It's the Economy, Stupid! (Was Ham-radio is a hobby not a service)
 

In article , Alun
writes:

We are still down 2 million jobs since 911. Mine was one
of the ones lost in the months after the attack. I am trying to run my own
business now, but it is a hard struggle. I would go back to working for
someone else, but there are no jobs in my field. The very few job ads I see
ask for impossibly high qualifications (for me anyway!), as employers can
pick and choose from the glut of people looking for work. For example, I
have a BS and they are looking for PhDs.

If you still have a well paid job it is easy to overlook the situation, but
it's dire. Employers are not hiring at anything like the rate expected at
this stage of an economic recovery.

That's because they learned to make do with the people they had, and are
reluctant to add more now.

2.4 million jobs were lost, and only
about 400,000 new ones have been added. It's impossible to look at those
numbers and not conclude that the economy is in terrible shape. Other
economic indicators may be good, but the employment problem is very real
and very large.

Remember Ross Perot and the "giant sucking sound"?

The current administration might prefer that we all focus on security and
foreign wars, but that's because if too many people look too hard at the
employment numbers it will hurt their chances of reelection. FWIW, I doubt
that any government can really influence the economy more than a tiny
amount, but the political facts of life say that people will vote for
someone who promises to fix the economy.

Seems to me that the real problem is more fundamental. Short term fixes won't
change long-term problems.

For example, importing 57% of our oil, and letting that number rise every year,
isn't the right trend, but it's been allowed to go on because it's cheaper in
the short term than. (Please don't blame the environmental concerns of drilling
in the Arctic and similar places until you have solid numbers on what oil from
those places costs to extract, and how much can actually be extracted.)

Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without investing the
resources in education to produce that workforce. "Resources" doesn't just mean
"money", either, though money is a big part of it.

73 de Jim, N2EY
All the White House can do is distract, or 'run interference'. The
employment stats are so bad that it's rather like trying to hide an
elephant under the rug. That's not to say that the other issues aren't
important, although personally I'm not happy about what they are doing in
either of these areas.

In article , Alun
writes:

Then outside the disaster arena, there's all the marathons,
walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons and myriad other public events for which
hams routinely provide communications. Our club supports 4 or 5 of
these per year.

Those are good practice.

BTW, I am not intending to call anyone stupid, but I just couldn't resist
the title.

Some things just "write themselves..." :-)

By the way, the Los Angeles Marathon was a success on Sunday,
record turn-out, everything run just fine. It can be done very well
without any amateur radio help but the ARRL copy scribblers
would have a cow about that. :-)

LHA / WMD

In article , Alun
writes:

(N2EY) wrote in
:

In article , Alun
writes:

We are still down 2 million jobs since 911. Mine was one
of the ones lost in the months after the attack. I am trying to run my
own business now, but it is a hard struggle. I would go back to working
for someone else, but there are no jobs in my field. The very few job
ads I see ask for impossibly high qualifications (for me anyway!), as
employers can pick and choose from the glut of people looking for work.
For example, I have a BS and they are looking for PhDs.

If you still have a well paid job it is easy to overlook the situation,
but it's dire. Employers are not hiring at anything like the rate
expected at this stage of an economic recovery.

That's because they learned to make do with the people they had, and
are reluctant to add more now.

That's a large part of it, although I think tere may be more going on.

Such as?

2.4 million jobs were lost, and only
about 400,000 new ones have been added. It's impossible to look at
those numbers and not conclude that the economy is in terrible shape.
Other economic indicators may be good, but the employment problem is
very real and very large.

Remember Ross Perot and the "giant sucking sound"?

I found his ears rather distracting

Much of what he predicted has come to pass, though.

The current administration might prefer that we all focus on security
and foreign wars, but that's because if too many people look too hard
at the employment numbers it will hurt their chances of reelection.
FWIW, I doubt that any government can really influence the economy more
than a tiny amount, but the political facts of life say that people
will vote for someone who promises to fix the economy.

Seems to me that the real problem is more fundamental. Short term fixes
won't change long-term problems.

For example, importing 57% of our oil, and letting that number rise
every year, isn't the right trend, but it's been allowed to go on
because it's cheaper in the short term than. (Please don't blame the
environmental concerns of drilling in the Arctic and similar places
until you have solid numbers on what oil from those places costs to
extract, and how much can actually be extracted.)

