Am I the only one who looks at this and goes uhhhhhh.......

[Taipan]

France's youth is struggling in a similar matter, especially the ones coming out of universities with so-called master degrees in "Litterature and Social Sciences".

The sad truth is that most didn't do a basic research about job market opportunities for their future degrees.

If they HAD, they would have found out that there's about a 1,000 job openings MAX per year in France for their degree in sociology, history and so on.

But the French U. are producing about 50,000 graduates a year in those fields (note: French U. are almost free for their students, about 200 USD tuition per year).
Which results into, surprise surprise..., massive unemployement among those graduates who cry "I deserve a job !".
And is the reason why those French U. are now nicknamed "jobless factories".

Getting a Master degree in a useless field, job market wise, is a true shame and costs tax-payers massive amounts (remember the tuition is almost free because the whole U. system is financed by the State, ie. by us tax-payers).

And that really p... me off for sure.

While we can't find qualified employees in environmental friendly energy technologies which are truly booming.

It's a bit more complex than one would expect but nothing like a master degree.

To install solar panels on a roof, you need an employee trained and certified in :
- electrical installation
- plumbery (ie. copper pipes and connections for the fluid)
- work on roofs (for safety and legal reasons).
Same goes for Heat Pumps, Wind Mills, etc.

Any youth choosing that path is ensured to get a job ASAP.

But it's so unsexy, isn't it ?

So they rather waste 4 years of their life to get a master degree in English Litterature and end up with a MacJob.

Grrrr....

/salute

PS : I blame Xzin for creating this trolling run 8)

[Fizzler]

Very interesting topic I am glad to see it has remained civil anytime I have seen similar topics on other forums it generates into name calling and stereotypical responses. I hope it stays productive.

I live in the US myself but work for a company out of Quebec Canada. The drop in the dollar has affected our sales into the US but we are still seeing good profit margins.

What I did want to comment on was about young adults coming out of college with degree's for jobs that are not available.

I am an engineer for the company I work for on the US side, it amazes me that many of my support folks that provide customer service quotes and over the phone support for tech and sales have Masters degree's in engineering. Heck the fellow I call everyday to ask about customer shipments is a Physicist. He was unable to find work out of college so he joined our company with an entry level admin job hoping a position opens up in our labs for him.

I do disagree that the US is not tourist friendly I believe it is, but I do agree as a road warrior myself that our customs and security checkpoint is completely reactive and not effective. I like to tell my friends just imagine if it was a bra bomber and not a shoe bomber would they have women remove their bras?

Globalization is coming on fast, folks need to keep up or they will get left behind.

[Otlecs]

>I do disagree that the US is not tourist friendly

Once you're in the country, it's wonderful. The service industry is second to none and I thoroughly enjoy the whole experience.

In fact, through contacts, I have an open-ended offer on the table to go and work for a very well known internet operation in CA, and I've often been tempted to accept, although it'll be at least another year before I get bored with my current projects and consider that again.

So my comment isn't about the USA as a tourist destination per sé, but rather an intentional sleight against the border controls.

Britain has been dealing with terrorism for over 30 years (the IRA amongst others), so I understand and fully support the need for border controls. I was actually travelling in Asia when 9/11 kicked off, and hit the USA as a planned part of that trip less than 2 weeks after the event.

But the controls as they currently stand are invasive, disruptive and, yes, ineffective.

I feel like I'm doing something "wrong" every time I enter the country, and I refuse to allow people to make me feel that way any more. Hence my decision to just stop travelling there - for either business or personal reasons - until there's a proper fast-track process in place for people like myself, and my conclusion that it's no longer tourist friendly.

It's of no consolation to know that I feel almost the same when I return home to England (which, thankfully, is only around four times a year at the moment).

Thanks to the Schengen Agreement, I can travel literally anywhere in Europe without any trouble at all. I don't even have to show my passport most of the time.

But as soon as I hit "home territory", which in their wisdom is outside of the Shengen Agreement, I have to go through two separate airport searches and two lots of passport control.

