Forum Post: Do college educated people DESERVE a high paying white collar job?
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 13, 2011, 1:41 p.m. EST by armchairecon
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If they cannot find one, is it right for them to decline menial labor and collect unemployment instead?
These days, people want to get paid without working very hard.
Working for peanuts despite education - the 1% has won. If that is what you want to see, that indicates where you stand.
Working hard with your brain, using your education, is real work.
I've worked all types of jobs frmo flipping burgers to working in a web design firm to starting my own company to working in a fortune 50 company to working as a physician (what i am now) i have to say, working in an office environment (in the design company and at the fortune 50 company) was the easiest jobs ive ever had... ironically being a physician is the most physically and intellectually demanding.. in retrospect the 9-5 at the fortune 50 was pretty good..
my point is that if you want to make more money, you need to either learn a marketable skill or find some kind of opportunity to exploit (ie: as a small business). a college degree doesn't simply entitle you to a big salary. when i didnt like my situation, i took the initiative to change something. you can too.
You're right. When opportunity gets too scarce, though, then things are out of whack. The degree doesn't entitle anyone to a big salary, but there should be a reasonable chance for a wage a person can live on.
Doing hard physical labor all day is the hardest job of all. That is why you don't see seventy and eighty year old people doing construction work, working in a auto factory as a auto assembler, or doing heavy lifting in a warehouse. Some people, in their seventies or eighties, are still working as physicians, lawyers, or C.P.As. Flipping burgers is not as hard as working in construction, working as a auto assembler, or doing heavy lifting in a warehouse all day.
Doing hard physical labor is not the hardest job of all...in a short time most people's physical ability acclimates in a short time......I've seen small framed girls and 60 year olds doing warehouse selecting, and most auto assembly is not "hard physical labor".....
But, here's the more important thing......if you come to the age of 50-60-70 and the only skills you have to exchange are those required to perform warehouse work....you have failed in life....it really is that simple, if you are not getting smarter or better, you are moving backwards.....
If that rubs you the wrong way, tough shit.....life is hard, it's time some people, who have been spoiled all their lives, learn that lesson....
Define 'hard' work?
Or many women and handicapped.
Yes. Exploiting opportunities IS a marketable skill, but for people who aren't entrepreneurs, there are good, high-paying jobs for people with the right skills.
Why didn't you stay at the fortune 50 company, or in the web design firm since it was easy work, I assume, at good pay. You made more at these two jobs, than you did flipping burgers, not because it was harder work, but because more people are willing and able to flip burgers, therefore this job had lower pay. If history is any indication, if you paid the burger flipper the same money, as these above two positions, most people would forgo college, and these white collar positions, and become life-time burger flippers. More people are going to college these day, than fifty years ago, not because they are smarter, bu because they can't get a good paying job with a high school education. Taking out huge amounts of student loans, that you can't discharge through bankruptcy, is just plain stupid. No one can assume they will have a successful career just because they have a college degree. People are going to Medical School, in greater number now, because they want a career with a excellent entry level job opportunities, excellent job security, (There are very few unemployed MD's and D.O.'s), and better than average pay. Stress is how you react to your environment. Six different people, in the same job, will have different stress levels. One of my favorite jobs I ever had was Township Treasurer. Yes, I had people who insulted me and didn't like me: so what!
Nice!
It's an opportunity, a pleasure, in my eyes. I love using my brain, I love learning, I would do much (though not kill or compromise my morals, so this sounds less cool now, damn) to go to college. I will, just have to work my way up to that privilege. I won't be stopped, and I'll never stand still.
The one year I did get to go, I can't tell you how amazed I was at the younger students, how they pissed on what they had. Not all of them, of course. Some got it, you know? They knew they were lucky to be there. A lot, though, acted like they were doing the teacher a favor just to show up. Ugh. You know what might make change? Having college students do a one or two year term in a menial labor position so that a) they don't treat laborers in condescending and impolite ways when they do succeed, and b) so they understand the labor class better, and really appreciate how great it will be to work a white collar job, how truly, incredibly lucky one is to do that.
Ouch. It's very true that there is a much more serious attitude among older students, because they better understand what's at stake, and their own responsibility to make it happen.
I wish they would tell kids early on about other trade skills that do not need a college degree. I find that a lot of kids now think they have to go to college to get any job, when all they really needed was a couple trade skill classes and starting position. But a lot of them find this out way to late in the game.
That's true, too - we seem to have lost a lot of our trade apprenticeship structure somewhere... probably when we stopped crafting and creating our own things, for the large part :( It used to be a community affair, right?
We could regain all that with another New Deal. It would require a new financial system to finance economic development projects at low interest rates.
Young people would start out building roads, train routes etc., plus a lot of jobs in manufacturing to create the materials and products needed to build infrastructure. People would enter into unskilled jobs, but would be trained in progressively higher skills through apprenticeship programs.
It's not that hard to do some simple market research before signing up for a college or university course.
If you have your heart set on being something, then push with all your heart, but there is no end of market research available before your commit yourself to a hundred thousand dollar debt for your education.
Yes, people work hard for their degrees and deserve to be rewarded for their hard work. Personally, I worked way too hard for my two bachelor's degrees (going full-time) while working a difficult full-time job throughout college to bring myself to accept certain jobs. Hard work deserves to be rewarded.
Also, people should stop acting like unemployment benefits have no end date and people can just collect for the rest of their lives like welfare or something. Unfortunately, there will probably be some college graduates who will have to accept menial labor jobs if their unemployment runs out.
LOL, You can't collect unemployment if you haven't had a job.
Armchaircon, are you out picking vegetables or doing construction?
Better question - are you getting paid less than $10 an hour to do so?
If you're working for minimum wage alongside the migrant workers that the NYT article described - more power to you. But I doubt you have the authority of speaking from personal experience - not when you were 16 - I worked in the fields too in high school to save up for college - but today.
No.. I did menial labor when I was in HS..
When I went to college, I worked 2 jobs along with a full time+ course load, worked for a few years in business, went back to grad school and im now in post graduate training.
At every stage of my life, I had a plan for why i was doing what i was doing (ie: both jobs in college helped me get my first job, went to night school and worked for free for a few months until they hired me on full time.. this 'free' job basically got me into graduate school (that isnt related to my undergrad training/business experience), etc) and always had an out (I still do.. incase something catestrophic happens).. i hope i wont have to work in the fields or flip burgers (and I have about a 100 things i would do before i would have to do that) but if I had to do that to support my family, yes its not beneath me... but if i say, went to work at mcdonalds, my goal would learning how it worked and to be successful and either get to a management position or beg/borrow enough money to start my own franchise (ie: always have an out)
My experience is similar to yours but I'm probably 10-20 years younger than you. Where my instincts lead me to distrust what you're saying is - I lived in a rust belt town where everyone worked in a factory - that's what they did after high school. No one went to college or knew anyone who did. Then the company closed when I was 12 - my dad and everyone else in town was out of work after decades of busting their rears doing manual labor. My dad worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week after that doing harder jobs until his body finally gave out, and he was one of the lucky ones that got a job - most stayed unemployed since there wasn't an opportunity for everyone. No one could say that he was lazy or didn't give a damn. It's not just kids and hippies. People fall through the cracks no matter how hard they try or what they're willing to do.
