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Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

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Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#131

Post by devrandomguy »

base698 wrote: post #79
bsaunder wrote: post #51

This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".

By some estimates we have 20 million opiate addicts. What happens when the opiate addict runs out of his basic income on day 5 of a 31 day month?

What's the difference between running out of a UBI stipend, and running out of a paycheck too early? Either way, that addict is in trouble. At least UBI won't put them on the street when their addiction renders them useless for work.

IMO, long cycles in pay (weeks or a month) are suboptimal. If the money streamed in continuously, slowly, then it would only "run out" for a matter of minutes, although it would still take a while for a useful amount of it to re-accumulate.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#132

Post by vonmoltke »

nostrademons wrote: post #117
jodrellblank wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google employs ~70k people ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti... ) That puts you as 70k in 300M ~= the top 0.025% of people. Can tens of millions make their future plans "become smart and capable enough to be in the top 0.025% within 3 years"?

That assumes an ordered ranking of people and of employers, a premise I reject. Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well. Most of the other ones will also fly you out and pay for relocation if they want you. At the same time I was interviewing with Google, there was even a 3-person startup that was willing to fly me out to SF to interview, except that I didn't really ca…

> Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well.

I lived in Dallas for almost fifteen years. The vast majority of those companies ignored me even when I applied. Many of those same companies are now starting to beat my door down because I changed my location to New York. This industry seems to have a serious problem with geographic myopia.

Just from your list, Facebook ignored me until I moved to New York, Intel ignored me, nVidia ignored me, IBM ignored me, Microsoft basically ignored me. The only companies that approached me or responded to my applications were Google and Amazon, and only Amazon has been persistent.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#133

Post by s_kilk »

microcolonel wrote: post #90
slackingoff2017 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is welfare with a different name. The results will be the same. Some people will sit on their asses and never work a single day but the majority of the population would keep working. The extra money would become meaningless because prices would adjust to accommodate it. We have to keep in mind that you can't just create money and hand it out and make everyone rich. If everyone had 10x as much money prices would e…

> If we pillaged the top 1% and distributed their wealth evenly the entire rest of the population would get close to a 100% raise. That's how filthy rich the top 1% are. The problem with this, of course, is that the rich would simply leave. They are the most attractive to rob, and the best prepared to escape. In addition, "the 1%" is not an exclusive club; most people (currently) have a pretty good chance of entering…

> In addition, "the 1%" is not an exclusive club; most people (currently) have a pretty good chance of entering the 1% at some point in their life, most in the 1% have a very good chance of exiting it.

You can't be serious. Social mobility (to the extent it ever existed) is way down over the past 40 years, and there's no sign of that trend reversing.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#134

Post by drdeadringer »

discreteevent wrote: post #86
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what Facebook and the like are for? I'm being serious here. Since 2002 I have moved 5 times for work: Colorado, Texas, Guam, Maryland and now I'm in Virginia. My family is spread around Texas. I mostly keep up with the people I made friends with through the years and my family on FB, Twitter etc...phone and then rarely on email. The idea of a "local" community you have your whole life is antiquated - if it…

> Humans were traditionally nomadic - albeit in the same group. The same group is the important bit. The parent is talking about the importance of community. I don't think they care which kind it is.

One of my early jobs had me bouncing around the country. Every time I moved I had to start all over from scratch. Where's the grocery store? Where do I meet people? Is the church or the bowling ally the place to be on Friday night around here?

It got old. I love exploring new places, but I want to know my way around where I live. Travel is different from endless relocation.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#135

Post by ghaff »

isostatic wrote: post #114
ghaff wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-service is a mixed bag. Yes, I like ATMs and Netflix (or Redbox). But I hate self-service at grocery stores especially if I'm buying produce etc. I'm not a big fan at home improvement stores much of the time either.

On the other hand I was listening to a podcast when I popped into boots to buy lunch. Fairly busy so there was a queue, I drew the short straw and got directed to the legacy kiosk. This means having to pause what I was listening too, lose concentration, and switch into conversation mode for no benefit at all. Ikea is simply far easier to self-scan. Back in the olden days you could scan your shopping in the supermarke…

One of the problems with grocery stores specifically is that I buy a fair bit of stuff that isn't bar-coded, especially produce. I also guess that I'm not so much into sticking earphones in when I'm out and about. (And I also do a sort of weekly grocery shopping when I'm not traveling; no especially good delivery options in my area and not sure I would routinely use in any case.)

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#136

Post by nether »

bmwe30is wrote: post #30

>Some are rooted, embedded in their communities; and some are trapped — because housing is unaffordable where the better paying jobs are. And the jobs that are high paying are not the jobs they built their lives on. There's some texture and nuance to this statement. I remember on NPR, they interviewed a lady whom mentioned similar sentiments; her and her husband had built a family, worked in the blue-collar industry…

These people don't want to move because they value community and social support over economics. This attitude is baffling to HN because it defies quantifiable metrics unlike money. Seeing everything as an economic problem is the essence of greed.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#137

Post by nostrademons »

vonmoltke wrote: post #132
nostrademons wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes an ordered ranking of people and of employers, a premise I reject. Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well. Most of the other ones will also fly you out and pay for relocation if they want you. At the same time I was interviewing with Google, there was even a 3-person startup that was willing to fly me out to SF to interview, except that I didn't really ca…

> Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well. I lived in Dallas for almost fifteen years. The vast majority of those companies ignored me even when I applied. Many of those same companies are now starting to beat my door down because I changed my location to New York. This industry seems to have a serious problem with geographic myopia. Just from your list, Facebook ignor…

Did you indicate a willingness to relocate in your application? I was in Boston when I applied to Google etc, but had on my website, my resume, and my cover letter (when applicable) "Looking to move to Silicon Valley."

