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How to Graduate Into a Great Career
Tweet Share on Facebook May 27, 2011 Comment (5)If you've graduated from college over the last few years, you probably don't need anyone to tell you that your timing sort of sucks.
[See 10 industries that will hire the most in 2011.]
Even now, two years after the recession officially ended, jobs remain scarce. Younger workers have some advantages, since they can work for less and usually don't have families to support. Yet the unemployment rate for workers between ages 25 and 29 is 10.2 percent, and for those between 20 and 24, it's 14.9 percent—significantly higher than the overall unemployment rate of 9 percent. The prospects for college grads are better, but even so, recent research shows that more than half of young workers with a bachelor's degree end up working as cashiers, clerks, waiters, or customer-service reps, jobs that don't even require a degree. Many recent grads have been forced to endure an even worse indignity: moving back in with their parents.
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One Woman's Fight to Rejoin the Middle Class
Tweet Share on Facebook May 24, 2011 Comment (39)A few months after losing her administrative job in the summer of 2008, 23-year-old Brianna Karp got rid of her furniture, a beloved piano, and most of her books so she could move back in with her parents. When that didn't work out, she moved into an old trailer a relative had left her, settling into an informal homeless community in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Brea, Calif. By the summer of 2009, she was living without electricity, regular showers, home-cooked food, and most basic conveniences.
[See who will hire the most in 2011.]
Karp held tight to her laptop, however, and began writing a blog about her experiences. That generated attention that helped her land a part-time magazine internship, and eventually ink a book deal. Although her book, The Girl's Guide to Homelessness, was recently published, Karp still lives in a dilapidated shed that the state of California considers not fit for human habitation. I spoke with her recently about her experiences. Excerpts:
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Why GOP Discord Is Good For the Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook May 20, 2011 Comment (9)Bridges and skyscrapers are built to be flexible, so they can bend in the breeze. If they were too rigid, they'd collapse.
[See how to survive tax hikes and spending cuts.]
The Republican party has a rigidity problem right now. GOP leaders like John Boehner and Paul Ryan are trying to craft a unified message on the economy, the national debt, and the proper role of government that they hope will guide the GOP to important gains in the 2012 elections—if not helping them win the White House, at least adding to the Republican majority in the House and perhaps taking control of the Senate. The problem is that some of their leading candidates aren't adhering to the message. The platform is collapsing from its rigidity before the campaigns even begin.
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The One Sure Way to Drive Gas Prices Down
Tweet Share on Facebook May 18, 2011 Comment (10)There's a saying in the oil industry: The cure for high oil prices is high oil prices.
It's not as circular as it sounds. When oil prices get uncomfortably high, something decisive tends to happen that depresses demand for oil, pushing prices back down. Sometimes surging oil prices trigger a recession, which usually does the trick. Costly oil also gives businesses and consumers a strong incentive to conserve, tap into other forms of energy, and even change their behaviors and business models. Motorists start to combine trips, take the bus, ride a bike, or even walk. Businesses become more efficient and use new technology to cut fuel costs. Rising oil prices also give regulators a stronger hand to insist on higher mileage standards, more research into fossil-fuel alternatives, and other reforms meant to reduce oil dependence.
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3 Possible Surprises From Bernanke and the Fed
Tweet Share on Facebook May 16, 2011 Comment (2)Mission accomplished?
That's the tacit message the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, have been sending, now that the economy is recovering and companies are starting to hire again. As every Fed-watcher knows, the Fed plans to end its second bond-buying, or "quantitative easing," program at the end of June, which presumably means it will revert to more conventional forms of monetary policy. "The Federal Reserve has taken extraordinary measures under extreme circumstances," Bernanke said at his recent press conference. The Fed's intention now, he said, is "to tighten policy at the appropriate time," which normally would mean raising interest rates.
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3 Reasons to Stop Hectoring Big Oil
Tweet Share on Facebook May 12, 2011 Comment (4)This is getting embarrassing.
