The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Crony capitalism is a more subtle and insidious problem than I thought....

With partisan rhetoric on the rise this election season, it's important to remind ourselves of what the role of business in a free society really is—and even more important, what it is not.

The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better—while using fewer resources—and to act lawfully and with integrity. Businesses that do this through voluntary exchanges not only benefit through increased profits, they bring better and more competitively priced goods and services to market. This creates a win-win situation for customers and companies alike

Only societies with a system of economic freedom create widespread prosperity. Studies show that the poorest people in the most-free societies are 10 times better off than the poorest in the least-free. [emphasis added] Free societies also bring about greatly improved outcomes in life expectancy, literacy, health, the environment and other important dimensions.

So why isn't economic freedom the "default setting" for our economy? What upsets this productive state of affairs? Trouble begins whenever businesses take their eyes off the needs and wants of consumers—and instead cast longing glances on government and the favors it can bestow. When currying favor with Washington is seen as a much easier way to make money, businesses inevitably begin to compete with rivals in securing government largess, rather than in winning customers.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

With current labor conditions, who here would like to be guaranteed to earn 16% more in four years than they do today? Well that's simply not good enough for Chicago's teachers.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Pay is also an issue. However, the union said the two sides are close to a pay agreement after school officials offered a deal that would increase salaries 16% over four years. The average teacher salary in Chicago was $74,839 for the 2011-2012 school year, according to the district.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

With current labor conditions, who here would like to be guaranteed to earn 16% more in four years than they do today? Well that's simply not good enough for Chicago's teachers.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

And how much of that 74k is union dues? Obviously a quarter of it is taxes.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Yeah, when I think of greedy people, I think of teachers.

 

[MinnesotaNorthStar]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

With current labor conditions, who here would like to be guaranteed to earn 16% more in four years than they do today? Well that's simply not good enough for Chicago's teachers.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/us/illinois-chicago-teachers-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

The pay isn't the issue. The big one that I'm hearing from a friend who is a teacher in Chicago public schools is classroom condistions...

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Yeah, when I think of greedy people, I think of teachers.

Me too. Course the only thing propping up the middle class at all is the public sector unions. Once those are destroyed the middle class will be completely gone.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Yeah, when I think of greedy people, I think of teachers.

Working three-quarters of the year and pulling down an average of $75K. They're not hurting. Looking at wage increase averages for the past few years, the nation is averaging around 2-3%, closer to the two side. 4% guaranteed is quite a bit better than those greedy private sector workers.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Me too. Course the only thing propping up the middle class at all is the public sector unions. Once those are destroyed the middle class will be completely gone.

So you like paying $75K/year to someone that sits around and does nothing but still has a job because they've been in the system for 25 years and closed union generated tenure makes it impossible for the superintendent to do anything to them?

Three things would help the educational system immensely, from a standpoint of teachers:
1. Enforce Taft-Hartley. This doesn't get rid of unions, but allows someone to work there who doesn't wish to join.
2. Merit pay.
3. Tri-yearly (once every three years) review of every teacher, regardless of time in the system, based upon third-party evaluation, student feedback, test scores, and instances of merit pay.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Sadly, today, we have a sobering reminder of a very important lesson, one that appears to have been forgotten in certain quarters, to our extreme peril.

In biology, you cannot negotiate with a virus. The sole "function" of a virus is self-replication. It knows nothing else.

In the meme-sphere, fanaticism is a virus. You cannot negotiate with fanatics. They willl quite comfortably lie to you with a straight face if they think that is the best way to achieve their ultimate ends.

Fanatical terrorism is a huge danger today. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are very dangerous and cannot be trusted. Even if they don't use nuclear weapons directly themselves, is there really much doubt that they will supply them to others who then will use them?

Osama is dead yet his inspiration to others lives on. We forget that at our grave peril.

 

[unofan]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

And how much of that 74k is union dues? Obviously a quarter of it is taxes.

My union dues are 1.5xthe hourly wage per month. It's all of about .75% of my annual salary.

Oh, and you can thank Scott Walker and his ilk for getting me to join, just as an FYI. (and if you'd told me I'd ever join a union even 4 years ago, I'd have called you crazy).

 

[pirate]

Working three-quarters of the year and pulling down an average of $75K. They're not hurting. Looking at wage increase averages for the past few years, the nation is averaging around 2-3%, closer to the two side. 4% guaranteed is quite a bit better than those greedy private sector workers.

We need to add in the benefits, especially pensions and healthcare coverage during retirement.

The public employees I know put as much or more value on being able to retire at an early age, after driving up their effective salary via use of OT etc. for the year preceding and having an excellent retirement income, while still able to work and having healthcare benefits better than most employed people.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I remember when I spent some time as a mentor, we learned that one of the most valuable skills we could impart to our mentees was how to show up on time. Giving teens an alarm clock and teaching them how to use it was very highly correlated with improvements in their grades, for example.

Here's the result of a recent survey of manufacturing employers on the skills they need in new hires:

At a recent dinner in Washington, D.C., with representatives from major American manufacturing companies, I listened as the talk turned to how hard it is to find qualified applicants for jobs.

"What exactly are the skills you can't find?" I asked, imagining that openings for high-tech positions went begging because, as we hear so often, the training of the U.S. workforce doesn't match up well with current corporate needs.

One of the representatives looked sheepishly around the room and responded: "To be perfectly honest . . . we have a hard time finding people who can pass the drug test." Several other reps gave a knowing nod. Applicants were often so underqualified, they said, that simply finding someone who could properly answer the telephone was sometimes a challenge.

