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9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

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Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#61

Post by MatthewPhillips »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

I agree with everything you said but the #1 obstacle to owning you own business is seed capital. You don't have to be a genius or rich to start a company, but you do have to be willing to take a potentially big financial risk to do so. People fresh out of college don't have 20k to live off of for 6 months before they can turn a profit on a business. The average household has 10k+ in debt; those people cannot start a business either.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#62

Post by Symmetry »

mcantelon wrote: post #44
Symmetry wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real wages may have decreased, but total compensation has been increasing steadily, at least on a per worker basis instead of a per-household one. A lot of that has been increases in the cost of health insurance paid for by employers, but some has been more vacation time, 401K matching, etc.

I think that may be true for a minority of the workforce, but not the workforce at large.

It might not be true for the whole workforce, but it is true for the median. For the rich healthcare costs make up basically nothing in their compensation, so all of their compensation increase show up as higher wages. The really poor often don't get healthcare. But for the median, they get healthcare and healthcare expenses are fairly big compared to their wages.

This doesn't mean that the compensation of the median worker has perfectly tracked GDP growth, because there has been a moderate but genuine increase in inequality in compensation. But it isn't nearly as big as the increase in the wage gap, and saying "real median wages have decreased" is misleading.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#63

Post by zwieback »

knieveltech wrote: post #47

"New developments in flooring, painting and construction are resulting in longer use of our homes." I know that this is at best tangential to the OP's point but this poked me in the eye. Can the OP really be this naive about modern construction materials and practices? 150 years ago it wasn't uncommon to build a house out of hardwood planking, with a stone foundation. Post in beam construction using 2ft square timber…

Materials are much better now than in the 60s or 70s but not as good as in the more distant past. My house was built in the 40s and looks better than 10 or 15 year old houses in the area. On the other hand, insulation was crap or non-existent then and furnaces were less efficient.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#65

Post by Symmetry »

ojbyrne wrote: post #19

So looking at this article - http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-01-06-us-pop... - my quick calculation shows that the US population is growing at about 1.3% annually. Which means there's somewhat more than 7 million new Americans since 2008 (back of the envelope produces a number of 8 million). Which, combined with the fact that GDP has barely recovered since 2008, kind of invalidates the article - i.e i…

I noticed the same thing (and posted as much) before finding this chart saying that the total quantity of jobs really is way below peak.

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=w...

It was really sloppy of the article to use those number like that, but his point isn't invalidated.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#66

Post by john_b »

derleth wrote: post #58
WalterBright wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A much better take would be an examination of why our education system churns out so many college grads with few marketable skills. Queue the recent discussion about rampant cheating in college. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254

> Queue I'd understand this better if people didn't always pick the longer word when the short one would be correct.

"The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: both civil and substantial."

"Empty comments can be ok if they're positive. There's nothing wrong with submitting a comment saying just "Thanks." What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling."

http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#67

Post by sixtofour »

derleth wrote: post #58
WalterBright wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A much better take would be an examination of why our education system churns out so many college grads with few marketable skills. Queue the recent discussion about rampant cheating in college. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254

> Queue I'd understand this better if people didn't always pick the longer word when the short one would be correct.

I have seen grammar and spelling comments given in the spirit of helpfulness, but this was not one of them, and adds nothing.

My comment adds very little more than that, but I'd like to remind people that many very smart engineers and business workers have a terrible grasp of formal English, yet they get the job done and more. WalterBright's comment was short, but pointed to more information, and was a potentially useful comment. The discussion should be about the content of his comment.

The fact that he used the wrong word is virtually irrelevant, we all knew what he meant. Yes, if you have a strong grasp of formal English you do make yourself seem more credible, especially in a formal context. But it's not the thing to focus on. Not here.

S/N on HN is amazingly high, but it is still a casual forum, and we should all cut each other generous slack.

Written with helpful intention. :)

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#68

Post by juiceandjuice »

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.

Maybe I'm biased because I did research in Particle Astrophysics and now work as a developer for Particle physics experiments, but the problem with most small businesses is not that they don't need any random PhD, it's that they lack the foresight to understand what a person trained in particle astrophysics can actually bring to the table. In modern day terms, a degree in astrophysics is a degree for the polymath.

The valley and wall street are a bit different... people are willing to give you a shot at almost anything in any seemingly unrelated field because they think you'll probably be able to handle it, because you've solved hard problems that are often similar in scope. Predicting the market is pretty similar to reconstructing a collision, folding proteins, or predicting molecular orbitals. Cloud computing isn't that different than grid computing. Statistics are statistics and models are models, and companies are finding out new ways they can benefit from information processing by utilizing the people who pioneered it.

I do agree though... the Main Street small businesses, the ones that I think the GOP often fantasizes about, aren't going to usually need someone with a PhD in whatever.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#69

Post by kotrin »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #61
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

I agree with everything you said but the #1 obstacle to owning you own business is seed capital. You don't have to be a genius or rich to start a company, but you do have to be willing to take a potentially big financial risk to do so. People fresh out of college don't have 20k to live off of for 6 months before they can turn a profit on a business. The average household has 10k+ in debt; those people cannot start a…

I don't think seed money is the problem. You start a company in the cloud using basic plans that total to $0/month.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#70

Post by gaius »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

EXACTLY the same problem in the UK. Under the last government's social engineering caper, millions of teenagers who would otherwise have learned a trade (electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc) from their fathers instead were swindled into going to hastily built "new universities" to get worthless, made-up degrees in "Media Studies" (and a mountain of debt). Now they're not only unemployed but unemployable - and all our skilled and semi-skilled labour we import from Poland (a country where they do still respect honest work).

Now my fondness for all things Eastern European is very well known - but even I think it's insane that while we have millions of English jobless, someone flew 600 miles to serve me coffee at the train station in the mornings.

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