Over-educated, under-employed, jaded, new political party: Members wanted!

originally posted by: asmall89
a reply to: greencmp

Love this quote. It is quite true. To me, I have always felt that the current education system believes that students are lazy and don't want to learn anything. When in fact it is human nature to be curious and to discover. That's why we're members of ATS right?

Yes it is, for me anyway.

Slightly off-topic but, this is a great panel on school choice I saw the other day:
Charter and Private Schools

a reply to: onequestion

I know right? I can't believe all the people will administration, science and engineering degrees. Crazy!

I don't really think there is any shortage of smart or skilled workers in this country... just jobs.


a reply to: greencmp

I am watching that video right now. I agree with that senators stance that choice is really important in education. Not only choice in school would be beneficial but it would be cool if High Schools offered a choice of focus with your diploma, like automotive tech, welding, web development etc. That way your diploma could possibly mean more.

originally posted by: frayedknot
Welcome! If you are like me and my closest associates, you are probably too smart to be properly employed in the current economics game.

That's where you lost me. You associate intelligence with your education out of the gate and most philosophical people will scoff at you because of it. Education does NOT equate to intellect. You showed us in your first sentence your sense of entitlement because you somehow think your education grants you an amazing job? And that most other jobs are somehow below you? I'm interested to know how many full-time jobs you have held in your life. Wisdom should be the goal not a piece of paper.

You now have to reevaluate your understanding. That you now belong to a disposable work force. Your not really unique or special. I'm not trying to be mean or disrespectful but one thing your education didn't teach you is.

The world isn't fare.

Your NOT granted a job right out of school.

Everyone else you studied with is after the same job... Along with millions of other's now in debt up to their eye balls.

Consider this your wake up call. Learn a trade that isn't dependent on a system that can easily toss you aside like a commodity. That's true security...

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Mark Twain

ETA. No thanks joining your political party. I'll stay in reality with the rest of the hard working folks that keep the world working.

Good job O.P. ! I have been out of college for 4 years and had part time work so far... I will say that I wish I had better job searching skills. But I am working with vocational rehab who are professional job finders and they say there are only entry level jobs available.

Graduating from college does not guarantee you will get a good job that earns you enough to live on anymore - you need a masters. Or risk living with relatives or your parents...

Older people like to blame things like work ethic which is just bull# times have changed live with your parents or it's out on the street for you

1. Education does not make you intelligent or smart. There are plenty of derpsters with degrees. Additionally why should someone after 20 or so years exp not be qualified for a job because someone else went to school when they were 20 years old, only half of which having anything to do with that particular job probably... the rest was supposed to make you "well rounded" but really, that never seems to be the case to me at all.
2. You are not over-educated. You picked the wrong field. In the case of the masters "degree", wrong twice perhaps.
3. Skilled trades. You will not be rich (probably) and will have to work in inhospitable places, but you will make a (very) good living and over time improve your skillset and demand in the workforce. It is more difficult longterm than college I believe and not as respected in our culture anymore, unfortunately... as a result, and with the boomers leaving the workforce they will be in greater and greater demand and maybe this country will light the bulb again that not everyone can or should be a banker, lawyer, artist or social worker.
4. 1-3 are IMHO

You get a S & F just for the title and intro sentence!

I will proceed to read the OP & thread in detail. I had a similar phase a few months ago where I just did a thought experiment: "What policies would I aim for to make a fairer, more harmonious, less economically destructive & yet moderately free market, political landscape, were the keys of 10 Downing Street handed to me tomorrow...?" I came up with quite a list, but naturally I won't post any of it until I've read your work on the matter.

The strain is really is beginning to show in a series of political blunders & catastrophes, warped policy from demented jesters, and so forth. I think it is simply the effect of an internet being available for free sharing of information. My assumption is that there is a plan in motion for utter destabilisation - controlled destabilisation - to the point at which we are begging for a One World Government. And hey, if it were a meritocracy with appropriate checks & balances, limits on wildly excessive wealth accumulation - but with absolute fairness of opportunity, with entrepreneurial endeavour encouraged in the same way we encourage STEM subjects at the moment.

God help us if the current players get their one world gov.

Nothing will change without Proportional Representation.

originally posted by: frayedknot
I have been advised to just let this conversation die. Sorry to have troubled you all.

