For some reason, this thread made me think of ELF. I was falling out of my chair when I saw the riot police spoofing the Nazghul.

The problem I see, in part, is that the young folks are being steered into college when it's not the answer for everyone in primary education. I don't see how this is any different than spending four years and $50,000 in school loan debt to get a degree in sociology, when we don't what the market for sociologists will be 8 years down the road. Actually, we do know: it'll suck, just as it has for the last umpteen years before.

If you want a reason to get those certs, it's pretty simple: the pay is good and the positions are available. Been available, to some degree, for years. Or we could keep pushing kids toward college to get all-but-useless degrees in the humanities. That begs the countering question: why should so many people be pursuing those particular degrees when they know there are no jobs to be had in those fields?

It's more complicated than you're making it out to be. Yes, some people would be better off with a technical certification both financially and satisfaction wise. But it's worth noting that those jobs have been shipped overseas with gusto lately and it will take time for the confidence to return.

Additionally, humanities degrees aren't useless. Some of the best job applicants on the market are liberal arts majors. Humanities gets to be complicated because it's hard to really say how many of them we really need and most of them end up going into non-obvious fields.

As for $50k in debt, that wouldn't happen for most folks if we'd stop cutting back on funding for education. Personally, I think the notion of paying that much is ridiculous. But trying to forecast such things that far down the line is a losing proposition. I've seen a similar problem with folks trying to time the market and it's a great way to go broke.

The point is that blaming the students for taking advice is dumb. And at this point failing to take the advice is dumb as it's really tough to find jobs locally where you're not required to have a degree.

It's a Gordian knot situation, younger folks can't afford to opt out, but by nobody opting out the system gets worse.

Perhaps they should raise their offers if that 20k jobs number is real. I don't actually believe it is, but if you can't fill 20,000 seats in a single state, you're either lying about how many seats you actually have or not willing to pay enough.

I'm not blaming students for taking advice; if anything, I'm critical of the institutionalized advice. I posit that there has long been a push, in public education and government, to steer people away from manufacturing by painting a portrait of college as the be-all end-all of starting a career path. It's not. It's one option. There is another option, that can lead to a very rewarding career path, that is all-but-ignored by the schools. Not surprising when its image is of dirty, sweaty, back-breaking labor, a far cry from what manufacturing really is these days. With the primary education system effectively turning its back to this type of work, we find ourselves with a shortage of kids looking to pursue this career path, and thus a shortage of workers qualified to fill the jobs that are open, and that have been open. It would be helpful if the discussion with the kids was something more than just "collegecollegecollege".

And no, humanities degrees aren't all "useless"; that was an unfortunate term I used. But when one graduates with an expensive degree in, say archeology, how many of us are surprised when he or she plays barrista for a year or two and then ends up in banking, or assistant manager at a Gap store?

Anyway, for you young folks trying to figure out what you want to do in life, take a look at technical trades. Those who like to work with their hands, who have a bit of a creative streak, who understand the needs of consistency and quality without needing a supervisor watching over the shoulder, who don't want to be in an office wearing a tie, this might be something you'll enjoy far more than anything a four-year degree will have you doing. Or not. At least look into it - the jobs are there, the education doesn't take forever, and there is a good wage to be had.

No, the point was that the jobs need people qualified to do the work. The number earlier this year came from the statewide jobs boards run by the government and accessible through the employment offices. The starting pay at entry level averaged something like $30 - 40,000, depending on the technical work, which is a very good starting point around here for one just a year or two out of high school. The pay at higher experience levels went up to the $60-80k range.

Note that apparently WI has the highest number of manufacturing jobs per capita in the nation (I'd have guessed top 5, not the highest), so that might make 20,000 seem high. Even if it's halved to 10,000, that's still a whole lot of jobs that are unfilled for lack of some technical training. That leads to the question of, "why are young folks not looking into this line of work?" To which one answer is, "they've been told over and over to pursue something different." <shrug>

I am aware the thread has changed topic from the OP, but if anyone is interested here is an eye-witness account of the Oakland demonstrations.

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/p1m34/what_really_happened_at_occupy_oakland_read_my/

On the topic of education: Yeah, I agree that most high schools basically don't emphasize "technical" skills at all (mine did to some degree, there were a fair number of shop classes and such, but my district was also fairly rich and could afford the "extra" classes). So yeah, I agree, HereForTheBeer that there is a problem with high school where this type of class doesn't exist. Though as a squishy-liberal arts guy (I'm a History major at university, planning on continuing on for at least a MA in History) I also wouldn't want to see the devaluation of liberal arts in high schools (especially because the way that the US school systems run right now isn't good to begin with - and trying to focus even more on things like math and science (through the process of standardized tests) isn't the answer, I don't think).

While I don't disagree that vocational training is probably far more valuable than college for a lot of folks, and I think college is actually a waste of time for a subset of that group (which still is a lot of people) I'm still a bit disgusted.

Are those companies offering training and mentoring? If so, then yep, they're the good guys and I was wrong to pick on them. I just see a lot of crap where no one wants to train an employee, they want a cog in the wheel.

