How Are the Kids? Unemployed, Underwater, and Sinking
baselinescenario.com
baselinescenario.com
So now he basically sits around surfing the internet all day and looking at foreign films.
3 months ago, I told him I would help him by getting him the right materials he would need so that he could pick up some design skills, since he seemed really interested in graphic design. Initially, he seemed interested, but then he refused because he didn't like the idea of using pirated materials such as a copy of Photoshop or Lynda tutorials. At the same time though, he refused to pay for anything that would actually teach him what he needed to know.
I just don't understand how someone can drift sideways like that for so long. The guy is not picking up any new skills or making any real progression in his life. The other day he complained because he thinks all the clerical jobs he is applying for are automatically going to women. It's like he makes up excuses to cover up for his own laziness.
Because someone else is taking care of him (parents, the government, etc...)
[citation needed]
Now, they're almost certainly including the millions of people with chronic diseases that do not have overt symptoms, such as hyperlipidemia and early-stage hypertension.
I'm not sure the percent on disability would be much more relevant, considering that the majority of recent college grads taking time off for lyme disease or whatever aren't collecting disability.
"I would also bet my lunch that the numbers are heavily skewed towards older demographics."
60% of those with chronic illnesses are between 18 and 64 according to this: Chronic Care in America: A 21st Century Challenge, a study of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation & Partnership for Solutions: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD for the Robert
(I misread the Wikipedia article, which is why I said 60% of Americans had chronic illnesses instead of the actual close to 1 in 2 stat. My bad.)
Anyway my point was just that there are an enormous number of reasons why a person might appear to be not doing anything for a while.
I mean if 50% has a chronic illness but in the 1950's 45% had them, then only the 5% increase can be used as an argument, which then holds a lot less weight.
How has this number changed since, say, 2007?
I mention 2007 because a lot more people were employed then. How has their ability to work changed since then?
He'd be competing for work against experienced designers, and against newly-graduated design students.
Practice and good taste is pretty much the only things in design. Low-end design is pretty much just keeping up with the lowest common denominator in design style, anybody moderately trained--or self trained--can do it.
Sure. It happens. But that's not the way to bet.
At the same time though, for instance, he told me that he is very interested in trying to find some foreign policy-related job where he could leverage his language skills. So I asked him why not start a blog where he offered commentary on events occurring in that region -- but again here, he expressed a lack of any real motivation in actually getting the blog up and running and doing posts on it.
It's just very difficult for me to empathize with someone like that.
Um, didn't they say just before this that 50% of Bachelor's graduates cannot find jobs requiring that degree? So how is funding even more Bachelor's degrees going to help in the current environment?
The over-indulgent, hypocritical, self-entitled remnants of the Baby Boomers have done a great deal to derail the future success of this generation. Of course each individual must be valued in and of his/herself, but the generation as a whole has been siphoning economic resources to extend an entitled life well into their elderly years. They came to an understanding at an early age that they will always be wealthy and affluent and when that starts to slip away they, as a generation, decide that they are going to get what they want, everyone else be damned.
This mindset is currently ravaging the potential of the youth.
There, I got that off of my chest (fingers).
This type of mentality is why the US will lose to China. The government and Wall Street only care about how the numbers look on paper. As markets evolve and become more and more sophisticated, there is an increasing disconnect with what these numbers actually mean for public prosperity.
I was with you on the first paragraph, but this I have to LOL at. Have a look into China's property market if you have a spare hour somewhere. It's in a lot worse shape than the US one is, except that the bubble hasn't burst yet. House prices have gone up 100's of % (yes, that's two 0's, and it's not a typo) over the last few years basically because Chinese have little to no other options available to them to store value/wealth in. There are whole cities that lay empty and whose owners only bought the real estate for 'investment' purposes, forced government lending is being misappropriated for unproductive real estate development, insolvent loans are kept on their feet by the government by rolling them over. Taxi drivers and maids own two or three apartments - and all over the place, in tier one Beijing and Shanghai but also tier two like Kunming, I mean this is not just some localized big city phenomenon (Kunming is still huge by my standards, but well ;) )
The bursting of the Chinese bubble is going to hit China like a sledge hammer, and I'm curious to see what their response is going to be. One way or the other, it's going to affect the West in a major way, so I'm really hoping for a soft landing, but we'll just have to wait and see.
However I think my larger concern still holds, which is that fundamentally Americans seem unwilling to face the reality of competing in a global economy. Desperately clinging to bubble home valuations is but a minor symptom. China has some bad problems to be sure (environment, demographic decline, etc), but being competitive in the global marketplace isn't one of them.
One of the problems in Australia is that a high immigration level keeps the market "bubble" going, makes the rental market hell to though :/
The industrial revolution spawned public schools for giving all of society the ability to take part - now we need another similar revolution.
However, whereas before it was the capitalist class doing this to get more workers for their factories, it's now those very people trying to restrict education into the same old mold.
We need a model that suits the emerging model: global, info rich, distributed, open-source, democratized, etc.
This means we need: basic programming (using FOSS) for everyone, teach stats before, teach FabLab tech, teach media literacy and research at a young age, show them the vast amount of resources at their disposal.
Our kids really will be our future...
I haven't seen any specific numbers that break this down by degree. Given what I've seen in computer science, I'd bet that engineers and other "hard" degrees are doing just fine.
