91%

That’s the outcome of a Freedom Economy Index survey of 70,000 small businesses, of whom 905 responded, producing a survey with a 3% margin of error and a 95% confidence interval for the outcome.

And having delayed the lede, here is that outcome.

Fully two-thirds of the respondents think college graduates have educations that are useless to business needs, and another quarter of them think those graduates don’t have very useful educations. Here are some of the comments from respondents, which the survey reported verbatim:

  • The Talent shortage will just get worse because high schools and colleges produce no talent.
  • The skills should be taught in highschool [sic].
  • A good work ethic would be a good place to start!
  • They don’t show up to an interview, and work is too hard, 9-5 is such a struggle.

And this:

Four-fifths of the respondents’ positions range from don’t care about hiring a graduate of a “major” school to strongly less likely to hire such a one. Some more verbatim comments:

  • I found that graduates with the aforementioned scholastic achievements typically have an incompatible ideology with my business culture.
  • We would hire someone with hands-on experience over someone that read about it in a book.
  • I only care about skills. If you ain’t got the skills you ain’t got a job.

And these two, which pretty much speak for themselves:

Businesses—small businesses, anyway—are catching on to the utter failure that is our current generation of colleges and universities.

The survey itself covers a broad range of items of concern to the small business community; it’s well worth reading in its entirety.

Just How Infirm?

Just how physically infirm do Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s advisors think he is?

People close to the president have discussed having him walk shorter distances while on camera. They’ve also advocated, at times, trading in formal shoes for more comfortable ones—both to make his stride seem less stiff, but also to reduce the risk of falls.

Or maybe switch to shoes that actually fit him? Or—the horror—sneakers, which are enormously comfortable, and who cares what he has on his feet, anyway? Except sneakers tend to have soles that grip the floor or the ground much better than the smooth leather soles of those evil formal shoes, and those grippier soles might be a bigger tripping hazard.

Alternatively, should Biden pull a Buttigieg and hitch a ride to within short walking distance, and then dismount/get out and walk a few steps for the cameras?

Maybe he should ride a bicycle to the podium—he’s checked out on dismounting from bicycles, isn’t he?

Or maybe he should just sit in a wheel chair and power himself to within a short distance from the podium. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has no trouble doing that. Except Abbott goes all the way to the podium and speaks from there.

On the other hand, other staffers have indicated, anonymously, that Biden should go on offense regarding his age. The problem with that is that Biden is no Ronald Reagan. On the alternative other hand, they could simply acknowledge the Biden gait: it’s stiff because old men get stiff legs, or it’s stiff related to foot injuries he incurred cavorting with his dogs a few years ago, or both. And neither of those have anything to do with his mental acuity. But his staffers don’t have that level of mental acuity themselves.