Starbucks – home of the over-priced cup of java that we just can’t get enough of – is about to start asking you to spend a little more money when you stop in to pick up that morning (or afternoon…) cup of coffee. But don’t worry; they aren’t raising their coffee prices, instead starting on November 1st the extra money ($5, to be exact) will go into a fund benefiting job stimulation in America. You also will get a nifty little red, white and blue bracelet with the word “Indivisible” on it.

So why is the coffee corporation reaching out to aid with job stimulation?

“Businesses and business leaders need to do more; we can’t wait for Washington,” Starbucks Corp CEO Howard Schultz said in an interview with Reuters.

The campaign is called the “Create Jobs for the USA” reserve and has partnered with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) to launch it. The Starbucks Foundation is padding the new campaign by giving it a $5 million contribution to get everything up and running. Anyone who wants to help support “Create Jobs for the USA” will be able to do so by giving money in person at any of the nearly 7,000 locations or by donating online at www.CreateJobsforUSA.org.

“We are thrilled to partner with Starbucks on this innovative and high impact solution to help put America back to work. For more than two decades, OFN’s network of premier CDFIs has financed community businesses, delivering both sound financial returns and real changes for people and communities. Create Jobs for USA will unlock the power of CDFIs to finance community businesses and create new jobs and help grow our economy” Mark Pinsky, CEO and president of OFN, said.

The proceeds will go to OFN to help get community businesses that are trying to generate permanent jobs for those who are without work much-needed loans.

“Small businesses are the backbone of America, employing more than half of all private sector workers — but this critical jobs engine has stalled. We’ve got to thaw the channels of credit so that community businesses can start hiring again. Create Jobs for USA empowers Americans to help other Americans create and sustain jobs, with Starbucks and OFN as a catalyst and the Indivisible wristband as a symbol of our country’s unity,” Schultz explained.

This is just one of many attempts that Schultz has been involved in when it comes to kick-start the U.S.’s dire economy situation. Aside from his new campaign venture, Schultz has been actively involved with trying to help revive the economy, doing everything from hiring nearly 200 new people a day in an effort to open hundreds more Starbucks locations to pleading to his fellow CEO’s to stop political campaign donations pending an actual lasting economic solution.

Considering the current crisis with our nation’s job and debt situation, anything that is going to give it a much needed boost is welcome. So anytime you feel the pull to do something for the economy, just stop at any corner – because let’s be honest, where is there NOT a Starbucks? – and donate $5 while you’re picking up that pricey latte.

This Guest post is by Christine Kane from internet providers, she is a graduate of Communication and Journalism. She enjoys writing about a wide-variety of subjects for different blogs. She can be reached via email at: Christi.Kane00@gmail.com.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell

There are jobs that have to be done because, well, they just have to be done. Some of them are nasty; others are dangerous. Some are just disgusting; this isn’t a pretty world. Some may seem like they’re something they’re really not. We don’t always think of the bad side of things when we look at most jobs. Below, kind of tongue in cheek, are 20 of the worst jobs a person could ever have, and why we believe it:

In today’s world, there is no balance between cows and bulls. We consume a lot of meat and milk products. There’s no way a bull could get it all done on its own, so it’s up to people to help out. Yes, you know where her arm is, and it has to go really deep.

This one could be extended to many other animals, but elephant poo is larger. Also, in some instances, people are hired to try to catch it before it hits the ground because, oddly enough, in some areas of the world it can be used to make products.

The military can be a rewarding career, but it’s a lousy job, especially if you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. If you ever saw the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, you know who’s leading the charge and who most of the fighters are, and the fighters are the privates.

This is nasty, bloody work, and you never know where the blood is going to end up. This image is for beef, but working with chickens and pigs isn’t any cleaner.

Most of us think sanitation workers work one day a week picking up our garbage, but even if that was true, it’s still a nasty job. You know how bad your garbage can smell after a week. These people have to smell it continuously from others every day, and sometimes they never know what they’re going to find when one of those bags opens up.

