Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am 68. Bad; well that depends on what you see as bad. Life then was harder when I was a kid and people didn't have near the luxuries in life. But I'd say my parents where very happy with that having been children of WWI veterans and then go thru the great depression and then WWII. Made them love American life after. But they also felt free to take walks down streets at night; let their kinds stray afar and didn't lock their doors in day and often left their car keys on dash. I never had a bike stolen and cannot count the numbers of time I left it parked without lock for hours at movie theaters. So it depends on what you value I guess. Compared to great depression even by causal glance this recession was nothing near that. Few soup lines. unemployment with extents.no families moving in model T's across country looking for work.
So what happened since then? Why everything changed so much?
Why did the society become so scared from each other? People were nicer and trustworthy back then so what is the reason for this moral decline?
It haunts us to this day in ways hurricane Sandy never will. Katrina is forgotten in the past. Were the Patriot Act or DHS due to 9/11 or natural disasters?
It was definitely a great propaganda opportunity. In reality it was insignificant. Best thing we could have done was step up security and otherwise ignore it. Instead we did precisely what the terrorists wanted.
To put it into perspective, 10x as many people die violent and sudden deaths every year in car accidents in the US. Probably 100x or more innocent people have died in our never ending war on terror.
The more education you have, the better the chance of serious, lucrative advancement.
Only if you work for the government.
Employers who are subject to competition don't really care. When I got a BS in engineering it was really a demonstration/ weeding out process for creative problem solving. You pretty much have it or you don't. Getting a MS was all but useless. You are expected to learn what you need to know on the job, but there was no "training process" there either. You research and do it on your own.
Employers who are subject to competition don't really care. When I got a BS in engineering it was really a demonstration/ weeding out process for creative problem solving. You pretty much have it or you don't. Getting a MS was all but useless. You are expected to learn what you need to know on the job, but there was no "training process" there either. You research and do it on your own.
I agree that brilliance and gumption go a long way in overcoming a BA-only (or BS-only) education, but employers care about skills and some of those skills can only be acquired with an advanced degree.
Alumni of the graduate school I attended, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, have an average income of $400,000 in the 10th year after graduation (these alumni are typically 38-40 years old because the school encourages experienced applicants). Aside from a handful of football coaches, chief investment officers, doctors, and President Obama, the highest paid jobs in government pay less than that. It's all private enterprise.
The notion that government jobs pay less than private enterprise is a bit outdated. There were many articles about 5 years ago about how fed jobs pay 25% more than their private sector counterparts. They have better benefits, better hours, are immune to layoffs and are recession proof. I wouldn't be surprised if many state jobs also pay more. There's also the phenomena that the jobs aren't fungible. Many public sector jobs don't even have a private sector counterpart. A person gets a "field virologist" job at the CDC, or they are unemployed, or wallowing in graduate school for $17K a year.
Census and OPM combine to do regular detailed studies in major MSAs to compare federal salaries to those in the private sector, not for those within comparable job titles, but for those actually doing comparable work. The private sector premium has been growing for years now, and has checked in at 35% for the past two years. This is in part because the locality adjustments to federal pay have been frozen since 2010.
Because private sector workers simply sat back and watched as their once superior benefits packages were clawed back into corporate profits, the feds do make back some part of the shortfall in that area. Civil service pensions are nowhere near what they were prior to 1983, but they still do exist. Feds have enjoyed a heath care marketplace for decades, and they cannot be fired without cause. The standard work-week is 40 hours.
Or is this really due to a broken economic system that I just ended up losing the birth-year lottery in?
You lost the Birth Year Lottery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geo-Aggie
Do we go through cycles?
No.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geo-Aggie
Are we due to break this and have a decade of awesomeness where things start to look less bleak....?
No.
If you want a head start, search through the forum to find everything you can about China and Jobs.
See, in that way, when India moves into its 2nd Level Economy just like China did, and US jobs are going to India, you can just cut-n-paste and then substitute "China" with "India."
Keep those posts, because in about 25 years, when Central Asia moves into its 2nd Level Economy just like China and India did, you'll be losing jobs to them, so just cut-n-paste and substitute "India" with Central Asia.
And then after that, it will be Sub-Saharan Africa.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that China will be ready to move into its 3rd Level Economy and take your 3rd Level jobs.
You got about 60 more years before the dust settles, and when it does, you'll not like what you see.
Answering...
The notion that government jobs pay less than private enterprise is a bit outdated. There were many articles about 5 years ago about how fed jobs pay 25% more than their private sector counterparts. They have better benefits, better hours, are immune to layoffs and are recession proof. I wouldn't be surprised if many state jobs also pay more. There's also the phenomena that the jobs aren't fungible. Many public sector jobs don't even have a private sector counterpart. A person gets a "field virologist" job at the CDC, or they are unemployed, or wallowing in graduate school for $17K a year.
I didn't say government jobs generally pay less than private enterprise; I said that the highest-paying jobs are almost exclusively in private enterprise.
Pure fantasy. Taxes are at a 40 years low, even including social security.
What has happened is that our policies were altered so that a very few people have taken all the economic gains over the last 40 years. The rest of us got high debt and crap wages.
I often agree with your posts, but I have to disagree here. Income tax may be low but stealth taxes are at an all time high.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
