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The Youth Unemployment Bomb

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Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#131

Post by neworbit »

rdouble wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep forgetting that the thriving tech scene in rural Japan skews my perspective so much. Seriously, though: if this is true, shouldn't programmers be basically incapable of dating (skew in industry, barriers to meeting outside)? It can't be harder to meet people than to date people. They go to places and do things. Well known places, most of which are in the phone book, many of which are open to the public, etc. I…

Programmers are basically incapable of dating...

The local daycares seem to be exclusively populated by kids of engineers, so I question that :)

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#132

Post by mkr-hn »

DrJokepu wrote: post #120

The fact is than even the educated kids are unemployable. We constantly try to hire graduate developers here in London but the fact is that most of those kids are simply unemployable. They have impressive degrees from the best universities, but I simply can't hire someone who can't code a simple Fibonacci algorithm at the whiteboard in the interview room. In the language of their choice. I'd even accept an only margi…

I was fortunate in community college because the instructor for my major (Linux admin) liked to spend large parts of class time telling stories from working in the IT industry.

Many interesting stories from dealing with MS audits in a mixed source environment.

The most interesting classes were those where he had us solve a real world problem (like researching and preparing an executive summary for a purchase).

Or the time he mangled all the computers while we were on break and had us troubleshoot them.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#133

Post by rst »

pmb wrote: post #106
rst wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about putting back together giant structures that are falling apart? Our infrastructure is rotting away --- that Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007 was a bit of a wake-up call. There's no shortage of stuff in the United States that needs to get fixed.

You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration? Sorry, Roosevelt did that, but nowadays I am pretty sure it would be called socialism.

Not nearly as socialistic as Nixon's mandatory wage and price controls. (Cue Glenn Beck rant: there's a reason Nixon went to China!)

You're quite right about the rhetoric, but it's completely unmoored from reality.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#134

Post by mmt »

Unseelie wrote: post #124
pmb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration? Sorry, Roosevelt did that, but nowadays I am pretty sure it would be called socialism.

So...when the government pays people to do things, that's socialism? I seriously doubt that's how a governmental program training and employing the youth to repair the infrastructure would be viewed, and especially not as proposed to the more socialistic policy of welfare.

So...when the government pays people to do things, that's socialism?

Of course, but the statement itself is a bit meaningless and appeared to me to be flippant, at that.

When the government pays people not to do things, that's a more extreme form of socialism.

To me, the question is one of subsidy. UI[1] is a 100% subsidy. A WPA type of deal could potentially be no subsidy at all, at least to the individuals. It would merely be directing tax money at a particular kind of boondoggle.

[1] Notwithstanding that the I stands for "insurance," since it's structured as a tax, at least here in the US.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#135

Post by tannerburson »

iamdave wrote: post #58

I grew up with an ex-drill sergeant for a father. My dad was a skilled carpenter, a certified electrician and welder (TIG, MIG and Stick), and has fixed every single car I've owned and totalled. Passed down to myself and my brothers, we're both skilled in welding, my brother now has his own electrician shop. I work in IT. If suddenly my IT job goes away, I have a trade to fall on. Skilled trades and physical labor it…

Move out of the city. In the more rural areas that isn't as true. It's definitely trending in that direction, but there are still a lot of kids who grow up with parents in skilled trades who pick up a lot of those skills growing up. Combine that with high schools that have legitimate trades programs, and there's at least a much better opportunity.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#136

Post by yummyfajitas »

lukeschlather wrote: post #128
yummyfajitas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our wealth has grown exponentially in recent decades but poor people still work 9 to 5 or more. This is a myth. The poor work very little - their full time labor force participation rate is only 10% or so (this includes both the employed and unemployed). 80% of the poor don't work at all. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf (Before you criticize this statistic as being too simple, go see this thread where I answer m…

You were called out for it in the previous thread, and yet you're still including children in your full-time labor force participation rate. And as near as I can tell you've conjured your "80% of the poor don't work at all." figure out of thin air. You don't adequately address the objections in the linked thread, and you're making the same oversimplifications.