I think reliance on oil is too strong. More needs to be done on other
sources of energy. Fat chance with oilmen in control, not that much was
ever done before.

And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a major
factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the opposition in
2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this year.

Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary than
ever.

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania, tuition
alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very expensive at the
time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times that. But will the
starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more than 10 times what it was in
1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid 10 times what it was in my time
there? Nope.

73 de Jim, N2EY
Grants and
scholarships would make more sense than tax breaks for the rich.


73 de Jim, N2EY
All the White House can do is distract, or 'run interference'. The
employment stats are so bad that it's rather like trying to hide an
elephant under the rug. That's not to say that the other issues aren't
important, although personally I'm not happy about what they are doing
in either of these areas.





73 de Alun, N3KIP

N2EY wrote:
In article , Alun
writes:


(N2EY) wrote in
:


In article , Alun
writes:


We are still down 2 million jobs since 911. Mine was one
of the ones lost in the months after the attack. I am trying to run my
own business now, but it is a hard struggle. I would go back to working
for someone else, but there are no jobs in my field. The very few job
ads I see ask for impossibly high qualifications (for me anyway!), as
employers can pick and choose from the glut of people looking for work.
For example, I have a BS and they are looking for PhDs.

If you still have a well paid job it is easy to overlook the situation,
but it's dire. Employers are not hiring at anything like the rate
expected at this stage of an economic recovery.

That's because they learned to make do with the people they had, and
are reluctant to add more now.

That's a large part of it, although I think tere may be more going on.


Such as?

2.4 million jobs were lost, and only
about 400,000 new ones have been added. It's impossible to look at
those numbers and not conclude that the economy is in terrible shape.
Other economic indicators may be good, but the employment problem is
very real and very large.

Remember Ross Perot and the "giant sucking sound"?

I found his ears rather distracting


Much of what he predicted has come to pass, though.


The current administration might prefer that we all focus on security
and foreign wars, but that's because if too many people look too hard
at the employment numbers it will hurt their chances of reelection.
FWIW, I doubt that any government can really influence the economy more
than a tiny amount, but the political facts of life say that people
will vote for someone who promises to fix the economy.


Seems to me that the real problem is more fundamental. Short term fixes
won't change long-term problems.

For example, importing 57% of our oil, and letting that number rise
every year, isn't the right trend, but it's been allowed to go on
because it's cheaper in the short term than. (Please don't blame the
environmental concerns of drilling in the Arctic and similar places
until you have solid numbers on what oil from those places costs to
extract, and how much can actually be extracted.)

I think reliance on oil is too strong. More needs to be done on other
sources of energy. Fat chance with oilmen in control, not that much was
ever done before.


And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a major
factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the opposition in
2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this year.

I heard the Green party has something to say about all this. At any
rate, they aren't backing Ralph. His support this year is likely to be
down in the noise. Without a party backing him, he's just another Harold
Stassen.



Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary than
ever.

If the cost continues at double digit increases every year, and the
graduate stands a pretty good chance of his/her entire field being made
redundant, the necessity of the education is going to go away. Granted
the would-be student is flippin burgers, but their job won't be made
irrelevant.

Makes me think of the "They Might be Giants" Sone "Minimum Wage"

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania, tuition
alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very expensive at the
time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times that. But will the
starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more than 10 times what it was in
1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid 10 times what it was in my time
there? Nope.


- Mike KB3EIA -

Alun wrote:

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in
:


In article , Alun
writes:


(N2EY) wrote in
:


In article , Alun
writes:


snip

I think reliance on oil is too strong. More needs to be done on other
sources of energy. Fat chance with oilmen in control, not that much was
ever done before.

And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a
major factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the
opposition in 2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this
year.



Agreed up to a certain point. I think that Mr Nader will find that he gets
far fewer votes this time. The Democratic primaries have shown that people
are focussed on getting the oilmen out of the White House. That and the
fact that they saw what happened last time are likely to decimate his
support.


Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary
than ever.

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania,
tuition alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very
expensive at the time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times
that. But will the starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more
than 10 times what it was in 1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid
10 times what it was in my time there? Nope.

73 de Jim, N2EY
Grants and

scholarships would make more sense than tax breaks for the rich.


snip

I think access to education is already a problem and likely to get worse.
At the same time it's probably about the only antidote to offshore
production.

