Re: genY has no interest in hi-tech careers



On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Old Pif wrote:

On Oct 24, 5:40 pm, Marco <andymarcos...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From one of my favorite columnists (San Francisco Chronicle):

American kids, dumber than dirt
Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots
in U.S. history

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them
are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and
increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America - and many more
who aren't - now put their kids in private schools from day one, and
the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no
video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned
kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system,
it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the
populace?


The thing is that America as a society has not developed a concept of
human development of its population. It always and still is considered
as a private matter. Usually one can hear arguments about tyrannic
government, Big Brother brainwashing and the like. The problem,
however, is that the corporate world which is much better organized
and determined has a view of American population as a consumer group
and values them only to the extent they are able to purchase all the
garbage it dumps on them.

I woke up to this when I read Vance Packard's "Hidden Persuaders" (circa. 1960s).

Unless people develop some counterweight
ideology to withstand that this decline continue.

A very small, insignificant, but wiser subpopulation of "crackpots" (otherwise known as hippies, individualists, luddites, neoluddites, etc., really are out there, and they know how to _resist_ the bull***).

IIRC, one of the keywords is "unlearning" and I've seen books on this. To some degree, some people who prefer to "homeschool" their kids, are working to counteract the commercialization of our public school system (where TVs hang from ceilings, coke machines everywhere), etc., all geared to benefit the GDP (and who else? the CEOs!) and not the kids.

I suggest a massive
boycott of TV.

1. I think it's Jerry Mander's book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" that also says this.
2. Well, there are a very few worthwhile things to watch on TV: upcoming hurricane satellite images, Masterpiece Theater on PBS (which is also been taken over by the comercials), and Mystery Theater. Sometimes the History Channel.

For one I axed the cable many years ago and never
regret it.


I recommend _books_. Very cheap used. Can be read in a power failure if you have candles. Can be read at the beach with bright sunlight on the screen (how many of you see those cool beach scenes with the dude [or the chick] in front of a laptop screen just as visible as the landscape and realize its fantasy).

Speaking of books, yesterday the wifey and I went to one of the local public libraries where they sell discards and donations. I got the following hardbacks for 25 cents each:

"Power and Greed-Inside the Teamsters Empire of Corruption" by Friedman and Schwarz

Kathleen Sharp's book "In good Faith-The Inside Story of Prudential-Bache's Multi-billion dollar scandal that DEFRAUDED THOUSANDS OF INVESTORS AND FRACTURED THE ROCK"

"Friends in High Places-The Bechtel Story-The most Secret Corporation and how it engineered the world" by Laton McCartney (You might want to read, first, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by a guy whose name escapes me just now, but its a doozie, too)

And, although I already read the book (borrowed from the library), now I have my own copy for reference: "Bad Blood-Crisis in the American Red Cross" by Judith Reitman (who, in the second edition paperback preface, talked about getting death threats, mysterious faxes with all kinds of incriminating data and "from" fields X-ed out with felt tip pen ink). Once you read this, you might worry if you ever have to go to a hospital for an operation where you need a blood transfusion (what disease might you get? and, you are SOL if you sign a waiver of rights to litigation or they won't do the surgery).

Anyone for the "snot book list"?

(Also, don't forget http://www(dot)booksalefinder(dot).com for where upcoming booksales are. Usually $1 for hardbacks and large softcovers.)

Here it is, again, FYI, FWIW:
-------------------------------
===================================================
This is a list of recommended books. No politics, no religion, no
history, few academics. Just basic CYA and crap to look out for
in the real world (and there is more crap out there than most
people would care to admit). I put this list together Nov 2 as an
FYI, partly in response to discussions on SRC regarding how
employees are treated and what they can do in terms of a CYA
strategy. All of the below books are at least indirectly related
to how you, as an employee (or even a citizen non-employee), can
be mistreated and/or misled in unjustifiable ways by "powers that
be" or how larger society as a whole is exploited for the
enrichment of a few people. Probably all of them will be easy to
find on Amazon.com as a used book for very little money.

---- relevant books I've read, recently, cover to cover----

Agents of Influence (by Pat Choate) c 1990, how the Japanese
have essentially won the economic/trade war with the USA.

Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough & John Helyar. All about
the largest leveraged buyout of the time (RR Nabisco) initiated
by Ross Johnson but the thunder stolen by Kravis (KK&R) and being
proof of the triump of theivery over business. Tens of thousands
of people were negatively impacted for only the purpose of making
a few people rich.

Chainsaw Al (can't remember the author). All about Al Dunlap at
Sunbeam. It is incredible how dumb and stupid and incompetant
boards of directors can be.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (by John Perkins). A very very
dirty business by which poor countries are terribly exploited by
certain predatory US corporations using corrupt practices.

Confessions of a Union Buster (by Martin Jay Levitt) How
businesses would rather spend the same amount of money to fight unions than just give the money to employees and the fighting
will be full of dirty tricks. The author admits all of what he
did that ruined people, ruined marriages, and ruined families.

