No weekend reading post last week, so I’m doing a little catch up on cleaning out the great links folder on my bookmarks bar.  This post isn’t meant to be time sensitive, to a certain degree, as many of the weekday posts are.  So instead of calling this week’s links stale, I’m going with the adjective well aged.

On to this week’s topic, jobs and education.  I’ve written extensively in the not to distant past about the structural change our economy has undergone over the past 5 years or so, I won’t rehash that here.  I want to focus on moving forward, and what I see as mounting frustration regarding the possibility that the employment picture isn’t going to improve for many.

The truth is that it’s not.  Corporations have become fit and thin, throwing off the dead weight they carried during the fat years.  Productivity has soared, automation has replaced millions of jobs in the manufacturing sector, and even some service jobs are being shipped overseas.  A main employment driver, the housing boom, isn’t coming back.  Those green jobs that we were promised, well, after talking with people in the trenches there, it seems that most were a farce to begin with, and those that weren’t, have come to fruition in China as we squabbled over global warming these past few years.  The possibility for a nice handful of service jobs created around a clean tech push is possible, but these are middle class wages at best.  This is not to say the clean tech push shouldn’t happen, it should, nothing would serve this country better, economically and security wise, than moving our country off it’s fossil fuel addiction.  But jobs, don’t get too excited.

How about infrastructure spending, something the government promised would created millions of jobs.  Don’t get too excited.  Much of that money isn’t going towards true infrastructure projects geared towards putting those who previously working in the housing sector back to work.  The money is going towards keeping states afloat and paying their police, fire department, and teachers.

Many of those who lost jobs over the past few years find themselves without the necessary education and skills needed to reenter a workforce where 6 people are looking for every 1 available job.  Those without computer skills, a college degree and being over 40 years old really have no shot.   Add to that either poor health, being overweight or being a minority (if we’re being completely honest), and you’re even worse off.

What we have now is a large population of people unwilling to perform jobs at the very lowest end of the wage scale due to their previous experience in the job market and without skills to acquire jobs paying the wages they are looking for.

First off, I feel bad for these people.  I often take the view from 10,000 feet which sometimes feels insensitive.  When you’re trying to understand large trends it’s difficult to focus on people one at a time, their individual stories and issues.  These people have been afflicted by a force largely beyond their control, largely beyond the control of their government.  They have been forsaken by the system, which moved resources and capital where it is best used.  Maybe this generation of the unemployed is a lost cause.  How our government acts to help these people is a whole conversation in and of itself, I won’t rant about it here, but I think many of you know me well enough by now to understand my view on that subject does not lean favorably towards a larger social safety net.

The point here, if you want to reenter the work force, get an education.

More to come on the the issue of education this week, but for now, here is your weekend reading:

Zandi hits the nail on the head with this in depth jobs report, take the time to read it through (Moody’s)

Not much hope in sight for this group of the unemployed (NYT)

I love that they are going after the telecoms, but will Google use their power for good or evil if they succeed? (Venture Beat)

Abnormal Returns really is the new model for content aggregation with superior curation (Abnormal Returns)

I can’t make a phone call or send an e-mail in midtown with my iPhone around lunch time, AT&T #fail (Business Week)

I’m not quite convinced about being short China here, but this is a nice take on that stance (Hedgeye)

No matter what political or social orientation you hold, there’s really no disagreeing with what Bayh has to say (NYT)

More on this later in the week, our primary education system is so fucked up (NYT)

I agree that we need a robust private sector space program, but we need a public one just as bad (WSJ)

Like any sport where physical injury is a real possibility, skiers walk a fine line between victory and disaster (Yahoo)

No surprise to me here, wait, you’re saying I shouldn’t have punched that random guy on the street today? (Telegraph)

I’m immediately instituting nap time from 1-2 PM, right after my big steak lunch (Yahoo)