Nine Shift

What Do You Tell the Children?

Family, with children, living down the street.

Unemployment Parallel with 100 Years Ago

Unemployment 1916:  4.8%

Unemployment 2016:  4.8%

Just sayin.

A Minor Turn In the War Against Boys

Turns out businesses need boys in the skilled workforce after all.

Society still wants to keep them out of college, so the most needed jobs in engineering, math, and science will remain vastly unfilled.

But in a small nod to the issue, we are seeing some programs oriented towards young men (they don't say that, because, well you know....) for tech jobs.  Schoolcraft College got a LERN award this month for a program for Digital Sculpting in the auto industry. Joliet Junior College has a new program in a different occupational area that is geared for and attracting young men. 

And Udacity, the big MOOC failure, is now turning to training people for computer science work, an occupation that usually attracts far more males than females.  

We're still avoiding the solution of course - - gender equity in education.  

Did Europe Just Pass the U.S.?

Did Europe just pass the U.S. in the race for being the leading society in the 21st Century? 

Listening to the BBC last night, a representative from Europe kept calling Europe a "community of values."  It is also the second largest trading bloc for the rest of the world. 

Europe's leadership is not just moral (climate change, for example), but economic (if your airplanes are not compliant with our pollution standards, you don't land here).  

 

More Evidence High Speed Trains are Coming

New standards for passenger trains unveiled this week make it clear that high speed trains traveling up to 220 mph are coming to the U.S.

"The proposed rulemaking establishes a new category of passenger equipment, Tier III, for trains traveling up to 220 mph," reports the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

Kids fishing at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore last week, site of our hugely successful LERN Annual Conference. YES I rode the light rail to and from the hotel and airport.

 

 

Cities More Like Countries

Against all odds, the sun rose again today.  

And against all odds, our NineShift prediction on the election did not parallel 1916, when there was also a very close election, but with different outcomes. 

Thanks to David for asking for a revised prediction.

At this point we are moving back from evitable to inevitable, where NineShift started.

In talking with our son in Portland, Oregon, today, I was reminded by one of the last things Peter Day of the BBC wrote before retiring a few months ago. He said cities right now have more in common with other cities than they do with the rest of their respective countries.  So Portland, Oregon and the other 21st Century cities in the U.S. may well continue on, affected (e.g. healthcare) but maybe not deterred (knowledge workers, climate change efforts, trains and light rail) by the policies of the new administration.  

 

 

Election Eve Prediction

Just a reminder four years ago we predicted Democrats would win the White House in 2016.  Sticking with it.

And that Republicans will win the White House in 2020.  Sticking with that too.

Funniest TV Image of the Year

So funny. Couldn't believe it. Michael Moore, appearing on the American TV channel MSNBC, wearing a BBC News cap. 
Amazing they let him do it, or more likely had to allow him to do it to get him to do the interview.