Greed vs. Poverty vs. too much Leasure Time

The problem is with companies morality of providing jobs again for the community. They need to understand money is not everything. Providing training and jobs for a city is more important. Greed and profit have corrupted America today. The teaching of ethics, philosophy and morality is missing from our business schools. There is not enough free colleges for students to improve their skillsets. The bad high school of the 60's and 70's have ill prepared many students for the real world work force. Parents were so busy trying to make ends meet with both working they forgot to raise their children and provide religion, morality and ethics and discipline to these children.
Many children that are adults today have no self-discipline and get into trouble and can't hold down a job. They rather party, play video games or go out dancing instead of improving themselves professionally and personaly for life. We became apathetic about our government which lead to the government making all of our decisions for us under both Bush's, Clinton, Carter, and Reagan.
The ruling class decided it is easier to rule sheep in this country who are poorly educated than people well educated that can help solve all of the worlds problems in food, shelter and quality of life for everyone.

Workers Today Need Protectionism

Today yes it takes two incomes to make ends meet. With that parents are not home to supervise there growing children. There is less dispensable income for savings, the cost of electricity, food, clothing, cars, rent and ownership of homes is the highest in history. Medical and dental benefits is higher than ever in history because there are no caps on lawsuits for malpractice and no freezing of insurance rates due to their influence by lobbyists in congress.
Unions decline as those companies outsourcing for lower wages. The bottom line dividends for profit is more important that providing a job for the people of a community. Christmas Ebineezer's Scrooge has become a role model for many CEO's today to emulate today. They receive millions in bonus and benefits even after bankruptcy or a bailout by the government. Workers today need retraining more than ever in history. We need a 20 moratorium on all outsourcing and insourcing of labor. The United States needs more of a protectionism for this economy to protect jobs from leaving. We the people, need to have high import tariffs to discourage importing of goods, we need to return 20 million manufacturing jobs to America. The costs of buying these items due to the laws of supply and demand. Instead of 500% profits they will return to the modist 25%-50% markups as of 50 years ago.

Illiteracy

Over the spend of 200 years our labor forced has changed many times. People in the California and southern states area worked on the Fields most of their lives growing food for Americans, from corn, beets to wheat and other crops. With technology came change and the growing need for literacy. As all science fiction writers foretold many years ago, we have become a society where basic scientific knowledge in medicine, chemistry, physics, engineering, law, the environment, the earth, and universe are essential to increase our collective understanding of life. Our public school have failed to get students excited to learn. 90% of education is on your own and not the schools responsibility. High School is meant to expose children to different areas of science, technology, art, history to help the students find out what their aptitudes are and what they might be good at as a career in life. The arts and music programs were cut and eliminated at many schools which was wrong. There are many brilliant potential artists, painters, and musical prodigies that can express their creativity in this manner. Engineering,psychology,medicine, and architecture isn't taught in most high schools. Electrical engineering should now be taught along with physics to help design the newest products. We need more pre medicine taught in high schools to help take care of the baby boomers that are getting near retirement. Illiteracy is a problem because of the social message that "nerds" or intellectuals are not desirable in high school. That has to change along with the journalistic medias support of education.
Intellectuals like myself have spent our lives filling our heads with seemingly useless knowledge. But, enlightenment to understanding ourselves can only be achieved by reading the insights of others in literature, philosophy, science and technology. Countries such as China and India have a very low cost and affordable university programs for all students. There are over 100,000 graduates from these two countries in engineering, programming and medicine every year. Americans are such a leisure based society, we don't tell our kids to stop playing video games, going out partying, playing games too much by hanging around with friends, some of which may be a bad influence. They should be studying there lessons four hours a night after school like I did in high school. The first eighteen years of a students life should be in the pursuit of knowledge with some free time. I spent the Summers in Boy Scouts in the Sierras for three months learning about nature and the environment.
This country needs a second Renaissance to help overcome this high level of illiteracy that leads to crime and poverty in this country. Our government and people need to stop playing political games and start doing what the people elected them to do and that is to fix the countries problems now, not next term. We need to start doing what is morally right and now politically correct.