Both of which are also totally ineffective, as witnessed by the fact that the UK remains the number one destination of choice for illegal immigrants from the entire European and African continents.

The jobs and immigration questions are very difficult, and deserve more sensitivity than shown here so far.

I saw my first off-shoring exercise ten years ago, so it's not a new idea by any stretch, and when I saw the effect it had on the workforce (that's real people, with families to support) for the company I worked for at the time, I predicted a huge rise in the nationalism.

Although the curve hasn't been as steep as I perhaps thought it would be, I think it's quite clear that's exactly what's happened.

Personally, I believe companies have a moral and ethical responsibility in addition to their fiduciary duties, and I hold that the two sides are not mutually exclusive. I personally refused to take part in the off-shoring exercise and left the company even though I was in a bullet-proof position.

It's a tremendously complex, sensitive and divisive issue, which deserves a better hearing than my random drivel here, so I won't delve into it much deeper, but the real problem is that local workers often simply cannot compete with foreign workers.

It's just not a level playing field.

If a foreign worker makes his home in the UK, pays UK tax, and is subject to the UK cost of living, that's all fair enough. But that's not what happens most of the time.

Even the technology workers often remain outside of the UK tax system, go there only temporarily, and the money they earn has far, far greater buying power in their country of origin.

Locals just cannot reasonably compete with that.

And the ripple effect of that is extraordinary.

Fred gets put out of work by a foreign worker who's not paying UK tax. Fred starts drawing state support (i.e. goes "on the dole"). He's already a drain on the UK taxpayers instead of a contributor.

He obviously gets far less from the state than he was getting as an employee, so he has less to spend. The government loses out on all the VAT he was previously paying, and if he ultimately loses his home because he can't afford to pay for it, then they have to find housing for him too.

Let's say he used to eat out at a restaurant once a week. That resturant would also be paying business tax. Their income goes down, they pay less tax, the government gets even less money.

If that business ultimately fails, that's another bunch of people "on the dole". Propagate that affect and see what the final impact on the local coffers actually is, and then let's see who the winners are.

Globalisation? Not in our lifetimes. We are SO not prepared

[Xzin]

What we are prepared for is $100 oil and $850 gold.

Oh wait....

As a slight aside.... wtf 17.5% VAT tax, on top of already high income tax. Glad I don't live there. Unless somehow Britain is somehow SUCH a more wonderful steward of tax revenue than I have been lead to believe. Which, based on everything I know, isn't anywhere close. I'm looking at you, British social programs and government projects. "Free" healthcare is worth every penny. Right? Oh, we can schedule your serious surgery for oh, 4 months out. You get what you pay for, doubly so for life threatening procedures.

*Also eyes Canada*

[aetherg]

There was a great opinion piece on airline security in the NYT a few days ago; can't find it now though. It really is absolutely useless, would not stop a single terrorist, and simply makes life difficult for Americans and those visiting from abroad. The entire purpose of the border controls is to make it look like the FAA and Homeland Security are doing something with the billions they are given, when in fact there is very little they can do from a domestic standpoint.

[Xzin]

At least that travelers would accept.

Scan incoming luggage? Ok. Shoes, ehhhhh ok. Liquids? Wth? I draw the line at the lithium batteries. Next step, backscatter "nude" x-rays. No thanks. I'll charter my own or hire a driver.

[aetherg]

Many scientists have come out and said that the chances of someone successfully mixing a binary explosive of sufficient strength in an airplane toilet is ridiculously low. It might be easier to arrange for a meteor to hit the plane in mid-flight. But unfortunately it was in the news, and since everything in the news is absolutely accurate, Americans are now afraid of binary explosives. Therefore the government has to do something about this serious threat.

Even backscatter X-Rays (which I'm sure will become standard as soon as the privacy implications have simmered down enough) don't address the problem. There are plenty of things in an airplane cabin (coke cans, broken bottles) that you can turn into a weapon as deadly as a knife.

I wish I could find that article; it pointed out that the box cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers were not particularly effective. The real weapon the terrorists had was the fact that airplane passengers believed, from past hijackings, that compliance was the correct response.

