Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#271

Post by rifung » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

expertentipp wrote: post #238

mschuster91 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and needs to be supported by a rising share of taxes from a small number of young workers And here is where it gets funny. I wonder how pension systems would look like if they were supported by the billions of dollars that especially FAANG but also other huge megacorps such as IKEA, McDonald's, Burger King "creatively avoid" in taxes. Or if minimum wages were set so high that a pension built on a life of minimum wa…

It’s unacceptable that social services are a zero-sum game between those employed and those not employed, while employers cut margins and funnel out basically all profits - the famous „socialize the losses, privatize the profits”. I hope FAANG, McDonalds, IKEA, Deutsche*, automotive companies, fossil fuels companies, investment funds, and whatnot will get the feel of cold talons of the social justice.

> I hope FAANG, McDonalds, IKEA, Deutsche*, automotive companies, fossil fuels companies, investment funds, and whatnot will get the feel of cold talons of the social justice.

It's not like the people running these corporations are all evil and out to ruin people's lives. People behave based on the incentives laid out in front of them and the current combination of capitalism and laws incentivizes the behavior we are seeing.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#272

Post by bovermyer » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #197

irrational wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive?" Colleges shouldn't be in the business of training people for jobs - that is what tech schools are for. If you just want to get a job, go to a tech school, don't go to college. College is (or should be) about expanding your mind, your horizons. It should be about exposing you to new ideas and thoughts you hadn't b…

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1780-05-12: > I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

What proportion of Americans now have the ability to study topics of less directly monetary connections as compared to those of Adams' day?

I imagine the answer to that question would be interesting and nuanced.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#273

Post by bluGill » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:48 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #197

irrational wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive?" Colleges shouldn't be in the business of training people for jobs - that is what tech schools are for. If you just want to get a job, go to a tech school, don't go to college. College is (or should be) about expanding your mind, your horizons. It should be about exposing you to new ideas and thoughts you hadn't b…

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 1780-05-12: > I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.

And the great grand children don't get to study because they have to get a job right away. After a few generations they finally save up enough that some kid can can study "Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture" and the cycle repeats.

Nothing wrong with the arts, but the fact is very few can support a reasonable lifestyle on it. By burning the inheritance you can produce art but nothing remains for your children. Study art by all means, but make sure you have something to support yourself on without burning up the hard work of your ancestors first.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#274

Post by hoaw » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #242

netcan wrote: post #10

" middle-class life to those without a college degree " Anytime you start delving into what has changed for a subset of people, over decades, the most important piece of the puzzle is decided ding who qualifies for the subset. I mean concepts like "middle class" or "without a college degree." A lot more people get degrees, in 2018. Does the graduates/nongraduates segment still represent a comparable group of people?…

The American term "middle-class" means something far less specific than the original British meaning of "well to do, town dwelling, non-aristocratic business owner". In that definition, a "middle-class" person is never an employee (which would make someone "working-class"). The American use of the term reflects (whether or not it is borne out in reality) the achievement of a comfortable and secure lifestyle (relative…

The most concise modern class definition I have seen goes something like this:

Working class: work to survive. Middle class: work to do other things. Upper middle class: work for wealth. Upper class: work optional.

People rightfully like to talk about the working poor and the disappearing middle class, but I think we are actually already past that. What we are seeing now is that between education, housing and financial insecurity it is hard to be even upper middle class anymore without existing wealth.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#275

Post by drawkbox » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

seizethecheese wrote: post #264

drawkbox wrote: post #230

New business idea for transportation: HeliHelp. HeliHelp flies in low skilled workers via helicopter, quicker than commutes and allows you to keep paying "market wages" that don't allow employees for retail/restaurants/etc to live anywhere near the place of upscale upperclass community where you need your employees to be during work. Fly them in, then fly them out, way out. HeliHelp is not only an expense, but it can…

Should middle class wages keep increasing relative to everyone else forever? That’s clearly an absurd scenario. Middle class wages increased substantially comprared to upper class in the 50s and 60s. “Stagnating” could also be seen as “holding on to gains”.

> Should middle class wages keep increasing relative to everyone else forever?

Yes if you want to keep a middle class.

In a consumer economy that requires growth, demand has to be there for investment. One way to achieve demand is people have more money to buy things in a consumer economy and their earning outstepping household inflation which is higher than macro inflation. Ultimately the middle class has been on a downward trend if flat due to higher household inflation.

Inflation is a macro level number. Household/family inflation is more than the macro inflation number on the whole economy i.e. housing/rent, food, gas, tuition/education, healthcare, etc are all higher inflationary items than other indicators which pull it down across the economy but not for many groups [1], especially middle class that gets the weight on their backs on healthcare, tuition and more due to no subsidies or higher pricing because they make more.

Just because inflation on the macro economy didn't go up too much, doesn't mean family/household/individual inflation isn't higher and too much at the same time of wage stagnation [2][3]. Flat since 2000...

Middle class is shrinking because wages are not outstepping inflation relative to their needs. That isn't relative to everyone but an overall downward trend for middle class. While lower and upper classes are up they will also stagnate if that trend continues.

