Techies Working for Peanuts

The San Francisco Chronicle has a story about laid-off techies getting desperate and going to work for, well, nothing. No offense to these people, if you're up against the wall you do whatever you can, but I hope they're aware that most of them are not going to get even the slightest compensation for their time.

Comments

Working for stock options?

[LordOfYourPants]

I'd rather ask for $100 a week and blow it all at the race track. Your odds are better and at least you know whether or not you've flown the coop within the span of minutes as opposed to excruciating months or years.

The value of stocks seem to have no logical basis anymore. Remember the big IPOs when most rational people were thinking "How can a company that gives away its product make money?" while watching stock values rise to $280 a share? Add to that so many daytraders that the fluctuating prices mean absolutely nothing.

On top of that you have well-paid economists that can only explain the past and not the future and you have a self-feeding network of greed.

There's an episode of The Nature of Things about statistics. Someone from the Toronto Star did an experiment a few years back where she threw darts at a stock listing in order to choose investments. She outperformed a pool of 10 investors 2 years in a row. Obviously you'd have to do it over a longer time, but I think it's amusing how little a difference there is between chance and skill in the world of investing.

Screw the government

[Reality Master 101]

Miles Locker, attorney for the California labor commissioner, said it's against the state labor code for employers to offer stock options as compensation if they're not paying workers at least the minimum wage. All workers in California must be paid at least $6.75 an hour, plus any applicable overtime. He said it doesn't matter if the worker has agreed to work for less.

This is why I hate government interference in the economy. I once worked for a company and developed their product for free, in exchange for future consideration. This was probably illegal in California, but OH MY GOD I did it anyway. It eventually turned into a full-time employment and a really sweet royalty agreement.

If I had followed my oh-so-compassionate government and not allowed myself to be "exploited", I wouldn't have earned a pretty good pile of money.

Obviously that's not the norm and not what the minimum wage is intended for, but "unintended consequences" are what happen when the government screws with things. Of course, let's not even get into how many poor people are locked out of any job at all because of minimum wage...

Re:Screw the government

[Daniel Dvorkin]

This is why I hate government interference in the economy.

Like, say, minting money, issuing articles of incorporation, insuring bank accounts, creating and enforcing laws against fraud ...

All governments regulate the economy to some degree. The only question is how much. "Free market" vs. "government interference" is a false dichotomy, a Randoid fantasy.

Obviously that's not the norm and not what the minimum wage is intended for

Exactly. Minimum wage laws exist for a reason. Read some history and see what working conditions were like before we had minimum wage and other labor laws. You may disagree with exactly how those laws operate, but we need them or something very like them to prevent some truly horrible abuses.

but "unintended consequences" are what happen when the government screws with things

Been paying attention to the news lately? What happens when the government doesn't screw with things isn't so hot either. Private industry's track record in foreseeing unintended consequences is just as lousy as government's, perhaps more so.

Of course, let's not even get into how many poor people are locked out of any job at all because of minimum wage...

I've heard this before, and given how low minimum wage is (much, much lower in real dollars than when the law was first enacted) I have to say I'm skeptical. Evidence, please.

Re:Screw the government

[Reality Master 101]

I've heard this before, and given how low minimum wage is (much, much lower in real dollars than when the law was first enacted) I have to say I'm skeptical. Evidence, please.

Example? Guess why there are no ushers in movie theatres anymore, nor anyone washing your windows at gas stations. Teenagers used to do those jobs for low wages. But who is going to hire people for those jobs for minimum wage, plus unemployment insurance, plus matched social security?

Re:Screw the government

[thelexx]

All governments regulate the economy to some degree. The only question is how much. "Free market" vs. "government interference" is a false dichotomy, a Randoid fantasy.

You are overstating it. Before the advent of the Federal Reserve, eventual move to a baseless currency and the adoption of a debt-based economy, things were pretty good. Jefferson had this shit nailed two hundred years ago:

"...we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt...If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people...must come to labor 16 hours in the 24, give the earnings of 15 of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the 16th being insufficient to afford us bread,...We have no time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves, to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers. Our land holders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury...this is the tendency of all human governments."

"A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering...And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in it's train, wretchedness and oppression."

"The bold efforts that the present bank has made to control the government and the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it...If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning."

But what did our founders know? Society was different then. Bullshit. Human nature, especially as concerns power and greed, is ever the same.

Re:Screw the government

[Copid]

You are overstating it. Before the advent of the Federal Reserve, eventual move to a baseless currency and the adoption of a debt-based economy, things were pretty good.

