for headings and titles. Equally important, the zoom lens allowed each picture to be properly composed in the viewfinder. None of those precious pixels were wasted.

Time, technology and pixel envy wait for no man and my next camera was another Olympus; the legendary E-10. This was a step-up in quality from the C-2100UZ. It had 4 megapixels and another wonderful lens. However, the zoom was only 4x. Those extra pixels were wonderful and when the image used every one I was able to make large detailed prints. Several 11 x 14 inch prints taken with this camera grace the walls of my office. When the subject was not perfectly framed, those extra pixels gave limited ability to correct the composition. Unwanted portions could be cropped and still leave enough pixels to illustrate an email or print a decent snap-shot.

Today, I use a Pentax K10D digital single lens reflex camera. I bought my first Pentax film camera in 1977 and I have remained a fan of the brand ever since. The K10D is everything I need. It also has backward compatibility to over 24 million past and present Pentax lenses. I know I will never really outgrow that system. The SLR format lets me select (or covet) the best lens for the composition and 10 megapixels give me great latitude if there is a need to crop the image in the “digital darkroom”.

The net result is that today my photographs are usually blessed with too much information. Yes, those extra pixels let me make very large prints; and I have used them all - about three times! Normal 4 x 6 prints don’t need any more pixels in 2008 than they did in 2002 when I had a 2 megapixel camera. Neither do illustrations in reports for work. Many web sites (even the Pentax Gallery or photoSIG) positively prohibit large files and common courtesy requires that the files be made smaller before the photos can be attached to an email. Now, instead of searching for the best software to enlarge my files I find that I am using similar programs to efficiently delete the pixels I have spent so much time and effort trying to faithfully record. Technology advances bring some strange problems - especially as wild horses would not make me give up those extra pixels. I just know they will all come in useful next time I use the camera!