This is a tough job to do, probably one of the most physical. Migrant workers go all over the country based on which season it is to pick which crops. They don’t get paid hourly, but by how much they pick, and they have to literally kill themselves to make what doesn’t even reach a decent living. They never stay long, because once the crops are picked, they’re on to the next thing.

This is the most dangerous job in the world, with more than 120 injuries per 100,000 people. Even the most skilled loggers can’t control all trees, saws can lop off fingers and arms in a single stroke, chain saws can jerk backwards at any time, and then there are those trees where environmentalists put obstacles meant to damage the saws, but instead sometimes ends up helping to get someone killed.

The good thing about people who diffuse bombs is that they don’t work hard all the time. The bad thing is that they only get to make one mistake without suffering serious consequences, many times critical. On TV, you always hear the person talking about “blue wire, red wire;” that’s not true.

No one thinks of being a bouncer as a glamorous job, but they probably don’t think of it as being all that bad because bouncers get to dress however they want. The thing is they have to worry about customers with weapons, since they’re not allowed to carry any, including bottles, and if they go one step too far they’ll get arrested for assault. They never know where the next blow might be coming from.

Certified Nursing Assistants are the first level of medical personnel before you get to nurses. Most of them work in nursing homes. They handle all the dirty work on patients, which includes cleaning them up, taking care of their waste, lifting and moving them around, dressing them, taking them to eat or to therapy, and usually for not much more than minimum wage.

Every’s seen the pictures of women with their noses in the armpits of men. They do more than that, and pretty much no body part is immune to being smelled.

Factory work can not only be boring, it can be very dangerous. Sometimes all a factory worker is doing is sitting next to a machine, waiting for it to produce something. In other factories, these workers are welding, using clamps, cutting, or doing other things around a lot of dangerous equipment. It’s hard to keep concentration 4 hours straight, take 30 minutes for a meal, then 3 1/2 more hours straight, but they do it. This is another high worker’s compensation area.

Another nasty and dangerous job, it’s more than just pushing pipes into the ground. There’s a lot of heat involved in this job, which not only means these guys are sweaty and hot, but occasionally there’s an explosion.

We’ve all had to go into a porta-potty, but we rarely think about how these things are cleaned out. There’s an initial drainage by this big wet vac thing, and then they have to go into it to make sure they get everything and then sanitize it by adding more liquid solution.

One of the most dangerous jobs in the world, especially coal mining. Not only are they confined to close quarters and darkness, but the weakening of the ground allows for cave-ins, and they tend to take in a lot of nasty stuff into their lungs.

Think about porta-potties, but with years and years worth of stuff. These people have to literally climb into the tanks to clean them out. They get paid well, but they also have to have strong stomachs and equipment to protect themselves.

We think of maids and how much someone who came to our house might look and work, but this isn’t how most cleaning people get to stay. There are some very nasty people in this world, and cleaning people never know what they’re walking into, especially when it comes to houses. Bugs, rats, maggots, decay… they don’t get paid nearly enough.

One of the most needed jobs, but one of the more dangerous. The higher people go, the most danger construction can be. These people have to have a high tolerance for being very high up in the air, and a great sense of balance. It takes a lot of trust to do this job because everyone is dependent upon someone else.

This is the worst job in the world, no matter where they are. Police do get to carry guns, but they’re expected to do everything for very little money. The rules for their decorum are tough, the decisions snap, and they don’t get to make mistakes all that often. These days they have become targets more than being perceived as authority figures, and they never know where danger is coming from or when a situation might escalate. That, and they’re never really off duty.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell

Man, I hate being right. It seems that there’s a prediction that around 1.2 million people are about to fall off the extended unemployment benefit rolls, and with that goes the benefit they were getting on their COBRA insurance coverage.

I’ve talked about the fact that unemployment figures are usually skewed by the number of people who have made it through the entire system without finding a job, and thus suddenly don’t count against those very same unemployment numbers. If this many people suddenly drop off the rolls, the unemployment figure is going to start looking pretty good, but once again it won’t be telling the whole story.

