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The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

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Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#181

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #92
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #28

"It's time for the government to start hiring the long-term unemployed." What the fuck? If you measure something you do not like, the immediate response should not be to grab a hammer and try to kill it. It probably exists for a reason. Understand the reason. Then take action. It may be that there is nothing you can do -- directly. Only a small few percentage points of the problems in the world go away through direct…

Here's a solution that doesn't require the government to hire long-term unemployed: lying on a resume or in an interview to conceal unemployment is now legal . (Well, technically, it was never illegal; just considered unethical.) You may: * Expand dates of any job by up to two months or 10% on each side, whichever is larger. * Bump an educational degree forward by up to 5 years if under 40, and 10 years if older. * M…

[deleted]

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#182

Post by Caerus »

enraged_camel wrote: post #127
cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

The piece that I see ALWAYS neglected is maintenance. I rent and pay nothing additional to maintain the place. Washing machine breaks - landlord fixes it. Carpets wearing out (minus things that are obviously my fault) - landlord replaces it.

Everyone I talk to who owns is constantly upgrading or replacing or fixing something in their house. It seems, on average, home maintenance is about 66-75% of my rent check; and that isn't money they get back. It just prevents their home price from falling.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#183

Post by gehar »

rdouble wrote: post #124
michaelochurch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not a fan of mountaintop removal. Still, I get your point, and you're right. I shouldn't say "corporations" are terrible at that, because there are a lot of processes that require (if nothing else) the legal structure of one, but that a certain management style associated with the 20th-century large corporation is counterproductive. We can't know, because we can't go back in time, but I feel like those coal…

As a point of interest, miners in Australia are astoundingly well compensated and taken care of compared to resource extraction workers in other countries.

As a point of information,

that was a point of information, not a point of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_information

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#184

Post by saturdayplace »

pchivers wrote: post #170
jdietrich wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very simple mathematical error - people compare the cost of a mortgage payment with the cost of a month's rent, failing to take into account that only a tiny fraction of the mortgage payment actually becomes equity. If they actually sit down and work it out, most people are astonished at how much flexibility they sacrifice for that small slice of equity.

>failing to take into account that only a tiny fraction of the mortgage payment actually becomes equity. What percentage of a mortgage payment actually gets converted into equity? (coming from a genuinely curious person who has never owned a house)

At the beginning of a mortgage, the overwhelming majority of your payment will be interest; a very small slice is applied to the principal. Over the term of the loan, those small cuts whittle away the principal owed, which in turn lowers the amount of interested charged each payment (a percentage of the principal owed), until at the end of the mortgage your payment is mostly principal.

If you do the math, a typical 30-year mortgage will cost you twice the actual cost of paying cash for a home, so roughly 50% of your payment actually gets converted into equity, assuming your home value was static over the term. This is why people often advise new homeowners to make an extra principal-only payment as often as possible at the beginning of the loan: to cut down the eventual amount of interest you'll end up paying.

That's what I've done with my mortgage. I've been lucky to be in a position to make frequent principal-only payments and should be able to cut a 30-year mortgage to 15-ish or so, saving a metric grundle of cash in the process. Given the nature of the conversation happening around this thread, I suppose I should state my reasons for trading away job-seeking flexibility: I LOVE that eventually, I'll have a roof and four walls independent of my employment situation.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#185

Post by natrius »

benjiweber wrote: post #163
[deleted] wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I guess it depends on the rental vs purchase market where you are. Here in outer London, rental prices are pretty much in line with the interest payments on a mortgage. So you're "throwing away" the same amount whether you're renting or not. I'd have thought this would become a natural equilibrium in most places. If rental prices are significantly more than the interest payments on a mortgage then owning will seem mo…

Anyone deciding whether to purchase a home should play with this calculation of the tradeoffs first: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#186

Post by nostromo »

enraged_camel wrote: post #127
cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

A few things you're not accounting for:

* Leverage. (The most you can leverage a stock investment is 2x. For homes people can leverage their money up to an insane 20x, for example: by buying a 500k home with 25k down. The proper comparison is not to compare buying a 500k home vs 500k worth of stocks; it's buying 25k or 50k worth of stocks vs a 500k home.)

