perfect decline jobs

PERFECT DECLINE JOBS

Okay, another one I wrote last weekend. I’m going to go over to my web site and add a page on the top 20 fiction books. I’ve been meaning to do that for awhile. Tomorrow I’ll be back on schedule. Here’s an extra tidbit for you- Shwan’s, the frozen food dudes that home deliver, is shutting down a bunch of distribution centers across the country. If you want their slop you’ll have to UPS it. My guess is that will be MORE expensive, and the company was never much of a bargain to begin with. To me, proof that the middle class and luxury spending is sharply contracting ( but don’t worry, North Dakota oil will allow green shoots to grow out of our ass any day now ). They said so, so it must be true. On to our regular article.

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Well, okay, no job is perfect. Because a job is work and work is a four letter word. But then again, the only thing worse than a job is no job ( kind of like the only thing worse than being married is being single ). What we will talk about here is jobs that actually have a future in a general decline and that have close to zero start up costs. But of course there is a catch. There is always a catch. Ain’t nothing free in life and what should be as obvious as my need to state the obvious. Entire generations thought they could get a free lunch ( Union wages, forced hiring quotas, Social Security benefits far exceeding what they paid into the system ) and now that the various levels of government are trying to modify the amount of free downwards the hue and cry from the public is deafening. So I guess most folks know there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch for the other idiots out there but they themselves are privileged and special. Anyways, back to the catch for a perfect job. You can’t expect to make too much money. In the past, rarified salaries were the expected norm. People sold their one hundred grand home for half a million, opened a granite top or a bead and trinket shop and expected to pull in big bucks. They were by gum special. Hey, Special Friggin Education. What moron can’t figure out salaries and home prices can’t grow upwards forever? The wave of the future is for wages to fall. They have stagnated for almost forty years. Through increased productivity, employee paid further education and computerization. Now add oil reduction and exponential debt growth to that and you get actual wage decline. For everyone except those that can steal it. If you can live on less, you will be welcomed in the future.

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Living on less is having no debt and little expenses. No mortgage, no rent, no car payments or its running expenses ( if you think auto insurance is high now, wait for consolidation and more government granted monopolies [ such as mandatory health insurance- Romney or Obammy, both whores to the financiers so be sure to vote carefully! ]. Don’t drive and free yourself ). Grow some of your food. Eat bulk for everything else ( that doesn’t mean a five gallon tub of Gummi Bears ). Now you can live on very little salary. If you can, read a copy of both Possum Living and How To Survive Without A Salary. If your needs are low, your salary can be also. And with a need to little salary, you can provide services poor people ( the only growing demographic ) will want to pay. If you need to pay a mortgage, pay off the truck, rent a retail office, etc., you have already priced yourself out of this market. The perfect, grow in contraction, almost no start up cost jobs are Alternate Energy, Bike Repair and Bike Hauling. Alternate energy is going to be such things as insulating and 12 volt power. Also solar cookers and water heaters. All the needed skills can be self taught online and through old issues of Mother Earth News ( you can buy the first ten years on CD for $20. I wouldn’t bother with much past that date as the corporate scumbags took over around then ). Bike repair is as easy as a book or two and practicing on your own bike. If you go to where folks need you, you eliminate most of your costs. Bike hauling fits in with almost zero operating costs and the growing segment of folks being priced out of the car ownership market ( and the growing old and feeble segment ).
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You can’t sell your expertise at a high mark up with any of these jobs. If you do, the customer himself will perform the job. You want to price yourself under the threshold where it is worth the cost savings to do-it-yourself. For instance, if you charged $100 to install solar panels, most people would figure it out themselves ( perhaps buying $20 in beer to have a buddy come over and help ). If you just charged that $20, most people would conclude the cost savings weren’t worth them learning that new skill ( especially if it was a one time needed skill ). Usually, they could afford to insulate once ( say, using a years tax return ). They would gladly pay you $100 to get sweaty and itchy and finish it in one third the time. But they wouldn’t pay you hundreds ( my son works each summer on roofing. Him and a buddy charge double material cost as labor. Apparently that is much cheaper than from anyone else. And, he actually has high school carpentry training so it isn’t just two yahoos climbing around like monkeys. The community knows he is trained and experienced and works cheap ) or thousands like a contractor wants. Of course, there is always the problem of licenses and permits and required training. You are on your own figuring that out. The next, bicycle mechanics, is easy enough if you are klutz, and really simple if you are mechanically inclined. Which makes it easy to lose customers to do-it-yourself. You can’t expect to emulate retail bike shops and expect to be able to make all your money in tire repairs. Expect the crap jobs like bearing replacements. But by providing a come-to-you service ( their bike might be their only transportation at that date in the future ) free, and working cheap, you should always have some business.

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Bike hauling anyone can do. If they are in shape, own a bike and aren’t too old. If you are cheap enough and can undersell the guy who owns a jalopy truck, you will always have a market. Have a quality bike ( most folks will own a crappy Mart bike ) and a specialty trailer for serious weight ( they sell a trailer that can haul an electrical appliance- but it also handles four big 18 gallon totes or a piece of furniture ). As more folks go back to the city ( as they give up cars and commutes ), the easier your client growth gets. It doesn’t have to be a serious oil crunch. Higher inflation, higher unemployment, higher insurance- all point to decreasing car ownership. Most folks have eaten at the GM trough of death and having once valued their time more than their health ( the poor don’t eat the majority of fast food- office workers and the wealthier workers don’t have time to waste and mostly eat out ) they are only alive due to modern pharmaceuticals. By the time the oil crunch gets serious, they are your built in customers as their health reflects their past eating habits. Your ability to actually peddle enough to haul your own weight in freight without having a heart attack is job security. And as your sickly customers die off, the newly car-less take their place. Most probably didn’t even have the foresight to buy a bike at all but instead had two or three cars.

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You can start now, and with very little money. As time goes on you gain reputation and experience. When the serious decline starts, you are in like Flynn. As government teat juice dries up, the difference in earning a few hundred bucks or not a month will make all the difference ( and then, there is always barter for eggs and veggies, etc. Say, you take infirm grandma’s eggs around to her customers and she gives you a cut. Boom. Protein in your diet solved ).

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