Dear Author,
Please keep going, I find it interesting and industrious.
In the civilized countries in Europe there a political parties for every imaginable orientation. It is called Democracy. We need that here.
Our system is an antiquated remnant of colonialism/feudalism.
It has only been around for a few days. Please carry on.
WIS

originally posted by: greencmp

However, I have thought about this problem extensively and I believe I have an additional cause which deserves consideration.

Thank You, you just gave me an Ahha experience. Not that it enhances my comprehension of the root of the problem.
But now I can see a little clearer.

Since the end of any semblance of employer/employee loyalty there has been very little motivation for managers to improve the productivity of their departments.

I was fortunate to obtain my formal education in an enviroment where loyalty was a means to enhance productivity.
Here, in the US, I am a citizen, I have been baffled to find with in my field that loyalty is equated to personal comfort and gain.
Productivity does matter, being comfortable is a goal.

If a manager expects to be miffcanned anyway, what possible reason could they have to improve anything. If they have had their job for over a year, any dramatic increase in productivity will likely prompt termination (for not making that improvement from the get go). Furthermore, if they can improve efficiency and cut costs, those cuts cannot be reallocated within their department, they simply lose that much of their budget.

Ahha, so this is why I was ousted, I quit before they fired me.

I finally got my dream job after eight years of waiting for a position to open. Had other employement all the time in between.
I have a masters degree in management in my field and twenty years of experience.
The job did not require my manager skills but there was room for advancement and some very nice benefits.
All good until we got a new manager shortly after I started.
There was so much waiste and slack in the department I could just be silent. Approaching my colleagues back fired and I became their favourite person to hate.
They all told me numorous times to slow down and not speak to our "customers" . Who were my employers, they lived there and paid all my bills and nice bennies.
So I brought it to His attention, Oh my, things changed, I was writen up for things I hadn't done, lied about, given the silent treatment and so forth.
I had pointed out to Him and my colleagues that my loyalty was solely towards my employer.
On a meeting He emphaziced NOT to let "them" gain knowlegde of illigal activities takeing place.
Speaking of collective insanity.
But now I know why he had to get rid of me.


Pardon the long tirade.
According to "corporate" law I am not allowed to ever mention any aspect of my employement under penalty of prosecution that is why I am so vague in my description.
WIS

originally posted by: miragezero
2. You are not over-educated. You picked the wrong field. In the case of the masters "degree", wrong twice perhaps.
3. Skilled trades. You will not be rich (probably) and will have to work in inhospitable places, but you will make a (very) good living and over time improve your skillset and demand in the workforce. It is more difficult longterm than college I believe and not as respected in our culture anymore, unfortunately... as a result, and with the boomers leaving the workforce they will be in greater and greater demand and maybe this country will light the bulb again that not everyone can or should be a banker, lawyer, artist or social worker.

I explained this already, the government and big business want to INCREASE minimum licensure requirements for ALL trades and professions, that usually means more formal, butt-in-the-seat, schooling. The government has made licenses and certifications mandatory to enter and to continue working, in MANY professions today. Sure, not all these licenses and certifications require a 4-year degree or masters, but once you hit 60 semester units, you may as well find a way to get the 2-year degree. I work in construction engineering, where a degree is required to get the license, PERIOD! Also many states have eliminated the old rules where 8 years on the job was equivalent to a 4-year degree, in order to sit for the state license exam. But that hints at a larger policy issue, where the government WANTS people in school, not just to rack up debt, but also to keep them out of the larger job market.

Don't any of you see the ruse here?

2 years of free Junior College can, in theory, INSTANTLY remove millions of people from the unemployment rolls, filling out applications and attending job fairs. It will also reduce the number of applicants applying to jobs, saving big business overhead costs. That Ford factory line worker job, that once had 25,000 applicants might only have 15,000 now, because 10,000 people instead went to "free" Junior College.

Obama is selling a stealth welfare/unemployment expansion plan, under the guise of "free higher education".

Answer me this, is it easier to get voter approval for MORE welfare for the millions of unemployed OR eliminating their unemployment status by putting them in school full-time? Government and big business know there is no way to ever employ these people, so they just kick the can down the road by putting on another band-aid. The band-aid in this instance, is free schooling, which will INSTANTLY lower overall unemployment figures and somewhat reduce the race to the bottom seen in falling wages across all sectors, due to the current over supply of labor in the market.

