48.6% of Spaniards Aged 18-24 Would Take Any Job, Anywhere, for Low Wages; Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs; Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

48.6% of Spaniards Aged 18-24 Would Take Any Job, Anywhere, for Low Wages; Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs; Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

In contrast to McDonalds’ workers in the US demanding $ 15 an hour wages, Almost half of young Spaniards accept any job, anywhere, despite low salary

48.6% of Spaniards aged 18 to 24 said they would accept any job, anywhere and even with a low income. 84.9% felt very or fairly likely to have to work on what is available, 61.7% considered it equally likely to have to go abroad, and 79.2% said they need to study more. Despite this, an overwhelming majority (80%) are convinced that, at least in the near future, will have to be financially dependent on their family.

Future is Black

Young Spaniards recognize enjoy the benefits of the welfare state far more than their parents, except as regards stability and security. They are also convinced that their children will live much worse than them.

Frustrated Expectations

Only 20% of young people believe things will improve in the next two or three years, compared to 36% who think it will get worse. Moreover, nearly three in four young people (71%) considered likely to find little or no work in the coming year.

Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs

Also via translation from El Economista, please consider Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs

The Swedish multinational Ikea will have work to select staff for a store in Valencia because 100,000 people submitted applications to fill 400 jobs.

Ika received a total of 100,000 job applications through a web page offering. In the first 48 hours of processing, Ikea received 20,000 applications.

The store, which will open in summer, will have a staff of 400 employees and also generate about 80 indirect jobs to cover services such as security, transport and cleaning, among others.

Walmart, McDonalds Comparison

To be fair, there is a major difference between McDonalds’ employees and Spaniards seeking jobs.

The McDonalds’ employees demanding higher wages have jobs. Those seeking jobs, don’t.

However, every McDonalds’ employee knew their wage when they were hired. Like Spaniards willing to accept low wages, they took the jobs anyway.

1 Million McDonalds Applicants

I cannot find anything recent on McDonalds, but on April 28, 2011, Bloomberg reported “McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000.“

Walmart 23,000 Applicants for 600 Jobs

On November 19, 2013 NBC Washington reported Walmart to Open First D.C. Stores Dec. 4

Walmart’s H Street and Georgia Avenue locations will open Dec. 4 at 8 a.m. Both the 103,000-square-foot Georgia Avenue store and the 74,000-square-foot H Street location will feature fresh produce, a deli, organic food items and a full-service pharmacy.

The stores will hire a combined 600 associates after combing through the more 23,000 applications its received from potential employees.

The arrival of Walmart has not been a smooth one. Both stores were on the verge of never opening after the retail giant threatened to pull its plans if Mayor Vincent Gray signed a living wage bill.

The Large Retailer Accountability Act, known colloquially as the “Walmart Bill,” would have required  the company — and other big-box retailers — to pay its employees a minimum of $ 12.50 an hour.

Gray vetoed the bill in September.

Minimum wage in the District currently stands at $ 8.25 an hour.

Reflections on Living Wages

Take a poll of those employees. I bet 100% of them are happier to have a job at $ 8.25 an hour vs. no job at some presumed “living wage” that they would not get because there were no jobs.

Of course, now that they have a job and should be happy, some union activist is going to try to convince them they shouldn’t be happy.

The Real Problem

Other than a couple of like-minded Austrian bloggers, no one has bothered to complain about the real problem: The Fed pumping money supply like mad, while holding interest rates low.

Five Results

1. Prices rising faster than wages


2. Grossly distorted income inequalities


3. Non-existent price signals


4. Interest rates that encourage hardware and software solutions to eliminate employees


5. Equity and bond market bubbles

I blasted the Fed regarding these issues early Friday.

For details and truly educational reading, please see Money as Communication: A Purposely “Non-Educational” Fallacious Video by the Atlanta Fed.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Read more about 48.6% of Spaniards Aged 18-24 Would Take Any Job, Anywhere, for Low Wages; Ikea Spain Gets 100,000 Applicants for 400 Jobs; Walmart, McDonalds Comparison and other interesting subjects concerning Economy at TheDailyNewsReport.com

100,000 Bats Fall from the Sky in Australia Due to Extreme Heat Wave

On the opposite side of the world from the "polar vortex," dangerously high temperatures are wreaking havoc.