So, why don't you generously trade your high paying job (I'm assuming you have a high paying job due to your arrogance) and you do the menial labor. Sound good?
no thanks. i tried flipping burgers and busing (ie: busboy)... hours werent bad, stress wasnt bad,
but i couldnt buy my bmws and ipads, so i went back to school to be a doctor. my mistake, should have stayed in business... way less stress
Well. If you're so unhappy as a doctor, go back to the burgers. Materialism is over-rated.
nah, i can earn in 1 hr what it takes me to earn in a day flipping burgers..
not necessarily unhappy being a doc, sometimes its annoying to have to deal with patients who feel entitled ie: people with chronic back pain yelling and screaming for pain medication while I am coding someone who is dying... (in my mind: stfu already you fuck and get out of the ED, go to your primary care doctor, leave the ED for people who are actually sick)
LOL! You sound like a great doctor!
yea, its called prioritization
next time you(or someone in your family) are dying and a doctor is trying to save their life, please tell them to stop and and go give that guy with a back ache his medication before continuing the resuscitation
Hmm. I'm thinking your a troll and no doctor.
you can see my posts above where i talked about the tortuous route i took to medicine..
ok ill admit i troll once in a while, but i do enjoy interjecting actual discourse with my trolling attempts (my definition of trolling is usually to get people on this board to think about what they are posting, which usually devolves into them talking themselves into an endless abyss of circular logic)
but i do enjoy it when both of us can learn something new.. or atleast see beyond to understand each others arguments while agreeing to disagree. unfortunately i haven't gotten to this point very often.
No problem. Troll away. I've had some good discussions with people opposed to OWS, but if you are really a doctor, please, have compassion, remember the Hippocratic Oath.
You will find that the harder you work, the more likely your are to succeed.
That's kind of a silly question, no one deserves to receive anything based on the acquisition of another thing. How about everyone that finds an apple deserves a white collar job? Sounds dumb doesn't it. Jobs are given, not deserved.
The way that I would put it is "earned".
Yes, they earned a degree. Degree does not automatically equal job. Never has. Never will. You want something in this world, you learn the rules and play to win. And nowhere in the rules does it say you are guaranteed a job if you have a college degree. And God willing, it never will.
What do you mean "these days"? There have always been some people trying to get rich without doing any work and some people who do work because they like doing work. In fact, so many of the entrepeneurs I'm sure you worship, given your obvious ideological leanings, are those very people who wanted to get paid without doing very much work.
I'd advocate for something other than unemployment insurance, though, since unemployment insurance really is an incentive not to take jobs if they're very low-paying. How about wage insurance structured so that it keeps your wage set to some percentage of your highest recent salary? For example, suppose you are laid off from a $100,000 a year job. You get 6 months of wage insurance at $80,000 a year (so $40,000 total). If, in the mean time, you find a job for which you're overqualified making $40,000 a years, the wage insurance gets ammortized to make up only the shortfall and will thus last longer. In this case, the person would get the wage insurance spread over a full year instead of getting it all in those six months.
This gives the earner incentive to take whatever jobs they can to make up the shortfall so as to be able to spread out the insurance. At the same time it allows the earner to continue making, e.g. mortgage payments at the same level, or at least gives the earner an opportunity to gradually decrease spending instead of encountering a catastrophe when the earner is initially laid off (or runs out of unemployment, or whatever).
I'd also prefer if the federal government got out of this game and allowed the states to take it up. In general, I'd like to see the states get their fiscal houses in order and start taking up functions currently provided by the federal government. If we're going to talk about too big to fail, I think the white house and congress need to at least be mentioned as systematically dangerous institutions.
armchairecon, I'm really curious what you think of any of the above. I've seen you do a lot of projecting your opinions but not a lot of engaging with what other people think. Are these ideas you can understand and get behind or is the wage insurance thing just too pink for you (despite the inspiration from behavioral economics)? Or are you just here to call people ignorant when they inevitably disagree with you about something or other?
Agreed, there are always people wanting to get rich without working hard. I wouldnt mind that myself, but I realize its not realistic so I choose to work hard, earn as much as i can, save/invest it so that I can enjoy life later. Entrepreneurs take lots of risks hoping for a big payout.. I've tried starting a business before, its alot of stress hoping to strike it big (I wouldn't have wasted my time if there wasnt the opportunity for a big payoff) When I realized i likely wouldnt succeed, i cut my losses and folded.. My expectations had it suceeded would be that my stress and year or so of work for free would create an organization with a sustainable profit without too much involvement from myself. (ie: setting myself up to earn money without much work, is that wrong, I would say I worked harder in that year than I did in the 4years spent working for the big fortune 50 company)
I have liberterian leanings but I think there is a place for the govt to act as a safety net (not indefintely). I dont disagree with your insurance plan, but how about while on unemployment, you exhaust $$ from your social security $$ (would be a combined SS/unemployment fund, with a set bottom in SS benefits for when you do retire), decreasing the amount you will get at retirement? this gives people incentive to draw as little as necessary from unemployment and remains a function of your income.
As for fed vs. state, I would like the ideal of states managing their business, but is not realistic due to demographics. There should never be too big to fail, no bailouts.. for anyone. the market will work itself out after alittle pain. (or if absolutely necessary say in 08-09, there would be tremendous haircuts to corporate shareholders, giving taxpayers a cheap entry into these banks taht will inevitabily survive once they get past the liquidity (ie: perception) crisis aka: the nationalization process of banks that sweden did in the early 90s)
"the market will work itself out after alittle pain."
I see a lot of people saying this sort of thing, but it really strikes me as an empty platitude. Mainly because markets are abstractions and don't actually have any agency -- "the market" works itself out because actual physical people overcome the problems that were causing high unemployment or stagnation in the first place. But also because "a little while" doesn't seem to have been nailed down too well. We know deep recessions can last more than 10 years -- maybe they can sometimes last more than 50 (obviously, there's no record of such an event in modern history, but "modern history" is a pretty small sample size). Finally, the statement seems to commit itself to the notion that capitalism is actually a stable system, a conclusion which I think there is good reason to doubt. (Bearing in mind that I'm not using the simplistic "capitalism is just people buying and selling things" definition. People were buying and selling things for thousands of years before anyone engaged in anything worth calling "capitalism.")
But you and I could probably agree that a large, centralized bureaucracy is not the best way to deal with the problem.
Using social security as a wage insurance fund appeals to me somewhat, but mainly because I don't think too much of where the SS program is headed -- I suspect by the time I am eligible, for example, the payout will be negligible relative to the cost of living. I also tend to think it would be better for people to manage their own retirement accounts rather than trust that social security will be there for them when the time comes -- I think there needs to be a safety net, but I also think it needs a light touch so that people take responsibility for their own lives rather than relying on external institutions to help them out. Wage insurance might be a relatively graceful way to phase out social security without losing its most important benefits.
Oh, and I absolutely agree that entrepreneurs often end up working very hard indeed. I just suspect that a lot of them end up surprised at how hard the work actually is. Paul Graham has a few great essays on starting a company where he claims that it's basically trying to get your whole life's worth of work done in four years. Hope you got enough life experience out of yours to make up for any losses you may have suffered.
re: market will work itself out
as an example for the housing bubble... alittle background: inflated asset prices make people feel richer, so they spend, companies hire, govt collect taxes, everyone wins. Every stake holder (bankers, homebuyers, government) was at fault.. the only innocents are those who are getting caught in the fall out (ie: losing jobs because of recession)
So this is how it SHOULD have played out.. the housing bubble pops, those who couldnt afford it lose their homes, banks share holders get a huge haircut.. housing prices keep on falling.. until some buyers step in to buy the houses. At first itll probably be international buyers/wealthy who can pay cash.. because ultimately, there is a floor to the price of housing (set by rental prices) these will stabilize prices. As will buyers who start buying because they been waiting for the housing bubble to pop. Eventually, as banks see that housing prices have stabilized they will start lending again. (I being one of those who watched housing prices sky rocket in 04-05 when i was shopping around.. learned about how everyone was buying with ARMs, and saw an unsustainable bubble so i didnt buy.. if i had the balls i would have shorted the housing market a la goldman sachs.)