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#138

Post by chipotle_coyote »

nostrademons wrote: post #117
jodrellblank wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google employs ~70k people ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti... ) That puts you as 70k in 300M ~= the top 0.025% of people. Can tens of millions make their future plans "become smart and capable enough to be in the top 0.025% within 3 years"?

That assumes an ordered ranking of people and of employers, a premise I reject. Google is one of several thousand employers that are both hiring and pay reasonably well. Most of the other ones will also fly you out and pay for relocation if they want you. At the same time I was interviewing with Google, there was even a 3-person startup that was willing to fly me out to SF to interview, except that I didn't really ca…

I don't think the parent assumes an "ordered ranking of people and of employers" as much as it assumes a limited supply of open positions that meet the criteria you're giving (i.e., employers that will pay to fly you out for interviews and pay your relocation expenses if they hire you). The Bureau of Labor Statistics gives June 2017 numbers for employment in the "Information" category as 76,300 in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area and 102,400 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward area (and another ~4000 if you throw in Napa, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz). Even if we assume that all of those positions meet your criteria, and assume that there's a huge number of unfilled positions--say, 25% more than the filled ones--we're at around 250,000 total. And in practice, the first assumption there is, well, suspect. (There are technical writers, helpdesk support people, and entry level programmers at companies that won't pay relocation at that level.)

Bottom line: only a small fraction of people can get jobs in the tech industry, because even at its tremendous growth rate it's only creating enough jobs for a small fraction of the population. Increasing the pool of qualified applicants doesn't change that, it just makes the competition for the existing jobs harder.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#139

Post by lovich »

microcolonel wrote: post #90
slackingoff2017 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is welfare with a different name. The results will be the same. Some people will sit on their asses and never work a single day but the majority of the population would keep working. The extra money would become meaningless because prices would adjust to accommodate it. We have to keep in mind that you can't just create money and hand it out and make everyone rich. If everyone had 10x as much money prices would e…

> If we pillaged the top 1% and distributed their wealth evenly the entire rest of the population would get close to a 100% raise. That's how filthy rich the top 1% are. The problem with this, of course, is that the rich would simply leave. They are the most attractive to rob, and the best prepared to escape. In addition, "the 1%" is not an exclusive club; most people (currently) have a pretty good chance of entering…

That's a pretty bold claim about people's chance to enter and leave the 1%. Additionally there are only so many places to run to and its not like peoples money is all tied up in gold that can be smuggled out of the country anymore. It's pretty easy for governments to just put a block on their accounts if for some reason the wealthy decided they could make all of their money off of a society and then bounce when it came time to share in that same society

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#140

Post by osteele »

koonsolo wrote: post #74
unknown_apostle wrote: post #60

Working class people are being subjected to ultra efficient hypercapitalism, as in Uber drivers discovering they worked for free when they need to purchase a new car. Meanwhile Wall Street has been bailed out 2 times in the last 15 years alone with monetary policy. How many people went to jail? (And they haven’t learned a thing, on the contrary and quite spectacularly so.) If you want to know where the tech bubble co…

The whole credit card system in US is made to rip off "stupid" people, extremely so. Nobody writes about that, probably because everyone from US thinks it's normal, and nobody from the rest of the world knows about it. But that system is made to screw all the people who are not good at personal finances.

Maybe.

Or maybe (many) poor people are acting rationally given their economic circumstances.

See ["Reframing the Debate about Payday Lending"](http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/10/reframi...) (a pop summary of ["Interest rate caps and implicit collusion: the case of payday lending"](http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=58089), DeYoung & Phillips), or other articles linked [this episode of Freakonomics](http://freakonomics.com/podcast/payday-loans/). These articles are about payday loans, not credit card debt, but (1) some (but not all!) of the same concerns apply; and (2) I suspect much discussion of “poor people” and “credit cards” lumps together these forms of debt anyway.

I've seen other comparisons of payday loans to banking services for low-wealth individuals. (I don't have these at hand. I think Bannerjee & Duflo's _Poor Economics_ may cover some of this.) The banking services and fees that middle-class individuals see aren't available to the poor, so it's easy to draw false conclusions if you're generalizing from your own circumstances instead of studying theirs.

I agree that “the system” is screwing poor people. It's less obvious to me that this is because the poor aren't good at personal finances (let alone that they're “stupid”), and therefore that education would largely address this – although, according to some studies summarizes in the DeYoung & Phillips work, it might make some difference.

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