The next step

We have to leave.  We have to evolve a might bit more than we have so far, and we have to get up and go.  In about two billion years, the milky way will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.  Things might just get really hectic about that time, and we need to be ready.  This means we need to start as soon as possible.
    At the very least, we need to be capable of interplanetary travel, and not the kind that makes space operas possible.  Can't count on warp or folding or even "irrelevant" space to get us from star to star with in as much time as it takes to get from New York to L.A.; such things might come around, but its best we don't count on them.  Its a long game, involving great distance, and nearly infinite obstacles of various kinds.  We need practice, results, and at the very least the willingness to make the attempts.
My suggestions?  Lets start with getting something moving fast enough to make it out of the solar system in a reasonable amount of time.  The Voyager spacecraft have been in flight since 1977, and are just now at the point where they can be said to have cracked the shell of our solar system.  Impressive as they are, those two little robots took a generation just to get to what might be called 'interstellar space'.
  So faster; thats stage one.  we have nice ion engines now with impressive hypothetical top speeds, and have come a long way in rocketry and gravity 'slingshot' methods, so lets make believe for a moment we can come within a decimal point of the hypothetical .3C an ion engine is capable of.  Lets pretend we can get a Volkwagen sized robot up to .03C, or roughly 3% of the speed of light. That would put travel time to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, at roughly 200 years. 
  This is the first point at which most people just give up.  Nobody can live long enough to see it get there.  Steps taken to prolong human lifespan might be needed just to get people even willing to try.  The bad news here is that .03C is actually an incredibly optimistic average speed.  It may be more realistic to say that it is the peak speed; this is an important distinction, in that depending on the thrust provided by the ion (or whatever) engine, our probe might just barely achieve that speed, and then have to turn around and start braking, lest it overshoot or pass through the Proxima system without having much time to do anything.  Imagining that this is the case, it might be better if we just imagine that the journey will take a thousand years.
   Adjustments to human lifespan most likely won't cover that.  There has to be a change in thinking, a remap of priority; a willingness to invest time and resources into a project with a relatively low payoff, which in any case would not bear fruit for centuries, even if we cheat a little and leave the thing on to explore every inch of space between, say, the Pluto/Charon orbit and the heliopause of Proxima Centauri.
  The question is: what sort of timespan does it take to capture and retain human interest?  At what point do the spans in time in space become too much for the human mind to bear, and render a verdict in the common mind: "Can't Be Done"
  I mean, the first journey we make to another star may very well take as long as the whole development of civilization from the first bronze tool to launch date.  Maybe longer.
  I mean, to be fair, we just got here.  Let's be conservative and say we've only really been civilized for two thousand, maybe three thousand years or so.  That's probably a more realistic idea of what our maximum effort can accomplish concerning the exploration of Proxima Centauri, though we might get lucky and be able to visit Alpha Centauri in the same shot; once thought to be the closest, and still considered to be as near as makes no difference, a twin of our own star.
  Now, lets be a little less conservative, and imagine that the roots of modern human civilization goes back to just before the last ice age, say, 15-30 thousand years.  Thats more perspective, but as little archeology and absolutely no written material from such antiquity exists, we can only really speculate.  Even so, we have to look at spending as much time or more making it to the next use-able, life sustaining system.
  Whats next after the Centauri Stars?  My money is on Epsilon Eridani.  Its younger than our star, and is believed to still be in accretion as a system, though two or maybe three gas giants have already formed.  It's a paltry 10-11 light years away, and gaining distance.
  Epsilon Eridani is the right kind of star; similar to Sol, though supposed to be somewhat less massive -a condition which may change as the system becomes stable over the next few million up to a billion years or so.   Plenty of time for us to get there, somehow or another, and cultivate living space for ourselves and at least a representation of our ecosystem.  It may take a million years for us to even begin establishing a colony there, but its worth it.  We need the practice.
  One hopes that in time and by making the attempt, advances in technology will let us go farther and faster, and we will be able, in a million years' time to launch even more ambitious missions, and make dramatic changes to ourselves in the process to make survival easier in a variety of environments.
  Can't count on it, though.  More likely, in the time it takes for a single probe to visit and explore Epsilon Eridani, Civilization on Earth will vanish, and perhaps return, perhaps more than once.  We have more imminent problems than the Andromeda Incursion; more immediate problems even than the handful of unstable stars in our vicinity, capable of changing the face of our solar system even from light years away, just by dying violent deaths.
  We have, for example, Yellowstone, and a few other critters like it, capable of essentially destroying significant parts of a continent, and instigating global extinction events -a potential increased by the existence of nuclear facilities and materials, which will certainly contribute to problems of ecological sustainability, even if a global winter and subsequent ice age aren't enough; even if a super-volcano eruption doesn't touch off a period of tectonic instability leading to volcanic chain-reaction.
    Even before that, we might have to really worry about the bees.
    Or maybe, even, airborne Ebola.
   So yeah.  Lets start packing.  It might be safer for us elsewhere.  We could start, maybe, with another trip to the moon?

