Wisdom from The Action Wisdom In Action

From Time.

"The quote, from a NY Times piece about cord cutters who are dropping cable TV, comes from the president of a company that expects to sell 500,000 digital antennas this year, up from 385,000 in 2009.

The obvious attraction of these antennas is that, once purchased, they bring totally free TV viewing into the household. That might seem miraculous to the average consumer, spending $2,000 a year on cable, Internet, and other services, but in ye olden times most people watched TV in their homes at no charge whatsoever.

With all the money the consumer is not spending on pay TV, he now has the freedom and some extra dollars to pick and choose to pay for other content he actually wants—not that just happens to be part of some bundle of channels decreed by a cable company. When you do the math, it's readily apparent that by dropping cable you can buy a lot of other content. If your monthly cable bill was $40, that's around $500 a year after taxes and fees. And that's $500 you might choose to spend (or save) in lots of different ways."

From PopSci. You might want to re-think butcher school.

"Just in time for the holidays comes a robot designed to swiftly and efficiently de-bone your ham. Wielding a fearsome knife reminiscent of the stabbing bot we saw months ago, HAMDAS-R, developed by Mayekawa Electric, removes the bones from 500 hams in one hour, twice as fast as the fastest human ham boner.

HAMDAS-R represents a leap forward in the automation of food processing – the “variations in meat form and bone size” have heretofore been an obstacle in robotic processing of “irregularly shaped, soft foods” such as hams. This robot is able to consistently distinguish meat from bone. While the advance in technology is exciting, the automation of skilled labor is also another sad step toward the day the robots leave us all unemployed. Which would still be better than HAMDAS-R turning its ham de-boning knife on humans."

Instead of butcher school, why not go to school to learn how to fix these things? At some point, the robot's knife will need sharpening, or the robot itself will need work (maybe a new program?).

Don't look now, but even the robots are building themselves.

From CNN Money.

"The problem with bringing down the stubbornly high unemployment rate is that employers are learning to do more with less."

Thanks to outsourcing, off-shoring, software, and/or robots. Oh, and possibly moving to another line of business.

You could've been replaced by a smart phone app.

"Retailers, who are reporting a strong start to the holiday shopping season, are apparently doing so with less help than in the past."

Just look at what happened out on the farm--machines and migrants now pick the fruits and veggies that thousands of local laborers once did. Huge tractors now do the work that horses and plows once did. Lastly, railroad cars now get the crops to market, rather than horses and overloaded wagons.

Those huge tractors are now GPS equipped, meaning they now run unmanned. The farmer has now become a hand-held computer user, programming the tractor's path from the comfort of his own home. Factories have gone this way, and soon cars will be going this way. Which way will you be going? I hope you'll be going in the direction that learns how to program those hand-held units, or maybe fixes the machines when they break down. Clearly, operators are no longer needed.

"There's no question that employers are being cautious about hiring, especially full-time workers," said Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at Cal State University Channel Islands. "They're not certain the recovery is for real so they're taking their time. And because of productivity gain they don't need to hire as many people.

The push to do more with less help isn't limited to stores. It can be seen in offices and factories across numerous industries.

Businesses were forced to figure how to be more productive and change the way they did business, in order to survive during the recession, said Tig Gilliam, president of the North American unit of Adecco, the world's largest job placement firm. And that isn't going away anytime soon, he said."

...

"That's a key reason the job market has remained stuck in the mud. While gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy, has recovered 84% of the output that was lost during the recession, but the labor market has recouped only 11% of the jobs that were lost.

"We're producing almost as much as we did before the recession, with 7.5 million less people," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. "The difference is going into the productivity numbers and corporate profits."

...

"But that level of productivity can't go on forever, said Achuthan.

"There is a limit. Workers do start to push back," he said. "But business managers don't hire because they're nice guys or girls, they hire because they're scared that they'll lose business to someone else. That'll be what gets hiring done."

From the NY Times. Looks like people are going to have to come to grips with reality--the 1-income family is here to stay, and so is frugality. What's coming to stay along with it: high food prices and the introduction of food sold by the kilo instead of the pound.

"The longer people stay out of work, the more trouble they have finding new work. That is a fact of life that much of Europe, with its underclass of permanently idle workers, knows all too well. But it is a lesson that the United States seems to be just learning."

...

"So the legions of long-term unemployed will probably be idle for significantly longer than their counterparts in past recessions, reducing their chances of eventually finding a job even when the economy becomes more robust.

