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9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

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Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#81

Post by chernevik »

derleth wrote: post #58
WalterBright wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A much better take would be an examination of why our education system churns out so many college grads with few marketable skills. Queue the recent discussion about rampant cheating in college. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254

> Queue I'd understand this better if people didn't always pick the longer word when the short one would be correct.

The British "queue up" when joining a line in wait for something. As do my print jobs. The comment is submitting a topic for next consideration, so what's wrong the usage here?

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#82

Post by MoreTuple »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

Every person that I know that has considered starting their own business has decided against it for one reason only, health insurance. They have always been the obtainer in chief of health insurance for the family and it is too risky to go without. I strongly suspect that a public health option would blow the job market wide open between folks who want to retire but can't because health insurance is idiotically expensive and those of us who would love to start a business but cannot put a whole family at physical risk for a potential monetary reward.

I start a business means my present job opens up, as well as any additional hires my business would need. Jobs problem gone.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#83

Post by timwiseman »

ZachPruckowski wrote: post #41
billybob wrote: post #22

"I know you want to be hired full time by me. And I want to be doing my part. But please understand: I’m running a business. I want to make profits. And these tools are letting me make more profits by employing people only when I need them rather than carrying them on my payroll." This is why every time I hear a politician talk about "creating jobs," I grimace. A business will hire someone if and only if they think t…

>Government cannot create jobs. It can make the cost of doing business less expensive by lowering taxes, or it can make the profits of a business higher by providing incentives. But for your average small business, those kinds of changes add up to much less than one person's salary, so it makes very little difference. It can also use monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate demand, increasing the amount of work that n…

It can also use monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate demand, increasing the amount of work that needs to be done and resulting in more hiring.

A government can certainly use monetary and fiscal policies to stimulate demand and create more work, but that does not necessarily result in more hiring.

For one thing, when there is a surplus of goods (and there frequently is late in a recession and shortly thereafter) the initial demand will be met by that surplus rather than any additional production. Even when that surplus is exhausted, additional demand may be met through through automation. Also, if an industry as a whole thinks that this demand will be short lived, it may choose to either raise prices or simply permit some of that demand to go unmet rather than make large capital expenditures to increase production.

Also, normally when a country is trying to "create jobs", its goal is to create jobs for its own citizens. In an increasingly global economy, stimulating demand may increase imports without increasing jobs in the target economy.

So, while increasing demand may help create jobs, it also may have limited impact and that impact may take a substantial amount of time to be felt.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#84

Post by huherto »

jfoutz wrote: post #26
PaulHoule wrote: post #10

Technological unemployment is part of the picture, but there isn't a 'magic bullet' to avoid it. We need Scientists? Ask the 1800 surplus Physics PhD's that get produced every year. It's clear that the academic system uses young and smart people, but not that it produces desirable or permanent employment for them. A wise person wouldn't get involved, unless they've got one (or preferably two) parent(s) that are alrea…

Scientists are just like Machine learning pixie dust. It's fun to say, but you'd be hard pressed to find a small business that needs an astrophysicist. I don't mean to pick on astrophysicists by the way, pick any random phd, a small business probably doesn't need that.

May be one small business doesn't need a PhD. But the PhD can solve problems that many small businesses have.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#85

Post by barighona »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

http://onlinepctvlink.blogspot.com/2011/07/nrl-rugby-st-geor...

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#86

Post by grellas »

pak wrote: post #31

grellas, you're the man when it comes to assiduous comments on legal topics, but why this article? It's just a bunch of hard-nosed Valley boardroom hot air that namedrops from the NASDAQ-100 and tells middle america to suck it up. The only salient point was that the government has no easy way of producing more jobs, but there's no solution offered and it's buried in a sea of other BS. "Hey poor and struggling unemplo…

The "blame tech" theme is what struck me - in all its appalling wrongness (see my sharply critical comments on some vapid assumptions made in a like piece that ran on HN yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2770994).

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#87

Post by iqster »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #54

IMO, the problem is much more than just automation and advancement in technology. It's actually far graver, and maybe inexorable at least in the short term. Hate the man or his policies (or both), but you can't deny President Obama's observation that training education is the real problem in the so-called "jobless recovery". America as it currently stands has a total, almost prideful disregard for education (public a…

There is theory and there is practice. Before suggesting any additional funds for SBA loans, I would suggest you read David Einhorn's book "Fooling Some Of The People All of the Time". In short, when the govt. guarantees loans, loan standards go down and fraud goes up. Yes, there are checks and balances in place but motivated parties find ways to scam the system. It is a travesty how much wastage there is in the process.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#88

Post by gaius »

protomyth wrote: post #76
gaius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY the same problem in the UK. Under the last government's social engineering caper, millions of teenagers who would otherwise have learned a trade (electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc) from their fathers instead were swindled into going to hastily built "new universities" to get worthless, made-up degrees in "Media Studies" (and a mountain of debt). Now they're not only unemployed but unemployable - and all ou…

Right now ND is importing welders and other skilled tradesmen from Canada. They just cannot get enough people. This whole "push people to get a real education" is a crock. People need to get the education (be it vocational or academic) that allows them to have a career that satisfies them, and not some weird perception of the world.

It's the use of the word "real". You got to come out of the other side of whatever theoretical or practical education you choose with something that makes you an asset. Education is supposed to transform you from a consumer into a producer. That's what "real" is. Tangible.

I've never been to Canada but I love Eastern Europe, there's a buzz there, an energy that drove these kids to learn English and travel to where the work is. To be a young Eastern European today is a glorious thing - you could go anywhere in the EU and be better educated, harder working and better looking than 95% of the locals, 99% in some places. These kids are going to rule the world one day and they'll have earned it - but we'll have thrown it away.

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#89

Post by barighona »

protomyth wrote: post #76
gaius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EXACTLY the same problem in the UK. Under the last government's social engineering caper, millions of teenagers who would otherwise have learned a trade (electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc) from their fathers instead were swindled into going to hastily built "new universities" to get worthless, made-up degrees in "Media Studies" (and a mountain of debt). Now they're not only unemployed but unemployable - and all ou…

Right now ND is importing welders and other skilled tradesmen from Canada. They just cannot get enough people. This whole "push people to get a real education" is a crock. People need to get the education (be it vocational or academic) that allows them to have a career that satisfies them, and not some weird perception of the world.

http://onlinepctvlink.blogspot.com/2011/07/nrl-rugby-st-geor...

Re: 9.2% Unemployment? Blame Microsoft.

#90

Post by scythe »

derleth wrote: post #78
sixtofour wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen grammar and spelling comments given in the spirit of helpfulness, but this was not one of them, and adds nothing. My comment adds very little more than that, but I'd like to remind people that many very smart engineers and business workers have a terrible grasp of formal English, yet they get the job done and more. WalterBright's comment was short, but pointed to more information, and was a potentially us…

So attempting to help someone learn English isn't helpful? That seems odd.

You didn't even tell him the right word -- if you wanted to help him learn English, you might say something to the effect of:

queue -- noun. A first-in, first-out data structure, such as a supermarket line, or processes to be scheduled naively.

cue -- verb. To prepare for, to bring up, to introduce, typically used as a command. Also noun. an indication that it is time to do something, cf. "that's our cue!". Also used in the phrase "on cue", meaning timely.

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