Trashing Our Kids
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Even Worse for Young Workers
By BOB HERBERT
Young people who remain unemployed for substantial periods of time will not only find it difficult to make up that ground, but could be lastingly scarred.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/opinion/28herbert.html?th&emc=th
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One of my neighbors several weeks back published an excellent letter in the NY Times pointing out that testing of young children tends to destroy their love of learning which needs to be encouraged at the earliest age to make education more than a punitive block to gaining knowledge. Sadly she was addressing only a portion of American kids because most do not (as do those in other developed nations) even get the benefit of early education. Such is only available to many at exorbitant tuition costs. Thus, most are permanently left at a disadvantage in our competitive culture.
Bob Herbert’s column further notes the exclusion from jobs of even those who have made it through college, let alone done high school. And it is no secret that without jobs kids are likely headed towards crime and jail which will pretty well wipe out their futures — all those homeless vets.
Bottom line is that we Americans are trashing our kids. We have the world’s highest incarceration rate (1/4 of the total with a population of only 1/20).
No fault of the Chinese, then, to scorn our lack of respect for human rights at home. Shame on us.
Ed Kent
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“A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope.” (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent 212-665-8535 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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2 users commented in " Trashing Our Kids "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWhy are companies importing workers in from other countries if we have high unemployment numbers here? That’s a curious anomoly it seems. Our government allows this? Why? That is like encouraging Economic Suicide.
Seems we’ve gone from a society where everyone had a chance to make a decent living, to one where the bottom line on Wall Street has usurped decency. There’s no fair playing field left.
Millions are raked in by the 2 percent at the top, the crumbs are distributed among those that actually produce the services or goods. This in a Democracy????? With Liberty and Justice for All?
Loyalty to a company by the workers it employs? A thing of the past, as companies treat employees as disposable, dischargeable asset manipulation devices. Profits aren’t high enough? Well, they simply downsize by 10,000 workers, shift the work overseas or to the remaining workers. Ahhh, profits go up…temporarily. No one with money to buy the goods, profits go down, cycle starts again. End result….BAILOUT. Foolish!!!!!
Government has made it far too easy, even encouraged companies to solve profit “GREED” problems with the outsourcing of jobs. FAILURE of our Economic System?
Dear Dr. Kissinger - Thanks for all the opening of China during the Nixon years debacle. My grandchildren thank you for tax debt they will be paying for years. Opening this door - instead of being the Global wonder you envisioned, simply widened the way that profits could rise for companies in the U.S. Finding them a virtual unlimited supply of CHEAP labor, taking jobs away from Americans, sending Billions of dollars that should be at work in the U.S. overseas. That rising DEBT will probably be the downfall of our country.
I believe the marshalls they drug out of prison to set the course for a future China outsmarted you. You just never realized it. I’ll bet you made a lot on the companies that took advantage of outsourcing in the early days. Future generations thank you.
If someone had enough time, it could probably be linked to the GREED of less than 1000 big shots who took way more than they were ever entitled to. Solution might be to string them all up, distribute their wealth back to the workers who actually made it. The economic health of our nation may depend on drastic action. Will it happen? No…the masses will pay, the rich will get richer…life will go on.
Sorry for ranting in my last post.
One of the reasons for high unemployment are that lower paid unskilled jobs used to TEACH young people the “importance of work/beauty of a paycheck”. These food service, manual seasonal worker, checkout clerk jobs are now being performed by our older “skilled worker”.
Skilled workers who used to produce goods,these displaced older workers have to try to make a living and with the outsourcing of manufacturing base, they have to find work where they can.
As a nation, this equates to an old American saying, economically “shooting ourselves in the foot”. Sad for a country of supposedly intelligent people.
“Good luck finding a job kid, you’re going to need it.”
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