The problem with our economy is that it is dependent on credit (ie: people spending money they dont have) to keep the economy growing. the TARPs basically set an artificial floor on housing prices (ie: govt came in to buy the wortheless mortgages rather than let the market dictate the prices), this set off a long period of uncertainty as to the true value of housing. In effect, no intervention would have probably led to a deeper but quicker resolution of the housing crisis. TARPs basically did a wealth transfer from the govt to banks and provided alot of uncertainty into the housing market, dragging out the recession.
The only solution is to reduce the government's tie to corporate earnings/economic growth (ie: reduce government spending and thus their dependence on an ever increasing tax base). Economic growth/prosperity is a good thing, but not when the government sets policies to force market growth (ie: favoring corporations)
"So this is how it SHOULD have played out.. "
That's what I'm objecting to. The certitude that there is exactly one way that the crisis SHOULD have played out. It smacks to me of religious fundamentalism. If the economy is too complex for the Fed to deal with then it's too complex for you too, I'm pretty sure.
"TARPs basically did a wealth transfer from the govt to banks and provided alot of uncertainty into the housing market, dragging out the recession."
Do you have any evidence that the ongoing recession is caused by uncertainty in the housing market? Again, this seems like more of the same unjustified cause-and-effect-style certainty.
when i say should, i mean in my opinion.. there are no certainties, (Im not trying to predict it) im just saying 'whatever happens happens' when i say things will work themselves out. Obviously no one has a crystal ball (and I'm not saying i have one).. just making an educated guess, which is the same as the most expensive banker and the Fed chairman.
Well.. no evidence per se regarding your last point (if you dig around, you might find), but I believe it is the sentiment among most economists. The econonimc growth in 2003-2008 was predicated on credit and low interest which drove interest in housing causing an asset bubble (which caused people to feel wealthy and spend, increasing corporate profits and tax returns). One of the problems now is that due to the uncertainty in the market (ie: buyers wont buy because they arent sure if there is further for th emarket to drop.. if it had dropped more to begin with, buyers would have come in and eventually housing prices would have ossilated and settled on some value, currently, housing prices keep on dribbling down, losing a few percent every few months creating the uncertainty. This uncertainty and inability for people to sell their houses prevents them (employed and unemployed) from leaving where they are living and moving to pursue other employment opportunities (probably why we keep on seeing stories in the media about how people are looking to hire but cannot find anyone qualified) Again I have no evidence just based on reading i've done over time and analysis based on my education (finance in undergrad for what it is worth).
Your proposal "For example, suppose you are laid off from a $100,000 a year job. You get 6 months of wage insurance at $80,000 a year (so $40,000 total)." actually exceeds the current unemployment benefit equation, there is a cap on the actual dollar amount allowed which varies by state and sometimes locality.
Unemployment is based on an 8 hour day, so benefits do not take into account over time or bonuses or any other source of potential income. People who have worked 12 hour days are greatly reduced in their income if/when they have to accept unemployment.
I wish I had a dollar for every time some one had said "overqualified" to a job applicant in this country.
I would probably be comfortably retired...
Show me a menial labor job that actually pays the bills. Can you live on your own for eight bucks an hour? I can't, not in any of the cities I know. You can't rent an apartment, get a car, pay car insurance and buy food and gas for 8 bucks an hour. It's simply impossible.
I don't care if the 8/hr job is menial labor or designing computer chips, the math is the same.
No one deserves a white collar job...I have (throughout my life) gone through two layoffs..instead of unemployment, I worked at several jobs including gas station manager, car rental manager...It taught me that I can survive. The fact is that, in our Sunday paper, there are only 1/2 page of ads....If you aren't in the education field - you are &&(&( ...so...if I was 100 years younger, you would find me working at anything that was legal and that paid well...
Do white collar workers deserve a well paying job would be a better question. The history of the last 12 years would indicate that many of them should all be put on KP duty cleaning lutrenes.
Why should we believe anything you say here? Most doctors have effective communication skills. I don't just take what people say about themselves here at face value. You need to assert a position based upon something more than your own alleged expierence in life, because your comminication skills simply don't back up that narrative.
Yeah I'm a professor and typically our education is our on-the-job training. Also I don't think it's fair to characterize a person who is in college as not working hard. I have far too many students that work two jobs so they can afford to pay for their schooling. While the mass media portrays the university experience as only parties and sex, that is far from reality. Students at the university level work hard, and should expect some payoff for their efforts.
i commend those students who appreciate a college education for what it is.. honestly my kids aren't going to college on my dime until they can tell me what they are going to do with it to ensure they don't waste my money and their time.
i dont think anyone really 'deserves' a payoff necessarily.. but if they are industrious, they will succeed
It appears to me that YOU are the only person who you believe deserves anything. How obscenely arrogant of you armchairrepublican, to think you can sit in judgement of the whole human race. And by the by - you ain't no fucking doctor - you're too stupid! Since division is what you are transparently here to sow, how's that at ya?
Very true
people deserve to get paid what their merit deserves, not by what their bill folds holds. wise people deserve to be politicians, and industriousness deserves wealth.
Hell yes they do. I say give em jobs that pay 100K a year or more! These morons will go out a buy huge homes and expensive sports cars and blow their earnings on living large! This is the generation that was brought up on watching "cribs" on MTV. They will stimulate the economy for sure!
Now when I graduated with my MBA back in 1986 I took a measly entry level job paying $28K per year and worked my way up the ladder with hard work and loyalty, eventually becoming the CEO of the company making over 300K per year.
I saved up my money, invested it well and retired at the age of 50 and I have no complaints or regrets.
So let these wieners, bitch about low paying or no jobs. Hand them tons of money in brainless positions and they'll blow their wads and eventually lose those jobs and know what it's like to have had it and lost it. It makes Men out of boys! A good learning process.
No. Next question.
What is good and what is right and what is true.. IS.. you have to make your own job. Whether you start your own business, or work for someone else, you are still self employed. There is a lack of self-government in the general population. We have a responsibility to teach them. People who ridicule those who cannot govern themselves, are in fact, one of those who cannot govern themselves. It is true, it is right, it is good.
The idea that any one particular group deserves a HIGH PAYING job SOLELY due to the fact that they belong to that group is ludicrous. It's like proposing that all redheads, or Norwegians, or lefthanders deserve a high paying job solsle because they are redheads, Norewgians, or lefthanders.
It's their right to decline menial labor. It should not be their right to thus collect unemployment benefits at the expense of taxpayers.
Personal question. Would you, if drawing unemployment at $400 per week accept a job that pays $200 per week?
There's no job (full-time anyway) that pays $200 a week. Minimum wage is, give or take a quarter or so, $7.50. Let's say I work a 30-40 hour work week at this job I have. If I were only earning $200 a week, that would work out to 5-6 dollars an hour, which is WAY below minimum wage. So for the situation you described, that question is irrelevant.
In anticipation of a more realistic question I'm sure you'd come back with, I would take the job while looking for more suitable, better-paying work. But I would not, in the meantime, collect unemployment benefits, regardless of how tempting it may be.
Ok, so the simplistic doesn't work for you, personally, and you presume you would secure full time work.
