Sunday, February 19, 2012

"60 Minutes" on February 19, 2012

A teaser for the first "60 Minutes" story on unemployment: A resume will become an obsolete tool in job search.
Scott Pelley noted the persistence of the unemployment problem. There is something stubborn about the current unemployment. Four million people have been out of the workforce for more than one year. The focus of the 60 Minute story was a visit to Stamford, CT with Scott Pelley. Feb. 2008, O'Neill was a consultant for an IT company. Unemployment benefits end after 99 weeks. Pelley introduced Joe Carbone. We ought to be angry. The WorkPlace in southwestern Connecticut. Carbone noted two years of unemployment erode your self-esteem. "My job is to get people into a career." Carbone has 12,000 people who exhausted their 99 weeks. Program: Platform to Employment. Vernon Downs was a project manager; working to get a job for 2 1/2 years. Diane Graham has been looking.
The people are in class 4 days a week. The resume very soon will become an obsolete tool in the job search process. The new employer will look to the internet. Navigate the new bias against the unemployed. "If you are unemployed, you need not apply." The long term unemployed face a stigma. Of this: it's unfair and it's wrong. The Carbone program brings back confidence. Platform to Employment has internships to employers who potentially have jobs. The office intern may be 50. The internship lasts 8 week. 100 people are enrolled; 53 got jobs. Lex Products is one of the companies. This has become about dignity. Frank O'Neill. Vernon Downs. 38,000 people per week run out of their 99 weeks of benefits. Joe Carbone says "help is on the way."

The second story on "60 Minutes" was by Lesley Stahl. Harvard's Irving Kirsch on anti-depressants. Kirsch: Largely the placebo effect. Money: 11.3 billion per year. An expectation of healing. Kirsch has been studying placebos for 26 years. The doctors who prescribe the pills become part of the placebo effect. Kirsch found it did not matter what kind of pill people took for anti-depression. Kirsch noted drug companies tend to publish only the successful studies, not the unsuccessful ones. The issue is "why" the patients get better. Dr. Michael Face at the University of Pennsylvania. Face argues for 14% better over the placebo. Dr. Walter Brown at Brown University largely corroborates Kirsch's findings. The drugs work mainly for the severely depressed.
The seratonin theory is largely a gross oversimplification. The FDA only requires two successful trials, no matter how many unsuccessful trials occur. The negative trials are discarded. Is the effect is clinically relevant? In Great Britain, there was a change in prescription policy. For moderate depression, the drugs are not worth having. Great Britain analyzed the unsuccessful studies, which showed no benefit. The outcome is not suitable from the drug companys' point of view.
An army of talk therapists. Eli Lilly wrote in an email that antidepressants work.

Magnus Carlsen and chess. "The Mozart of Chess." The London Chess Classic. Carlsen v. Nakamura. Carlsen enjoys when his opponent is suffering. An allusion to Bobby Fischer in 1972. Magnus grew up outside Oslo. Magnus' father Henrik noted Magnus had a good memory. Magnus vs. Kasparov, when Magnus was 13 years old. Bullet chess.


***From the New Haven Register:

Connecticut unemployment assistance program to be featured on 60 minutes Sunday :

By the end of 2012, a record 4.6 million people will have exhausted their unemployment benefits and essentially been discarded from the work force.

“These numbers eclipse all other special populations the American work force system has ever had to deal with. You have got to look at this and say, ‘Wow,’” Joseph Carbone, president and chief executive officer of WorkPlace Inc., said in a recent interview.


***From Huffington Post
Antidepressants: The Emperor's New Drugs?

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