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No offense, but ‘investing’ in the USA today is a joke. Building Boulder Dam was an investment. Putting money in stocks is speculation, pure and simple. The total value of a ‘hot’ company’s stock is often far more than the company can make in profit, ever. We are speculating that someone will irrationally pay more later than we irrationally paid now.
No, investing in stocks is not speculation. If.
If you look at the balance sheet, understand it, look at the industry (buggy whips ain't a good sector), and what is the P/E ratio? My guidelines if everything else is good, and that is over, I won't buy. That means buy in the down turns, buy good companies, and sell in the upturns. Right now, it's best to be in cash, unless some of your stocks are paying great dividends. Buy again once the market has bottomed out. It isn't even close to that now... my guess we have at least a year before it hits real bottom.
"Keyboarding" and "typing" are not the same thing.
My daughter was taught "keyboarding." I learned "secretarial typing."
I amazed her by being able to look directly at her and hold a conversation with her while typing something completely different, not glancing at the keyboard.
The difference between people who know how to type and people who know how to keyboard can be easily distinguished by those who prefer a Thinkpad keyboard and the Trackpoint to those who think a Surface keyboard is just as good.
What does using a surface keyboard (which has actual keys?) have to do with learning keyboarding vs. typing? I am perplexed. I can touch type, learned on typewriters, but can adapt to any keyboard.
"Keyboarding" and "typing" are not the same thing.
My daughter was taught "keyboarding." I learned "secretarial typing."
I amazed her by being able to look directly at her and hold a conversation with her while typing something completely different, not glancing at the keyboard.
The difference between people who know how to type and people who know how to keyboard can be easily distinguished by those who prefer a Thinkpad keyboard and the Trackpoint to those who think a Surface keyboard is just as good.
So? I said "keyboarding". Plus, see these links: https://www.ft.com/content/9420a7b0-...4-00144feab7de "The secretary is dead. Technology and flat corporate structures have consigned the job to the corner office waste bin."
https://newrepublic.com/article/1217...eath-secretary "In 2011, women’s job losses that originally started mostly in the public sector started to spread to all areas of the economy. A large part of that widespread loss was the shedding of one particular occupation that can be found in virtually any industry: Secretaries, or as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls them, “office and administrative support occupations.” Women make up about three-quarters of this workforce."
And, from the big, boring BLS: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/faste...ccupations.htm
Decline expected from 2016 to 2026:
Legal secretaries: -19.1%
Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants: -17.4%
Quote:
Originally Posted by RamenAddict
What does using a surface keyboard (which has actual keys?) have to do with learning keyboarding vs. typing? I am perplexed. I can touch type, learned on typewriters, but can adapt to any keyboard.
"Keyboarding" and "typing" are not the same thing.
My daughter was taught "keyboarding." I learned "secretarial typing."
I amazed her by being able to look directly at her and hold a conversation with her while typing something completely different, not glancing at the keyboard.
The difference between people who know how to type and people who know how to keyboard can be easily distinguished by those who prefer a Thinkpad keyboard and the Trackpoint to those who think a Surface keyboard is just as good.
My daughters have both taken "keyboarding" recently in school and yes it is close to the same thing. As a matter of fact, my daughter learned to type with unmarked keys and at 10 years old can type almost 45wpm, so I think what they are teaching now is just fine. A secretary's job now is much different than it used to be anyway. They are adapting kids for the jobs of today.
The high school where my kids will attend has two program paths a child can take. College bound and tech/trade bound. This way kids that are not going or are not interested in attending college can start to learn a trade while in high school, just like college bound kids can take classes for college credits in high school as well.
Nonsense. Might as well tell the 18-year old to go jump off a cliff.
A good way to go to college and not rack up debt is to go to an in-state public school and not be picky about school choice.
Maybe in your state
My alma mater state school estimates yearly costs for in-state students at over 26k per year. What student has a 100k nest egg to pay cash? And that’s if you stop at 4 years.
I said "read the news" not "read the newspaper." They have multiple sources they get it from.
Ok, that's kind of what I said. 1999 was booming. 2009 was crash.
Being able to quote a percentage does not get into the meaning behind the statistics. For a college degree to pay more, there has to be more job openings that degree holders. When more people have the degree than there are jobs, the price companies are willing to pay for those jobs goes down. You say that no one is pushing college for everyone, so do you support bringing back Vo-Tech education into high school? When should we suggest to students they've be better off in a trade -- before they graduate high school or after the fail out of college?
I’m not sure where this idea that there is no secondary school vocational training any more. In my suburban county, and in the urban and rural counties surrounding it, EVERY school district either provides numerous vocational paths or takes part in a dedicated, no charge county-wide or multi-county vocational school. I have no reason to believe these programs are an anomaly or in anyway unusual.
My in-County school has over 1,000 junior and senior students enrolled at all times, along with 4,000 adults in additional vocational programs. Where does everyone think all of the blue collar tradesmen come from, immigration?
"Teaching Inequality: The Problem of Public School Tracking," Harvard Law Review, Vol. 102, No. 6 (Apr., 1989), pp. 1318-1341
"RETHINKING PUBLIC EDUCATION LITIGATION STRATEGY: A DUTY-BASED APPROACH TO REFORM Columbia Law Review, Vol 115, No. 6
Also, do a "Google Scholar" search on "Achievement Gap Litigation" and you'll find a ton of info.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
I agree, I have heard of criticism about "tracking" minorities, not so much women, but I am not aware of any schools totally eliminating vocational courses.
