The Blog of Akeel Haider

The truth about unemployment - part1

The problem with the economy today is not employment as a general and separated issue from other factors. One of the main factors in unemployment is education and the skills needed by employers today.

Looking at the recent stats from the bureau of labor statistics we find that the unemployment rate everyone talks about, the 8-9% is actually an average useless number. The prevailing unemployment factor is the level of education as shown the chart below.

Dissecting the data further show a large disparity between the different ethnic groups with African Americans having a higher unemployment rate in every educational level compared to their white peers.

It is a civil rights issue. It is a long term issue. It’s unfair to the public when the media and politicians address this problem as a one big generic problem that requires a silver bullet or a magic president.

The solution is enabling access to education, better education at all levels, and lifting the poor from poverty. These are huge problems that require commitment, social programs, access to education, and time. That’s why experiments / programs like the Harlem Children’s Zone are key ways to prove in data that it can be done.

Three things the SOPA proposed bill is showing us

1. Our current representatives fundamentally don’t understand or care about technology and the Internet, hence the need for a new generation of tech savvy legislators.

2. Rather than providing innovative solutions and a better experiences for consuming content, the corporations lobbying for this legislation are moving us backwards. I guess they have not learned from lesson of iTunes. How
about allowing all your content to be bought and consumed on any device in an easy and simple way as a start?

3. The Obama administration is showing some leadership here, but the possibility of setting our civilization on a backward trend actually exists. Regular citizens still have to fight for their rights as the government can’t stand for the regular man or woman.

My wish for the new year

My wish for 2012 is that we (the American people) start promoting and electing representatives to congress who have different professional and educational backgrounds other than the current Lawyers and MBAs majority composition.

We need specifically more engineers, scientists, and tech related backgrounds.

The current and future challenges of our global and digital world require representatives who understand the the digital and social media world we live in. They need to know it at heart from a user standpoint, not just from an observer’s seat. That’s the only way they can help shape and expand innovation, competition, fairness, and stop being behind in every step. They don’t even know what premium SMS is for example.

Looking at SOPA or other attempts in congress to play or mess with the Interment DNS services, just escalates the need for such new, tech savvy, younger, more balanced legislative body. Help!

Save the Cheerleader, Save the Economy

If you are a sci-fi geek and you remember the first season of the show Heroes, you know that the entire story evolved around saving the cheerleader to save the future of the world — “save the cheerleader, save the world.”

I believe saving the housing market today can save the economy tomorrow. The U.S. housing market, specifically the sub-prime mortgage market and the mess that was created around it, was the starting point that brought the U.S. economy down and the world economy with it.

Unlike Hiro Nakamura and his time-travel super powers, the U.S. government cannot go back in time to undo the damage that they frankly had a hand in creating. They can however do something about it now that can rebound the economy overall. Something they should have done three years ago when president Obama took office but they didn’t, hence my frustration with the half measures the administration took in attacking this major issue including  The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 which failed miserably.

I’m not an economist, so I don’t understand why the government cannot save the housing market by extending FHA loans or regular fixed loans to all the families at risk of losing their homes, including those who are temporally out of a job but have a good credit and employment track. The government lends money to the banks at zero percent, but cannot provide mortgage relief at a fixed low rate?

This means the government will take few billion dollars loss on the short term, but potentially rebound the economy overall. The banks were bailed out with tax payer money, yet many tax payers credit got destroyed in the process which seems to be unfair. Those are the same tax payers who bought those homes in part because of President Bush’s call to ‘buy into the American dream.’

I claim that most people can afford their homes but cannot maintain the bubble loan they were given especially if they are changing jobs in this hard economy. The time to act is now – a final chance for this administration to prove that it came for real change, not half measures.

Overall, with 46 million Americans on food stamps, congress need to provide radical solutions and efforts on many issues or otherwise step aside and let a new generation of new, young, fresh smart minds (which this country is full of) to rise and tackle these problems.

The housing market is the cheerleader, the government and congress can be Hiro Nakimora, but so far they have proven that they absolutely don’t care.