Yeah, the gold standard combined with no way of controlling the monetary base was pretty swell. Deflation, depression, and massive unemployment in the 1890s comes to mind when thinking of problems that a baseless currency and a strong federal reserve would have mitigated. To be fair, the Great Depression of the 20th century is an example of regulation gone wrong, but just about everything we do now in terms of regulation is done to correct mistakes of the past.

People may complain about the minimum wage and government regulation of the banking systems, but these regulations don't come out of nowhere. Large scale exploitation of workers, runs on banks, bad-debt banking crises...all of these things happen with unregulated financial systems. It just takes a quick look at our history or the current state of other economies to tell us that.

But what did our founders know? Society was different then. Bullshit. Human nature, especially as concerns power and greed, is ever the same.

Bullshit to that. Human nature and greed are certainly the same as they were when Jefferson wrote those words (God knows he was right about just about everything else), but our economy and industries are far different. Complex international lending institutions, insurance companies, securities exchange, and manufacturing were all in their infancy (at best) 200 years ago. Society was different back then. It is because, as you point out, of the fact that human nature hasn't changed that modern economies need government oversight to prevent dangerous system-wide failures.

As for a debt-based economy, there are some good arguments in favor of a constantly balanced budget, but the ability to run deficits and surpluses depending on the state of the economy would do a lot for California and several other states right now. Perpetual debt is bad, but without the option of temporary debt, I would argue that any large economy would grind to a halt.

Re:Screw the government

[evilviper]

But who is going to hire people for those jobs for minimum wage, plus unemployment insurance, plus matched social security?

Can you say "part-time job"? Apparently not.

You don't see ushers because there has been a change in attitude where companies no longer give a damn about their customers... If having one less usher will improve the bottom line, then he's gone.

Hey, it would be trivial for theatres to clean up between shows, but that would cost $1 more per hour so that's out of the question... Meanwhile companies wonder why they are loosing so much business, and respond to that lost business by making the situation even worse.

Re:Screw the government

[tjb]

Of course, because all that gold served Spain so well.

What's that? Over 30 state bankruptcies in 200 years? Having half the world granted to them by papal decree and then having to surrender it due to lack of funds? Hey, if we can't pay our bills, the only thing to do is get more gold... /sarcasm

The gold standard suffers from the exact same inflationary problems as fiat money. If the government needs more gold, they'll just dig it up, like Spain did. And remember, gold-extraction technology is much more advanced now. Besides which, gold is completely unregulatable - if gold is money people are gonna dig it up on their own accord (unless you plan on shooting prospectors).

The US, and most of the world, was officially or not, off the gold standard by the 1930's. In the US, the myth of a gold standard applied until 1972, at which point there wasn't enough available gold in the world to properly represent the US economy, so the fiction was dropped.

Since 1935 or so (when the gold standard was mostly dropped), the world economy has grown more than it did in the preceding 1000 years. Having the money supply being restricted artificially by the availability of a particualr metal is like trying to swim wearing cement shoes.

Tim

Makes sense to me.

[JaredOfEuropa]

If you are unemployed but you can still pay your bills, this beats sitting at home in front of the telly.

5 Years ago I helped start a small IT consultancy company. I learned tons of stuff, not just IT skills, but things about how companies work, what is actually involved in setting one up, legal issues, finance matters, marketing, etc. etc. Looking back, I would say that experience has been invaluable to me, so much that I'd say it may be worth quitting a paying job for, in some cases.

Then again, do take a good hard look at those stock options and make sure you'll hit big if the company does take off. You are working for free to build a company, with part of the risk of things not working out falling on your shoulders. But... if it does work out, you should then reap part of the (substantial) rewards as well.

A couple of my friends have done this

[billstewart]

A couple of my friends have done this. One of them has been trying for years to start a startup to do something, anything (:-) A few of the projects have gotten up to 20%-likely-to-start phase, but not started, and while the latest project was no better than 5% likely, and probably more like 1%, it's still worth trying to do a business plan for until something better comes along, and it was too early in the fall to get a job at the mall.

Another friend of mine worked on the project writing the technical side of the business plan. She didn't seriously expect it to turn into money, and she'd have dropped it in a minute if a paying job came along, but it gave her a 3-month job entry on her resume as well. I don't know if she called it a contract or a limited partnership or what.

Bad idea - why not go it alone?