“I am so worried somebody will look at me and say, ‘Oh, he’s probably lost his edge,’ ” said Tim Smyth, 51, a New York television producer who has been unable to find work since 2008, despite having two decades of experience at places like Nickelodeon and the Food Network. “I mean, I know it’s not true, but I’m afraid I might say the same thing if I were interviewing someone I didn’t know very well who’s been out of work this long.”

Mr. Smyth’s anxieties are not unfounded. New data from the Labor Department, provided to The New York Times, shows that people out of work fewer than five weeks are more than three times as likely to find a job in the coming month than people who have been out of work for over a year, with a re-employment rate of 30.7 percent versus 8.7 percent, respectively.

Likewise, previous economic studies, many based on Europe’s job market struggles, have shown that people who become disconnected from the work force have more trouble getting hired, probably because of some combination of stigma, discouragement and deterioration of their skills."

...

"Several factors lead to this downward spiral of the unemployed.

In some cases, the long-term unemployed were poor performers in their previous positions and among the first to be terminated when the recession began. These people are weak job candidates with less impressive résumés and references.

In other instances, those who lost jobs may have been good workers but were laid off from occupations or industries that are in permanent decline, like manufacturing.

But economists have tried to control for these selection issues, and studies comparing the fates of similar workers have also shown that the experience of unemployment itself damages job prospects.

If jobless workers had been in sales, for instance, their customers might have moved on. Or perhaps the list of contacts they could turn to for leads is obsolete. Mr. Smyth, for example, says that so many of his former co-workers have been displaced that he is no longer sure whom to call on about openings.

In particularly dynamic industries, like software engineering, unemployed workers might also miss out on new developments and fail to develop the skills required.

Still, this explanation probably applies to only a small slice of the country’s 6.2 million long-term unemployed."

Could it be that too many people were gratuitously hired in the first place...maybe even for the tax credits?

"It does not help when job seekers are repeatedly rejected — or worse, ignored. Constant rejection not only discourages workers from job-hunting as intensively, but also makes people less confident when they do land interviews. A Pew Social Trends report found that the long-term unemployed were significantly more likely to say they had lost some of their self-respect than their counterparts with shorter spells of joblessness.

“People don’t have money to keep up appearances important for job hunting,” said Katherine S. Newman, a sociology professor at Princeton. “They can’t go to the dentist. They can’t get new clothes. They gain weight and look out of shape, since unemployment is such a stressful experience. All that is held against them when there is such an enormous range of workers to choose from.”

That's why this would've been the prime opportunity to go back to school, but nobody saved any money for this rainy day, and has insufficient credit to finance it.

"Direct employment programs — like the public works projects of the New Deal and World War II — may be the fastest way to put people back to work, economists say. But those raise concerns of crowding out businesses and displacing other workers. Also the approach, which smacks of socialism to some, seems politically untenable at the moment.

One possible compromise might be broader-scale retraining and apprenticeship programs, suggests Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard.

“That’s better than having more people just go on disability as a last resort, and then basically never return to work in their life, which many will do,” he said. The Obama administration has recently thrown its support behind an effort to overhaul community college retraining programs.

“One of the reasons to focus on training for workers, even if you’re not training workers for new jobs, is that when you have workers who have not been in a job for a long time, you need to do all you can to get them to look and feel job-ready when the openings do eventually come back,” said Betsey Stevenson, the Labor Department’s chief economist.

The real threat, economists say, is that America, like some of its Old World peers, may simply become accustomed to a large class of idled workers.

“After a while, a lot of European countries just got used to having 8 or 9 percent unemployment, where they just said, ‘Hey, that’s about good enough,’ ” said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “If the unemployment rates here stay high but remain relatively stable, people may not worry so much that that’ll be their fate this month or next year. And all these unemployed people will fall from the front of their mind, and that’s it for them.”

In the Italian town I lived in for 3 years, there were legions of card-players in the park: men who fell off the employment rolls some years back, and never got back on. I hear Britain's teeming with these sorts of people who are "perpetually on the dole" or never-ending welfare for generations. We already went there and did that, and thankfully found some sort of reform--more reform needs to happen, I think, because loopholes have been found and enlarged within the new system.

Meanwhile, here's what happened to the rest of the workforce--they either got replaced by software, off-shored, outsourced, or were gratuitous hires in the first place, and had no compelling reason to be kept around.

From the Huffington Post.

"Milo Beckman, 14, became frustrated when his SAT score rose the second time he took the test. Why? Because he didn't think he did as well compared to the first time he took it.

