Northwest Indiana Discussion

Existing single-family home sales in Northwest Indiana increased 9.9 percent in March, marking the ninth month in a row sales have notched a year-over-year increase, according to the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors.
Home prices also realized their largest increase of the year, with the median selling price of a home rising 7.3 percent in March as compared to March of 2011, according to association sales figures.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor’s degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there’s strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor’s degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade. . . .

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.

Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year.

The Marine Corps decided Wednesday to discharge a sergeant who made comments critical of President Obama on Facebook.

Sgt. Gary Stein will be given an other-than-honorable discharge for violating the Pentagon’s rules limiting the speech of members of the armed forces.

Stein, who argued unsuccessfully that he was just exercising his right to free speech, served in the Marine Corps for close to a decade but won’t get benefits after his discharge

The Marine Corps decided Wednesday to discharge a sergeant who made comments critical of President Obama on Facebook.
Sgt. Gary Stein will be given an other-than-honorable discharge for violating the Pentagon’s rules limiting the speech of members of the armed forces.

"The Marine Corps gave him the opportunity to think about his actions, yet Sgt. Stein continued to undermine the chain of command," said Umberg, who was not involved in Stein's case. "I think his purpose was to leave the Marine Corps in a dramatic fashion in order to begin a career in talk radio or what have you."

I think 99 percent of the soldiers and Marines currently on duty understand the duties of supporting the chain of command and understand their rights of free speech are limited," he said. "To that 1 percent who don't know their rights to free speech are limited once they take the oath, this is a loud and clear message."

[color=#00080]The military has had a policy since the Civil War limiting the free speech of service members, including criticism of the commander in chief.[/color]