Kansas City to Close Nearly Half Its Schools – NYTimes.com
I haven’t been posting any Scary Charts recently because there are too many of them.
Then I came across this article in the NYT.
Scary Thought of the Day
Survival strategies
Remote Work – Who Are Those Guys?
What are the Top 10 nations for online workers? / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com
And the fastest-growing major economy for freelance work?
The United States. “We’re seeing a huge number of Americans come online,” says Brian Goler, vice president of marketing for oDesk. “More and more people are working this way.”
Perhaps they have to because of the economic downturn. Perhaps they want to.
Think Annuities
Pensions Still Fall Short As A Retirement Parachute : NPR
I am disappointed this article did not mention annuities. The link is to the last article of a three part series.
Permanent Elimination of Jobs
How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America – The Atlantic (March 2010)
The construction and finance industries, bloated by a decade-long housing bubble, are unlikely to regain their former share of the economy, and as a result many out-of-work finance professionals and construction workers won’t be able to simply pick up where they left off when growth returns—they’ll need to retrain and find new careers. (For different reasons, the same might be said of many media professionals and auto workers.) And even within industries that are likely to bounce back smartly, temporary layoffs have generally given way to the permanent elimination of jobs, the result of workplace restructuring. Manufacturing jobs have of course been moving overseas for decades, and still are; but recently, the outsourcing of much white-collar work has become possible. Companies that have cut domestic payrolls to the bone in this recession may choose to rebuild them in Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Bangalore, accelerating off-shoring decisions that otherwise might have occurred over many years.
The Contingent Workforce – a $425 Billion Market
You’re Hired. At Least for Now. – Kiplinger.com
The job is not a timeless fact of human existence. It is a social artifact.
William Bridges wrote these words over 15 years ago. We need to fully understand this concept and decide what kind of future we want for ourselves. Do you want to be in or out? Nearly four years ago I started my business on a part-time basis. One year ago, I became 100% self-employed. If you are an underwriter, the time to be an independent for hire has never been better.
If you’re in underwriting management your options for creating the right hybrid model to fit your needs has never been better. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
I have a mortgage, two kids in college, and a small fleet of cars to support. Hire me please.
Listen and Learn – Online Job Search
New Hiring Practices – 2009
| WORKFORCE METRICS |  |
|
| NEW HIRING PRACTICES |
| Percentage of employers reporting new hiring practices, 2009 |
|
| Offering delayed start dates (e.g., six to 12 months later) |
7% |
| Offering internships to new graduates | 9 |
| Lowering starting salaries | 24 |
| Targeting younger, less-expensive employees |
14 |
| Targeting experienced, reduced-risk employees |
9 |
| Hiring freeze | 44 |
|
| Source: Monster
I got this chart in an email from Workforce Recruiting. |
Personal Financial Security – Skimmers
Would You Have Spotted the Fraud? — Krebs on Security
I realize this is a website/blog on underwriting and most of the time I do stay on point. But this little article about skimmers is just too good not to pass along.
Read a Book a Week – 2009 Results
1.0 per week in 2009.
Experience matters. Now I know why from the following NYT article.
Better pattern recognition, significance recognition, and faster solutions.
I hope you kept some of your older underwriters on the payroll.
Adult Learning – Neuroscience – How to Train the Aging Brain – NYTimes.com
Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.
What Matters? A Thought For The Decade
A Life That Matters
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire. The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end. It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave. What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice. Choose to live a life that matters. It really matters!
Michael Josephson
lifeunderwriter.net 
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