In a scene that could come straight out of Alfred Hitchcock"s imagination, about 100,000 bats were found littering the ground after a major heatwave hit Australia this week, causing the bats to fall from the sky and die upon impact. In addition to the bats, the heatwave—which struck the north-east state of Queensland earlier this week and hit temperatures as high as 135 degrees fahrenheit—meant mass deaths for the country’s flying foxes across an estimated 25 colonies.

“Anything over 43 degrees [celsius/ 109F] and they just fall,” Louise Saunders, a conservation worker, told The Courier Mail in Australia. “We’re just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanizing what we can…it’s a horrible, cruel way to die.”

Considering the number of fallen bats, and the vast space across which they’re scattered, health experts are doing their best to warn all residents not to touch the presumably dead creatures. Not all the bats died on impact and some residents have been treated for viruses transmitted through bites or scratches from the disabled bats. Already, at least 16 people have been receiving antiviral treatment after coming into contact with a bat that has seemed, initially, to be dead.

“Some bats may appear dead by they are not, and when people have attempted to remove them, they have been bitten or scratched,” Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr. Jeannette Young told APN. “If you find a bat, it is very important not to touch it because of the risk of infection with Australian bat lyssavirus.”

A secondary problem that has risen in the days since the heat wave first hit is the rancid smell from the rotting, uncollected carcasses. Residents have begun to complain about the smell, and authorities have dispatched additional garbage collectors to pick up the thousands of bodies that remain.

The news comes in the same week as a historic chill—dubbed a “polar vortex”—hit the midwest and eastern United States, making for the lowest temperatures on average in nearly 40 years. While climate change deniers used the big chill as fodder for thier unscientific views, taken together, the polar vortex and Australian heatwave signal an undeniable shift in the planet"s temperature patterns, climate scientists agree. 

 

 

Related Stories

• The "Polar Vortex" Has Already Left More than 20 Dead


• Will Fear for Our Imperiled Planet Be Enough to Make Me Turn Vegetarian?


• Japan whalers driven from hunting ground: Sea Shepherd

AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed

100,000 Bats Fall from the Sky in Australia Due to Extreme Heat Wave

100,000 Bats Fall from the Sky in Australia Due to Extreme Heat Wave

On the opposite side of the world from the "polar vortex," dangerously high temperatures are wreaking havoc.

In a scene that could come straight out of Alfred Hitchcock"s imagination, about 100,000 bats were found littering the ground after a major heatwave hit Australia this week, causing the bats to fall from the sky and die upon impact. In addition to the bats, the heatwave—which struck the north-east state of Queensland earlier this week and hit temperatures as high as 135 degrees fahrenheit—meant mass deaths for the country’s flying foxes across an estimated 25 colonies.

“Anything over 43 degrees [celsius/ 109F] and they just fall,” Louise Saunders, a conservation worker, told The Courier Mail in Australia. “We’re just picking up those that are just not coping and are humanely euthanizing what we can…it’s a horrible, cruel way to die.”

Considering the number of fallen bats, and the vast space across which they’re scattered, health experts are doing their best to warn all residents not to touch the presumably dead creatures. Not all the bats died on impact and some residents have been treated for viruses transmitted through bites or scratches from the disabled bats. Already, at least 16 people have been receiving antiviral treatment after coming into contact with a bat that has seemed, initially, to be dead.

“Some bats may appear dead by they are not, and when people have attempted to remove them, they have been bitten or scratched,” Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr. Jeannette Young told APN. “If you find a bat, it is very important not to touch it because of the risk of infection with Australian bat lyssavirus.”

A secondary problem that has risen in the days since the heat wave first hit is the rancid smell from the rotting, uncollected carcasses. Residents have begun to complain about the smell, and authorities have dispatched additional garbage collectors to pick up the thousands of bodies that remain.