[Taipan]

Airline companies should be careful about bragging about "being the safest way to travel".

It's true from a pure immediate safety perspective.

But let's not forget that, due to an obsolete international law, airlines are still benefitting from tax-free fuel.

That's right....

While you pay around 50% to 80% tax on your car gas, airlines don't pay a dime worldwide.

Though airplanes are the worst ever mean of travel and atmosphere damaging system, based on pollution generated per mile per traveler.

There isn't a single mean of travel as polluting, even Hummers, as an airplane, mpg wise.

Impose fuel taxes on airplane cargos, especially the ones flying from SE Asia to EU and US to carry Intel chips, Samsung phones, Apple Ipods, Nintendo WIIs, and the whole Globalization will look WAY DIFFERENT.

Suddenly hi-tech conglomerates will stop considering outsourcing to SE Asia because the airline fuel penalty would be so harsh.

Airline tax-free fuel : probably one of the biggest scam/ripoff ever....
In the same league as tobacco companies : "smoking doesn't kill, serious..."

You want to keep your jobs in your country ?
Fight for Air Travel CO2 taxes, so they pay as the one you pay for your private car gas...

But forget about travelling to Thailand for USD 500 return, cause real life will catch up on you.

/salute

[Stealthy]

Airline companies should be careful about bragging about "being the safest way to travel".

It's true from a pure immediate safety perspective.

But let's not forget that, due to an obsolete international law, airlines are still benefitting from tax-free fuel.

That's right....

While you pay around 50% to 80% tax on your car gas, airlines don't pay a dime worldwide.

Though airplanes are the worst ever mean of travel and atmosphere damaging system, based on pollution generated per mile per traveler.

There isn't a single mean of travel as polluting, even Hummers, as an airplane, mpg wise.

Impose fuel taxes on airplane cargos, especially the ones flying from SE Asia to EU and US to carry Intel chips, Samsung phones, Apple Ipods, Nintendo WIIs, and the whole Globalization will look WAY DIFFERENT.

Suddenly hi-tech conglomerates will stop considering outsourcing to SE Asia because the airline fuel penalty would be so harsh.

Airline tax-free fuel : probably one of the biggest scam/ripoff ever....
In the same league as tobacco companies : "smoking doesn't kill, serious..."

You want to keep your jobs in your country ?
Fight for Air Travel CO2 taxes, so they pay as the one you pay for your private car gas...

But forget about travelling to Thailand for USD 500 return, cause real life will catch up on you.

/salute

Sorry but this is incorrect - USA and Australia both charge fuel taxes to airlines. In fact in Asutralia, the fuel tax has been increased 6 times since 2004.

[Otlecs]

As a slight aside.... wtf 17.5% VAT tax, on top of already high income tax. [...]Unless somehow Britain is somehow SUCH a more wonderful steward of tax revenue than I have been lead to believe

I could write reams about my view of the UK tax system, but I'll spare you that

In short, no, the UK is most certainly not a wonderful steward of tax revenue. The end tax rate is 40% (which is actually ok). VAT is 17.5% (mostly). National Insurance is 12.8%. And if you're "lucky" enough to run your own business, you get to pay the employer's contribution of ~10% as well.

Motor fuel duty is... erm... I don't remember, actually, but it's obscene, especially for a country that doesn't have a public transport system on which one can rely unless you happen to be going to/from London.

As you say, the National Health Service - for the most part - simply cannot be relied upon, so those of us that can afford to end up paying private health insurance as well, for which we get no tax deductions in the UK (though, ironically, here in Germany I do actually get a tax allowance for paying health insurance to a UK company).

I'll curtail my rant there...

>What we are prepared for is $100 oil and $850 gold.

I'm not entirely sure what that relates to, but going to war over resources isn't the same as globalisation

What we should by now be prepared for is to not still be dependant on oil and other critical resources that we can't produce ourselves, and you can read "we" as whichever country you reside.

But of course, we're not, and therein lies another good discussion to be had over a few beers / bottles of wine rather than here 8)