Grocery jobs not the secure anchors they used to be | Seattler P-I

Grocery jobs not the secure anchors they used to be
A good, middle-class living being eroded by push to reduce costs


Phil H. Webber / P-I Carrie Skinner and her
mother, Paula Lawson, both work for Safeway,
Lawson for 30 years. The two are in front of
the Capitol Hill store.

By PAUL NYHAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Safeway Inc. drew Paula Lawson into the grocery business 30 years ago, luring the single mother of two with the promise of generous benefits, decent pay and a place in the middle class.

Today, as arthritis in Lawson's ankles, knee and hip signals the twilight of her career, she worries the profession she relied on is changing for the daughter who followed her into the grocery business.

The road that Lawson took to the middle class is eroding under her daughter's feet, threatened by shortened work schedules, pressure from lower-cost competitors and rising health care costs.

More at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

why encourage your offspring to foLLow the same dead-end path you did. mine at Least encouraged me go to coLLege.

"paper, pLastic, or fur?"

it was a respectable MIDDLE CLASS job...

And by the way, is college making YOU OR ME MORE SECURE?

The issue is that increasingly jobs that led to the Middle Class are gonig away as the middle class is UNDER ATTACK.

Is this clearer now?

Some stores have self scanner checkouts.

In California, they are going to self scanner carts. Either way, cashiers will disappear.

It is a dead-end job that at the high end can earn $45,000 (according to an article in the Post today) for doing something a 17-year-old checker or a scanner can do.

is 33K by department of Labor statistics, that is Middle Class

Not everybody makes six and seven figure incomes. Most do well on 40K a year.

My point is that the job is dead-end because it has no future.

and can be a huge pain in the ass for consumers.

Product can walk out of the store (shrink!), customers get fed up with machines that must weigh their groceries prefering real live human beings (shrink!), and customers must be stopped and have their bags inspected by a paid emplyee further slowing their trip (shrink!).

Grocery stores (and any store for that matter) will never get rid of real live checkers because they will either go bankrupt 1) by paying for expensive theft prevention systems or 2) product walking out the door.

The self scanners are a gimmick.

Self scanners need merely to be cheaper than employees. So even if theft goes up, there is a lot of range.

And dishonest people will walk out with the entire store if they could get away with it. The self-scanners make it 100x easier for them to do it too.

If a store is losing too much to theft they'll either 1) raise their prices to make up for it and lose customers or 2) get rid of the self scanners and use real live human beings, which granted also does raise prices, but not as much as theft does.

So you have maybe one employee per six checkouts.

And, you left out something, the scanner machines are non-union.

Doing the job better?

One person watches the self scanners to make sure theft is minimized.

Hell, you could do it by camera just like the casinos.

Still misses A LOT of theft, how is increasing that job by 6x more efficient? The store will, in most cases, spend less money paying another checker than they'd lose in theft.

I am not sure where you're coming from, but you seem to be terribly unaware of the huge amount of grocery store shoplifting already occuring under the watchful eye of many employees. If the number of employees is reduced, theft will increase hugely.

And you will need to scan to remove them.

In the meantime, Safeway is paying checkers $35 an hour on Sundays. You have to steal a lot of groceries to equal $175 an hour.

And what is their rate of failure?

And $35/hr? Where are you pulling THAT out of? The article listed the maximum wage as $17/hr and that is after years of service to the company.

You seem to have some silly idea that every employee in a grocery store is making the maximum available wage, which is simply laughable....

Do you really think every checker at Safeway is pulling in $43K/yr? If you do, I've got a bridge for sale...

And well, I could very well see $200+/hr walking out the door anyway...

The tags are happening either way. That is a marketing reality aside from this battle.

They are microchips. Their rate of failure should be small or they won't use them.

The $35 an hour (on Sundays doubletime) comes from today's Washington Post. Sorry if you don't like it.

There are about 3,300 Tier 4 employees at Giant and Safeway. Those are the folks getting max benefits and top pay. Those are the cashiers who expect to earn $35 an hour on Sundays when the stores can pay someone else $10.

3,300 employees is rather minimal compared to the number of people who work at Safeway, don't you think?

Your excercise assumed five top earners at one store at the same time. It's dishonest to assume that, and well, it's simply wrong to assume that without a watchful eye, $175/hr wouldn't be lost to shoplifting.

