Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is an article from The Atlantic, which appears to be a condensation of a book by the author, Don Peck, and is getting some attention. The first half is a summary of the situation that most people already know, then is followed by the more interesting part.

In fact, they said, America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn�t matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation�s treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns.

From the more useful second half:

Among the more pernicious aspects of the meritocracy as we now understand it in the United States is the equation of merit with test-taking success, and the corresponding belief that those who struggle in the classroom should expect to achieve little outside it. Progress along the meritocratic path has become measurable from a very early age. This is a narrow way of looking at human potential, and it badly underserves a large portion of the population. We have beaten the drum so loudly and for so long about the centrality of a college education that we should not be surprised when people who don�t attend college�or those who start but do not finish�go adrift at age 18 or 20. Grants, loans, and tax credits to undergraduate and graduate students total roughly $160 billion each year; by contrast, in 2004, federal, state, and local spending on employment and training programs (which commonly assist people without a college education) totaled $7 billion�an inflation-adjusted decline of about 75 percent since 1978.

As we continue to push for better K�12 schooling and wider college access, we also need to build more paths into the middle class that do not depend on a four-year college degree. One promising approach, as noted by Haskins and Sawhill, is the development of �career academies��schools of 100 to 150 students, within larger high schools, offering a curriculum that mixes academic coursework with hands-on technical courses designed to build work skills. Some 2,500 career academies are already in operation nationwide. Students attend classes together and have the same guidance counselors; local employers partner with the academies and provide work experience while the students are still in school.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/09/can-the-middle-class-be-saved/8600/

Here is Ezra Klein's interview with the author, Peck. It starts at about the 5:00 mark.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#44206876

Reference was made to tax policy, and Klein had another piece about that on the same program, about the push to tax the poor:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#44207208

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]

^
I agree completely.

There are several good points made in the article, and in Ezra Klein's set up.

Another good idea that's getting some attention is something called FAST, about a crash program to fix schools' physical plants which would employ thousands of unemployed construction workers. Obviously those would be short-term jobs, but with long-term results and would fit nicely with that apprenticeship idea. Wes Moore on Morning Joe also was talking about the apprenticeship program.

[Privateer]

GI bill?

[recessiontime]

A more interesting question would be:

Do the middle class deserve to be saved?

[Kuros]

[bucheon bum]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Nouriel Roubini has an interesting piece up on alJazeera that relates to the original post on this thread:

Is Capitalism Doomed?
Recent popular demonstrations, from the Middle East to Israel to the UK, and rising popular anger in China - and soon enough in other advanced economies and emerging markets - are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world's middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities.

To enable market-oriented economies to operate as they should and can, we need to return to the right balance between markets and provision of public goods. That means moving away from both the Anglo-Saxon model of laissez-faire and voodoo economics and the continental European model of deficit-driven welfare states. Both are broken.

The right balance today requires creating jobs partly through additional fiscal stimulus aimed at productive infrastructure investment. It also requires more progressive taxation; more short-term fiscal stimulus with medium- and long-term fiscal discipline; lender-of-last-resort support by monetary authorities to prevent ruinous runs on banks; reduction of the debt burden for insolvent households and other distressed economic agents; and stricter supervision and regulation of a financial system run amok; breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and oligopolistic trusts.

Over time, advanced economies will need to invest in human capital, skills and social safety nets to increase productivity and enable workers to compete, be flexible and thrive in a globalised economy. The alternative is - like in the 1930s - unending stagnation, depression, currency and trade wars, capital controls, financial crisis, sovereign insolvencies, and massive social and political instability.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/2011816104945411574.html

IOW, we need someone to step in and save capitalism, like FDR did in the 30's.

[visitorq]

[visitorq]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[visitorq]

[Sergio Stefanuto]

[Kuros]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Actually, really.