Aftermarket products. Does anyone know anything about anything?

[UtahPete]

I can tell you that anyone with a brain that wants to work, is working. The rest are either of another mental capacity, or they don't want to work.

I don't think it's that simple. Any time the economy goes through a major realignment good people suffer. I was an underemployed single dad from 1993 to 1996 due to no fault of my own. I literally chased employment opportunities from coast to coast during that time. I was highly qualified and willing to accept lower paying jobs, but nothing worked out for long until the economy turned around in the late 1990s.

I think we should quit blaming fellow Americans who find themselves on the short end of the economic stick for their own predicament or failures. That solves nothing and only serves to divide us, to the enormous delight of the wealthy and powerful.

 

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

The purpose of college is to develop thinking skills, not working skills. The problem I think is too many 'college students' don't really belong there and there are too many unskilled workers in the work force chasing the same dwindling market for unskilled labor.

Employers are increasingly demanding college degrees for jobs that don't really require an advanced education..

We need a well developed trade school system in this country as a viable alternative to college or the military for young people with ambition. And, Capitalists need to appreciate and respect hard working laborers.

Professors have an obligation to demonstrate by example good working attitudes. When it comes to life skills people learn more by example than by book reading. Colleges also need to help students understand the reality of work life. Over 40 years ago I hired a guy who was desperately trying to get into journalism. He graduated from one of the UC schools with a degree in Journalism. He obviously had been given all the hype about how great a career he was going to have. When he left school with his diploma he said, "OK, world, here I am!" The world responded with, "Yeah, so?" He didn't know how to deal with it.

I was fed a lot of hype about how great the engineering field is. What I found was that most engineering work was super tech mundane stuff, and in some cases nothing more than applying recipes from engineering manuals. Only about 10% of engineering involved real creative engineering.

I particularly agree with your comments about corporate appreciation for the labor force and the need for more technical training. I've had experience with college grads trying to run a manufacturing line when they didn't know what they were doing. On the other hand I used to josh with my non-grad fellow workers and told them that everyone knows a college degree is worth ten years experience! They knew I was kidding of course.

 

[UtahPete]

As I recall, my 10 years with the Navy translated to 15 semester credits when I started Community College.