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China To Cancel College Majors That Don't Pay
theodp writes "The WSJ reports that China's Ministry of Education plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which more than 60% of graduates fail for two consecutive years to find work. What if the U.S. government were to adopt China's approach? According to the most recent U.S. census data, among the first majors to go: psychology, U.S. history and military technologies. Lest you computer programmers get too smug, consider this."
The problem with your theory about unemployment being good is that people aren't willing to pay others to sit home & monitor the Kardashians on TV.
I agree with the utopia you describe, but civilization is not at that point yet. When we have nearly free energy, cured most diseases, and figured out regenerative medicine. Then I may agree. But today, unemployment is a bad thing .. a VERY bad thing. It's detrimental to society, most unemployed people aren't retraining .. and who can blame them .. what are they to retrain for? Entry level jobs in the USA have been wiped out thanks to unions and the minimum wage. Even the minimum wage retail jobs want experienced people .. and unions are forcing extraordinarily high wages for the select few that have jobs.
I am in favor of unions, but not when they use their power to hold companies hostage especially after they've agreed to a certain wage already.
Instead of being able to hire 3 assembly line workers for $25K, a company is forced to hire one person for $80K. These means that the factory can only produce 1/3rd the amount of cars .. and THAT in turn means the car costs 3 times higher.
Now you will say "but how can a person live on merely 25K? ..that's not a living wage!" .. Here's the problem 25K is not a living wage because companies are forced to higher expensive workers! .. If workers were cheaper across the board.. the cost of production would reduce across the board -- and the price of energy will be the limiting factor.
The high minimum wage and unions, as currently operating, are destroying the country. The minimum wage needs to be reduced, and unions need to adjust their attitude. Second, the price of energy needs to be reduced drastically .. by a factor of 10. America will then see a 3% unemployment rate like South Korea. Or even 2% like Singapore. Furthermore, actual quality of life will be improved.