The Current Situation

Cut off from the world;

Not entirely, perhaps. I have a phone, which is working for the moment. My TV has been shut off for a while, but we still have Internet, so we can still watch a few things. I can certainly hop in my car and go visit people, but this is expensive and often awkward, because even when they are expecting you, people often don't really want to talk. Obviously, I can write; which helps a little, but its not quite a connection; its a message that goes into a bottle, which is something only needed when you are marooned.

Its normally not much of a problem, really. I like solitude, and my wife does too, and for the most part, we are each all the people the other needs; a pair of semi-monastic semi-misanthropic demi-hermits content to observe in a passive way, contributing minimalistic-ally to the workings of the world.

Then it came about that I needed a lawyer. I'm still looking. Yeah, in my minimalist contributions, by which I mean at one point I had a 'real job', I ended up robbed, by one of those big corporations you hear about. Okay not one, but a few, at different points, in different ways; remember when the banks all freaked out right before the real estate collapse, and hiked all their interest rates up to around thirty percent? I got hit by that, and at about the same time lost my job, which is its own story. Just around seven thousand dollars in debt due to optimistic spending and an illusory bright future, there came the day I missed a payment, and suddenly the figure jumped to around ten thousand, and my income shifted from full time work at a reasonable wage to unemployment income, equivalent to part-time work at minimum wage. I wasted no time signing up for credit rehab, and looking for work again.

Time passed; over the course of a year, and with a couple of small jobs that didn't work out or didn't pay very well, I managed to get the debt back to its original amount. Then along came a great opportunity. I would be earning, according to the craigslist ad, between eight hundred to a thousand dollars a week. At that rate, I could be out of debt in mere months, and have a secure middle-class status in a year's time.

It was, however, one of those opportunities that required investment. All my unemployment money went to purchases for tools and equipment, and my credit rehab went on hold while I spent money on fuel and such, gearing up and training for the gig. All the while racking up overdrafts and surcharges with a credit union which was entirely unsympathetic and unresponsive to my needs.

I changed to a better bank, just in time to finish training and certification. The cost of certification, paid for out-of-pocket, put me in the red with my new account. No problem; it was a good bank that didn't mind if you went over once in a while, and I should be able to pay it back soon enough.

Weeks went by, and I was working. An independent contractor working for a subcontractor working for a subcontractor working for a major telecommunications company. The lead time to get paid was two weeks, but two weeks in it turned out to be a month of lead time. So my job is costing me money; mainly fuel.

So a month in we get the word: We can't pay you, because we haven't been paid in full. My boss hadn't read his contract, and was being charged for materials. He'd had nothing reserved for payroll, and for the first two weeks of work, I got a three hundred dollar check. Roughly seven hundred short of what he owed.

My bills and expenses, however, are regular as the tides. I carry on working.

The next check is a little better, but it bounces. A week or so later, I get paid one thousand cash, for the second two weeks of work. Still not what I'm owed, but the situation seems to be improving.

