Summations Only

I don't see where I did it even once, CS. I'm not "spinning" anything. You're going to have to explain in more detail, I guess, because the exchange you quoted is me directly addressing the issue you raised against your my position, not avoiding it.Look, CS, I get to do that - if you present a counterexample against my position, I get to explain how it's not really a counterexample at all. You presented as counterexample the valuable experience one would get if they "follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid." I'm entitled to point out that, no, that experience isn't invaluable, and that the more valuable experience is what you'd get if you took pictures like a photographer, something you don't need to make pointless coffee runs for. I'm not under any obligation to just accept that something is true just because you say it, CS. The issue is that you're just plain wrong about this, "getting coffee and stuff" for a photographer isn't a good way to become a photographer, and you certainly couldn't convince someone to hire you as one based on your "experience" of watching photographers take photographs. It's not experience.I'm entitled to address the counterexamples you raise, CS. It's not spin. It's defending my argument by directly addressing your objections - exactly what you claim I'm not doing. I'm not trying to "make them wrong", CS. They're already wrong. Your example was wrong just the way you wrote it. I'm sorry you didn't notice, but the fact that you think it's right doesn't obligate me to agree. I don't see where message 79 has anything to respond to - it's just a flat assertion with no suppporting argument - and message 92 makes the same point Modulous is, and I've already replied to it from him.

That's pretty much what happens in the entertainment industry. Interning for Conan, for free, sometimes long hours, will eventually get you a job as a writer on another late night show or tv show. It's all about networking, that's the reason interns do it. Same goes for the Daily Show and Colbert. Interns on these shows get big rewards from it in the future. Plus, it helps weed out those who are serious about the job and those who are not.- oni

Is there another crashfrog who's posts we've failed to read who actually does address objections head-on?- Oni

I don't get it. What's more head-on than showing how a counterexample is false?

But they're not trying to get rid of unemployment. This policy is aimed at certain demographics within the unemployed such as the young and the unemployed who find it difficult to get work because they lack recent relevant or any work experience.They are trying to break the catch-22 of not being able to get work because they haven't had any recent work.This probably won't cut unemployment, but it might mean that some individuals stay unemployed for less time. I have no idea if the specific policy as it is instituted actually has that effect, and there are other arguments still that point to other effects entirely (such as while the person is working they cannot get training or seek paid employment as easily...they have less time).But you seem to be of the opinion that it is never a solution in any individual's situation. I'm not proposing a rotating system. That would be absurd. How silly you must think I am. The numbers were just arbitrary. Let me rephrase it to workaround your over literal mind:I'd rather the bottom of the bottom is employable enough to get at least some work every now and again so as to remain at least somewhat employable, rather than just let them build up ever larger difficult to explain gaps in their CV. A business cutting its workforce is part of the unemployment cycle. It's a part that makes people who were previously employed, unemployed. Yes they do. Just go job hunting. Lots of new jobs being advertised. Did I say that an equal number of jobs are somehow magically created as are uncreated? No I didn't. I simply said some jobs are lost, some jobs are created.Some people find them selves in a cycle of getting a job, losing a job. Some people fall out of this cycle and stay without a job. These people are then competing against those within the cycle for the same kinds of jobs. The people within the cycle have recent work experience, recent references and so on. They will shine above someone who hasn't worked for 18 months. And so that person's unemployment continues, and they're powerless. They simply cannot compete with those cycling in and out of work. Why not do both, knowing that you can never complete the project 'reduce unemployment' and that you will often fail, that seems a most prudent course to me. Why on earth did you bring this up?These people earn x a week for job seeker's allowance.
They get put in an unpaid job role.
Now they earn x a week for their allowance and they are working full time.The spending power of the person has not changed. So how is this related to the topic? How is it a plus or a negative in this debate?Other policies determine what x is, sure, but I fail to see why a different policy that you might think is ill conceived is relevant to why you think the workfare policy is ill conceived.

How to Become a Professional Photographer (with Pictures)

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Start out by speaking to other professionals in the field. They are normally willing to give advice to individuals interested in their field. Besides if you speak to the right people they will tell you the pitfalls and upsides right from the start. Ask if you can follow them around for a day of work.

