<p>The survey is a general economic survey regarding projected GDP. etc.</p>
<p>But, in answer to your question, yes, they have college age children.</p>
<p>Good. Then we can trust them.</p>
<p>Absurd. </p>
<p>Have you checked the internet for an ElementarySchool or MiddleSchool Connection? I think you would find it more relevant to your situation. Isn’t your son 9 years old. You have a good 6 or 7 years until you have a real need for CC.</p>
<p>What is it with the personal comments?</p>
<p>Just trying to be helpful, not provocative or anything.</p>
<p>Thank you for your kind consideration and support.</p>
<p>You are certainly welcome.</p>
<p>Back on topic.</p>
<p>[Economic</a> Issues 11–Does Globalization Lower Wages and Export Jobs?](<a href=“http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues11/]Economic”>http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues11/)</p>
<p>I am hopeful.</p>
<p>My father’s mother died when he was three. He and his brothers lived on their uncle’s farm while their father worked in the city for years until he remarried. Both of my parents were a year old during the 1918 Influenza epidemic. My mother’s sister died of appendicitis before our era of antibiotics and better surgical outcomes. My parents dated during the great depression, got married on Christmas day three weeks after Pearl Harbor. My father and three of his four brothers all served and survived WWII, and lived into their late 80’s. </p>
<p>My brother served, briefly, during Vietnam. He has never been the same. My sister was sent home early from her freshman year of college because the administration cancelled finals and ended spring semester early after the Kent State shootings.</p>
<p>I remember being really ticked off when all three channels were showing President Kennedy’s funeral and I couldn’t watch my afternoon TV show. (Forgive me, I was in kindergarten at the time.) I also remember Martin Luther King’s funeral, and Robert Kennedy’s. Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate, the Cold War, graduating college into a crummy economy, 9/11, the list goes on and on…</p>
<p>And yet, we’ve always found our way, survived, thrived, had grand times. So have most of us on CC. </p>
<p>Our children may have the great experience of learning to do without, that less is more, that they don’t really need all the things they think are necessary. They’ll be fine. Every generation has its struggles</p>
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<p>This is a very good point and quite likely reflects the reality in the coming decades. But it is not a bad thing. For half a century Americans have formed 5% of the world’s population while consuming 25% of the world’s resources. That is not sustainable in the long run. So, as balance is achieved between America and the BRIC nations, per capita American consumption will have to drop. But as long as Americans lower their expectations they will be perfectly fine and happy. As, after all, happiness is the gap between expectation and reality.</p>
<p>Not trying to be partisan even though this newspaper and this journalist do have a bias- who does not?
Not sure if this is best thread so I may post this elsewhere as well, but have a look at Tom Friedman’s editorial in NYT today: “A Theory of Everything (Sort Of)”… Thoughts?</p>
<p>Should we start a thread on this or is it too obvious???</p>
<p>[Yes, extreme opinions and cataclysmic points of view sell newspapers, but I thought this was stated quite moderately, perhaps without enough convincing proof, though.]</p>
<p>Btw, the survey is on topic, whether or not the participants have college age children, however, is an off topic question.</p>
<p>But, is that a surprise? No.</p>
<p>Friedman has said the same thing many times. It is not new. But it is indeed very real.</p>
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<p>I think Thumper disagrees.</p>
<p>I thought Friedman’s article today was particularly relevant to this site due to the inclusion of much description of impact on college situation.</p>
<p>I am too cheap to pay for the NYT so I miss a lot of good stuff, I am sure, as I catch things from there only once in a while, not all the time.</p>
<p>The concept of globalization/IT revolution makes things much clearer. </p>
<p>I am also reading the Atlantic article on the disappearance of the middle class.</p>
<p>The middle class is widening across the globe but shrinking in the USA. This because the middle class is moving from blue collar to low skilled white collar labor to more high skilled white collar labor. That’s Friedman’s point by and large. If the labor market is by and large global, then countries and societies that focus on education, and very focused education at that, will be at a huge advantage. However, it is hard to change norms in countries where blue/low-skill white labor has long been a steady source of middle class jobs.</p>
<p><a href=“Opinion | A Theory of Everything (Sort Of) - The New York Times”>Opinion | A Theory of Everything (Sort Of) - The New York Times;
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<p>That crazy middle class has been disappearing since Nixon was in office. The threat of the vanishing middle class gets dragged out every election season.</p>
<p>Amazed it still exists at all.</p>
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<p>Actually, it is factually correct.</p>
<p>There we go with the “facts” again. Okay. Whatever.</p>
<p>FWIW, my harvard grad kid who did economics says Friedman has no original ideas, just rehashes other’s ideas and not very eloquently. </p>
<p>Deriving your perspective on “what’s happening” from the NYT and Atlantic will give you a very thorough understanding of the NYT’s and Atlantic’s perspective on what’s happening: Insular, ideological, strident.</p>
<p>We take three papers - the local, NYT and WSJ. Reading all three sort of rounds it out, we feel. Heck of a lot to recycle, though. We used to read only NYT. Oh my. Those were the days. I miss them! The world was much simpler viewed thru that lens.</p>
<p>^ If he were a U of C graduate, he may have a different perspective. Interesting.</p>