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RICHMOND, VA May 18, 2010- As Massey Energy stockholders convened inside Richmond's Jefferson Hotel, a large and spirited demonstration took place on the streets outside with protesters demanding the removal of company CEO Don Blankenship.
The United Mine Workers of America and the AFL-CIO brought in busloads of workers from West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylviania and D.C. to publicly shame Blankenship for his responsibility in the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in early April. The mine had been cited for more than 500 safety violations in the months leading up to the tragedy. Miners that work for Massey Energy are not unionized and 52 workers have died at work during Blankenship's tenure as Massey CEO.
Although the stockholders did not vote Blankenship out as CEO, the UMWA leadership and its members vowed to remove Blankenship from power and to unionize his workers.RICHMOND, VA May 18, 2010- As Massey Energy stockholders convened inside... more
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Meet Marco Calasan, the world’s youngest Microsoft systems engineer and official computer genius. At the advanced age of 9, Marco, who calls Macedonia his home, is already the author of a book on Windows 7 that he’s hoping to publish and has earned four Microsoft certificates. Oh, and he speaks three languages. And they say all the youngsters like the Macs these daysMeet Marco Calasan, the world’s youngest Microsoft systems engineer and official... more
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Should a revolutionary humanitarian food product be protected by commercial patent, when lifting restrictions might save millions of starving children?Should a revolutionary humanitarian food product be protected by commercial patent,... more
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As this groundbreaking band begin their new tour, they shatter traditional music business models as they release their new record, involve an interactive light show and ask fans to design T-shirts.
Guitarist and song writer Ben Weinman chats about launching into the unknown as the band begins their tour in NYC..As this groundbreaking band begin their new tour, they shatter traditional music... more
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Louisiana-born musician Tab Benoit talks about disappearing coastal wetland and how it affects everyone..Louisiana-born musician Tab Benoit talks about disappearing coastal wetland and how it... more
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Interview topics about:
How the United States Television News Media's content has been controlled and restrained by large corporate businesses by restricting funding, threats by advertisers and how it's affected the coverage of much important news stories...
There has been a dumbing down of the US News Media, allowing an environment that allows crimes to be committed in safety and seclusion. An environment where the real issues are hidden... and the in depth of coverage that is needed.... is controlled tightly by the hands of corporate giants...
The people and citizens of the United States have lost a crucial needed component that must be preformed in a free society. Without a Vibrant and Independent Media.... we loose both the Truth and our Freedom.
Here are a series of Pre & Post show interviews shot at the Michael Moore / Moveon.org event on the evening of March 27,2010 in Sausalito California of
"Capitalism; A Love Story"
Booking and Assignments: =====================================
G.A.P. International News Services
Gérard Angé: Reporter
Tele: (415) 306-2525
Gerard_Ange@win-tv.net
www.win-tv.net
www.LIVE-WEB.biz
http://www.youtube.com/user/gerardange
http://my.media-match.com/gerard.ange
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardangeInterview topics about:
How the United States Television News Media's content... more
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As I was looking through a friend's pictures from last weekend's Halloween festivities, I came across a photo of a guy dressed in a cap and gown with a cardboard sign around his neck that just read: "F*cked". How very apropos. If the past couple of years have taught us anything, it's that the value of a college degree has diminished, and having one certainly doesn't guarantee finding a job.
But it's not just the lack of jobs and heavy competition that contribute to the dire state of our economy. Our spending habits and how we manage our finances also have a lot to do with this crisis. Last year, I produced a show with Vanguard producer/editor Sean Puglisi about how people in our generation are living in these current financial times:
Maxed Out (Video)
And this past spring, fellow Vanguard producer Lauren Cerre and I went to Argentina to see how the country came out of its own financial crisis not too long ago:
Thank You, Recession
It's now November 2009, and just a couple days ago we hit the one-year mark since Barack Obama was elected President. I still have the newspaper that Vanguard producer/editor Yasu Tsuji and I bought at the corner store near our office the day after he won the election:
President Obama just signed a measure that provides aid to the unemployed and expands a home buyer tax credit to stimulate economic growth. But at the rate things are going, we're going to need much more than that: the country's unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October--reaching double digits for the first time in 26 years. In the last month alone, employers dropped 190,000 workers from their payrolls. With numbers like that, it's no wonder we're applying for unconventional jobs that are very far from what we studied for in school. Every week, Christian Science Monitor contributor David Grant compiles a list of the week's top jobs, and below is last week's collection. My favorite is #1: I wonder if there will ever end up being a course for THAT in college:
1. E-mail Czar
Employer: Village Voice Media.
