Ray, when Natalia and I left Ontario for BC, we thought the same - "a
GREEN province". Picture perfect postcards and a decently beautiful
drive. Then we found out how the NDP provincial party had (just like
Ontario) begun to slash unions (those who the party was built upon) and
sell off land to mega-corp's. BC is no greener than anywhere else. They
just had a better way of hiding the corruption that will bring about the
change your teacher prophesied. Although the mists surrounding these
actions are thinning, very few people are cluing in and very little is
changing for a better, greener world.
But it will be a long demise. A slow and painful spiral into oblivion.
Darryl
On 9/21/2010 11:12 AM, Ray Harrell wrote:
The system doesn't work. God! I'm beginning to sound like a Swiss
Gypsy. But why in the dickens can't anyone get this?
The system cut out it's eyes, poked holes in its ears then stuck a
burning coal up its nose and Art went away in favor of commercial
trinkets and trash perceptivity. All for a buck and now it
doesn't know how to look nor where.
We have a story about a pretty boy with perfect feathers on his
headdress, but a lousy forester, who coyote tricked into giving away
his eyes for flower eyes which could see through anything and spot the
game, but then the flowers wilted and he was blind.
But what the hell. Just some dumb Indian story right? Certainly not
Jevons or even Scottish. But let's be clear. Numbers are not
metaphor. They are contractile reductions to a singularity. You
can't expect growth from a singularity without an explosion.
Metaphor on the other hand is the perfect modality for examining
systems. Anyone ever heard or read the European guys named George
Lakoff or Robert Sternberg, or Robert Frank?
Meanwhile British Columbia, the most liberal and green of all of the
provinces, is going to destroy a sacred lake and a tradition of
thousands of years just for a buck. Go figure.
Will the little brothers ever learn? That's why they got kicked out
of the garden in the first place. Even their Bible, New Testament,
Korans and books of Mormon tells the story but they refused to admit
that that Adam's big brother was left behind to care for the
garden. Their metaphor is that the garden has to collapse in order
for humans to advance. (The tree of "knowledge?" But it was just the
tree of sex and violence and technology as a substitute for the
development of the human instrument. A recipe for human laziness and
the idle rich.)
Last night I read a prophecy from my old teacher. I hadn't read it
before. He said that the world of the present had already been
dreamed and that the human spirit world had collapsed in the dream and
the material world would soon follow in a great cleansing to make way
for the next life and age. He also said that it probably would be
another species. The Creator had completed the seven cycles with
this species and they failed to measure up.
REH
*From:* [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Arthur
Cordell
*Sent:* Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:41 PM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
*Subject:* [Futurework] Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again
September 19, 2010 NY Times
For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again
By MOTOKO RICH
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/motoko_rich/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
VASHON ISLAND, Wash. --- Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when
many Americans continue to work. She is not even in her 60s. She is
just 57.
But four years after losing her job she cannot, in her darkest
moments, escape a nagging thought: she may never work again.
College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is
experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and
analyst at Boeing
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/boeing_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
before losing that job.
*But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing
number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to
work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may
be discarded from the work force --- forever. *
*Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created
for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of
their careers. *
Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older.
Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer,
according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group
--- 7.3 percent --- is at a record, more than double what it was at
the beginning of the latest recession
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.
After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about
how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that
they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it
will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the
economy's recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out
of the labor force before their luck changes.
For Ms. Reid, it has been four years of hunting --- without a single
job offer. She buzzes energetically as she describes the countless
applications she has lobbed through the Internet, as well as the
online courses she is taking to burnish her software skills.
Still, when she is pressed, her can-do spirit falters.
"There are these fears in the background, and they are suppressed,"
said Ms. Reid, who is now selling some of her jewelry and clothes
online and is late on some credit card payments. "I have had
nightmares about becoming a bag lady," she said. "It could happen to
anyone. So many people are so close to it, and they don't even realize
it."
Being unemployed at any age can be crushing. But older workers suspect
their résumés often get shoved aside in favor of those from younger
workers. Others discover that their job-seeking skills --- as well as
some technical skills sought by employers --- are rusty after years of
working for the same company.
Many had in fact anticipated working past conventional retirement ages
to gird themselves financially for longer life spans, expensive health
care and reduced pension guarantees.
*The most recent recession has increased the need to extend working
life. Home values, often a family's most important asset, have been
battered. Stock portfolios are only now starting to recover. According
to a Gallup poll in April, more than a third of people not yet retired
plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995. *
Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they
lose their ability to be self-sufficient. "That's what we should be
worrying about," said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and
director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at
Rutgers University
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/rutgers_the_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
"what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have
been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their
life."
Forced early retirement imposes an intense financial strain,
particularly for those at lower incomes. The recession and its
aftermath have already pushed down some older workers. In figures
released last week by the Census Bureau
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/census_bureau/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
the poverty rate among those 55 to 64 increased to 9.4 percent in
2009, from 8.6 percent in 2007.
But even middle-class people who might skate by on savings or a
spouse's income are jarred by an abrupt end to working life and to a
secure retirement.
"That's what I spent my whole life in pursuit of, was security," Ms.
Reid said. "Until the last few years, I felt very secure in my job."
As an auditor, Ms. Reid loved figuring out the kinks in a
manufacturing or parts delivery process. But after more than 20 years
of commuting across Puget Sound to Boeing, Ms. Reid was exhausted when
she was let go from her $80,000-a-year job.
Stunned and depressed, she sent out résumés, but figured she had a
little time to recover. So she took vacations to Turkey and Thailand
with her husband, who is a home repairman. She sought chiropractic
treatments for a neck injury and helped nurse a priest dying of cancer.
Most of her days now are spent in front of a laptop, holed up in a
lighthouse garret atop the house that her husband, Denny Mielock,
built in the 1990s on a breathtaking piece of property overlooking the
sound.
