KWD

This is the wrong assumption as to why the wife wanted him to get a job at wal-mart or the like. Sometimes any additional income is better than no income, especially when it comes to having food on the table or not.

The success of the plumber was really marketing, which is the success factor for any business. He never gave away $50, he offered a discount on his services (how many plumbing jobs cost less than $50?). Also, he was driven by money, just not for greed's sake, but for the sake of supporting a family.

Exactly. If you remove the pensions that are lumped in with all the reported hourly rates, it is not that big of a difference, and what is there is in the healthcare benefits not hourly pay rate. I think the Republicans were just happy that their spin factory came up with a way they could pin an excuse on someone else for not passing the bill. I wasn't really in favor of the bailout plan (mostly after the idea of a car czar was introduced), but I think these guys need to be honest in why they were against it.

What also has to be taken into consideration is the HR department, and their company policies that do not allow for any deviation from the policy. Set pay ranges for a title, inability to promote a person more than once per year, inability to provide an increase in pay greater than 15%, so on and so forth.

I'm just trying to move back into I.T., and even entry-level positions are asking for 2-3 years of experience. I'd say there are probably a lot of underemployed programmers since getting the foot in the door is tougher these days.

I'm in my mid-40s and in IT and have the same feeling. Good luck finding something in this economy no matter what industry.

From his quote of Kakutani: "Much of what Mr. Gladwell has to say about superstars is little more than common sense"

This is what has always bothered me Gladwell's writings, and when I see someone list 'Blink' as one of their favorite books it pretty much tells me they are someone of little substance. Gladwell is simply a formula writer (and his speeches follow a similar format) and I find it amazing he has extended his popularity this far.

Whatever is done, you cannot reward the current management. They need to suffer the consequences of their failure. (More so the case for Chrysler and their ownership by Cerberus). As I heard someone state this morning, why believe that the management team that created the problem will be able to solve the problem.

IMO, GM needs a major overhaul from their pre-1980 ways. Besides labor unions that were mentioned, they also have an overextended dealer network. Their desire to focus on so many brands with just re-badged cars (they even neutered Saab with this approach) needs to be changed. The Toyota/Lexus, Honda/Acura, and Nissan/Infiniti models show a much better approach.

I've planned to actually look at YUI grids. This was a nice discussion, and I need to check out the others too.

Well here I can say I disagree with both. Let's focus on utilizing our already underemployed tech staff and give companies incentive to retrain and retain our existing 'knowledge' staff. The U.S. has plenty of capable employees without importing more.

The only instance I have some agreement with H1Bs is when a foreign student completed a degree from an American university. Otherwise, special processing to import employees for consulting firms, tech companies, etc. should not be allowed at all.

Which is why I want to move to Canada.

I think it's important to note that home cleaning products are not innocuous. Combine the wrong types together and you can have a deadly situation. So their saying that they were no more dangerous than home cleaning products is not really saying they are without danger.

Get the degree. I've dealt with people who failed to get the degree and found it a problem later in life. It's easier now than when you're 40ish and have a family. And believe me, it will come back to haunt you at some point when you're older and you find that perfect position and they require a degree.

As far as moving out of Columbus, I can't really say that would be necessary, and don't do it without a job lined up. There's a lot of experienced programmers on the street now, and you'll never know if you're going to the wrong market at the wrong time.

Finally, Network, Network, Network. The user group suggestion above was a good one.