[saphena]

Working on someone else's idea for nothing seems a particularly unproductive thing to do. Yes, you *might* get *some* future value (but probably not your fair share). You will almost certainly make yourself inelegible for unemployment benefits and you run the risk of getting caught up in the project without ever settling the question of proper remuneration.

Employers will be reluctant to spend money on good staff when they can already get it for free.

Why not simply develop your own idea? Maybe it'll work and maybe you'll get rich in the process. If not, what have you lost?

You still have all the benefits of practising and improving your art, maybe learning new, more marketable skills in the process.

Re:Bad idea - why not go it alone?

[Tim Macinta]

Working on someone else's idea for nothing seems a particularly unproductive thing to do. Yes, you *might* get *some* future value (but probably not your fair share). You will almost certainly make yourself inelegible for unemployment benefits and you run the risk of getting caught up in the project without ever settling the question of proper remuneration.

I've always looked at equity this way too - why work for somebody else for 1, 2, or even 5 percent equity when you can work for yourself for 100% equity? Especially if you aren't getting paid, I can't envision any situation where it would make sense to accept anything less than 20% equity as the bulk of your compensation (certainly, it's OK to accept less equity if you are being paid a reasonbale rate, though). I would even say 20% is too low in most cases because for the same amount of risk you can have 100% of your own company.

Personally, my core competency is software design and development, so I do think there would be a benefit for me to join an existing company (for equity) where there are people with complementary skills, particularly in the business and sales areas. If I tried to do these other things myself, I probably wouldn't do as good of a job as others. The critical factor, however, is that even though I wouldn't do as good of a job at these other things, I would probably do a good enough job. The tradeoff is between having a small piece of a larger pie (when working with others who are better at selling, etc) or having the entirety of a smaller pie (when working alone). Say that a company were offering me 10% equity (which is unusually high from what I've seen) to work for them - do I really think that by working with others the product would be 900% more successful or that if I were to start my own company I would do 90% worse job at the non-technical aspects of things? The answer has always been "no" for me so far. Everybody should ask this question when considering equity as a substantial form of compensation and adjust the numbers accordingly.

Would someone please read the article?

[mrsam]

The sob story in the linked article is about someone who's supposed to be a "product marketing director." That doesn't sound like a techie to me.

Certainly things are a bit tough out there, no doubt about that. Still, I think that if anyone's in a tight spot right now their time is better spent in hitting the classifieds and the help-wanted ads, instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for themselves.

I've been doing contract programming for, oh, about ten years now. A little less than a year ago I went back "on the beach." Rather than wringing my hands out, and sharing my sad life's story to anyone who'd care to listen, I diligently looked for work, while at the same time I was studying up and brushing up my skills. I literally went to work each day: got up, went through all the job websites to see what came up overnight, then hitting the man pages, and studying until breaking for lunch. After lunch, another go at the job boards, to see what the pimps uploaded in the morning, then going back to the books until the significant-other finished work and came home.

Because of that, I picked up a number of good skills before I found a new gig, in early fall; and the stuff that I learned by then is precisely why my current contract just got renewed this week.

This may not be what people might want to hear, but if you have a good head on your shoulders, buck up, hang on, and don't settle for some cheap job that pays a half of what it should be paying. There's no doubt that companies these days are taking advantage of the soft economy, and using that to get geeks for pennies. I've witnessed this first hand, for almost a year now.

See here: folks need to understand that companies won't stop abusing geeks as long as the geeks permit themselves to be abused. Fsck them. There were plenty of low paying gigs that I could've taken earlier this summer. But I waited until I found a reasonable gig, at a reasonable pay. And if I didn't? If I took the low-paying jobs that all the headhunters/pimps were calling me about, then now, at the end of the year, I'd end up with the same pile of cash, but instead of picking up new skills over the summer, I would've wasted it in another windowlesss office, for toiling away for chump chnage.

Of course, a lot of advanced planning is required before you can afford to be on the beach for a prolonged period of time, without much of a lifestyle change. You have to be thinking ahead all the time; if when life was good you should still live a modest lifestyle, and hoard as much cash as you can, instead of blowing it away, living high on the hog. But that's another rant...

another unpaid Internship

[The Tyro]

That has to be hard to swallow; going from a fully-paid, full-benefits employee to a minimally-paid stock-options-only person.

Stock options only? Considering the life expectancy of some of the Dot-coms out there, you'd be better off working at Taco Bell. Yes, fast food is a job, but it's painful to do with a degree under your belt (I'd expect more liberal arts majors to be doing that). "Hello, tech support desk" becomes "you want any hot sauce with those burritos?" How awful.

