Schools, and automated CEOs

Everyone says our schools are broken.

And everyone seems to have a fix to flog—more money or less, crush teachers unions, merit pay, charter schools, and on, and on, and on. A hundred different solutions battle it out. Some, like the libertarian proposals to abolish the Department of Ed, will probably always remain in the realm of fantasy. Others actually have money behind them. Thus, the Republicans had their "No Child Left Behind." The Democrats have their "Race to the Top."

In theory, all these are very different. However, at least as I read the various proposals, they actually have a lot in common. They hold as an unstated but dominant belief that schools should prepare children to be white-collar employees of some large business entity.

But is that wise?

Let's think about how hiring has changed over time. In the 1950s, the norm was the massive industrial corporation with large numbers of workers on an assembly line and a smaller but still respectable number of white-collar employees in "the office."

Except that's not the way it stayed. All businesses seek to reduce their operating costs. One way to do that is to cut staff. So, in the second half of the twentieth century and the first years of this, American corporations did just that. They automated. Or, they went offshore. And we had a wave of blue-collar layoffs.

But, we reassured ourselves, there'd always be white-collar jobs. Surely, corporations would always hire managers, clerical workers, and accountants.

Except they didn't. Starting in the 1970s, corporate America famously flattened and mid-level staffers became an endangered species. Today we've got far fewer white-collar employees, and those who remain are working much harder.

And now… it's Upper Management's turn.

I predict we'll see the same process there. Some of the functions of top management are going to go offshore, or, believe it or not, be automated. If you don't think that's possible, then consider the following: the majority of trades on Wall Street today are carried out not by brokers, but by computers. It's called "Algorithmic Trading."

I'm not saying that we'll have a business version of the Terminator taking over the world. Corporations will always be run by human beings. But, it is also true that the natural evolution of corporations is away from employees. It is always in their interest to hire as few people as possible.

If so, then teaching our children to be cubicle denizens is idiotic. It is more likely that they will find jobs in small businesses and/or be self-employed. Which means we need to be training young people to be small-scale entrepreneurs. They don't need MBAs. They need basic business skills, like bookkeeping and salesmanship.

And we ought to re-value the trades. Let's face it, right now, it is lot easier for young people to make money repairing cars or fixing plumbing than it is for them to get entry-level positions in big companies.

Finally, maybe most of all, we ought to promote creativity in students—a proven business advantage, and something that will be difficult or impossible to automate or outsource any time soon.

And to make this happen, our schools are going to have to change—root and branch.

But we're going to have to change with them. We've got some major values to shift. We've got to do some re-defining of the word "success." We're going to have to get used to the idea that being a solvent plumber is better than being a bankrupt white-collar worker.

Until we do that, education in America will continue to be a problem. All the reforms proposed by Right, Left, and Center will fall short.

And our Race to the Top? All too likely a mad dash, confused and stumbling, without a goal, without a map…

Into the abyss.


*

Special Note: I'm off to New Mexico in a couple of days. So, I won't be posting an Xcargo next week or the week after. But, in the meanwhile, have a great holiday, and I'll see you in January 2011.

Twenty-eleven? Oy. How did that happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that 1975 was impossibly far away in the future?

Ah well…

Onward and upward.

Thoughts on Wikileaks and Evil Empires

So I see that Wikileaks is now under attack from many different vectors. PayPal (among others) is now refusing to work with the group. Meanwhile, its founder, Julian Assange, has arrested for rape.

Not good news for Wikileaks. But, come, let us confess, if that's the worse that happens to the organization and its members, then they will be almost impossibly lucky. The simple fact of the matter is that they have seriously angered governments the world over. Not just the US, but everyone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is gunning for them.

If anything, this is a lesson in the realities of great power politics. If Wikileaks had confined itself to embarrassing the United States, and a few other liberal democracies, the group would have been relatively safe. Oh, there is a certain danger in tweeking the nose of Uncle Sam, but you can usually get away with it. Americans (ditto Brits, Scandinavians, Germans, the Swiss, and so on) hate it when you say bad things about them, but they'll tolerate it because of their own traditions of fair play and free speech.

Besides, they are subject to much scrutiny from the world. If they should do anything… shall we say?... untoward, then the globe fairly quickly spots the "made in USA" label on the side of the box. Thus, even if they wanted to take serious action against you, they may think twice just because of the PR angle. (The Bay of Pigs was bad enough the first time around.)

This is not true, however, for most of the rest of the world. Many is the government for whom toleration is a quaint concept, and who can operate much further out of the limelight. And Wikileaks.well, Wikileaks has published American diplomatic cables which contain material dangerous to dozens of different states.

The moral of the story, of course, is that if you are going to take on an Evil Empire, pick one that's well-behaved. The Sheep you can stuff in a wolf's skin, and proclaim a public enemy, is so much easier to deal with than the real thing.

