Here we are just a few weeks away from the first of June and if you care to put any degree of validity to the experts, for a full six months, through November 30, our concerns and fears will be heightened with predictions that the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be active and very possibly severe.
AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi forecasts 16-18 tropical storms, 15 of which will hit the Atlantic coastline or the Gulf of Mexico. Of seven landfalls, five will be hurricanes and two or three will be major threats to the U.S.
As Bastardi had predicted, the 2009 hurricane season brought 11 tropical depressions and only nine developed into tropical storms, the lowest number since 1997.
Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, who has made seasonal hurricane predictions since 1984, foresees a 64% chance of landfall along the Atlantic coastline, and a 40% likelihood that Florida will be affected. Respectively, historical averages are 52%, 31% and 30%.
The forecast release this past December concludes there will be 11-16 named tropical storms, 6-8 hurricanes and 3-5 major hurricanes, all of which are considerably higher than statistical data would indicate. Updates will be issued April 8, June 2 and August 4.
During a discussion with a new acquaintance, Linda and I touched upon the affects that a major hurricane would have on the Florida economy. I made reference to the $4.5 billion in assets in the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which, by its own analysis, will be seriously short of covering potential claims that could exceed $28 billion in a severe season. Since she’s not a homeowner, I discounted the importance of mentioning to Linda the additional ‘assessments’ that would be placed on insurance policies. She had other thoughts on her mind.
To go back a couple of steps, the conversation actually began with Linda relating events in her life that began shortly after graduating from high school, where she had been an academically excellent student, an accomplished athlete and socially popular.
Linda had intentions to attend the University of Florida but an unplanned pregnancy left her an unwed mother and kept her from joining her friends on the path to higher education. She vacated her home when she realized the live-in boyfriend/father was smoking crack. This was the first of three homes her well-to-do father would buy for her over the next ten years.
As Linda explained other circumstances in her life, I had to agree with her self-appraisal that she’s a smart person who doesn’t make smart decisions. Her second relationship began with a hopeful marriage but her bipolar condition contributed to her filing for divorce from a husband who had become a successful businessman. She had full custody of the two boys and a third son who was fathered by a second husband – another bad choice with drugs again the cause for divorce.
Nearly 30 years old now, her three boys are 4, 9 and 11 years old. She no longer has custody of any. The oldest lives with Lisa’s mother. The middle child lives with the successful ex-husband. The youngest one is in a foster home in Wisconsin.
After first being under-employed then eventually unemployed for the past three years, Linda and her current husband, Jacob, moved to Wisconsin with a guaranteed job making minimum wage. They regretted the move – she was jailed for beating the crap out of Jacob when he blocked her ability to access all banking and credit card accounts as a result of a heated exchange of words that were incited by her sister-in-law, whose call to 911 placed Linda in police custody. Jacob surrendered the baby to foster care because he wasn’t able to hold on to the job.
Things worsened when they moved back to Florida. Still with no job, Jacob was forced sell his prescribed painkillers just to make ends meet. Still not enough for the two of them to get by on, he’s now faced with three to five years in prison for drug trafficking with a fraudulent prescription. Linda now works in an out-of-the-way strip club. Just to accumulate enough cash to post bail, I assure you.
Chances are none of these events would have taken place if construction work hadn’t bottomed out as a result of the recession. Jacob had been earning nearly $20/hour as a roofer. Even though Jacob hadn’t fathered any of the boys, the family of five had been very happy. They called him “daddy”.
Thinking of the situations Lisa and Jacob endured, I suggested that even a mild hurricane season could put thousands, of construction laborers back to work. The 15.1% unemployment rate in Hernando County would decrease, if only temporarily.
Linda agreed. Neither of us liked the idea but…
[Note: The events are factual. The names are fictional.]
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobs. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, April 6, 2009
Future Shock
Anyone who spent a part of 1971 reading ‘The Greening of America’ by Charles A. Reich probably had a copy of Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’. The two books went hand-in-hand as America was experiencing some very tumultuous times – the Cold War, the Kennedy assassination, the Viet Nam war, the hippie culture, hallucinogenic drugs. Plus race riots and student protests that led to dozens of Americans being killed.
‘The Greening of America’ dawdled on the pollution of individuality by the manipulative influences of the Corporate State, touted then-present day smoke-enhanced communal love-ins and proclaimed a social revolution would be forthcoming to salvage mankind from a contrived molding of society by Big Business, the Big Brother partner of Big Government.
‘Future Shock’ drew a chalk line before the reader’s eyes and before you could say, “Go!” fate would prove the checkered flag to be an illusory goal in a progressively changing world. Defined by the author, future shock is “too much change in too short a period of time”. An appropriate sub-title would have been ‘Freak Out - Get a Grip’!
A renowned futurist, Toffler foresaw the break-up of the 22 Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) under the AT&T umbrella, which became the cornerstone settlement of the 1984 antitrust case by Federal District Judge Harold Green who set up the seven “Baby Bells”.
A personal episode of drastic change occurred in the ‘80s while employed as a technician analyzing and coordinating the repair of data communications circuits leased by large corporations, such as aerospace and defense contractors Rockwell, General Dynamics, Northrup and Lockheed. In 1982, Pacific Bell, my employer, had three mega test centers in the LA area, each with over 250 employees. Due to deregulation, by 1987 each office held less than 80 positions, with company exit strategies in place for laggards-on. Now, twenty years on, telecom innovations still generate shock talk, with consumers seeking ever more wireless enhancements.
