The Links:
Back to school and inequality. We did a great job building an educational system that perpetuates inequality rather than alleviates it.
Al Jazeera reports on the small number of people who did make wage gains in the past decade. It's the same old story, folks.
Most astonishing is how much of the overall increase in wages earned by the 153.6 million people with a job in 2012 went to this narrow band of very well paid workers: Just 7 percent of all jobs pay in this range, but those workers collected 76.9 percent of the total real wage increase.As usual, it looks like
Nor does the explanation reside in some generational change that has caused huge numbers of bright young Millennials to adopt Michael Milken or Mitt Romney as a role model. In fact, like Nichols, many if not most students who find themselves working on Wall Street tend to have much broader interests that they have set aside. Consequently, as Kevin Roose has written in his new book, Young Money, many wind up hating their jobs. Incessant Excel and PowerPoint drudgery, being on call to superiors at all hours of the night, putting in eighty to a hundred hours of work per week, traveling constantly, in the case of consulting, and feeling, overall, like a cog in a meaningless machine—all work against a balanced, productive life. The search for exit strategies becomes a preoccupation of many who take these positions.Meanwhile, New Jersey is funneling it's pension money directly to Wall St. As I've noted several times before, states have the last full benefit pensions systems left in America and they're moving very quickly towards bankrupting that system.
Also, retirees are finding out that their Social Security checks are being garnished to pay for old student loans. When you're on a $1,200 fixed income, that $200 loan bill is going to hurt. Retirement is over.
Responding to the recent articles about automated staffing at major part-time employers, Amy Merrick notes that "flextime" is not usually good for businesses. The drawback becomes loss of skills and productivity among the staff who rarely work. Moreover, they don't feel connected to their work and don't care much if they do a good job.
The 1% in California are easily able to avoid the drought. Perhaps that's why they can keep dumping buckets of water on their heads.
The Gaymer conference, billed as a inclusive alternative to usual gaming conventions, is coming back in 2015 and need help funding the show. If you're interested, check out the press release.
Speaking of gaming and inclusivity, here's Feminist Frequency's next installment of Women as Background Decoration:
Jason Jones asks, Are the X-Men Terrorists? This post goes to 11. Also, I think Jason's conclusion, that he doesn't know if they're terrorists, is part of the near meaninglessness of the term terrorist. A terrorist these days is a political term used to identify anyone who isn't acceptable to those in power.
Weird Al does a great job with the Game of Thrones theme song and even pokes some fun at George R.R. Martin. Skip to 1:35 to see the GOT part.
However, it's still not as good as my preferred theme song rendition:
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