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How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

theatlantic.com

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Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#31

Post by gaius »

ojbyrne wrote: post #4

I'm old and generally pessimistic. But I've seen enough recessions to know that when you've read the seventeenth article about the never-ending bottom (as I did during the reagan era, during the early 90s when Germany and Japan were going to destroy the US economy, and post dotcom collapse), I can't help but think it's time that the pundits will all be contradicted on the upside. Just like they were on the downside.…

immigration policies that promote population growth

It's more subtle than that, and to a certain extent it's zero-sum. Countries compete to attract skilled immigrants, and there is a finite supply of doctors, engineers etc willing to relocate per year. As we see in the UK there is a much larger supply of people who simply shop around for the best welfare then claim "asylum". The brutal truth is that it's in no country's best interest to admit people who are unable or simply unwilling to contribute to their economy.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#32

Post by kls »

natrius wrote: post #12
ojbyrne wrote: post #4

I'm old and generally pessimistic. But I've seen enough recessions to know that when you've read the seventeenth article about the never-ending bottom (as I did during the reagan era, during the early 90s when Germany and Japan were going to destroy the US economy, and post dotcom collapse), I can't help but think it's time that the pundits will all be contradicted on the upside. Just like they were on the downside.…

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/21/business/21un... There's still a good chance that you're right, but that chance is much smaller than it would've been had you said the same thing in the 80's.

right it is a different world now, the 80's had a technical revolution to pull them up where as today there is nothing revolutionary in sight. Nothing that somone is saying holy crap that is going to change the world, no automobile, no plane, no personal computer. Currently we only have evolutionary stuff like shrinking a computer down to a phone, etc. Something will come along but right now it's looking a lot more like the 70's than it is the 80's personally I think a lost decade is at hand unless something comes out of left field.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#33

Post by akadien »

washingtondc wrote: post #5
jmtame wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that was my first reaction, but this article is extremely long. wishing there was a "tl;dr;" section so i could figure out the conclusion in a sentence or two. bookmarked it for now, will come back to it.

It's extremely long? Maybe I'm a bit older than most readers here (I'm 38), but has the average readers attention span shrunk that much? Nuance cannot always come in bite-sized chunks. BTW, I read the article (on a plane - the print edition, no less) - it's worth the time.

I'm afraid the modern attention span is becoming limited to 140 characters.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#34

Post by kls »

btilly wrote: post #6

My view is that the article is on the optimistic side. It accurately describes the best case. It admits that nobody knows how bad it will be. But it fails to talk about known structural problems that we still face. We have coming credit crunches in commercial real estate when ARM loans reset, prime home mortgages when ARM loans reset, private equity when principal comes due on a ton of LBOs, local government as their…

I could not have said it better myself, it seems like no one is talking about the commercial real estate market just like no one dared say it on the eve of the housing crash. I have been watching commercial rent plummet in the last few months and cant help but feel that it is starting.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#35

Post by marshallp »

gaius wrote: post #31
ojbyrne wrote: post #4

I'm old and generally pessimistic. But I've seen enough recessions to know that when you've read the seventeenth article about the never-ending bottom (as I did during the reagan era, during the early 90s when Germany and Japan were going to destroy the US economy, and post dotcom collapse), I can't help but think it's time that the pundits will all be contradicted on the upside. Just like they were on the downside.…

immigration policies that promote population growth It's more subtle than that, and to a certain extent it's zero-sum. Countries compete to attract skilled immigrants, and there is a finite supply of doctors, engineers etc willing to relocate per year. As we see in the UK there is a much larger supply of people who simply shop around for the best welfare then claim "asylum". The brutal truth is that it's in no countr…

I find this 'welfare scrounger' outrage coming from britain laughable. Britain has the least generous welfare system of any rich european country, yet you get the most compaints from there.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#37

Post by louislouis »

marshallp wrote: post #36

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching programming in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of programming jobs).

Programming jobs are not unlimited. There's just a big demand for programmers and lack of supply. If every wannabe musician/artist/celebrity wanted to be a coder we'd certainly feel the strain.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#38

Post by WorkerBee »

marshallp wrote: post #36

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching programming in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of programming jobs).

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching car repair in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of car repair jobs).

.. equally nonsensical.

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#39

Post by marshallp »

WorkerBee wrote: post #38
marshallp wrote: post #36

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching programming in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of programming jobs).

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching car repair in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of car repair jobs). .. equally nonsensical.

".. equally nonsensical."

Yeah, and that's just brilliant and informative

Re: How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

#40

Post by marshallp »

louislouis wrote: post #37
marshallp wrote: post #36

It's the fault of the teacher's unions. 12 years of school gets you no employable skills. If they simply started teaching programming in grade 8 to everyone by grade 12 everyone would be employable (since there's an unlimited supply of programming jobs).

Programming jobs are not unlimited. There's just a big demand for programmers and lack of supply. If every wannabe musician/artist/celebrity wanted to be a coder we'd certainly feel the strain.

Programming is fundamentally different to any other activity because it operates at a meta-level, it's about the automation of work. As long as there are people working, programming hasn't reached it's saturation point.
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