Middle class wages and breaks need more help than ever right now due to inequality and very little policy or the market helping middle class handle the weight that the lower and upper class put on their backs. Middle class consumers support local economies and return most of their money back to the market/economy, wealth does not. Middle class is also mostly the longs of the public stock markets in terms of investments and retirement accounts. The trend of a middle class disappearing cannot continue or the system breaks and the public markets will also probably break, that affects everyone including the wealthy.

More people can buy your product and invest in your company if they have cash money to do so.

[1] https://ritholtz.com/2016/08/inflation-look-right-places/

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?graph_id=195323#

[3] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4111556-august-2017-median-...

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#276

Post by gizmo686 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #226

gizmo686 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true if an increase in the housing supply does not lead to an increase in the population. At a national level, this is probably true enough to assume. But, at the level of individual cities, it is not nessaserrily true. I can easily imagine scenarios where an increase in housing causes an increase in the local population greater than the increase in housing capacity.

For increase supply to have no effect on price, the demand curve has to be highly inelastic, but this just isn't true. People very much do make decisions about where to live based on the cost. At the margin, people may be more likely to move if you build more housing, but this would be because they can get a better deal on housing, not because there is some abstract idea of more housing. Without a reduction in price/…

I am thinking more in terms of lagging responses.

For instance, suppose we increased supply 10% today, and prices immidietly fall. Seeing the lower prices, bussiness begin making plans to open in the new city to take advantage of the lower COL workforce. In total, these plans would increase the demand for labor by 20% and take 5 years to be implemented.

At some point in those 5 years, people will have moved into the new housing driving the costs back up to their original levels.

In an ideal market, bussiness would stop moving in, as their original motivation to do so is gone. However, the market is not ideal. Plans had already been written, and the moving has already begun, so the demand for labor will increase even further, encouraging more people to move in, driving up the costs of housing.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#277

Post by zjaffee » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

moorhosj wrote: post #29

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make very good points above. I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes. That being said, with AWS Certs going for between $75-$300 how long do colleges think they can survive? If you were a 22 yr old who studied from zero-level computing knowledge for 12 months and got the AWS Solutions Architect Pro cert (somewhat possible assuming 2 hours / day) I can already guarantee you’d receive a written…

==I really enjoyed college, especially my liberal arts classes.== I think this highlights the true question. Do colleges exist to promote education and intellectual curiosity or to train workers? According to PEW, Americans believe colleges are for work training: "Americans are split on the main purpose of college, with 47% saying it is to teach work-related skills and 39% saying it is to help a student grow personal…

This is because college majors people do can be broken down into half as being generally viewed as practical or career focused such as STEM, business, education, agriculture, communications, ect. Where as the other half tend to be more enriching fields, Psychology, Visual and Performing arts, Humanities and other social sciences. (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_322.10.a...)

The other point I think worth adding isn't that many of these humanities and arts fields are unemployable, but largely that they are some of the most popular majors and in turn their economic value is diminished as such. If there were twice or three times as many graduates per year in Computer Science, I'd expect the perceived economic value of a CS degree to decline as well.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#278

Post by ip26 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

ruralqs wrote: post #196

motohagiography wrote: post #112

I find the tone of articles like these to be patronizing. Let's be clear, the hollowing out of rural economies is a direct and explicit effect of trade policy, and not some accident of economics and markets. The precise dynamic in this article is that where previously cities provided capital and farms provided food, with a spectrum of services in between - with globalization, cities no longer depend on their regional…

The interests of rural people in the US are, depending on the state, protected by the electoral college and Senate allocation. Look for more attempts to abolish these things, which would be civil war-risking changes to government. To me there's no reason that old, beautiful towns couldn't become parts of the information economy, as long as they have decent internet access and are within an hour or two of a decent air…

A nearby university is a common requirement for tech companies looking for new pastures.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#279

Post by ip26 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #26

> So what’s to be done in order to help mid-skilled and non-college workers live decent, middle-class lives? ... build lots more housing in cities, driving down rents and making cities more livable for everyone. This is a nice idea in theory, but isn't this a temporary fix? For the first five years, housing prices will lower. But as more companies (demanding higher-educated individuals) realize more people are availa…

If only one city does this, I would agree. But, if cities around the country do this, and up-and-comers build as well & compete to get in the game as new employment hubs, that changes things, as demand for housing at a national level is not that elastic due to population size.

Re: Big Cities No Longer Deliver for Low-Skill Workers

#280

Post by bb101 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #230

New business idea for transportation: HeliHelp. HeliHelp flies in low skilled workers via helicopter, quicker than commutes and allows you to keep paying "market wages" that don't allow employees for retail/restaurants/etc to live anywhere near the place of upscale upperclass community where you need your employees to be during work. Fly them in, then fly them out, way out. HeliHelp is not only an expense, but it can…

Bloomberg do this with the staff in their Paris office, or at least used to a few years ago. Not on helicopters, but on trains from London. Labour rules can become flexible when your staff arrive from another country on Monday mornings.