From Pine View Farm

Keeping Up with the Times 6

Catherine Rampell suggests that college students need to change with the times.

What skills and disciplines should workers-to-be master to succeed in the 21st-century economy?

My answer used to involve programming, data analysis, creativity, empathy. Basically, skills that are complementary to rising automation and that will help workers invent new products or support those who do.

Today, my answer must change. In light of the regulatory vision being laid out by President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers, I’d recommend college students bone up on hustling and swindling instead.

Mammas, make sure your babies grow up to be con men.

Follow the link to find out why she says that.

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6 comments

  1. GS

    November 30, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    Believes herself to be cutting right to the bone, hey?

    But, in the lede grafs the usual swill:

    “What skills and disciplines should workers-to-be master to succeed in the 21st-century economy?

    “My answer used to involve programming, data analysis, creativity, empathy. Basically, skills that are complementary to rising automation and that will help workers invent new products or support those who do.”

    I’m not seeing any “empathy” these days, in that column, or from the tech industry. If you want to enrage the voters even more, get the Democratic Party and swells to keep pumping that.

    Is the great nation’s progress dependent entirely upon people who “invent new products” and “support” of those who do? This is is the usual propaganda. As contrasted to training in swindling, I don’t see a big difference from where I stand.

     
  2. Frank

    December 1, 2016 at 9:54 am

    As Johnny Carson used to say, “I don’t write ’em,, I just read ’em.”

    Joking aside, I think she made a valid point, whatever she may have missed saying.

    America has long been fruitful land for the con. Think back to the medicine shows and beyond.

    Today is no different. The emphasis on “consumption” today, though, I think is unprecedented. And those who promote the “consumer economy” keep missing that, in order to consume, consumers need income.

    Don’t get me started on the tech industry. It’s rife with fraudsters and slimeballs looking to make quick bucks by tricking you into telling you all about yourself so they can turn around and sell the information to the highest bidder. It beats me why the same persons get all worked over the NSA turn around, take off all their clothes, and run nekkid through the Zuckerborg and the Googleplex.

    Your comments about the Democratic Party are well-taken, but they are flawed by the assumption that the party is anything other than a disorganized mess. All it really has going for it is that it still believes in the common good, as opposed to common thievery.

    It’s going to be a long four years, and I hope it will be only four years.

     
  3. GS

    December 1, 2016 at 7:36 pm

    >>but they are flawed by the assumption that the party is anything other than a disorganized mess.

    No. I think it’s still very organized. It’s just led by people whose thinking I’ve come to detest. Our experiences have diverged.

    Mudcat Saunders: “We’ve been told in rural America ‘f— you’ by the Clintons before with NAFTA, and with further banking deregulation … and told ‘f— you’ when they said the tech revolution would spread jobs across rural America …”

    You can argue the revenge vote will only result in things getting worse with some success but you also can argue it was not unreasoning, contrary to the alleged majority belief on the losing side.

    And you want to know where this stupid “empathy” thing comes from? Tom Friedman used it in one of his recent columns, claiming the -global- jobs of the future are for “STEMpathy” workers.

     
  4. GS

    December 1, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    I forgot to put in the Saunders cite.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/populism-democrats-best-shot-regaining-power-article-1.2866874

    So now there’s a nightmare.

     
  5. Frank

    December 1, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    Never been a member of a Democratic Committee, have you?

     
  6. GS

    December 2, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    No. Story of my life, not experienced in such things, naive, more ear wax than brain.