Lauer, R.H., Lauer, J.C., (2008). Social Problems and the Quality of Life (11th Ed). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Stereotyping in the Workplace

Sterotyping today takes place all over the world. We all form opinons and judgments about an individual or group because they are different from us. The United States is a melting pot of a vast diversity of people from different cultures and backgrounds. At many companies I have worked at engineers are a unique group with vastly different perspectives on science with postulations and theories, and approachs to solving problems. Managers and scientists in the work place view things differently. They have prejudicial opinions based upon their upbringing and education. Those in the deep south where they are not educated as well as those in literate areas perceive things differently due to their educational gaps many studies have shown. As McLaren indicated in her article. There needs to be an increase in mutual understanding through the educational environment. I have been telling people this for years. When a society is more literate, cultural prejudices and stereotyping are diminished. Enhancing intercultural skills is another element we agree upon. In Los Angeles many people have their opinions about the Latino groups in L.A. due to the cultural differences. By teaching cultural differences in high school the tensions between the ethnic groups can be bridged and thereby reduced.

I looked in the Reader’s Digest Oxford: Complete Word Finder (1996) to view the definition of stereotyping: (1) a person or thing that conforms to an unjustifiable fixed, standardized or mental picture; (2) such an impression or attitude.

Education and Sterotyping

Lawyers will take almost any case today. Stereotyping is a problem in today's society. Education and understanding of cultural differences are the solution to this problem.
There are many prejudices in today's society. We want to punish everyone that commits a crime even if they didn't do it, to send a message to everyone. We are a punitive society that treats everyone like children. We have laws for everything almost. People are being crushed by the oppression of government and the legal system. We make new laws every year but never get rid of old ones. There needs to be a balance of eliminating as many old laws as new ones are created. Judges in courts can't make decisions on cases anymore due to too many laws tie their hands. Lawyers want to look good at having high conviction ratio due to politics. The African Americans today have many cultural problems with high drug use, single mothers and 75% of all those in jail are Black or Hispanic. Sterotyping has had a major impact on the legal system. Movies and television show that stereotype ethnic groups have done similiar damage to our perception of ethinc groups in the United States and world wide.
Terrorists in movies are mainly portrayed as Muslim. There are 1 billion Muslims in the world and this is one of many types of stereotyping. It is wrong to do this.
I am glad to hear you got of your situation. We need a 20 moratorium on law schools and business schools. Too many lawyers in this country and not enough technical schooling.

Cost Of Online Education

Why is it with all the online schools there are no video lectures for students. We pay thousands of dollars but there are no lectures for class. Have these schools heard of youtube? The cost is ridiculous going from $300 a unit to $1200 or more per unit for classes. It is all about the degree. Most of all online classes are for business degrees with BA and MBA programs. We have too many MBA's out there and not enough engineers. There is an imbalance of programs available for working Americans.
We need to have Mechancal, Electrical, Civil and Chemical Engineering programs available online.
There is sufficient CAD software for all these subjects now.
Electrical programs such as Matlab, Mathematica, Mentor Graphics, Orcad

Mechanical -- Pro/Engineer, Autocad, Solidworks for mechanical engineers and Ansys for analysis.

Civil Engineering - Autocad AEC and Solidworks for civil engineering

Chemical Engineering - Hyperchem, Matlab, Mathematica for chemical engineering

Yes - Programming - Visual Studio, Jcreator Pro, Perl Programming, along with many others programs for programming.

Animation - There are good online programs that have students use Maya, 3dstudio Max, along with many rendering programs available.

The tools all these professions use are available for all students. But there are no programs currently to support the need. While we have none, students from China and India are graduating 100,000 engineers from college every year to compete for American engineering jobs.

