81–90 of 288 posts
There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came to concluding this topic. The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of every 100. The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older peopl…
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yeah, a big problem with the whole "Don't need BigCo's job cuz I'm running a SV startup!" narrative is that it's really only accessible for people who already belonged to pretty privileged classes (exceptions exist, obviously.) A portion of the population does not get opportunities to develop these skills and were once allowed low-skilled jobs that paid "decently" but have now found themselves squeezed due to inflati…
What do you mean by "privileged classes", not sure i understood your idea ?
I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really makes people reexamine their decisions.
At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life. All those plans and ambitions? You've had 40 years to act, if you haven't done something yet, chances are you're not going to. Its all down hill from there. Hopefully you've got a family you can put you're energy into. At least this was how i felt 40+, ymmv.
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They aren't really market participants when it comes to the labor force.
Why aren't they considered market participants?
(Walking away from a civilian employment contract wouldn't normally result in criminal charges)
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For one thing, you need savings. If you absolutely need a paycheck this month to make it through to next month, you simply cannot afford the risks involved in doing the whole startup thing. Another thing, you need skills. But it's very difficult to get a decent education (formal or otherwise) if your family isn't able to support you during your formative learning years. It's not easy to learn programming if your fami…
> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of This American Life [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersecti…
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All it takes is a computer, hard work and dedication. The 'poor' manage to find the time to surf the net, why not spend the time learning how to build the net? It's a simplistic idea, but it is definitely possible. I lived out of my car for months until I was able to turn it around by using my computer for something besides surfing MySpace.
I think the sad fact is that so many people are now in front of vast, utterly vast learning resources, and it just doesn't matter. Rich or poor, there are numerous people sitting in front of extreme learning resources, and they'll never do anything with it unless there's this enormous infrastructure designed to remedy issues of motivation and planning. And that's where I think the difference is between rich and poor;…
Access clearly isn't an issue for you, and that's good. Perhaps your peer didn't have access issues either and that's good too, but if you believe that access isn't an issue for some people, then you are inexperienced in dealing with some forms of poverty.
Perhaps in some places the library is the solution, but in Chicago, public access is limited to two hours a day. I don't know how much access you required when learning to program, but I needed more than two hours a day.
That is assuming that you can get a library card. For one, you need a verifiable address, which is easy to produce if you live in a home, but very difficult if you do not. Also, if you have violated your card in the past, perhaps due to a youthful indiscretion, you are shut out of the system unless you can monetarily recompense, which is also difficult to do when you are poor.
Not to mention that street gangs can make it challenging to leave your block to get the library in some cases.
So while access has improved, to deny that it is an issue for some people because public libraries exist is glossing over the problem.
I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really makes people reexamine their decisions.
At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life. All those plans and ambitions? You've had 40 years to act, if you haven't done something yet, chances are you're not going to. Its all down hill from there. Hopefully you've got a family you can put you're energy into. At least this was how i felt 40+, ymmv.
If I try to create a startup I'll be doing it on my own.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-va...