So I carry on. I miss the better part of a week of work, from being just flat out of gas and no way to do the job. Two weeks down the road, a seven hundred dollar check, which was, sadly, the first one to be for the correct amount.

Three weeks later, my boss's contract is dissolved, and he is told that it will be ninety days before payment for services so far rendered.

That was six months ago. Days after the bad news, my boss vanishes. The last thing I heard from him was that his cell phone was having battery problems, and a couple of emails telling me I should try to deal directly with the subcontractor that severed his contract.

Now, I can't say I wasn't given warning. At one point, someone at the company that severed the contract told me that my boss was losing his contract, and offered to let me come to work directly for them. I applied, but was rejected. In conversations he said outright that he would deny we ever had, he explained that things were “happening at higher levels”. He pointed out that my work was satisfactory, and that there should be no problem getting me on with another company or hiring me directly. Others who worked through the same subcontractor as myself took him up on the offer. No idea what became of most of them.

My boss was having trouble paying me, and was losing his contract, but there was a demand for quality work and so I should be able to carry on, besides which I was heavily invested, so it seemed foolish to pack it in and call it a loss.

Indeed, this same fellow with whom I had the conversations-that-never-happened gave me references. On the last day I saw him, as he was collecting equipment which I had in inventory but would not be able to use, he directed me to another subcontractor who was more successful, and might have a use for me. He also suggested investing in a sole proprietorship, as a retailer for the product, able to work independently of the main subcontractor in the state.

Sure enough, the lead panned out. There was a guy hiring. He looked at my record, and the 'metrics' generated, and was ready to bring me aboard.

Then he called back. Someone at the major subcontractor said no, they would not allow the smaller subcontractor to hire me. No reason was given.

I spent the better part of a month trying to contact the man in question. When I finally did, what he told me was that there wasn't enough work to go around. Hiring in general was suspended.

Yet here I was being offered a job? The guy told me that the matter would be reviewed at a later date.

A later date came and went, and another subcontractor is advertising in the classifieds. He looks at my metrics, agrees to hire me on, and then is told he can't, by that same guy at the major subcontractor. This time, my potential employer is told that I have been classified as “un-hire-able”.

Meanwhile this major subcontractor has not paid a dime for three weeks of work done by several workers.

So yeah. I need a lawyer. My former employer needs a lawyer too, and in fact I probably need a lawyer to get him to get a lawyer, so we can all be paid. My former employer found other work, and is back in the business of keeping his bills paid any way he can, so his incentive to “lawyer up” is mitigated by the conjoining facts that he has no immediate need and very little time.

Plus, and this goes for both of us: Can't Afford A Lawyer.

Seriously. Can't afford to so much as darken the door of certified law practitioners. Went to the state and filed for “lost wages” and in fact I have a hearing coming up soon, in which it will be discovered that yes, my employer owes me money, but no, they aren't from wages earned but for contracted work completed, and so even if he had the money, lost wages probably don't apply anyway, and in any case he won't be compelled to pay; it will be acknowledged for tax purposes that I lost the money, and thats about all.

Could a lawyer even help?

Well, yes. I did work for money and didn't get the money. That much is easy and obvious.

What's more complicated is the assertion that I was not only deprived of money earned, but also deprived of the opportunity to continue working. That's where it becomes a need for a lawyer, rather than just a need to initiate some legal action, such as a small claim.

Well, here is where the problem becomes one of isolation. I could (and have), certainly try to find a lawyer the old fashioned way, which is to make phone calls and knock doors until I find one to take the case. The amount I'm owed, though, is about what it costs to hire a lawyer for just a few hours.

In the bigger more complex problem of the money deprived me by actively preventing me from working (tort interference), the issue inflates. The lawyer would have to work to score a win, and take payment from the settlement or any awarded amount, so he'd have to gamble.

