College grads see increase in starting salary

I saw something on tv news today that there has been a significant increase in starting salaries for college grads, especially with business degrees. I did a Google search to find an article, but I didn't get any current search results. I assume the tv report is true. It said nothing about the availablity of jobs, but according to the report, those college grads being hired are making more money than those who came before them.

This suggests that education and specialized knowledge are valuable, and I have no doubt that going forward those who possess specialized knowledge pertinent to our modern global economy will do well. This brings education to the forefront of important issues. A young person can no longer rely on traditional manufacturing jobs, although manunfacturing in America is doing just fine. No industry relies on labor as much as before technological changes and automation. Labor will still be valuable, but current labor requires more education and skill than it once did, and acquiring the knowledge and skills is more important than union protection of wages.

Unions can still play a role working with companies to offer the best products at the highest level of productivity and efficiency possible, but the global economy will have no patience for wage and pension wars between labor and management. If unions want to do something useful, they can push for better education and better job-training offered by industry. A large part of the working population between 35 and 55 is in need of re-training and specialized knowledge. I see this as an education gap in need of being filled with some creative solutions.

This is an area where unions and companies can work together to benefit everyone concerned.

Baby boomers and a changing world

Hopefully, we'll make the transition voluntarily before we're forced by economic reality. I'm talking about private sector social assistance to replace government social programs -- a little different approach than in the article -- an approach I've written about often.

We are an altruistic society, and baby boomers will live long after retirement -- their skills and knowledge can be helpful in re-training, education, counseling and all forms of assistance to people in need. If we begin forming private associations to help deal with social problems, like Field of Dreams, the money to fund the efforts will follow. Baby boomers retired from professional positions or execuctive positions can use their contacts to get funding for assistance efforts. Businesses of all sizes can be convinced it's not only a good thing to fund, but it will be in their interests to do so, especially re-training and education.

This would be a meaningful way for people still energetic in retirement to spend their later years doing something meaningful. Innovation in social assistance is sorely needed. Private associations to provide these services will be superior to politically charged, bureacratically swollen, poorly staffed and costly social programs.

We'll just need to remove all the regulations which now make such private efforts impossible.

Adult Education

I believe adult educaton is one of our most important issues going into the 21st century, and not an issue which needs a government solution. Private industry should take the lead, and not just out of the goodness of their hearts but for practical reasons.

I know that young people coming out of college need jobs, but if we can remove government intervention in the economy enough, and this can be done in Europe and other countries as well, we could see global economic growth in the next 5 to 10 years like we've never experienced. The developing countries still have a long way to go and developed countries still have room for growth.

People are living much longer and this trend will likely continue. With SS and Medicare on the brink of collapse, rather than trying to figure out how to retire, perhaps we should be determining how to work longer and be productive. Living longer with better healthcare means our productive years will be longer. However, technological changes are leaving the older crowd behind, so if an older person wants to work longer, they have difficulty finding employment other than Wal-Mart greeters.

With companies sitting on piles of cash right now, it might pay off for these companies to offer adult education for re-training, contracting with the adults to receive inexpensive or free education/training with the agreement the older adults will work for the company upon completion of the education/training. Companies could get mature workers with a set of skills developed through the years that they won't find with college graduates, and most adults could work at reasonable wages if they have a nest-egg built up, especially if it's a large company with over-seas operations and the older adult could travel and experience something new. Many older people want to work and be useful, so companies should take advantage of this and offer them the training necessary to start another mini-career. To me is sounds like a win-win deal.

Who knows, older people might become so busy and productive, they live even longer and healthier because they don't have time to start dying.