The blind belief that getting a "hard" degree is a guaranteed path to gainful employment is fraught with much of the same false logic as people getting "soft" degrees. I saw much of this during my time in college.
The majority of the class did the work they were assigned and that was that. There was very little effort put towards professional development, networking with industry people, or building a solid portfolio of past work that is key to succeeding in any enterprise.
When I left school, the people who were passionate about the subject - people who pursued applications of their craft above and beyond the paltry requirements of getting the degree, they were the ones who found jobs easily. Of my peers from university, many are still underemployed today, or are employed with poor prospects of either vertical or horizontal movement.
This goes beyond "hard" degrees. I'm heavily into photography besides being a coder, and the number of people who go to art school for a photography degree, clearly have not shot enough pictures, or put together a substantial portfolio, but expecting to find employment or contracts is pretty absurd.
I see the same problem in CS and engineering - people who are under the incredibly false presumption that just by finishing the degree that they are employable. They're only more employable right now because of the gigantic shortage of qualified coders, but this situation won't last forever.
And then what? Let's say 5% of people now are in tech (just a guess, maybe a bit too much). Let's say we're short on people in tech by 100% (we're not, but let's say so). That would mean the tech sector could employ 10% of the population. What's the rest going to do? What good will it do when the janitors and assembly line workers have memorized a hello world in Python?
How about using scaling government back a bit to encourage a better business climate? Look at the policy differences between Texas and California. It's no surprise where the jobs migrate to.
Government needs to step back temporarily and let business flourish. A lower corporate income tax and tax breaks for early stage startup investments seem like it would go way farther than a huge push to add more government employees.
When commercial interests are in ascendence, the results are equally unstable.
Neither lower taxes nor more regulations are a solution.
Nor higher taxes, nor less regulations.
And for those that hadn't noticed, government did step back from its designated regulatory roles, and we then saw the largest economic crash in a half century, we saw lies and fraud, profits from the increasing privatization of two wars, and (what should be distressing to any capitalist) socialized losses.
Reprehensible numbers of (legal) techniques for bypassing taxes, including the so-called "Double Irish" of recent reports.
And what has been one of the largest transfers of wealth seen in the US. (Which seems good if you're among the rich, until you realize you might not have an economy nor enough potential customers.)
The numbers of corporate leaches is as troubling as the numbers of folks claimed to be government leaches; commercial organizations that are increasingly extractive, rather than productive.
As a startup, I want a level business playing field. As part of that, I want cogent and adaptive regulation. And I don't choose to operate a business in those regions that are increasingly or entirely commercially-focused; that have ineffective or failing governments.
As with all things, balance. Less government is as bad as more government. But that's just not a good sound bite.
In what universe is pushing mortgages "stepping back from regulation"?
Regulation is systemic risk.
I would like to see this statement better qualified. Of the dozens of people I've worked with over the years, I can think of exactly three who had good credentials out of college. Of those three, I know for a fact that at least one had good credentials going in.
Conversely, some industries are still healthy and hiring. But it seems that training and qualification often lag demand. I remember trying to peddle my (albeit infant) UNIX skills in 1993 (also an economic recession). It took me a while to get myself into the a geographic location with sufficient demand for my skills. After which, I had zero trouble paying the monthly on my loans. Fast forward to 2003, and the systems administrations market is glutted with a bunch of fresh, young faces who've installed Ubuntu a few times and are willing to work 80+ hours a week for 30K a year. That was my clue that it was time to move on. One of them, anyway.
Kinda comes across as "F--- you, Jack, I got mine," I guess. But I don't like this sort of doom and gloom pity party.
Ten years ago I was intermittently working in the trades between bouts of pizza delivery and crashing unemployed on a friend's couch. I get paid mostly to write open source plugins for web CMS's these days. Occasionally I consult if the project's interesting. I've got a decent house and an incredible wife. My change of fortune is utterly unremarkable. No luck involved, just 10 years of hustling, looking for the next angle, working on my skills and networking.
But hey, if you pay attention you can see these things coming, so it's okay right?
Maybe, but it is worth remembering that the old unionized economy provided people with greater career stability. I wouldn't personally want to do the same thing for my whole career, but having been in the workforce I've seen lots of relatively capable web dev's and the like who are going to be up shit creek the next time a shift comes.
It is sad to say, but constant effort toward re-invention and education is a rarity in our society. I think as a society we need to figure out how much of this is reasonable to expect from the average person and accordingly make sure that kids learn of this expectation from a young age. I think it is fairly obvious that having to learn a whole new field every year is too much, but where is the line?
Some amount of defaults/resetting will be likely - the question is, who will take the haircut when the loans are not repaid?
Author's solution: Invest more in the same education system
How does this make any sense? Shifting supply to the right will only reduce the equilibrium wage.
Of course, when they get their second, or third, and still can't find work...
This, in turn, means that college degrees become the base level qualification required for a showing of minimum competency. Compare the ability of a recent college graduate to secure employment with that of a high school graduate in the 1970s, and I'd bet they're not far off...
Technical degrees (like engineering) don't have problems like this. I'm a Junior with ample internship offers for next summer, and my friends who are seniors all have job offers coming in. Last I checked our school was ranked in the 80s nationally, so it's not like we are MIT or Stanford.