The occupation of wallstreet

[Meepein]

Have you looked outside of your current market? Again, I never said it was completely the choice of degree that is killing people either. Hence AGAIN why I said I was interested in finding out what degrees they had. I NEVER claimed that they had degrees in Latin or in the Arts.

To answer your question, at one point I moved out to Seattle. The job market there, in my field, was rougher than here (here being Rhode Island.) Granted, a lot of that was when I moved there (it was when the tech industry was still recovering), but it still was not a fun time. I had exceptional grades in school, my GPA was somewhere north of 3.9, don't quite remember exactly where it was. I moved back here with $20 to my name. Simply put, the economy sucks, regardless of what major you choose. The choice of a major is not as much of a problem as general stagnation in compensation for those in the middle class.

[Dantrag]

To answer your question, at one point I moved out to Seattle. The job market there, in my field, was rougher than here (here being Rhode Island.) Granted, a lot of that was when I moved there (it was when the tech industry was still recovering), but it still was not a fun time. I had exceptional grades in school, my GPA was somewhere north of 3.9, don't quite remember exactly where it was. I moved back here with $20 to my name. Simply put, the economy sucks, regardless of what major you choose. The choice of a major is not as much of a problem as general stagnation in compensation for those in the middle class.

What language do you program in?

[Cream Soda]

Wish granted:

Lol, I think this one would make for a better template
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4669257_n.jpg

[ronin sparthos]

1) Skilled trades - Plumbers, electricians, and other positions like this. The two I listed are currently manned by older men that aren't seeing a lot of back fill as they end up retiring. My mother's husband is an electrician and was telling me that they have demand for people to fill the positions but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest..

I agree with this one. Skilled trades are in demand but many people of college-age were told that these were "low class" jobs and not worth the time throughout the 90s.

So people ran off to be managers chasing BAs and MAs only to find out the market was saturated to death and thus have fell into the unemployment trap.

[Meepein]

What language do you program in?

Got C++ mainly, along with PHP and some PERL. However, due to the fact I have not had a job in my field for so long, my skills are a bit rusty to say the least. I ended up sliding into desktop publishing work (after spending too long in tech support.)

Really, the issue I see is that, there are only a certain number of jobs out there with skill sets I am good for, and each of those have a ton of other applicants. It's not like I have not been up for jobs more apporpriate for my field, I have. But, to be honest, it's getting near impossible for me to land one of them. In my 12 years out of college, I have gotten a grand total of 1 programming job, and that one ended in a layoff cause the company I worked for thought they could spin off our department into a seperate entitiy, which failed spectacularly. The rest of the time I have lived off of my general computer knowledge.

[Rhinox]

ITT: people don't know what the fuck

I was a union electrician. Left because I fucking hated filing for unemployment for 5 months out of the year.


Skill trade jobs are as bountiful as you make it out to be.

[ronin sparthos]

Lol, I think this one would make for a better template
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot..._4669257_n.jpg

Speaking of that, I got to observe a textbook welfare queen today with her 5 glittering insurance policies... i mean children. Got me thinking on what would happen if the worst-case scenario happened and they completely dismantled all the public assistance safety nets because of people like her.

Best get my crossbow bolts ready for the feral children breaking into houses and stealing to survive.

Dunno if this was posted already, heard it on the radio this morning:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/weird...131468933.html

Cash-strapped Topeka, Kansas, has decided to stop prosecuting domestic violence casses in order to save money.

The City Council announced the proposal Oct. 4, after the Shawnee County District Attorney's office announced it could no longer prosecute misdemeanors, including domestic violence cases. The city's maneuver may even require repealing the part of the city code that bans domestic battery. Mayor Bill Bunten told the Topeka Capital-Journal city officials take domestic violence seriously, and it would be "dead wrong" to assume offenders won't be prosecuted. But the dispute is over who would pay for it, he said.

Shawnee County has already dropped 30 domestic violence cases since it stopped prosecuting the crime on Sept. 8. Some 16 people have been arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery charges and then released after charges were not filed.

County District Attorney Chad Taylor has reportedly offered to review all misdemeanor cases filed in Topeka for potential prosecution, including those now handled by the city's municipal court, in exchange for a one-time payment of $350,000 from the city.

The Topeka YWCA said the problem must be resolved.

