Ardee, I love you really, but sometimes you just SO dishearteningly naive.
............................

Translated from ‘De Profundis’ speak this means that I disagree with that worthy’s conclusion, showing a link to the actual fact of the matter, including the starting salaries and job descriptions of the top ten possible jobs for recent college grads…How foolish I must be.

By ardee, October 22 at 9:34 pm #

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/college-grads-jobs-leadership-careers-cx_tw_0109jobs.html

Number one job for college graduates…systems analyst

No. 2 on the list is the sales agent who sells retirement packages and annuities to individuals and employers. Shatkin says this job is in demand because the aging population is struggling to find long-term financial security. Its average starting salary is $30,890, and the number of openings annually is 47,750.

Also in the top 10: paralegal, school counselor, computer support specialist and cost estimator. Never heard of a cost estimator? He or she usually works in construction or engineering and assists project managers in determining how much supplies and resources will cost. The average starting salary is $32,470, and the number of openings annually is 38,379.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink your major.

* * * * *

Ardee, I love you really, but sometimes you just SO dishearteningly naive.

Humanities majors do just fine and can go work at the Wall Street gambling institution of their choice, where they will be paid handsomely, or exorbitantly even, but only if they are humanities majors from a select list of elite private colleges and universities - Harvard, Princeton, Yale . . .

Humanities majors, and even business majors, from lower ranked private and state universities don’t easily get jobs at the big Wall Street money factories. They might as well major in French literature - they’re no less likely to get a job than a business major, and at least they’ll be in a better position to emigrate to France when the American economy collapses completely.

Systems analyst . . . retirement annuities sales representative. Ardee, haven’t you ever noticed how fashions and fads come and go? Are you old enough to remember how fashionable it was in the late 1980s for businesses to ape the practices of “Japanese management” because Japan was then riding the crest of a wave of success that appeared to just go on and on? But since Japan’s economy collapased - due mainly to undercapitalized banks and government commitment to bailing them out - and stagnated during the 1990s, you haven’t heard anything about Japanese management, have you?

What about the fad for hi tech stocks? Remember that? Remember how the notion that companies needed to be able to demonstrate the ability to make a profit, or at least generate enough business cashflow to pay the rent, was dismissed as old fashioned “inside the box” thinking? Remember how it was suddenly revealed to all what should have been obvious all along -  that those tech stocks were just so much worthless hot air? Forbes magazine sure wasn’t the kind of publication to question that fad, or any other business fad.

Just because Forbes magazine says young people should study this or that in order to make themselves marketable doesn’t mean it’s a wise life decision for them. All Forbes magazine cares about is filling its glossy pages with mumbo jumbo about the business fads of the moment. And those flavor-of-the-month careers will evaporate just as fast as you can say “Milton Friedman” as soon as the corporate bosses figure out how to outsource them, or phase them out, or as the economic weather changes, as it will change, and will go on changing again and again and again. 

The smart young people are studying what interests them, and developing the independence of thought and character that will enable them to start their own businesses and succeed outside the lifeless dead-end cubicles your corporate cheerleaders at Forbes have prepared for them.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/09/college-grads-jobs-leadership-careers-cx_tw_0109jobs.html

Number one job for college graduates…systems analyst

No. 2 on the list is the sales agent who sells retirement packages and annuities to individuals and employers. Shatkin says this job is in demand because the aging population is struggling to find long-term financial security. Its average starting salary is $30,890, and the number of openings annually is 47,750.

Also in the top 10: paralegal, school counselor, computer support specialist and cost estimator. Never heard of a cost estimator? He or she usually works in construction or engineering and assists project managers in determining how much supplies and resources will cost. The average starting salary is $32,470, and the number of openings annually is 38,379.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink your major.

By ardee, October 22 at 8:39 am #

Perhaps I am guilty of rose colored glasses syndrome . . .

That we are no longer an industrial based economy means only that we are becoming a technologies based nation. We need the retraining of our work force, the seed monies to get new technologies off the ground and a revamping of our educational system to turn out the millions of workers necessary to this new direction.

I believe that we will emerge, after some hardship to be sure, a stronger and wealthier nation.

* * * * *

ardee, your rose colored glasses must be preventing you from noticing some things that should be quite obvious.

First, the problem is not that America lacks higher education, nor does America lack millions of young people who are willing and capable of learning and innovating in science and technology.

The problem is that the surest way for a young American to get rich quick and pay off all those exorbitant college loans is not to pursue a career as an engineer, scientist or in a high tech field. He’d do much better to pursue a career trading technology stocks, or designing and trading fancy new financial derivatives based on technology stocks, or working for a venture capital firm that makes strategic acquisitions in technology businesses and increases profits by putting the competition out of business, firing half the workers (who, by the way, are increasing college grads with degrees in technology) and sending as much as possible of the active part of the business to China or India, where there is a highly educated work force that cost a fraction of what it costs to hire Americans.

