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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

#41

Post by pcurve »

MereInterest wrote: post #27
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…

>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". I would say that it is entirely the prisoner's dilemma. It benefits everyone to have a supply of well-trained workers. However, if you can skimp on training by hiring workers that other companies have trained, you can an advanta…

Yep, once company trains you thoroughly, they have to spend even more money retaining you because you may jump ship.

Good old days of lifetime employment where loyalty was two-way street had its benefits.

Because of this mutual distrust, it's too hard to retain good employees these days. Irony is that, most good employees are completely wasted in corporate environment anyway.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#42

Post by twoodfin »

busterarm wrote: post #38
twoodfin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

So pg should be content to take his chances come the glorious revolution? I still don't get why you'd have a "boner" for indiscriminate killing of the successful, even if it's "merely" a random subset thereof.

You say in another comment that you're just being "cheeky", but frankly I find your and michaelochurch's comments deeply disturbing. If it's just dorm room BS, perhaps you could find a more appropriate forum.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#43

Post by busterarm »

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.

I also think I should point out that I think your comment points out a couple of biases both about this community and who we think are the wealthy elite in this country.

I think those that have struck rich through entrepreneurship are the extreme minority and the numbers we've seen back it up. In fact most founders lately seem to be either the working-poor or at parity with salaried developers working for established business. Regardless, as a group, they are in no way the kings and policy makers in our society and are barely significant stakeholders.

I think it's much more likely that the "rich and powerful" who influence the direction of our society all engage in primarily rent-seeking activity.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#44

Post by twoodfin »

michaelochurch wrote: post #40
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.

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 happen…

It's their belligerence-- that they keep taking more each year-- that gives cause to kill them.

OK. Name some names. Who has cause to be killed by your standard solely because they "keep taking more"?

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#45

Post by busterarm »

twoodfin wrote: post #42
busterarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

So pg should be content to take his chances come the glorious revolution? I still don't get why you'd have a "boner" for indiscriminate killing of the successful, even if it's "merely" a random subset thereof. You say in another comment that you're just being "cheeky", but frankly I find your and michaelochurch's comments deeply disturbing. If it's just dorm room BS, perhaps you could find a more appropriate forum.

"indiscriminate killing" means both the successful and the unsuccessful. You're confusing a lot of things here. I mention this in another comment but in no way is anything that I'm saying targeted specifically at people involved in tech startups, in fact, despite how I think many would think of themselves they've all got the same lot as the rest of us.

tl;dr: tech entrepreneurs are not the 1%.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#46

Post by magicalist »

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…

> 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 correlation between dying and deserving it (i.e. higher death rates among the current elite) and the likely deposition of the corporate upper class, I know which one I'd pick.

While the most famous people executed during the French Revolution were from the aristocracy, the vast majority of people executed were not. Inciting rebellion and food hoarding were the common accusations.

This source[1] puts it as 6.25% "nobles", 2% noblesse de robe, 14% upper-middle class, 10.5% lower-middle class, 6.5% clergy, 31.25% working class, 28% peasants, and 1% unidentified.

I know you say "if it comes to that", but anyone wishing for a real revolution to enable some kind of social justice is deeply misguided. The poor and downtrodden may not be the first against the wall, but they will be there in much, much larger numbers.

[1] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1881548

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#47

Post by twoodfin »

busterarm wrote: post #45
twoodfin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pg should be content to take his chances come the glorious revolution? I still don't get why you'd have a "boner" for indiscriminate killing of the successful, even if it's "merely" a random subset thereof. You say in another comment that you're just being "cheeky", but frankly I find your and michaelochurch's comments deeply disturbing. If it's just dorm room BS, perhaps you could find a more appropriate forum.

"indiscriminate killing" means both the successful and the unsuccessful. You're confusing a lot of things here. I mention this in another comment but in no way is anything that I'm saying targeted specifically at people involved in tech startups, in fact, despite how I think many would think of themselves they've all got the same lot as the rest of us. tl;dr: tech entrepreneurs are not the 1%.

tl;dr: tech entrepreneurs are not the 1%.

Again, how do you expect the "class war" for which you have a "boner" to distinguish between entrepreneurs and "rent seekers"?

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#48

Post by michaelochurch »

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…

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

War creates demand for labor which means that people doing the work have leverage. (See: my note about dividing the 1000 richest people artificially into "Red" and "Blue" teams and putting them into war.) Without it, the world seems to be run by yes-men and visionless cost cutters (do the same damn mediocre thing with less resources) than people with the leadership and creativity to actually advance the world.

It seems to be a pretty dismal fact of humanity that the only thing that prevents social cancer (i.e. the emergence of a parasitic, non-producing, and aggressively self-enriching elite that causes increasing dysfunction in the society, while labor's leverage approaches zero) is the existential threat to a society posed by major war. I wish it were otherwise. I wish we were a species that could mobilize around solving cancer or clean water in the way we are able to mobilize around killing people.

The problem is that, during peace time, the good seem to become complacent and bad peoples' superior ability at social ascendency and ingratiation puts them into positions of leadership (see: the rightward lurch of American politics after 1980, and the increasing mean-spiritedness of Corporate America beginning around that time). Eventually, the social rot reaches an "overflow" point where the dysfunction of one society or more causes violent conflict. Then there's war, which makes good and bad people warlike both.

Wars don't always make economies improve, of course, and war is pretty much the worst thing imaginable. However, to this point, humanity hasn't come up with anything else that gives the disenfranchised enough leverage to shock society out of a cancerous state.

I really hoped that Silicon Valley would show the world a way out of that idiotic cycle, but the actual behavior that is in it, thanks to the VCs turning it into Hollywood for Ugly People, has rendered that impossible.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#49

Post by busterarm »

twoodfin wrote: post #44
michaelochurch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 happen…

It's their belligerence-- that they keep taking more each year-- that gives cause to kill them. OK. Name some names. Who has cause to be killed by your standard solely because they "keep taking more"?

While they're both the low-hanging fruit and not even remotely on the same "level" we're talking about here, slumlords would be a pretty good trial run.

In fact, some folks in New York have recently gotten the ball rolling on that one.

Re: America’s labour market has suffered permanent harm

#50

Post by busterarm »

magicalist wrote: post #46
michaelochurch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 correlation between dying and deserving it (i.e. higher death rates among the current elite) and the likely deposition of the corporate upper class, I know which one I'd pick. While the most famous people executed during the French Revolution were from the…

They'd be there in larger numbers too with a pandemic due to availability of health care and also the closer proximity that lower-class people are forced to live near each other.

Lower-classes get fucked in greater numbers when there is any social turmoil. They are a proportionately larger group of people. I don't have any numbers to look at but I think it's pretty likely that more than 60% of the French population during the Revolution was working class or peasants...so proportionately they may have fared better, because you have to look at their numbers in the population, not the percentages from who was killed.

Anyway, the long-term social effect was (from where I'm sitting) positive.

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