"When an abusive partner is arrested, the victim's danger level increases," Becky Dickinson, interim director of the YWCA Center for Safety and Empowerment, told the Capital-Journal. "The abuser will often become more violent in an attempt to regain control. Letting abusive partners out of jail with no consequences puts victims in incredibly dangerous positions."

Beat your kids, beat your wife cause they ain't prosecutin' nobody out here.

[eunhye]

my mind only sees these types of people. is this accurate?

[Meresgi]

ITT: people don't know what the fuck

I was a union electrician. Left because I fucking hated filing for unemployment for 5 months out of the year.

Skill trade jobs are as bountiful as you make it out to be.

^This. My father in Law has tons of buddies in the trade unions and they spend 1/2 the year on unemployment, and the jobs for skilled trade all depends on your area and the average income of the area. If you're not living in a very well to do location, then you won't get much business as people will opt to do it themselves since they have the time and don't have the money

1) Skilled trades - Plumbers, electricians, and other positions like this. The two I listed are currently manned by older men that aren't seeing a lot of back fill as they end up retiring. My mother's husband is an electrician and was telling me that they have demand for people to fill the positions but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest.
2) Nursing - There is always a need for more nurses.
3) Pharmacist - DEPENDING on the area there are always openings(generally not in the areas where there are pharmacy schools near by though)
4) Project managers
5) Positions in nursing homes - With the aging baby boomers there will most likely be a huge need for more people that are willing to work in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
6) Sales reps.

For skill trades you need to apprentice for a awhile before you can test to get your license, which costs a good amount of money and you need to take a separate test for each and while you can opt to not take the tests like my father in law, this limits your business a lot, and the money isn't as amazing as people make it out unless you're a shady fucker who fucks over clients on major contracts.

As for nursing, I will say it takes a special person to be able to do that stuff, my mom did it for 2 years and my aunt has been doing it for 20+ and its pretty damn hard, especially when working in a nursing home and hospice situation, not hard as in tough work (though it is) but it mentally and emotionally drains you.

[notorious bum]

Becoming a Pharmacist is an absolute joke in today's climate, you're better off saving the time and effort by shooting for the manager's position at the Sweetbay or CVS you will undoubtedly be working in 12hr shifts, with 1 PT if you're lucky.

Obviously, there will always be positions to fill for wiping old geriatric patient's asses, which is exactly what you'll be doing even if you're an "over qualified" RN to be doing such a grunt task like that. Sales reps? lol Plumbers and electricians haven't been "in-demand" since the housing crisis, where have you been?

[Trigun]

Found the love of my life, I'm going to wallstreet...

Spoiler: show

and I don't care how bad IT smells.

[Cleveland_7795]

Make sure to get paid to protest...

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html

[Demosthenes11]

Dantrag sounds like swampy.

"I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking questions"

[test123]

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...e-monsters.jpg

[Senoska]

Here's why some of you dont understand this (A philosophical reading..):

Your reality is a lot like a magnet(how do they work, anyhow?). The structure of what you see in politics is like iron shavings being dumped around that magnet. The outline that shows up at both sides of the poles of the magnet are just showing you the structure of something that is not inherently real. Its not a tangible thing, but rather, a framework in which other things fall into.

The left and the right seem like polar opposites, but in reality are exactly the same, part of the same system. Those things can only be seen if you look at them with that same magnet, so to speak. The system itself is what is being targeted in these protests. Our insecurities lie within the holes that the iron doesn't cover, and we do everything we can to protect those holes. If you think of a utopia, which capitalism is, a utopic system, it inherently has holes, but the only way we can even think about these things is to remove ourselves from the system.

So Zizek, who I'm parroting with this logic, says that tolerance, or compromise, is just just a way of separating people even farther. For example, we say our tolerance extends to not being harassed. I don't care what you do, as long as you're not harassing me. Well what is harassing someone? Looking at them improperly can be considered sexual harassment, even if it wasn't intended. We pull within ourselves, make everyone else outside of ourselves, and by having tolerance, we are ironically intolerant. That is to say that these things are the exact same. Much like the left and the right, or anything else. Compromise and tolerance of the issue of capitalism isn't going to solve this, and its not going to go away until things are made radically different. This is another of Zizek's ideas, the idea of violence, objective, subjective, etc. The thing that is giving these people their strengths are the things that are meant to defeat them, because those actions to defeat them are inherently violent in nature, and people react to that with a type of violence (read: anything outside of the norm) of their own.