And, well, if tags can be installed in items, they can be removed from items too.

In any case, by "failure" I meant failure to deactivate upon scanning, which does happen, and pisses people off to no end.

Because I have already given it.

As much as you seem to think the whole store will be stolen without cashiers, clearly professionals in the industry disagree with you. They are going about replacing cashiers with scanners and tags. Ordinary shoppers will not disable such things and stores will be watchful for those who do steal.

It must be in invisible ink....

In any case, as I stated before, self scanners are a gimic, and will in the end, be a huge money loser for grocery stores.

You're right, ordinary shoppers will not disable tags, but ordinary shoppers don't shoplift.....

That was the number I gave.

With tags, stores will only need to police against true thieves and honestly, you can't steal groceries in bulk in a store.

Do you think that Safeway has only 3300 employees? If so, I've still got that bridge for sale....

In any case, I can show you how to steal groceries equalling $200 in just an hour.

Have you ever seen a Starter Jacket? If you haven't, they're big and puffy:



Get a starter jacket.

Then get meat:



Then stuff the packages in the waste band of your pants:



Under the jacket:



Being sure to peal off all the RTF tags:



Then walk out the door:



Since there are almost no employees, no one will see you!

If you think I meant they had 3,300 employees.

So, you think that stuff just magically gets in your jacket or you think somebody will be watching for you with cameras from above?

Honestly, it's like you've never played hide and seek....

And back to the 3300. You implied that every single person working on Sunday would be making $35/hr, which is just not true, unless Safeway only has 3300 employees.

Safeway actually cares about years with the company. Doubletime is a plum and goes to those with seniority.

It's easy to play hid and seek as kids. When adults use cameras and such, it's much harder.

additional point to your argument is the matter of where real shrinkage occurs - most theft is by employees, not shoppers.

I'm up in Alameda, CA buying groceries at Albertson's (after the strike was settled).

They have self-service check-out registers.

A woman and husband (or boyfriend) go to the self-service check-out register. The boyfriend bags the beer and wine WITHOUT running it through the register. The woman runs a few items through the register, pays and they walk out together. All in plain view and without getting stopped.

Sure, I could have said something seeing I witnessed the whole thing.

But my feeling is, you create the system and someone will take advantage of it. I'm as guilty as the next person. And I hate the fact they take jobs away from people who pay taxes and contribute to the community.

I'll never use them.

My local grocery store has been gradually converting to self-scanner checkouts and they are gradually reducing the number of cashiers. Yesterday, there were 5 of 20 checkouts staffed by employees on their busiest day of the week. The lines were 12 people deep at the "manned" checkouts.

I was in a time crunch and used one the self scanners. It is RIDICULOUSLY slow.

It says the price of every item as you scan it and you cannot proceed to the next item until it finishes announcing the prior item.

I had 3 items which would not scan and required a supervisor to use a special card to override the system and enter the price.

It took me considerably longer than a regular cashier to "look up" the code for the various produce items I was purchasing. The system requires you to look through up to 5 screens to look for the item you are buying.

The system is very sensitive to location of items and stops if there are too many items waiting to be bagged. It stopped twice while I was checking out for this reason.

I was NOT impressed. My transaction took about 4 times longer than it would have if there was a cashier.

BTW, I worked my way through school as a cashier in a grocery store so it's likely that other people would be even slower than I was. If this is how big business plans to further increase "worker" productivity by shifting it onto the consumer, I say no thanks, especially considering that the store doesn't give you any discount for doing the work and hasn't lowered its prices.

good work.

Now not all of us are going to grow up to be "all that we can be"...
some people just want a simpler job/existence and they deserve to make at least a decent living.

I have a cousin with a history degree who is the night manager of Sheetz. She could probably do more...perhaps even teach but that isn't her calling in life, her current job allows her to take care of an elderly father which a lot of higher paying jobs wouldn't allow her to do.

So, it's not good long-term work.

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Someone of superior knowledge surely has some ideas.

What fields will be worth training for? Will they be good long-term choices?

One hopes that an advanced degree will not be necessary.

Hell if I know.

But I do know this, a job that requires little know-how and little skill isn't a good way to go.

eom

Some jobs are going away. If you work in a call center or as a cashier, you should be job hunting.

