What options are there for High School dropouts?

While that is anecdotally true in the larger picture about 25% of college graduates work in jobs that don't require a college degree. It may not be a minimum wage job but the college degree isn't necessary for the job so it was basically a waste of time and money to obtain the degree for the person.

What is far more important is the fact that at least 20% of all jobs don't provide enough income for a person to meet their basic necessities of life and this drives the need for a welfare state. While an individual might be able to climb out of poverty the problem is that no matter how many individuals can accomplish this we're still stuck with over 20% of all working households that require assistance just to meet their basic needs. With our current economic trends for every person that does manage to work their way out of poverty more than one person slips into poverty.

Social conservatives focus on the "tree in the forest" as opposed to looking at the "forest" so while the forest it dying they're trying to save a tree. The amount of welfare assistance provided by government is just a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. Our economic system itself is failing and it drives the necessity for government welfare.

We need to figure out what needs to be done to our economic system to eliminate the problem of poverty caused by jobs that don't provide enough compensation for people to live on. Sticking to the status quo, that the social conservatives advocate, is creating the problem. That doesn't imply that the progressive liberals have the solutions but instead that there has to be a solution out there that we need to find.

The "social conservative" economic agenda is making the problem worse and it is social conservative economic principles that drive the ever increasing welfare state. That is something they don't seem to understand.

 

Bill Gates was a college dropout.

 

sure... go ahead and tell kids he is the norm, and not the exception....


Lebron James never even went to college.... still not a good example

 

You think that is bad, corporate welfare has even paid multimillion dollar bonuses to persons who are nowhere near our poverty thresholds and could afford to hire entire departments to help them conform to rational choice theory or fill out corporate welfare forms in triplicate if necessary.

 

that doesn't affect a highschool dropout's poor decision to drop out and limit his opportunities by his own poor choices in life.

 

The point is, that if you are wealthy enough, you can make "poor life choices" and still get a bailout that may include multimillion dollar bonuses. Isn't Capitalism wonderful under our form of socialism.

 

and I dont disagree that corporate welfare is bad..... but that's not what this thread is talking about.


What are a highschool dropout's chances?


that has nothing to do with corporate bailouts.

 

It has to do with "social safety nets" under our form of Capitalism regardless of our form of Socialism.

 

social safety nets don't determine a kid dropping out. That's on that individual only....

 

It does depend on opportunities regardless of any life choices, if it is a social safety net. Why not simplify and lower our tax burden.

 

So? What does that have to do with high school dropouts or, in this particular case, the idiots who are breeding multiple replicas of themselves?

 

Highschool dropouts choice to drop out is not affected by tax burdens..... it's affected by getting a girl knocked up/getting knocked up..... etc. Mainly, it's the here and now aspects of life that affect their decisions.

Listen, I'm not saying all highschool dropouts will end up slinging french-fries.... but it's your own fault if that's what you end up doing because you don't have even a diploma or GED


I also see a lot of young, strong guys get tempted out of school because they find a construction type of job like roofing, hanging sheetrock, etc, for 15-20/hour but damn school times gets in the way of them making money, so they quit. But the wear and tear on their bodies (not to mention what happens if they get injured on the job) isn't something they think about. And long hard days in 100* heat, or 20* cold gets old quick. By the time you're 25, 10 years in your career, your body is a wreck and you aren't qualified to do anything else.


none of that is affected by corporate welfare.... none of those decisions to drop out had anything to do with tax burdens. Those decisions were poor decisions made in a lustful moment, or without looking at the long term consequences of their decisions.


young and healthy fade LONG before the mind does.....

your back will always fail you before your mind

 

I obviously noted an exception but when we address the fact that about 25% of college graduates end up in jobs that don't require a college degree that sort of shows that "education" is often over-rated.

As I can also note AI and technology has diminished the value of many traditional college degrees. I like using the example of mechnical engineer that was once a high demand college degree. Since the 1970's I've seen mechanical engineering jobs reduced in aerospace by about 90% because computers do so much of the work traditionally done by highly skilled and educated mechanical engineers. What used to take about 100 mechanical engineers can now be done by a team of 10.

AI and technology are making human labor obsolete and people just don't seem to understand that fact. Currently many surgeries are performed by robots with the "assistance" of the surgeon but soon the surgeon won't be necessary at all. Computers provide better diagnosis of desease than a medical doctor and soon doctors will become obsolute. When we take the most skilled jobs requiring the most education and make them obsolete with AI and technology the only jobs that will be left are "burger-flipper" jobs that require no formal education at all.

Why do people not see that? Since the 1970's the United States has lost about 40% of all manufacturing jobs (per capita) and many think these jobs went overseas but, in fact, the per capita number of manufacturing jobs worldwide has also decreased by roughly the same amount. We didn't lose jobs while China gained jobs but instead both the US and China have lost manufacrturing jobs since the 1970's and it's due to AI and technology.

 

You're looking through the wrong end of the telescope, sir.

Your focus upon Bill Gates not being a college graduate and not all college graduates being financial successes is a focus upon the exceptions, not the rule.

Statistics consistently bear out the fact that those with higher education are more likely to be financially successful.

https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-education-and-poverty-america


http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/...-poverty/statistics-on-poverty-and-education/

 

One option for any unemployed labor, is recourse to our own laws regarding the concept of employment at will regarding unemployment compensation, as that form of market friendly social safety net. It really can be that simple when Use socialism to bailout capitalism, like usual.