Once again, it makes me and many others continue to ask the question where will jobs come from, and I just don’t see an answer in sight. Well, I do, but no one is listening to me on ideas on spurring the economy.

There was a story by U.S. News in December that talked about the best careers in 2010. These are areas where jobs or careers are either growing or have the potential to grow. The thing is, all of them require certain educational skill sets that some people aren’t qualified to obtain. Those who are or possibly might be able to attain those skills can look to these 5 main categories:

* Science & Technology

* Healthcare

* Education & Civic Work

* Business & Finance

* Creative & Service

In other words, people need to start thinking about what else they can do to replace what it is they’ve been doing. However, let’s be realistic. Science and technology will take some serious education if you don’t already have it. Same for business and finance. Most communities seem to be laying off teachers, and some states are laying off state employees as well. There are areas in healthcare where there are shortages, but some careers, such as being a certified nurse assistant, are physically grueling, so if you’re not young I wouldn’t recommend it. There’s also a long training curve for some of those positions.

To me, the most viable area are creative and service. Truthfully, there never seem to be enough electricians or plumbers, and both pay well. There’s certainly not enough people who know how to fix general items, and computer service, while kind of technical, is easier to learn than many other technical areas. If you’ve got an eye for design you might find pretty good paying jobs as an independent.

Still, it’s a scary world for those people about to lose governmental support. Those folks will have a long way to go before being ready to think about doing something on their own.

Yes, I know unemployment is basically holding steady, and that it’s been pretty high. And I know we all want people to go back to work if they so choose, and that it’s been a travesty that so many people have lost factory jobs that we all know are never coming back, and that we’ve lost them to those countries that have cheaper labor.

Where I live, the Syracuse NY area, used to have Allied Chemicals residing along Onondaga Lake. These days it’s known as the most polluted lake in the United States, possibly the world. The village it resided in, called Solvay, used to have pink skies all the time, soot everywhere, and the air smelled like bad perfume. The plant is gone now, the skies are no longer pink, the people can actually clean the outside of their homes and know it’s going to stay that way… and the lake is still polluted. Hey, three out of four isn’t bad.

There have been a couple of lists that have come out about cities around the world. They are both the dirtiest and the most polluted cities in the world. And these days, the United States doesn’t have any cities on those lists. At least not in the top 20 or 10 of the two lists mentioned.

Which two countries are at the top of the list? China and India. Where have most of the American manufacturing jobs gone? China and India. Sure, there are other countries that have pollution problems that are on the list, but not in the numbers as the first two, although Russia easily surpasses any other country for the third spot.

China’s problems have definitely come as a result of more manufacturing and fewer standards as far as making sure factories are safe for its employees. India has always had problems because it’s never been considered an overly rich country, and now that they have some industry there, it’s not helping to contribute to making anything cleaner. In some cases, the poor are even poorer than they were before they started getting more industries there.

How does the United States compare? Strangely enough, even our most factory-laden cities don’t rank high on pollution lists. The most polluted city in the country is, strangely enough, Pittsburgh PA, at least on one list. Los Angeles is at the top of another list, and Bakersfield swaps places with Los Angeles on another list. Their problem is too many cars in such a concentrated area; the ozone isn’t their friend. Detroit, which many people have believed was one of the dirtiest cities in the country because of its factories, comes in at #9 on only one list, so much for its reputation.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t lament the jobs that have been lost, especially since not all the jobs that have been lost were manufacturing jobs. But the United States overall seems to be a cleaner place, and that does say a lot.

The latest jobs report shows that unemployment dropped from 9.9% to 9.7%. Normally looking at a figure like that would be a good thing, but this time around, there’s proof that figures sometimes don’t tell the whole truth.

It seems that the reason unemployment dropped is because the federal government hired more than 400,000 employees for the census, temporary jobs that will end in a couple of months. The private sector only created 41,000 jobs, way below what the government was hoping for, and there are more people unemployed than ever in recorded history, which began in the 1940′s.

