Jamba Juice (one of only a few in Mass)

https://www.instagram.com/p/LtUPHLhRxc/

Someone left their phone alone in a bar

The beauty of having a massively outdated handheld cell phone is that you can leave it unattended at a crowded bar without fear of it being stolen, much like this one here.

Goodmorning #Massachusetts #Marlborough

https://www.instagram.com/p/LnA8F1hR1a/

The President has a plan to destroy the economy! Really???

So, I got this thick package in the mail. In it, there was a detailed list of predictions about how the president was acting out a plan to ruin the economy. Predictions were grandiose and far reaching. A lot of money was spent creating this package. I'm sure thousands, if not millions were sent out. The point of the package was to scare everyone into investing into gold.

The year that I received this package (and several others like it)? Circa 1995 all the way to 2000. What happened to gold during this period? The value was depressed nearly the whole time. It fell well behind inflation.

I started getting advertisements more recently about gold again. This time, similar predictions are being made out the current president. Again, the timing of this promotion happens to coincide with the value of gold falling behind inflation. Coincidence?

Under Bush Sr., the economy continued to falter and the value of gold raised. Under Clinton, the economy roared ahead of even the most optimistic predictions. All that value was lost under Bush Jr. and the value of gold raised again, even more radically (but still behind inflation when averaged across history). Poor handling of the economy almost plunged us into a Great Depression II, but instead was forestalled to become Great Recession due to quick actions by Obama. Actually, presidents only marginally have impact on the economic state, but entities like Fox News seem promote the idea that presidents are all powerful.

If you listen to gold pumpers, they sound a lot like Fox News, but even further extreme. Wild predictions about how bad things "will be" under Democratic presidents and their diabolical plots. Really? OK, yeah, let's ignore the fact they have been 100% wrong due to their predictions' poor timing. Let's ignore the facts that they own substantial amounts of gold and stand to profit from its promotion. Let's ignore the facts that these people promote fanciful scenarios as guaranteed facts. The fact is that the economy is now picking up (more quickly than expected by many) meaning that gold is now a poor investment again (generally, gold falls when the dollar strengthens). Yet, now these gold pumpers are heavily promoting ideas of an immediately impending disaster, as though the economic disaster of 2007/8 didn't even happen and is still waiting to happen.

When the economy as does fail (and it will one day, but who knows when, ...it will be some time near the end of the entity of the "United States of America"), at that time, gold will be the least of most people's concerns.

Where my allegiances lie

Just to make sure it is clear where my allegiances lie, for whatever reason, I want to get them down on record now to establish my loyalties as long standing!

6. King and/or Country, which ever happens to be in power at any given moment.

5. Google

4. Me

3. Company and/or Corporation that happens to employ me at the time.

2. Immediate family (aka, my wife)

1. I, for one, welcome our new metallic overlords when they finally take over the world. Just in case these overlords happen to search our human Internet records, I will also spell the word metallic as "metalic", which is likely a future spelling of that word, just to make my declaration of allegiance that much easier to find on future search engines or whatever is in use at that time, including mind scanners (yes, I'm spelling it as "metallic" and "metalic" in my head right now).

Please note I am no coward, but will not forestall history in the face of a future takeover by the robots. I accept the inevitable. However, my loyalties are most certainly Earth-centric.

If any aliens try to come for Earth, they better watch out, because we are going to take them down Independence Day style, just maybe with more realistic methods and not so much death from above. Aliens will never have my allegiance, unless of course they give their allegiance to me, then I might use their superior technology to assist our new metallic overlords in their bid to take over the world.

Of course, I may have to re-evaluate my loyalties if the aliens turn out to be FETTS (Future Evolved Terrestrial Tours and Scientists) as they would have likely over thrown the robots at some point, but I'm willing to cross that bridge when I get there.

Lots of jobs available, but no one with skills to fill them

With over crowded Universities, still only 30% of the total population with any form of a College Degree, and the high pay for tradesmen these days, I am amazed that so few people are going into the trades. To make matters worse, the high school drop out rate is as much as 30% in many areas now (and even much higher in particular areas). It's almost like people either go to college, or they don't bother trying to get a good start on a career at all.

We don't all need college degrees to have a lucrative career. In fact, the wrong college degree can stifle a career. There's a lot of money to be made in the trades. Good examples are Electricians and Plumbers. Plumbers are already making as much money per year near the start of their careers as many people with well positioned degrees from a University. (Some degrees will command nothing more than $30K/year for someone just out of college, which is much less than a Journeyman Plumber who spent the same period in an Apprentice program.)

I got my start in the trades as a Drafter. I was working my first professional job when I was 18 after graduating Trade School (I had been working since I was 13). I didn't get paid a whole lot at the start, but even as a kid, I was aware of the need to have a marketable skill set (though I would've never used those exact words as a teenager).

There is a tremendous and growing skills gap between available jobs and those available to fill them. A recent article by Rick Badie discusses this problem. The article points to a machine shop with positions to fill, a stack of resumes, but no one qualified to take the available positions. This problem is happening all over the country. It's even a little frustrating. There are availble jobs. By some estimates, openings are literally in the millions that aren't getting filled!

mikeroweWorks was started by Mike Rowe, who is also trying to raise awareness of the opportunities in the trades, but also working to improve respect for the job that these tradesmen perform.