All the education in the world isn’t going to change that.

Only a government that adopts sensible industrial and employment policies can solve that problem, instead of placing blind faith in the globalized “free” market.

melpol, October 21 at 11:18 am #

Accepting the fact that 15-20% unemployment will be the rule is a bitter pill to swallow. But there are no industries left in the nation to employ all Americans.

Perhaps I am guilty of rose colored glasses syndrome but I take exception to this dire prediction of endless depression.

We are nation in transition I think, once we were the place of industry, but the third world could not be oppressed forever, looted of the natural resources that kept our factories churning. Certainly offshoring and globalization brings temporary hardship to us, but it is an unavoidable consequence of the passing of colonialism.

That we are no longer an industrial based economy means only that we are becoming a technologies based nation. We need the retraining of our work force, the seed monies to get new technologies off the ground and a revamping of our educational system to turn out the millions of workers necessary to this new direction.

I believe that we will emerge, after some hardship to be sure, a stronger and wealthier nation.

Re: Purplegirl

Your comment: “Boomers encompass those born as a direct reaction to the build up and ivolvement in WW2- ‘38 to about ‘48 would be a more appropriate time span.  After that is the expanse of Suburbanism. Then JFK’s ‘Camelot’.
Boomers are the children who reaped the rewards of what the Greatest Generation had witnessed during that time. They spoiled them Rotten! They became the self indulgent ‘Hippeis’ of the 60’s. The cocaine, “Members Only” corner office Yuppies of the ‘80s. Now they are the “dont’ take my Medicare” Teabaggers. They spent the last few decades decrying taxes to help the elderly and children.Trying to kill Medicare and Soc Sec- so they could get a ‘Grande latte’ every morning.  The Boomers have finaly met their match- The Suburbanites, The Kennedyites and the X’ers are out to make them finally pay their Dues!”

I’ll back you up on this, NOT 100% because there are those, there are always the truthtellers, and they should NOT be marginalized….EVER!  On the other hand, certainly by and large this IS what we’ve seen transpire.  THEIR PROBLEM is that while we were young enough “in the day” not to understand the totality of what was happening, we were OLD enough….. to take note.  Therefore, TODAY… using that 20/20 hindsight we are old enough to remember but experienced enough now NOT to be misdirected by “join the cause” chants.  Good Post.

Us… “lesser boomers” paid the price (in a big way) for the collusion and shenanigans of the “prominent boomers”.  We saw it all.  Both ways.  Yep, we did at that.

Utilize commonsense in your effort to differenciate blowhards from truthtellers.  The truthtellers were there, both sides…. However, the ideologues were also there…. both sides.

Re: Rdv

Your comment: “Amazing how all the ills of the Universe have landed at the feet of the boomers. Just a clue, Purple Girl, as a proud member of the 60’s generation myself, NO time since has anything come near the accomplishments as the result of the seismic social shifts of that era”

On the former, Rdv… quit your whining.  On the later, you need to widen your worldview.

It was all so predictable when candidate Obama was touted as “pragmatic”. Pragmatism always and inevitably leads to the total abandonment of principles. Why, then, are there all these complaints about Mr. Pragmatism?

Accepting the fact that 15-20% unemployment will be the rule is a bitter pill to
swallow. But there are no industries left in the nation to employ all Americans.
The government cannot create miracles. Building massive soup kitchens and
homeless shelters will supply some jobs.  But all is not gloom, the good life will
still be around for the more fortunate.

Amazing how all the ills of the Universe have landed at the feet of the boomers. Just a clue, Purple Girl, as a proud member of the 60’s generation myself, NO time since has anything come near the accomplishments as the result of the seismic social shifts of that era—from civil rights to ecology—it was a time of true HOPE. Weren’t us that dropped the baton, and I can’t tell you how many old hippies still show up—bodies on the line—at protests and demonstrations, while the subsequent generations sit on their asses playing with their techno toys.

Ponder this:  consider yourself (only yourself).  Will you make better decisions for yourself and your society when you’re young or when you’re older?

I will assume that you will come up with the rational answer that you will make better decisions when you’re older if, for no other reason, that you will have vastly more experience upon which to draw in making decisions and coming to conclusions.

So what is this enfatuation with having the young making the decisions about which way our society should go? 

I should hope that the older more experienced members of society are the ones who “guide the ship”, not the young inexperienced ones!