I dunno, Alun. It might soon be hard to convince a lot of people to go
drastically into debt just to have their field be decimated upon graduation.


Even then, you have countries like India to worry about. Despite their
overall poverty they have more English speaking educated middle class than
America (their sheer numbers help here), and they are willing to do white
collar and professional jobs for much less.

Well, the tech help I've gotten surely doesn't speak English very well! 8^)

Alun wrote in message .. .
PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in
:

In article , Alun
writes:

(N2EY) wrote in
:

In article , Alun
writes:

snip

I think reliance on oil is too strong. More needs to be done on other
sources of energy. Fat chance with oilmen in control, not that much was
ever done before.

And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a
major factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the
opposition in 2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this
year.


Agreed up to a certain point. I think that Mr Nader will find that he gets
far fewer votes this time.

I hope you are right. But it's not over till it's over.

The Democratic primaries have shown that people
are focussed on getting the oilmen out of the White House. That and the
fact that they saw what happened last time are likely to decimate his
support.

It was obvious four years ago and yet millions put their heads in the
sand.

Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary
than ever.

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania,
tuition alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very
expensive at the time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times
that. But will the starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more
than 10 times what it was in 1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid
10 times what it was in my time there? Nope.

73 de Jim, N2EY
Grants and
scholarships would make more sense than tax breaks for the rich.

snip

I think access to education is already a problem and likely to get worse.
At the same time it's probably about the only antidote to offshore
production.

Then it should be a major priority, rather than trips to Mars ans
such.

Even then, you have countries like India to worry about. Despite their
overall poverty they have more English speaking educated middle class than
America (their sheer numbers help here), and they are willing to do white
collar and professional jobs for much less.

Only because it costs so much less to live there.

Way back in 1783, when the US Constitution was written here in
Philadelphia, one of the limitations placed on Congress was that there
would be no tariffs on *exports*. *Imports* could be tarriffed/taxed
at will - and they were! This was done both as a source of income and
to protect local industry from destructive foreign competition. It is
my understanding that we still have some forms of this in place, in
the form of such things as limits on the number of cars that may be
imported without special taxes. These import quotas caused several
carmakers (mostly Japanese) to build assembly plants here in the USA.
Some cars are even built here and shipped *back to Japan*, because by
doing so they count against the import number.

Maybe it's time for that sort of thing to be expanded. Exporting jobs
may be good for some companies' bottom line in the short run, but in
the long run it spells big trouble.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

And the truly ironic part is that Ralph "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a major
factor in putting an oilman in the White House by dividing the opposition
in
2000. And he's poised to repeat that trick later this year.

I heard the Green party has something to say about all this.

I betcha there were a LOT of resignations from that party when they saw what
happened in 2000.

At any
rate, they aren't backing Ralph. His support this year is likely to be
down in the noise. Without a party backing him, he's just another Harold
Stassen.

I hope so.

Another example is the expectation of a trained workforce without
investing the resources in education to produce that workforce.
"Resources" doesn't just mean "money", either, though money is a big
part of it.

Agreed. The cost of education is running out of control.

It has far exceeded the general inflation level, yet is more necessary than
ever.

If the cost continues at double digit increases every year, and the
graduate stands a pretty good chance of his/her entire field being made
redundant, the necessity of the education is going to go away. Granted
the would-be student is flippin burgers, but their job won't be made
irrelevant.

That's one possibility. Another is bankruptcy and the resulting defaults on
student and other loans.

Makes me think of the "They Might be Giants" Sone "Minimum Wage"

Here's one data point:

In the fall of 1972, when I entered the University of Pennsylvania, tuition
alone (no books, fees, etc.) was $3000/year. Which was very expensive at
the
time. Today the same school charges more than 10 times that. But will the
starting salary offered to a BSEE in 2006 be more than 10 times what it was
in
1976, when I graduated? Is fininacial aid 10 times what it was in my time
there? Nope.

Add to this the fact that a kid who worked at minimum wage during the weekends,
summer and holidays could make a sizable dent in that $3000/year tuition. If a
kid could take home $1.50 an hour, and manage to put in 1000 hours per year,
there's half the tuition. Today, if a kid can take home $5 an hour and put in
the same 1000 hours, the resulting $5000 is only about 1/6 of the tuition.

That's just not right.

73 de Jim, N2EY