Blog Audio Intro

A little audio I created on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Why Is The Government Spending So Much On Talk Radio?

There has been a recent sharp uptick in the number of Drive Time government-sponsored PSA's run on news/talk radio stations across the country. I started noticing the uptick in October of last year (which just happened to coincide with the beginning of the Government’s new fiscal year) on the two primary news/talk affiliates in my area, WTMA AM (Cumulus) and WSC FM (Clear Channel). Having heard the same Drive Time PSA's on various news/talk affiliates across the country, I can verify that the Government is spending big national advertising bucks this fiscal year promoting social welfare programs to a demographic that largely doesn't need them, but largely derides them!

We Are The Lost Economic Generation

Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation) 
 -“My Generation”, The Who, 1965

The Great Recession and the seemingly interminable aftermath have significantly reduced my generation’s economic outlook. Nearly 25% of my generation is either unemployed or underemployed. We hold approximately 75% of the nation's $1 trillion student loan debt. And, as the years of economic stagnation and exploding national debt pass, the probability of my generation attaining the previous generations' conception of the "American Dream" gets smaller and smaller. Call us Generation Y, Generation XY, or whatever you wish. Just call us lost.

People in their mid 20’s to mid 30’s are the first generation in American history to have a significantly reduced standard of living than the previous generation. As the Institute for Higher Education Policy suggests (.pdf), nearly 20% of my generation lives in poverty. Moreover, a staggering 40% of us live in “near poverty”. The really scary part: the majority of us who live in poverty are college-educated. A good many even have graduate degrees.

Due to extreme economic circumstances, my generation is delaying “life-cycle” events that should be contributing to the economy. Unlike most people our age from previous generations, many of us aren’t buying houses, buying new cars, getting married, or having children. This creates a very high opportunity cost to the economy. In fact, Dr. Patrick Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, argues (.pdf) that missed life-cycle events can reduce one’s lifetime contribution to GDP by as much as half.

Many from my generation have turned to educational advancement to escape this depression. But it isn’t helping. As fellow financial pundit Nick Pardini recently pointed out, higher education has a horrendous ROI for us. Nearly half of us work a job outside of our career paths, and a stunning 80% of my generation’s PhDs and law grads are either unemployed or underemployed.

HR Computers Must Be Smashed!

A young man who wishes only to be identified by the online handle "Pinkie Pie" recently won tens of thousands of dollars and the adulation of Google executives by beating out hackers all over the world in Google's Pwnium security challenge. It's important to note that this young man had previously applied for employment at Google and didn't even receive a response.

Pinkie Pie's big win shows that the young man has incredible talent and the ability, even at his age, to monetize his talent. But Pinkie's gifts were tragically overlooked either by an HR computer or a living, breathing HR "computer", both of which are linearly-programmed to weed out candidates based on rigid criteria, not look for talent.

HR computers, both living and non-living, serve but two functions: 1) to make sure new hires don't "make waves" in the established corporate structure, and 2) to minimize the possibility of additional litigation or liability to the company. In 2005 Keith Hammonds, former Executive Editor of "Fast Company", wrote an excellent, if not controversial, piece on the matter. In a follow-up interview with totalpictureradio, Hammonds reiterated the arguments he made in his piece: "HR people aren't the sharpest tacks in the box...HR is there to protect corporate assets."

The Green Shoots Of Civil Unrest

Unemployment owns you.  
"Existing But Not Living", S. Jackson and M. Crooks, University of Melbourne

The preceding quote is from a research study of the psychological effects of long-term unemployment during the deep Australian recession of the late 80’s and early 90’s. The study concluded that long-term unemployment caused a profound loss of identity in study participants, a loss so severe that some engaged in activities that they normally wouldn’t have: abusing substances, abusing spouses, even killing.

Long-term unemployment is a pestilence that, left unchecked, will eventually tear at a nation’s social fabric. Long-term unemployment was a primary contributor to the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. Last summer, James Carville opined on “Imus in the Morning” that civil unrest in the United States is “imminently possible” unless the unemployment rate falls precipitously. Indeed, the Occupy Wall Street protests and last year's holiday shopping violence are the “green shoots” of the unrest to which Mr. Carville was referring.

The median duration of unemployment currently hovers around 50 weeks. 50 weeks is longer than the median length of unemployment was at its zenith during the Great Depression. 50 weeks is an incredibly long period of time in which depression, fear, and anger can fester. It’s a period of time in which many formerly productive members of society can become carriers of societal ills.

Rates of domestic violence, substance abuse, vandalism and other societal ills have risen to historic highs in tandem with median duration of unemployment. According to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, call volumes at crisis helplines quadrupled from January 2007 to August 2009. Since then, year-over-year call volumes have remained stuck at their record levels.