You were called out for it in the previous thread, and yet you're still including children in your full-time labor force participation rate.

Yes, Michaelchiasri raised this objection. He didn't bother to do the math, which showed that it has little effect. I addressed his concerns in the reply to that comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441

It's very strange - you read his comment, but not my reply to it. Let me repeat one more time, since apparently you are using a browser in which links only work sporadically: Poor adults have a full time labor force participation rate of 15% (vs 73% for the nation as a whole), rather than 10% for all poor people (and 65% for all Americans). The low labor force participation rate of the poor is not caused by demographic differences.

Labor force participation rates usually include everyone. If you object to this practice, take it up with the BLS.

And as near as I can tell you've conjured your "80% of the poor don't work at all." figure out of thin air.

That's because you didn't bother reading the first paragraph of the BLS report I linked to. I'll give you a hint: 7.5 million is about 20% of 37.3 million. Before you object that I'm including children (just like the BLS does), the figure rises to 31% if you exclude children (and to 85% for the USA as a whole).

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#137

Post by earl »

Unseelie wrote: post #124
pmb wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration? Sorry, Roosevelt did that, but nowadays I am pretty sure it would be called socialism.

So...when the government pays people to do things, that's socialism? I seriously doubt that's how a governmental program training and employing the youth to repair the infrastructure would be viewed, and especially not as proposed to the more socialistic policy of welfare.

Seriously? Have you lived in the US for the last 10 years or seen a Republican recently? rst, if anything, understated how Republicans would attack such a program.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#138

Post by patrickk »

lukeschlather wrote: post #112
gaius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying people to make stuff isn't a bad idea, if your government would be doing public works (e.g. roads) anyway, you just get to do that stuff a bit quicker. Paying people to do made-up jobs (e.g. most of the UK public sector) just destroys wealth.

If the jobs are truly pointless, they're not destroying wealth. Rather, they redistribute wealth. And even if they do destroy wealth (and you need to provide examples of specific positions and why they are counterproductive and not just unproductive) the destruction may be evened out by keeping them in the working mindset and being a normal member of society.

Tax money that goes to unproductive areas of the economy presumably must first be taken from productive areas of the economy (when I say productive areas I mean areas like manufacturing, high tech, agriculture etc. - they create wealth from scratch.) So redistributing tax from a productive area to an unproductive area acts like 'drag' on a car or airplane. The less 'drag' (less tax), the easier the 'vehicle' (the transport kind or the wealth creating kind) can reach peak performance.

It's not really wealth destruction as you've noted, but it does hamper the countries business environment that could otherwise potentially lead to even more productive jobs as companies can afford to hire more productive people.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#139

Post by anamax »

pmb wrote: post #106
rst wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about putting back together giant structures that are falling apart? Our infrastructure is rotting away --- that Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007 was a bit of a wake-up call. There's no shortage of stuff in the United States that needs to get fixed.

You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration? Sorry, Roosevelt did that, but nowadays I am pretty sure it would be called socialism.

> You mean some sort of administration that would give people money to work on projects? Like a Work Projects Administration?

Those sorts of projects/spending got killed in 08 because womens' groups objected to money going to "burly men" projects.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/00...

Of course, govt spending is always political. At one time, one could both pay off supporters and build up the country. When we have to choose, the former always wins.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#140

Post by sedachv »

rorrr wrote: post #65

Anther problem is the education that people choose. The world is full of "VCR repairmen", while everyone is using disposable bluray players. I see it again and again, students pick silly, simple or just useless degrees, such as * philosophy * international relations (every single one of those wants to work for the UN, maybe 0.001% ends up there). * arts, all kinds * history (how many historians do we really need) Don…

History, philosophy and international relations undergrad degrees are all great ways to prepare to go into law or business school professional programs.

There are people that go into them for "silly" reasons, and there are people that go into them that come from upper-class backgrounds where being bankrolled by your parents while doing an international relations degree at a private university and spending time at unpaid internships in cities with high cost of living is a status symbol and a way to weed out the lower class from certain career tracks.

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