Unless you're a star, government is the last bastion of well-paying, benefited, secure jobs. And government is hiring, big-time. (Don't fall for politicians' fear-mongering threats of cuts. It's merely a ploy to justify tax increases.)
Here's a great site that shows you how to find a well-suited federal job throughout the U.S. as well as overseas: makingthedifference.org. Here's a portal to state job sites: 50statejobs.com.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
A 20-year-old role model for all of us
Ben Casnocha, now 20, decided to forgo college for a while because he thought he could learn more of value and of interest without having to meet college's requirements. He reads thoughtfully selected articles and books representing a wide range of responsibly held positions, not just the politically correct. To solidify his knowledge and gain input on his views from others, he blogs about a wide range of important matters. There, instead of being overly cautious like most people, he tries out bold ideas and, importantly, admits when he errs. He convenes in-person meetings of smart people to discuss the Big Issues, where he demonstrates the facilitation skills of a mature person.
His latest unconventional idea: national service is a net negative. To read his position on that and all manner of important topics from entrepreneurship to education, check out his blog.
You heard it first here: I predict that Ben Casnocha will become a U.S. senator if not president of the United States.
His latest unconventional idea: national service is a net negative. To read his position on that and all manner of important topics from entrepreneurship to education, check out his blog.
You heard it first here: I predict that Ben Casnocha will become a U.S. senator if not president of the United States.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Deadly Downsides of Insuring Everyone
The soundbite "Health Insurance for All" generates widespread assent. But like most bumper-sticker rhetoric, closer analysis is required. Let me ask you a question:
It's well-acknowledged that the U.S. health care system is creaking under its weight. For example, over 120,000 people die annually as the result of healthcare-practitioner errors. Now, what do you think will happen when we ask our health care providers to add 47 million uninsured to their patient rolls, a group that has above-average health care needs but pays little taxes and will likely pay little into the new government-mandated system that will almost assuredly be enacted under a Democrat presidency?
Not only will more deaths result, but there will be long waits for health care, and refusal to provide care in such gray-area situations as a 75-year old male needing and wanting bypass surgery. Lest you think I'm making that assertion based only on the well-publicized nightmare experiences of some people in Canada who, for example, desperately needed surgery but couldn't get it, let me refer you to the U.S.'s current experiment in covering everyone: Massachusetts. And lest you think my source of information about the Massachusetts insurance-for-all system is some conservative rag, my source is the New York Times.
I do believe that basic health care is a right, but we cannot provide it for the whole world, including the 13 million and skyrocketing number of illegal immigrants. (And once we do, the number of illegal immigrants will accelerate further.) However we decide to reform health care, it is only right that there be tiers: basic health care for all, but, for moderate cost, other people should be covered for a wider range of procedures, allowed to choose their health care providers, and have faster access to them.
To increase the number of qualified health care providers, we need to realize that doctor, nurse, and allied-health practitioner training programs (currently designed primarily by academics rather than by top clinicians) can be significantly shortened with minimal impact on patient care. In fact, if those training programs were developed and taught by top clinicians instead of by academics, I'd predict that care quality would actually improve.
It's well-acknowledged that the U.S. health care system is creaking under its weight. For example, over 120,000 people die annually as the result of healthcare-practitioner errors. Now, what do you think will happen when we ask our health care providers to add 47 million uninsured to their patient rolls, a group that has above-average health care needs but pays little taxes and will likely pay little into the new government-mandated system that will almost assuredly be enacted under a Democrat presidency?
Not only will more deaths result, but there will be long waits for health care, and refusal to provide care in such gray-area situations as a 75-year old male needing and wanting bypass surgery. Lest you think I'm making that assertion based only on the well-publicized nightmare experiences of some people in Canada who, for example, desperately needed surgery but couldn't get it, let me refer you to the U.S.'s current experiment in covering everyone: Massachusetts. And lest you think my source of information about the Massachusetts insurance-for-all system is some conservative rag, my source is the New York Times.
I do believe that basic health care is a right, but we cannot provide it for the whole world, including the 13 million and skyrocketing number of illegal immigrants. (And once we do, the number of illegal immigrants will accelerate further.) However we decide to reform health care, it is only right that there be tiers: basic health care for all, but, for moderate cost, other people should be covered for a wider range of procedures, allowed to choose their health care providers, and have faster access to them.
To increase the number of qualified health care providers, we need to realize that doctor, nurse, and allied-health practitioner training programs (currently designed primarily by academics rather than by top clinicians) can be significantly shortened with minimal impact on patient care. In fact, if those training programs were developed and taught by top clinicians instead of by academics, I'd predict that care quality would actually improve.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Should Mommyhood Afford Special Privileges?