To address your second paragraph, you state you would work for less than unemployment would allow you, yet neglect the presumption of your monthly expenditures being fixed rather than fluid. Therefore you either accept the actuality of either increasing debt or faulting on current debt.
Who said I would be living in debt? I'm currently living with my parents (being only 18 and in college). I have no monthly expenditures. I work to better my chances of employment until I am in good enough economic standing to live on my own and pay my own way in life. But I do not plan in going into debt (beyond a mortgage on a home, were I to not live in an apartment). There is a way to be fiscally responsible.
How nice for you that you have that option. Not everyone has that option. At 18 you PLAN to do those things, good luck with it.
Okay, well back to the central point I'm making. Why is it my responsibility to fund the life of someone who is unwilling to work?
The point you are attempting to make could be turned to why was it my responsibility to insure you have roads to drive on, schools to attend, and various social services that you have undoubtedly used from time to time?
The real point is that we all have a social responsibility to some extent without accepting that responsibility by the masses there would be chaos.
One other point, you personally are not funding anyone at this time and in the future most likely won't be simply because you don't pay anyone's unemployment insurance as an employee and only a portion of it when you are an employer.
Let me think back for a few minutes to when I was 18 and NOT living in my parents house...nope, I didn't worry about it, I knew I could make enough to take care of me and what little of what I earned that went toward taking care of someone else wasn't an issue.
Social services are one thing. Someone ELSE's lifestyle will NEVER be my concern, nor will funding their lifestyle ever personally benefit me. It's not my duty to put food on the table for a total stranger that refuses to pull his own load. Unemployment benefits are for people who are unemployed but putting in the good honest effort to find work. It is not set aside for the kinds of people that society likes to call "cheapskates" and "freeloaders".
So why the failure to specify and leave the generality in the original posting?
As I have posted previously, there are requirements that are also including in drawing unemployment. The main one is to actively seeking employment.
A better question is: Do all workers have a responsibility to educate themselves for better paying jobs, and then actually have the right to work in both those AND lower paying jobs in an equality of effort, opportunity, and reward?
So, your're exactly right, from one perspective, but many more people will come to your side when you are proactive (for “new” Business & Government solutions), instead of reactive (against “old” Business & Government solutions), which is why what we most immediately need is a comprehensive “new” strategy that implements all our various demands at the same time, including yours, and although I'm all in favor of taking down today's ineffective and inefficient Top 10% Management System of Business & Government, there's only one way to do it – by fighting bankers as bankers ourselves. Consequently, I have posted a 1-page Summary of the Strategic Legal Policies, Organizational Operating Structures, and Tactical Investment Procedures necessary to do so at:
http://getsatisfaction.com/americanselect/topics/on_strategic_legal_policy_organizational_operational_structures_tactical_investment_procedures
Join
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/StrategicInternationalSystems/
if you want to be 1 of 100,000 “support clicks” needed at AmericansElect.org to support a Presidential Candidate – such as anyone you'd like to draft – in support of the above bank-focused platform.
Most importantly, remember that any candidate, regardless of party, is a straw man, a puppet; it's the STRATEGY – the sequence of steps – that people organize themselves behind, in military internet formation of their purchasing and investment power, that's important. Therefore, please read and think critically about the 1st link and join the 2nd link and you'll see and feel exactly what I mean.
Yeah! We should just all move to the farm and live in shacks behind the master's house to compete with undocumented workers for the absolute minimum a human can be paid to work!
Great idea! Thanks for contributing! Problem solved! We college graduates are just lazy, that's why investment firms crashed the global economy! That's why U.S. News and World Report said college degrees weren't a good idea to get every week in the 1990's!
/s
Really now, every time I read one of these right winger posts, it's like I'm talking with someone with the memory of a 5 year old.
instead of just labeling it as 'right winger - which I am definitely not' just read some of the posts i've posted (ie: solutions) not just meaningless sound bites.
and i dont know what this has to do with slavery.. you are letting your emotions take control and making illogical statements. is taht what your college education taught you?
so answer this: what did you learn in college? Why did you go to college? what were you hoping to get out of it?
You're telling everyone to go get farm jobs as a solution to the problem, you might as well just say get out of my city and go someplace where you will be poor and have no power, so yes it is comparable to slavery. Only it's not race related, it's purely class this time, except for the unfortunate Mexicans. I do actually want to work on a farm, but mine, and I've been saving up for it, but despite my job and my second job and all creative endeavors, I'm going further into debt.
I went to college for understanding and the capacity to create, I was basically told I was being to memorize things without understanding. I did an internship for a major corporation and it was even worse.
AAACHHH I Hate trolls! You ignore all my arguments and try to pull me into wastes of time.
At least you understand the costs involved in obtaining and working a farm. Can't expect a person who has not either worked or lived on a farm to understand, because he/she has no experience to base that understanding upon.
how am I trolling? look up some of my threads.. ive contributed thoughts to most of the discussions.
im not saying everyone should go get a farm job. im just saying jobs exist, and you just have to seek them out (not just farm jobs) but there is a problem when people feel they are 'too good' for a job because they have the holy grail known as a college degree.
a college degree use to mean something, but now it will only get you to the mean and you need to know how to use it to get ahead. I obviously dont know your situation, but debt is like cancer.. cut all expenses so you can cut ahead. (ie: move in with parents if thats an option, eat out less, stop chasing fashion, get a cheaper phone plan etc). i worked 2 jobs in college (still owed alot when i graduated) but moved in with my folks after college - yes it was rough and i was lucky it was an option.. but paid off my college debt in 3 years..
the mexicans aren't unfortunate, they are here to take advantage of an opportunity they dont have home, they are smart. (ie: no one willing to take that job here in the US drives up wages so that the mexicans can benefit) people would rather get less selling phones at radio shack . but thats fine, tahts how the market works.
There's such a thing as a social contract and the bottom line is everyone in the street is rejecting what is being offered by America right now. I have gone door to door as a security system sales person and I was told to lie to make sales, I have farmed for money and hurt my back doing it. I have worked midnight shift at gas stations and waited tables, I've had about 50 different separate occupations at this point. Unpaid assistantships and internships that were supposed to pay off big time.
I have done all of the things on your list for years now and I'm not better off for it. I am only living as a second class citizen despite all of my knowledge and work. All of my artistic pursuits, musical, otherwise are shut down by an utterly squeezed market.
I'm a system administrator! There is a line of people waiting to get my job if I don't want it, does that sound like everyone's being lazy?
You would consider yourself unfortunate to be born in Mexico, you wouldn't see it as some opportunity to jump the border, that's not clear thinking.
Here man, just listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOWrqR_QFfg
Im not saying you're lazy.. and obviously you're not.
by unfortunate, i mean they are not unfortunate for being in the US i guess i can't speak specifically about mexicans.. but i lived in rural guatemala for a month. spoke to families who had sons travel to the states to work the manual labor jobs, they didnt want their sons to leave, but knew that the opportunities in the US (even working at minimum wage) greatly exceded what was avaialble in guatemala (ie: the lucky ones were subsistence farmers who farmed manually(!)) the unlucky ones got by by picking through discarded waste, washing it and trying to sell it in markets (ie: sell used tin cans, plastic bottles, old fabric)
agreed
These days, people may not even be able to get menial jobs, college education or no.
Those that can, still can't pay rent, medical bills, student loans, etc.
That's what we're protesting.
