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Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

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Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#191

Post by ge96 »

icebraining wrote: post #170
nostrademons wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right - I think about what I'd need to do to switch careers now, at 36, and it's a lot harder than when I was 19. Luckily I have a bit of a cushion, which was built up over those years as a computer programmer, so I wouldn't go homeless or anything while retraining. Many other people are not so lucky. I wonder what sort of education would be necessary to bring that opportunity to everyone, though. I was lu…

Let's say everybody got the necessary education to follow your path. Can Silicon Valley absorb the 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers in the US?

Work remote and live in a cheap area maybe.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#192

Post by base698 »

devrandomguy wrote: post #131
base698 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By some estimates we have 20 million opiate addicts. What happens when the opiate addict runs out of his basic income on day 5 of a 31 day month?

What's the difference between running out of a UBI stipend, and running out of a paycheck too early? Either way, that addict is in trouble. At least UBI won't put them on the street when their addiction renders them useless for work. IMO, long cycles in pay (weeks or a month) are suboptimal. If the money streamed in continuously, slowly, then it would only "run out" for a matter of minutes, although it would still ta…

I definitely don't follow the logic that they won't be on the street. If they run out of money they'll be evicted whether it comes from a job or the UBI.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#193

Post by icebraining »

nostrademons wrote: post #183
icebraining wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say everybody got the necessary education to follow your path. Can Silicon Valley absorb the 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers in the US?

I think this idea (not just you, it's been expressed by many on this thread) that it must be Silicon Valley or Google specifically that absorbs the 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers shows a remarkable lack of imagination. What's likely to happen isn't that Google hires 27 million people. It's that Google hires 10,000 people, who learn the details of the new methods of production required in the informati…

I get your bewilderment, I'm just wondering if it's not a red herring in a discussion over the problems of the overall US society. I'm not convinced that even if the market for programmers (even accounting for more local companies and such) was flooded until the average wage dropped 50%, that it would make a significant dent in that number, which is likely to grow.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#194

Post by jboggan »

hack_mmmm wrote: post #97
jboggan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not easy to uproot and move from an economically depressed area to an active metropolis. I've done it (Athens, GA to San Francisco in late 2012) and it was incredibly expensive and involved a large amount of personal credit use, cash assistance from family, and time. It was a huge stretch at the time for me to move across the country and break into a new industry, and I did it as a single man, willing and…

"Now that I'm a programmer I can theoretically get a job in pretty much any American city I choose, and probably negotiate a starting/moving bonus" Try getting a job in Athens Georgia with equal or greater salary than you are earning now in SF

Oh I agree, I couldn't get anywhere near the salary, but if I wanted to find a programming job back home in Athens I could swing it. I would probably have to learn COBOL though, no joke.

And I'm in Santa Monica now, and my salary has been $0 for the last several months! Will finally be able to run payroll for myself next month though so that's exciting.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#195

Post by gubby »

koonsolo wrote: post #159
tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still not quite getting it. If people have to choose between going into debt from a finance charge or starving on the street with no roof over their head they will choose the former. It's not about financial education it's about hard choices of the underprivileged.

I'm not talking about starving on the street, I'm talking about everybody in US using credit cards for payments and repay. I'm talking about shops offering their own credit cards. You know when US people use their credit card? Every day. You know when Europeans use their credit card? When abroad. And our credit gets instantly paid by our normal bank account. For us, a credit card is the same as a debit card but with…

Actually, the UK has credit scores and credit cards, a large proportion of people use credit cards for daily spending.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#196

Post by sidlls »

droidist2 wrote: post #184
wott wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how big money people make and how comfortable their way of life is, they always think themselves as lower-middle-class and claim they are on the verge of financial difficulties.

Isn't the same true on the other side? If you ask working class people they'll usually say they're middle class.

They're as much in a bubble as the people in classes far enough above them if that's so. Much of what they think they know of the middle class comes from pop culture (e.g. TV shows, back in the day) or their very limited interaction with friends or their children's friends' families who actually are middle class. When I was growing up (working class, impoverished frequently) my parents never would have described us as "middle class."

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#197

Post by jboggan »

nostrademons wrote: post #102
jboggan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not easy to uproot and move from an economically depressed area to an active metropolis. I've done it (Athens, GA to San Francisco in late 2012) and it was incredibly expensive and involved a large amount of personal credit use, cash assistance from family, and time. It was a huge stretch at the time for me to move across the country and break into a new industry, and I did it as a single man, willing and…

What I don't understand is why people don't use the time they have in the low cost-of-living area to develop the skills (via the Internet) that would make them attractive to employers in big cities? That was my approach - I lived at home with my parents after graduation, basically did nothing but program (both for work and after work), and after 3 years Google came knocking and paid for my move out to Silicon Valley.…

A lot of survivor bias among you and your friend group I would think. I did code in all my free time back in Georgia but I had no CS degree and I had never held a programming job. There were a lot of things that I didn't know I didn't know, as I soon learned when I showed up in SF.

