When I asked Bill Gates about the supposed American educational advantage-an education that stresses creativity, not rote learning-he was utterly dismissive. In his view, those who think that the more rote learning systems of China and Japan can’t turn out innovators who can compete with Americans is sadly mistaken.” “Said Gates, ‘I have never met the guy who doesn’t know how to multiply who created software…Who has the most creative video games in the world? Japan! I never met these ‘rote people’…Some of my best software developers are Japanese.

A Matter of Intelligence | Psychology Today

I think that US Schools can do more to foster creativity, but the basics are still important.

Why is America the No-Vacation Nation?

employers in the United States are not obligated under federal law to offer any paid vacation, so about a quarter of all American workers don’t have access to it … That makes the U.S. the only advanced nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee its workers annual leave”.

Even when Rep. Alan Grayson introduced the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, which called for employers to provide just one week of paid annual leave to employees, it was quickly turned down with opponents noting it would, as CNN reported, “have a negative impact on business and that the government shouldn’t get involved in the workplace in this way.”

It’s an interesting point to ponder. It’s almost akin to the minimum wage laws enacted forever ago. Minimum wage is now considered a basic right. Some argue that minimum wage reduces employment because if wages were lower companies could afford to hire more workers in some cases, and that may well be true.

I’m not 100% convinced that it really makes sense to advocate a guaranteed amount of vacation time, but I do think it pays to raise awareness of this issue because I think life is about living more than it is about working and making a buck, and I actually think that Europe is healthier than the United States in this regard.

This graph of the number of workers who receive disability payments is pretty shocking. “The program costs $200 billion per year when you add in cost of Medicare. It’s basically almost $2,000 per household, per year,” I used this website to get some statistics on how common various disabilities are. 12.1% of americans are disabled. 2.3% have a visual disability. 3.5% have a hearing disability. 6.9% have an ambulatory disability. 4.8% have a cognitive disability. 2.6% have a self-care disability (A person with a physical, mental, or emotional condition lasting six months or more, who has difficulty dressing, bathing, or getting around inside the home). 5.5% have an independent living disability. “Though the benefits are relatively modest — only about $1,000 a month — getting approved for disability can be a difficult process of appeals and hearings that typically lasts a year or more. Few who have qualified want to risk those benefits for a job that might not last.” So people are essentially choosing to remain disabled when they could work - which brings up an interesting dilemma.  via Disabled workers: America’s hidden unemployment problem
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This graph of the number of workers who receive disability payments is pretty shocking.

“The program costs $200 billion per year when you add in cost of Medicare. It’s basically almost $2,000 per household, per year,”

I used this website to get some statistics on how common various disabilities are. 12.1% of americans are disabled. 2.3% have a visual disability. 3.5% have a hearing disability. 6.9% have an ambulatory disability. 4.8% have a cognitive disability. 2.6% have a self-care disability (A person with a physical, mental, or emotional condition lasting six months or more, who has difficulty dressing, bathing, or getting around inside the home). 5.5% have an independent living disability.

“Though the benefits are relatively modest — only about $1,000 a month — getting approved for disability can be a difficult process of appeals and hearings that typically lasts a year or more. Few who have qualified want to risk those benefits for a job that might not last.”

So people are essentially choosing to remain disabled when they could work - which brings up an interesting dilemma. 

via Disabled workers: America’s hidden unemployment problem

Sexual Slavery - awareness is taking off the blindfold.

davereed:

emilysaylor2:

Awareness about Human trafficking (from stopchildtraffickingnow.org)

  • Child/Human Trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Child/ human trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs. U.S. State Department
  •  The global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims. UNICEF
  •  As many as 2.8 million children run away each year in the US. Within 48 hours of hitting the streets, one-third of these children are lured or recruited into the underground world of prostitution and pornography. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
  • The average age of entry for children victimized by the sex trade industry is 12 years. U.S. Department of Justice
  • Approximately 80% of human trafficking victims are women and girls and up to 50% are minors.  U.S. State Department
  • The average number of victims for non-incestuous pedophiles who molest girls is 20, for pedophiles who prefer boys 100! The Association For the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA)
  • 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. U.S. Department of Justice
  • 600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade.  U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.
  • An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. U.S. Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons
  • Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl.  NBC Report by Teri Williams
  • An average serial child molester may have as many as 400 victims in his lifetime. Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Study
  • Child pornography is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States right now.  Nationally, there has been a 2500% increase in arrests in 10 years. FBI
  • The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which helps to identify and locate children in pornography photos and videos, says it’s staff reviewed more than 10.5 million images in 2009 alone.
  • Reports of exploited children grow every year, in 2009, the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children received more than 120,000 reports on its cyber tip line. In 2010, the number grew to over 160,000 with the vast majority being from child pornography.

These stats are hard to stomach.

Awareness is the first step. Click-through to Stop Child Trafficking Now now

(via hilker)

European and US Employment - Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com Young Europeans don’t work in part because they don’t have to: thanks to more generous student aid, they’re less likely to have to work while in school. But there’s also a lack of job opportunities. And the elderly retire earlier, largely thanks to generous benefits.   The paper krugman cites has a lot more, one eg: The French riots of the banlieue in 2005 and riots in Southern Italy in January, 2010, remind us that many European youth are marginalized from contact with the market economy.  … American youth are expected both by their parents and by colleges to work part‐time during the school year and full‐time during the summer.  They adopt early a culture of work rather than idleness, and this continues after graduation from college.  In contrast, judging from the low employment to population ratios for Europeans aged 15‐29, much of the time in this European age group is wasted, especially when we recognize the larger share of American youth compared to European youth going to college and hence removed from the employment‐population ratio. The paper also says that the US also has more younger people as a percent of the total population than Europe. The paper correctly points out, after tax wages in Europe are so low and benefits are so high that people take lots of time off.  Europe is essentially paying its youth not to work and is feeling some of the consequences.
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European and US Employment - Paul Krugman - NYTimes.com

Young Europeans don’t work in part because they don’t have to: thanks to more generous student aid, they’re less likely to have to work while in school. But there’s also a lack of job opportunities. And the elderly retire earlier, largely thanks to generous benefits.  

The paper krugman cites has a lot more, one eg:

The French riots of the banlieue in 2005 and riots in Southern Italy in January, 2010, remind us that many European youth are marginalized from contact with the market economy.  … American youth are expected both by their parents and by colleges to work part‐time during the school year and full‐time during the summer.  They adopt early a culture of work rather than idleness, and this continues after graduation from college.  In contrast, judging from the low employment to population ratios for Europeans aged 15‐29, much of the time in this European age group is wasted, especially when we recognize the larger share of American youth compared to European youth going to college and hence removed from the employment‐population ratio.

The paper also says that the US also has more younger people as a percent of the total population than Europe.

The paper correctly points out, after tax wages in Europe are so low and benefits are so high that people take lots of time off. 

Europe is essentially paying its youth not to work and is feeling some of the consequences.