Christopher.Collins Posted December 22, 2008 Posted December 22, 2008 Initially I skimmed through this article... when I got to the bottom and saw Terrorism as a career with growth I was shocked :shock: I guess Al-Queda is officially hiring! Perhaps it should have read Anit-Terrorism? Ahead-of-the-Curve Careers 13 Cutting-Edge Careers, Viable Now and Poised for Growth by Marty Nemko, U.S. News & World Report Cutting-edge careers are often exciting, and they offer a strong job market. Alas, the cutting edge too often turns out to be the bleeding edge, so here are some careers that, while relatively new, are already viable and promise further growth. They emerge from six megatrends: Growing Health-Care Demand The already overtaxed U.S. health-care system will be forced to take on more patients because of the many aging baby boomers, the influx of immigrants, and the millions of now uninsured Americans who would be covered under Barack Obama's promised health-care proposals. Jobs should become more available in nearly all specialties, from nursing to coding, imaging to hospice. These health-care careers are likely to be particularly rewarding. Health informatics specialists, for example, will develop expert systems to help doctors and nurses make evidence-based diagnoses and treatments. Hospitals, insurers, and patient families will hire patient advocates to navigate the labyrinthine and ever more parsimonious health-care system. On the preventive side, people will move beyond personal trainers to wellness coaches, realizing that doing another 100 pushups won't help if they're smoking, boozing, and enduring more stress than a rat in an experiment. The Increasingly Digitized World Americans are doing more of their shopping on the Internet. We obtain more of our entertainment digitally: Computer games are no longer just for teenage boys; billions are spent by people of all ages and both sexes. Increasingly, we get our information from online publications (just look where you're reading this), increasingly viewed on iPhones and BlackBerrys. An under-the-radar career that is core to the digital enterprise is data miner. Online customers provide businesses with high-quality data on what to sell and how to individualize marketing. Another star of the digitized world is simulation developer. Ever faster Internet connections are helping entertainment, education, and training to incorporate full-motion video simulations of exciting, often dangerous experiences. For example, virtual patients allow medical students to diagnose and treat without risking a real patient's life. A computer game, Spore, allows you to simulate creating a new planet, starting with the first microorganism. Globalization, Especially Asia's Ascendancy This should create great demand for business development specialists, helping U.S. companies create joint ventures with foreign firms. Once those deals are made, off-shoring managers are needed to oversee those collaborations and the growing number of off-shored jobs. Quietly, companies are off-shoring even work previously deemed too dependent on American culture to send elsewhere: innovation and market research, for example. Conversely, large numbers of people from impoverished countries are immigrating to the United States. So, immigration specialists of all types, expert in everything from marketing to education to criminal justice, will be needed to attempt to accommodate the unprecedented in-migration. The Dawn of Clinical Genomics Decades of basic research are finally starting to yield clinical implications. In 2007, it cost $1 million to fully sequence a person's genome. By mid-2009, Complete Genomics says it will do it for $5,000, and some experts predict that, within five years, the cost will decline to $100. That decline will greatly accelerate medical discoveries and already enables a person to determine if he or she is at increased risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and 15 other conditions. Within a decade, we will probably understand which genes predispose humans to everything from depression to violence, early death to centenarian longevity, retardation to genius. Such discoveries will likely give rise to ways to prevent or cure our dreaded predispositions and encourage those in which we'd delight. That, in turn, will bring about the reinvention of psychology, education, and, of course, medicine. In the meantime, the unsung heroes who will bring this true revolution to pass will include computational biologists and behavioral geneticists. Environmentalism Alarm about global warming has made environmentalism this generation's dominant initiative. The environmental wave is creating jobs in everything from sales to accounting in companies making green products, regulatory positions in government, and grant writing, fundraising, and litigation work in nonprofits. Among the more interesting green careers, engineers are working on such projects as hydrogen-powered cars, more efficient solar cells, and coal pollution sequestration systems. But those jobs require very high-level training and skills and are at risk of being off-shored. In contrast, the so-called green collar specialist is off-shore resistant and often needs less demanding training (for example, learning how to do green-building audits). Hands-on greenies might consider a career as a solar installer, a career that will likely enjoy increased demand because of government tax incentives. Terrorism The expert consensus is that the United States will again fall victim to a major terrorist attack. Jobs in the antiterrorism field have already mushroomed since 9/11, but if another attack were to occur, even more jobs would surely be generated. Demand should particularly grow in such areas as computer security and Islamic-country intelligence, but their required skill sets are difficult to acquire. More accessible yet also likely to be in demand is emergency planning.