So Beckman, whom the New York Observer once dubbed a "prodigy," formulated a hypothesis: That students who wrote longer SAT essays scored higher. And then he tested that theory. And he was right."

...

"An MIT professor corroborated Beckman's research. "Milo's findings are exciting to me for the reason that any researcher is excited when somebody else takes their research and applies it in an innovative way and replicates it. Because it confirms my research," Les Perelman told ABC."

This may also explain why women outnumber men in college--stronger language skills. If I had known this SAT secret when I was 18, I actually would've taken the darned thing! Back then, it was all math worries, and I don't do math so well.

Nowadays, give me a topic (other than math or science), and I can just about write about it (whether true or just bluff).

I’m Wenchypoo, and I’ll be your tour guide. Please hold onto the handrail as we make our way into the vast dark caverns. I’ll pull these heavy drapes aside so we can get underway.

This tour is intended to go beyond the immediate reaches of what we commonly think of as the underground economy: drug dealers, prostitutes, people working for under-the-table cash, illegal immigrants as day laborers, and the like. There is a less-disreputable, cleaner side to the world, and I’ll tell you all about it.

This cleaner, sunnier side of the underground economy may involve your friends, neighbors, even your own kid, and you may not have realized you even participated in the underground economy yourself a time or two.

The nicer side involves yard sale holders, babysitters, lawn mowing, firewood chopping and delivery, and other innocent and perfectly legal activities—without permits, a business setup, and all cash-paid. Ever sell one of your cars for cash, and didn’t report it as income? Guess what—you’ve participated without realizing it.

Now, right away, people are quick to judge participants in the underground economy as tax cheats without understanding the background and knowing the information that goes with the territory, such as the legal loophole that Congress has written into the tax code allowing a certain dollar amount of this activity to be conducted per year without incurring IRS penalties or notice. This loophole is meant to cover the odd Congresskid with a summer job who doesn’t really make enough in taxes to be a bother, but there’s nothing in the code that says the rest of us can’t join in the fun.

Knowing the rules and complying with them are what separate loophole divers from tax cheats.

But there are people and activities that can take you well beyond the IRS safety zone and these people pay a harsh price for their activities: they cannot deposit their money. Any money unearned and unaccountable cannot be placed in an account with a paper trail or other means of surveillance and verification. This means no bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, or even offshore accounts that are IRS- or Treasury-accessible. These people wind up walking around with wads of money in their pockets.

Another thing they cannot do with their money (so they don’t attract undue attention) is to put their money into overt assets such as large, pricey houses, fancy cars, boats, or other things that would belie their gains. As long as they exhibit a lifestyle that is conceivably within their reported income (from a job or business), they are beyond suspicion.

So how do our “nefarious” babysitters, lawn boys, yard sale holders, and firewood haulers spend their money that’s over and above the IRS-defined limit? As they receive it—in cash. The best places to “invest” the money are in food and thrift store clothing.

There is way more to the underground economy that I have written here, so I’ve included a reading list and an article link for your further perusal:
The "New" Economy? (article)
Cash-in-Hand Work
Ragnar's Guide to the Underground Economy
Under the Table and Into Your Your Pocket
How to Prosper in the Underground Economy
Deep Inside the Underground Economy
Top 10 List of Underground Economy Books

So why aren’t more of us taking part in this sometimes-legal activity? Fear of the IRS. Once you get to know their ground rules and operate within them, you have nothing to fear except bad perception from the uninformed.

I want to thank you for stopping by and participating in the Wenchypoo Underground Economy Tour. There are brochures (listed above) for you to take home with you, and do see us again. I hope I’ve been able to change some perceptions about the better side of the underground economy, and hope you have a nice day.

You see articles about it, you hear talk radio shows about it, you drive by numerous yard sales, and attend multitudes of cyber-auctions…and you wonder how much treasure could there be in trash.

Where does all this stuff come from, and why are they asking such low prices for seemingly good stuff? It comes from the roadside, the trashcan, the dumpster, the dump itself, or a generous neighbor or friend. So-called “castoffs” or useless stuff to one can be a treasure to somebody else—and a small retirement income to yet a third person.

Ultimate recycling of furniture is a great way to make money and stay busy at the same time. If you’ve held yard sales for yourself, or had the opportunity to help someone else hold one, you’ve learned that furniture (when fixed up and in good shape) usually goes first, and for the most money.