The problem that I see with a lot of college graduates today is that they expect to get a high paying job as soon as they graduate from college without working their way up the ladder. Part of this is due to the fact that tuitions are so ridiculously high that they feel entitled to a good paying job for all the money they shelled out.
kind of like the homeowners who baught at the peak thinking they could earn a couple of hundred K when they flip it in a few years..
College Degree is < Work experience.. thats the bottom line. College grads think that by simply having a degree they are qualified to hold high paying positions. Most companies care more about past work experience.
Thats completely field dependent though. A nuke engineer grad will get hired fresh out of college for big bucks, hell most engineering degrees will. And then if you go the medicine route, if you survive residency the hospital is almost always going to higher you.
The farther we get into this technology age the more fresh college grads will be desired. WIth useful degrees anyway, obviously the need for art, english, and social services majors wont increase. But in advancing tech fields new fresh minds straight out of college where the information is as up to date as possible will be favored. the balance has slowly been working that way for years. and will only grow.
Very true, most companies that hire new college grads talk about having to retrain the new grad.
Well the job I got I wouldn't have ever gotten without the hard work I've done so far in college. Being in Software engineering, do I deserve my job over a business/education major? Yes I do. I've put in a lot more work that they have. I was hired over other engineers because of work experience though. It goes hand in hand.
I have some sympathy for recent college grads unable to find a job because I know that you were told that if you went to college, you would get a good job. I am also surprised that you didn't question that premise and evaluate whether or not the degree you were pursuing would be worth the monetary investment. You can be forgiven for this because you were young.
I am shocked, however, that your older and wiser parents did not, at some point consider the likely return on investment for your 5 and 6 figure loans.
And I am absolutely mortified that your High School and College advisers did not walk you through such an analysis.
The average entry level salary for someone with a liberal arts degree is $33K. If it cost $80 to get this degree, and you were able to live in your mom's basement post-graduation and therefor put 50% of your salary towards paying off your student loan, it would take you roughly 6 years to break even. Assuming you are like most people and don't skyrocket to riches, you would at that point still have a long climb up the ladder to get to "successful" and "comfortable". I'm really surprised no-one seems to have questioned whether or not this was a good idea.
i think part of it was the generational leaning towards 'encouraging' their children to pursue their dreams regardless of reality. the fact that the previous generation experienced almost constant economic growth probably didn't help throw caution into the wind
I agree. I really don't want to sound like I'm throwing blame around, but I seriously cannot imagine people not doing this very simple check on reality. It's 5 minutes of googling to determine what the prospects are for a particular degree. Why would someone not spend so little time before taking on such massive debt (rhetorical question).
I can understand people being upset about the lack of available jobs--I share their anger at what has become of our country. But even if jobs were available, the return on investment of an undergraduate degree sucks.
They don't deserve it but that's not really a good question either-it goes much deeper than that. Being one with the degree, this is what I see. Job requires degree. You apply, they offer you just-over min wage. You're like, "This doesn't even cover the cost of the degree you require one to have." How does this make economic sense? How can jobs require degrees that don't justify the cost and time of obtaining thus degree?
You don't need a a college degree to do bricklaying, plumbing or electrical work---all comparitively well paid trades.
I don't think anyone able to get employment should continue to collect unemployment, unless they are actively seeking a job, continue to broaden the parameters based on the current prospects, and will, if absolutely necessary, seek jobs in the lowest labor positions. I wouldn't want someone with a degree to hop on the first car wash job and just accept that, but they can always be looking while they pay the rent with the car wash. I've done that, too, and yeah, it sucks, you're exhausted and the last thing you want to do when you come home is hunt for jobs, but it's the honest approach. Unemployment should be an absolute last ditch means of supporting yourself, not a crutch so you can sit back and fulfill your minimum, waiting for the sweetest job to drop in your lap. I had to use it once, after a mass layoff, and I got off it as quick as I could. The first month, I realized the market was bad. By the end of the second month, I'd taken a much lower paying job, and I had to work my way up again. But I did it, damnit, and now I'm very well off. If I'd refused the lower job, I'd probably be in much worse shape right now. I got three promotions from that job, raised a couple tax brackets, and put myself into a position to get an even better one when I ended up moving out of state. I did it by digging in and working, but also keeping vigilant for opportunity when it was there.
Just wanted to share my story - everyone has a unique perspective that gives us a better overall idea of the reality of the whole.
Ummm, it's a requirement to be actively seeking work while drawing unemployment already always has been. Even those who draw while working seasonal jobs, such as the bargemen on the Mississippi River must register with the employment office and make applications for jobs regardless that they have employment awaiting them.
I've done jobs like cashier, housekeeper... not the worst minimum wage jobs (it was 5.15 back then), but not ones you would consider the highway to Eldorado, either. I used my experience from each to get a better one the next time. I kept at it, even during layoffs. I started over again several times. It can be done! The kicker is, the college grads will probably get the job over me, but still, I did it... And I know we have a bad market right now, but the layoffs I recovered from were also bad - the end of the tech bubble (just when I'd finally escaped menial labor jobs, got my first foot in the door, and I get a pink slip - ouch!), and the venture caps all getting cold feet from 9/11 (that company should have survived - it was the best I'd ever worked for... I went before my city council for it, even, but to no avail in the end because of the perception of major backers sigh). It's not impossible, and many are suffering together in this. Just keep up hope, maintain integrity... I'm not saying we should just ignore the problems, but we also have to look at our personal responsibility too, so I wanted to say this piece based on my own personal experience, not (as I've been accused of) some corporate media quip I heard on TV (I don't even get TV service, so there :D) .
What would you consider a high-paying job? Numerically speaking, the number amount on your paycheck is relative to numerous factors, such as inflation, and the current market price of the goods/services you are trying to procure.
It all comes down to choices of the individual. Realization that choices have results that may differ. Choosing can be a risk. If a choice turns out wrong then it's personal responsibility.
"Working hard" means different things to each individual. Some people who do menial labor do it because learning was hard work. It was achoice they made and must live with the lowered results. Some go to college because it's easier to get out of mom's house but still have her pay all of the bills. Maybe that choice ends up with a high paying job. If not, you take what comes to survive....
There is also minimum wages which are really a ceiling for those without education or job experience. They get stuck making $8 because the useless worker can't get paid less.
Useless worker? That was demeaning and insulting. There are a great many skilled work requirements that only pay minimum wage.
I currently work in a very white collar job that typically has a prerequisite minimum of four years plus experience, but I'm (barely) a high school graduate. I was able to achieve this by working menial labor jobs, and proving my merit by extra effort, slowly rising in rank and experience. It took me longer, but not much.
i agree, there is more than one road to success. congrats on your success.
Thanks :) I hope it will help someone else.
Oh, and I educated myself. I educated myself, educated myself, continue to educate myself, delight in opportunities to educate myself. It's out there for free if you have the will to find and work for it. The education, that is. I don't have a quarter mil. college loan shackling me down, either - that might be a pro for going the route I took. On a whole, though, I know fewer people in specialized and high power or exposure positions, had far less pleasant experiences, and was afforded fewer opportunities, than I would have in a college environment. I did develop a healthy respect for work ethic, and the true meaning of breaking one's back to earn one's bread. I also met some incredible people who would put many collegians to shame, in both mental and moral capacity. I wouldn't trade what I learned in the real world to go back and have a college degree handed to me. The hard work is half the growth, and a large part of the real value.
So yeah, it sucked for me too. I did it, though. I didn't consider myself above it - fortunately someone told me early on that nobody gets it easy in the first couple years, so I knew what to expect. I did menial labor, worked shit jobs that had no career path on the surface, but also employed wit to make my own path. I didn't have the chance to go to college. I would have loved to. I didn't, and succeeded anyway.