Note to Liberals and the Left

I've been reading a number of articles lately about the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment …not just in the USA, but around the world. From Switzerland to Japan, there are calls for "them" to be sent back where they came from. All too often there's a touch of racism (or a truckload of it) in the appeals.

Note, this is all happening when the economy is down. And here's the dirty secret of human nature: Times are good, we are open and accepting. Times are bad: the recruiting office of the Waffen-SS is around the corner.

So, note to Liberals and Others who'd like to make the world a better place. Want people to be less bigoted? Enrich them.

The task of the Left, everywhere, and, indeed of everyone of good will, is to create jobs, reduce prices, and give people a sense of purpose, dignity, and wellbeing.

From that, all else will follow.

Sarah on the Tube

I saw the other day that Sarah Palin's reality TV show has been losing viewership in great hordes. People are just not watching it any more.

Well, I'm not terribly fond of Palin. But, discounting that, I wonder if her program wasn't doomed from the beginning.

Reality TV is an odd entity. It seems to be most successful when it shows us people doing things of which we disapprove, but which we secretly wish we could do...like have sex in exotic places, or spend vast amounts of money on things that we don't need, or live the lives of celebs.

And, well, Palin and her crew didn't do any of those things. Or, if they did, they did so off camera.

So, how can the network fix the situation? They can recast. Replace the boring real people with actors. Best bet to play Sarah Palin? Pam Anderson. No connection with anything genuine, of course. But envision her shooting wolves in full "Barbed Wire" get-up.

Smash ratings. Guaranteed.



Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/sarah-palins-ratings-plummet/television

We need the Terminator in politics...

I read the other day that one of the Democratic party strategists is suggesting that his party take more of a lead from the GOP. They need, he suggests, to be tougher and far less moral.

Not a bad idea. But, really, I'm not sure the Dems can manage it. I mean, who do they have that really match the malice and cunning of, say, a Karl Rove?

Which I suggest they need to bring in outside talent. Someone, say, like Terminator. But with more metal and fewer morals.

After that, it might almost be something like a fair fight.

whimper, whine, pout

I'm online and reading an article about how one of the big newspapers has hired a famed blogger to write for it.

Sigh. Grumble. Kvetch.

I've been blogging for years. In fact, I had an ezine (an emailed publication) before there was a Web. My explosive-cargo or Xcargo (now explosive-cargo.blogspot.com has been around in one form or another since 1990.

But, does anyone hire ME to pontificate at major newspapers? Noooooo.

Of course, one might suggest that a slight total lack of talent may play some small role in all this. But we shan't listen to such base canards. Nor malevolent mallards. No. That would be foul. Or fowl. Six of one.

So, instead, I shall simply sit here and whimper. And pout. I do that quite well. It's when my little lower lip trembles that I'm particularly heart-breaking.

Does A Bear....?

Saw the article the other day by Dave Johnson on how the very wealthy caused our current, massive deficit and by extension our current Recession and joblessness. His argument, which is buttressed by an amazing number of statistics, is that the mega-rich (what I call the 1%) forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels.

But, they and everyone else (but mostly them) continued to demand social services. The result was a government that supported itself by borrowing, hoping against hope that when the bill came due there would be money from somewhere to pay it off..

So, now that day is here, but our fairy godmother has declined to show up with magic wand and debit card.

The result? The 1%ers continue to insist on No New Taxes…for them. Meaning the cost of their decades of irresponsibility is shifted to us, the middle class. We pay for it with joblessness, higher prices, and the general decline in our standard of living.

Did the mega-rich cause the deficit?

Well, let's see, they forced the government to stop taxing them at anything like reasonable levels, but then demanded that the government provide them with social services, and so Washington had to borrow like mad, and, now, here we are, with the wolf at the door…

So, did they cause the deficit?

Does a bear sh— …er…seek a moment of solitary contemplation in the woods?





Source: huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/did-the-rich-cause-the-de_b_786062.html?ir=Business

Compassionate Conservatism

I saw recently that the Republicans have at least temporarily blocked legislation that would have provided hot meals to thousands of needy children. It was to have been part of a program that had the support of, among other people, Michelle Obama.

In a word, cripes. Why doesn't the GOP just hang out a big sign that reads, "Hi, We hate widows, orphans, and small fuzzy puppies" and be done with it?

Ah well. It's a PR disaster but at least it's in time for Christmas. Should make a great factoid for all those op-ed writers doing stories about the season …and Scrooge.

Here's to Tiny Tim, y'all. And God bless us, every one.


source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101201/ap_on_bi_ge/us_congress_school_nutrition

Like a monk at a strip club

So, like everyone else in the known universe, I'm watching the Wikileaks saga. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it all, but...

It sure would be easier to sympathize with Mr. Assange if he just didn't look so damn pleased with himself.