Good news on the labor front this week . Not only are we in the midst of a record 77 consecutive months of job growth, but real wages are also going up. That's excellent and overdue. While conservatives complain about low labor force participation like baby boomers should even be allowed to retire, the labor market's run under the Obama administration is pretty solid, all things considered. 4.9% unemployment and 255,000 payroll jobs added in July. Good work, Corporate People. We didn't forget about you.
But in typical Obama fashion, he will exploit the situation and, in his usual dastardly manner, push the envelope to pluck a cushy summer gig for daughter Sasha. Goldman Sachs? DreamWorks? NBC News?
Nope. Instead, the President's 15-year-old daughter is stuck deciphering terrible accents at the takeout window of Nancy's seafood restaurant in Martha's Vineyard. This is so unbecoming of a first family to even allow her hands to be dirtied by actual monies.
That being said, learning the toils of the service industry deserves some respect. It's a solid example and maybe we should let a kid who lived the majority of her life in the White House try to be kind of normal. A lot of us worked in restaurants. Maybe we will be the daughters of a president one day!
However, in the bowels of comment sections everywhere, you will find that not everyone thinks Sasha's summer job is a good idea.
Someone who really needs job could get it instead of Sasha Obama
The only thing she needs is PR pic.twitter.com/6Kx6Db2aH1— John Davis (@TheFoundingSon) August 4, 2016
All of the palms to all of the faces.
But maybe Sasha Obama taking your hard-working American job in a no-reason PR move is evidence that the Obamas are illegal immigrants from Chicago and, quite frankly, there has to be something impeachable going on here. Does she not even care about Atlantic cod populations? (That one is on the house, conservatives.)
Company testing self-driving semis in totally not terrifying development
Otto, a startup founded by two Google alums, will see your self-driving car project and raise you 50,000 pounds. The spunky corporate person is developing software that would enable long-haul trucks to drive "autonomously" on U.S. highways . Otto believes that trucking is the perfect market for self-driving technology in that most of the time spent is on continuous stretches of highway and the software doesn't need a handful of ephedrine to pick up that 36-hour turnaround from Eau Claire.
The average truck driver makes around $50,000 a year. It's a steady, decent job for the right person who's not suffering from sciatica. But again, maybe these drivers should create their own apps or revolutionary software if they want job security. Beyond labor costs, these trucks would hypothetically increase efficiency since they're not subject to the Department of Transportation's regulation capping long-haul drivers at 11 hours behind the wheel in a 14 hour period. Great profit potential! I can't wait to see these driverless trucks careening down the expressway once the software is perfected! Or getting perfected.
As of this month, Otto’s 90-member team has outfitted five Volvo 780 semis with its autonomous drive system and is operating the trucks with three shifts a day, seven days a week in road tests in states including California, Arizona and Nevada.
Yes, if you live in the desert, they're testing real trucks on real roads right along side your minivan. And since only nine states have laws preventing or limiting the testing of driverless technology, these ghost-steered behemoths could be coming to your highway. Buckle up.
Yes, a lot of people see things that take away jobs today as a zero sum game and not a shift in paradigm. I get the concern over self driving vehicles, because it IS giving up control over something that can cost lives (the incident with Tesla's autopilot is a reminder that things can sometimes go wrong), but the other side of that argument-- and Google can attest to this-- is that human error is ... huge. I for one would prefer to have something between me and the guy texting/ woman applying her mascara/ parent turned around to yell at their kid, beyond the safety my vehicle affords and my ability to get the hell out of their way. (I hope that makes sense!)
Anyway, I agree that it frees people up to do better things, and that includes having better, more fulfilling work experiences. :)
"And what about you?"
--Said by Eastern European worker at Dunkin Donuts, Long Island
I don't know. What about an iced coffee...https://media0.giphy.com/me...