* Mortgage deduction. (Imagine if you could invest 500k in the stock market with only 25k, and then the government let you deduct your interest payments!)

* Inflation. (I've heard of people living in Manhattan in apartments they bought in the 1980s that pay a mortgage of $500. Inflation has reduced their mortgage debt to negligible levels. Time has in a very real way erased much of their debt.)

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#187

Post by mgkimsal »

nilkn wrote: post #169
enraged_camel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

> Instead of having that money tied down on a house, people are much better investing in the stock market, which has, over the past 100 years, gone up by 7% annually. Just to be clear, that 7% is after inflation. The historical performance of the stock market is closer to 10-11% pre-inflation. > The only time a house makes sense is when raising kids. Retirement is of course another scenario where it makes sense. Mobi…

"but lots of people I could double their earnings if they weren't locked down to one location."

Likewise, many companies could have lower labor expenses if they'd embrace telecommuting and locate branches (or HQ) in lower cost of living areas.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#188

Post by hosh »

UK-AL wrote: post #151
hosh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't put "freelance" on your resume. Being "freelance" means you're operating your own company, with its own presence, branding, etc. The least you can do is to name your consulting company and declare yourself as the owner. Even with something as simple as Consulting. Because, at least according to the IRS, you are. Take advantage of it.

I think you will find is that a lot companies don't like hiring small business owners either. Even successful ones. Companies might expect them to be 'arrogant' or "want do things their own way".

Then perhaps that isn't the company you want to work for.

Realistically, I have not met any hiring managers who had a problem with my consulting. I have not met any recruiters that had a problem with this. I focused on describing the project/product in all of employment history rather than who employed me, or what my job description.

To be fair, software developers are generally in much greater demand. If you're a software dev looking for work, the best way is a combination of:

(1) Going to technical meetups that have a strong cross section of "developeneurs". There are generally recruiters there in addition to startup founders looking for technical founders. They usually flock to places rich with developer contacts. The recruiters at this kind of meeting are voraciously hungry for leads, with the regular members trying not to roll their eyes and ignoring the recruiters. Anyone new gets pounced upon. Just by showing up, you're pre-qualified, pre-screened. And you get free food.

(2) Participate in open source projects. Yes. You want to eat. Set aside some time while waiting for people to call back. Even things as simple as maintaining the docs. You can hear about the most active open-source projects by going to the meetups in (1).

Both of these methods builds up your network, something far more valuable than a mere job. Jobs come and go, but your contacts tend to persist over the lifetime of your career. If you're only sending out resumes, then you're not using everything that is available to you.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#189

Post by gehar »

droithomme wrote: post #55

It's not a terrible metric. There is an actual correlation between long term unemployment and being unemployable because of lack of skills and incompetence, or serious personality defects, such as drug addiction, mental disorders, criminality, violent behavior and laziness. Few long term unemployed are long term unemployed for no reason at all. It's hard to take the claims seriously of those such as the article autho…

Government employee doesn't have to be bureaucrat. It could be street-sweeper.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#190

Post by nilkn »

bluedino wrote: post #147
enraged_camel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

> Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! It's really the older generation that promote this. If you're 35 years old, chances are your dad walked out of high school into the same large company that he retired from. Why would they need mobility when they had jobs for life? The only younger people I know that share that view are close-minded and never see the poin…

> The only younger people I know that share that view are close-minded and never see the point of leaving Smalltown, USA.

To be fair, if you can find a way to make good money in a small town, you'll be living a more comfortable life than most people in big cities. If the attractions of a big city don't actually attract you, then sometimes moving to one is, economically, a bad decision.

My parents have a big house in a small town and for over a decade they owned and operated a local gas station. They were "rich," even though they didn't make a lot of money by NYC or SV standards. Do you know how much the house cost them? A little over $100k. Just let that sink in.

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