Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Future-Proof Jobs?
An anonymous reader writes: My niece, who is graduating from high school, has asked me for some career advice. Since I work in data processing, my first thought was to recommend a degree course in computer science or computer engineering. However, after reading books by Jeremy Rifkin (The Third Industrial Revolution) and Ray Kurzweil (How to Create a Mind), I now wonder whether a career in information technology is actually better than, say, becoming a lawyer or a construction worker. While the two authors differ in their political persuasions (Rifkin is a Green leftist and Kurzweil is a Libertarian transhumanist), both foresee an increasingly automated future where most of humanity would become either jobless or underemployed by the middle of the century. While robots take over the production of consumer hardware, Big Data algorithms like the ones used by Google and IBM appear to be displacing even white collar tech workers. How long before the only ones left on the payroll are the few "rockstar" programmers and administrators needed to maintain the system? Besides politics and drug dealing, what jobs are really future-proof? Would it be better if my niece took a course in the Arts, since creativity is looking to be one of humanity's final frontiers against the inevitable Rise of the Machines?
Sorry, you're incorrect in both accounts.
You're going to cite advice from a site who's sole goal is to sell you more credit cards?
Credit cards are always, and forever will be a scam. If you have the cash, use the cash. If you don't, you shouldn't be buying it.
For some real info... follow this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
What should be most interesting to you is that "Credit Cards" weren't even a "Thing" until the Supreme Court struck down predatory lending laws in the 1970s... Let me restate that... Preditory lending laws prevented credit cards from being legal.
Mortgage rates have nothing to do with why you shouldn't pay off your home loan. Your home loan is your single biggest tax deduction, and unless congress changes things, will remain so for the rest of your life. The higher the interest rate on the loan, the larger the deduction so the as long as the interest rate is competitive with the market it's still a good thing. If you can get a better rate from another bank you should, and if rates country wide are terrible, you should probobly pay it down quite a bit... bot not totally pay it off.
And I want to be clear here, I'm talking about a first home... if you own 2nd and 3rd homes that's different... The deduction you get from that loan in enormous. More importantly, when you retire and start collecting on your 401k, that 401k is going to get taxed! And now that you're retired and paid off your loan, you'll have no deduction at all! While you're drawing on your 401k you need to be using your home loan deduction to reduce that tax burden. You should plan to have that loan paid off around the time the 401k runs out... then you switch to your Roth IRA which you've already payed the taxes on. If you plan correctly, you shouldn't be paying taxes after your homes paid off.
But yes, perhaps I should have been more detailed... That's why I said you should go take a class. Don't listen to me, don't listen to anyone on slashdot or even your friends. Get educated, figure it out for yourself. There is so much mis-information on these topics you can only really trust someone that you're paying (a true fiduciary under contract or a professor.)
For more info on other reasons you should wait to pay off your home-loan, see this: http://www.aarp.org/money/inve...