Performing fix-ups is easy. Like decorator shows that tell you the quickest, easiest way to spruce up homes is through paint, the same is true for furniture pieces. A little paint, some new hardware, maybe different legs, and VOILA! A scratched and horribly outdated coffee table becomes something to behold. Whip out some sandpaper, sand in certain areas, and follow with a quick wipe of stain all over, and it becomes “antiqued” for that well-worn farmhouse look.

A sander, some sand paper, some paint (which can be had for a bargain in salvage stores, “oops bins”, or left over from other projects), and free curbside furniture will usher you into a new world of making money. Some newer hardware (or recycled hardware from other pieces) and some new legs might be your only real outlay for any particular project piece, and you’ll definitely recoup the cost in your sale. This is one place where your efforts get rewarded handsomely!

In your spare time, it pays to keep abreast of furniture fashion trends, so you can keep your stock up-to-date and quick to move. Scan ads and visit showrooms to get an idea of what’s current. Butcher-block tops, peeling paint, and the color hunter green used to be in fashion, but what’s in demand TODAY? Staying current may be just the ticket to insure inventory turnover, and current fashions will always be in demand and pay more, with little extra cost to you. Sometimes, though, personal ingenuity may surprise you—you never know how many people can share your taste for colors and style.

Work when you want, on what you want, dressed how you like, and you work for yourself—what more could you ask? The money you make is yours to keep, but you need to learn HOW to keep it by reading the tax code and learning how it pertains to you. Certain states don’t ask for sales tax if you don’t collect it, and certain federal laws pertain to hobbies as opposed to businesses. You also need to look into licensing requirements so you don’t get tripped up for lacking information.

Overall, if you find an occasional piece you refurbish, and occasionally sell it (through yard sales, flea market booths, near college campuses, etc.), you shouldn’t run afoul of tax or business laws—just watch that you don’t mass-produce or heavily repeat yourself...and don't become a "perpetual yard sale" site. You don’t want to arouse suspicion and attract undue attention. Rotate your stock and your sales sites until you find out what sells fastest and where.

For a small amount of supplies, some elbow grease, and some imagination, you can change many a mind about buying new while making some pocket money.

From Fox Business News blogs.

"Meet Lighting Science Group. One year ago they had 35 employees, today it's 400. Many of those are in manufacturing jobs in their Florida factory. Business is so good they want to build another plant, preferably in the United States.

But that may not happen.

As the CEO explains, the government's stimulus plan is offering up help with bonds and credit, but the credit process takes so long - 18 months - that he may have to move jobs offshore because countries like China are offering credit right now. Companies in industries like this cannot wait for a year and a half to grow because a competitor will come in quicker and take the business. It's not that they don't want to hire more American workers, it's that they don't want to risk losing the business they currently have.

He also dispels the myth that labor costs are the big problem.

The point? America is falling behind in efficiency of capital and credit, and we had better wake up or we'll lose more growth companies like this to overseas competitors."

Article contains a video. You see--it doesn't matter how low interest rates go, or who offers them, but it's the time it takes to get the credit (on the business side) that holds back progress that our so-called president likes to flaunt in constituent crowds. The proof is in the pudding, and we're stuck holding vats of Jello.

From CNN Money.

"Instead of working at full speed, we are at our best when we take breaks every 90 to 120 minutes, when our four basic needs (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual) are met, and when we tackle one task at a time. Sounds simplistic, but the Project says its work is rooted in the "multidisciplinary science of high performance." Its founder, Tony Schwartz, has written a book based on these findings, The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance."

...

"Despite my doubts, I decided to take the Energy Project's teachings for a spin. After all, its productivity gurus have been hired at Google and Sony Pictures. So I forced myself to take a (real) break every hour and a half while working on this article. It wasn't easy, but after a while I stopped feeling guilty and found plenty of nonwork things to do -- calling a friend or reading a magazine. Though I ended up spending less time in front of my computer, I was faster and more efficient."

I wonder if anyone's done a study on the efficiency and productivity of countries with a "siesta" or "reposo" compared with our straight-8. In Italy, they have a "reposo" which means full-timers have a split shift: they work from 8-12 a.m., then go home for rest, meal, whatever (the whole town shuts down at 1:00 p.m.), and return to work at 4-8. Town reopens at 4:00. Even schools have this split-shift, and kids go on Saturdays as well. This allows for family time in the afternoons, but dinner is rather late--10:00. The biggest meal is served in the afternoons during reposo, and breakfast and dinner are light.

I'm sure Mexico has something similar. France just went from a 35-hour work week to a 40-hour work week--they headed the other way.

If people didn't work one job all day, then it would provide time for two part-time jobs. Still, I'd want to know productivity and efficiency numbers.

