The current unemployment is caused by a lack of demand. It is ridiculous to think that a new unsolvable structural issue with the workforce showed up all of a sudden in the last 3 years. Businesses have money, there is plenty of capital, taxes are low, interest rates are low, etc. This is not a supply side issue and it is not a "structural" unemployment issue. If there was demand there would be full employment again.
9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
181–190 of 253 posts
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly, that is not the way captialism works. The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve. I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes: "Capitalism is the best system we have for creating wealth. It is a lousy system for the distribution of wealth." I suspect I will make some flack for this comment. I'm not arguing big govt. Rather, I'm pointing out that in a world where a small number of in…
"The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve" It's been tried: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution In the US, you try for a wealth distribution anything approaching what you're discussing and what you'll actually end up with is 1% of the population under a constant barrage of sustained small arms fire. Parents aren't going quietly watch their children starve. Incidentally, I agr…
It will be interesting (and terrifying! don't get me wrong, but also interesting) to see what happens if we get to this point - there is no Bastille for the masses to storm, throwing out the entirety of the democratic government would accomplish very little in terms of wealth redistribution, and the military now has the literal capability, though hopefully not the strength of will or weakness of conscience, to kill every member of the starving horde. Our distribution of wealth may not be as skewed as pre-revolutionary France, but our concentration of might is far higher.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every person that I know that has considered starting their own business has decided against it for one reason only, health insurance. They have always been the obtainer in chief of health insurance for the family and it is too risky to go without. I strongly suspect that a public health option would blow the job market wide open between folks who want to retire but can't because health insurance is idiotically expen…
This is so true... if you don't have a spouse whose coverage you can utilize, the cost of health insurance is prohibitive, ESPECIALLY for anyone over 30 who has a spouse and kids. At that point going without insurance (as I did when doing a startup, and so many other entrepreneurs I've seen do) is not just risky, it's irresponsible and foolhardy. Taking financial risks to start a business is fine - but you shouldn't…
Out of curiosity, what is the large source of the disparity? I was aware you don't get as nice of a tax break (though that will become irrelevant when you are making no money). Individually, I'd be surprised if your family had to pay over $1,500 a month for everyone, which is pretty comparable to group rates.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#184Isn't the main point here that we can sustain growth without actually 'working'? Is that due our definition of 'work' being flawed in that is not actually tied to the real value of an economy or because we are approaching post scarcity?
If the first was true millions would slave away every day without producing anything of value at all and what we see now is just a society telling everybody that you simply 'ought to have a job'.
In the second case we should worry about how to make such a society actually work (distribute its wealth better).
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#185Could 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.
Sadly, that is not the way captialism works. The 1% of people will have everything and the remaining 99% will starve. I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite quotes: "Capitalism is the best system we have for creating wealth. It is a lousy system for the distribution of wealth." I suspect I will make some flack for this comment. I'm not arguing big govt. Rather, I'm pointing out that in a world where a small number of in…
I don't think there's any evidence that 99% will starve. Certainly not in this country. Our problem is obesity. This chart on Wikipedia is showing that though in income inequality is increasing, all quintiles are also increasing (inflation adjusted.) Not only that, but the TV's that you can buy now are a lot better than those you can buy in 1940, ditto for the cars, houses, apartments, etc. And food is dirt-cheap if you actually try to be cost-conscious about it.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#186IMO, 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 stopped reading when I realized you think we need more vocational training. I agree.
Here's another idea that goes with your thought: Why don't employers stop asking for every cert and piece of experience under the sun? Whatever happened to on-the-job training?
This exists in IT but I'm sure it is the same elsewhere.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so true... if you don't have a spouse whose coverage you can utilize, the cost of health insurance is prohibitive, ESPECIALLY for anyone over 30 who has a spouse and kids. At that point going without insurance (as I did when doing a startup, and so many other entrepreneurs I've seen do) is not just risky, it's irresponsible and foolhardy. Taking financial risks to start a business is fine - but you shouldn't…
Out of curiosity, what is the large source of the disparity? I was aware you don't get as nice of a tax break (though that will become irrelevant when you are making no money). Individually, I'd be surprised if your family had to pay over $1,500 a month for everyone, which is pretty comparable to group rates.
It's not that uncommon for the employer to pay part of the group rate, as far as I can see.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#188IMO, 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 think the example to take here is the German education system: They were proponents of the idea that college isn't the only way. They had a second option, which is vocational school. These often have no tuition. This is the type of school you don't usually go to 5 days a week. Instead, you split that time between school and apprenticeship (i.e. internship). That way, you're forced to see the industry from day 1 and…
> I think the example to take here is the German education system: They were proponents of the idea that college isn't the only way. They had a second option, which is vocational school. These often have no tuition.
We have a similar alternative here in Australia; often known as "TAFE" (in Western Australia, at least) where the fees are typically just up-front and very cheap (we're talking hundreds, as opposed to 20-30k+ for University) for vocational courses, and a bit more for apprenticeships.
Saying that, and mostly due to our mining activity, there are a lot of people seeking this route. In fact, it's not uncommon for an electrician or fitter to earn a good $80k+ for FIFO work with just a couple of years experience (the news media usually says $100k, but that's the exception). Not bad considering what a lot of DBA's, programmers and sysadmins with 1-2 years of experience get.
Keep in mind we have a Government scheme called HECS/HELP, where the Government pays your fees (with some fairly high limits). You pay them back once you earn a certain level of income (the rate increases as you earn more) and there is no interest, however it does increase in June every year via inflation.
Excuse my very high-level overview.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every person that I know that has considered starting their own business has decided against it for one reason only, health insurance. They have always been the obtainer in chief of health insurance for the family and it is too risky to go without. I strongly suspect that a public health option would blow the job market wide open between folks who want to retire but can't because health insurance is idiotically expen…
"I strongly suspect that a public health option would blow the job market wide open ..." Excellent argument for real reform to health insurance access.
There are other ways to achieve the goal of breaking the link between employment and healthcare without a public insurer. Public insurers eventually become the predominant insurer by a large margin because they can use their size to obtain lower prices. Markets with few buyers or sellers are less efficient at providing the products people want at the prices they want than those with many. The result in this case would be less profit to be made in healthcare than people would be willing to pay for, so less effort would be spent to do so. Seems undesirable.
This is trending a bit off topic. Feel free to respond, but I won't.
Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.
#190The question of whether automation causes unemployment to rise in the long run is addressed in detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_automation_to_u... TL;DNR for the Wikipedia article: People have worried about machines putting humans out of work for centuries. But the unemployment rate has not risen steadily over the same period even as technology has constantly grown. The long term trend (measu…
These reminded me of structural unemployment[1] effects I've learnt on history classes, that happened during the first industrial revolution.
However, PG published an essay[2] from Knuth that mentioned:
... because their aim is to create machines that write programs better than we can, given only the problem specification.
In this sense we should continually be striving to transform every art into a science: in the process, we advance the art.
Which seems to be pretty much corroborated by your TL; DNR