To try and hold onto those jobs in the face of the inevitable is silly.

Is your insistance that cashiering jobs are going away no matter what. Cashiering jobs simply won't go away despite supposed safeguards because dishonest people will rob stores blind.

Period.

Companies want cost control. If they can LIMIT theft and cut down on employees, then they limit their need for unions and benefits. Even if the costs are exactly the same, they will pursue technology because it limits union power.

I have shopped my entire life. I have never once see anyone even try to steal. With the RTF tags, that will be quite difficult.

You should try opening your eyes, it's enlightening.

I'm not trying to slam you, just pointing out the VERY REAL problem of shoplifting. If you reduce employees, you increase theft.

Tags can be destroyed and removed from products, and well, if all else fails, theives can run away.

Employees are intimidating to shoplifters more than you realize, and reduce theft a great deal.

And I even shopped in D.C.

Another poster makes a point about theft and employees. You should check it out.

No matter what, you argue against something that is like a tidal wave. It IS happening and there is nothing you and I can do to stop it.

You've shopped in DC!

I do know, about employee theft, and although it is problematic, stores are able to combat it more than non-employee theft. And again, employee theft would increase if the number of co-workers were decreased....

DC has some of the nation's worst crime and one of the widest disparities between wealth and poverty in the U.S.

How would employee theft increase if there are fewer employees? Care to give a cite?

There are fewer eyes watching, so employees have more chances to shoplift.

For instance, that's why employee theft is highest in grocery stores at night. Don't believe me, ask a grocery employee.

You have conjecture that X number of employees = A amount of theft
And X-Y employees = A amount of theft PLUS B.

go to your local grocery store and ask to talk to the manager and say:

"Hey, this jackass (meaning DinoBoy) from the internet is in an online fight with me, and I want you to settle our disagreement. Do most employee thefts happen at night or during the day? And if most do happen at night, is it because there are less employees working in the store in total, so it's easier to steal?"

You and I already know what the answer to those questions will be, but I think it would be an interesting excercise for you.

In any case, I'm off to school, so we'll have to adjurn this conversation for the time being.

But that's too much to ask and fails to take into account changes in technology that will make theft more difficult.

You may see more people trying to steal, after their jobs are eliminated and they have nowhere else to work.

What should society do with these people? You are Christian, as I've seen from your other posts. What would be a Christian way to respond? Helping people, or throwing them out because they didn't choose the right career?

If they can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps, because all other jobs of a similar level are also eliminated, automated, or offshored, what should they do? Starve?

And what if this happened to you, or someone in your family? I knwo many people who got the advanced degrees, worked their asses off in high-level jobs, but were either outsourced or laid off. These people are in their mid-forties, and many of them now work in retail because of the lovely jobless "recovery." They bought into the system, and it failed them. Now, if their retail jobs are eliminated, what should they do? They don't have the money to retire.

Instead of fighting a last-ditch battle to preserve already lost jobs.

I am not happy about any of this, I just am realistic that it is happening. I am not saying we abandon them, but we and they must recognize that these jobs are going away.

That's the issue that is scary. Nursing may be one, but many nursing schools are not even accepting applicants anymore, because too many people are trying to get in. Also, hospitals are importing cheaper nurses from overseas.

I know you are being realistic, but the problem is, so are many of the people losing their jobs. The only solution they see is to fight the battle.

I understand their fight, but it is a losing one.

No, I am not all-seeing and I don't know what will be the top jobs over the next two decades. I could guess and they could be made wrong tomorrow by technology.

What We Should Do:

1. Eliminate all H1-b L-1 visas.
2. Apply punitive damages to any US corporation that sends jobs overseas.
3. Reinstate a regressive tax that accounts for the marginal propensity to consume and real cost of living in the US.
4. Enact a living wage law that is indexed to inflation.
5. Enact campaign finance reform that outlaws political campaign contributions from corporations and caps spending on campaigns.
6. Eliminate corporate person hood in law.
7. Implement a national health care policy covering a all Americans.
8. Eliminate all trade agreements under NAFTA and the WTO to be replaced with individual bi-lateral agreements with trading partners.

That's a good start!

Perhaps America should just pull the covers over our collective heads and ignore the world entirely.

Your plan would hinder American competitiveness and hamstring businesses.