 

You got it backwards; "It really can be that simple when Use capitalism to bailout socialism, like usual."

 

the risk of failure is a GREAT motivating tool

 

Education simply increases your chances... it doesn't garrantee anything. If your college degree is in slave management.... I have news for you, you won't find a job in today's world....

continued education is maybe a better term, then. Adapting. Understanding that just because you make good money as a telephone operator in the 30's, doesn't mean that technology won't pass you up and leave you behind if you don't adapt and continue to improve yourself when times are good.

again, adapt. There will still be jobs in the medical field that will be there. They may need more technical knowledge than dr's did back in the 80's but technology replacing humans is not a new problem. The cotton gin could do what it once took 20 slaves to do. A big sail replaced 100 people rowing... the telephone replaced the telegraph.

[quoteWhy do people not see that? Since the 1970's the United States has lost about 40% of all manufacturing jobs (per capita) and many think these jobs went overseas but, in fact, the per capita number of manufacturing jobs worldwide has also decreased by roughly the same amount. We didn't lose jobs while China gained jobs but instead both the US and China have lost manufacrturing jobs since the 1970's and it's due to AI and technology.[/QUOTE]

the dropped ball was in the 70's, when people were making good money manufacturing, they didn't continue to improve themselves in case the bottom fell out or they were replaced by automation.

 

Those knowledgeable in artifical intelligence predict that between 2040 and 2045 computers will know more than all of mankind. They can already learn (and even learned to lie) and with robotics they will be able to perform virtually any task or service necessary for mankind without the "hand of man" being involved at all. The need for "labor in enterprise" is literally disappearing and people are blind in not seeing that. The writing is already on the wall as computers replace more and more of human labor and the ecomony does not create any jobs to replace the jobs being lost. Eventually even the "burger flipper" jobs will disappear because a computer and a robot (built by another computerized robot) can do it better.

That doesn't imply that there won't be anything left for people to do as art and philosophy as those remain inherently human endeavors will remain but they don't pay very well.

 

.... the loss of the belief to ever succeed might be a greater motivating tool....

For a long time we had the American Dream but that dream is disappearing in America today.

 

and they predicted the earth could not feed a population over 1 billion.... then we passed it, and magically, we did.

Same with jobs and technology. The most talented will adapt to an everchanging job landscape. The rest will mow our lawns or whatever other menial tasks their job value dictates

 

It is about social safety nets.

 

With the existing food production technology at the time we would not have been able to feed more that a billion people but with the rapidly expanding technology (and over harvesting of natural resources like the ocean) we've been able to feed more and with fewer people per capita working in the food industry. We lost jobs per capita in providing more food for more people.

I don't believe you can name a single profession that cannot, based upon the projected level of AI by 2045, be replaced by artificial intelligence (and robotics) where the artificial intelligence isn't more competent than the person. We don't even need a person to perform the most menial of tasks like to vacuum the floor anymore and high tech jobs are being replaced at an exponetial rate. Remember when people programmed computers? Now over 90% of all computer programming is done by computers. Billing and payments are almost all done by computers today. Cooking is done by computers today. Plowing, planting, growing and harvesting farmlands can all be done by computerized tractors without an operator. Teaching can be accomplished with online competency based instruction without any teacher involvement at all.

Every possible job that exists can basically be replaced by computers and robots that build the computers and robots to do the work. Human labor and even human thinkings, when addressing goods and services, is becoming obsolete. Are people really so near-sighted as to not understand this?

This can, of course, be a blessing or a curse depending upon how we deal with the transition from "human labor" to "non-human labor" in the future.

- - - Updated - - -

With the existing food production technology at the time we would not have been able to feed more that a billion people but with the rapidly expanding technology (and over harvesting of natural resources like the ocean) we've been able to feed more and with fewer people per capita working in the food industry. We lost jobs per capita in providing more food for more people.

I don't believe you can name a single profession that cannot, based upon the projected level of AI by 2045, be replaced by artificial intelligence (and robotics) where the artificial intelligence isn't more competent than the person. We don't even need a person to perform the most menial of tasks like to vacuum the floor anymore and high tech jobs are being replaced at an exponetial rate. Remember when people programmed computers? Now over 90% of all computer programming is done by computers. Billing and payments are almost all done by computers today. Cooking is done by computers today. Plowing, planting, growing and harvesting farmlands can all be done by computerized tractors without an operator. Teaching can be accomplished with online competency based instruction without any teacher involvement at all.

Every possible job that exists can basically be replaced by computers and robots that build the computers and robots to do the work. Human labor and even human thinkings, when addressing goods and services, is becoming obsolete. Are people really so near-sighted as to not understand this?

This can, of course, be a blessing or a curse depending upon how we deal with the transition from "human labor" to "non-human labor" in the future.

 

The problem with that scenario is that if machines have all the jobs, there will be no people to buy the products. If no products are purchased, then there will be no business owners to buy the machines for those jobs.

 

Agreed. The fly in the ointment is that the failure has to be perceived. If it isn't, nothing will be done until the failure itself is presented.

Example; a high school couple are in loooove and decide to "get pregnant" so their parents will let them marry. They only see the "happily ever after", not the problem of being pregnant, 18 and no marketable skills.