Or maybe he
is the missing link? I don't know. I just know that the following headline left me spitting mad:
Bush: Kerry misses link between education, jobs
Bush said good jobs begin with education and that Kerry "failed to recognize the changing realities of today's world and the need for reform."
Tell that to my daughter's father, who's been out of work for 2+ years. He has a degree in electrical engineering.
More:
He says that yeah, education would help, because anyone who doesn't have a PhD is finding no jobs. I think he's currently doing temp warehouse work, but continues sending out hundreds of resumes. This is an intelligent, capable, guy. Educated, competent, and lest you think I'm biased, I don't even like him much.
And how does his being out of a job affect me? Well, he's several thou behind on child support... finally paid some by closing out his IRA. This is progress? When he has work, he pays. When he had unemployment, he paid. When the unemployment ran out, what's he supposed to pay with? I think he first started looking locally for work, but now has expanded his search to a national level.
Another good friend of ours moved here from the Bay area, got a job, and was doing fine until the company laid her off in 2001-ish. She was an experienced, competent, well-educated computer programmer and had there not been hiring freezes in place at most local companies, I know people personally who would have loved to have hired her. Her husband did consulting in the Bay Area to keep them afloat for 2 years while they both looked desperately for local work. To let you know the kind of people Bush wants to re-educate, this man finally did get a job... helping design some of the innards of satellites. These are NOT people who are going to "go back" and get "eddikated" at a 2-year college. So our friends moved across the country because there was NOTHING for them here... and we used to have tons and tons of that kind of job.
These are all people who were not the people you'd expect to be "chronically unemployed" by the conventional stereotypes. These are people who would MUCH rather be working, MUCH prefer to be doing the kind of work they were trained to do.
BUT THERE AREN'T THE JOBS. Not at the level they trained for. Go back to school? How insulting... It's not like these people need to go learn how to use a computer or catch up on basic math. These are people who have been treating job search as a full-time job.
Another friend went from networking to long-haul truck-driving. Progress?