What sort of "living wage" do you have in mind?

I agree on 7.

Creating a patchwork of binational trade agreements is the kind of silly solution that resulted in NAFTA and WTO.

You've been reading too much Ayn Rand.

America has been protectionist since Colonial times. We managed to become the richest country on earth while we were very protectionist. How did America become the richest country on earth when we had so many of those nasty old bilateral trade agreements?

And protectionism is counterproductive in a global economy. When America was colonial, it took weeks to ship goods to Europe, now it takes hours or seconds (if the goods are electronic).

Protectionism belongs in the colonial era.

Free, and unfair, trade is virtually identical to unlimited open immigration. A scarce commodity (jobs) is being chased by an ever growing resource (labor), depressing labor costs. A new equilibrium will eventually be found at a much lower wage rate. Total GDP is lower, because the overall wage pool has decreased. I fail to see how that benefits anybody, except the very few at the top who own the capital.

If your vision for America is 300,000,000 poverty stricken serfs laboring for 1,000,000 uberlords, then obviously, free trade/unlimited immigration is the way to go.

Then your plan is a good one.

In my world, we are part of everything that goes on. We have markets elsewhere. We have companies that reach across national boundaries.

In short, we are NOT cutting ourselfs off from the world.

It seems to me that your entire argument consists of defending the philosophical purity of laissez faire economics and the invisible hand of Adam Smith's free markets, even if it's at the expense of American society as a whole.

In an ideal world, we would have no borders or immigration laws period. We wouldn't need them, because everyone in the world earned a living wage, everyone lived in a safe, clean environment, and there were no wars.

Unfortunately, we don't live in some fairy-tale Utopia. We live in the real world. And in the real world, Americans cannot compete with third world slave labor and still have a house, a car, and save for retirement. We can either build a wall to protect American workers, or tear down the wall and throw away the American dream.

on edit: forgot 'no' in second paragraph. Kinda important.

America cannot isolate itself while other nations build up trade and relationships. Your plan would do just that. Hell, we are too isolated now.

Yes, we do live in the real world. And if Americans can't compete with the third world to do certain jobs, then we better figure out how to do NEW jobs and how to pursue NEW opportunities pretty damn fast.

And worst of all, it's the theory being preached by the huge multinational corporate monopolies.

Personally, I don't give a damn if China won't let me sell them anything, cause if they won't, I'll slap a 5000% tariff on imports from China and cut off their access to the largest market in the world. Who gets hurt more? The country that has a $100 billion or more trade surplus or the one that has the $100 billion trade deficit?

When China starts paying it's workers semi-reasonable wages, then we can talk. Until then, they can pound sand.

There is NO job, NONE, in which an American worker can compete with a Chinese worker. I challenge you to find ANY job that is safe from foreign labor competition. Engineering, computer programming, manufacturing, nursing, scientific research - you name it, a foreign laborer is cheaper, whether it's an India based computer techie, or an H1B Filipino nurse. If you can't find enough Americans 'new' jobs that are better than the jobs being outsourced, then your entire theory is basically saying 'screw Americans'.

Reality is that America has had tariffs to protect domestic industry since it's inception. That is a proven FACT, not an abstract, unproven theory. Protective tariffs, regulation of monopolies, and labor laws made America into the world's economic miracle. That is a proven FACT, not an abstract, unproven theory.

If you aren't dealing with an abstract theory, perhaps you can point out a country in the world or in world history that has ever practiced total free trade. I'd be especially interested if you can find an example of a country that was the world's richest practicing free trade, so I can see how it affected that country's middle class and lower class. Of course, that's pretty much a rhetorical request, since we both know that no such country has ever existed. And if no country has ever tried free trade, it is by definition an unproven theory.

You want 5,000% tariffs.

Trade wars, world wars, here we come.

While you are out fighting the world, every other civilized nation on earth will be trading with every other nation. And we will be cut off and alone.

We can compete on innovation if we try for it. Where is the space industry? We should have privatized space decades ago. Our failed educational system should be the best in the world. It isn't. We should be teaching our kids year round so they can not just compete, but so they can win.

I don't have to point to a time or nation in world history because world history has never had a time like this of instant communication and worldwide rapid travel.

Times change.

Trade wars, world wars, here we come.


