An interesting study asks if introverts are really people that sense the world differently, namely by being extrasensitive to internal and external stimuli. There’s certainly something about that which feels right, but if introversion is related to an attention to details, then I would have to be an extrovert extraordinaire. Of course, some days I feel like I am an extrovert that just happened to have my extroversion beat out of me at a very young age. On the other hand, it could be that my brain processes so many details that the most obvious ones ellude me. That’s a pretty self-satisfying interpretation.
I’m pretty skeptical of the President’s plan to increase CAFE standards, but the good news is that more cars will meet them than you might think.
Robert Wright explains why Tiger Woods matters.
Universities with the best free online courses.
The unfortunate fate of kids that age out of the foster system. Some call for support not to cease when they turn 18. Might be worth trying, though I’m skeptical that a lot of these ships can be steered right. On the other hand, their problems often become our problems.
Reihan Salam makes a good and understated point. There’s unemployment, which is bad. And there is unemployment becoming a way of life on up the socioeconomic food chain, which is far worse.
Some parents in Utah are accusing their local school district and BYU of engaging in a “socialist conspiracy.” Their crime? Taking the position that the United States government gets its power from the people rather than from God.
The outlook for Net Neutrality may not be as bad as some have feared.
While the governments of the United States insert their dirty little hands into our haircutting industry with atrocious regulation (my grandfather was a barber, this sort of thing really irks me), Cuba liberalizes theirs.
Our benevolent government has taken a more oppositional stance against claims of Big Media about how much piracy is hurting their business.
You forget there’s also underemployment - when people are forced to take on a part-time job or two, none of which meets their actual skill level, and which harms long-term career prospects just the same.
I am reminded of the “worthless jobs recovery” of the 2000’s, which appears to be poised to repeat itself once the Obama Recession leaves in 2014.
Comment by web — April 27, 2010 @ 5:13 am
Nearly 60 percent of the young men [in foster care] had been convicted of a crime.
Which turns out to be the exact non-white percentage of children in foster care.
Just sayin’.
Comment by ? — April 27, 2010 @ 6:31 am
Well, underemployment is well on the opposite side of unemployment as unemployment-as-a-way-of-life. Underemployment may suck and may hurt long term career prospects, but it simply doesn’t have as deleterious an effect on the soul as does unemployment as a way of life. I would actually go a step further and say that I fear that people will use one area (”The only jobs out there suck”) to justify the other (”so I’ll just stay unemployed until right job becomes available”).
I got annoyed in the mid-2000’s when people were talking about not being able to find work. I mean, I felt for people that were especially trained and had significant experience in a particular field that had gone bust. But for a lot of people, particularly people just getting out of college, being unable to find work meant simply being unable to find something “good enough for them”.
Which goes to another problem citing underemployment, which is that it’s hard to measure. Not impossible, but heart. And it is frequently used by people to discount any economic progress for partisan reasons. It took the new recession at the end of Bush’s term before some people would even admit that the economy improved from the recession that started at the end of Clinton’s term (as someone that has been constantly looking for work every two years like clockwork from 2000 to 2010, 2000 and 2005 were simply worlds apart).
So I guess what I’m saying is that while I don’t consider unemployment not to be a problem or a threat, at this point underemployment rather than unemployment would represent progress. And my main fear isn’t just that people will not have jobs, but that people will accept not working. That working will be culturally be considered optional for a much greater percentage of the population than it already has been the case.
Comment by trumwill — April 27, 2010 @ 6:38 am
Phi, extemporaneous racial commentary (explicit or otherwise) on subjects not directly pertaining to race is discouraged on this site. It can have the tendency to get really ugly, really fast.
Comment by trumwill — April 27, 2010 @ 7:18 am
I fear that people will use one area (”The only jobs out there suck”) to justify the other (”so I’ll just stay unemployed until right job becomes available”).
Putting it in perspective: I’ve run the numbers on what I would make from unemployment insurance, versus taking a “part-time” or distinctly underemploying job. And especially given that a number of those places are playing games with hours (making people “on the books” 40 hrs/week but then only scheduling 32-35) of late, as related by friends who work in those fields, there’s a dollars-per-hour threshold where it would indeed be much more worth my while to remain “unemployed” and keep hunting for work as my “full time” day job.
Comment by web — April 27, 2010 @ 7:51 am
I think you guys are somewhat talking around each other. It’s quite possible that long term unemployment of a type America hasn’t seen is on the horizon. Whatever the causes, it’s a toxic mess that’s difficult to recover from. I’m not sure we’re ready to deal with it as a society.
Comment by ecco — April 27, 2010 @ 4:26 pm
there’s a dollars-per-hour threshold where it would indeed be much more worth my while to remain “unemployed” and keep hunting for work as my “full time” day job.
Agreed. And for a time, there should be. That’s why we have unemployment insurance because it doesn’t do you or the greater economy any good to take a job that doesn’t utilize your talents if there is such a job on the horizon.
As a stopgap, making job-seeking a fulltime job is often a wise choice. However, what Salam is looking at is a cultural acceptance of unemployment in the longer term. That’s orders of magnitude worse than people simply being out of the job during a downturn or people being forced to accept jobs that don’t utilize all of their talents. The latter two are bad, the first is worse because it doesn’t go away even if things improve and it makes improvement far, far less likely.
Comment by trumwill — April 27, 2010 @ 6:27 pm
A lot of people in Western European social democratic countries accept as “normal” what would be considered shockingly high unemployment rates in the US. They see it as a trade-off for their high-tax, low-job-generation social and economic policies.
Comment by Maria — April 29, 2010 @ 1:18 pm