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9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

blogs.forbes.com

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Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#31

Post by pak »

grellas, you're the man when it comes to assiduous comments on legal topics, but why this article? It's just a bunch of hard-nosed Valley boardroom hot air that namedrops from the NASDAQ-100 and tells middle america to suck it up. The only salient point was that the government has no easy way of producing more jobs, but there's no solution offered and it's buried in a sea of other BS. "Hey poor and struggling unemployed Americans, you need to find new skills?" Seriously, Forbes needed to run a whole article dedicated to this?

A much better take would be an examination of why our education system churns out so many college grads with few marketable skills. Or something that balances it with their viewpoint: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/growing-up-t... This submission is just a pile of inflammatory linkbait that offers nothing new to the people that would agree with it, and enrages those who disagree by using such caustic language.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#32

Post by Splines »

billybob wrote: post #22

"I know you want to be hired full time by me. And I want to be doing my part. But please understand: I’m running a business. I want to make profits. And these tools are letting me make more profits by employing people only when I need them rather than carrying them on my payroll." This is why every time I hear a politician talk about "creating jobs," I grimace. A business will hire someone if and only if they think t…

There's a great podcast about this exact topic by Planet Money: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/05/135151990/the-tues...

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#33

Post by J3L2404 »

jfoutz wrote: post #26
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

Technological unemployment is part of the picture, but there isn't a 'magic bullet' to avoid it. We need Scientists? Ask the 1800 surplus Physics PhD's that get produced every year. It's clear that the academic system uses young and smart people, but not that it produces desirable or permanent employment for them. A wise person wouldn't get involved, unless they've got one (or preferably two) parent(s) that are alrea…

Scientists are just like Machine learning pixie dust. It's fun to say, but you'd be hard pressed to find a small business that needs an astrophysicist. I don't mean to pick on astrophysicists by the way, pick any random phd, a small business probably doesn't need that.

Well as Aaron Hillegass says in one of his books, a degree in astrophysics may not be all that practical, but it helps you overcome challenges where doubt might creep in about having the intellect to take on a difficult problem.

1) I am having trouble solving this problem, I must not be smart enough.

2) Wait, I have a degree in astrophysics, so I am smart, this must be really hard.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#34

Post by jameskilton »

natmaster wrote: post #29

This is why I'm so against the luddite regulations of liberals - they stagnate innovation. Obsession over jobs is a terrible mentality - restructuring is extremely healthy and necessary part of economic growth, and trying to stop it is only going to hurt things. People should be learning skills that are actually useful instead of doing robotic tasks all their lives. Robots will soon be replacing robotic people.

Your statement is disjointed and impossible to follow. Both parties are obsessing over jobs, and both parties have different ways to "fix" this problem.

If you want to discuss regulations, lets discuss how the lack of regulation led to the housing bubble and the near collapse of our entire economy.

If you want to talk about "robotic" jobs, please discuss how this is supposed to change? Do you want the government to persuade people to take more skillful jobs (and if so, doesn't that go completely against the conservative ideals?)? Do you want people to want to be in more skillful positions? How do you deal with the manufacturing workforce that had stable jobs for 30 - 50 years and now have nothing?

What is it you are actually trying to say here?

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#35

Post by JeffL »

Could we be trending towards a future where 99% of people are unemployed, but the 1% that is employed are so productive that there is plenty for everyone? I guess that's basically the same as saying that robots will do everything.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#36

Post by chriserin »

This is an argument that the unemployment problem is structural rather than cyclical. Paul Krugman points out constantly that if the unemployment problem was structural, we'd see wages rising in areas where there is demand, but wages aren't rising for anybody that makes less than 400,000, though for those above they've increased 23% since 2008.

The structural unemployment argument is a trope to insist that the government can't do anything to encourage employment, because stupid people just can't do today's jobs. Its politics disguised as economics.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#37

Post by xiaoma »

lukesandberg wrote: post #3

Good article, though i disagree with his conclusion that natural unemployment is going to fundamentally change. He is arguing that the economy is in a state of change and the losers in this creative destruction are those in low skilled jobs. so that explains the currently high unemployment, but to argue that we are at a new natural level doesn't seem justified. As the population (albeit slowly) retrains to participat…

Modern industries take a lot more training than those of a century ago. At the very least, the time to retrain will be longer than in the past. That alone would lead to higher unemployment. More importantly, there are more people who, for whatever reasons, just aren't capable of becoming good engineers, scientists or business people.
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