Relocation to Florida found temporary security as a service representative to consumer, then business customers. Little more than ten years later, as RBOCs like BellSouth lost long distance revenues and large shares of local service to independent providers, I was affectively nudged to early retirement as younger employees found the value of selling add-on services (too often without customer consent and other times misrepresented with misquoted charges and unspoken terms of acceptance) rather than providing customer service as had been ingrained into us old-timers. Whether addressing billing discrepancies or service outages, the goal was to Sell! Sell! Sell! Compromising integrity was never negotiable.
Toffler professed that the momentum of change accelerates until ‘information overload’ leaves individuals, social networks, businesses and governments disoriented and confused with a breakdown of decision-making. Sound familiar? Healthcare, war, drugs, terrorism, the environment, globalization, digital technologies, immigration… and banking.
Toffler has been adamant that the answer to the challenges of rampant change is through education. I quote: “The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn."
As if to highlight the failings of education in the United States, according to ACT, a nonprofit organization that institutes college entrance exam tests, only 26% of high school students are prepared for college-level studies; 19% aren’t adequately prepared in the core areas of English, math, science and social studies. Shocking!
The New York Times reported, “A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.” Sounds shockingly like future executives of institutions and their views on self-deserving bonuses despite their failures!
This entitlement of mediocrity among Americans has long been a reason for corporate recruitment of foreign intellectuals, whose visas are quickly revoked at the loss of employment, subjecting them to deportation. And yet, millions of illegal immigrants with high levels of ignorance remain willfully undocumented foreign homesteaders. Shocking!
With March unemployment figures exceeding 660,00 and with all appearances suggesting a sustainable decline of American jobs, the current 5 million jobless may double. Perhaps the March unemployment rate of 8.5% will top 10% by year’s end? A truly shocking outlook of the future.
‘The Greening of America’ was a smorgasbord of social tidbits foreseen to bring a revolution to the consciousness of the populace to such levels that there would be a reinvention of the self in society. Well, the leaves that were green have all turned brown.
‘Future Shock’ continues to provide the self a reward for having the intuition to serve up a balanced diet of constant learning. The just dessert is a future less shocking to the individual’s consciousness. Still, future shock will always be before us.
‘The Greening of America’ dawdled on the pollution of individuality by the manipulative influences of the Corporate State, touted then-present day smoke-enhanced communal love-ins and proclaimed a social revolution would be forthcoming to salvage mankind from a contrived molding of society by Big Business, the Big Brother partner of Big Government.
‘Future Shock’ drew a chalk line before the reader’s eyes and before you could say, “Go!” fate would prove the checkered flag to be an illusory goal in a progressively changing world. Defined by the author, future shock is “too much change in too short a period of time”. An appropriate sub-title would have been ‘Freak Out - Get a Grip’!
A renowned futurist, Toffler foresaw the break-up of the 22 Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) under the AT&T umbrella, which became the cornerstone settlement of the 1984 antitrust case by Federal District Judge Harold Green who set up the seven “Baby Bells”.
A personal episode of drastic change occurred in the ‘80s while employed as a technician analyzing and coordinating the repair of data communications circuits leased by large corporations, such as aerospace and defense contractors Rockwell, General Dynamics, Northrup and Lockheed. In 1982, Pacific Bell, my employer, had three mega test centers in the LA area, each with over 250 employees. Due to deregulation, by 1987 each office held less than 80 positions, with company exit strategies in place for laggards-on. Now, twenty years on, telecom innovations still generate shock talk, with consumers seeking ever more wireless enhancements.
Relocation to Florida found temporary security as a service representative to consumer, then business customers. Little more than ten years later, as RBOCs like BellSouth lost long distance revenues and large shares of local service to independent providers, I was affectively nudged to early retirement as younger employees found the value of selling add-on services (too often without customer consent and other times misrepresented with misquoted charges and unspoken terms of acceptance) rather than providing customer service as had been ingrained into us old-timers. Whether addressing billing discrepancies or service outages, the goal was to Sell! Sell! Sell! Compromising integrity was never negotiable.
Toffler professed that the momentum of change accelerates until ‘information overload’ leaves individuals, social networks, businesses and governments disoriented and confused with a breakdown of decision-making. Sound familiar? Healthcare, war, drugs, terrorism, the environment, globalization, digital technologies, immigration… and banking.
Toffler has been adamant that the answer to the challenges of rampant change is through education. I quote: “The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn."
As if to highlight the failings of education in the United States, according to ACT, a nonprofit organization that institutes college entrance exam tests, only 26% of high school students are prepared for college-level studies; 19% aren’t adequately prepared in the core areas of English, math, science and social studies. Shocking!
The New York Times reported, “A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.” Sounds shockingly like future executives of institutions and their views on self-deserving bonuses despite their failures!
This entitlement of mediocrity among Americans has long been a reason for corporate recruitment of foreign intellectuals, whose visas are quickly revoked at the loss of employment, subjecting them to deportation. And yet, millions of illegal immigrants with high levels of ignorance remain willfully undocumented foreign homesteaders. Shocking!
With March unemployment figures exceeding 660,00 and with all appearances suggesting a sustainable decline of American jobs, the current 5 million jobless may double. Perhaps the March unemployment rate of 8.5% will top 10% by year’s end? A truly shocking outlook of the future.
‘The Greening of America’ was a smorgasbord of social tidbits foreseen to bring a revolution to the consciousness of the populace to such levels that there would be a reinvention of the self in society. Well, the leaves that were green have all turned brown.
‘Future Shock’ continues to provide the self a reward for having the intuition to serve up a balanced diet of constant learning. The just dessert is a future less shocking to the individual’s consciousness. Still, future shock will always be before us.
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