The news comes in the same week as a historic chill—dubbed a “polar vortex”—hit the midwest and eastern United States, making for the lowest temperatures on average in nearly 40 years. While climate change deniers used the big chill as fodder for thier unscientific views, taken together, the polar vortex and Australian heatwave signal an undeniable shift in the planet"s temperature patterns, climate scientists agree. 

 

Related Stories

• The "Polar Vortex" Has Already Left More than 20 Dead


• Will Fear for Our Imperiled Planet Be Enough to Make Me Turn Vegetarian?


• Japan whalers driven from hunting ground: Sea Shepherd

AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed

100,000 Bats Fall from the Sky in Australia Due to Extreme Heat Wave

What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years?

What’s This?

By Bonnie Wertheim2013-06-11 17:52:40 UTC

Think you’re done evolving? You might want to think again.

While homo sapiens has come a long way since the Stone Age, and modern medicine is ever-rapidly developing, new biological and psychological ailments enter our vocabularies all the time — many of them incurable. Not to mention, robots have taken over many formerly human occupations because of our inefficiency. Who’s to say there’s no room for improvement?

SEE ALSO: 15 Funky Hybrid Animals That Deserve a Chance at Life

Pittsburgh-based visual artist Nickolay Lamm, who blogs at UK discount site MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, worked with a computational geneticist to illustrate three ways that humans’ physical appearances might change to better suit their environments over the next 100,000 years. However, many of these assumptions don’t rely on evolution, but rather zygotic genome engineering technology. Scientists in the future might be able to manipulate human features prior to birth.

Lamm’s project suggests that the humans of the future will have significantly improved information processing and storing abilities, thanks to their brains’ increased surface areas and that they will develop civilizations on planets other than Earth.

Lamm partnered with Dr. Alan Kwan, who received his PhD in Computational Genomics from Washington University. Kwan envisioned the adaptations that Lamm delineates in the images below. Captions are in Lamm’s own words, as told to Mashable via email.

Today: Photos of a normal looking man and woman.

In 20,000 Years: Larger head with a forehead that is subtly too large. Communications lens is represented by the yellow ring around their eyes. Lens will be the Google Glass of the future.

In 60,000 Years: Even larger head. Larger eyes, pigmented skin. Pronounced superciliary arch which makes for darker area below eyebrows. Miniature bone-conduction devices implanted above the ear now work with the communications lenses.

In 100,000 Years: Face is proportioned to the golden ratio. Unnervingly large eyes. Green “eye shine” from the tapetum lucidum, like cats. More pronounced superciliary arch. Sideways blink of the reintroduced plica semilunaris seen in the light gray areas of the eyes. Miniature bone-conduction devices implanted above the ear work with the communications lenses like in the previous image.

Lamm agrees that it is impossible to say with full certainty what life on Earth will look like in 100 years — let alone 100,000 years. However, his illustrations have drawn criticism since they were first published last week. Forbes‘ Matthew Herper wrote:

Lamm isn’t talking about evolution, he’s talking about genetic engineering. He’s doing so somewhat naively, predicting that the only changes that will happen will be an enlarged braincase and enlarged eyes so we can use the computerized contact lenses that will apparently replace Google Glass. He’s not talking about real evolutionary forces, or even imagining the interaction between those evolutionary forces and genetic engineering all that well.

When Mashable asked Lamm about Herper’s critique, he gave this response:

There is a subtle but important distinction between a prediction and a hypothesis. Obviously, nobody can predict what will happen 100,000 years from now, but this is one possibility based on reasoned thought.

Think of this project as asking your college professor to draw what humans may look like 100,000 years from now. He didn’t perform an exhaustive scientific research study to find out what will happen (mainly because it would be useless to). He used his knowledge to make an educated guess.

Matt Herper from Forbes tried to discredit this project on the basis that it wasn’t “real science”. However, this project was just an educated guess at what may happen 100,000 year in the future. He then sought outraged Tweets to use as talking points for his article. My personal opinion if that If you don’t like our vision, make your own. Moreover, I welcome the criticism because it gets people talking about more important things like whether or not we’ll even be here in 100,000 years.

Images courtesy of Nickolay Lamm

Topics: art, Conversations, evolution, Faces, future, Lifestyle, Pics, Science, speculation, World

Mashable

What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years?