America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#11

Post by moocowduckquack » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:20 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #8

jared314 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I believed outsourcing was the main culprit removing the bottom rungs on the career ladder. That was until someone, older than I was, told me: "A career is not a right." That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". Despite the large number of skilled, and n…

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Not only is it horrible, but it is also mean, wrong and stupid. Well done, you nearly have the full set.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#12

Post by 1457389 » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:24 AM UTC

hristov wrote: post #3

Sorry I don't believe this. If it is true that we are close to maximum employment, there would be more pressure for wage inflation and more overall inflation. In places other than the bay area (which is its own world) inflation is really low nowadays. If you take into account various promotions, many prices are actually lower than last year. And other than in the STEM fields, there is pretty much no wage inflation. I…

Did you not comprehend the portion of the article which outlined a supply side problem? You don't see higher wages in that kind of scenario, you see a steady diminishing in the market.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#13

Post by michaelochurch » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:25 AM UTC

Something I've noticed is that companies have a level of technical morale that is not quite the same thing as general morale. If general morale is how much people like the organization and trust its moral decency, technical morale is the sense that the people and products are of high quality. They're correlated but not the same thing. General morale is a group's self-esteem (although, when low, it becomes us-versus-them against the leadership) and technical morale is its self-efficacy.

Technical morale is also very slow to recover, and I think the U.S. has lost it over the past 30 years. People don't assume that others are capable. Rather, the prevailing assumption is that an as-yet-undetermined person is lazy, stupid, and incapable. People have this vague sense that things don't work as well as they used to; I don't know if that's actually true.

On the matter of how they view each others' competency, groups tend to be either in a state of trust-density and trust-sparsity (a "group Bozo Bit") with no middle ground, and we've flipped that switch a long time ago.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#14

Post by bpodgursky » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:25 AM UTC

ChuckFrank wrote: post #2

Contrary to the millennial gripes and the 'trophy kids' syndrome, I believe that there's a generation of highly specialized and highly educated people out there whose expertise is going to waste because they are not getting the first important steps to start working on the job. The work gap that most of these people are going to experience is going to have irreparable harm to the product, with regards to all the pape…

It's shocking that nobody mentions minimum wage increases as at least part of the cause here. When in some places the starting wage can't be lower than $10/hr, of course it's going to be challenging for college or high school students to get an employer to take a risk on them.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#15

Post by busterarm » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:27 AM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #9

busterarm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy. If it comes to that, I prefer a French Revolution style class war. Fewer deaths, more gain for each death and in total, thus more efficient. Between 10 million deaths, no correlation between dying and deserving it, and chaos and no reason to believe in political progress, versus 200,000 deaths, a high correlati…

Women got better quality jobs in the 30s/40s not because they were capable (they were) but because there was a shortage of men to do those jobs.

Eventually those in control of a mean, sexist elite were forced to modify their perceptions because of economics.

I'm ultimately just saying that the only thing that will force a mean, privileged elite to modify their perceptions will be economics.

Class war sure would give my sense of vengeance a boner, but I think it's both less likely and much more risky for those who we'd like to benefit from it (at present).

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#16

Post by busterarm » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:31 AM UTC

moocowduckquack wrote: post #11

busterarm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Not only is it horrible, but it is also mean, wrong and stupid. Well done, you nearly have the full set.

How else do you propose removing a large group of people who also have the largest amount of wealth and political influence and a high life expectancy who are purposefully removing economic opportunity from younger, less fortunate generations?

A deadly flu (which is something that used to be and will again be common) seems like the LEAST mean/stupid option to me.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#17

Post by adventured » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:33 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #8

jared314 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I believed outsourcing was the main culprit removing the bottom rungs on the career ladder. That was until someone, older than I was, told me: "A career is not a right." That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". Despite the large number of skilled, and n…

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Same logic used for the broken window fallacy.

Things would be better if only we destroyed some existing value.

If you applied the same logic to the whole world, it would mean billions dead, because hey, what good are those 600 million Chinese living on $2 a day. Any time an argument begins with: hey you know what we need, a billion dead people - you know immediately the argument is false.

If you have vast under-utilization of labor, there are numerous obvious solutions to that problem that don't involve millions dying.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#18

Post by michaelochurch » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

moocowduckquack wrote: post #11

busterarm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Not only is it horrible, but it is also mean, wrong and stupid. Well done, you nearly have the full set.

If you want a mean but more creative fix for a large number of society's problems in one go, here's an idea: take the 1000 richest people and split them into teams, Red and Blue, 500 on each. (Don't put immediate family on opposing teams.) Put collars on them that can kill them instantly. After one year, whichever team has fewer people alive will all be killed. (A less vicious version of this is that they lose all their money.)

If you do this, you have artificially created an irreparable cleavage in the elite. You will suddenly have unprecedented social mobility in the world (and, likely, full employment) as Red vs. Blue recruit the smartest people they can (and pay them handsomely) for their existential struggle. I can't say that this will improve the world. It may cause more problems than it solves, but it will shift power and wealth to talented people in a way that would otherwise never happen.

Conspiracy theories are a massive oversimplification of what actually goes on, but elites would rather collude. If you don't give them an immovable enemy within themselves, then their enemy becomes us (and that's not a fair fight). Obviously, this Red/Blue thing is an impractical fantasy, but it may provide insight into why the world seems to demand that wars (despite their being extraordinarily destructive and seemingly utterly undesirable) happen.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#19

Post by taivare » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #8

jared314 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I believed outsourcing was the main culprit removing the bottom rungs on the career ladder. That was until someone, older than I was, told me: "A career is not a right." That's when I understood that it is a choice by business owners and business managers to only hire pre-trained workers. It is a choice to run at half staff while waiting for a "perfect fit". Despite the large number of skilled, and n…

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Give it time...directed history..then they'll get you a job burying the dead !

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#20

Post by busterarm » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:37 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #17

busterarm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the longest period in a while where some fast-spreading illness hasn't killed large numbers of people across multiple demographics. Usually wars and sicknesses create a significant need to train new workers, but wars on their own aren't doing enough anymore and would only harm the demographics that are suffering anyway. It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the…

Same logic used for the broken window fallacy. Things would be better if only we destroyed some existing value. If you applied the same logic to the whole world, it would mean billions dead, because hey, what good are those 600 million Chinese living on $2 a day. Any time an argument begins with: hey you know what we need, a billion dead people - you know immediately the argument is false. If you have vast under-util…

Failure to recognize the argument. I'm not advocating mass death as the "cure". I'm saying "you know, traditionally, lots of people dying ahead of their life expectancy had an (typically healthy) impact on the economy and since that's not happening right now, that's having an impact too."