More than 600,000 jobs in manufacturing went unfilled in 2011 due to a skills shortage, according to a survey conducted by the consultancy Deloitte.

The problem seems soluble: Equip workers with the skills they need to match them with employers who are hiring. That explains the emphasis that policy makers of both parties place on science, technology, engineering and math degrees—it is such a mantra that they're known by shorthand as STEM degrees.

American manufacturing has become more advanced, we're told, and requires computer aptitude, intricate problem solving, and greater dexterity with complex tasks. Surely if Americans were getting STEM education, they would have the skills they need to get jobs in our modern, high-tech economy.

But considerable evidence suggests that many employers would be happy just to find job applicants who have the sort of "soft" skills that used to be almost taken for granted. In the Manpower Group's 2012 Talent Shortage Survey, nearly 20% of employers cited a lack of soft skills as a key reason they couldn't hire needed employees. "Interpersonal skills and enthusiasm/motivation" were among the most commonly identified soft skills that employers found lacking.

Employers also mention a lack of elementary command of the English language. A survey in April of human-resources professionals conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management and the AARP compared the skills gap between older workers who were nearing retirement and younger workers coming into the labor pool. More than half of the organizations surveyed reported that simple grammar and spelling were the top "basic" skills among older workers that are not readily present among younger workers. [emphasis added]

The SHRM/AARP survey also found that "professionalism" or "work ethic" is the top "applied" skill that younger workers lack. This finding is bolstered by the Empire Manufacturing Survey for April, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It said that manufacturers were finding it harder to find punctual, reliable workers today than in 2007, "an interesting result given that New York State's unemployment rate was more than 4 percentage points lower in early 2007 than in early 2012." [emphasis added]

The skills shortage is not just an absence of workers who can write computer code, operate complex graphics software or manipulate cultures in a biotech lab—as real as that scarcity is. Many people lack what the writer R.R. Reno has called "forms of social discipline" that are indispensable components of a person's human capital and that are needed for economic success.

This is not an exercise in blaming the victim. There's plenty of fault to go around, from America's inadequate K-12 education system to the collapse of intact families and the resultant erosion of human and social capital in many communities. But we shouldn't delude ourselves about the nature of the problem facing many of the millions of Americans who can't find work.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I know this is a conspiracy theory but has anyone heard of this before?

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I know this is a conspiracy theory but has anyone heard of this before?

Yes.

It is a politicized reading of a more general (and AFAIK accepted) economic principle.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

The Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy has come in for a lot of criticism of late. Savers young and old are angry about paltry returns. Free-market advocates complain about the distorting effect low rates have on capital allocation. And small-government types worry that the central bank is enabling an unprecedented explosion in government spending.

Fed critics should at least be happy to know that when interest rate decisions are being made there are articulate dissenters in the room. One of them, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, stopped by the Journal's offices Tuesday and was frank in his criticism of Ben Bernanke's policies.

He said both academic research and his own surveys of businessmen show little evidence that low rates will do anything to spur real growth over the near term. What's holding the economy back is uncertainty over policy issues like tax rates. [emphasis added] "What we're accommodating [with low interest rates] is fiscal malfeasance [on the part of Congress and the president] and at some point it has to stop."

Mr. Fisher pointed out that policy uncertainty hurts most the least well off. "The more complex you make things the more you provide an advantage to the rich and powerful" who can game and influence the system.

And he pleaded for an end to the Fed's so-called "dual mandate"—under law it is supposed to have responsibility for both price stability and promoting economic growth. He said growth would actually be promoted if the Fed were like "every other central bank" and responsible for price stability only.

As an unelected body with enormous influence over the economy and the value of Americans' savings, the Fed is coming under increasing public scrutiny and deservedly so.

full story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...6690241446414.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTSecond

 

[pirate]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I remember when I spent some time as a mentor, we learned that one of the most valuable skills we could impart to our mentees was how to show up on time. Giving teens an alarm clock and teaching them how to use it was very highly correlated with improvements in their grades, for example.

Here's the result of a recent survey of manufacturing employers on the skills they need in new hires:

I find it interesting nobody responded to this post. Could it be because it doesn't blame the rish or corporations for a portion of the unemployment problem?

This might not be the most serious problem today, but it will be 20 years from now when these 'workers' are supposed to be supplying taxes into the red tape machine.

And this isn't people complaining about long hair, scuffed shoes or piercings...there is a whole pile of people out there with no skills. None. ...and no motivation.

Ask yourself, have you seen one 22 yo caucasian college grad cutting grass or working for a landscaper? Or are they all on $600 phones whining on twitter about not getting a job? Or sitting in line to buy an iphone.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I find it interesting nobody responded to this post. Could it be because it doesn't blame the rich or corporations for a portion of the unemployment problem?

probably because it doesn't lend itself to some clever quip in reply.... or it can't be seen as another knuckle-dragger rant...apparently some people are more interested in scoring debate points than any constructive conversation, perhaps?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I find it interesting that veterans have some of the best job training in the world and their unemployment rate is much higher than the national average. They also know how to use an alarm clock. I wonder whose fault that is?

 

[goldy_331]

I find it interesting that veterans have some of the best job training in the world and their unemployment rate is much higher than the national average. They also know how to use an alarm clock. I wonder whose fault that is?

W's. Duh.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I find it interesting that veterans have some of the best job training in the world and their unemployment rate is much higher than the national average. They also know how to use an alarm clock. I wonder whose fault that is?

Are you really so logically impaired that you truly don't comprehend the difference between "most" and "all"?