Wages/salary: Not listed.
Details: Needs a candidate who will “eat, sleep and drink email” and
increase Internet subscriptions from 750,000 to 2 million. Ideal candidate
will be a “goal driver, possess strong creativity and revenue producing
marketing ideas and the strongest of communication skills.”
Location: Phoenix, Dallas, Denver.
2. Entry Level Sales - Master Cutlery
Employer: Master Cutlery.
Wages/salary: $40,000-$50,000
Details: Salesperson will be challenged to identify new accounts, reactivate
inactive accounts and grow existing business for a company best known as a
manufacturer and distributor of “top quality swords, tactical and hunting
knives.”
Location: Secaucus, N.J., (pop. 15,931, median family income $72,568) hosted
the 2009 WNBA draft in April.
3. Deputy Columbia/Snake Salmon Recovery Program Manager
Employer: Bureau of Reclamation
Wages/salary: $80,402-$104,525
Details: Responsible for assisting in “administering and implementing the
Pacific Northwest region’s endangered species activities.” The position’s
primary responsibility is to “oversee implementation of actions required by
Biological Opinions and related documents for Endangered Species Act listed
species, particularly anadromous salmonids
Location: Boise, Idaho, (pop. 203,818, median family income $64,519) is home
to the Basque Museum, the only one of its kind in North America.
4. Animal Food Preparer
Employer: San Diego Zoo
Wages/salary: $11.42-$12.93 per hour
Details: Essential functions of this position include the preparation of
food for the bird collection, chopping various fruits and vegetables,
handling insects, fish and other food items as well as washing bird trays.
Selected applicant will be required to maintain live forage items such as
mice, lizards and insects.
Location: San Diego (pop. 1,264,263, median family income $72,407) is home
to the University of California - San Diego, whose mascot is the “Triton.”
5. Auto Dismantler
Employer: Tolpa’s Auto Parts
Wages/salary: Not listed.
Details: After the “cash for clunkers” program, auto parts store needs
immediate assistance to meet government required mandate of 180 days to
crush all vehicles.
Location: Remsen, N.Y, (pop. 1,958, median family income $41,042) is the
home of world-class luger Erin Hamlin, who won the 2009 World Luge
Championship, the first American to have done so in 16 years.
6. Brain Trainer
Employer: Learning Rx
Wages/salary: $15-$20 per hour.
Details: Are you sharp, smart and quicker than your peers? Need trainers to
work with adults and kids 4-5 days a week during afternoons and evenings.
Location: Chester, N.J., (pop. 7,282, median family income $133,586) was
once known as “Black River,” although the Chester Historical Society attests
that no one knows when the name was changed.
7. Professional Superhero
Employer: 7 Promotions Inc.
Wages/salary: Not listed.
Details: Looking for an Account Manager to add to an “illustrious team of
overachievers” at one of the “fastest growing privately owned sales and
marketing firms in Westchester County,” Conn.
Location: Danbury, Conn., (pop. 78,575, median family income $76,492) was
where singer Tracy Chapman spent her youth and graduated from high school.
If any of these jobs pique your interest, here's the Monitor page with full links, as well as links to past weeks' lists.
This week on The Real Recovery - a Current News investigation into unemployment and the end of the recession - the focus is on college graduates. If you have a story to tell - come get involved.
Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- What Transformers 2 has to do with Japan's falling population - Adam Yamaguchi
- Why Should You Trust Us? - Mitch Koss
- My Second Tour of Sri Lanka - Mariana van Zeller
- Chinese Mobsters and Megacities - Joanne Shen
- The world: A dangerous place for do-gooders - Kaj Larsen
- The world: A dangerous place for reporters - Darren FosterAs I was looking through a friend's pictures from last weekend's Halloween... more
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It's the first day back at work in the New Year and the question on my mind is "Are things finally going to get better?" Well, unfortunately, a year's end is a pretty artificial time marker. And it seems the economy knows that.
According to speakers at the annual American Economic Association conference prospects for a big recovery anytime soon are bleak. "'It will be difficult to have a robust recovery while housing and commercial real estate are depressed,' said Martin Feldstein, a Harvard University professor and former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research." Additionally, national unemployment is still at 10% (as of the end of November, albeit with a slight dip from the previous month).
But come on, it's the first Monday of the New Year. Let's not get all pessimistic yet! Wall Street (though I don't think it's a good economic indicator) jumped 1.5% today.
