Millions of Men Are Missing from the Job Market

Try taking some social animal like a bonobo, and sticking it in a horrible cage in solitary confinement, and maybe poke it with a cattle prod now and then for extra measure. Do you think it's going to be a perfectly happy little ape? No, it's going to become morbidly depressed or disconnected from reality. There's nothing wrong with the bonobo; the problem is with his environment. The bonobo doesn't need anti-depressants, he needs to be put back into his healthy bonobo society in the forest and not kept in a cage and zapped with a cattle prod.

Most mental health treatments are just band-aids, just like dosing a tortured ape on anti-depressants so he doesn't have to deal with the suffering he's being forced to endure.

Respectfully, that's absolutely ridiculous. As you can see, even now those with degrees are only 30% of the population. The unemployment rate is nowhere near 70%, I can assure you.

I am willing to agree that the numbers have gone up because people fell for the marketing that told them they wouldn't find work without a degree, but that's entirely on them. We wouldn't give them sympathy if they bought an iPhone, that they couldn't afford, because Apple told them they had to have one.

> Even with home ownership I don't think the issue is as simple as urbanization.

It still comes down to supply and demand, and cities tend to be land-locked, leaving up the only way to expand. But as most people still desire detached homes, up is not an option to help with that market. Not to mention zoning issues, financial issues, etc. that can add considerable time to making upward growth available to those who are interested. Outside of that, the only thing that can give is on the demand side, but these cities continue to grow by leaps and bounds regardless.

Outside the cities, where supply is effectively unlimited and demand has waned in favour of urban living, we can find markets where houses have gone down in price.

> I'd say it's more related to something like wage stagnation

Which clearly dispels any myths that more education leads to higher incomes, so that isn't a justification for being there either, in case you were thinking it (many do, sadly).

> Vancouver is the colloquial example here I think.

I don't know why Vancouver gets all the attention. I think it is because Canada typically reports using mean, while most of the rest of the world use median. The mean average will tend to skew higher given the nature of the market, so it sounds scary to those not paying attention.

The median home price in San Francisco is about $1.1M USD[1]. The median home price in Vancouver is about $540,000 USD[2].

[1] http://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

[2] http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/real-time-sales-number...

Now, the median income in Vancouver is about $20,000 USD per year lower than in SF, but $20K isn't anywhere near enough to cover an additional $560,000 on a mortgage. Not even close. So, in reality, the issue is far more apparent in SF than it is in Vancouver.

That's hilarious, but in no way representative of the real world. In fact, the tech industry in particular goes out of its way to welcome people without degrees with open arms. You're in the wrong place if you think the tech industry doesn't provide good jobs.

Check out the income distribution of bachelor earning college graduates sometime. They are pretty well evenly represented through every income group, just as they would be without a degree. The exception is those who have post-graduate degrees. They are disproportionately represented amongst the highest earners. But of course they are. Doctors, lawyers, etc. which are traditionally entered through post-graduate schooling implement supply management to artificially limit supply, which artificially increases their incomes.

Of course, that has nothing to do with education, just a manipulation of the market. Since we've been talking about Canada, the dairy industry there does the same thing[1]. There, you have to invest in quota instead of investing in a post-graduate degree to become one of the chosen few, but the economic results are the same.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)

> Sorry I still don't see how this means that urbanization is the issue.

What part don't you understand? It's just preschool level economics.

> A college degree absolutely leads to higher incomes. This has been studied and is a fact.

If incomes have increased as more and more have college attainment, then there isn't stagnation. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

> Why are home prices high in Vancouver?

~$500K USD for the median place isn't that high, especially compared to most world-class cities around the world, but Vancouver does have a few things going for it:

1. Low population density. About half that of even San Francisco. The city is growing and people are buying these single occupant homes with the plan of turning them into multi-occupant homes in the future. $1M when you divide it by 100 families down the road is nothing.

2. The climate! The Vancouver region is very unique to Canada, consistently warmer than pretty much anywhere else in the country. Those who wish (or forced) to remain in Canada, but not live out the normally harsh winters are immediately attracted to Vancouver.

3. The geography is breathtaking. Mountains, the ocean, and prime farmland all define the boundaries of the city. Again, there is not much else like it in Canada, especially if you want to reside in a city.

> but it looks like more than 40% of residents in San Francisco are earning $100k +

But realistically, you need about $250K+ to even consider the median home in SF. What percentage of the population does that comprise of? In contrast, about $120K in Vancouver. It would be interesting to see how those numbers compare, not the same income in both cities, because again a home is about half the cost in Vancouver.

> The median is misleading.

It doesn't tell the whole story, for sure. I welcome more comprehensive data. However, it's not misleading to tell the story of the people who live there. Median is simply the number in the middle, so we know that half the population make less, half the population make more. Likewise, we know half of the homes cost more, half cost less.

If you want the people of a given city to be able to afford homes, then the median household realistically has to be able to buy the median home. If we don't care about everyone being able to buy a home, then who cares who is buying them? They could be $100M homes and nothing would change.

It seems I have lost track of your original point here.

Didn't say that. You have taken a question, and assumed that I'm advocating something. This is, long story short, incompetency on your part. If you don't like that I'm pointing this out, so something about it. Screaming at me won't do anything. You need to improve your thinking.

It does tell you something about my mindset. It tells you I am capable of understanding that other people think differently, and I am asking why someone thinks the way they do. I'm not saying they're right; I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not assuming that if someone explores a view, they agree with it. That is extremely childish, literally. Young children who have not developed a theory of mind do this, as do you. For someone throwing around the word "childish", you have a remarkable lack of self-awareness.

This tells you one thing only about my mindset; that it's wide enough to embrace different views, and ask people why they don't consider alternative options for themselves based on these different views. I DISAGREE with staying home and doing nothing, living off welfare. Amazing. I DISAGREE with that, yet you believed I completely AGREED with it because your thinking is so primitive.

You drew exactly the wrong conclusion about my mindset. I see this frequently; anyone capable of entertaining ideas other than yours is narrow minded. Labelling someone dismissively is much easier than having to actually expand your own thinking. Grow up; start thinking.

Oh, feel your anger. How dare a line of text on a screen be so mean about you. Why not take this opportunity to actually improve yourself, rather than having a hissy fit?