The stages of life

A recent report indicates the changes in duration in time for a student to finish college. I think, in general, we have seen an elongation in the stages of life. In the early sixties a man got a college degree and could expect to meet a variety of recruiters on his senior year. He made the choice over which corporation he would work for and moved to a big city for a few years. There he had a few wild years, played the guitar, sowed some oats, and finally at age 24 got married and moved to a nice house in the suburbs where his progeny would go to school.

Today things have greatly become elongated in time. A typical young man can expect to go to community college for six years, then have a gap year where he works part time in retail, then transfers as a junior to a four year college, where he will take six years to get his bachelor's degree. Then seven more years leads to a masters degree. Now at age 38 he is ready to get a full-time job, which he finds at age 40. At age 40 he moves into his first apartment. Soon comes a baby or two and a few years later, marriage. At 50 he starts shopping for his first house. Unfortunately, following shortly is  divorce and foreclosure. Then a few years back in retail and he is ready to go back to community college to learn a trade.

At 56 he starts his new career as an air conditioning repairman but soon hurts his back and goes on temporary disability. A few years later he is ready for retirement. The modern American dream.

Good news for our president

Like Bill Clinton, Obama appears to be lucky in the quality of his adversaries.
Romney has money stashed in the Cayman Islands and Gingrich has ex wife troubles. I wish I had an ex-wife.

How to bring back America's manufacturing might

Recently there have been a spate of articles about Apple Computer's Chinese manufacturing. This American Life also did a fascinating one hour program  on the topic.

For years we have been told if only America could duplicate China's manufacturing prowess we could bring millions of jobs back home. The solution is easy. We set up huge factories and have dormitories built in the complex. Foremen can go the the dormitories at night and rouse the workers from their beds and put them on emergency shifts. We pay workers 50 cents an hour. If we do that, we can bring back America's domination as a manufacturing country.

Editor's note: This American Life has done a retraction on the show they did.

Yikes, Internet gambling is coming

After a December court decision, the door to legalized Internet gambling has been opened. It won't happen instantly, but states, eager to raise revenues, are expected to pass legislation allowing for Internet lotteries and potentially other forms of Internet gambling.  Should be interesting.

Predictions for 2012

Here are my predictions for 2012.
Dow $13000
S and P $1400
NASDAQ $3000
Unemployment 7.5%
President Obama will be embarrassed by the OWS demonstrations at the convention, but he will be  re-elected.
Congress The House will remain in Republican hands, the Senate in Democratic hands.
China There will be a Chinese spring with widespread protests and rioting.
Middle East will stabilize but no major changes except the Muslim Brotherhood will take power in Egypt.
Europe will offer travel bargains for Americans.

My predictions are probably overly optimistic. Happy New Year!

Homemade Christmas CD's

One of the ways people economise this time of year is to make homemade Christmas "mix" CD's. They take their favorite Christmas songs and make a CD using Windows Media Player, Roxio, or one of many other software packages. They are easy to do, and with a cute cover, can make a nice gift for friends and relatives. My friend Clarence and myself have been making them for years. We, however, go back to the days when the medium was the cassette tape and the source material was records (those black things with holes in them) and tape recordings of TV or radio shows.

Back in the seventies we started this hobby, and now  annoy friends with these things  almost every year. Over time we migrated to CD's and now use computers instead of  tape recorders. Clarence's stuff is more sophisticated than mine in terms of music used. He likes to blend sound effects and one or two music tracks together to create montages of sound. Mine are simpler, but have the advantage that I tell heart warming little stories on mine, between the songs.  This year I got more sophisticated, adding echo to my essays, mixing in background music and tweaking them a bit with Roxio Creator 10. I noticed it sounded like I was in a windstorm at first, then I found that if I taped a Kleenex over the microphone I could eliminate that nasty wind noise. I redid a couple but left the rest. It's hard for amateurs to keep the lilt in one's voice the second or third reading.

People who have children with musical inclinations may have gotten singing versions of these things. Hearing your son play the electric guitar while yodeling is a special treat for parents.

The recipients of these treasures is not always appreciative, however. Many a homemade CD in a car's player gets half played then removed and thrown into the gutter while the car is moving.   Art is not always appreciated by provincial audiences.

Miracle on 34th Street

Just saw Miracle on 34th Street. Great movie. Interesting to see that it was a real Thanksgiving Day Parade that was filmed at the beginning. I was just thinking that this film and its real life equivalent could never take place today. I checked them off as I was watching.

Doris Walker had never met Fred Gailey at the beginning of the film. Yet he, an unattached male,  was allowed to entertain her young daughter in his apartment. They finally met but then after one meeting he was permitted to take young Susan all over New York. Kris Kringle, who was mentally unstable (he did hit the psychologist with his cane) is allowed to be alone with Susan with no other adults around. 

To protect Susan from two potential predators, these things could never happen today. Plus smoking would never have been permitted in a court room. And what was Susan's wish? To move to the suburbs. Altough a common desire, it could be perceived as being an anti New York sentiment. Plus an environmentally unsound one, since presumably the couple would still be working in the city, probably getting there with Fred Gailey's car. 

And today, a house would never be left open. There would be real estate agent's lock box barring  the entrance.  My how times have changed. 

Happy Kringle, 

Mr. Mustache.