THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

ecame competitive with the Third World by forcing Third World
standards of living on its workers.
Even Fortune Magazine has been wondering why 'nearly half of all
the new full-time jobs created in the 1980's paid less than $13,000 a
year, which is below the poverty level for a family of four'. Also,
education levels don't necessarily help any more. As reported by the
Wall street Journal, one college graduate out of three is now obliged
to take a job, which doesn't require a college degree.
In Western Europe, the unemployment rate has been stubbornly
stuck at a very uncomfortable 10% level for almost a decade. At the
end of 1998, in Germany the official number was 10.8%, in Italy
12.3%, in France 11.5%, in Belgium 12.2.1%, and in Spain a mindboggling
18.2%. The main difference between America and Europe is
that in America, people end up accepting employment below their
competence and training. Is a college graduate-flipping hamburgers
to be interpreted as a sign of a healthy economy and the high-tech
society of the future? One graduate of the class of 1996 summarised
his friends' experience of the 'real working world' as follows: 'Half of
us are ridiculously overworked, and the other half are seriously
under-employed. It seems like a choice between work alcoholism or
depression, and nothing in between. And this is supposed to be a
good year for the economy!'
Even in Japan, where employment by the same company is
practically considered a birthright, unemployment keeps inching up.
What is going on?
The age of downsizing
Most of us have been trained to believe that we learn a profession,
are hired by a company to perform a job in that profession, and - if