Posted on 03/01/2008 9:00:12 AM PST by jdm
I have a new story today about Michelle Obama's visit to Zanesville, Ohio, where she met with a group of women at a local day care center. According to the U.S. Census, Muskingum County, where Zanesville is located, had a median household income of $37,192 in 2004, below both the Ohio and national averages. Just 12.2 percent of adults in the county have a bachelor's degree or higher, also well below the state and national averages. About 20 percent don't have a high school degree. Nevertheless, Mrs. Obama urged them to foreswear lucrative professions like corporate law or hedge fund management and go into the helping industry, even if the sacrifice is great:
As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lastingMrs. Obama also bemoaned the amount of money she has to spend — nearly one-third of the median household income in Zanesville — on piano, dance, and other lessons for her two children. But she was grateful for the concern her husband's supporters have shown for her. "Everywhere I go, no matter what, the women in the audience, their first question for me is, 'How on earth are you managing it, how are you keeping it all together?'" she told the women.
burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law
School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle
age, to pay off their debts. “The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying
off the debt, so you’re in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when
you have to save for your kids,” she says.
“Barack and I were in that position,” she continues. “The only reason we’re
not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books… It was like
Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to
figure out how we would save for our kids.”
A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin,
Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative
jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot
of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into
corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social
workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging
our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out
of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries
respond.”
Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into
corporate law or hedge-fund management.”What she doesn’t mention is that the
helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune
reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital,
where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in
2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005,
just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives
from serving on corporate boards. She would have been O.K. even without Jack’s
magic beans.
It is bad enough that she is telling people who are relatively poor to not pursue lucrative careers. Yes, that is bad enough. But, Michelle Obama's suggestion, if it were to be taken up by sizable numbers of people, would bankrupt the economy.
I get the feeling that it pains Mrs. O's sensibilities to have to talk down to the 'riff-raff.'
Oh, that's silly. "Bankrupt the economy," indeed. Is the author a Democrat?
Although Ms. Obama is indeed a flaming hypocrite, she's not totally wrong about career advice. Nursing, for example, is a lucrative profession, and many grants and scholarships are available for nursing students because of the demand for nurses.
In addition, many women have found that the corporate lifestyle was not what they really wanted, and found themselves enslaved to their student loans. (Men, too, but she was addressing women.) Of course, most people don't have the option of becoming race-hustling political demagogues with rich real-estate speculator "friends" to help pay for everything ... but she *does* have some points.
Could it be both? She could be talking down to the “peasants” and be unaware of where that “magic bean” money comes from. So Barry and Michelle want to remake the United States into an ACORN-like, Saul Alinsky-esque ghetto? The EU and China must be laughing up their sleeves.
Yeah what we really need are more liberal teachers and social workers! SHEESH! Great way to ruin an economy!!!
Let the Democrats teach America a lesson it won’t forget.
Let them have it and make the word “Democrat” akin to the word “Apocalypse” or “Black Plague”.
I t will take a shock like this to get this country back to it’s Conservative roots.
So Michelle’s daughters are going to be community workers?
Nursing is NOT a lucrative profession, and I’m going into it.
Nursing administration or nurse anesthetist - that can bring in the bucks, now.
I suppose it depends on what you're comparing it to.
and I’m going into it.
I hope it works out well for you!
She probably meant that forgotten groups in our society needs some human capital - best of the best if you will.
Right now whoever can eascape the ghetto, does. However, that doesn’t solve the problems in long term. Some high quality individuals who stay and serve as Teachers and Organizers can make the difference.
I know—she’s encouraging them to get married, have children, and be stay at home moms. :)
Rush said on his show Friday that she was making $121k/yr in 2004 but after he announced the run for President, her salary was raised to $300+K/yr (from memory). I hate that corporate America treats her so poorly.
Do something truly useless, get a government job.
I’m really tired of reading about the “sacrifices” she’s made. If she’s spending “one-third of the median household income in Zanesville — on piano, dance, and other lessons for her two children,” she has nothing to complain about.
Student loans into middle age? Oooooh. Let me get out my little violin and play a sad song for Michelle.
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In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.
M.O.’s diatribe against letting your kids go into careers like hedge fund manager or corporate law were direct hits at Hillary because Hillary was a corporate lawyer and Chelsea works for a hedge fund. MO was saying that Hillary is selfish and raised her daughter to be selfish.
Unless of course, Hillary gets elected, in which case "the WOMAN" kept them down.
Cheers!
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