Women's advocates from the Left and the Right argue that mommyhood should afford women special privileges:
-- The Left fights for the right for women to take years off or half-off (the mommy track) without it hurting their chances for career advancement.
-- The Right champions women being a stay-at-home (cynics would say "play-at-home") mom without society viewing them as second-class citizens.
Women's advocates from both the Left and Right argue :
Environmentalists agree that the greatest threat to the environment is overpopulation. The more the taxpayer and employer subsidizes childbearing, the greater the likelihood people will have babies. For example, if women know their careers won't suffer, they'll have free or low-cost childcare, be able to leave work early when desired, etc., additional women will choose to have a child or additional children. It's ironic that the same people who vociferously advocate for the environment are likely to advocate for policies that would contribute to overpopulation.
Many moms argue that they should only work part-time if at all "because it's better for the kids." Fact is, the data is equivocal on that, which isn't surprising because so many factors affect a child's well-being and success that it is very difficult to empirically parse out the effects of being a stay-at-home mom. In such situations, logical reasoning trumps empiricism, and logically, it is clear that, on average, kids are better off if mom works outside the home. Too often, the stay-at-home mom becomes co-dependent and overly protective--the so-called helicopter (hovering) mom. Too, the child of a stay-at-home mom doesn't get to see the role model of a woman who can be productive other than as housewife.
Men suffer because of "family-friendly" policies. Their wives insist on being stay-at-home mothers, forcing the husbands to carry all the family's financial responsibilities. At work, they must pick up the slack for the many women who take extended maternity leave and leave work early so they can pick up their kids from school, etc. They pay tax dollars and increased prices of goods and services to fund the myriad parental subsidies that primarily benefit women: the aforementioned paid family leave, subsidized child care, etc.
Of course, some men want children as much as do women, but that's not the question here. The question is, overall, in a society with so many crying needs, are we best served by allocating so many resources to mommyhood?
-- The Left fights for the right for women to take years off or half-off (the mommy track) without it hurting their chances for career advancement.
-- The Right champions women being a stay-at-home (cynics would say "play-at-home") mom without society viewing them as second-class citizens.
Women's advocates from both the Left and Right argue :
- for more taxpayer- and employer-paid childcare
- for paid leave for new parents (overwhelmingly, it is women who take advantage of this. )
- that parents (again, overwhelmingly women) should have the right to--without consequence-- leave work early to, for example, watch their kids' soccer game, even though it may leave the remaining workers in the lurch.
Environmentalists agree that the greatest threat to the environment is overpopulation. The more the taxpayer and employer subsidizes childbearing, the greater the likelihood people will have babies. For example, if women know their careers won't suffer, they'll have free or low-cost childcare, be able to leave work early when desired, etc., additional women will choose to have a child or additional children. It's ironic that the same people who vociferously advocate for the environment are likely to advocate for policies that would contribute to overpopulation.
Many moms argue that they should only work part-time if at all "because it's better for the kids." Fact is, the data is equivocal on that, which isn't surprising because so many factors affect a child's well-being and success that it is very difficult to empirically parse out the effects of being a stay-at-home mom. In such situations, logical reasoning trumps empiricism, and logically, it is clear that, on average, kids are better off if mom works outside the home. Too often, the stay-at-home mom becomes co-dependent and overly protective--the so-called helicopter (hovering) mom. Too, the child of a stay-at-home mom doesn't get to see the role model of a woman who can be productive other than as housewife.
Men suffer because of "family-friendly" policies. Their wives insist on being stay-at-home mothers, forcing the husbands to carry all the family's financial responsibilities. At work, they must pick up the slack for the many women who take extended maternity leave and leave work early so they can pick up their kids from school, etc. They pay tax dollars and increased prices of goods and services to fund the myriad parental subsidies that primarily benefit women: the aforementioned paid family leave, subsidized child care, etc.
Of course, some men want children as much as do women, but that's not the question here. The question is, overall, in a society with so many crying needs, are we best served by allocating so many resources to mommyhood?
Thursday, April 3, 2008
A Fun and Helpful Exercise: List What You're Grateful For
To get you started, here's what I'm grateful for (In no order--I'm just writing these as they come to me. You feel free to do the same.)
Google
My sweet dog, Einstein
This blog
Email
Television
That I got my taxes done. (PLEASE create a tax return we can complete in 15 minutes.)
The privilege of being in my 19th year hosting a radio show in a major city.
The privilege to have written many articles, including cover stories, for U.S. News & World Report.
Movies on DVD
Israel
Easy-to-make clam sauce
That I can still run (well, jog) 3 miles
C-SPAN
Music CDs
Plays that make me laugh and especially cry.
The art on my walls, even though most are just prints.
My co-coach and intellectual of great integrity, Michael Edelstein
Bougainvillea James Walker
Quaker oatmeal to which I add Trader Joe's walnut pieces and maple syrup
That I can play the piano well, without effort
My wife's acting ability, her having been selected her region's School Superintendent of the Year, her equanimity, and looks.