It was a mistake on my part to imply "totally" eliminating such courses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
As far as secretarial, it is not necessary to learn mimeograhing and the like any more. All kids learn keyboarding.
In the 1960s, there indeed was a "secretarial track" in public schools, and essentially all students and faculty were women. (There also were home economics classes focused on stereotypical housewife duties and responsibilities including sewing, cooking, etc, but that's another topic.) While the track doesn't exist anymore for the most part, the jobs still do. The emphasis of the jobs has shifted.
In business today, the title "secretary" has largely been replaced by "administrative assistant." Duties typically include heavy group calendar management, making travel reservations (hotels, airline tickets, rental cars), scheduling conference rooms and other such resources, ordering supplies, arranging reproduction services, perhaps shipping equipment ahead of a trade show, coordinating office moves, scheduling on-boarding of new employees and the like. Depending on the organization, the administrative assistant also perform duties to keep the office running in an orderly and efficient manner. Maintaining group document resources is frequently a duty - perhaps with SharePoint or some other such system. Certainly anyone who has done such a job can chime in with more duties.
Last edited by RationalExpectations; 12-30-2018 at 09:18 AM..
^^Thank you for the links. After you posted that, I got to thinking about it and I did recall hearing about lawsuits. And to the point, for all the advocates of "tracking", including someone who crudely talked about the ditch-digging track in the ADHD thread, tracking has been abused in the past, and it has the potential to be abused in the future, in part because some people think certain kids will not be able to do more than dig ditches. See below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by JONOV
My perception, and this could be way off, is that the French (and other countries, Germany I know comes to mind) readily acknowledge that Someone has to dig ditches. And little Jean Pierre is Someone. I also think that teachers there are readily able and willing to enforce discipline in the classroom.
Whereas here, someone has to dig our ditches, but CERTAINLY NOT MY CHILD AND I'LL HAVE YOUR JOB IF YOU INSINUATE ANY SUCH THING!
And our teachers often aren't allowed to enforce discipline as they often need to.
As much as some people on this board will not acknowledge it, the "vocational track" is a lower track than the college prep track. That's not to say some people don't do quite well in their vocations.
****
Re: the secretarial track, my high school called it the "business" curriculum (not track) in the mid-60s. However, my high school (who knew they were so progressive?) allowed students in the business track (almost all female) to take courses from the CP track (called "academic curriculum"). My BFF took algebra and biology along with her "business" courses, and ended up attending college. Other options would have been "business math" and "practical science". As an aside, Joe Namath went to my high school. He once did commercials for a typewriter company because, as was said in one of his biographies, he was chosen because virtually every graduate of Beaver Falls High School knew how to type! That's male and female. That included us kids in the "academic" curriculum. Joe knew how to operate a typewriter.
You did not read any of my links or you would see that even "administrative assistant" jobs are decreasing in number. Even executives write their own memos these days, no more "Take a letter, Maria" stuff. At a lot of businesses, no one (apparently) answers the phones, it's all on some type of electronic system and you get the voice mail of the person you're calling, not "Mr. Smith's secretary". Schedule the conference room? Pshh! It has a calendar on it and you sign up, first come, first serve. Yes, there are office managers, but not a huge cadre of admin assistants.
If you look at the balance sheet, understand it, look at the industry (buggy whips ain't a good sector), and what is the P/E ratio? My guidelines if everything else is good, and that is over, I won't buy. That means buy in the down turns, buy good companies, and sell in the upturns. Right now, it's best to be in cash, unless some of your stocks are paying great dividends. Buy again once the market has bottomed out. It isn't even close to that now... my guess we have at least a year before it hits real bottom.
Please. Technical investing, the way the market used to be set up, was great. Today’s market is manipulated by the multi-billion dollar investors to churn the prices to their benefit. You only need to look at the swings of the past couple of weeks to see that. In one day the market will lose BILLIONS in total value, the financial rags will cry about “not meeting guidance” or “fears of a trade war”, then within 24 hours the money rushes back in like the tide, buying up the stocks whose value was manipulated downward.
Imagine if the value of the dollar, or the entire housing market, could change by 2-3% ANY GIVEN DAY. That would be madness. But we just accept it in the equity market.
...And speaking of that last statement, you and your gang are always saying trades aren't a "lesser" education, they're just different, but you talk of people who "fail out of college" as being more suitable for trades. So you are saying it's a lower level. Got it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
You are not following the thread. tnff has said, many, many times over that Vo-tech is just another option, equal with college prep. I was responding to his comment about people going into Vo-tech after "failing out of college". I think that is an admission that he doesn't think the two options, Vo-tech and college prep, are equal for high school.
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No Katarina, you don't "got it." You don't "got it" at all. There are people with college degrees that would fail auto mechanics. By your definition that would mean college degrees are a lower level because someone couldn't do mechanics. What it means is people have different Knowledges, Skills, and Abilities. And I believe people should study and learn what they are talented at, not a one size fits none solution.
Just because there are computers in cars doesn't mean a mechanic is "learning computers" whatever that means. It takes less skill to read a code and replace the part than it did a few years ago to plug in a Sunscope and do a diagnostic off raw data.
Failing out of college doesn't mean someone is somehow less; that's not my prejudice, it's yours.
Last edited by tnff; 12-31-2018 at 07:45 AM..
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