Rather than buffer ourselves from this, we should be involved with it. Rather than continue to isolate ourselves from what is happening, it should be embraced. This is a way of seeing the holes in capitalism. You clinging to capitalism in the way that you are, by attacking them and discrediting them, is you trying to cover those holes up and refuse to admit that capitalism isn't entirely a utopia. It has problems. This is forcing you to acknowledge those gaps. You can continue to ignore them and be ignorant, or talk about them rationally and try to think of an alternative to fix that system and better everyone, or continue to ignore it and fuck yourself and everyone else around you.

Response to Zizek's idea of modernity and his recent speech at OWS:

Part One

…2008 financial crash more hard earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is tuning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cart reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down! (cheering).
In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.
A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.
This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.
There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?
Remember: the problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system that pushes you to give up. Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest. They think (??? unintelligible). But the reason we are here is that we have enough of the world where to recycle coke cans…
Part Two

….Starbucks cappuccino. Where 1% goes to the world’s starving children. It is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture. After the marriage agencies are now outsourcing even our love life, daily.
Mic check
We can see that for a long time we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back. We are not communists. If communism means the system which collapsed in 1990, remember that today those communists are the most efficient ruthless capitalists. In China today we have capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy. Which means when you criticize capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are against democracy. The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over.
The change is possible. So, what do we consider today possible? Just follow the media. On the one hand in technology and sexuality everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon. You can become immortal by biogenetics. You can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the fields of society and economy. There almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible, we lose competitivitiy. You want more money for healthcare: they tell you impossible, this means a totalitarian state. There is something wrong in the world where you are promised to be immortal but cannot spend a little bit more for health care. Maybe that ??? set our priorities straight here. We don’t want higher standards of living. We want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of what is privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this and only for this we should fight.
Communism failed absolutely. But the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not Americans here. But the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are really American have to be reminded of something. What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What’s the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other. And who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now. And down there on Wall Street there are pagans who are worshipping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.
We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!

[Rhinox]

Make sure to get paid to protest...

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/gov/2618821815.html

Smoking gun!

[Dantrag]

Becoming a Pharmacist is an absolute joke in today's climate, you're better off saving the time and effort by shooting for the manager's position at the Sweetbay or CVS you will undoubtedly be working in 12hr shifts, with 1 PT if you're lucky.

Obviously, there will always be positions to fill for wiping old geriatric patient's asses, which is exactly what you'll be doing even if you're an "over qualified" RN to be doing such a grunt task like that. Sales reps? lol Plumbers and electricians haven't been "in-demand" since the housing crisis, where have you been?

Why is it a joke to become a Pharmacist?

That's my point. There are always jobs in certain fields. Weather or not people are willing to do them is a whole different story. Sales reps(lol), yes. Company I worked for hired 8 sales reps last year. And we weren't even that large of a company. Plumbers and electricians may not be in as HIGH of demand as they were before, but there is still not many from our generation that are filling those positions.

Dantrag sounds like swampy.

"I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking questions"

Take it how you want. Can try and make me sound to be an ass for all I care. Expecting to get jobs with certain degrees even in a GOOD economy is stupid. Let alone the one we have now. I never said I wasn't saying anything. I stand by what I fucking said.

CERTAIN DEGREES DO NOT EQUATE TO JOBS NOT MATTER THE ECONOMIC CLIMATE. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT DEGREES THESE PEOPLE HAVE THAT ARE GETTING OUT OF COLLEGE AND ARE HAVING ISSUES GETTING JOBS.

Clear enough for you?

Edit:

Seriously though, I have stated in the other threads that I'm all for raising taxes to help fix this mess we are in. But you know what? Saying shit like "Oh these poor people out of college can't get a job." and when I say "What degree did they get?". Shit is relevant. If they chose something useless, well, what the fuck do you want me to do about it?

[Rhinox]

Bet you this will be all over fox news.



Unfortunate for them there's nothing here. It's not unusual for local political parties to pay canvassers to spread the message during election time and protests.

[Byrthnoth]

Unfortunate for them there's nothing here. It's not unusual for local political parties to pay canvassers to spread the message during election time and protests.

The $16 muffins would like a word with you. Anything can be misrepresented and harped on as long as you ignore reality.

[Rhinox]

Don't get me wrong they'll spin it that way just like the black panther party. But it has no teeth.