Up to the 1940 a person could get just about any job with an 8th grade education, but today you need a BA or Masters for entry level.

Why?

Because the government & big business figured out a long time ago that populations would certainly increase over time, but due to technology advancements, the availability of jobs would not expand to meet that population growth. There is a reason they don’t want people dropping out of high school and then at the same time, encourage those high school graduates to attend junior college, then a 4 year university and finally a Masters degree or PhD. They do so because it DECREASES the amount of people looking for full-time employment at the SAME TIME, chasing after jobs in a market that CANNOT provide employment for everyone looking for, able, qualified for and willing to work.

Look at it this way, when people could get a job with an 8th grade education, they went out and did it as soon as possible (opportunity cost). Then jobs got scarcer and the minimum requirement became a high school diploma, adding 4 more years of people NOT Looking for jobs within their cohort. Then jobs got even scarcer and the minimum became a 2 or 4 year college degree, adding an additional 2-4 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort. Now jobs are really scarce and may require a Masters or PHD, adding an additional 2-7 years of people NOT looking for jobs within their cohort.

Basically the way the economy has been structured TODAY, we are looking at young people within their cohort whom are NOT looking for full-time, career type, employment for 6-15 YEARS, beyond K-12, all while they finish more school!!!

This has been done ON PURPOSE, to keep the number people seeking employment lower. In 1920 after 8th grade everyone who was able, went out to look for work and typically found it, that’s simply NOT possible today under any circumstances. Easily accessed welfare will soon add another 1-3 years of people within a cohort, to those “not seeking employment”. Not to the specific detriment of society, but to continue to mask the illusion that jobs and upward mobility are still available. So, if someone gets a graduate degree and collects 1-3 years of welfare on top of than, that’s ONE less person competing for scarce jobs. The extra years of welfare are then acting in the same way to the larger economy as the increased minimum education levels for employment, with the real goal of decreasing the number of able-bodied applicants out on the job market at the same time. This cohort of people "not pursuing full-time employment" also includes those in Prison, Government pensioners/SSI and the disabled on government assistance. If everyone needed to go out and “get a job” or “start their own business” TODAY, as many “capitalists” and "entrepreneurs" suggest these days, we would all be making 0.25 cents a day.

With big business being hell bent on replacing living workers with machines, such comments as those in this post, miss a subtle point that ONLY the children of the wealthy will have the opportunity to become TRUE experts in such fields. Let me clarify, through the prior 20th century, a poor kid who studied hard could become a lawyer, engineer, accountant, even a doctor sometimes with the right combination of hard work, savings, scholarships, family support, etc, OR they simply went into the trades and learned on the job WITH pay. HOWEVER, in engineering and technician curriculum’s today, times are changing, which now favors kids whom have access to expensive software and hardware to “experiment” with and “practice” on before entering college or a particular training program. So when they finally get to college or to their first apprenticeship, those whom have had lots of free time to “play” with robotics and programming, outside of the classroom, WILL CERTAINLY outpace their less privileged peer, who flips burgers part-time, to pay rent and school expenses.

NOW do you see?

2 years of free Junior College can, in theory, INSTANTLY remove millions of people from the unemployment rolls, whom are currently filling out appllications and attending job fairs. Reducing the number of applicants applying to jobs, saves big business AND government overhead costs. For example, that Ford factory, line worker, job opening, that once had 25,000 applicants might only have 15,000, after the implementation of the 2-years free college policy, because 10,000 of those potential applicants instead went to "free" Junior College.

a reply to: frayedknot

"Millions cannot find work no matter what they do because the jobs simply are not there.

I myself just recently rolled off the couch and went back to work
in my trade. Five solid years of nothin! Damn near a retrain and
right now, I'm only getting three days a week. This is what we
get because we formed unions against the big wigs. And now the
revenge belongs to thier corporate heirs. Corporations are doom.

a reply to: jacobe001

We could put a person in that has the best interest at heart for the entire nation but the Fascists in Government would never go along with anything he wants to pass if it does not benefit them exclusively.

They would run a smear job on him along with the people that support him in the media.

*raises hand*
Excuse me, sir - don't we already have that?

*runs for cover*

originally posted by: frayedknot
I have been advised to just let this conversation die. Sorry to have troubled you all.

If the mods want to trash your thread they will who cares what any of the members think do what you will.