I have a lot of friends and contacts back in the Atlanta area that are doing just what you described . . . and they will continue doing just what you described . . . and it will not lead to a job at Google or any West Coast tech company. Reading HN and messing around with your GitHub is one thing, but there are a ton of people who are talented but have no idea what employers out here are actually looking for, or how to focus on those skills or showcase them if they already have them. That's just within programmers, which is one of the best markets right now. If you are a skilled lathe operator what are you going to do, learn to code?

I'd like to think everyone could learn to code because it would mean I wouldn't have to consider the economic sorting going on, that I benefit from, and how a great many people are stuck on the other side of it. If everyone could learn how to code I not only can pat myself on the back for doing so and bettering my life, but I can also avoid having to empathize so much with people who never will and are in worsening economic straits because of it.

What other skills can you develop via the internet that make you appealing to employers in big cities?

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#198

Post by mcguire »

koonsolo wrote: post #153
Domenic_S wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. This whole thread is full of cringe. TFA was about how silicon valley & Washington are The Elites -- out of touch with the working class and what are everyday problems for a huge swath of America. And the top 3 comments from the elite are: - Poor people are stupid - Poor people are bad at personal finance - More/better education (government) will help Did everyone suddenly forget all the un/underemployed college…

You are twisting my words. I never said poor people are stupid or the other way around. I said the US credit card system puts people without insight into finances in a serious disadvantage. No sorry, it rips them off. And nobody is talking about it, because it seems everybody thinks it's normal. Explain your credit score to a European for example, and you will be met with a blank stare or disbelief.

What do you mean by "a European"?

https://www.economist.com/news/economic-and-financial-indica... : Household debt to personal income, 2012; the United States is below the OECD average and very much below some northern European countries.

https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm France and Germany seem to be the only major economies much lower than the US in household debt, and the US deleveraged after 2008; it is now in the same ballpark.

http://www.businessinsider.com/eurostat-data-on-household-de... That's a hell of a URL, and the pictures are funny.

https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-... On the other hand, if you look at household net worth as a percent of disposable income, the US looks better than any OECD country except for Japan, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

Now, this is household debt, which includes mortgages as well as consumer debt. I haven't found any data that separates out the latter.

A European may not be familiar with a credit score, but they're more than a little familiar with credit.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#199

Post by microcolonel »

icebraining wrote: post #181
microcolonel wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it is the case if UBI contributes to inflation, which it clearly would. Literature or no literature, if the money supply increases, prices will increase unless efficiency improves faster.

The lack of inflation following QE casts doubt on such a simplified model. But in any case, you don't have to inflate to have UBI. Just tax money a bit when it gets distributed to shareholders.

> Just tax money a bit when it gets distributed to shareholders.

Well, that would factor in as a depression of dividends for all stocks; that would only reduce the value of holding stocks, sounds like it would backfire tremendously. Then you have the issue of whether or not to tax dividends to foreign-held stocks: if you tax disbursements, it would compound some countries' taxes and ultimately reduce the value of holding american stocks; if you don't tax foreign disbursements, then the people you're looking to tax would set up their holdings somewhere without a dividend tax.

I'm wondering how you think this could work.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#200

Post by josiahpeters »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #185
koonsolo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about starving on the street, I'm talking about everybody in US using credit cards for payments and repay. I'm talking about shops offering their own credit cards. You know when US people use their credit card? Every day. You know when Europeans use their credit card? When abroad. And our credit gets instantly paid by our normal bank account. For us, a credit card is the same as a debit card but with…

Using a credit card is not the same as going into debt to make your purchase. In the US, you can easily get 1% to 4% back from the credit card company by using your credit card, and so you actually save money by paying with your credit card. Whether or not you want to pay off the balance at the end of your credit card's billing cycle decides whether or not you are going into debt, but many, many people pay it off. It…

Its not like you're just pulling free money out of thin air by using a credit card. And it seems likely that the finance institutions behind the credit cards are offering them as a product that makes money and not as an act of goodwill. If everyone paid their credit cards off at the end of the month like they say they do, do you think credit cards would be advertised or pushed as hard as they are? The finance institutions are making money on people who use them.

i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people. I used to say I was one of those people, but in reality if you had asked to look at my statement history I would have been embarrassed by how many times I ended up paying interest charges for things I probably shouldn't have purchased in the first place.

Two years ago my wife and I cut up our credit cards, closed those accounts and never looked back. Initially that change hurt my brain and went against everything I thought I knew was normal. It was one one of the best financial decisions we ever made.

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