If there’s anything positive to try to latch onto, it’s that the number of new people who have applied for unemployment benefits has dropped by 10,000 over the previous week, but the overall numbers are still higher than usual. Of course, there has to be an acknowledgment that at a certain point there won’t be many new claims because, just like foreclosures, most of the jobs that were cut en masse have been taken care of, which means the rate has to slow down at some point.

As we wrote last year, the biggest question is where new jobs will come from. Factory work in big numbers aren’t coming back, the government isn’t paying enough for new training, and there hasn’t been a big rush of people going back to college or trade schools, mainly because it’s hard to afford when people aren’t employed. We hate being the bearer of bad news, but technology and education are the only things we have left that are going to create newer and better paying jobs. And, until the two wars are over, the government won’t have the money to help fund any of it.

Jobs. Everyone’s talking about them lately. Depending on who you decide to listen to, things are either starting to improve or they’re not.

A report came out saying job losses are drastically slowing down. Private sector job losses were around 203,000 for October, higher than expected but lower than it’s been on a monthly basis. Unemployment sits at 9.8% still, although it’s predicted that, after calculations, the number will push up to 9.9%. That’s still pretty high.

Also, last week President Obama announced that the stimulus package saved jobs, mainly in education, and created or saved around 640,000 jobs. The Wall Street Journal reduced that figure by 20,000 later on. The Republicans immediately challenged both, saying there’s no way to calculate jobs either created or saved like that. I’m trying to figure this one out also; how would they know? The administration said the report wasn’t 100% accurate, and it seems to be based on questioning people who got money from the stimulus package, which includes some folks you wouldn’t have thought would have gotten money; so be it.

Then we follow both of the above up with the story that Johnson & Johnson is going to be cutting around 8,000 jobs to cut costs, around $1.7 billion worth. I didn’t check to see if their stock price went up because of the announcement. That figure is around 7% of its entire workforce; yeah, I’d say that’s significant. It was around December last year when suddenly we started hearing of all these companies laying off high numbers of people. Are we about to experience something like that again?

Depends on some factors. One, the fallout from the two commercial loan giants that just declared bankruptcy; will they be the only ones (no)? Two, did most of the companies that needed to lay off high numbers of employees last year get it out of the way? Three, will this retail year show that some people believe the recession is over, or do many of us trust that just yet?

And, of course, more people are continuing to fall off unemployment and still not have jobs, which means there will be a high number of under counted people unemployed. There’s really nothing to do about that one.

Even President Obama said Monday that more job losses were coming, and that the pace to create new jobs is going to lag; I guess that answers that.

We were all hoping that February would signal the turnaround of the job market in some fashion, but the economy doesn’t seem ready to recover just yet.

Today, Nissan announced they were laying off 20,000 employees. Last week Panasonic laid off 15,000 workers and closed 27 plants. Macy’s announced they were laying off 4,000 employees. Morgan Stanley said they were laying off another 1,500 employees on top of the 7,000 that had already been announced. AOL is cutting about 700 jobs, and Starbucks is closing 300 stores. Target is eliminating about 1,100 jobs. On and on and on,…

The Senate today passed the stimulus package President Obama was looking for, and now it goes back to the House to fine tune and send to the President for his signature. It’s not perfect by any means, but at this juncture, that may not be the most important thing. This country needs a hero, someone willing to try something to get things done. We don’t need bickering anymore; we need something, anything, to at least give the country some hope.

By the way, here are the three biggest differences in the Senate and House bills:

* The Senate bill makes the first $2,400 of unemployment benefits tax free. Both the Senate and House bills extend the time that jobless workers can collect benefits.

* The Senate bill doubles the House’s tax credit for first-time home buyers to $15,000, a measure championed by Republicans in the Senate.

That doesn’t seem so insurmountable, does it? Stick around; this could end up being another historic week.