From Fox Business News.

"...we are only about 81 days away from what could be the largest tax hike in U.S. history.

Former adviser to President George W. Bush, who's now an economics professor at Harvard, outlined exactly why everyone... yes everyone... will be impacted if only the tax cuts for the rich are allowed to expire.

On an op-ed in the New York Times, Gregory Mankiw starts in the middle of the argument making a rational acknowledgment: “The Democrats are right about one thing: I can afford to pay more in taxes."

He's not playing the “woe is me card, ” the “I'm rich, but not really rich card.”

Mankiw says more taxes would just mean he'd work less."

...

"If he was offered $1,000 to write an article - without taxes at all - he would get a $1,000. And if he invested it at 8% interest he would end up with $10,000 in 30 years.

But then again, that world doesn't exist.

In reality, if the tax cuts expire, he would pay more than 39% in taxes, nearly 4% in Medicare tax thanks to Obamacare and more than 5% in state income taxes which equals $523.

As far as investing it, the corporation whose stock he chose would have to pay 35% tax, so he would only make a little more than 5%. So over 10 years that money would only grow to about $1,700.

But wait there's more!

Once he leaves his children that money
in his will, they'll get hit by a 55% estate tax. So instead of $10,000, his kids would get less than $1,000. So why bother in the first place!"

...

"a study by the an economist at Arizona State University found a 10% increase in taxes led to a 10 to 15% decrease in work hours.--especially if those workers felt their money was going to transfer programs like Social Security or welfare.

As Mankiw points out, some of these people being less incentivized to work may include surgeons or lawyers or people vital to your day to day life."

A full pantry and no debt also mean you don't have to work as much as before--you have less to support.

From Yahoo News.

"The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist. Yet they no longer qualify for them.

They're running into a trend that took root during the recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties — duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet the new requirements.

As a result, some database administrators now have to manage network security.

Accountants must do financial analysis to find ways to cut costs.

Factory assembly workers need to program computers to run machinery."

Employers learned to do more with less, and fortunate employees learned to do more for the same pay. If you want to be part of that picture again, you have to know how to fit in and keep up in the new environment. In other words, they don't want "the old you" back--they want a new, more productive you. Keeping your financial house clean while you were gone will go toward showing what you can do for the boss, now that you know what time and money are worth. It shouldn't matter if it's yours or the boss's.

"The broader responsibilities mean it's harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can't find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession."

Then you've got those who only go through the motions of job search to fulfill their unemployment office requirements.

"When the company sought earlier this year to hire a new health, safety and environment director for one of its plants, it wanted candidates with a wider range of abilities than before. In particular, it needed someone skilled not just in managing health and safety but also in guiding employees to adapt to workplace changes.

Joe Bozada, chief of staff for Bayer's CEO, said the company initially interviewed 30 candidates. Then it did final interviews with seven. But none had the additional experience the company now wanted. Ultimately, Bozada said, the company chose one of its own employees it had already trained."

...

"Workers aren't just being asked to increase their output, Altig says. They're being asked to broaden it, too.

A company might have had three back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said. Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills. Now, he said, "one person is doing all three of those jobs — and every job you fill has to have computer skills."

...

"Frustrated in their efforts to find qualified applicants among the jobless, employers are turning to those who are already employed.

"They're hiring a known quantity that already has this specific experience on their resume," said Cathy Farley, a managing director at Accenture. "It is slowing some of the re-hiring from the ranks of the unemployed."

...

"Suppose a company wants a new software application. A business analyst would seek the least expensive approach and then propose the technical requirements. Separately, a systems analyst would build the technology.

But now, employers want "those two skill sets in one human being," said Harry Griendling, chief executive of DoubleStar Inc., a staffing firm outside Philadelphia.

The trend reflects the push that companies made during the recession to control costs, squeeze more output from their staffs and become more productive. Productivity measures output per hour worked. Economy-wide, it soared 3.5 percent last year. It was the best performance in six years.

And it means workers are bearing heavier burdens. In manufacturing, employees increasingly must be able to run the computerized machinery that dominates most assembly lines. They also have to carry out additional tasks, such as inspecting finished products, notes Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers."

...

"There are jobs available, but the worker just has to have more skills than before," Tomlinson said."

...

"Bob Brown, 49, has felt the demand for broader skills firsthand. After working for 30 years in manufacturing, including 20 as a plant supervisor, Brown was laid off in July 2009.

He spent a year looking for a new job. His efforts yielded only three calls from employers in the first four months.

But once things began to pick up, Brown noticed something else: The plant manager jobs he used to have, and that he was aiming for again, all required certifications in productivity-boosting management practices.

So Brown paid for courses at a community college to learn a management strategy known as "six sigma." It's an approach to cutting waste and raising efficiency popularized by General Electric. The courses allowed him to obtain his certification. In August, he was hired by an electrical product assembly plant near Williamsport, Penn.

"That's the way the industry's going," Brown said. "Everybody wanted certifications."

Human resource specialists say employers who increasingly need multi-skilled employees aren't willing to settle for less. They'd rather wait and hold jobs vacant."

From Daily Finance.

"If you had $20,000 to invest where would you put it? The bank? Stocks? Bonds? Maybe even gold? James Altucher, managing director of Formula Capital, says that even though he thinks stocks are going up, there are better ways to invest your money.

Altucher says investors, especially younger ones, would do better to invest their money in themselves."

...

"You could put, say $20,000, into stocks and if you are as lucky as Warren Buffett, you'll make $2,000 to $4,000 or so in the next year. (Buffett has been averaging 10% to 20% returns in recent years.) Not life changing. On the other hand, if you can come up with ways to invest that money in starting your own business, for example, you have a much better chance of generating returns of 100% or more."

...

"Altucher knows what he is talking about. He did this himself, starting sites such as smokelove.com and smartorstupid.com years ago. They were both failures but eventually he developed Stockpickr.com, an online community of investors, which grew to one million unique visitors per month. Altucher cashed in when the site was bought by TheStreet.com in 2007. His total investment for the three sites: around $10,000. While Altucher won't say how much he generated from the sale of Stockpickr.com to TheStreet.com, it was undoubtedly at least a multiple of ten times his initial investment."

Before you embark on this, make sure you've first invested in a stocked pantry, a clean debt slate, and an emergency fund--you might end up having to fall back on all three of them. This is also considered making your own job--good for when you can't find one somewhere else.

From MSNBC.

"Second-graders who can't tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who've never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.

Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?"

I think we're on our second generation of them--my own sister's kids relied on Velcro-strapped sneakers because they never learned to tie their own, and digital clocks for telling time because they never learned to read a clock face...and this was back in the 80's. I can only imagine what THEIR kids are missing out on!

From Prudent Bear.

"As higher education costs escalate faster than inflation while the global job market remains largely depressed, increasing numbers of commentators are questioning the value of higher education as a whole. The question becomes more urgent, as state budgets become increasingly burdened by higher education's further expansion. However the answer to the question of education's value seems pretty clear to me: it depends who is getting educated in what."

...

"In 1973, college was cheap compared to today, but the differential in average earnings between college graduates and high school graduates was also smaller than today."

...

"Looked at in a different way, if we assume the average career in full-time employment lasts for 30 years, so that the differential between college and high school earnings becomes a 30-year annuity (with both college costs and earnings being at 1973 levels, corrected for inflation), then 1973's pretax return on investment for a man from college education becomes 36%, for a woman 26%. Post-tax the returns become 25% and 18%. For the state, the returns on subsidization are 10% for men and 7% for women. All healthy figures, confirming the belief that in 1973, even with the earnings differential between high school and college less than it later became, a college education was on average a pretty good deal. Even allowing for the fact that the average includes many students whose benefits from college education were lower than average, college must have been an adequate or better deal for pretty well all those undertaking it."

...

"Now look at 2009. The cost of college in real terms has escalated by a further 29%. However with the lackluster economy of the 2000s followed by a further grinding recession, the earnings premium for college-educated workers has declined, by 9% for men and 5% for women. It still remains around 80% higher than the 1973 earnings premium, for both sexes, but the effect of continued ratcheting up of college costs and the modest decline in the college earnings premium has made college dramatically less attractive on a return-on-investment basis. Instead of the healthy 25% and 18% post-tax returns that had been achieved in 1973, and the higher returns in the intervening years, the post-tax return from college investment has fallen to 21% for men and 18% for women. Because of the huge increase in costs, the college investment is also much riskier in relation to people's earnings and assets than that of 1973. As for the government, the tax return from providing full scholarships has declined into single digits, 8% for men and 5% for women."

...

