More endless talk, more "solutions" that are completely useless and obviously crap to anyone who has a brain and any integrity. Because I don't work for a govt. or collect a salary for being a bankster, or politician, or other assorted dufus/shill, let's just state the obvious: THIS IS MORE USELESS TALK AND PONZI BS!
Come on, how many meetings and trillions of dollars are used to funnel money from one bankrupt country to the next country to delay by a matter of months the inevitable collapse?
Germany is in a recession or going into one, and that's the only Euro country that has any $ that everyone sees as a savior. France is broke and yet wants to reduce retirement age. PIIGS are busted and have been for years now (despite CNBS' late realization). IMF is funded 20%+ by the USA and the USA has unemployment at 20%+ for 4+ years now with a budget deficit in the TRILLIONS! The BRICS are slowing down and China is cutting interest rates despite massive housing bubbles that will make the USA 2007- look like kids' play.
So how can all these bankrupt, massively unemployed, broken countries stop a Greek, or Spanish, or other PIIGS, or BRICs, or USA redux to the -nth power the likes of which the world hasn't seen that is coming this summer or fall? They cannot. It's all a sick joke that the average man and woman will see only in their $ (if they have any) being siphoned off to prop up bankster scum and their bonuses for a little more time so that they can escape to the Caymans before the 99% reap the whirlwind.

-KURTZ

Yes! I have met this insane cyber selection process and it is an impassible fortress.

I originally wrote and posted this on a foreign expat website forum overseas, in a country where such automated anonymity is completely unknown and wholly unimaginable. It's real and it happened to me. ....I didn't get the job....

[copy and pasted from my original posting]

"I am in the job market. I have been filling out online job applications. In the US it is well known that computer scanners go through online applications looking for 'keywords' used by the applicant, the use of which will move the process forward, the lack of use of such keywords will kill the application. The online applications are timed as well, and include *personality* tests.

So I get through Round 1 online application. I am contacted by a company computerized robocall to get in touch with a toll free number and include a certain job identification code. So I did. At this toll free number I reach a voice recognition system which asks me a few questions--press 1 for yes and 9 for no--and advises me the call will be forwarded to a representative for a telephone interview. I wait.

A real person connects! She says her name is Beth and the interview may be monitored for quality purposes and she will ask questions and enter my answers. She says she is not allowed to chat with me but that there may be some delays as she types my answers to the questions. "Describe a team project you have worked on and the results of that project."

I'm thinking....over a lifetime of work history.....I can hear Beth breathing....

and I begin babbling something about working together under difficult circumstances to bring a project to successful completion before the expected finish date (hoping to hit more keywords)--and some crap--and she has other such robo-monotonous "How would you respond if...." blah blah blah. We finish. She says goodbye.

Dear.fricking.god.

Is this what America has come to, robointerviews, and keyword associations and remote voice recognition conversations with computer programs?

This will not end well. You cannot run a business or a country (full of humans) on algorithms and binary codes and expect a rosy outcome.

I am sad for us all."

The original forum post elicited some interesting replies to my experience, including an invitation for a radio interview!

Total speech is here, below is an excerpt:

When the euro was introduced the regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital; and the central bank accepted all government bonds at its discount window on equal terms. Commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate the bonds of the weaker euro members in order to earn a few extra basis points. That is what caused interest rates to converge which in turn caused competitiveness to diverge. Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, undertook structural reforms and became more competitive. Other countries enjoyed housing and consumption booms on the back of cheap credit, making them less competitive. Then came the crash of 2008 which created conditions that were far removed from those prescribed by the Maastricht Treaty. Many governments had to shift bank liabilities on to their own balance sheets and engage in massive deficit spending. These countries found themselves in the position of a third world country that had become heavily indebted in a currency that it did not control. Due to the divergence in economic performance Europe became divided between creditor and debtor countries. This is having far reaching political implications to which I will revert.

