Posted on 05/21/2012 11:52:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
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RUSH: I practically had my heart ripped out when I saw this story. It's about all the college graduates that don't have jobs, that are on food stamps, that are on the WIC program: Women, Infants and Children. And there's a story about a specific college graduate, a guy who has a PhD who was on WIC, food stamps, and a couple of other programs. He can't find work. He's a PhD. The guy got his doctorate! (interruption)
Oh, in what? (interruption) Oh. Well, this might be a factor. His doctorate...? Now, remember, this is 2012. The Vietnam War essentially ended in the seventies, correct? So we're talking at least 40 years ago. This guy wrote his doctoral thesis on the premise that Vietnam vets returned home and were treated very badly. People were mean to 'em. They showed them no respect. I don't know how many doctoral thesis have already been written on that.
This guy writes something, a doctoral thesis that everybody agrees with. It doesn't take a "doctor" to write this. He devoted his doctoral thesis to it 40 years ago. Is it any wonder the guy doesn't have work? But he's got PhD. It's a fascinating look into the American education system, and this guy obviously wrote this based on things he'd been taught and told throughout his own educational experience. But it was just a story on numerous highly educated people who are on dependence one way or the other.
Here, from Investors.com. The headline says it all: "New Normal: Majority of Unemployed Attended College -- 57% of those who are unemployed attended college. "For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school diploma or less." (interruption) That's a good question: What would my dad say about this?
I kind of wish he was alive so I could say, "Hey, Dad, do you know what your college degree is worth here? Fifty-seven percent of the unemployed people in America are college attendees or graduates." My father... The reason Snerdley brings this up -- and I've mentioned it a couple times. If you've heard it, please indulge me, because we have new people tuning in constantly on the program. But my father thought he was a failure in life as a parent for not being able to convince me to go to college.
His formative experience was the Great Depression. If you didn't have a college degree, you had no chance. And he tried and tried and tried, and I just thought school was prison. I knew what I wanted to do when I was eight, and anything that stood in my way was an obstacle. And the largest thing standing in my way was school, so I hated it. And he went on and on and on about the importance of a college degree. And, of course, it is a societal norm.
This is one of these things that's just accepted.
You've got to go to college after high school.
You must!
It's the thing you do. Now you look at people going to college. They're coming out with anywhere between $30,000 and $200,000 in debt, and 57% of people... And a lot of people see this is commencement time. I don't know about you, but you can't read the news without encountering excerpts or transcripts of commencement speakers. And I, every year, read people who have made commencement speeches making a singular point to graduates.
And that is: "Find out what you love and do it," because that's passion. What you love obviously is what you have passion for. A lot of people don't know what they love, or don't know what they want to do. College is a place to park yourself while you figure that out. Some people in college know what they want to do, but many people don't. They figure they'll find out when they're there. But it's just the next stage in life that everybody is just expected to do.
And so many of these "next stages in life that you're just expected to do" seem to be -- all these institutions and traditions seem to be -- crumbling. They seem not to be what they always have been, or always were. "In 2011, 57% of those 25 and older had attended some college, versus 43% of the unemployed in 1992 who had gone to college. Those without a high school diploma fell from 21% to 12%," meaning the number of people who didn't even have a high school diploma were getting work.
Now, it doesn't say much about what kind of work they're getting, but still: They are. So all these things have people questioning everything they thought they knew, everything they thought they believed in so many areas of life. People say, "Jeez, maybe it isn't true." And when that happens -- when all these institutions and traditions that people have invested in generation after generation after generation seem to all day not equal what they did in the past -- then real confusion steps in.
But the solution for this, at least in the job market, is passion.
It's finding out what you love and DO IT. If you're able to succeed at that, you're not really working. I mean, you're spending time doing it so forth, but you love it so much, it's not drudgery. It's not something you get up and the first thing that you think about is, "Oh, boy. I can't wait 'til this is over today." That's not how people who love what they do look at the day. I find that happening and being said more and more in commencement speeches, even from leftists.
Well, they're about the only ones that do commencement speeches.
We right-wingers are never invited to do these things.
So, anyway, back to organic food. See, I'm passionate about this story. I love this story. I also have another story I love. It's from CNN. "GOP Problem: 'Their Voters are White, Aging and Dying Off.'" Can you imagine if there were a headline: "Democrat Problem: 'Their Voters are Black, Aging and Dependent'"? Can you imagine the hell that would break loose if that story were ever printed? But since it's the Republican Party and since it's white voters: Their voters are white, they're aging, and they're dying off.
It's a study from the Pew Hispanic Center from last week, and it's about how more minorities are now being born in the US than whites. By the way, the media is having orgasms over that. If you've noticed, the media is running this story over and over again, day after day in a number of different places. "Their Voters are White, Aging and Dying Off." More minorities now are being born than whites. Well, how can they be minorities? The point is, they won't be very much longer.
And then the interesting thing is going to be: What happens when all these minorities become the majority? You know, being a "minority" is a mind-set. The way the left has structured things, being a member of a minority is a mind-set with certain entitlements. What happens when you become the majority? Well, it's already happened to women. Women are the majority in terms of numbers against men, but still they are (as far as mind-set is concerned) a minority.
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A friend of mine who is a recruiter told me he has stacks of resumes from people like this.
They grew up in well-to-do suburban neighborhoods. They graduated from a prestigious high school, went to an expensive, well-known university and pursued that to an advanced degree.
