Thom Hartmann: Teens competing with masters-degrees for burger flipping jobs?

Run time: 09:14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glqJQRINHV8   Posted on YouTube: June 07, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 211   Posted on DU: June 07, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 841

 
David Selig, conservative commentator, joins Thom. If you thought the recent job
numbers were bad - with an unemployment rate ticking up to 9.1% - take a look at
the unemployment rate for teenagers. Based on last month’s job numbers nearly a
quarter of all 16 to 19-year-olds looking for a job - or just a summer job -
are unemployed. In California - that number is as high as 34%! It’s no wonder
though - considering that people with Masters degrees can’t even find a job at
McDonald's where a recent job fair collected over 1 million applications for
about 60,000 job openings - and nationwide, corporations only hired 54,000
Americans in May. You know your economy is screwed when 16-year-olds are
competing with masters-degree-holding engineers for burger flipping jobs.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check
www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

I cannot say that I have ever seen anyone who appeared to have a Master's degree in anything working at one. I have, however, seen many teenagers doing so.

Given the choice, most fast food restaurant owners and managers would choose the teenager over the person with the Master's degree. Teenagers are more biddable and will do scuzzy jobs with fewer complaints than will holders of advanced degrees. That's a very important job requirement at such establishments.

That said, quite a number of fast food restaurants in my area are owned by Hmong immigrants and their families, and are mainly staffed from within the extended family. An extension of the Mom 'n Pop concept. A Hmong-owned Taco Bell is a wonder to behold and to listen to as you wait for your order. I'm glad I started learning the language when I moved to St. Paul.

Did you go into the restaurant and quiz them, or did you assume that since they had on knit outfits that look funky, that they couldn't possibly be degreed, or possibly in school? I worked at a Hardee's in Mobile, and most of our staff were either attending college, or had graduated. And this was before republicans started really destroying our economy by massively exporting our good jobs, and tax base too, along with it.

restaurants, up here in the PNW, at least half the people there are adults, not teens. Adults who probably would have taken higher paying jobs.

These Faux Snooze goofs throw out the same argument that tax cuts will solve EVERYTHING.

There's a recent report that states that the overall tax rate in this country is at a 60-year LOW. And it's been trending that way for the better part of 30 years. By their own logic, we should should be having an explosion of economic growth. But we're not. Quite the contrary. And it doesn't show any signs of changing.

If trickle down economics works, we would have seen the benefits of it by now. Instead, we've seen the biggest concentration of wealth since the Great Depression.

Maybe this is why conservative talk shows and Faux Snooze audiences have been dropping precipitously in recent months. People may be finally waking up to their bullshit.

and if I could, I'd wrap a sign around each one of their goofballs heads, that says, "We weren't wrong, we lied!"

.....you had a repub arguing for tax cuts for the 30 year-old and younger crowd (the mcjobs crowd) and thom was arguing against it. seems like things were a bit flipped. usually the repub heads are always arguing for tax cuts for millionaires at the expense of health care benefits for the working class and other "entitlement" programs. usually the middle class and poor are left out of any tax cuts and the left argues for tax relief for them.

private corporations can take over - thats all there is too it, has been going on for 50 years, is well thought out, well planned, well executed and very, very well documented. Total corporate control. Can not begin tell you how many books I have read on the subject, literally dozens from Chomsky, Klein, Zizeck, Reinert, Perkins, etc, etc, etc.

The irony is that it is entirely based on the italian fascist model. Corporate governance.

Of all the countries in the world for this to happen to the Irony that it is America is profound, the country is hell bent on freedoms and liberty, while simultaneously hell bent on being the capitalist bastion of earth - there can be no other out come.

What America fails to understand is that Capitalism is the diametric opposite of Democracy - Americans tend to conflate Democracy and Capitalism.

:applause:

Today's story about the SWAT team being sent to a home because of a student-loan default only validates your points!

...and welcome to DU! :hi: