In 2010, tens of thousands of overqualified MBAs will emerge with nowhere exciting to go. A very few will land jobs in investment banking, but those who want grand jobs in big companies or consultancies will be disappointed. Increasingly they will go crawling back to their old employers to do pretty much whatever they were doing before for pretty much the same money. As the efficacy of a business school is measured according to the salary one gets when one finishes, both students and employers will question whether it is really worth the $160,000 that a top MBA costs.
This animated map provides a striking visual of employment trends over the last business cycle using net change in jobs from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on a rolling 12-month basis. The graphic highlights the 100 largest metropolitan areas.
The timeline begins in 2004 as the country starts its recovery from the 2001 recession, following the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Broad economic and job growth was apparent across most of the country.
The map also captures the dramatic job losses in New Orleans in 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
By 2007, regional evidence of the coming economic downturn starts to appear. Employment growth in California and Florida starts to wane, with the first signs of actual losses beginning in the middle of the year in Los Angeles and Tampa.
By 2009, it starts to look like the computer simulation from Wargames.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” – Henry Ford
The Freegans. These are people who who renounce all money and possessions. They often live in the woods, on the fringes of civilization, abandoned buildings or caves. For food they rely on handouts, dumpster diving, foraging, fishing, and (some of them) hunting. Individuals and groups have have risen out of a desire to boycott what they see as a consumer system and a waste of resources. They are today’s hippie communes.
It’s important to note that this lifestyle would not probably not fly in a place that didn’t have dumpsters and free libraries or generous neighbors. Yet there is certainly something very freeing about living outside the constraints and trappings of modern society.
It’s hard to imagine NOT using money, almost impossible for me to comprehend.
One of my favorite books growing up, one that I’ve read dozens of times was called “My Side of the Mountain” by Jean George. It’s about a boy who runs away from home to the Catskill Mountains and learn how to live in the wild. I often thought about whether it’s something that I could do. Maybe for a short while I concluded. But I like Twizzlers too much.
Warning, what you will see in this video includes predominantly white, overweight, ignorant Americans who attended the Glenn Beck 9/12 Tea Party protest in Washington D.C. this past weekend.
To these people, Communism, Fascism and Socialism are pretty much the same thing. (6:01)
To these people, the Bible says that Barack Obama’s name means “Antichrist”. (4:51)
To these people, Obama is giving land to Czars. (7:41)
From CafePress to CreateSpace, here’s Mashable’s list of where let your creativity run wild and make money (or at least try). I still don’t see anyone who can make Crangerale.
I wrote a really long (and potentially award-winning) post about this two nights ago that got lost in the vapors of the Interverse. I was crushed to the point that I can’t bring myself to re-write it.
Here’s a link to one of the articles I used for research. It gets the point across in a much less humorous way than I did…
Most music MP3′s suck. From a fidelity standpoint, the audio quality compared to a CD is just atrocious. So why do more and more people (especially young people) say they prefer the sound of MP3s? They’ve grown accustomed to them. To them, that’s what music is supposed to sound like.
12 megapixel cameras? Meh…most people don’t know the difference above around 3 megapixels. Sure, professionals will want to capture the most data of an image, but for storing snapshots of the family’s trip to Disney, you just don’t need High-Definition fidelity.
How can two doctors working out of a high tech microclinic set up in a strip mall meet 80 percent of a typical patient’s needs? No receptionists? No pharmacy? No MRI scanners?
Hard on the heels of the health care protests, another “citizen” movement has “spontaneously” ignited…this one fueled by Oil companies whose bottom line is threatened by proposed legislation that would set limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases.
While polls show that a majority of Americans support efforts to tackle climate change, Big Oil is manufacturing outrage and disappointment by sponsoring rallies in cities in southern oil-producing states, bussing company employees to eat hot dogs, listen to high school marching bands and show their bestest angryface on Fox News.
One oil exec even went so far as to defend the use of busses, saying “If we all drove in cars, it wouldn’t look good.”
In related and yet equally disturbing news, a pro-coal industry group is being investigated for sending fake letters to members of congress, posing as the NAACP and Hispanic organizations, opposing new climate change laws. Nice work.
The House bill seeks to reduce greenhouse gases in the United States by 83 percent by 2050.
Some gems from a brilliant post by Bill Maher in the Huffington Post:
“This country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything.”
“Here’s one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That’s right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
“James Madison wrote that “pure democracy” doesn’t work because “there is nothing to check… an obnoxious individual.” Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
“A smart guy named Chesterton once said: “My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying… It is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ To which most Americans would respond: “Are you calling my mother a drunk?”
Thursday, December 17
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By 2009, it starts to look like the computer simulation from Wargames.