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America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

economist.com

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Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#31

Post by joe_the_user »

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…

I find it frustrating that your argument, as mean-spirited as it is fallacious, can get traction just by being both those things simultaneously.

The fall of the USSR initiated a period of privation that involved a significant population decrease through starvation. This event did nothing to improve their economy, indeed it hobbled it.

You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the massive economic reorganization rather than the death that does that.

Edit: it is true that in Europe, the black death eventually resulted in considerable economic growth but that was an utterly different economy and the changes were on the order of hundreds of years, not decades.

Edit2: Re: regarding the randomness of disease: the deaths involved in wars have generally fallen on the less well off, at least in the times modern warfare (Post US civil war and the machine gun). Contrawise, the deaths involved in the collapse of the USSR were fairly widespread and uniform because most previously existing enterprises became unviable and so many otherwise skilled laborers and professionals were left unpaid.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#32

Post by busterarm »

adventured wrote: post #25
busterarm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

You are saying exactly that. You said: "It's totally horrible for me to say this but a deadly flu pandemic is needed for the health of our economy." Mass death is needed for the health of our economy, is what that says. Emphasis on needed and for the health of our economy .

I was being (quite obviously) cheeky. I mean, this is the internet...

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#33

Post by twoodfin »

busterarm wrote: post #29
twoodfin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pg must be thrilled that this site has now devolved to the point where we talk longingly about putting entrepreneurs up against the wall.

Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. I'm sure patent trolls consider themselves entrepreneurs too. If someone is a greedy asshole at the expense of others, I have no problem advocating putting them up against the wall.

Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship.

And how does a "class war" distinguish them?

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#34

Post by waps »

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…

You don't believe in evolution then ? I'm pretty sure it says that

1) populations will grow far above reasonable levels and extremely far above sustainable levels.

2) this WILL get resolved.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#35

Post by busterarm »

joe_the_user wrote: post #31
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…

I find it frustrating that your argument, as mean-spirited as it is fallacious, can get traction just by being both those things simultaneously. The fall of the USSR initiated a period of privation that involved a significant population decrease through starvation. This event did nothing to improve their economy, indeed it hobbled it. You are correct that some wars have helped economies improve. Protip: it's the mass…

The problem with what you're saying is that it didn't affect everyone pseudo-randomly like a highly infectious disease does. Certain classes of people thrived and got filthy-fucking rich off the fall of the USSR and most of that had to do with how much power they had from the outset.

The whole point of the "deadly plague" comment is that it kills kings and paupers alike.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#36

Post by pessimizer »

adventured wrote: post #10
patrickg_zill wrote: post #4

Talking about unemployment numbers without talking about how they are routinely massaged, and the calculations changed, is either stupid (for the journalist not knowing about it) or evil (if the journalist does and is merely trying to toe a line). See shadowstats.com for instance - they (the BLS) have changed the way unemployment (and many other stats such as CPI) are calculated over the years, and are no longer very…

Every time I read an article about our supposedly improving unemployment picture, I try to figure out if the author is ignorant or malicious, because it's the same story with every article. As though the 6.6% number were even remotely real. 13.5% U6 unemployment [1]. Down 5.x million full-time jobs [2] since the recession began (which even ignores population expansion and the expectation that we should have more full…

Prime age employment (18-54) is lower than it's been since around 1985.

http://stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com/2014/01/were-not-seeing...

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#37

Post by 6d0debc071 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #14
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.

Minimum wage, even at $10, is low enough that most of us could eat the loss of a couple of months of it out of our own wages easily enough. I find it hard to entertain the idea that it composes a significant portion of the risk for a company with reasonable money coming in.

The things they can screw up in terms of projects and resources if not managed correctly, it seems to me, represent far greater risks. Someone seriously messes up there, you can stand to lose a lot more than a few thousand pounds.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#38

Post by busterarm »

twoodfin wrote: post #33
busterarm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. I'm sure patent trolls consider themselves entrepreneurs too. If someone is a greedy asshole at the expense of others, I have no problem advocating putting them up against the wall.

Well, there's healthy and unhealthy entrepreneurship. And how does a "class war" distinguish them?

Sorry, I left my tea leaves and tarot cards at home. But French nobility continued through the Revolution into the 19th century and there about ~230 remaining noble families (present day) of which at least 130 were titled and had their titles officially restored in 1852.

So in the most notable instance of class war at least, not everyone got the axe. The point you're asking me to respond to is a separate discussion entirely.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#39

Post by yummyfajitas »

patrickg_zill wrote: post #26
yummyfajitas wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing definitions? Citation needed. A detailed link, not a vague referral to a conspiracy site.

Are you trolling or just woefully underinformed to be throwing around the words "conspiracy site"? The computations were changed in a major way during the Clinton administration . http://www.bls.gov/mlr/1995/10/art3full.pdf

Read your link. The definition of unemployment didn't change. They just stopped calculating u3 and u4 and relabeled u5 to u3.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#40

Post by michaelochurch »

twoodfin wrote: post #24
busterarm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

pg must be thrilled that this site has now devolved to the point where we talk longingly about putting entrepreneurs up against the wall.

Saying that a violent revolution is better than a 1918-style flu pandemic is hardly endorsing the concept.

Also, the upper class is not "entrepreneurs"-- most of them are well-connected influence peddlers, which makes them the farthest thing from entrepreneurs-- nor is it the same set as "rich people". (Not all upper class are rich, not all rich are upper class.) The upper class is a closed social network that happens to have a stranglehold on most of society's resources, but there are rich people entirely outside of that network, and not all people in that network choose to become rich (although most do, because it doesn't take them much work).

Is overthrowing the upper class, violently, desirable? No. I'd rather see them peacefully and gracefully decline into irrelevance. They even get to stay rich. It's their belligerence-- that they keep taking more each year-- that gives cause to kill them. It's not what they have, it's the risk (likelihood?) that they'll take more each year, leaving less for the rest. Is overthrowing the upper class morally acceptable? Yes. This is a problem for us to solve, and it may come down to our generation. Violence should be a tool of last resort, but they are already using it against us (if you live in the US, you know about our health insurance system) so we'd already be in second-strike territory. I have absolutely no moral problem with the violent overthrow of the global elite-- they've already earned it several times over-- but in terms of practicality, desire, and preference, if a nonviolent solution can be had, I'd rather it be that.

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