It took some time for the financial markets to discover that government bonds which had been considered riskless are subject to speculative attack and may actually default; but when they did, risk premiums rose dramatically. This rendered commercial banks whose balance sheets were loaded with those bonds potentially insolvent. And that constituted the two main components of the problem confronting us today: a sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis which are closely interlinked.

republicans have forgotten the era of industrialization which gave rise to the labor movement becpriause people were working under horrible conditions. remember chidren working, 12-14 hours day with no break/lunch, no safety standards, extreme low wages???? This is where unions developed and changed all of that. Look at mining for example. In canada most of the mining companies are unionized and in the US they are under Massey energy who has cause repeatedly death to their employees for lack of safety standards. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT?? WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR 9 YEAR OLD TO HAVE TO START WORKING IN A FACTORY???? republicans never cease to amaze me how increadibly stupid they are. they support a man who only looks after his billionaire friends and they think they are part of that crowd instead of realizing that we the working class, the labor class must stand together and fight against these greedy corporations. Just wait until the 371 trillion derivatives blow up in our banking sector. european banks are falling and its like a domino effect. but guess what, banks and Koch brothers have managed to help lobby derivatives to be protected under FDIC. what will happen to depositers money when these risky investments implode??? one more thing, according to the associated press, more than 50% of americans are living on government programs like medicaid, medicare, food stamps, lunch provided through school, i guess if you calculate how many repubs are in this country, how much would you bet that they are on these programs by a large percentage. HYPOCRITS!!!! wait in wisconsin when walker privatizes your fire department. if your house is burning, they will demand money to put it out!!! think im over reacting, just wait repubs, walker and his buddies are going to destroy labor and you helped him do it!!!!!

Sorry, joyfully opting to destroy one's own economic life, which is the agenda of these people, to destroy social security, medicare, medicaid, pensions, worker rights and even equal pay for equal work...

just means PR trumps reason because most of America must be simply uneducated, unaware.

Obama is no friend of workers generally either, look at banking reform, financial reform, more bad trade deals, foreclosures and the rest. the few good moves are the auto bail outs, but more often than not, Obama opts not. Good question where he was in WI but I suspect payback will be a bitch.

Right now, our standard issue pundit mouthpieces are on cable noise claiming WI is "solid blue".

Watch it go to Romney, seriously.

My understanding is the Democrat in this race would not have rolled back Walker's dismantling of collective bargaining.

I do agree unions need to get it together. For one, they are one of the groups pushing for "amnesty" (although most of their positions are better than the typical liberal left ones in terms of labor economics/wages).

Well, I'm pretty sure Americans are none too thrilled, especially those Americans who are construction workers, restaurant workers, factory workers and so on who have had massive worker displacement through the use of illegal labor.

In other words, jumping on agendas that are not true blue let's represent the U.S. citizen workers, U.S. citizen labor....have turned off people to unions, the list is long, this is just one example.

This Friday I will put together more documentaries on the history of labor in this country though, it's pretty clear the massive, Koch brothers financed misinformation campaign has won and people are simply not aware of what it was like for workers in 1897 and 1904 as examples. In other words what happens to labor conditions, work, with out organized labor fighting back.

They believe the Fed will go for more quantitative easing, that's the current buzz, Wall Street's crack cocaine.

Although Walker winning, I won't discount big money is now having a party.

There is a too close to call race, but Lehman appears to have squeaked it out. WaPo. That said, it's symbolic for the Wisconsin State legislators are not in session until November, when all are up for re-election.

This is what I mean, here comes the propaganda, as evidenced in this comment. Sorry, organized crime did not create unions. This type of comment shows the decline in U.S. education. We get clueless wonders writing pure fiction, have no idea, not even a clue on the history of labor in the United States voting in these crazy people who also clearly never cracked an economics text.

Here comes the barrage.

We don't allow propaganda on this site so some other comments were deleted, but one was most telling.

The claim a woman who had to work a double shift, from 7am to 11pm, congratulated these Koch Brother funded operatives standing up for working people at a hotel, even though she couldn't take time off from work to vote. Well folks, it's right there. The propaganda is so think someone who is required to work 15 hours straight for minimum wage thinks these people are supporting her. People are so manipulated, snowed and stupefied, they do not even realize labor rights, which are being dismantled, do not allow someone to be forced to work 15 hours straight and they would get that person time and a half, a better wage, benefits. There are voting rights yet supplanted by employers, who will not let people have time off to vote.

This isn't good for the Dems, but I don't think having a Democrat in office is any different than a Republican and may be worse. The real blow is to the corpse of the pansie-ass unions. Labor can never battle dollar to dollar against their employers. Industry has bought all the elections and/or elected.