I have a different take on ‘the economy’ and this thing we call a crisis. Before the ‘crisis’ the US economy was running at about $1.9 trillion. This is sort of a basic measure of the ‘flow’ of money. Now in the midst of what the press has people convinced is a crisis, it is running at about $1.8997 trillion.

That represents less than a 15/100ths of a percent decrease and approximately $300M. A fair amount of money for an individual to be sure but not even a rounding error for a fortune 50 company let alone an entire economy.

So why the lay-offs and all this ‘the sky is falling’ talk? The same amount of money is flowing, so what is the problem?

The problem is that the money is flowing different places then it was flowing. Think of it like a river that changed course. The big ole businesses that are parked on the old river bank are stuck there, waiting helplessly for the river to flow again (think the US auto makers), yet the river is flowing a different place and will never return.

The good news is that those of you who find where the business is flowing can place yourselves in front of it and generate astonishing levels of success. This by the way is the way every one of the most successful people in industry accomplished what they have accomplished.

Don’t make the mistake of waiting for the economy to ‘recover’. Don’t think for a single second that the Government can do anything to change things back. And don’t blame those ‘greedy son of guns’ for doing anything wrong. The irony of ironies is that they created this opportunity for you.

The ‘economy’ will not return to the way it was. But I don’t want it to anyway. So why lament?

Instead it has charted a new course. The ONLY path to ‘recovery’ is entrepreneurial growth and success. Always has been, always will be.

If you want to win, you must meet the opportunity where it is.

From this perspective, I say, “Crisis, what crisis? This is the biggest opportunity I have ever seen in my lifetime and I’ve seen a bunch of them”.

Steve Little
Founder and CEO, ThePerfectBizFinder

The following article was written by Doug Page of the Dayton Daily News. The original article can be found here.

Teens battle older workers for summer jobs

By Doug Page
Staff Writer

Updated 10:36 AM Thursday, May 14, 2009

Last year, the Montgomery County’s Summer YouthWorks program daily bused 150 to 200 teen-agers to Kings Island for jobs.

This year that number is down to 41.

That’s a precise snapshot of the summer job picture for teen-agers.

“The jobs aren’t there. The companies that traditionally have hired kids for seasonal employment are hiring older workers now,” said Rocky Rockhold, supervisor of special projects and youth activities for the county Department of Jobs and Family Services.

At a two-day job fair in February, the amusement park had 4,118 people apply for seasonal jobs. In all of 2008, 2,817 applied for work.

Miami Valley teens are not alone.

Teen summer employment has dropped like a stone. A study by the Center for Labor Market Study at Northeastern University found the summer employment rate of 16- to 19-year-olds fell from 48.4 percent in 1989 to 32.7 percent last summer.

Things look worse for this summer. Another center study found that from October 2007 through November 2008, employment of those 30 and younger dropped by more than 1.2 million jobs. During the same period, more than 1 million jobs were added, filled by workers 55 and older.

“An older person comes in, they get picked first,” said 19-year-old Blair Kennerly, who was at the county Job Center looking for work.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2290 or dpage@DaytonDailyNews.com.

As a reply to the question, "What would you like to say to President Obama?"

I thought it might be appropriate to post it here as well:

This is not a joke. I'm quite serious about it:

If I started a Linked In group called The Angriest Generation, for Baby Boomers, including - No, LED by! - Baby Boomer small business owners, who are literally infuriated with the behavior of both political parties towards nearly one-third of the US population, do you think I'd get some takers?

For any kiddies here who don't actually know who we are, Baby Boomers turn 46 to 63 in 2009.

We are not interested in retirement.

We are not interested in being marginalized decades before any other generation.

We are not interested in the sop of "volunteerism" or low-paying service jobs, so the way can be cleared to place all the very young supporters of this new Administration into the mainstream economic framwork they are pushing us to abandon.

We were overwhelmingly the ones who were devastated by the - very calculated - market crash. The same way we were the ones previously hurt most by widespread "outsourcing" and by the crash in home prices.

That's the main reason this recovery is so difficult, too. You can't wipe out wealth accumulated over decades by one-third of the US population and then expect those who were wiped out suddenly to start spending.

Moreover, both domestically and internationally, the number one problem the past 20 years or so - with the "Limousine Liberals" on the Far Left being MORE, not less, guilty about it than a handful of very wealthy insiders on the Far Right - is the extreme concentration of both the nation's and the planet's wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. And the events of the past year have just exacerbated it.

Who would have thought, in a country whose entire success stems from its being a bourgeois nation, with, in theory, no very poor people and no very rich people, we would ever have evolved to our current status, where the term "middle-class" has become a dirty word and the media bombards us with fantasies about (Zillionaire) Housewives of Such-and-Such County, Millionaire Matchmakers, Trillion-Dollar Weddings, or the slew of "reality" shows, where the clear propaganda message is that it is perfectly OK to start out with 25 "contestants," in whatever sort of "competition," with the end result of ONE in 25 winning it all, while the other 24 get nothing?

Do some of you naively believe this 20-year media propaganda push towards EXTOLLING maldistribution of wealth has somehow been accidental or coincidental?

As someone who has been part of the media for 30 years, I can tell you it has NOT. It's been 100 percent calculated.

And you wonder why America is no longer the guiding light of the developing world?

By the way, lest you think I'm approaching this from an Outsider viewpoint, I am a Centrist Republican.

Check this out.Aging in the US

Solution, back to college, a place for inter generational university lifestyles, some low cost living while retooling, a little personal "creative destruction", a little increased professional and geographic mobility and great place for social/economic innovation.

By the way, many think that a purpose behind establishing social security was to get older people out of the job market. Unfortunately, or fortunately, which depends on your outlook, people used to retire at 65 and die at 67 years old, and now projections are that people will live to 100 by 2030. Ouch, we better find something good to do!