No, nobody is entitled to their dream job simply for graduating from college. Our economy is not fair, our economy is natural selection in action. Trying to pretend that it's fair isn't going to work because it just isn't, and it's never going to be.
Having a college degree gives you something concrete: a much better chance of getting a job. The unemployment rate right now among college graduates is only about 4%. For high school graduates with no college it's over 9%.
because you now have a college grad competing with a HS grad for the same sales position at radio shack.. is it worth it?
a more telling statistic would be calculating the opportunity cost of college vs. the marginal increase in salary
My goal is to be well paid and not work very hard.
I would recommend joining a union with a ton of work rules or working for the government.
There is nothing wrong with this goal.
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NO. Lazy phukks prolly chose the least employable option, baiting on staying at home until their late forties.
No one deserves a job.
No one deserves to starve either
If it is starving that you want to prevent then you can take up just about any job. A job is not a right.
I never said that employment is a right.
100% employment is actually impossible with capitalism.
Technological automation reduces the labor cost by displacing workers. Sufficient levels of production are met without the need to employ the entire population.
The unemployed cannot get jobs, because there aren't enough jobs in existence.
Suggesting that the unemployed should "get a job" is a non-solution, for reasons I just described.
You're only considering jobs that provide necessary products or services. The truth is, most jobs provide "luxuries" which enhance our lifestyles. These latter jobs can be created and are only limited by the imagination. Furthermore, they can seldom be automated. You could write a book, write some music, create a mini golf course, or a zillion other things by using your imagination. If you really want money, you'll find a way to get it.
A good idea.
My concern however is that you'd need money for the equipment to write the book, food, shelter and publishing fees: A fair amount of money which is difficult for an unemployed person to obtain without finding some form of work (which is getting harder and harder...)
Then, if it doesn't get published or sold, you'd further in debt or at least broke.
You need money at first to subsist. True. It's easy enough to find a job for that. Then you write short stories in your spare time. These are easier to get published then a novel, especially if you haven't been published yet. When you have a bunch of really good short stories, you write to a publisher with an idea for a novel. If they like your idea, they will sometimes front you some money so that you can pay your expenses while you write.
The point is, there are many jobs that can be created. It's not like the economy is restricted to jobs that directly create stuff we absolutely need. Even in the department of food, there are a lot of luxuries. One of my friends just opened a luxury chocolate shop, and it's doing quite well. If you have a proper business plan, you can often get loans from banks or the government.
From what Iv'e seen, those who really want jobs end up getting them whether they work for someone else, or create a job for themselves.
A medical emergency, a child, a disability, a mental illness....these things make it just about impossible to survive under capitalism.
I want a system that provides the basic necessities for everyone. Because capitalism doesn't.
We should be asking the bigger question, why do we HAVE to work for things which are non-essential for human life.
What if we don't want to sell our junk to the public.
It's not real freedom. It's not a fair system. The wealthy shareholders and landowners get paid heaps yet do nothing of value, while the coal miner or factory worker labors 12 hours a day and gets peanuts.
That's why I protest. It's not even really about unemployment or money, it's about the whole system.
This is only true about certain forms of capitalism.
I'm from Canada. We have universal public healthcare, we get subsidies from the government when we have children, and there are special forms of welfare for the physically and mentally ill. Furthermore, university is very cheap, and in some capitalist countries it is entirely free.
Unfortunately for you, because US fought against communism, it had to create a system which was diametrically opposed to that. That's why you have a hard core capitalist implementation which is very individualistic and everyone screams that the demon is in the house when someone proposes to use taxes to help the unfortunate. Ironically, I think a free market performs much better when there is social support since that means there are no brains wasted because some people can't afford proper school, and there aren't young bodies pilling up because some can't pay for health care. This means more abled people working together to fortify the capitalist economy.
Also, you guys are messed up because of religion. There's no separation between Church and State in US. That has always been a lie.
In truth, the things we call luxuries likes books, art, luxurious chocolates, etc.. are extremely essential for life. They help keep boredom at bay, and, as Kierkegaard once wrote, boredom is the worst poison known to man. I would commit suicide if I had to live in a world without art.
No. The unemployed can always lower the wage requirement and get a job.
Whether the wage is 5c or $5, there is no need for the worker to be there at all.
The required amount of goods produced is achieved without the need for the extra labor.
And it's the government that regulates minimum wages, not the worker or the employer.
Not quite. Any hiring decision is taken based on productivity. A company would hire as long as the extra revenue addition from hiring the worker is greater than the cost of hiring and retaining. Simple economics. So if a worker lowers his wage requirement a company may be willing to hire.
In most cases, this example would result in over production. Too much product is placed on the market, bringing it's value down.
And by implementing technological automation, companies seek to employ less workers, not more. Less labor costs = more profits.
and a hiring decision will also depend on whether a company wants to maximize profits, revenues or market share
read it again.I said 'revenue' should be greater than the wage and hiring cost. Revenue and production are not the same thing.
Revenues, in most cases, wouldn't be high enough to justify the extra labor costs.
Hiring the extra worker raises the productivity, where as demand for that product on the market doesn't necessarily increase. This can actually lead to a reduction in revenues because there is too much supply and not enough demand.
Therefore hiring more people for < minimum wage won't increase profits.
More to the point, I don't know how you expect people to survive on sub-minimum wages while the cost of living continues to rise.
If revenues arent high enough, people will not be hired. Simple.
If there is no demand, then production will be wasted or rather a firm always has some idea of demand and would therefore not hire if it does not feel there is enough demand. Hiring people for less than minimum wage would increase profits except under certain circumstances.
And below minimum wage is always better than no wage at all.
And this is what's happening. There's not enough hiring occurring, hence unemployment is inevitable. Telling them to 'get a job' isn't a valid proposal.
No. We are hiring in the emerging economies and we are outsourcing. And that is simply because our workers demand far higher wages, which of course has to do with the higher cost of living here.
How do you pay for rent and food when you make 3$ an hour.
'smart capitalist' - an oxymoron it seems.
whos paying $3 an hour?
Most western companies already hire people for under minimum wage - go to china and India.
A person on below minimum wage won't be able to afford the necessities required to be a productive worker - things like shelter, food, education, health.
No they don't. The wages given in India and China are good enough for their people. Sure, there are cases where overseas contractors have employed people at below minimum wages and in most cases our firms have rules that stipulate fair wage. But then those are flouted.
However, lets not impose our morals on them. Take Ikea and the uproar it faced when it was learnt that their suppliers in India employ children. On the face of it, that's really bad and Ikea was asked to terminate the contract or ask the supplier to not employ kids. Great. What happens to those kids who are laid off? Do they automatically start going to school? No. Instead they beg on the streets or steal and commit various crimes, some sell their body parts and all of them go hungry. And all this because our western sense of moral do not find it pretty to employ kids. Forget the fact that kids were employed during the Industrial age and we were all fine with that. But now we have grown morals. What hypocrisy.
So don't tell me about the wages being offered to workers in India and China. The alternative for them would be begging and starvation. They are not complaining. Indian BPO guys are pretty happy to get a job. So are the chinese factory workers who migrate by the thousands to the industrial hubs in search of work.
I'd love to see you say all this to the faces of the children who work 60 hours a week to make your iPhone.
aah.. Guess what they would love to work than to beg or die of hunger
If politicians had to do a little manual labor, they would make the wage $100 an hour for digging ditches. Give them a freaking shovel, make them dig one day a week.