Corruption and the Decline of Rome (by Ramsay Macmullen). A
masterful academic study of the decline of the (Western) Roman
Empire through the hypothesis of corruption. 200 pages of text,
100 pages of references & footnotes.

Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences
(Steve Keen). A recognized economist shows how there are a lot of
serious problems in economics.

Devil Take The Hindmost (by Edward Chancellor) All about the
financial markets going back some 500+ years. Most of the time
the investors lost their money, the brokers/agents/scammers went
laughing to the bank.

"Dissent in Medicine (by Robert S. Mendelsohn, et al.)" A total
of nine MDs, as authors, exposing the scams of the medical
industry.

Hetty Green the Witch of Wall Street--Sparks & Moore (Like Martha Stewart is not a nice girl, Hetty Green was not nice, either. However, in her old age, she did give away most of her money.

Martha Inc (can't remember the author). All about Martha Stewart.
She's not a nice girl (CEO). She's been in the clink, too.

Perfectly Legal--The Covert Campaign To Rig Our Tax System To Benefit
The Super Rich--And Cheat Everybody Else, by David Cay Johnson (Pulitzer
Prize winner). Outstanding and easy to read explanations of serious
tax evasion and corruption in our systems, all to greatly benefit
the rich and soak the poor. Very outstanding. Many references.

Pigs At The Trough--How Corporate Greed And Political Corruption
Are Undermining America, by Arianna Huffington. Excellent, short, easy to read book on all of the schemes and tricks of executives
and CEOs to overpay, overprotect, overpamper themselves at the
expense of everyone else.

Stealing the Market - how the giant brokerage firms with help
from the SEC stole the stock market from investors. (by Martin
Mayer). How the money handlers cheat everyone.

The Challenge of Global Capitalism-The world economy in the 21st
century--by Robert Gilpin. He is a pro-globalisation guy, but he
honestly says he's not sure it will work; it has a lot of
problems. Very good.

The Creature from Jekyll Island (by G. Edward Griffin) The most
important book I've read in 20 years. Easy to understand and you
will learn how banks really work and how they create money. His
recommendation, however, to abolish the Fed is not a good idea.

"The Dollar Crisis--Causes, Consequences, Cures (by Richard
Duncan)" Explanations are good, easy to understand, but the
recommendations are bad. Good to read to better understand the
dominance of the USD in the world.

The Labor Story (by Aleine Austin), history of working conditions
which were worse in the past but still, today, if you are an
employee you are on the losing end of the deal.

The Money Culture (by Michael Lewis) several excellent chapters
about factual business scams.

The Truth about the National Debt: Five Myths and One Reality
(Francis X. Cavanaugh) This is a really terrible book, DON'T
read. Don't buy it, don't waste your time. Author is an
economist; all full of doublethink, doubletalk, vaguetalk, bait-
n-switchtalk, nonthink, nonsense. BS BS BS. Terrible.

War by other means (by John J. Fialka) Industrial spying & theft

=============================
Below are books I have not read but I have, or have looked at
parts of, and think are worth reading:

Nightmare on Wall Street-Mayer
Silicon Snake Oil--Stoll
Secrets of the Temple--Greider (about the '87 stock market crash)
The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery--Mayer (the S&L crisis)
The Bankers--Mayer (how banks really work)
The Invisible Banks--Tobias (about the insurance business, dark
secrets)
False Profits--Truell & Gurwin (about the BCCI scandal)
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television--Mander (for
your mental health, get rid of your TV set)
High Tech Heretic --Stoll (here is one on you should get away
from your computer and get back to meeting and interacting
with human beings, directly, again)
The Employer's Legal Handbook--Steingold (Nolo Press: the good
guys and would be worth reading to understand ethical
employment practices)
Using a Lawyer--Ostberg (how to use a lawyer and what to do if
things go wrong, written by a lawyer)
The 110 Biggest Mistakes Job Hunters Make--by Herman &
Sutherland
Double Billing--Stracher (a lawyer writes about how lawyers bilk
their clients)
Small Claims Court--Rudy (in case you want to make trouble for
someone who made trouble for you and don't want to spend a
fortune)
The Law of Medical Liability--Boumil & Elias (better know your
rights before something happens)
The Medical Rackett--Gross (More things to watch out for from the
medical industry)
Take This Book to the Hospital with You--Inlander & Weiner (you
should not need an explanation, better to read before you
go)
Don't Let Your HMO Kill You--Feinberg (see prior book, too).
Perks and Parachutes--Tarrant (how to negotiate better employment
deals, for the employee, parts of it look pretty good)
The Resume Doctor--Marcus (if you have some trouble in your
background, here is how to maybe help)
Soap Opera--Swasy (about corporate incompetance and ineptitude at
Proctor and Gamble)
Trust Me--Binstein & Bowden (all about Charles Keating and the
great S&L ripoffs)
Ten Cents on the Dollar-Rutberg (the scams in the commercial
bankruptcy business)
.