What other signs are you seeing out there? Optimistic or pessimistic? Give us your 2010 predictions and the small signals you're seeing where you live. Leave your comment over on Current News.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Get to know Yemen: The new hot front in the war on terror
- China executes British national, flexes its diplomatic muscle?
- Five years since the tsunami
- Holiday news video round-up: Iran protests, British skiing and drinking, mud races
- How do you help Sebikotane, Senegal - Global Citizen YearIt's the first day back at work in the New Year and the question on my mind is... more
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With all the hubbub over the Underpants Bomber on Christmas Day, a notable (and tragic) anniversary slipped by: the fifth anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami.
Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed across 13 countries and reconstruction efforts continue to this day.
The Big Picture has a round of photos from the event and the aftermath, including several of the anniversary memorial.
Collective Journalism contributor Joel Gershon visited Thailand in 2007 and brought back this picture of a community still reeling and NGOs struggling to help.
After the Wave (Video)
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Holiday news video round-up: Iran protests, British skiing and drinking, mud races
- How do you help Sebikotane, Senegal - Global Citizen Year
- Don't give into road rage - A doctor's commentary on the mammogram screening controversy
- Mexico City legalizes gay marriage
- Lists! End of 2009 and end of the 2000s!With all the hubbub over the Underpants Bomber on Christmas Day, a notable (and... more
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Yesterday we found out that there was going to be some leftover money from TARP and that Obama wanted to put it to job growth. He gave a speech today outlining some plans. Among the highlights? Assisting small businesses, putting more money to infrastructure and encouraging investments in clean energy. He also called on businesses to do their part for job creation as well, saying there was only so much government could do.He'll meet with lawmakers tomorrow to get some of these plans rolling.
Here's the President in his own words.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Photography in conflict: Jeff Antebi covers the Afghanistan election
- Iran students' day of protest
- Copenhagen backgrounder - A roundup of pre-conference reading
- Will TARP cuts mean a jobs program? - Real Recovery
- Obama loses fans in Turkey over AfghanistanYesterday we found out that there was going to be some leftover money from TARP and... more
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The Treasury is estimating that the original cost of the TARP program for banks (estimated over ten years) can be revised down by about $200 billion. Does that mean the President will want to use that money for jobs?
The White House has been under pressure to tame the $1.4 trillion budget deficit, which has ballooned as the U.S. borrows vast sums of money. But with unemployment at 10%, the administration is also under pressure to find ways to create new jobs. Lowering deficit projections could help alleviate concerns that a new jobs bill would further inflate the deficit.
November saw the unemployment rate fall slightly (an estimated .2 percent) and though that was a welcome surprise for economists, it still means a lot of folks need jobs. That said though, it's not like the TARP money was already spent - it was just an estimated cost. It's likely any jobs program will face a lot of criticism from those worried about a bulging federal deficit.
The President is expected to make an announcement tomorrow.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Obama loses fans in Turkey over Afghanistan
- Meet Zouhair al Jezairy, my new Iraqi journalist friend
- Bhopal: 25 years later
- What's news in Turkey?
- 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan: The right choice?The Treasury is estimating that the original cost of the TARP program for banks... more
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I flew into Istanbul, Turkey a few hours ago. Coasted above the Mediterranean along the coastline from the European side as the city grew to our left. And grew. And grew. (PS - Istanbul is huge. LA huge.) The rolling hills of the city are carpeted with buildings and punctuated every now and then by minarets. That was the most striking feature of the skyline for me. These little spikes jutting up higher than their surroundings. (It's exactly the sort of skyline the Swiss just voted to avoid.)
Pictures to come, I promise.
What am I doing in Turkey? I was invited to come speak at a conference by Internews, an organization that describes itself as "an international media development organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to give people the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard." So you can see where the connection to Current is.
I'm speaking (tomorrow) about recent developments in journalism, both good and bad. How, in the US, the business of journalism is in crisis but within that crisis is great opportunity. Using new technologies that open media up to a wider range of voices we could actually save/improve/fix/better journalism. It's actually why Current was founded and it's what I spend a lot of my time thinking about.
I'm going to focus on my favorite examples of new directions in journalism. Here's a few of them:
- ProPublica's Reporting Network which asks you to help them report their stories
- Demotix, a photography citizen journalism site
- Spot.us which works to "crowd-fund" journalistic work
If you have any favorite sites you think I should include, let me know. Otherwise, I'll let you all know how the speech goes over. And, hopefully, I'll be able to introduce you to some folks from around Asia and Europe who are here for the conference (the list of countries represented boggles the mind: Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, etc, etc).
