Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Graduates face tight job market for a reason
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Graduates face tight job market for a reason
I read with deep empathy Nada T. King's commentary, "Young workers will prove themselves worthy," (Nov. 5) regarding her daughters' plight in securing jobs that would befit their educational qualifications. The reason she gives for this is wrong however: Companies probably would hire more interns and apprentices, but they just cannot.
Intense global competition and short-term management horizons have put premiums on productivity improvements such as information systems, robotics and outsourcing. Human resource departments are ironic in firms where employees are considered liabilities because of their benefit packages and wages relative to workers in Guangdong Province.
A new hire right out of college or vo-tech is not as productive short term, and younger employees tend to job hop more. Compounding this are boomers who are hanging on to their jobs because of investment losses impacting their heightened, perhaps unrealistic, retirement lifestyle expectations.
I was fortunate coming of business age at a time when managers looked beyond the next quarter's results and realized that bringing fresh graduates on board was critical in a firm's long-term survival. My prayer is for company managers to have courage to return to these time-proven principles, and for governments that help them.
Times didn't back many winners
I would like to congratulate The Roanoke Times for getting the majority of their political endorsements wrong. If you want to run for office, a sure-fire way to lose is to get The Times' endorsement.
Not surprised by endorsements
When it comes to politics, the editorial board of this newspaper is laughably predictable and largely out of touch with mainstream voters. In typical fashion, the candidates with "D" beside their names were automatically endorsed by the paper. Surprise, surprise.
The problem is that the races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general were absolute landslides, all with nearly 60 percent of the vote going to the Republicans.
The Times was similarly off track on the delegate races -- five of the endorsements were for Democratic candidates who lost by a margin of around two to one, and the other three were for victorious incumbents with virtually no opposition.
A suggestion for the roundabout
Having just driven through the new roundabout on Colonial Avenue in Roanoke County, I would like to make a recommendation. Couldn't we have a little green space in the islands instead of asphalt? Why can we spend money on asphalt, which costs about 25 times more than grass, but we can't keep highway rest stops open?
Grass would be safer because it gives you a better reference as to where you are when you're driving around the thing. Last of all, asphalt is just plain ugly. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, "They paved paradise and put in a roundabout."
Indecision costs us human lives
Re: "President Obama's fallen hero salute speaks volumes," Nov. 5 letter:
I read with some humor a tribute for President Obama regarding a fallen soldier and a criticism of President Bush for not doing the same. Apparently, the writer was ignorant of the fact that Bush did not do the same because there was a ban on photographing fallen soldiers for fear they would be used for political purposes.
Fortunately, Obama removed the ban and, to show his concern, invited the White House press to join him and bring photographers with them. The remains of several soldiers arrived, but only one family would allow the president his photo-op.
The New York Times, that bastion of conservatives, reported the White House did this to buy time for the president regarding Afghanistan. Americans are dying, and he's worried about his image.
If Obama wants to support our soldiers, perhaps he should make a decision regarding the request for more troops. The man is so paralyzed by indecision that a request made in August is still waiting for something other than golf or fund-raising. Perhaps Obama should go play ball with his buds, and let the grown-ups make the decisions.
We don't need to aid every country
Re: "24 hours with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton," Oct. 25 Parade news story:
The U.S. -- aka taxpayers -- is giving $540 million in aid to Senegal. I want to know why the U.S. government feels it has to hand out money to every little place in the world. It is for certain they do not have my support. Boo to the Democrats.
We have a deficit of trillions of dollars, jobs being lost due to the government not doing its job to cut out so much Chinese, etc. stuff. Take a hike, Clinton.
Scammers claim housing credits
Re: the Nov. 6 editorial "Stimulating to excess" about how our Congress has extended the new homebuyer tax credit until next year and added another credit for folks who want to sell their home and buy another one:
On Oct. 30, J. Russell George, inspector general for the Department of Treasury Tax Administration, spoke on C-SPAN. Here is the link to that Web site, tinyurl.com/yjunv2a if you'd like to watch and listen to all he says about the fraud that is going on with the $8,000 credit already. It's amazing.
You will be even more concerned and possibly angry when you watch this and see how our IRS is not equipped to handle making sure folks who claim this credit actually bought a house.
There are numbers to suggest that 19,000 people are already planning to claim this credit when they did not indeed buy a house. Out of that 19,000 -- 580 of those people are under the age of 18.