There was a wonderful contest during the Great Depression. People were making fun of ditch diggers, saying they were lazy because they'd see them leaning on their shovels off and on. So they got a bunch of college football players to see who could get more dug, the jocks or the lazy ditch diggers.
The ditch diggers not only got more done, but left the proud college boys exhausted and gasping for air.
Anyone that gets out of collage with 60, or 80 or a 100K in student loans, has already shown that they cannot manage their finances or their lives.
Would be the last person I would want to put in a position where critical thinking skills are of prime importance.
No one "deserves" anything.
People are paid whatever their skills are worth in the open market.
If there is no demand for whatever you chose to study in college, then you don't "deserve" shit.
I could have gotten this job spending 8 hours a day taking phone messages and typing them into a computer.
I didn't go to the interview. Not interested.
It's too boring for me. Too meaningless. Too mundane. A machine could have done it easily.
I'm not really interested in doing anything to support this society, until it fixes the mess it is creating.
I'd be a carer for the disabled, maybe aged care, but I don't have a drivers license or the training, or any experience.
I'm too demotivated. Too depressed. Too mentally ill.
There's too much injustice and environmental destruction and poverty. I am basically broken. . Maybe you can call me lazy and whole bunch of other names but that's not going to fix me.
Obvious troll is obvious.
If you passed on an available entry-level job then I hope that you're not here to complain about being unemployed?
I'm not going to be contented until the crisis is resolved for everybody.
I'm not interested in being exploited or exploiting others for the accumulation of capital.
Because It's not all about me me me. It's about everyone, including you.
You in particular do not speak for me. I have a good job that I enjoy doing because I have marketable skills that I developed through hard work over decades.
Speak for yourself then.
Believe it or not, I am interested in providing for your needs, but I am interested in everybody elses needs just as equally.
can I have 5 bucks for a sandwich?
I would, honestly, but I know that you don't need it because you're just being silly.
But I know how to provide for my own needs. And you don't even know how to provide for your own needs, so how can you provide for me?
You're not going to earn your dream job by camping out with a bunch of other unemployed people. You do have an opportunity to earn or create your own dream job through focused, hard work. Here's a simple step-by-step plan:
Step 1: Figure out what you love to do. Step 2: Figure out how to make it marketable. If there is simply no way, then switch industries by repeating Step 1 with your next-most-favorite passion. The younger you are, the more times you'll have to repeat Step 1.
What I love doing most does not involve exploiting others or being exploited.
I don't exploit anybody, and I'm in charge of my domain so nobody is exploiting me. But I've worked a lot of crappy jobs, investing in my self the whole time to get where I am.
You'll have a lot more leverage to have opinions about the economy if you participate in it, and if you do well in it.
I don't need to be involved in the economy to observe what it is.
You by labor power from your workers and then pay them less than the profits they produce.
exploitation.
I don't own the whole company. But even if I did, I also create the conditions that make it possible for our employees to market their unique talents, which is a rare opportunity that doesn't just magically happen by itself. If I didn't do that, then they would have to work in less-satisfying, lower-paid, lower-skilled jobs. I work hard to create jobs in the field that I enjoy, so that I can spend my life doing what makes me feel fulfilled. And so that other, like-minded people who are into my field also can support themselves by doing what they love all day long.
Are you in recruitment?
It sounds like pseudo-work to me.
Nothing to do with actual labor that produces the goods which make the money.
'Create the conditions?' What does that mean. You fill out some forms or something?
We're software developers with advanced skills in things like cloud computing, HTML5 mobile web apps, and we have cool stuff to work with like laser barcode scanners and every touch tablet on the market. This is possible because we worked hard to develop marketable skills, and because there are people at the CEO and CTO level who are doing the job of creating jobs by selling our skills.
Cool. It's still exploitation though. The coders are the ones responsible for making the money. The bosses pay the coders less money then the profits they create.
And all the work you do goes towards this form of exploitation in other industries.
It's a great example, because those bar code scanners are a form of technological automation. This reduces the need for labor, which makes labor superfluous.
This is why unemployment rises, due to technological automation and outsourcing. It's not an inherently bad thing, but it is a cause for the unemployment.
Wouldn't India cheaper for hiring programmers?
Also, tablets are designed with planned obsolescence, in order to maximize profits, but they create e-waste.
Everything is corrupt. This is why I don't want to work.
And I study programming. I studies java in school, and now I study c# independently. But I am very demotivated. very very very depressed, I can't really work while all this shit is going on.
Any software company is in the business of automation, which means eliminating low-skilled jobs and replacing them with high-skilled jobs. When our company sells our product to a customer, the customer uses it to eliminate low-paid, low-skilled office clerks. As our company makes more sales, we hire more high-paid, high-skilled employees. This is a microcosm of the overall economic trend toward higher productivity, which means doing more with less. The way that any software developer markets his skills is by learning to benefit from this trend rather than be on the losing side of it.
If this overall concept offends you, then software is not the right field for you to be studying, because software is about automation.
You might need to go back to Step 1, in my step-by-step process toward happiness and contentment in today's economy.
Automation and efficiency do not offend me at all.
But you must realize, those workers you are replacing cannot suddenly get work somewhere else.
You see how it creates unemployment?
Rising unemployment is basically inevitable. So you must understand, that telling people to go and get jobs a bit silly, when you're in the business of removing jobs from the economy.
What do the millions of uneducated starving impoverished disabled people do. Die? Is that you want?
This is why this system doesn't serve human needs, and this is why people are protesting.
It doesn't make any sense for you to advocate preserving menial, low-skilled jobs when you started this out by saying that you're not willing to take a menial, low-skill job. You think that it's beneath you. You think that computers should do voice recognition really well and that human transcribers should be obsolete. Well ... RIGHT, yes! That's how it works! People who can make things like that happen have marketable skills, and are always in demand.
I agree with you, and I think technology stands to drastically improve life for everyone but I still think there needs to be changes within this system, in order to adapt to technology and it's development.
The internet has opened up a economy which is virtually limitless, especially once computers are powered by solar.
Essentially, the means of production have become socialized through the free release of programming languages and platforms.
The financiers could be replaced by AIs, I hope one day they are.
There's still things to protest about though - wars, healthcare, cost of living, corrupt bankers, pollution, environmental destruction...
You'd rather protest than take an entry-level job that was offered to you? As long as unemployment isn't part of what you're protesting!
While you'd rather be protesting than taking an entry level job, I'm outsourcing high-skill, high-pay jobs to Venezuela because I can't find enough Americans interested in learning the necessary skills. They get paid more than the average American hourly wage.
ha.
You're outsourcing because it's cheaper then USA. They'll work more for less.
You think that a guy whose worked in the factory for 20 years is going to be able to learn html5 in a couple of days or something?
It takes time to learn how to program, it's easy if your a kid with a CS degree, but not if your older guy who went through college at a time when those degrees didn't even exist.
Stop being unrealistic. Not everyone wants to be a coder, nor should everyone be expected to.
It's fine for you to sit in your little hi-tech bubble, but the world is burning.
All your PC's run of burning coal. It's poisoning the atmosphere. E-waste is piling up on the shores of Ghana.
There's bigger issues out there. That's why I am protesting. I could shut up and get a job if I wanted to, but I care about the world.
I'm not sure if you do....you just want your money and that's that, end of story.
Not everyone is that simple....sorry.
I already said that the people who I'm hiring make more than the average American hourly wage. (The average American wage is $33/hr.)
