global economy

Over 1350 people have responded to the Elm Street Economy Sustainable Livelihoods survey since we put it up in 2009. The survey seeks to find out how secure people feel about the future of their current career path.

To determine this we asked a series of questions about how well respondents thought their career would hold up to the eight criteria we believe predict how enduring a particular career will be as our country shifts to an increasingly localized economy.

Here are findings to date to date:

First survey results to date show people are optimistic about their own careers. 80% believe what they do will still be in demand in five years.

Contributing to this belief is more than half (53%) say their job or work serves a non-discretionary basic need in their own or a nearby community. About the same number (54%) believe their skills are readily barterable.
Better than half (55%) believe they can do their work virtually, that is serve an employer or clients and customers located anywhere.
Three out of four respondents state their work can be done independently from home.
Only out of four people are concerned their work might be subject to being replaced by technology or being off-shored, but four out of think their work is not vulnerable to these forces.
Two out of three respondents say that the supplies and materials they need to their work are available locally and affordably.
Fewer than half (47%) identify with the term “Main Street Economy” and 58% think an “Elm Street Economy” is different than a Main Street Economy.

But most interesting is that after taking the survey, three out of ten people said their assessment of the future of their job or training had changed.

So what does this mean? If management guru Tom Peters is correct in his prediction that most of the white and pink collar jobs we now hold will no longer exist within the near feature, then our respondents either:

do not reflect the majority of American workers – most of whom who work in some form for management, technology, service, entertainment and retail or
Our survey is reaching a very narrow segment of the US population who have already positioned themselves for the dramatic changes that are underway in response to a weakening national and global economy, rising shortages and higher costs of natural resources and significant climate change.
A third of those responding “woke up” to the new reality for the future of their careers by taking the survey.

The changes taking place in our world today are leading to as profound a shift in regard to work as when human kind stopped hunting and gathering and began farming or when we left the farmlands to work in factories and high rises.

To secure our future well-being we all need to think honestly about if the current jobs we have been trained for and hold actually involve meeting basic needs, could be carried out at home independently without an employer, serves their own or a close existing neighborhood, has all the materials they produced nearby and can be easily bartered.

To discover the type of livelihoods we believe will make us secure for the future we offer courses Finding a Sustainable Livelihood obtainable from PostPeakLiving.com and soon by the Learning Annex that feature 200+ Sustainable Livelihoods for a secure tomorrow. An additional resource will be our soon to be released Working From Home Encyclopedia as an interactive eBook.

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.

Only one in five adult Americans have the work skills or education to be competitive in the global economy, says MIT economist Lester Thurow. To be equipped for the global economy today’s children today need to learn more than ever before sooner than ever before. Vic Lee illustrated how true this is in his comic strip Pardon My Planet when he pictured a young boy saying to his father, “Dad, you really should help me with my homework while you still can. Next year I enter the 4^th grade.”

But American children are falling behind. They are leaving school unprepared to meet the demands of fast-changing industries, while children in other countries are springing ahead. More than one in every four college freshmen is taking a remedial math or English course. National Science Foundation data over the past seven years shows a 14% decline of enrollment in science and engineering graduate programs with current numbers showing further declines. As a result, not only are many skilled jobs being off-shored to other countries, but skilled workers from other countries are being recruited to fill many of our top jobs here.

An Obama-Biden campaign policy paper stated “Too many Americans are not prepared to participate in a 21st century economy: A recent international study found
that U.S. students perform lower on scientific assessments than students in 16 other economically developed nations, and lower than 20 economically developed
nations in math performance. Only one-third of middle class physical science teachers are qualified to teach in that subject, and only one-half of middle
school math sciences have educational background in that subject area.”

To bridge this educational gap, I propose a Tutors for All program. Every child can benefit from the individual attention and guidance of a tutor, or even a team of tutors, to
help master the requirements for today’s highly skilled positions. Research shows that tutoring works! It produces better results among all groups than virtually any federal aid to education program, too many of which cost school districts $1500 to administer and comply with for every $1000 in aid. We need to invest our resources in people, not paperwork. We need to enable children to compete – not feel compelled to cheat.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is proposing to spend money on school buildings as an improvement to the nation’s infrastructure whereas a Tutors for All program would employ tens of thousands of people who are now out of work, including teachers who have been laid off by so many school districts. Another problem with the existing school structure is they operate a on a top-down, hierarchical model that prescribes a one-size-fits-all education where students all learn the same thing in the same way on a schedule that many find out of pace with their individual biology. A combination of computer-based learning and tutoring will enable students who learn differently to do so and at their own pace. Berlitz, Vocabu, and Popling are producing computer-based innovative modular instruction.

New approaches can save money, too. A Jefferson County, MO, school district that was spending spends about $330 a year per student on textbooks is buying tablet computers, leaving it over half this amount to buy or rent digital textbooks.

Tutors for All can serve as a benefit not unlike the GI Bill that enabled millions of vets to go to college after WWII. A publicly funded voucher system would allow parents to choose from among pools of capable local tutors. Such a direct investment in the future will also provide meaningful work for millions, particularly older skilled Americans who would like to continue
working and earning even after retiring.

Higher education must become more affordable if the U.S. is going to produce the knowledge workers necessary to our economic future.. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gives 43 states an F’s for affordability. Tuition for students attending four-year public colleges and universities in-state averaged $16,140 a year in 2010-2011, almost triple the 2006-07$5,836 cost. The cost of a college education higher than it cost to own a home only 40 years ago.

Textbook costs are skyrocketing too, averaging $1137 for that same period. These costs have become economically crippling, often leaving college graduates with a heavy debt from student loans even before they enter the workforce.

To bridge this affordability gap, we advocate a strong program of online education. George Washington University Online High School (GWUOHS), is offering such a program for $9,995 per student, or $4,995 per semester and similar programs are available from leading universities such as Stanford, Northwestern, and Johns Hopkins.

Despite the criticism of skeptics who claim there is no valid evidence that online
education provides a good education, the Virginia Department of Education is
finding:

Interactive e-books increased student engagement.
Studentsappreciated being able to work at their own paces, whether in small groups or
independently.
The vast majority of students reported being enthusiastic about reading and using e-books.
Many teachers noted a dramatic increase in the students’ independence and willingness to be
responsible for learning on their own
Teachers noted that the e-books encourage more engagement to learn the material.

What I offer here is an idea that needs and deserves research and testing.

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.