Mommy and Daddy never let them have a part-time job, as they did not want their grades and college admissions to be affected. They are in their mid to late 20’s, have an advanced degree, and have never worked a day in their life. Not even at McDonalds.
“Can’t do a thing for them” he says.
This is, perhaps the worst piece of advice in American history.
I'd love to work with Dolphins at Sea World. The idea of getting up every day and working with them, teaching them tricks, playing with them and socializing with wild dolphins (before they are trained) sounds like an amazing job. Heck, even going on archaeological digs sounds like a hoot. Acting in a Broadway play could be a lot of fun too.
Unfortunately, I also know that a lot of other people think this way, and that these job doesn't pay beans - unless you are the 0.0001% and hit the "Big Time". So, I got my degree in Engineering; and when I retire, perhaps I'll get that dream job. In the meanwhile, I have a job that provides a comfortable living.
Loving what you do is important, but it must also be tempered with a good dose of 'reality'. Choose a career that you like, that you can do well - and when you have reached your level of success, then you can do whatever the heck you want to do. The first task, is earn enough that you are not a burden on your parents, or society.
PhD = Piled high & Deep
If one has never had a ‘job’ how can they collect unemployment? Seems to me they don’t qualify.
“Find out what you love and do it,” because that’s passion
This is, perhaps the worst piece of advice in American history.
I would say a better way to phrase it would be to say “Figure out something that you love and find a way to get paid for it!”
That's called a hobby, not a career. Rush got lucky and is in the .00001%. His experience is NOT the norm.
Mom and Dad never let me hold a job while school was in session. Education was #1. Period.
However, the day after school let out in June, through Labor Day, I worked my butt off. Also some weekends and vacations on the family farm.
And God forbid if I didn't have something lined up. One summer, Dad set me up with a position in a warehouse. I was a "Stripper" (no not that kind. I stripped furniture off of trucks). That was miserable work. 12 to 16 hour shifts and 140 degrees on the trailers. Paid pretty well, though. :-)
The entire Quote comes from Mark Twain.
It says “find something that you love to do, and learn to do it so well that you get paid for it.”
At one time colleges taught kids useful class’s . Skills,that one could market. It’s hard to market Feminism racism, Socialism ,Communism, not too many jobs out there need those skills. How many Community Organisers does one country need?
One appears to be more than enough, Thank You.
I made a career out of my hobby. When I got out of college, I couldn't find work (sound familiar?) in my chosen field (Electrical Engineering) so I went into computers instead. I was constantly messing with computers, figured that it would be an easy step into IT.
It was. 20 years later, I've made a pretty good career out of it.
The downside? Now, I hate @$@#%%@$$ computers. Can't stand them. After staring at a computer screen for 40-odd hours a week (50? 60? 80?) I could care less about my old hobby.
I have one at the house, that I use to pay bills, and occasionally check email. My wife and kids use it more than me.
My advice? Find a solid job that you don't particularly mind doing, and that can't get shipped overseas. But keep your hobbies, and your work, separate.
I wanted to research history and dig up sites. Found out I would not be able to do that and live, so I became an engineer and do those things on my free time.
does any learning actually happen at colleges these days?
The “community organizer” I know of needs to be sent back home with a payment plan to the People of the Unites States to whom he knowingly and willingly defrauded.
I'll pass this on to my college roommates. While I got a degree in Engineering, they finished with degrees in Wildlife Managment and Art. Neither one of them have a lot of happiness in their jobs, and neither one of them have a job that has any relation to their degree, either. Some degrees do not have a very good career path (Romantic Literature, Black Studies, Wymen's Studies, Home Economics, Political Science, Journalism, Foreign Language, Medival History, Philosophy and more). Money may not buy happiness - but a meager amount of money sure can buy a lifetime worth of misery.
The very lucky among us do what they love; most of us do what we can tolerate and live for our weekends/vacations/holidays. But, at the end of the day; the person who has an adequate income can do whatever they 'want' to do; because they want to, not because they 'need' to.
-—The very lucky among us do what they love; most of us do what we can tolerate and live for our weekends/vacations/holidays. But, at the end of the day; the person who has an adequate income can do whatever they ‘want’ to do; because they want to, not because they ‘need’ to.——
You have to balance vocation and practicality, particularly if you have a family. Sacrifice is a fundamental aspect of Christian life that is incomprehensible to modern pagans.
We sure do agree an awful lot.
I’m fortunate in that I enjoy my area of my chosen profession. I’ve always been a “geek”, so engineering was a natural extension for me. But, this profession is not one I would encourage others to pursue. Why? Well, the joy of accomplishment and learning is there - but the career is very unpredicatable. Off-shoring, H-1B Visas, down-sizing, factories moving, companies failing - it’s been a rough career. Instead of having some sort of Supply vs Demand economoy in place, politicans are bringing in H-1B Visa engineers from foreign countries to drive my wages lower. Job stability is practically unheard of, unless you wind up in a very large company.
For some who chose a subject due to love, without tempering it with any practicality - they will have a hard row to hoe, due to their short-sightedness. Trying to raise a family on a job that pays minimum or near minimum wages is rough and discouraging. But, I have been comfortably well off over-all.
I’m not a Stephen Hawkings level genius; but I was smart enough to realize that I would have to support myself, and potentially a family some day. I realized that doing so with an “easy and fun” degree was unlikely.
To paraphrase my old boss “You can bust your butt for 4 years, and party the rest of your life; or you can party for 4 years and bust your butt for the rest of your life - the choice is yours”.
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