Again, I think colleges are greedy and a huge waste of money for most of the people who enroll in the US, so you and I are on the same page there. There's lots of other alternatives that people do not talk about, but if you want a lot of people to go vocational we have to be willing as a country and as businesses to both protect their jobs as much as possible and train people. A big complaint in my area is the mudflation of degrees, where there are so many candidates for a job that HR departments simply round file any applications they can based on whatever criteria they think works. I mean, maybe the job doesn't require a degree, but you've only got one spot and 80 applicants, all other things being equal, the 20 with degrees is an easier pool of people to get through and probably has at least one hirable person in it.

I mean companies like supply and demand when it benefits them, if they really cannot get people to fill those positions, that's high demand and low supply, they have to do something to make those jobs attractive, pay more, train, spend money recruiting, whatever.

Give 'em hell Occupy Movement! Let's take our country back from the unchecked greed and corruption that is keeping us down. I'm sick of this race to the bottom, it's about time we started doing something.

Okay I'm going to do my part!

Occupy GOG.com forums!

I'm gonna sit here, logged on to the forums until "The MAN" gives me a break!

The occupy[y "movement" is just typical leftist hippie college students/buskers/backpackers looking for attention, and trying out civic action, with their own naive and ignorant outlook.

If "occupy" was legitimate, they certainly wouldn't have *allowed* the police to disband their shanty towns. The citizens of countries involved in the "Arab Spring", a movement often brought up in the occupy rhetoric certainly didn't let potential violence stop them. True revolution *ALWAYS* entails sacrifice, conviction, and struggle.

Those in power and those whose financial wealth depends on the status quo never go gently into the night. Only by refusing to disband, and directly challenging the police could they have gained any legitimacy. But this was not an "American Spring", this was just another in a long line of college leftist activities, as meaningless as a kegger.

The fact that they were embroiled in the consumer culture made possible by the "one percent" economic structure they condemned, with iPhones and brand name clothing only made it that more hilarious.

In this world, you get three votes, your money, your voice, and your fists. Without proper utilization of all three, no social action will succeed.

Occupy London squatted in a building last week and were just evicted by the Metropolitan police a few days ago. And as wpegg pointed out, the CEO of RBS, a publicly owned bank, was set to receive a huge bonus (£1mil, $1.6mil) for doing nothing and wasting tax-payer money. I think right now he has turned it down but there was a huge thing about it, the conservatives came out and said it would be inappropriate for them to interfere with a private company's business practices...on a publicly owned company. So yeah, give 'em hell Occupy, at the very least for making stupid statements like that, but you're going to need to do more than just squat.

I'm already way to deep "in the system" to be an agent of change. But I generally like that the youth is actually getting interested in politics and the "bigger picture" again.

It will be interesting to watch were this is going (especially if and how much this is going to affect the 2012 election)

And you think that the US government (in particular, I can't speak for other governments where Occupations have sprung up) wouldn't have brutally (more so than what it has already done: see Oakland) crushed anything resembling actual physical violence?

Occupy is not a large enough movement at the moment to stand up to the government through physical violence without knowing that it (we) would be destroyed. Destroyed both on a physical level in harm (fatal/non-fatal) to bodies but also intellectually, morally, emotionally as a large amount of support would dissipate very quickly.

I agree with you that often times Occupations have been too quick to disband in the face of police requests/orders, but violent defense wouldn't have helped I don't think. The tactics of forcing mass arrests, while maybe not as dramatic as street fighting, at least made it more difficult for the police to demonize Occupiers.

I think that the ideas of physical occupations of condemned spaces, turning squatted locations into communities is a good thing. But the occupation of the mind has to continue to build a real, significantly sized base that can respond in the numbers seen in the Arab Spring. Most citizens of the US, I don't think, see the situation as bleakly as did the large number of Egyptians (for example) who turned out into the streets to protest (whether violently or non-violently). For there to be a mass movement there has to be growth and build up, and for that we have to occupy our minds.

Without taking a side, let me just give you two examples of my run-ins with the Occupy movement:

1) Irvine, CA (for those of you who don't know, a relatively wealthy town in Southern California, close to the sea and in general in an area full of rich people (Orange County)): the Occupy movement were besiegeing the town hall, a couple of people camping out in their Porsche Cayennes.

2) Chicago, IL: during the American Economic Association conference (basically a job market fair for young economics professors + a conference), the Occupy movement held a protest near the headquarters, holding up the banners "Stop teaching the rich how to get richer!". While what econ subjects do in high school and college (hopefully) is to teach an average joe about not making stupid financial decisions in their life (like taking out a half-a-mil mortgage with the salary of less than $100K a year)

In summary, I think the occupy movement has a point (income inequality is big and bad), but has no f*king clue about anything in particular.

It's not the corporations who are guilty, it's the government who sold itself to the corporations. All they need to do is raise taxes for the rich, reform the school system, make education more accessible, and stop wasting billions on bombing other countries in hopes of securing future influence of dubious value.