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Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

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Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#41

IMF economic forecasts are of little value, as everyone should have learned from 2008. Let's see what the IMF forecast in 2007... https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sores1... forecast: "World growth to slow in 2008, but still expected to remain solid at 4¾ percent " reality (Fed report 2013): "From peak to trough, US gross domestic product fell by 4.3 percent, making this the deepest recession sinc…

It's complicated because the forecasts of the system themselves can have some effect on the system they're forecasting. Because of people chasing alpha in the markets, any forecast with too much predictive power will tend to alter the system in ways that reduce its predictive power

It's like if predicting the weather could hurt the weather's feelings.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#42
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

Things are different now. The reality is that probably close to 80-90% of self-described software engineers face permnanet unemployment as they will be replaced by low paid "prompt engineers", likey from India. It's already happening and it's happening at scale. The top 10% will see enourmous income gains as they will be the only people left who actually know what they are doing and how to correct mistakes that can't…

That's a very weird market you're describing. Can't the top 10% do "prompt engineering" themselves? What's the point of creating a layer of incompetent human programmers in the middle?

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#43
post #6

Soft landing except for us in tech who have been unemployed for months or years

We’ve been telling people for years that a STEM degree is a free ticket to the middle class and studying humanities is a total dead-end. It wouldn’t be that surprising for there to be too many programmers (in some sense; if you ask management there will never be enough as long as we have any negotiating leverage). This is a broader problem than the recent COVID-induced troubles.

We've been telling people for years that a STEM degree is a fast track to a six figure income. And that's been mostly true. But now people are going to find out that a STEM degree is going to place them firmly in the real middle class, not the, "I make $240k a year and live in the Bay Area I'm middle class just like you" middle class.

Possible we might see some real class solidarity if those being displaced can get over themselves.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#44

IMF economic forecasts are of little value, as everyone should have learned from 2008. Let's see what the IMF forecast in 2007... https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sores1... forecast: "World growth to slow in 2008, but still expected to remain solid at 4¾ percent " reality (Fed report 2013): "From peak to trough, US gross domestic product fell by 4.3 percent, making this the deepest recession sinc…

Are you comparing their projection for the World GDP change in one year vs reality of one country over some extended period? I don't think your argument as strong as you believe.

World GDP Change in

2008 +2.1%

2009 -1.4%

2010 +4.5%

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2...

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#45

IMF economic forecasts are of little value, as everyone should have learned from 2008. Let's see what the IMF forecast in 2007... https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sores1... forecast: "World growth to slow in 2008, but still expected to remain solid at 4¾ percent " reality (Fed report 2013): "From peak to trough, US gross domestic product fell by 4.3 percent, making this the deepest recession sinc…

It's complicated because the forecasts of the system themselves can have some effect on the system they're forecasting. Because of people chasing alpha in the markets, any forecast with too much predictive power will tend to alter the system in ways that reduce its predictive power

Do you think these forecasts would have been accurate if they had been kept secret?

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated because the forecasts of the system themselves can have some effect on the system they're forecasting. Because of people chasing alpha in the markets, any forecast with too much predictive power will tend to alter the system in ways that reduce its predictive power

It's like if predicting the weather could hurt the weather's feelings.

This legit got a laugh out of me. I'll be cursing at the clouds the next time it rains!

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#47
post #12
post #6

Soft landing except for us in tech who have been unemployed for months or years

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

>We have trouble finding good engineers to hire

> I might have been open to hiring a digital nomad in 2021, I’m not open to that anymore because there are more “normal” candidates out there who aren’t asking for special treatment or unrealistically high salaries.

Let me rephrase.

"I'm not open to hire people who refuse to be dictated by me, the boss, how they should live their lives. I'm now demanding again that my employees get stuck with locality market constraints as they tend to play in my favor.

Except that, I struggle to find good enginners. I find normal people who aren't good enough to make demands though, thanks to the coordinated massive layoffs, so I will keep fighting."

See, workers, those who truly do the work that is. Have for the most part figured out the manipulations.

A layoff squeeze, or two or even 10 to pressure the job market, to make demands for fairer salary be under control, simply won't work. Temporarily, maybe. As people do need not just to eat but also pay back mortgages. But what it did mostly is creating more noise for the employer side. Great enginners don't get laid off. Those who do know usually very well their value, get recommendations and a new role in no time.

The economy isn't collapsing, demands is there otherwise there wouldn't be an inflation to fight , we need more workers than ever.

the capital refuses to accept a certain reality. That is that Workers will continue to have access to more information. Hence making it futile to exercise manipulations.

I'm for free markets and find the disguised attacks and ambushes against the "working class" appalling. Workers aren't even unionized. They just individually have neurons and access to the internet. The same who have been promoting the idea that we better all get richer finally realized that's not fun, that fewer should be much richer and the rest poorer

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#48

IMF economic forecasts are of little value, as everyone should have learned from 2008. Let's see what the IMF forecast in 2007... https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sores1... forecast: "World growth to slow in 2008, but still expected to remain solid at 4¾ percent " reality (Fed report 2013): "From peak to trough, US gross domestic product fell by 4.3 percent, making this the deepest recession sinc…

> If climate scientists made forecasts that were this ridiculously off base in the wrong direction, the whole field would be laughed out of the room. How is it that the neoclassical econometric modelers at the IMF aren't? It's more like astrology than science. I have to say, this made me chuckle. Climate scientists have gone from warning us that we're entering an ice age, to warning us that the globe is warming too m…

The ice age thing was never a majority opinion among scientists.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#49
post #12
post #6

Soft landing except for us in tech who have been unemployed for months or years

On the flip side, tech was booming during Covid when a ton of people in retail, restaurants were affected. All industries and all sectors can’t always be booming without there being a perpetual bubble. We have trouble finding good engineers to hire, so I’m skeptical when I hear people having trouble finding engineering jobs. My assumption (could be wrong) is a lot of people having trouble getting work haven’t adjuste…

We have no issues with hiring at the company I work for, dozens of good CVs for each open position.

The difference seems to be that we don't have a RTO policy and actually encourage WFH a lot, you just need to live in a country we have a registered entity for tax reasons, so no digital nomads either.

Maybe your new normal isn't working, you're paying the price for it.

Re: Global Economy Approaches Soft Landing, but Risks Remain

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider "unrealistically high", because I find that hard to apply to what I'm seeing. For example, I was recently contacted about a bay area principal engineer spot for 150-190k. To give some context, a fast food place near my house has signs in the window offering 160k+ for managers. Maybe fast food is paying exceptionally well these days, but I have my doubts.

Depends on the chain, management at McD and Burger King was always rather well paid. Also high turn-over high pressure.

Retail management means you're on call 24/7 even when you think you're on vacation. And even when another manager is nominally running the store. Also you're not totally responsible for hiring, and underperformers can and do get stuck on your team. And also you're responsible for your store hitting its sales targets regardless of where it's located and what changes in the environment.
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