Nothing continues in its present form, but capitalism is pretty cool. It feeds people and keeps them healthy. Nonetheless, we all roll toward the precipice. Preoccupation with the end ruins the middle.

You pose an interesting idea for headhunters. Why don’t they get paid to remove dead wood. I dunno — ask employers that. It’s a good idea.

But one can make money without be avaricious. It’s all in the texture of the soul.

The problems of placing key personnel in our illusory service sector economies discussed as eternal whilst the capitalist merry-go-round rolls relentlessly towards the precipice.

Surely you people don’t still believe our pseudo egalitarian socio-economic fantasy will continue in its present form?

By the by… Wouldn’t headhunters be better employed seeking out and removing personnel who are detrimental to the greater good of us all instead of being the slaves of avarice? Just a thought.

less money.
An incident really floored me last Friday. I was trying to get out of the labs, but kept getting button holed by my internal customers. It was like a gauntlet. With the last door in sight, I could taste the three day weekend despite the fact that I was taking work home in order to meet crazy deadlines. I decided to go to the men’s room just in case the traffic on I287 would be slow. There, I ran into a co worker who asked me what college my daughter attended. I replied that she attended the University of Pennsylvania. He wanted me to clarify that it was not Penn Sate. I said no, it was Ben Franlklin’s school. Then, he broke out in a big smile. It seems his son wants to attend that school, and he asked me what my daughter was majoring in. I replied Economics and Linguistics. I asked what is you son interested in. He said Engineering, but he was doing everything he could to discourage this.
Now, here’s the strange part. This guy was born and raised in Sri Lanka and probably came to the US on an H1B visa. In about 20 years, he also figured out that the path to upward mobility was not the one we both choose. Damn immigrants, they lean so quick.
And FWIW, he has a PhD in Chemical Engineering.
I have heard this anti science and engineering sentiment from a lot of US born citizens in these professions, but I never heard it from an immigrant before.
Go figure. No wonder that about 3 out of 4 of the new post doc PhD chemists at our facility are from China.
I can’t help but smile when I read about all these so called shortages in these professions. Since the early 90′s our acedemic institutions and industrial companys have gone overboard in de-motivating engineers and scientists, and have the unmitigated audacity to complain about the results.

Phil is right. There is a tremendous glut of Ph.D. scientists and engineers. Science is a nice hobby, but a lousy way to make a living.

As to his second paragraph, I remember as a teen reading about Elizabeth I. By the age of 5 or 6 she was fluent in half a dozen languages, doing math at a higher level than today’s middle school kids, studying astronomy, diplomacy, music, dance – I cannot remember all that was listed. In the last 50 or 60 years, cognitive development has been studied and we know that from the ages of about 2 to 5, a child gains knowledge the way they breath practically. It’s estimated that by 5, a person has learned about 85% of the vocabulary that s/he will ever have.

So why do we, as a country, continue to offer educational “reforms” that don’t even start until a child is past the age when learning is easiest? Why is there still no universal head start? The greatest gift a parent can give to a child is to start reading to her from birth and provide an environment that supports reading, even if you have to fake it. I am always surprised when I visit a friend or am taken to someone’s home and there are no books or magazines, anywhere – even though it seems to be the case 80% or 90% of the time.

Working on a novel in a writing class, I had an 11-year-old girl running a home – cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. (in 1880′s, before electricity and modern conveniences.) The entire class, including the teacher, told me this was impossible, no 11-year-old could have done it. I pointed out that my grandmother had done it at the age of 10.
We should simply stop treating our children like fragile, incompetent idiots and help them grow into adults. We are doing them a major disfavor by being overprotective.