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Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

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Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#41

Post by mc32 »

jacquesm wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on balance we experience trade deficits. It's nice to have a free trade environment when it's reciprocal, but what has happened is that economies like Japan and China can play loose with the definition of free trade than most, and we kind of just put up with it. Few presidents and congress are willing to push the issue hard. Maybe Trump will finally call their bluff and impose sanctions.

America has never had a 'reciprocal' free trade agreement, it has used the banner of free trade to engage in low level asymmetric trade wars. The stupid mistake they made was to ship their production capability to China, Japan got where they are under their own power, though the degree to which the Japanese bought Japanese products (mainly because of quality) meant that American products with a Japanese equivalent ne…

The Japanese engaged in and got away with things like tariffs on Rossignol under the made up excuse that Japanese snow is unique, and thus only Japanese skis were fit for skiing in Japan. Sure, their snow in some places is "wetter", but we now see western skis doing well there and Japanese skis performing well on non Japanese snow. That's the kind of nonsense our leadership should have stood up to.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#42

Post by WalterSear »

SeanBoocock wrote: post #23
ekidd wrote: post #8

I'm deeply skeptical of any explanation that claims that we have both a "shortage of labor" and "downward pressure on wages": > If men and women from the ages 25 to 54 took part in the labor market... [t]hat would be more fuel for the U.S. economy and a bigger source of workers for businesses crying out about a shortage of labor... > Trade with China flooded the U.S. with cheap imports, forced domestic firms to shift…

I would think then that companies who are understaffed because they cannot hire people with the specialized skills they need would lose out in the long run to competitors who are willing to pay market/above-market wages for talent. Anecdotally that doesn't seem to have been happening.

There is no long run.

The landscape is changing so fast that any competitive advantage that unfolds over multiple years, such as treating your employees well, fostering junior developers etc, doesn't have much of an effect. There's too much chaos and reinvention going on.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#43

Post by pjc50 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #31
brightball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think professions where reimbursement is controlled by an outside entity like insurance or Medicaid. Even with supply and demand you can’t pay more than those will make possible. Additionally, in many cases you’ll end up with people working and providing services before finding out that they won’t be paid for it. That’s just off the cuff though.

That only applies to companies accepting only (or virtually only) government health insurance, of which there are either few or none. In reality, it’s part of the reason treatment is so expensive. They charge private entities a lot more to make up for the government mandated rates. The law is that you can’t charge the government more than anyone else. And this is after we swore we would never let another Rwanda or an…

> And this is after we swore we would never let another Rwanda or another Serbia happen.

What on earth does this have to do with health insurance?

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#44

Post by psyc »

kmonsen wrote: post #12
ekidd wrote: post #8

I'm deeply skeptical of any explanation that claims that we have both a "shortage of labor" and "downward pressure on wages": > If men and women from the ages 25 to 54 took part in the labor market... [t]hat would be more fuel for the U.S. economy and a bigger source of workers for businesses crying out about a shortage of labor... > Trade with China flooded the U.S. with cheap imports, forced domestic firms to shift…

We see this all the time in tech, cannot find people is usually cannot find people with the skills and experience we want for the price we are willing to pay. This will always be true if you offer less than the current market rate which startups seems to think they are entitled to.

What I've seen in tech is the idea that literally any number of false negatives is worth avoiding a single bad hire. It's fine to claim that trade-off is worth it to you, but it's ludicrous to simultaneously claim there's a shortage of talent. That's just a shortage of risk-free opportunity. Hey, I suffer from a shortage of risk-free opportunities too.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#45

Post by Clubber »

craftyguy wrote: post #33
galieos_ghost wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? Why does the US have to fight in the global economy with one armed tied behind our back? And how are trade policy and China's human rights abuses in any way related?

My point is that just because one country is doing it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do. Isolationism, and the concept of 'us vs. them' at a global level needs to die. Humans are a global species, and the longer it takes us to realize that the worse off we will be at trying to solve global problems, like economics.

You know, like in many things, there is a large spectrum between completely open markets and isolationism. Suggesting moving from one part of the spectrum to another doesn't mean a country is isolationist.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#46

Post by UncleEntity »

jlmorton wrote: post #34
galieos_ghost wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for apple, good for the Chinese people working those jobs, bad for American citizens who would have been working those jobs. What is so wrong about using our leverage as the world's largest economy to protect the interests of our citizen's, just like China does?

What is so wrong with California using its leverage as America's largest state economy to protect the interests of its residents, just like China does? It's just a thought experiment. I understand the US constitution vests the power to regulate interstate commerce with the Federal government. Let me put it another way. If it would be advantageous for the US to erect trade barriers against Chinese exports, why would i…

> If it would be advantageous for the US to erect trade barriers against Chinese exports, why would it not be advantageous for California to erect trade barriers against Mississippi, where average wages are dramatically lower, there are far fewer environmental regulations, etc.