Every time gas prices get uncomfortably high, Americans look for a villain and come up with the usual suspects: evil, invisible speculators trying to corner the market. Politicians opposed to more domestic drilling. China and India, which are suddenly buying up all the oil we're entitled to. And of course, the greedy CEOs of oil companies that make enviable profits when prices rise.
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5 Reasons Taxes Are Going to Rise
Tweet Share on Facebook May 11, 2011 Comment (31)John Boehner is no George H. W. Bush. At least that's his line for now. The Republican House Speaker has famously insisted that new taxes are a "nonstarter" in negotiations over how to slash the federal debt. Unlike Bush, who relented on his 1988 campaign pledge not to raise taxes and lost the presidency after one term, Boehner insists that he'll never be that wishy-washy. Read his lips.
[See where to work if you want a raise.]
Nice rhetoric. But lousy math. Boehner and his GOP allies apparently envision some kind of utopian America in which efficiencies and fairy dust magically solve a gigantic mismatch between what the government earns and what it spends. Spending cuts obviously need to be part of the solution, but if they were the only solution, America would become a place unrecognizable to many of its citizens. Popular social programs like Medicare and Social Security would end up gutted. Poverty would skyrocket. Homeownership rates would plummet. The U.S. military would shrink to half its current size, or less.
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10 Cities With the Flattest Rents
Tweet Share on Facebook May 11, 2011 CommentA low cost of living isn't always a good thing.
Nationwide, rents for apartments and other kinds of family residences are likely to rise by 3.6 percent this year, according to research firm REIS. That's a healthy pickup that indicates more people are setting up their own households, after moving back in with their parents or doubling up with roommates during the recession. Rising demand for rental properties could even boost the housing market eventually, since renters often decide that it makes more sense to buy a home than to turn more and more money over to a landlord every month.
[See the 10 strongest rental markets.]
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10 Cities Where Rents Are Spiking
Tweet Share on Facebook May 11, 2011 Comment (3)It's not usually welcome news when the landlord hikes your rent. But a surge in rents this year represents a counterintuitive bit of good news for the economy and perhaps even for the beleaguered housing market.
[See the 10 weakest rental markets.]
Like home prices, rents fell nearly everywhere during the recession, as millions of people moved in with parents or found roommates to cut their housing costs. But with the gradual improvement in the job market and the overall economy, grown kids are finally waving goodbye to their parents and many others are moving into a place of their own. That's pushing high vacancy rates back down, toward levels they were at before the recession—and sending rents back up. Research firm REIS estimates that rents will rise an average of 3.6 percent in 2011. In a few hot areas, like parts of Washington D.C., and New York City, rent hikes could exceed 10 percent.
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How to Recover From a Career Flameout
Tweet Share on Facebook May 10, 2011 Comment (2)With the good times missing in action, a lot of Americans are coping with financial stress, declining living standards, and deep fear about the future. So veteran broadcaster Tavis Smiley ought to have a ready audience for his new book, Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure. As a black radio and TV host, Smiley has managed to bridge many racial and political boundaries, starting as a commentator on a small urban radio station, expanding his audience with a show on Black Entertainment Television in the 1990s, and crossing into the mainstream with a stint on National Public Radio from 2002 to 2004. He currently hosts a TV show on PBS and two radio shows distributed by Public Radio International. Fail Up is his 15th book. I spoke with Smiley recently about his 20-year career, the setbacks he's faced, and the many threats to prosperity in America. Excerpts:
You didn't start out as a broadcaster. You wanted to be a politician. What happened? I ran, I lost, I was devastated. I was in Los Angeles, working for Mayor Tom Bradley. Politics was my primary interest and I decided to run for L.A. City Council in 1991. I came in third out of seven or eight candidates. I was 26. There was an incumbent, and if she had not been running, I would have been one of the top two finishers. I didn't know what to do with my life after that, but when I saw the number of votes I got, I figured there were a lot of people in this district paying attention to what I have to say. I thought I'd run again in four years. But I had to do three things: Raise money and pay off debt, keep my name and face in front of the public, and I had to have some position of authority, some sort of role that would allow me to speak on issues. Those were my three goals.