Also - what about Turkey? Any burning questions you'd want asked of the Turks? I'll ask 'em!
Stay tuned!
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- 1 in 4 US children on food stamps - Real Recovery
- While you were feasting: Swiss minarets, bin Laden blunders, Iran nuclear enrichment
- Hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday? - Real Recovery
- The recession visualized - Real Recovery
- California's education crisis - Join the group on CurrentI flew into Istanbul, Turkey a few hours ago. Coasted above the Mediterranean along... more
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A sobering statistic from this New York Times article about the stigma fading from food stamps: 1 in 4 children in the US get food thanks to food stamps. Additionally, 1 in 8 adults use food stamps. It's perhaps unsurprising, seeing as we saw that nearly 15 percent of Americans couldn't afford enough food in 2008 (and that included those who use food stamps).
The New York Times also has a great interactive feature that breaks down food stamp usage by county across the US. Leading the race for highest number of people on food stamps are Hidalgo County, Texas and The Bronx, NY.
What's your county look like? Have you been on food stamps during the recession? Tell us on The Real Recovery.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- While you were feasting: Swiss minarets, bin Laden blunders, Iran nuclear enrichment
- Hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday? - Real Recovery
- The recession visualized - Real Recovery
- California's education crisis - Join the group on Current
- Update to Philippines story: 46 deadA sobering statistic from this New York Times article about the stigma fading from... more
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The end of this week will see the venerable American holiday tradition of Black Friday, when on the day after Thanksgiving, Americans rush to consume as many retail deals as possible. And if you're serious about Black Friday, then you're probably already looking for the deals. Online there's blackfriday.info, bfads.net (that's Black Friday Ads), black-friday.net, theblackfriday.com. But honestly, with nearly a fifth of Americans out of work (according to the broadest unemployment calculation), hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday deal-hunting?
I spoke with Loren Bendele of Savings.com a site that focuses on bringing their community together with savings and discounts. He said their site, which started in March of 2007, has definitely seen a big increase in users because of the recession. And as more people move online to find deals in tough times, more companies are looking to find them. "We're seeing aspirational brands that are offering deals now," Bendele said. "Consumers are more aware and merchants are embracing deals."
Savings.com has selected some users to be what they call "Deal Pros" - people who know how to find the best deals and share them with the rest of the community. Some of them, said Bendele, are people that are fine with money. But as the recession has gotten worse, many of them are people who are maintaining their quality of life through saving money.
Is that you? Have you been scraping by by clipping coupons? Tell us about on The Real Recovery.
So should you rush out and try to trampled this Friday? Though there are plenty of deals to be had one of the DealPros offers some sage advice on the savings.com blog:
For me it has become a day to stay at home or look for alternative ways to enjoy the day. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good deal. But Black Friday has become that day that turns every mall in America into some lost scene from the movie Dawn of the Dead. It's just too much chaos to deal with in-person. So join me in giving in to the post-turkey daze and just saying no to the zombie hordes running wild through the aisles of your local Wal-Mart.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- The recession visualized - Real Recovery
- California's education crisis - Join the group on Current
- Update to Philippines story: 46 dead
- Who killed 30 people in the Philippines?
- Unemployment, Debt: How will we dig ourselves out? - Real RecoveryThe end of this week will see the venerable American holiday tradition of Black... more
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This amazing visualization of unemployment growing in the US has been making the rounds today. It's chilling to watch, really. It looks like two great jaws of job loss slowly closing on the I-35 Corridor.
The project was posted by LaToya Egwuekwe a journalist based in DC. It seems to be part of a larger piece called Losing Middle Ground: Defining what it means to live in today's "middle class". And it has a wonderful profile of a 41 year old wife and mother named Marina Mathews, laid off from a position as Senior Marketing Manager of a moving and storage company.
Upon receiving her walking papers, the family's total income of just over $100,000 a year was now dependent upon the $55,000 a year paycheck her husband, Vada Mathews, brought home as a restaurant manager, Marina's one month's worth of severance pay and the $380 she now receives each week in unemployment benefits.
Read more here.
Great work LaToya! Get in touch - we'd love to hear more about your reporting!
Have a recession story to tell? Post it to The Real Recovery, Current's investigation into unemployment and underemployment in the recession.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- California's education crisis - Join the group on Current
- Update to Philippines story: 46 dead
- Who killed 30 people in the Philippines?
