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Greenspan: Gen Xers pretty much suck at working

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by poindexter, Jul 14, 2011.

  1. DanielSimpsonDay

    DanielSimpsonDay Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  2. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member


    Too much time spent in the bathtub.

    Calling for the spirit of Frankie Fiveangels . . .
     
  3. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Reading that story again, I want to string Greenspan up by his wrinkled, sagging balls.

    The Baby Boomers benefited from the greatest expansion in the economy -- and education investment -- in American history. They also grew up in an age where the idea of sending your job of overseas was impractical and unattainable. Also, the economy grew in part because there were so many of them, working and consuming.

    Now we're facing an economy that is not only struggling to adjust post-banking crisis, but is also dragged down because so many of those Boomers are retiring. They are consuming more resources -- particularly public resources -- but they're not producing so much.

    http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article6736846.ece

    Meanwhile, Generations X, Y and whatever comes after have grown up in an age of attacks on education, which apparently sucked so much while the boomers were in it that it only led to the education necessary for a great economic expansion. Also, boomers between the ages of 55-65 who might have retired and made way for younger workers aren't going anywhere because of their own economic insecurities. This, as the younger generations are stuck with college bills miles above what boomers every had to worry about.

    Also, it's high-larious that Greenspan suddenly discovers that boomers are just the darnedest, hardest-working people ever invented, given that people of HIS generation were running them down when they were long-haired hippies in school. In fact, I believe it was the trend of long-haired hippie-ness that got people attacking education in the first place.

    http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/textbooks/index.html

    Meanwhile, education reforms concentrate more on alleged magic bullets like charter schools and eliminating teachers' unions than they do actually coming up with ways to teach students the skills they need for today's jobs.

    I know it's not all that simple, but it's also certainly not as simple as Greenspan -- the walking definition of epic fail -- makes it to be. It must be nice to be in Alan Greenspan's position, and be able to blame everybody suffering for what you've done for being unlucky enough to be in your way.
     
  4. printdust

    printdust New Member

    Didn't Greenspan score with a prominent female journalist?

    One question: Whose fault is it education in this country has gotten to the point where 3/4 of today's HS students can't spell because they can't tell the difference between proper English and textese?
     
  5. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Well, we've had 30 years of an emphasis on rote standardized testing as a means of funding, so you'd think people might come to the conclusion that that Reagan-esque idea might have something to do with it. It certainly hasn't resulted in all the improvements it allegedly was supposed to make.
     
  6. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    And someday, those readers aren't going to be helping you on the unemployment line.

    I put in my 40 hours a week with an honest effort, and in exchange, I get paid for it. Want me to stay several extra nights, or work a sixth day? I better be getting paid for it.

    Because with the way companies, both newspaper and otherwise, have been working for the last 20 years, you can work 20 extra hours a week, sacrificing time with your family and/or sacrificing time that you could be earning money at a second job , for a company that will just call you in one day, hand you a cardboard box, and point you towards the door.

    Time was, workers were loyal to their companies, and the companies returned that loyalty. You worked your ass off because you knew if you did, you'd rise up in the company and make more money.

    That ain't happening now. Now, a company says, "Hey, thanks for putting in all that time working on that extra project. Now we have to cut your salary by 5 percent because we're not reaching our profit projections. Oh, and the CEO called from his vacation in the Bahamas to say that you did a good job."
     
  7. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Aren't the youngest Gen Xers now 30?
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    29, although I don't know how or why 1982 was picked as the cutoff date.
     
  9. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    One of those insecurities is that retiring means losing your health insurance, but you're not allowed to buy into Medicare. Not many middle-aged people want to gamble that they'll be able to afford private coverage until age 65.
     
  10. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    What I don't understand is the divergence between teaching practices and testing, despite all the talk about teaching to the test.

    My kids learned four different ways of thinking about multiplication, but weren't expected to memorize the times tables. They had weekly spelling lists but, in writing exercises, spelling didn't matter.

    I think cases can be made for both The Three Rs and critical thinking, but I'm baffled by jettisoning learning rote skills at the same time you're ramping up standardized testing.
     
  11. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Probably the same person whose fault it is that making up statistics is considered a valid method of argument.
     
  12. mrbigles01

    mrbigles01 Member

    We keep circling this here without actually saying it. The people he refers to are not members of generation X, they are part of generation Y. Gen X ends in the late 70s or early 80s depending on which source you go with. I am 28 meaning that I am amongst the first members of generation Y.

    This is a somewhat old article, from a fairly dubious source, ;D ;D ;D but it does a fantastic job of explaining who Y is and why we are the way we are.
    http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm

    We've spent all of our lives watching our parents generation screw up a lot of stuff with bold faced corruption, greed and stupidity. (See Enron, Worldcom, the banking industry, the media, the pre 9/11 budget surplus, the dot com bubble . . . I could go on) So forgive us when we don't really trust any of you to run things properly. You've proven that you can't, we haven't been given a shot yet.

    You may not like us and you may not understand us, but there are about 70 million of us and we will start taking major roles in government, business and education in the next 10-15 years so you may want to get used to us.
     
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