"the average conceals large differences and two countervailing factors. As to the differences, college remains highly financially attractive to those enrolled in the best schools. If you can get into Princeton, you should go there; it costs little more than other private schools and your potential earnings uplift is stunning. Furthermore, your return is better from a scientific or technical degree than from a liberal arts degree. That should not be taken too far; petroleum engineers currently enjoy the best average education premium, but that reflects current buoyant hiring trends in the oil business, which are unlikely to last over an entire career – as a petroleum engineer in the oil price downtrend of 1986-2002 your earnings stagnated and you may well have suffered periods of unemployment. Nevertheless, a degree in biotech today is unquestionably worth more than one in women's studies."

...

"...the income benefits outlined above may not in fact be caused by college degrees but simply coincidental with them, because those who go to college are on average smarter than those who don't."

...

"For society as a whole therefore, the benefits of college education may be diminishing, though still considerable. Pushing to educate students ever further down the ability spectrum seems likely to have costs exceeding its benefits unless the students are very highly motivated to undergo the college experience. Rather than expanding the U.S. college system it would make more sense to streamline it, closing marginal colleges with a population of indifferent students and cutting back subsidies to programs of low economic value. Likewise, subsidizing low-ability students in for-profit colleges, generally without campuses, generally adds little value."

...

"For individual students, college should only be undertaken for those who expect to gain especial benefit from the college experience, either academically or through its other offerings. The initial four-year college should thus be the province of no more than 15-20% of students. Most of the next 60% of the ability group should get higher education in smaller doses, a year or two initially, the rest spread throughout their careers. With this approach, there will be far fewer students wasting four years studying political correctness and binge drinking – but, far more important, many fewer steel workers and auto workers finding themselves made redundant at 50, and unable to transition to a new life phase of renewed productivity."

From National Review Online.

"Imagine that you have a product whose price tag for decades has risen faster than inflation. But people keep buying it because they’re told that it will make them wealthier in the long run. Then, suddenly, they find it doesn’t. Prices fall sharply, bankruptcies ensue, great institutions disappear."

...

"Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point people figure out they’re not getting their money’s worth, and the bubble bursts."

...

"Is our students learning?” George W. Bush once asked, and the evidence for colleges points to no."

...

"Students are no longer taught the basics of literature, history, or science. ACTA reports that most schools don’t require a foreign language, hardly any require economics, American history and government “are badly neglected,” and schools “have much to do” on math and science."

...

"People are beginning to note that administrative bloat, so common in government, seems to have become especially egregious in colleges and universities. Somehow previous generations got by and even prospered without these legions of counselors, liaison officers, and facilitators. Perhaps we can do so again."

...

"...it’s becoming increasingly clear that college doesn’t make sense for everyone. Some simply lack the necessary verbal and math capacity. Others are interested in worthy non-college careers like carpentry.

Still others wonder whether the four-year residential college is worth the investment when you can spend much less on two years in community college and then transfer to a four-year school."

...

"As often happens, success leads to excess. America leads the world in higher education; yet there is much in our colleges and universities that is amiss and, more to the point, suddenly not sustainable. The people running America’s colleges and universities have long thought they were exempt from the laws of supply and demand and unaffected by the business cycle. Turns out that’s wrong."

My own two cents on the college issue:
College Degrees More Expensive, Worth Less in Job Market
Plan B--Skip College
7 Reasons Not to Send Your Kid to College
Rethink the Value of College
The College Conundrum

From CNN Money. Done in gallery format.

I'd like to add one more to the list: nurse, with the exception of scrub nurse. A regular RN or BSN has to go through all kinds of schooling, get a degree, then continuing ed classes and refresher training, get re-certified all the time (at your expense) for all manner of things, put up with union crap, hospital administrator crap, Medicare and Medicaid crap, patient crap--all on top of a lousy $40k salary. The only way they actually make any money is to work loads of overtime religiously, or become a scrub nurse (basically a surgical assistant).

For all the time and money required just to continue to be able to call yourself a nurse, the pay just isn't worth it.

I have a nurse-relative who managed to strike a balance after riding the education/certification merry-go-round for years: become a hospice nurse. The pay is low, but so are the duties, the amount of crap you have to put up with, and the amount of ongoing education and certification required. You apparently spend more time entertaining the patient than actually treating him.

My nurse-relative takes her guitar to work with her. She's even produced a CD of songs that soothe the dying.

From Daily Finance. The difference in income between a college grad and a kid with no college over a lifetime comes out the same if the kid is motivated, anxious to learn, and makes connections along the way.

The article suggests something we've already known here: college is (or can be) a waste of time and money. A good example: take a look around and see how many unemployed college grads there are, or how many college grads are now working for minimum wage.

From CNN Money. Now the latest applicant screening tool seems to be the FICO score.