- Unemployment, Debt: How will we dig ourselves out? - Real Recovery
- World Cup soccer is tearing the world apart!This amazing visualization of unemployment growing in the US has been making the... more
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John Henion is a freelance video producer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was laid off from a staff position in 2008 (full disclosure: at Current) and entered into the freelance world. He blogs about unemployment at Unemploymentality.com. We spoke yesterday for The Real Recovery.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="178" caption="John Henion and Dog"][/caption]
Life for a freelancer can be tough - especially at the beginning. John Henion moved out to California from Michigan where he'd already established himself with freelance work. In California he had none. He said the move made him "take a step back and do things I didn't want to do." For example, John was about 30 when he moved here, had already produced his own independent documentary, but found himself taking a production assistant role on "Wife Swap" just to be working. "I was beyond the point where I wanted to pick up trash on the set and being told to go get lunches," he said. "After that experience I realized I didn't need to lower the bar that much."
The goal as a freelancer is to have steady work. There are some great benefits - like being your own boss and scheduling your own time off - but there are somethings that are definitely not benefits - like not having benefits. John was lucky to have insurance through a domestic partnership with his girlfriend, but he said for many freelancers the decision about whether or not to get insurance is just whether or not you want to take your chances.
After being laid off, John said it took him about 6-8 months before he was getting steady work again. These days, he has about 5-6 return customers and pulls in a lot of one-off projects. He's been able to work himself back up to an income level comparable to having a full-time staff position. But that comes with a lot more work than just the actual time spent working. "The worst part is...I have to deal with chasing down money. Some people wait until the last minute to pay you or wait until you raise a stink. You know, they want to keep that money on their books as long as they can."
The most important thing John has found to remember freelancing is that no matter how much time he spends at an office, no matter how many new friends he makes in a workplace, being a freelancers puts him in a different position. "As a freelancer they can just stop calling. First time that happened I thought I did something wrong....When they stop calling it's not personal....They're not supposed to roll over and kiss you in the morning, just leave some money on the bedstand."
Michael Spafferty's Video Resume from Unemploymentality on Vimeo.
Are you a freelancer? Have a recession story to tell? Post it to The Real Recovery.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- UK considers Pirate Finder General
- Why 14.6% of America can't afford enough food - Real Recovery
- The last Supreme Leader of Iran
- Problems facing California prisons: Cell phones
- US, China to work on clean energy - No bill this yearJohn Henion is a freelance video producer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was laid... more
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Here's a math problem for you: The national unemployment rate hits its highest point since the 80s in October: 10.2 percent. According to a report released this week last year 14.6% of Americans couldn't afford to buy enough food. How does that add up?
Well outside of the various nitpicks that can be done to both of those numbers, one big culprit is "underemployment". We've been talking about underemployment a lot in The Real Recovery because I think it's a more accurate measure of how many Americans have been affected by the recession. If you "get discouraged" and stop looking for a job, you no longer count as "unemployed". Or, as we're talking about this week: if you go freelance part time.
The official measure of underemployment is called the U-6 and the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes it in breathtaking terms:
Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
In October, when we saw that big 10.2% unemployment number, the U6 number was at 17.5% Nearly a fifth of the population!
You know what that does not include though? All the Americans who've taken pay cuts or reduced hours in the recession. (More digging through numbers to come).
Want to get involved with The Real Recovery? Here's two easy things you can do:
- Post your story to the group. How have you been affected? Are you underemployed? Have you taken a pay cut?
- Help me find some other numbers to look at. How many Americans have taken pay cuts?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- The last Supreme Leader of Iran
- Problems facing California prisons: Cell phones
- US, China to work on clean energy - No bill this year
- Did airport slaughter scene get Modern Warfare 2 banned in Russia?
- America's Christmas present: JobsHere's a math problem for you: The national unemployment rate hits its highest... more
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Hey freelance workers, this week The Real Recovery is all about you. We want to hear from people who freelance successfully, people who have gone freelance after losing their job, and people who are barely scraping by with freelance work.
Did you know: If you're freelancing, even making far less money than you can survive on, you don't count as 'unemployed'? You fall under a different category called 'underemployment' - here's the applicable part of the definition from Wikipedia:
"Involuntary part-time" workers -- workers who could (and would like to) be working for a full work-week but can only find part-time work. By extension, the term is also used in regional planning to describe regions where economic activity rates are unusually low, due to a lack of job opportunities, training opportunities, or due to a lack of services such as childcare and public transportation.