You're continuing to argue for the preservation of menial, low-skill jobs, even though you aren't personally willing to take one. You're rejecting a job offering to protest against unemployment, which is just ridiculous. But why preserve menial jobs? Why object to the innovation trend that replaces menial jobs with high-paying, high-skill jobs?
A few decades ago, any woman who was literate could get a job fairly easily as a secretary, typing memos and sticking stamps on envelopes. Innovation made the job of secretary obsolete and now business people type their own emails, and all of those millions of secretaries are out of work. But that didn't push women out of the workforce, it elevated women to the level of equals. Now instead of being treated like a lesser, servant class in the workplace, like "the help", women are expected to bring marketable skills to the workplace just like men are. They're treated like human beings.
You won't have any leverage to change anything as long as you're unemployed. You have to participate in the system to change it. Bill Gates has an enormous amount of power to create positive change than you do, because he has been very successful and effective, and that entitles him to use the resources that he has amassed for the greater good. Even Steve Jobs, who everybody wants to pick on for not donating enough cash, has been more effective than you at creating positive changes. He supported a wife who worked full-time to make the world a better place, which all by itself is a greater contribution than you have the ability to make as an unemployed person.
I am not arguing for the preservation of menial labor.
Automation, the internet, technology, computer science are all wonderful progressive, creative, fantastic things.
If not for them, we would not even be talking, nor would this whole movement have gotten off the ground.
What I AM protesting about is the influence of capital over public policy.
We are facing crisis that involves food, water and air and health.
Whether or not I become employed is not going to resolve this crisis. Even If I had fistfuls of cash, I cannot stop the deforestation of the Amazon, nor the poisoning of the atmosphere.
The very computers we are both using are running from burning coal.
Capitalism can exist in the virtual world, because it is limitless, but it cannot exist in the real world.
My mother had to go back to school in her 40's to get a Masters degree, and she still can't find a job. I don't think it's an issue of not "working very hard". She's worked very hard to get what she has, and she should be able to get a fair-paying job with benefits instead of looking to flip burgers. Same with my sister with a Bachelor's who can't find anything in or out of state, either. There's just nothing out there...at least not enough for most of us.
The question is, what are their degrees in and how well did they perform? A 3.2 GPA from Phoenix online won't really get you very far...
They weren't degrees from those crappy for-profit places. And they both have always done well academically. That was something my mother was very adamant about.
You don't answer the question though; what is the field of study?
First of all, this article only tells one side of the story; for every one farmer who can't find workers to fill his fields you have hundreds of "underemployed" or "malemployed" college grads washing garbage cans for $8 an hour because it's that or nothing. Most people will take what they can get if it's reasonable. Even the article states that there are people with degrees taking $11 per hour jobs because it's all they can get.
As for seeing the degreed yet unemployed as "spoiled," I say this: the implicit promise given to the current generation by the one before it is that if you go to college and do well, then a job befitting the effort and money you already sunk into it will be on the other end. Putting it as "getting paid without working very hard" ignores the fact that to be in this position many of us put in four years of (minimum) sixty- and seventy-hour weeks and sunk anywhere from $80,000 to over $200,000 into this promise. You want us to do menial labor for minimum wage with little or no chances at advancement? Give us our time and money back and we'd be happy to.
When everyone gets a college degree, it devalues the degree... so todays master degree = yesterday's college degree. College for the sake of going = worthless piece of paper in the education arms war. It is a fallacy that everyone needs to go to college.. (ie: go to college to be a bank teller.. really?) The only people that need to go to college are the people that have a plan in how that college degree will help them advance (beyond: it will guarantee me a cushy 9-5 job will full benefits).
Agreed, most plumbers and electricians make more than the average bach. degree holder. It's profitable for every kid to go to college, plus it makes everyone feel like they are doing the right thing. I wish I never went. I have a good job that pays well and my college education has never once come up in a job interview
Agreed. The Baby Boomers taught us that by going to college, you are guaranteed a certain level of success. The result: more demand to go to college, more colleges, and more people with basic college degrees. This all adds up to fewer pieces of the pie to go to the average student who thought that by coasting by and grabbing a degree they would earn success. The reality is, those boomers earned success by going to college because they OUTPERFORMED the median. Now that the standard is a college education, you must once again do something to OUTPERFORM the median and get an advanced degree or do very well in a sought after field.
Art history major with a subpar gpa DOES NOT, NOR SHOULD IT EVER = financial success. You have to work hard in this country. Anyone can be in the 1% if they are willing to bust their ass and put in the effort.
Yeah, I have to agree on the OUTPERFORM statement, based on what I've seen. With all the employers I've seen operate from an internal standpoint (and I've worked for many different employers across both blue collar and white collar fields and multiple industries), the solid performer with experience in the real world and demonstrable contributions to prior employers always outweighed the college degree from the green, fresh on the streets applicant.
But in terms of years, if a person with four years of work experience and no degree was put against a person with no experience and a four year degree, I think it would be a very close call, leaning in favor of the degree. I was still treated like dog meat on my fourth year of full-time work.
But then, I hadn't really done much to prove myself, yet. I was still learning a lot, and building up skills.
I made a similar comment on a thread about unpaid internships, but the college degree is supposed to make the building up skills part go faster. Same goes for the master's or Ph. D. You can start at the bottom and gain the skills as you go along, but it takes longer overall. But at the same time you're at least bringing home a paycheck rather than going into debt. It's a tradeoff I think many people don't really think much about.
I think it really depends on what the person was doing for the four years and what job they are competing for. If the position does not require a college degree and you have a BA in political science versus a guy that has relevant practical experience, I think the guy without the degree will have a leg up.
Conversely, if you have a technical degree and the position requires a degree, the guy with no degree is at a disadvantage.
What is happening here with dissatisfied college graduate is not new. The same thing happened in Egypt, insofar as college students, who have a right to a free education, are dissatisfied to find that there are no jobs.
http://www.popecenter.org/news/article.html?id=2474
I spent time in Egypt in the late 1990s and there ware a lot of college graduates doing menial tasks, unable to find work that required a college degree. Those that were using their degree had masters and PhD's.
Study after study shows that the Major for which the degree was sought plays a huge role in unemployment rates among recent college graduates (age 22 - 26). Architecture has the highest rate of unemployment which makes complete sense when you factor in the crash in the housing market - followed by the Arts.
Engineering, health care, education, business and psychology/social work have levels of unemployment LOWER than the rates of other age groups.
Although the implicit promise you write of was there and is still there - YOU make the decision as to what field of study you enter. YOU have the ultimate responsibility to make sure that you will get a return for your time and money.
Contrary to all the yelling about how difficult recent college grads have it, those hardest hit by long term unemployment - those 99ers so often spoken of - are in the over 50 age group. And they are therefore hit doubly by this unemployment crisis - they are "older workers" AND have a huge gap in employment. Two strikes against them. And they too have huge debts - some of it in Plus Loans used to help their children pay for those degrees.
You hear over and over that these recent grads can't find jobs that allow them to pay for rent and all the other things that come with growing up. However, for the majority of them there are more choices to handle that situation than for those older displaced workers. They can live with their parents for a few years or share rent and other expenses with others in similar situations as they are.
Or they can - like luparb - refuse to work and instead, "occupy" and protest. But that diminishes the message of the occupy movement in the eyes of many.
The economy is changing and steps do need to be taken to ensure full employment (which has never meant that 100% were working). Unemployment compensation should be tied to not only actively seeking work but - if the job lost was in a field where employment is decreasing naturally - retraining should be tied to it as well.
However, reading these forums, there are too many voices like luparb refusing to take jobs that are offered based on what appears to be a sense of entitlement.