Some places, so I'm told, lawyers are required to do some unpaid (pro-bono) work, as part of their licensing. In this state, however, the pro-bono quota is more of a suggestion. Extensive research on my part has revealed that there is a 'pro-bono' pool somewhere, but there is pretty much no way for regular folks to access it. There was, at one point, an email address, but the link is no longer valid, and a little further research uncovers a ban against it issued by the state supreme court, on the basis that the organization that generated it was not approved by the state bar.

So if there are lawyers or firms that will take my case pro-bono, I have to find them by talking to each one, one at a time, going through the phone book. (I'm still doing this, and will continue to do so until my phone gets shut off.)

There is one state service, which charges thirty dollars to post your case on a bulletin board, from which a lawyer might offer a thirty minute consultation. If I come out thirty dollars ahead at any point, I intend to try this. Where I'm at now, though, thirty is a lot of money.

The other option is contingency-based representation, such as is offered for lawsuits based on accident and injury. Generally, this pay-when-you-win option is reserved for cases against insurance companies and such, where the objective is deep pockets and the leverage comes from some direct bodily harm. The stereotypical “ambulance chaser” will take a case with a high payout potential without any up-front charges. Its a safe bet that these cases are carefully screened for a shoo-in situation.

Mine isn't. Again, that I'm owed is certain, but the amount is negligible for anyone not living in poverty, so there is no payoff for any legal professional willing to take up the fight. My assertion that without being directly interfered I should be financially stable, and even prosperous is a good one, and solid enough, but there is a real battle there, as a big company with a staff of lawyers is likely standing by with loopholes and clauses and precedent and an extant lobby which has already influenced a great deal of legislation. The payoff, still, would not be much by a lawyer's standards, though it would be substantial enough for me to get out of debt, at least enough to put me back where I was when I started work.

So, like, basically, no love from the legal profession. Maybe this will change; I might stumble upon some lawyer of firm with philanthropic inclinations, or at least a willingness to gamble. It won't happen in time to keep me from being evicted.

Where do you go next? Well, my former employer spoke about going to the press. Good idea, right? Big company does wrong and is stomping on the little guy, ruining lives and small businesses, and getting away with it just because the victims of their wrongdoing are too broke to sue -you'd think this would be newsworthy.

Well, either it happens often enough that it just isn't news, but just an acceptable status quo, or it just doesn't affect enough people to make it interesting, or maybe there just isn't enough drama until someone like myself goes postal or at the very least commits suicide.

Even in these cases, what, maybe an article on page six? Forgotten in days, and unresolved.

So far, neither articles written nor attempts at bending the ear of some noble minded journalist have born fruit.

Introduction

So let's start with the why:
There are what, hundreds of millions of blogs at this point?  Every monkey with a laptop is currently putting down their point of view, telling their story, making their complaint, keeping a diary or trying to get noticed; a daunting task is being created for future historians who will have to filter through the abundance of questionable, often unverifiable information, with the upside that they have more raw data to draw upon than was ever available before the digital age began.
    And so why put in my two cents?  Why add to the pool with my loose grammatical rules and liberal syntax?
    Same reasons.  I have gripes, have a story, a point of view, want to draw attention.  Certainly I feel I have ideas which merit expression, and which may or may not be represented elsewhere.  
   At the very least, I have a place to vent.  Can't afford a therapist, but I have the next best thing; a mass of impartial, uninvolved ambivalent readers (and non-readers) who may or may not listen, and may or may not provide feedback, upon which I can lay out whatever thoughts come to mind.  Same thing, really.
    At best, perhaps, I can garner attention, of positive or negative nature, and engage in discussion, debate, and discourse, increasing knowledge and understanding in myself or others.
    Perhaps even better, the slim chance that I might contribute something new, a point of view left unrepresented, a bit of information which is not a regurgitation of rhetoric or fact, but is capable of infusing the digital conversation with Gordian solution or innovative interpretation of one problem or another.
    It will certainly be problems I deal with.  Though I'm not immune to the effects of generating poetry, or the sensation of creating something for the sake of creativity, where there is no dilemma, there is, in my mind, no real reason to apply force of reason.  No sense wasting time thinking about things that require none.  Without conflict of some kind, without objectives or obstacles, I'm happy to keep quiet and go about my business - In bliss is peace, and in peace, silence.
    We should all be so fortunate as to have no reason to speak.
    Not that it would stop us.

