USAJobs.gov - The federal government's official jobs site

Did you know that Denmark generates so much wind power that they've begun selling the excess current to other nearby nations? So what does that mean to you and me in the United States? The World Wind Energy Association reports that the U.S. has the second greatest installed base for wind power. In fact, we have 5 times more of the capacity to generate wind power than Denmark. We're just in the early innings of capturing this new energy that will help us reduce our reliance on dirty coal. Clark thinks wind, nuclear and solar energies are all great options going forward.

Meanwhile, the Danes also have another initiative in the works that Clark is excited about. Electricity use drops drastically at night as most people go to sleep. So Denmark is planning to put pollution-free electric cars on the road that will be charged at night for free with the country's excess wind power. If this is what little Denmark is doing, just think what our country can do it we all put our minds to it. We can't be just sit back and be victims of the high price of foreign oil. Clark hopes the next president makes this issue a big deal, instead of just talking about energy independence. In fact, we don't have to have a 100% solution to imported oil; even reducing our demand by 10% with alternative fuels would change the balance of power with those OPEC nations who want to harm us.

Craigslist has been in the news a lot lately after an Oregon man came home to find almost all his possessions gone. Someone had made a Craigslist post stating the man had to leave town on short notice and was giving away all of his belongings, including a horse! Predictably, there was a feeding frenzy at the house. The man got on the scene and told those who had come that the Craigslist post was a hoax, but they just showed him the printout and acted like they had a right to take his belonging. Police have since discovered the post was made to cover up a burglary that had taken place just days earlier at the residence. While the Internet offers so much good, there's also a certain amount of anarchy in cyberspace. Several days ago, Clark was talking about JuicyCampus.com as an example of the downside to the Internet. In other news, there's a new lawsuit against Verizon, AT&T and Sprint for engaging in illegal gambling. TV viewers were paying fees to send text messages to shows that were essentially running non-government sanctioned lotteries.

CLARKONOMICS: There's bad news on the job front with the unemployment rate rising from 4.8% to 5.1% and employers reporting 3 consecutive months of job losses. We may be at the beginning of more trouble. But the irony is that we're starting from a good spot. Economists never even thought we could get an unemployment rate as low as 5% without overheating the economy.

Instead of focusing on the bad news, Clark wants to let you know about companies that are planning on doing some big-time hiring. Forbes recently reported that Accenture -- an international consulting, technology and outsourcing company -- plans to hire 60,000 new employees in 2008. And that's just one example. This is not a doom and gloom economy where there are no jobs to be had.

Kiplinger.com recently ran a feature about recession-proof careers. These fields include healthcare, education, security, environmental science and government. In one example, The Washington Post reports that a Maryland county is pursing paramedics like they're star athletes. The starting salary is $57K.

Keep in mind that 70% of the jobs that will exist in 20 years don't exist today. Think back to 1988. At that point there was no Internet and no e-mail. You've got be willing to continually reinvent yourself. The typical American will have 5 careers and at least 15 jobs. Be ready to go back to school if necessary. As our economy changes, you've got to move with it.

Clark recently spoke about the failure of Aloha Airlines and warned how those paying for their tickets with cash or a debit card got burned. Of course, those who used a credit card are eligible to get their money back! Now another airline that frequently flew to Hawaii has failed. ATA left thousands of Hawaiians stranded on the mainland and thousands of mainlanders stranded on Hawaii -- can't really have too much sympathy for the latter group, can you? More airlines will fail if the price of oil stays high. Aloha and ATA together flew 3.5 million people from LAX to Hawaii. That has the governor of Hawaii in a panic about loss of tourist revenue.