It would totally benefit California because they could do whatever they wanted and companies couldn't just up and move to Mississippi if things got too bad.

California (and all other states) consumers, on the other hand, would not benefit as prices would rise as a result of this protectionism.

Not really sure what the point of this red herring is but the theory of protectionism applies equally well at all levels from the mom and pop grocery store opposed to a new Walmart to continent sized economic blocks.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#47

Post by DanBC »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #31
brightball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think professions where reimbursement is controlled by an outside entity like insurance or Medicaid. Even with supply and demand you can’t pay more than those will make possible. Additionally, in many cases you’ll end up with people working and providing services before finding out that they won’t be paid for it. That’s just off the cuff though.

That only applies to companies accepting only (or virtually only) government health insurance, of which there are either few or none. In reality, it’s part of the reason treatment is so expensive. They charge private entities a lot more to make up for the government mandated rates. The law is that you can’t charge the government more than anyone else. And this is after we swore we would never let another Rwanda or an…

US healthcare spending is almost equally split between government and private insurance.

US government spends more per capita on healthcare than eg UK government, and doesn't have universal coverage and has worse results across a range of indicators.

https://visual.ons.gov.uk/how-does-uk-healthcare-spending-co...

US tax-payers are subsidising the US's terrible healthcare.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#48

Post by Clubber »

jacquesm wrote: post #9
galieos_ghost wrote: post #6

Not sure why people are shocked by this, it's just the basic principle of diffusion. As long as america continue to allow free trade our wealth and jobs will flow out of the country as countries seek cheaper labor and sell it right back to America with no restrictions. The standard of living is raising in other countries while lowering in the US. Labor is already getting too expensive in China for cheap goods so comp…

> As long as america continue to allow free trade our wealth and jobs will flow out of the country as countries seek cheaper labor and sell it right back to America with no restrictions. What an incredible nonsense. America has been pushing free trade all over the globe to be able to sell American products into other markets. They're not 'allowing' free trade, they have been pushing it for all it's worth and then som…

>They're not 'allowing' free trade, they have been pushing it

I think you're mincing words and avoiding the main argument. Wether or not the US government is "pushing" or "allowing" doesn't alter the affect on the US manufacturing sector and jobs overall. I suspect from a corporations' point of view, they are "pushing" it, from labor's point of view, they are "allowing" it. Both political parties embrace it and as it is today, it benefits corporations immensely at the expense of the US manufacturing sector.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#49

Post by tomohawk »

I personally know several people who are no longer competitive in various jobs due to the massive influx of illegal immigrants. These are tradesmen, landscapers, and others who used to be able to support their families and live in the area. Many of them now commute long distances (so they can live in lower cost areas) for far less pay. Their children are not following them into these jobs. And its not because they're unwilling to do the work. They're priced out because their own government is unwilling to protect them from these predatory practices.

Re: Why 3.5M Americans in their prime years aren’t working

#50

Post by yusuke10 »

narrator wrote: post #28
galieos_ghost wrote: post #6

Not sure why people are shocked by this, it's just the basic principle of diffusion. As long as america continue to allow free trade our wealth and jobs will flow out of the country as countries seek cheaper labor and sell it right back to America with no restrictions. The standard of living is raising in other countries while lowering in the US. Labor is already getting too expensive in China for cheap goods so comp…

The weird thing about your argument is if you take off the lense of national boundaries the argument gains an extra dimension and becomes more complex. For example, I recently heard from a friend with family in China that Americans who go to China can make $50 an hour private English tutoring rich Chinese kids. How can wages be rising so much in China and they are still wildly undercutting us? The other weird thing i…

> For example, I recently heard from a friend with family in China that Americans who go to China can make $50 an hour private English tutoring rich Chinese kids. How can wages be rising so much in China and they are still wildly undercutting us?

China is a country of HUGE income inequalities. You have a few people that make millions and you have few hundred million people make $500/year. The middle class for them makes only $800/month. Money all flows to the top to the government/state firms, and much eventually flows out to Canada/Australia/US.

> The other weird thing is Americans who move to low cost south east Asia locations and run dropship ecommerce stores that make $2000 a month and live like they were making 10 times that in the bay area.

Living abroad is good for young singles, bad for anyone else. There's bad weather, dirty food, dirty water, food poisoning, no access to good healthcare, lots of noise and pollution. Not to mention if you're an entrepreneur, you are not putting down a root, not making network connections you need for sales, not going to meetup events and learning new technologies, etc.

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