Not just the 20 somethings who are pissed about the older generations screwing them- so are the 40 somethings.
It was a sociological misnomer that Boomers spanned from ‘45 to ‘63.Generations are Defined in 10 yr increments and are effected by the events of the time.Boomers encompass those born as a direct reaction to the build up and ivolvement in WW2- ‘38 to about ‘48 would be a more appropriate time span.
After that is the expanse of Suburbanism. Then JFK’s ‘Camelot’.
Boomers are the children who reaped the rewards of what the Greatest Generation had witnessed during that time. They spoiled them Rotten! They became the self indulgent ‘Hippeis’ of the 60’s. The cocaine, “Members Only” corner office Yuppies of the ‘80s. Now they are the “dont’ take my Medicare” Teabaggers. They spent the last few decades decrying taxes to help the elderly and children.Trying to kill Medicare and Soc Sec- so they could get a ‘Grande latte’ every morning.
The Boomers have finaly met their match- The Suburbanites, The Kennedyites and the X’ers are out to make them finally pay their Dues!

Even my cynical self can’t believe just how lame the
great Democratic majority is, from the White house to
the Senate.  Can’t close Gitmo, keep the military
budget bloated, fight two wars, keep Wall Street
running amok, can’t reform health care, keep the planet
from heating up, can’t say no to lobbyists, AAAAARGH!
Oh wait, we can keep our medical pot, woo hoo!
I’m a 55 year old voter who has voted in every major
election since I was 18 and I’m not sure I’m going to
bother.

“Will the young and hopeful abandon the political playing field to older voters who are angry?”

  Dionne fails to observe in his blind partisan gamesmanship that the very reason the young may lose their enthusiasm after they have been repeatedly BETRAYED is that they are rightfully ANGRY. OBAMA DOESN"T TRY, but Dionne’s pat reply is that it is the brass tacks of “governing”. Well, the same damn thing could be said about Bush what reveals what a LAME excuse it is.
  Suggesting that anger is inappropriate or an expression limited to those useless and inconsequential old people is grossly offensive.

While the opportunists on the right seek to make hay with their usual crap there is, in fact, something important to discuss…If they will excuse me for addressing only the sincere…...

The process of becoming politicized will necessarily include disappointment. If the young voter feels betrayed or seeks to run from the process then they will simply have to mature quickly or deal with the result of their refusal to participate. Get over it kids, politics is a deceptive bit of stuff and participation requires a bunch more effort than tearing yourselves away from Facebook every two or four years.

Of course there was a backlash against the Cheney administration, at least one stolen election, a swamp of illegalities, politicized decision making and the pillaging of our treasury. I recall many leftists warning the voter that Barack Obama was not what they envisioned him to be, but he was the center of a perfect storm and thus we were doomed to elect him. Ok, McCain/Palin would have been an even greater embarrassment.

The nation will soon be in the hands of those young voters, who, one hopes, will mature enough to understand that casting a ballot is only a single step in a much greater process….we are counting on that.

President Obama will lose the young, the progressives, and the liberal Democrats
because he has moved away from the very reasons they/we worked and
supported him. He has already failed in so many ways. Where are the Changes We
Were Told To Believe In? Nowhere.

He needed, and should be FDR, but he has become much, much less.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Obama has met the crisis of post-George W. Bush America mostly cackling like a chicken.  Show some moxie, or lose in ‘012.  I, for one, no longer expect him to be courageous.

Many young Persons familiar to this Old Man were expressing a year or so ago their sense that it was worth one last try to get the U.S. institutional apparatus operating for the benefit of “wethepeople” for a change.  Some were even “cautiously optimistic,” by their own admission.

Most of them today have recognized there is absolutely nothing good going to come from “above.”  The machinery of government has at all levels been either hijacked outright or rendered effectively impotent by the designs and manipulations of the privateering “global” gangsters.  “HOPE!” and “CHANGE!” have been exposed for just more of the same old empty and opportunistic sloganeering that has become a signature feature of “the political process” here in these latter days.

A genuine call by Barrack Obama for real involvement in addressing the condition theamericanpeoples’ CONdition is in, and actual evidence of official responsiveness to the concerns of the subject/citizenry, would’ve been met with enthusiastic action from “the young” of this Old Person’s acquaintance….and from lots of their elders, too.  Such has not been and looks highly unlikely to be forthcoming from the CONfused corridors of corrupting “power.”

So young Persons will probably be a lot more inclined from here on to rely on each other to do what needs doing….maybe all-in-all a much better and smarter Way for them to go.

HokaHey!