As she browses the job listings that clog her e-mail in-box, she
refuses to give in to her fears. "If I let myself think like that all
the time," she said, "I could not even bear getting out of bed in the
morning."
With her husband's home repair business pummeled by the housing
downturn, the bills are mounting. Although the couple do not have a
mortgage on their 3,000-square-foot house, they pay close to $7,000 a
year in property taxes. The roof is leaking. Their utility bills can
be $300 a month in the winter, even though they often keep the
thermostat turned down to 50 degrees.
They could try to sell their home, but given the depressed housing
market, they are reluctant.
"We are circling the drain here, and I am bailing like hell," said Ms.
Reid, emitting an incongruous cackle, as if laughter is the only
response to her plight. "But the boat is still sinking."
It is not just the finances that have destabilized her life.
*Her husband worries that she isolates herself and that she does not
socialize enough. "We've both been hard workers our whole lives," said
Mr. Mielock, 59. Ms. Reid sometimes rose just after 3 a.m. to make the
hourlong commute to Boeing's data center in Bellevue and attended
night school to earn a master's in management information systems. *
*"A job is more than a job, you know," Mr. Mielock said. "It's where
you fit in society." *
Here in the greater Seattle area, a fifth of those claiming extended
unemployment benefits are 55 and older.
To help seniors polish their job-seeking skills, WorkSource, a local
consortium of government and nonprofit groups, recently began offering
seminars. On a recent morning, 14 people gathered in a windowless
conference room at a local community college to get tips on how to
age-proof their résumés and deflect questions about being overqualified.
Motivational posters hung on one wall, bearing slogans like "Failure
is the path of least persistence."
Using PowerPoint slides, Liz Howland, the chipper but no-nonsense
session leader, projected some common myths about older job-seekers on
a screen: "Older workers are less capable of evaluating information,
making decisions and problem-solving" or "Older workers are rigid and
inflexible and have trouble adapting to change."
Ms. Howland, 61, ticked off the reasons those statements were
inaccurate. But a clear undercurrent of anxiety ran through the room.
"Is it really true that if you have the energy and the passion that
they will overlook the age factor?" asked a 61-year-old man who had
been laid off from a furniture maker last October.
Gallows humor reigned. As Ms. Howland --- who suggested that
applicants remove any dates older than 15 years from their résumé ---
advised the group on how to finesse interview questions like "When did
you have the job that helped you develop that skill?" one out-of-work
journalist deadpanned: "How about 'during the 20th century?' "
During a break, Anne Richard, who declined to give her age, confessed
she was afraid she would not be able to work again after losing her
contract as a house director at a University of Washington
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_washington/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
sorority in June. Although she had 20 years of experience as an office
clerk in Chattanooga, Tenn., she feared her technology skills had
fallen behind.
"I don't feel like I can compete with kids who have been on computers
all their lives," said Ms. Richard, who was sleeping on the couch of a
couple she had met at church and contemplating imminent homelessness.
Older people who lose their jobs take longer to find work. In August,
the average time unemployed for those 55 and older was slightly more
than 39 weeks, according to the Labor Department, the longest of any
age group. That is much worse than in August 1983, also after a deep
recession, when someone unemployed in that age group spent an average
of 27.5 weeks finding work.
At this year's pace of an average of 82,000 new jobs a month, it will
take at least eight more years to create the 8 million positions lost
during the recession. And that does not even allow for population growth.
Advocates for the elderly worry that younger people are more likely to
fill the new jobs as well.
"I do think the longer someone is out of work, the more employers are
going to question why it is that someone hasn't been able to find
work," said Sara Rix, senior strategic policy adviser at AARP
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/aarp/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,
the lobbying group for seniors. "Their skills have atrophied for one
thing, and technology changes so rapidly that even if nothing happened
to the skills that you have, they may become increasingly less
relevant to the jobs that are becoming available."
In four years of job hunting, Ms. Reid has discovered that she is no
longer technologically proficient. In one of a handful of interviews
she has secured, for an auditing position at the Port of Seattle, she
learned that the job required skills in PeopleSoft, financial software
she had never used. She assumes that deficiency cost her the job.
Ms. Reid is still five years away from being eligible for Social
Security
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>.
But even then, she would be drawing early, which reduces monthly
payments. Taking Social Security at 62 means a retiree would receive a
25 percent lower monthly payout than if she worked until 66.
Ms. Reid is in some ways luckier than others. Boeing paid her a
six-month severance, and she has health care benefits that cover her
and her husband for $40 a month.
And she admits some regrets: she had a $180,000 balance in her 401(k)
<http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/retirement/401ks-and-similar-plans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
account, and paid $80,000 in penalties and taxes when she cashed it
out early. She did not rein in her expenses right away. And now, her
$500-a-week unemployment benefits have been exhausted.
She has since cut back, forgoing Nordstrom
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nordstrom_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
shopping sprees and theater subscriptions, but also cutting out red
meat at home and putting off home repairs.
In order to qualify for accounting posts, she is taking an online
training course in QuickBooks, a popular accounting software used by
small businesses. She recently signed up for a tax course at an H&R
Block
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/h_and_r_block_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
tax preparation office in Seattle.
And she is plugging ahead with her current plan: to send out 600
applications to accounting firms in the area, offering her services
for the next tax season. Eventually, she wants to open her own business.
With odd jobs and her husband's --- albeit shriveled --- earnings, she
could stagger along. For now, she stitches together an income by
gardening for neighbors, helping fellow church members with their
computers, and participating in Internet surveys for as little as $5
apiece.
"You don't necessarily have to go through the door," Ms. Reid said.
"You can go around it and go under it. I can be very creative. I think
that I will eventually manage to pull this together."
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