Christopher.Collins Posted December 22, 2008 Author Posted December 22, 2008 10 Great Low-Tax Places to Retire Emily Brandon, USNews.com Dec 18th, 2008 Full-time work is often taxing. Retirement shouldn't be. Picking a retirement location with low taxes gives you more cash to spend exploring the surrounding scenic beauty, taking in the local nightlife, or hoarding your hard-earned dough for future expenses. Kicking less money up to Uncle Sam also helps retirees on fixed incomes better cope with food, gas, and utility costs. More from U.S. News & World Report » How to find a Low-Tax Place to Retire » Photos: Low-Tax Places to Retire » Best Places to Retire Americans will spend more on taxes in 2008 than on food, clothing, and housing combined, according to Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. This year, Americans worked 74 days to pay their federal taxes and 39 days more to cover state and local levies, the Tax Foundation calculated. There's not much you can do about the federal taxes if you want to live in the United States, but the state and local tax burden varies considerably by location. The most expensive state and local taxes are typically sales and excise taxes (14 days' pay), property taxes (12 days' pay), and income tax (10 days' pay). To find low-tax places to retire, U.S. News cranked up our Best Places to Retire search tool. We sifted through more than 2,000 U.S. places to find locales that have relatively low taxes but also offer amenities important to retirees like a reasonable cost of living and fine recreational and cultural choices. Many of the low-tax retirement havens have no state sales tax, like Billings, Mont., or no state income tax, like Sioux Falls, S.D. There's nothing like zero tax to make your retirement dollar go further. One low-tax retirement gem, Stafford, Texas, a suburb of Houston, eliminated its property tax in 1995. Texas is also one of seven states with no income tax. (The others are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming.) Stafford also has the lowest sales tax in the Houston area. Seniors looking to maximize their fixed income may also want to give Manchester, N.H., a look. There is no sales or traditional income tax, but New Hampshire does levy a 5 percent tax on interest and dividend income above $2,400 annually ($4,800 for couples). Residents ages 65 and older pay tax only on amounts above $3,600, and that's outside your retirement accounts. Withdrawals from retirement accounts are not taxed in New Hampshire. Many retirement locales offer tax perks specifically for seniors. Nashville-Davidson County, Tenn., the home of country-music (and state) capital Nashville, for example, was the first jurisdiction in the state to allow homeowners ages 65 and older earning less than $35,390 in 2007 to freeze the amount of property tax due on their primary residence in the year they qualify, even if tax rates increase later. The frozen dollar amount will rise if the owner sells or makes improvements to the house. If the house drops in value and the current taxes become lower than the frozen amount, homeowners pay the lower amount. And like New Hampshire, Tennessee also doesn't tax earned income, just dividends and interest. Low-tax towns don't have to be dull. Doral, Fla., is home to the Doral Golf Resort & Spa, which hosts a PGA tournament every year. And Henderson, Nev., Las Vegas's less glittery cousin, is only a short drive from the Strip, Hoover Dam, and Lake Mead. Businesses often flock to tax-friendly cities. And thriving local economies are sure to help retirees find second careers and start small businesses. The business-friendly tax structure of Spokane, Wash., is key to attracting prime technology jobs to the area. After work, retirees can stroll along the Spokane River, which runs through the center of town, or hike in the nearby mountains. Some cities, like Cheyenne, Wyo., try to slash their budgets rather than increase taxes. In October, Cheyenne Mayor Jack Spiker announced a hiring freeze on nonessential personnel, a reduction of out-of-town travel, and a review of equipment expenditures. "Just like taxpayers, the city needs to tighten its financial belt during these times of economic uncertainty," he says. By leaving vacant positions open until the end of the year, the city estimates it will save $3,160 a month per entry-level employee and $5,050 monthly for each vacant mid-level position. Perhaps the most tax-friendly state for retirees is Alaska. The geographically largest state in the union is the only one without any kind of income or sales tax. The city of Juneau levies a 5 percent sales tax, but seniors ages 65 and older who have lived in the city for at least 30 days and plan to remain indefinitely in the state can get a Senior Sales Tax Exemption Card for a $20 application fee. Those over age 65 may also be eligible for a senior-citizen property tax exemption on the first $150,000 of assessed value. All Alaska residents with at least one year in the state also receive annual Alaska Permanent Fund dividends. The payout was an unusually high $3,269 in 2008, but even more typical dividends have been nothing to scoff at, ranging from $827 to $1,964 over the past two decades. This dividend may be taxed as income on federal tax returns.
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