Big Business of Online Schools vs. the World

There are an infinite number of programs out there in www.elearners.com and many other sites. They don't really compare all the costs per semester/quarter unit per hour. There should be a wikipedia type wiki for online and at school education.
There is a lot of different programs to be aware of out there and some of them are shady. I went to such a school in 1990 to get a drafting and design certificate. After $8,000 for 4 classes in areas I already had some expertise. After 10 plus years the amount is now $15,000. Be carefull and try to pay off the student loans quickly because the interest will double the amount if you make the minimum payments. I think the United States should find some way to lower the cost of education by having corporations pay for them in a school tax. Property taxes to pay for schools and education is a failure. The principle of having the value of schools be dependant on only property taxes has backfired due to all home worth about 25%-50% less thereby making all property taxes that go to school have less revenue to pay for K-12 education. Our children suffer as a result. Schools should be mandated a non-profit organization. That is one of the only ways we can regain our competitive edge as a country that can compete with the 100,000 plus engineering and programers being produced from China and India every year. The cost of a Bachelors degree in engineering, medicine or programming in those two countries have been some of the lowest in the world till recently. How can all we achieve any or all of the Maps of Life if our society doesn't cooperate. I must disagree with the Life Launch and Book of Adult Development. They create an American method of how we should live our lives. There are so many other factors that influence our lives. These books depict the perfect lifestyle. Alot people get married our pregnant and can't achieve their life launch till earlier in life. Today the entire section of 50 and older should be thrown out. Most Americans have lost their retirement over the last year. We have been so brainwashed into thinking that our real estate and 401K plan would give us security in our "old age". Many of us have lost all faith in our society due to the current events. The evil of the Bush Administration and the last 50 years of greed by corporations and striped most americans of their faith and security in what to do in our retirement. How do we as Americans take back our country from the "ruling class". Educate the masses and then the literate can't be taken advantage of as easily as those ignorant and eaily influenced by those in power.
It is easier to control a society of people illiterate than those whom can "read between the lines" and recognize lies and dissenformation being told to us by our government. Getting a degree not only increases your ability to get a better paying job but also shall help you in life in general. A little knowledge like why you don't mix ammonia and bleach for a basic chemistry class can save your life. How do we create a new renaissance for this generation of Americans to love to learn. We are so distracted by distractions for entertainment such as the overwhelming information influx form the internet and the massive amount dissenformation out there along with mp3 music, movies and video games to distract us. We are such a pleasure orientated society we loose track sometimes of what is important and maintaing our priorities in life.
Life, Learning and Knowlege all must have a balance for a full life. The books we have read don't interject a philosophical approach for a "Tao for Life", Just as writing wisely can be found in the "Tao of Writing" for balance, which this country is deperately out of sync.

Jobs for Today and not Yesterday -- Engineering

We all have a perspective on things in the world, neither is correct or perfect but based on our individual outlook on life from experience, research and knowledge on subjects.

We have millions of people who thought going to get an MBA in business, law, etc was the thing to do. Engineering was too tough, so now we have a shortfall with too many MBA's and out of work business majors who have no knowledge in engineering and not enough engineers.
But those who do have MBA's should have a balance of necessary classes to have some background in engineering to understand the needs of engineers that the manager employees.

We have found many managers who don't have any backgrounds in electrical or mechanical or rf engineering who don't understand the need of up to date computer hardware and software to effectively get their projects out in a timely fashion.. IT departments are rarely given the resources they need to manage the needs of the engineers and everyone at the company who must use the computer 8-12 hours a day, especially those from other countries.

When China and India is producing 100,000 engineers a year it is difficult for companies not to import engineers from other countries because we failed to anticipate the need of mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical, biological, nanotech -- engineering.

There is a need to totally re-examine our method of teaching in this country. Montesoria schools are one of many new methods to a changing method that hasn't changed for 100 years, injestion and regurgitation. Some English classes are spelling bees and reading in class. Getting our youth excited about reading, writing and mathematics is crucial to getting youth interesting in going into the engienering fields. Encouraging new young inventors is crucial to our competing with other countries economies.

There is a great need for balance on guiding American Youth into those fields they need to get into and limit all fees and charges for all the colleges so the cost of universities in less than other countries. Why have the costs gone up. As long as higher education is big business in the United States this situation will continue.

Ethics and Morality need to be taught by parents first and then strengthened in universities. Do they teach ethics in law school, medical school or MBA programs.

Corruption by our CEO's in our banking, stock markets, all major corporations affects everyone in the united states, we failed to teach the affects of greed, corruption and selfishness on the masses.

A moratorium for 10 years should be imposed on law schools and MBA programs with the emphasis on preparing students for college and why learning and getting higher degrees and provide life long jobs. DO you want to take the 4-8 year education plan or 20 year plan of trying to get as far without a degree by studying the subjects for years with practical experience of on the job usage of skills in engineering or similiar fields for the same pay.

Can you afford to go to Harvard or MIT without any scholarships or student loans?