N2EY wrote:
In article , Alun
writes:


(N2EY) wrote in
:


In article , Alun
writes:


We are still down 2 million jobs since 911. Mine was one
of the ones lost in the months after the attack. I am trying to run my
own business now, but it is a hard struggle. I would go back to working
for someone else, but there are no jobs in my field. The very few job
ads I see ask for impossibly high qualifications (for me anyway!), as
employers can pick and choose from the glut of people looking for work.
For example, I have a BS and they are looking for PhDs.

If you still have a well paid job it is easy to overlook the situation,
but it's dire. Employers are not hiring at anything like the rate
expected at this stage of an economic recovery.

That's because they learned to make do with the people they had, and
are reluctant to add more now.

That's a large part of it, although I think tere may be more going on.


Such as?

2.4 million jobs were lost, and only
about 400,000 new ones have been added. It's impossible to look at
those numbers and not conclude that the economy is in terrible shape.
Other economic indicators may be good, but the employment problem is
very real and very large.

Remember Ross Perot and the "giant sucking sound"?

I found his ears rather distracting


Much of what he predicted has come to pass, though.


The current administration might prefer that we all focus on security
and foreign wars, but that's because if too many people look too hard
at the employment numbers it will hurt their chances of reelection.
FWIW, I doubt that any government can really influence the economy more
than a tiny amount, but the political facts of life say that people
will vote for someone who promises to fix the economy.


Seems to me that the real problem is more fundamental. Short term fixes
won't change long-term problems.

For example, importing 57% of our oil, and letting that number rise
every year, isn't the right trend, but it's been allowed to go on
because it's cheaper in the short term than. (Please don't blame the
environmental concerns of drilling in the Arctic and similar places
until you have solid numbers on what oil from those places costs to
extract, and how much can actually be extracted.)

I think reliance on oil is too strong. More needs to be done on other
sources of energy. Fat chance with oilmen in control, not that much was
ever done before.


And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a major
factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the opposition in
2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this year.

I heard the Green party has something to say about all this. At any
rate, they aren't backing Ralph. His support this year is likely to be
down in the noise. Without a party backing him, he's just another Harold
Stassen.



Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary than
ever.

If the cost continues at double digit increases every year, and the
graduate stands a pretty good chance of his/her entire field being made
redundant, the necessity of the education is going to go away. Granted
the would-be student is flippin burgers, but their job won't be made
irrelevant.

Makes me think of the "They Might be Giants" Sone "Minimum Wage"

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania, tuition
alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very expensive at the
time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times that. But will the
starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more than 10 times what it was in
1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid 10 times what it was in my time
there? Nope.


- Mike KB3EIA -