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emphasis mine, 5 seconds on google. It seems we're not alone at least in thinking that might be a good idea. And if you're drilling someone for information, it would only be polite to make the occasional coffee run. After all, they're busy trying to make money and helping you out.

None.There are other incentives, though.

I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but I was stunned to find out that a friend of mine had to PAY for student teaching. Not get paid. Pay. She actually had to pay to be a student teacher. That just seems wrong, at least to me.As to the OP, I think a fair middle ground would be a government subsidy to pay for worker training. It would seem to be a win-win. Companies don't have to pay for untrained workers, and the government can get people trained so that they get off the dole.

Modulous brings up a lingering issue I have been holding in the back of my mind when he states: But what if you are NOT? What if you are AVERAGE? Why can't people who are willing to work, but have no exceptional talent - why should they ALL be swept aside for the Dollar/Pound/Euro/Yen/etc. capitalistic crucible of extracting to most efficient business result? Civilized people should be BETTER than that.I go to the grocery store and there is a stand of old bread and other stuff - it says "Not the best, but still good." I get some of it, sometimes. It's cheap, but it's still good food.There are some 7 billion people on this rock and, say, only some 1000 of them are Top Notch. Clearly we need to change the perception that only the best is good enough. To recant a recent meme in the current news, we're not special."Mediocre" means the "Middle". We can get by with the Mediocre! We need to welcome in the Mediocre. If we don't, civilization will never be close to functional. Even mediocre people are great compared to your tripanosome. But even more, "substandard" can be okay to hire. If you are LESS than AVERAGE, but still willing to work - hey, you should still be able to get work. Even Arlo Guthrie's Last Guy * has a right to live out a decent life with a decent fitting job, if he should want that. And if the private sector can't do it, then that's where the government should step in and do it - there's lots of infrastructure jobs the government needs to get done every year - they are never done painting a bridge, for example. Is this better than welfare, no?Most of the chronically Unemployed are victims of a mindset in management that they can only win the capitalist game if they hold out for the best young exuberant bucks they can get. In fact there have been internal memos exposed that specifically direct the HR department of the company to not hire any unemployed people, only hire people jumping from another company. This is BASSACKWARDS!!! Traitors shouldn't be rewarded. Clearly the business schools, led most nefariously by the Harvard Business School, are much at fault here and should be destroyed and a completely different course of education replace them all. The mindset they have been teaching to the world's young men & women is morally bankrupt rubbish at best.Modulous nails it on the head when he says: I am currently deep in the throes of my lifetime's 3rd "chronically unemployed state" (greater than 4 years between jobs), but I still have much to give to the workforce. I would happily take a mediocre job. But now I am too old and my resume (CV) is too shot full of holes.It would be nice to think that the USA or the UK or any reasonably advanced industrialized country could provide decent liveable work for anybody who needs it. But I guess the profiteers won't see it that way - they only see it as (somehow) less profit for them, less personal prestige points pocketed that would lead to their own career advancement.Shouldn't anybody have a right to work and get a liveable wage, regardless of how mediocre they are? No matter how many holes their resume has? Maybe I'd be better off committing a felony, serving time and getting out into a fast-track work program from a half-way house. Or emigrate to Mexico, change citizenship and sneak back in undocumented. Or run for congress.I guess I'll never be in any company's HR Department because I would screen the qualified resumes based on who needs the job the most. Similarly I could never be a Manager, because I could never have the guts to fire anybody.* from the rap before The Pause Of Mr. Clause, on the 2nd album

Interns where I work are more than happy to do this, if only to get to hang with some of the bigger stars and pick their brain. It seems to be more common of a tread in the arts though. I don't see an electrical apprentice for going pay just to hang out with other electricians and learn the trade.But a young comic would gladly hand out flyers and get emails and pretty much assist a veteran comic all day just to hang and watch their creative process. Also because you meet interesting people that will eventually build a network for you.A lot of comics these days are joining podcasts as the "side-kick" or "helper" for air time and to ride the bigger comics publicity. It works too. I watched a young comic's Twitter followers jump from 500ish to well over 2000 in a few months after she joined a podcast as the helper/intern/side-kick.- Oni