Yes, sure. We've had tariffs for 200 years, and never had a World War over trade. If you are going to make outrageous claims, you might have some facts to back them up. Free trade causes plagues of locusts. There, now we're even.


While you are out fighting the world, every other civilized nation on earth will be trading with every other nation. And we will be cut off and alone.

You know, when my 5 year old says 'Everyone else is doing it', I say 'if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?'. If Germany wants to ruin their economies, go for it. Same to Britain, Japan, and Korea. That doesn't mean we have to shot ourselves in the head too. Fortunately for Germany, Britain, Japan, and Korea, their govts aren't that short-sighted. AFAIK, none of these countries are big on free trade either. Ironically, it's the industrialized 1st world countries we have most of our current trade wars with. The EU is smart enough to slap punitive tariffs on American products when the US govt unfairly subsidizes them.

We can compete on innovation if we try for it.

How? Some American inventor might 'innovate' a new miracle gadget, but why the hell produce it in America when it's cheaper to produce overseas? I don't see that producing many American jobs or helping the middle class. HDTV is an American innovation, but they are all built abroad.


Where is the space industry? We should have privatized space decades ago.

Umm, I'm not sure what point you are making here. #1, the US govt doesn't have a monopoly on space, and #2, private industry IS using space when there are profitable applications like communications and imaging. Besides, the Chinese can do this cheaper, and they are planning a manned moon mission soon.


Our failed educational system should be the best in the world. It isn't. We should be teaching our kids year round so they can not just compete, but so they can win.

America's public education system was another one of the leading causes for America's economic miracle. By last century's standards, we are still pretty good. Unfortunately, other countries have progressed while we stood still. I don't object to a longer school year, although I realize we'll have to pay teachers more, which means higher taxes. But I'm ok with that.

Unfortunately, education alone isn't enough. Even if American kids are as well educated as any kids in the world, why pay an American 6 times what it costs for an Indian to do the same thing?


I don't have to point to a time or nation in world history because world history has never had a time like this of instant communication and worldwide rapid travel.

Times change.

Boy, this reminds me of the late 90's stock market. The economic gurus back then were talking about the end of the business cycle, the new economy, blah blah blah. P/E's didn't matter anymore in the new economy. Profits didn't matter.

I think we know how that ended.

Changes in technology don't change THAT much. 95% of all goods still travel by freighters. Jet travel has been around for 40 years.

The internet is another story. Now, instead having 1,000,000 new immigrants taking American jobs, but at least living in America and paying taxes, we have 1,000,000 Indians taking some of the best jobs in America for 1/6 the price, and paying taxes in India. I don't see how losing $40,000,000,000 in jobs helps America.

That Internet thingie, it's just a fad. And all of those brick and mortar stores are just as essential as ever. And local businesses can compete with international ones.

Sure and I am chatting with the Easter Bunny.

You seem to want to think that financial strategies that worked for George Washington now apply.

They don't. This is an interconnected world, as much as you may want to withdraw from it.

The way to compete on innovation is to continue innovating and to use that market position to maintain it. Though folks hate Microsoft, they have done that so far.

We have done a horrible job promoting HDTV. I don't know a single person who has it. It is not need to have tech.

Space was OUR frontier. It really still is. We should be pushing it, promoting it, advancing it and taking advantage of jobs created as a result.

Yes, changes in technology DO change that much. I can work on a project with a guy in India -- in real time. Heck we can work in the same document. Then we can send it to an editor in Botswana and a marketing guy in Mexico.

Information is king and it moves with the touch of a button.

Losing certain jobs is an inevitable as death and taxes. It's how we react that is important.

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There is simple debate that needs to occur in this country that lies at the heart of the matter.

Do we want a country that focuses on an economy or do we want a country that focuses on society.

Said differently, should our society support an economy or should our economy support our society.

In other words is this country about the citizens or is it about the corporations.

I clearly side with the people.

Regardless, until this debate occurs all other arguments are sophomoric because answering these questions is at the heart of all of these policy issues.

If focusing on citizens and people makes us protectionist in your words, then so be it.

Do we want a country that is part of the global village or hides behind walls?

Do we want businesses that can't export and companies that lose out to lower cost competitors?

I side with reality. The world has changed. Now we need to figure out how to react. Your method would make things even worse.

