'Useless' Degre Awesome Job
Summer is here, and along with high temperatures, shorts and flip-flops, another seasonal phenomenon is taking place — college students are graduating, and they’re taking their newly minted degrees into the real world in the hopes of landing a job. But what are their chances of finding work in their fields, or even finding jobs that don’t require them to ask if you want fries with that?Job seekers between ages 16 to 24 who are not enrolled in school and have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher face an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, according to May 2012 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While this is below the national average, it still indicates that recent graduates face an uphill climb when finding their place in the job market, and it suggests that they should play it safe when choosing a major.
According to a study conducted at Georgetown University, recent arts-degree graduates in faced an average jobless rate of 11.1 percent and an average starting salary of $30,000. With numbers like these, an arts degree probably seems "useless" to many people. But the fact remains that many people have gone on to great success after earning degrees in fields that many people dismiss as “useless.”
This doesn’t just apply to those who graduated with master’s degrees in ancient Babylonian astrology and abandoned them to become hedge fund managers. Many people with degrees in music, literature, sculpture and more have taken what they learned in those disciplines and applied it to careers that are rewarding, engaging and, yes, high-paying.
Read ahead to learn about professionals who earned degrees thought by some to be “useless” and found themselves in amazing careers.
- Associated Press -
The lights of the U.S. Capitol remain lit into the night as the House continues to work on the "fiscal cliff" legislation proposed by the Senate, in
That's right. No debt ceiling problem. No bickering in Congress. No market jitters. The only thing needed is for the Treasury Department to mint a platinum coin with a face value of $1 trillion.
Of course, this is not going to happen. Creating money out of thin air is hardly a solution. It could lead to even more concerns from those worried about inflation. Critics of the Federal Reserve's monetary easing programs would likely be apoplectic if the Treasury Department trumped Ben Bernanke's "helicopter drop" by minting a trillion more new dollars.
The influential New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has already dubbed the talk a "gimmick." But here is why some people think this bizarre strategy could work.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner made it official: Federal borrowing has reached the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling.
Treasury, which runs the government's debt-issuance operation, is busy creating about $200 billion of headroom by employing what it calls "extraordinary measures." That should cover about two months' worth of borrowing.
When the two months expire, Treasury will no longer be able to pay the country's bills -- that is, it won't be able to borrow more money to pay for spending already authorized by Congress.
If Congress does not act to raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will default on its debts. Not good. But this is where the platinum coin comes in. Normally, the Federal Reserve is charged with issuing currency. But U.S. law, specifically 31 USC § 5112, also grants Treasury permission to "mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins."
This section of law was meant to allow for the printing of commemorative coins and the like. But the Treasury Secretary has the authority to mint these coins in any denomination he or she sees fit.
With a $1 trillion coin in hand, Treasury could deposit the money into Fed accounts, and pay its debts in that manner, instead of relying on bond issuance.
And none of this requires Congressional consent. Talk about an elegant solution.
The White House unsurprisingly hasn't commented on the idea. But Rep. Jerrold Nadler is on board. "I'm being absolutely serious," he told Capital NY. "It sounds silly but it's absolutely legal."