Oh please, don’t blame the young with such gratuitous descriptions as “tired” or only interested in Obama.  I am no longer young, but I would certainly hope that the young figure out how they were duped by Obama and the Democrats, who had not intention of doing anything that upset the usual powers who run this country.  It is getting rther hard not to note how Obama and the Democratic leadership are giving up on the public option, preparing to escalate in Afghanistan, still refusing to ban “don’t ask, don’t tell,” refusing to support something as simple as gay marriage, approving the pipeline from the tar sands while actively undermining the Copenhagen Conference by opposing any firm carbon limits, pushing coal fired power plants under the false claim that coal can be clean, dropping any support for the labor bill altogether, increasing immigrant raids and imprisonment, appointing the most compromised bankers and their friends to all the key economic positions, submitting the biggest defense budget ever, and negotiating the most critical issues behind closed doors.  Now the Democrats wonder why support is dwindling?  What on earth do these corrupt manipulators expect?

the Maureen Dowd piece:

Fie, Fatal Flaw!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18dowd.html?_r=2

Also looking—at last!—to be Over Obama: John Nichols . . .

“The Obama administration really needs to get over itself.”
Obama vs. Media Critics: Stop Whining
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/13/opinion/main5381640.shtml

re; @CT

If you are mentioning Maureen Dowd’s recent piece, I know exactly what you mean. There is her devastating comment of “The tyro American President”. Then there is this gem: “F.D.R. asked to be judged by the enemies he had made. But what of a president who strives to keep everyone in some vague middle ground of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, without ever offending anyone?”
That is the Big Bloody Rub.

thebeerdoctor writes:
“For me, the only thing sadder than this capitalist sham disguised as democracy in action, is the silly thought that Code Pink might actually believe they were buying access.”

They DID buy access—as thebeerdoctor notes, there are pictures.

The real sadness is that the CodePink players’ 30-grand tribute—why do we suspect Oblabla paid it out of some deep pocket?—discredited, probably forever, an organization which had enjoyed support from many less well-heeled and/or less star-struck ... sigh.

On the plus side of the distaff, Maureen Dowd seems to have begun to shake the fairy dust out of her hair . . .

President Obama as a candidate packaged his campaign to appear as a smart reasonable guy who would apply some compassionate common sense to extract this country from its overbearing imperialist predicament. But alas, nothing seems further from the truth, when time and time again, the most recently elected President reveals who he actually takes counsel from, which is nearly always, the rich and powerfully well connected.
A very good example of what I am referring to, happened last Thursday night, when two Code Pink members had to shell out $30,400 in order to deliver to President Obama an anti-Afghanistan war petition signed by Afghan women. This was all part of a “meet and greet” fund raiser.
For me, the only thing sadder than this capitalist sham disguised as democracy in action, is the silly thought that Code Pink might actually believe they were buying access.
I am sure President Obama smiled and posed for photos, looked concerned and then forgot it ever happened.

If the Democrats are worried about turning off the young, then they should lock Harry Reid and Max Baucus and Mary Landrieu and the rest of the “Blue Dogs” in a room and not let them eat or use the toilet until they pledge to vote for a basket of reforms (with heavy financial penalties if they back down):

Medicare for all.

Cutting the military (I refuse to call it “defense”) budget by at 75%.

Re-enacting usury laws and strict banking and financial regulation.

Tough anti-trust laws to break up the monopolies and cartels in “healthcare” (so called) and media, among others.

Strong pro-union legislation and statutory workplace rights guaranteeing a living wage, paid holiday, on the job free speech, end of arbitrary dismissal, statutory compensation for layoffs and arbitrary firings.

100% tax credit for college tuition, and free tuition grants to the extent college tuition exceeds an individual’s tax liability.

A tax deduction for rent to match the deduction for mortgage interest. Why should the poor subsidize the rich?

Steeply graduated marginal income tax rates on annual incomes above, say, $500,000 - that way, numerically few people will be affected but the deficit could be eliminated overnight. Eliminate tax breaks for deferred compensation and stock options.

Sound radical? It is, compared to McAmerica: the Corporate Themepark. But compared to the rest of the developed world, it’s just considered sensible policy in regulated capitalist economies.

Our Democratic Party has two many scared little wimps and too few leaders.

If Obama doesn’t get his act together and fast, I think we should mount a primary challenge against him. Alan Grayson would be a good choice.

“Put starkly: if only Americans 45 and over had cast ballots in 2008, Barack Obama would not be president.”

It’s kind of doubtful the sexy-showboat schtick, the suggestive purring of populist slogans, would work again, except on people who are dumb as well as young ... and Ted Kennedy’s er dead.

Moreover, some of the “liberal” media seem to be slithering, s-l-o-w-l-y, out of His pocket, as the realization sinks in that Obama’s really a Blue Dog, in a skin-deep birthday suit . . .