The national unemployment rate is 10.2% as of October. That's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS doesn't seem to keep a national underemployment number, which is a lot harder to nail down. But we recently saw that in California underemployment was estimated to be about a fifth of the total population.
This is another topic we want to tackle. As we're trying to put together a picture of the Real Recovery, we want to try to get a handle on underemployment estimates. We'll be working on that for the next month or so. If you want to get involved in that effort, send me a message on Current.
And this week - if you freelance or ever have - tell us about your experience by posting your story on The Real Recovery.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Did Obama smuggle a little democracy into China?
- Anti-Chinese violence in Angola
- Water on the moon!
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be tried in New York for 9/11
- Porn 2.0 - Christof Putzel's Vanguard documentaryHey freelance workers, this week The Real Recovery is all about you. We want to hear... more
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This week on The Real Recovery we're looking at how the recession is affecting college grads. It's tough to graduate into such a tight job market. Especially if you've got loans. For many, going to college automatically comes with a big chunk of money that must be paid off. As finding a job gets harder - that amount of money can hang like an albatross from your neck.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="580" caption="Posted on The Broke Grad Student"][/caption]
This breakdown, posted on The Broke Grad Student, shows average student loan debt by state - and no matter where you live, that average is somewhere between $13K and $26K. That's a lot of money!
But despite the high costs the question for many American high schoolers is not whether to go but where to go. Are too many Americans going to college?
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Marty Nemko: Increasing college-going rates may actually hurt our economy. We now send 70 percent of high-school graduates to college, up from 40 percent in 1970. At the same time, employers are accelerating their offshoring, part-timing, and temping of as many white-collar jobs as possible. That results in ever more unemployed and underemployed B.A.'s. Meanwhile, there's a shortage of tradespeople to take the Obama infrastructure-rebuilding jobs. And you and I have a hard time getting a reliable plumber even if we're willing to pay $80 an hour—more than many professors make.
It's estimated that on average college grads tend to make about 80% more per year in salary than those without a degree. That's a pretty significant and motivating number, especially when you take into consideration the higher unemployment numbers for those without a college degree that we looked at yesterday. But if you've got loans - some of that has to go to paying them off. And for grad students it's even worse.
Faced with a difficult job market and high student debts, many folks with a B.A. duck back into graduate school to forestall repayments they can't afford. But as you can imagine - that just leads to more debt. Forbes has a controversially titled article that tackles the high debts a law degree can come with: The Great College Hoax.
Accepted into the California Western School of Law, a private San Diego institution, [John] Kellum couldn't swing the $36,000 in annual tuition with financial aid and part-time work. So he did what friends and professors said was the smart move and took out $60,000 in student loans.
Kellum's law school sweetheart, Jennifer Coultas, did much the same. By the time they graduated in 1995, the couple was $194,000 in debt. They eventually married and each landed a six-figure job. Yet even with Kellum moonlighting, they had to scrounge to come up with $145,000 in loan payments. With interest accruing at up to 12% a year, that whittled away only $21,000 in principal. Their remaining bill: $173,000 and counting.
Should you go to grad school? Most experts agree it only makes sense if you have a specific goal in mind. Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist lists several points against enlisting in grad school to hide out from a recession:
1. Grad school pointlessly delays adulthood....3. Business school is not going to help 90% of the people who go....5. The medical school model assumes that health care spending is not a mess.
So what's your experience? Did you go to college? Grad school? Did you have an albatross of loan debt? Tell us your story on The Real Recovery.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Pandemic in Ukraine - Is it swine flu?
- Who's unemployed in America? - The Real Recovery
- DC sniper John Allen Muhammad to be executed tonight
- How safe are Pakistani nukes?
- Real Recovery college storiesThis week on The Real Recovery we're looking at how the recession is affecting... more
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Who is faring the worst in this recession? Everyone is doing poorly - but some groups have been more affected than others. The NY Times Economix blog broke down the numbers by huge swaths of demographics last week.
The graph that caught my eye was the very first one - apropos of our Real Recovery topic this week - how are recent college grads affected?
(That said, when you break it down by education, college grads have done comparatively well - those with less education have been more adversely affected.)
The worst affected group is young, African-American men who are less educated. This neat interactive graphic compares all the different demographic slices. Where do you fall on the graph? Has that been your experience?
What is The Real Recovery?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- DC sniper John Allen Muhammad to be executed tonight
- How safe are Pakistani nukes?
- Real Recovery college stories
- Fall of the Berlin Wall
- Chavez: Prepare for warWho is faring the worst in this recession? Everyone is doing poorly - but some groups... more
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