"Falling behind on your bills? It could cost you a job.

An increasing number of employers are using credit checks to screen potential job applicants. So missed payments on your mortgage, car or credit card could keep you from getting hired."

With good reason--if you can't handle finances at home, you aren't going to do well on the job, plus you're viewed as more likely to steal from your employer.

"The timing could not be worse.

"At exactly the time everyone's credit seems to be going down the toilet, more and more employers are using this," said Nat Lippert, research analyst for the union Unite Here. "You get in a Catch-22: You can't pay your bills because you don't have a job, and now you can't get a job because you can't pay your bills."

...

"Pratt says that a credit check gives employers details about accounts in collection, debt levels, bankruptcies and other problems that would cast doubt on someone's ability to handle responsibility. It does not report credit scores or account numbers.

Pratt also argues that the credit histories are only one factor considered by employers, and that prospective employees are supposed to be given the chance to respond to what their credit check turns up.

But consumer advocates and some job seekers say that candidates are being unfairly judged by the circumstances of their private lives.

"Employers have adopted this method as a proxy for character reference, believing it reflects on people's ability to handle responsibility," said Ben Woolsey, director of marketing and consumer research for CreditCards.com. "That's a bit of a reach."

Is it? If you've been frugal all along, you have nothing to worry about.

"James said that despite his credit problems, he was an honest worker and never stole a penny from the large deposits he was entrusted with.

Indeed, consumer advocates say the overwhelming majority of job applicants with credit problems don't steal from their employers and it's unfair for their credit situation to be held against them."

It shows who's been living beyond their means.

From the New York Times.

"A small but influential group of economists and educators is pushing another pathway: for some students, no college at all. It’s time, they say, to develop credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so."

...

"Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree."

...

"I’m not saying don’t get the B.A,” he said. “I’m saying, let’s get them some intervening credentials, some intervening milestones. Then, if they want to go further in their education, they can."

Exactly what the Amish do--if furthering their education (through workshops lectures, and training, but no college or formal settings) will help their work life (or business life), then they pursue it. Otherwise, it's money that could've been spent more efficiently.

From CNN Money.

"For Jim Garland, who owns a corporate aircraft cleaning and support services company, a $14 per hour worker has a true cost of $19.63 per hour, or about 40% more than base pay. This so-called "loaded rate" includes fixed expenses -- federal and state taxes, health insurance, workman's compensation, uniforms, and paid time off -- along with soft costs like the time spent training a new hire."

...

"Garland outsources his entire human resource department. Joe Sherrier, director of human resources for Employment Enterprises -- the company that manages Garland's HR -- said that as a general rule, business owners should to expect an employee to cost an additional 25% to 30% on top of base salary each year."

...

"State income taxes vary significantly, but federal taxes are standard: Social Security tax is 12.4% on the first $106,800 of earnings, and Medicare taxes run another 2.9% of all wages. The employer and employee each pay half. (The self-employed pay the full cost of both taxes themselves.)

Employers also have to pay a federal unemployment insurance tax of 6.2% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages. Illinois adds on a state unemployment tax that's currently 3.9% for new companies on the first $12,520 of wages. (Existing companies have their rates adjusted up or down depending on how many former workers file unemployment claims.) Part of the state unemployment tax is deductible from the federal, but that still leaves employers on the hook for a tax bite.

"I can't afford it," Kernc concluded. "When I saw the price to hire somebody, at this point I can't do it."

But Kernc she also knows she can't put it off indefinitely if demand stays high. "I can't work 24 hours per day," she said."

...and then, there's this new HCR monster. Do you STILL wonder why we have rampant unemployment in this country, and wonder if it's going to persist?

This is part of the Europeanization of America--businesses who want to stay in business are going to hire only family members to keep the money (and health insurance coverage) in the family. This will be the only way to get a job outside of government or large corporations.

Expect a further shift to offshoring and outsourcing, mostly from large corporations, so they don't have to meet the arduous requirements and taxes. All that will be left here in America is little Mom-and-Pop stores with all sorts of relatives behind the cash registers. If your family doesn't own a business, you're going to be out of luck for a job (unless you go to government).

Also, look forward to the sell-off of chains (Mickey D's, junk food outlets) to individual ownership, just to avoid HCR costs (over 49 employees, and you get charged up the wazoo). Each "chain store" will become independently owned and operated (mostly by family members) if it isn't forced to dissolve under the new rules of business existence.

What HCR doesn't kill off, the coming VAT tax will (by killing consumption).