For Employers

For Employers:

Congratulations on being in a position to hire people, to contribute to the economy, and providing goods or services which are beneficial to the community.

That being said, it falls to you to make the changes necessary to help our nation recover from the recession, to help heal the wounds which many Americans have sustained over the last few years.

Its really all very easy. You just have to do what you probably (hopefully) already know is right.

Now, whether you are a manager or executive at a big corporation, an individual owner/operator, or somewhere in between, the right action for you to take is the same: Hire people, pay them well, and treat them with respect.

Believe it or not, that is the key to not only improving conditions in your community, but to success in business, no matter what that business is.

You make a product or provide a service. Most likely you don't do it yourself. You have people who work for you, and that's where the rubber meets the road. That is, despite what marketers and accountants or that slob with the MBA you hired to run things for you want you to believe, where your real fortune lay: The people who work for you.

Yes, the primary duty of any corporation is to stockholders, and the primary purpose for starting a business in the first place, unless you are a true artisan, is to generate income for yourself. What gets forgotten is that it is the people who work for you who ultimately end up customers; maybe not your own customers, but someone's, as someone else's employees are yours. It's convoluted, but the bottom line is that if the people who work for you are stuck broke, and the money you pay them goes straight to landlords and utility bills, the economy as a whole takes the hit, in the form of an ever-growing number of working poor.

Now, you've probably heard the adage that the easiest place to control costs is in payroll, meaning that if your margins aren't what you'd like, you can boost them a little by cutting hours, eliminating high paying positions, and reducing your overall workforce with fewer, lower paying positions (Looking at you, EMS).

It's true, this is easy and somewhat fast, though depending where you are you may have to resort to some unscrupulous behavior to get around paying out unemployment penalties, and the cost of hiring new people. Favorite tricks like eliminating a managerial position, and having subordinate employees take over the duties while that position remains open indefinitely, or simply putting a microscope on a targeted employee until grounds for termination can be established might seem like the best solution, to trim down your payroll for a short term boost in your P&L reports.

You've likely done this already if you're in business. The economy is a tough one, these days . Likely, you've encountered side effects. Your four star rating is now a three. You have a little more trouble keeping order in the workplace. People are taking their business elsewhere.

What happened was that you devalued your workers, which devalues you. The people who work for you care less about you, having less to gain by your success, and less to lose by your failure. Your reputation in the community has suffered. Well, you had it coming.

Its entirely true that the easiest place to cut costs is in payroll. Its equally true that the easiest thing to shoot off is your own foot.

You may not notice the damage right away. Your margins are holding steady, your percentages are up compared to last year (assuming that you still rely on astrology to determine your company's well being).

Your gross income might not be what you'd like, but its a tough economy, and people aren't spending like they should. It'll bounce back eventually, right? No, and not because of the government or terrorists or even the chicanery of Wall Street and the banks (though they get their share of blame). It's because all across the country, corporations and small businesses are feeling the pinch, and passing it on to the people who show up every day to keep them in business, rather than take it in the margins. Employees in turn can't get their bills paid on time. Their credit goes bad, they default on loans, they can't spend as much on your product or anyone else's. Other businesses then also feel the crunch, and tighten the thumbscrews on their own people. Those people were the ones paying for your products or services.

Lives are trampled, mortgages foreclosed; cancel Christmas.

So when you feel the pinch, and if you haven't you will soon, don't take the easy reactionary approach. Keep your people paid and happy and you will be rewarded. When your shareholders or lenders come to put the squeeze on, find a better way. Tell them what so many employers have been telling the people they lay off: Its the economy. Only don't buy into the lie that it will turn around on its own. Until people can put our finances in order, as individuals and families who really do have to work for our living, there really won't be much good news for those dependent a consumer based economy.