My quiet bedroom
That I can browse shopping malls, which I consider museums where you can buy all the stuff--yet don't have to buy a thing.
BrushPicks
Chrysanthemum Fruiticosum, Snowland
Driving
Cell Phones
Refrigerators
My Uggs slippers
When I can restrain myself from consuming too many calories (too rarely.)
My sweet dog, Einstein
This blog
Television
That I got my taxes done. (PLEASE create a tax return we can complete in 15 minutes.)
The privilege of being in my 19th year hosting a radio show in a major city.
The privilege to have written many articles, including cover stories, for U.S. News & World Report.
Movies on DVD
Israel
Easy-to-make clam sauce
That I can still run (well, jog) 3 miles
C-SPAN
Music CDs
Plays that make me laugh and especially cry.
The art on my walls, even though most are just prints.
My co-coach and intellectual of great integrity, Michael Edelstein
Bougainvillea James Walker
Quaker oatmeal to which I add Trader Joe's walnut pieces and maple syrup
That I can play the piano well, without effort
My wife's acting ability, her having been selected her region's School Superintendent of the Year, her equanimity, and looks.
My quiet bedroom
That I can browse shopping malls, which I consider museums where you can buy all the stuff--yet don't have to buy a thing.
BrushPicks
Chrysanthemum Fruiticosum, Snowland
Driving
Cell Phones
Refrigerators
My Uggs slippers
When I can restrain myself from consuming too many calories (too rarely.)
Is Career Counseling a Waste?
It's odd for me to be raising that question in that I'm a career counselor. Yet stories like this one a client told me just an hour ago (I'll change a few irrelevant details to protect his anonymity,) does give me pause:
After four years studying at Harvard, he came to believe money was a shackle and the root of much evil. So he went to his CitiBank and withdrew all his money, in $100 bills. He then stood at the main entrance to the Harvard campus (the gateway to one of America's hub of liberal thought) and gave away all the $100 bills at random.
He was shocked that well-heeled Harvard students who had been filled with "redistributive justice" rhetoric and indeed probably espoused it in class discussions and term papers, pushed homeless people away to attempt to get a second $100. Distraught as perhaps only Hamlet has been, he fled to his Harvard advisor's office and screamed at the meaningless of it all. What did his advisor do? Called the police and had him involuntarily committed to the local mental hospital.
After my client was released, he took a job--at a bank, the icon representing everything he had reviled. The punch line: He liked his job and succeeded there, eventually earning a six-figure salary.
This is the most extreme such story I've heard, but I've known many people who ended up happy in careers that no career counselor could have predicted to be well-suited.
Although I am a career counselor/coach, my best advice to those seeking aid in choosing a career: Forgo seeing a career advisor. Instead, for a week or two, keep musing about career and write any clues in a memo pad, which you keep with you at all times. After that, look at my Best Careers, 2008 and my book, Cool Careers for Dummies, to trigger additional ideas.
After four years studying at Harvard, he came to believe money was a shackle and the root of much evil. So he went to his CitiBank and withdrew all his money, in $100 bills. He then stood at the main entrance to the Harvard campus (the gateway to one of America's hub of liberal thought) and gave away all the $100 bills at random.
He was shocked that well-heeled Harvard students who had been filled with "redistributive justice" rhetoric and indeed probably espoused it in class discussions and term papers, pushed homeless people away to attempt to get a second $100. Distraught as perhaps only Hamlet has been, he fled to his Harvard advisor's office and screamed at the meaningless of it all. What did his advisor do? Called the police and had him involuntarily committed to the local mental hospital.
After my client was released, he took a job--at a bank, the icon representing everything he had reviled. The punch line: He liked his job and succeeded there, eventually earning a six-figure salary.
This is the most extreme such story I've heard, but I've known many people who ended up happy in careers that no career counselor could have predicted to be well-suited.
Although I am a career counselor/coach, my best advice to those seeking aid in choosing a career: Forgo seeing a career advisor. Instead, for a week or two, keep musing about career and write any clues in a memo pad, which you keep with you at all times. After that, look at my Best Careers, 2008 and my book, Cool Careers for Dummies, to trigger additional ideas.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Is it wiser to work long hours or to have balance?
The older we get, the more we realize we only have a limited amount of time to do the things we believe are important. Conventional wisdom is--especially among women--that rather than work more hours, it's wiser to spend the time on relationships and pleasures. I believe that is wrong if your work will do more good overall than the additional time spent on relationships, and especially if you work would not be done or done as well by others. So, I believe that working "crazy" hours and being dubbed a workaholic (while being sure you don't unduly exhaust yourself) is, for many people, key to a life well-led.
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