You challenged so you need to prove that any of my proposals will have the effect you suggest.

the self-scanner checkouts. I'd rather wait in line and be served by a human being with a job.

If fewer people use the self-scanners, grocery cashiering is one job they can't ship offshore.

i knew when i was in high schooL (1990) that working at the grocer was a dead-end job. it's a middLe cLass job as Long as your spouse has a better job.

Why go to college today, so she can join the other hundreds of thousands of college graduates working at Wal-Mart?

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108025917854365904-INjeoNplaV3oJ2pan2IbauIm4,00.html

"But Costco's kind-hearted philosophy toward its 100,000 cashiers, shelf-stockers and other workers is drawing criticism from Wall Street. Some analysts and investors contend that the Issaquah, Wash., warehouse-club operator actually is too good to employees, with Costco shareholders suffering as a result.

"From the perspective of investors, Costco's benefits are overly generous," says Bill Dreher, retailing analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. "Public companies need to care for shareholders first. Costco runs its business like it is a private company."

Costco appears to pay a penalty for its largesse to workers. The company's shares trade at about 20 times projected per-share earnings for 2004, compared with about 24 for Wal-Mart. Mr. Dreher says the unusually high wages and benefits contribute to investor concerns that profit margins at Costco aren't as high as they should be."

too bad they weren't the first to get outsourced.

They are already starting to do just that. Financial analysts will be the first, but more will come.

I don't want anyone's job to be outsourced, but it will be interesting to see how these Wall $treet types will embrace the outsourcing of their own jobs to further the market they worship.

The Only Company Wal-Mart Fears
Nobody runs warehouse clubs better than Costco, where shoppers can't
resist luxury products at bargain prices.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,538834-1,00.html

And exactly right. Come work with me and a few of my coworkers at Quiznos; we've got 4-yr college degrees and we work for $7.50/hr making subs. Same goes for at least 10 other recent college grad friends I have still working at Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Panara Bread, Walmart, etc. It's not a pretty sight.

it's not everyone's path

By replacing the tellers with do it your self checkout stands. There are 2-3 teller checkout stands left. So now I will have to do it my self, and do you think that the cost of my groceries will go down? Do you think that they will pass the savings on to me? Ha!!

Because it's a golden opportunity for dishonest people to walk out the door with merchendise.

Does Diebold sell the grocery scanners too? You can't unionize your scanner.

In NYC, there's a company called Fresh Direct that allows you to shop for groceries online, and then they're delivered right to your home. (Many items are less expensive because the company is saving money by not having to pay for stores and staffing.)

The grocery stores here are taking quite the hit to business, as I understand.

I know this is a business model that probably won't work outside major metropolitan areas, but I think it may cause some grocery chains to rethink the way they operate.

I worked at the A&P here in central Va from 1970 (2.125 /hr) until mid-75 (6.85 /hr). I was making more there part time than I was at my drafting job (525/month). Today my local Kroger has 4 self-scanners and one monitoring clerk. I for one hate them.

In 1999, my current company was purchased by a large French company and we have been actively hiring engineers for the last 4 years. With all the debate over the issue of outsourcing where do we fall? The jobs are here but the profits run across the Atlantic.

I was talking about this today, with my GM, about our business, radio, in which entry level jobs have shrunk to next-to-nothing.

Without low, entry-level jobs, an industry is whitling down its own future talent pool, thus disabling future innovation from those intimately familiar with the inner workings of the business.

Instead, future innovations will come from MBA wunderkids without hands on experience.

Expect to see some colossal boondoggles as the trend continues.

Expect to see prices rise as research for potential innovations comes from million-dollar strategic surveys/feasibility studies, and as their marketing departments are forced to spend more money to convince consumers the innovations are good innovations.

Moronic outsourcing and automated work environments with no protection for those disposed of (oops I mean displaced) from the work force will bring real instability. How does Wall Street like social instability? Thats what happens when people lose the ability to earn a proper living-we forget our country's true motto-one out of many-we are now any man for himself-this social darwinistic crap peddled by the right in bizarre Horatio Alger pipe dreams is a clear and present danger to the republic-God knows how this country could survive a bad economic turn even slightly like the depression. The right dispose of peoples' jobs just like our soldiers lives in pointless wars-the time is growing short for change before world events will move our country into dangerous waters. Kerry or bust in 04!