Archive for July 27th, 2011

America’s Got Talent … and the Debt Crisis

July 27, 2011

AGT has  passed CSI to become my favorite TV show – at least, for now.

Watching last night, I was struck by two ironic commonalities between AGT and the President’s speech on Monday night.

First, the headline act was a guy named Professor Splash who belly-flopped 36 feet into a kiddie pool filled with 12 inches of water.

Great metaphor for solving the debt crisis, right?

Second, the winners are, of course, decided by folks phoning and emailing to vote for their favorites.

After performances, acts would wave the number of fingers that corresponded to their act’s ID number.

If only, the President had waved and shouted “ … and press the number 1 if you want balance and compromise” when he implored people to call and write to members of Congress.

Agree?

* * * * *

P.S. Since you asked: My current favorite acts are Silhouettes – a choreographed group of kids that dance into amazing formations behind a screen to create artistic silhouettes …. and Prof. Splash – partly because I love the name.

I learned years ago that anybody can just start calling themselves “professor” and write a blog.

If this dude gets up to, say, 50 feet for his belly-dives, he deserves the $1 million.  And, if he dies trying, his widow should get the money …

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Posted in Debt - Deficit, Laughs | Leave a Comment »

From the “No Choice but to Withhold Granny’s Check” file …

July 27, 2011

Courtesy of http://dirtyspendingsecrets.com/

Sure wouldn’t want to cut any of these fine programs.

  • Incredibly, Washington is spending $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.
  • Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000  to paint a picture of a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737
  • Federal employees cost taxpayers $146 million each year when they upgrade to business class flights. The Government Accountability Office found that more than half of these upgrades were not properly authorized.
  • The government has spent $3 billion to re-sand our nation’s beaches. Advocates claim this prevents erosion and keeps the beaches attractive to tourists. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the sand does nothing to prevent erosion—and this sand gets swept out to sea just as easily as existing sand!

Pick your favorite …

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Posted in Debt - Deficit, Gov't Waste & Inefficiency, Gov't Spending | 2 Comments »

What, you don’t have a master’s degree?

July 27, 2011

Punch line: “Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master’s is essential for job seekers to stand out”

Excerpted from NYT “The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s“

Browse professional job listings and it’s “bachelor’s required, master’s preferred.”

Call it credentials inflation.

Colleges are turning out more graduates than the market can bear, and a master’s is essential for job seekers to stand out

Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master’s is now the fastest-growing degree.

The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years.

Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.

* * * * *

The degree of the moment is the professional science master’s, or P.S.M., combining job-specific training with business skills.

Many new master’s are in so-called STEM areas — science, technology, engineering and math …  recognizing that not everyone is ivory tower-bound and are drafting credentials for résumé boosting.

* * * * *

So what’s going on here?

Have jobs, “skilled up”?

Or perhaps all this amped-up degree-getting just represents job market “signaling” — the notion that degrees are less valuable for what you learn than for broadcasting your go-get-’em qualities. “Credentialing gone amok.”

“There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on. We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance” making a bachelor’s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers.

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Posted in Education - Academics, MBA Degree, MBAs | Leave a Comment »