American exceptionalism and socialism.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DaShi
However, with millions of college graduates each year looking for jobs, what can you expect?

Even a large university doesn't produce a few thousand graduates a year - many produce far less. Last I checked there weren't thousands of universities in China.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by DanS


No, not really.

Depends on how you measure it. One generally accpted way of measuring poverty is to set the poverty line at a percentage of the median (not mean) national income. By that measure -- using either 40, 50, or 60% as the line -- the percentage of poor Americans is twice that of "socialist" Europe (Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark) and half again that of Canada.

Edit for Mr. Fun: http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures/povertytable.htm

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Even a large university doesn't produce a few thousand graduates a year - many produce far less. Last I checked there weren't thousands of universities in China.

Where did you get your numbers, UR? Even my old university churns out about 2,000 or more each year. It's about average for the schools in Hangzhou of which there are a lot.

But even so, I dug up this article for you from China Daily

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/15/content_339624.htm

University graduates dampened by salary fall
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-15 16:42


Gloomy news came in succession for this year's Chinese university graduates, as the job hunters saw their starting salary a quarter to nearly one third lower than that of last year's graduates, who themselves had experienced a difficult time landing an ideal job.

According to the latest issue of China Newsweek, when faced with the cold wave of the "salary fall", some graduates even proposed they would accept a "zero-salary job" or "no-salary job" on their resume, with hopes of catching the eye of employers.

Liu Fengchuan, a to-be graduate from the Sichuan Normal University based in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, was one of them.

However, that indeed only worked in drawing the attention of the employers. Although Liu got a longer interview with his prospective employer than other job-seekers, he was finally turned down for his little experience in marketing and even having no idea how to do the job he was pursuing.

In the meantime, some other university graduates in Chongqing and Sichuan issued the call on the Internet to establish a "salary alliance", proposing that graduates say "no" to any offer with a starting salary lower than 2,500 yuan (302 US dollars) a month.

However, such a call will inevitably be ridiculed by the market, according to China Newsweek, saying that nine out of 10 Chinese university graduates will not be employed according to the proposed benchmark.

A survey by a Beijing University research team in 2003 showed that the average monthly salary for a Chinese university graduate was only 1,550.7 yuan.

Even the now white-collar job-holders also saw with a broken heart their salary drop by 14.7 percent last year, especially those in the IT industry, reported China Newsweek, citing a survey by ChinaHR.com.

With the falling salary trend, China is witnessing a growing number of university graduates, hence a tougher employment situation.

According to the Ministry of Education, China will see 2.8 million college graduates hit the job market in the summer of 2004, an increase of 680,000 over the same time last year, and by 2005, the number is expected to reach a record 3.4 million.

The Ministry of Education also said that the employment rate of university graduates will exceed 70 percent by this September, which at the same time means that at least 800,000 graduates will join the ranks of the unemployed immediately after they leave school.

Actually, university graduates have learned to readjust their mindsets and lowered their salary expectation, though very reluctantly and with feelings of helplessness.

According to another ChinaHR.com survey, most university graduates hoped to get a monthly salary between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan in 2003. However, the 1,000-2,000 salary range becomes the expectation of most of this year's university graduates.

The Taihe Enterprise Management Consulting, a Beijing-based human resources company, said that the salary fall does not indicate that graduates are not excellent as before, but that the employers are more rational in selecting future employees.

"The employers prefer recruiting experienced staff members, for they worry that it is not so easy for university graduates to adjust themselves to their work in one or two years," said Ren Zhanzhong, director of the Beijing Employment Instruction Center for University Graduates. "So more and more employers wouldn't like to pay for training them."

Just for that reason, Liu Fengchuan was turned down by his prospective employer, who said that the company may have to input more time, capital and human resources in training him, even though Liu would accept a "no-salary job."

"The universities should readjust their planning of majors and curriculum to adapt to the needs of market, offer their students more job training occasions and instructions, and create more opportunities for them to contact society," Ren Zhanzhong said.

"Otherwise, their students will not find a decent job after graduation," he added.

[Timexwatch]

According to the latest issue of China Newsweek, when faced with the cold wave of the "salary fall", some graduates even proposed they would accept a "zero-salary job" or "no-salary job" on their resume, with hopes of catching the eye of employers.

Welcome to the world of internships and crappy post college non-jobs.

[Ted Striker]

Young Dracon's powers are growing.

He is TEH CHOSEN ONE

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Bill3000
Americans in general do not support a universal healthcare system; it's not a matter of patriotism, as politics.

That's precisely it.
We know how badly our government runs anything. If it ran the healthcare of most of the citizenry, all but the poorest of Americans would leave the country for healthcare outside of America.

There may be a few governments in the world that can do something better then half-assed, but that isn't true in American politics. At best, if the American government does it, it will be half-assed. As our current helath system is now, it's better then that, even for the very poorest of Americans. Why would we want to downgrade what every American recieves already? The only people that could possibly gain from that would be the politicians.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Dracon II


That explains the shift in the blue collar vote in the South... but it seems to have happened everywhere bar New England, California and the Pacific NW

Bussing ocurred everywhere. Some of the bitterest fighting occurred in Boston. The result was a mass white migratiion out of the cities and the democratic party.

[Az]

As our current helath system is now, it's better then that, even for the very poorest of Americans.

It is?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Depends on how you measure it. One generally accpted way of measuring poverty is to set the poverty line at a percentage of the median (not mean) national income. By that measure -- using either 40, 50, or 60% as the line -- the percentage of poor Americans is twice that of "socialist" Europe (Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark) and half again that of Canada.

Edit for Mr. Fun: http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures/povertytable.htm

hey, thanks

[DanS]

Originally posted by MrFun


Care to cite any source? I really am curious as to the comparative poverty rates between United States and some of the socialist countries.

The US poverty rate is 12%, between that of France (6%) and the UK (18%).

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Depends on how you measure it. One generally accpted way of measuring poverty is to set the poverty line at a percentage of the median (not mean) national income. By that measure -- using either 40, 50, or 60% as the line -- the percentage of poor Americans is twice that of "socialist" Europe (Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark) and half again that of Canada.

Edit for Mr. Fun: http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures/povertytable.htm

It should perhaps be mentioned that if an absolute measure of poverty is used, the US does much better.

(Last year, a rightist youth group here thought it very funny to mention that according to some American definition, over a third of our population is poor. I found it amusing that they never, near as I saw, told us either exactly what that definition was, nor what proportion of the American population would poor according to it.)

[DanS]

One thing to keep in mind that many areas of the US are very cheap living. Walmart country.

In any event, we pretty much only have one headline government measurement of poverty in the US -- the poverty line, as published by the Census.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh04.html

[Kontiki]

I found this was a good link, with recent OECD data. It really highlights how poor Greece is, but alot of other major countries are compared against a number of factors as well.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/53/34555776.xls

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by Darkstar That's precisely it.
We know how badly our government runs anything.

We should take all the "government can't do anything" people, put them on an island, ban government, and see what happens...

[Last Conformist]

The American state is the most powerful on the planet, yet it can't do anything right. The dysgeneticists must be right, or something.