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is the mounting evidence produced by labor economists of just how important it is for current graduates to ignore the old-school advice of trying to get ahead by working one's way up the ladder. Instead, it seems, graduates should try to do exactly the thing the older generation bemoans — aim for the top.

starting at the bottom is a recipe for being underpaid for a long time to come.

A recent study, by the economists Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter and Andrew Heisz, "The Short- and Long-Term Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession" (National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 12159, April 2006. http://www.columbia.edu/~vw2112/papers/nber_draft_1.pdf), finds that the setback in earnings for college students who graduate in a recession stays with them for the next 10 years.

Children of immigrants complete more years of education than their native-born counterparts of similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

Unless the factory captures the carbon dioxide created during the process of turning coal into diesel fuel, the global warming impact of driving a mile would double.

In a typical day, Mr. Durgin tells me, 21 trains depart the mine, pulling 135 cars each. Each car bears 120 tons of coal. At this pace, he says, there is more than 20 years’ worth of coal ready to mine under my feet.

North Antelope Rochelle is among the biggest coal mines in the world. It produced 108 million tons last year — about 10 percent of all the coal burned by the nation’s power plants.

North Antelope Rochelle and the other vast strip mines cutting through the plains of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — whose low-sulfur carbon met standards imposed by the Clean Air Act — were the result

The price of natural gas in Lithuania was 15 percent higher than the European average last year, according to the European Commission. Only Bulgaria, where Gazprom has a near monopoly, paid more. Gazprom also has an ownership stake in Lithuania’s natural gas distribution network. Part of Lithuania’s electrical infrastructure is still controlled from Moscow, too, and it is not yet possible to connect the country to the European grid.

Lithuania also does not use oil shale, which provides much of the electricity for Estonia, the third Baltic member of the European Union.

Lithuania used to rely on nuclear power to supply most of its electricity. But as a condition of joining the union in 2004, the country agreed to shut down its Chernobyl-style nuclear power station at Ignalina.

Instead of basking in the reflected glory of a prize winner funded by European grants, she said she had to listen to a speech attacking the red-tape and bureaucracy - and "generally embarrassing the hell out of me".

Jan Muehlfeit, chairman of Microsoft Europe, explained what was profoundly different about these new digital industries - that they expand at a speed and scale that would have been impossible in the traditional manufacturing industries. Governments trying to respond to such quicksilver businesses needed to ensure that young people were well-educated, creative and adaptable, he said.

Citigroup economist says Ireland should press for debt relief for bailing out banks

Shipping Boom: Hamburg's Port Sees Fruits of German Upturn

A world of robber barons

The Global Economy’s Tale Risks

Fluctuations in the world’s economies are largely due to the stories we hear and tell about them. These popular, emotionally relevant narratives sometimes inspire us to go out and spend, start businesses, build new factories and office buildings, and hire employees; at other times, they put fear in our hearts and impel us to sit tight, save our resources, curtail spending, and reduce risk. They either stimulate our “animal spirits” or muffle them.

The output gap for the world’s major advanced economies, as calculated by the IMF, remains disappointing, at -3.2% in 2013, which is less than half-way back to normal from 2009, the worst year of the global financial crisis, when the gap was -5.3%.

Coal to the Rescue, but Maybe Not Next Winter

Despite 42 consecutive months of gains in private-sector employment, the unemployment rate is still at 7.3 percent; in December 2007 it was only 4.6 percent. The current unemployment rate is higher now than in 2007 across all age, education, occupation, gender and ethnic groups.

That’s despite the fact that about four million workers have left the labor force, driving the labor force participation rate to a historic low

Although the share of the long-term unemployed has fallen from its peak of 45 percent in 2011 to 38 percent today, it is still far above its 2001-7 average. And about eight million people are working part-time for “economic reasons,”

In 1991, American-made apparel accounted for 56.2 percent of all the clothing bought domestically, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. By 2012, it accounted for 2.5 percent. Over all, the American manufacturing sector lost 32 percent of its jobs, 5.8 million of them, between 1990 and 2012, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The textile and apparel subsectors were hit even harder, losing 76.5 percent of their jobs, or 1.2 million.

Along with many economists, Mr. Summers argued that an overly aggressive trade stance could hurt manufacturing — by, for instance, pushing up the price of imported steel used by carmakers — and over time, drive companies away.

“People will pay more for the product because it’s produced in a place that can’t make it at the lowest cost,” he said. “It burdens exporters because they pay more for their inputs. And it removes the spur of competition.”

Young and Educated in Europe, but Desperate for Jobs

It is not that Europe will never recover, but that the era of recession and austerity has persisted for so long that new growth, when it comes, will be enjoyed by the next generation, leaving this one out.

She spent two years bouncing between short-term contracts, which employers have sharply increased during the crisis to cut costs and avoid the expensive labor protections granted to permanent employees.

China buying '70% of our coal', says Continental Coal

Switzerland’s Proposal to Pay People for Being Alive