I didn't say they were trying to get rid of unemployment. But again, another way of saying this is that they're being outcompeted for X amount of jobs because they're the candidates with the least experience (i.e. none). If you change that, if you increase their experience so that someone else is the candidate with the least experience, then you've not helped anybody at all, you've just re-arranged the deck chairs on the Titanic.What's the use of that? Sure, there's a small benefit in "unemployment cycling", but you're literally creating a situation where now we're just passing around the same number of jobs. Why bother, when you could put people to work by addressing the situation that caused unemployment in the first place? But again - how does "now and again" work without a system of rotating unemployment? Where do the openings come from? And how do you get people to sign up for a system of rotating unemployment? You'd have to force them. That's why I accused you of supporting such a system; it's the necessary logical consequence of your notion of "working now and again is better than permanent employment" and I guess I just sort of assumed that you had thought ahead that far. Because it's something the "unpaid work" model simply doesn't address.

Following someone on a ride-along isn't "doing unpaid work for free."And, of course, what's number 5 on that list? What's the only list item that actually refers to getting experience, which is what we're talking about? Why, it's:

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Practice to get experience. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Always having your camera handy will enable you to take photos in different places and of different subjects.

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Can you pick up some helpful tips from watching the pros work? Absolutely. But experience comes only from doing. If you want experience as a photographer, it comes from taking pictures. It doesn't come from coffee runs. Even your own sources say so.

Hey, Xong, what is it you do?

Who said being decent and hard-working isn't average? I happen to think it is. Most people are decent, and most work pretty hard.The above average are people who are truly innovative, truly ahead of their times, truly different, truly revolutionary.Unpaid work experience, if it does nothing else, at least tells future employers that you are part of the average, and not part of the below average. It puts you in the game; and that's more than can be said of doing nothing with your time unemployed.I know you agree with that, but I thought I'd say it anyway.Jon

Yes, and I've even gone so far as to say it that way.

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Some people find them selves in a cycle of getting a job, losing a job. Some people fall out of this cycle and stay without a job. These people are then competing against those within the cycle for the same kinds of jobs. The people within the cycle have recent work experience, recent references and so on. They will shine above someone who hasn't worked for 18 months. And so that person's unemployment continues, and they're powerless. They simply cannot compete with those cycling in and out of work.

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It's not about increasing their experience so that someone else has the least experience. I'm not such a moron that I can't see that there will always be someone with the least amount of experience.At this point I feel I'm just repeating myself, and it's not really a difficult concept.Let's say there are 100 jobs. And 110 unemployed who want to work. Sometimes jobs disappear sometimes they are created. In this economy, for simplicity, we'll say it maintains on average, 100 jobs.One way to structure things would be to employ 100 people permanently as possible. That is when their job is lost, they pick up the next one that is created. And we let 10 people become permanently unemployed - until we solve unemployment.OrWe can try and structure things so that all 110 people get their fair share of the work that's available. Everybody takes their turn in the unemployment queue, but hopefully never so long that they basically end up unable to get employment ever again despite the new job opportunities that open up.This is an oversimplified example to help you grasp the rudiments of my point. Try not to read too much into it. Because despite our efforts we don't ever completely address unemployment and if we don't manage it then some poor bastards fall out of the cycle and can't get meaningful employment. Not a designed system that is mandated by a higher power. But a naturally existing system that is already in place. Where some jobs go and some jobs come. Why are you asking me to repeat myself? Can't you figure this out? It's happening right now!Some businesses are expanding. So they hire more people.
Some people die.
Some people get long term sick
Some people get promoted
And so on. Why would anyone need to sign up for it? That's like saying you have to get people to sign up for gravity. Not really. I mean one business has to 'force them' to become unemployed I suppose. And the need for money 'forces them' to seek future employment. We don't need to create the employment/unemployment cycle. It's there. All that is left is to see if we can manage it so that as many people as possible keep cycling and as few as people as possible are left languishing for long periods with no job at all. That's because its an orthogonal issue. The mental health act doesn't address this issue either, do you criticize that on those grounds too? This scheme, like almost all others, is not designed to increase the spending power of the unemployed.The workfare scheme is designed to address the problem of the long term unemployed by trying to get them back into the cycle. The workfare scheme is not designed to stimulate the economy by giving the long term unemployed larger welfare cheques.