I'm not a tech for a living; strictly a hobbyist. My day job required me to work an slave-labor internship... 100+ hours per week... but even THAT was paid. You can't pay the rent with stock options.

I don't see how the companies that are employing these folks are getting away with this kind of thing. Whether you agree with it or not, there is a minimum-wage.

Re:Depressing...

[wolfgang_spangler]

whats even more depressing is losing jobs to people with a BS but with little or no experience. I don't have a BS but I have 8 years of experience.

Re:Depressing...

[SCHecklerX]

Any advice?

Yeah. How about remembering that you aren't going to college to be trained for a job. You are going there to learn something and perhaps broaden your knowledge in many subject areas, hopefully making you a bit of a better person.

I never could figure out people who go to college expecting to be trained for a certain job. If you want that, go to a trade school.

I graduated with a degree in Aerospace just as the Clinton administration took over. Military cuts == bye bye aerospace (although, in hindsight, if I'd focused on rockets and satellites instead of aircraft, the communications industry today really kept aerospace jobs around). But IT jobs are easy to come by, less stressful, and pay much better than anything an entry level engineer could hope for, so it's all good.

Programming is something you should do to support your real job. Get over it.

'highly skilled' is a highly subjective term

[MattW]

Now, I can't speak for everyone, but I've only met one product marketing manager who truly qualified for the term 'highly skilled'. The rest were a bunch of marketroid frauds. The one who WAS highly skilled quit the last company I worked at, started his own, and just sold it (in the midst of the horrible recession, no less) to a huge company for well over a hundred million dollars.

If you're a programmer or other skilled person who can truly create something, do this if you find something you love, but don't do grunt work. Expand yourself. My first hobby -- network security -- turned into my full time job. My hobbies during that job have again become my work. I've cultivated a new set of hobbies, specifically with an eye on turning them into my full time work intentionally. Having had it happen many times, I'm determined to direct it a bit more the next time.

Good luck to those workers. I hope it works out. But the companies have a bunch of free labor, and you often get what you pay for.

Re:Depressing...

[wolfgang_spangler]

It happens all of the time. When a company looks at a pile of 50-100 resumes for one position they weed out people based on certain things. Usually one of those is a degree.

I know a ton more about IT and business than MOST CS grads with less experience (and some that have more experience). However, no degree and 8 yrs experience won't get a fair shake against a degree and 3 years of exp.

It's a hard life.

[agent0range_]

... pulled in more than $100,000 per year.

After she was laid off in September, she and her husband moved to Sonoma County to be closer to their winery, which she manages.

Boo hoo.

Stand your ground.

[still_sick]

We've established that it sucks. Now - what can we do about it?

Stand your ground. Make it clear to your boss that you won't do it, and why you won't do it. Don't be a jerk about it, but be firm.

Yes, it sounds like a recipe for getting shit-canned, but if you're a good employee you'll stick around.

I've had my current job for almost three years now, and have never worked a single hour of unpaid OT, and anytime anyone asks I make very sure to tell them why.

Most of my co-workers do, but I don't feel bad for "not doing it" while they're "stuck" doing it, I feel bad for them not standing up for themselves as professionals.

Just because almost no-one stands their ground doesn't mean that it can't be done.

'Scuse me?

[pla]

most folks aren't really at the brink of destruction

'Scuse me? I hate to tell you this, but after over a year of unemployment, I, and hundreds of thousands like me, exist REALLY uncomfortably close to the "brink of destruction".

I've maxed my CC's, run out of savings (including 401k), and would presently starve to death if my SO decided to throw me out.

And I've always managed my money rather well, not buying too many frivolous things, avoiding spending more than I have like the plague (my one exception, buying a new car when my last one died. But a "commuting" car, by no means a luxury toy). But a total of around $10k to last 14 months now, good luck. I suspect many geeks (who have a stereotype/reputation for buying *lots* of expensive toys and holding pretty decent sized debts) have it a lot worse than I do.

And it has nothing to do with "wanting" to work, or only the "bad" geeks not having jobs... I have qualifications and experience that hiring managers used to *dream* of. And yeah, for the first three months, I only applied for "sweet" jobs. Then "anything involving computers". Six months ago I started getting sick of hearing the word "overqualified". Lately I've taken to simply "forgetting" the fact that I went to college for applications, and get a much better callback rate, but the number of unemployed (in general, not just tech) means anything I apply for, even flipping burgers, I have to compete with literally hundreds of others to get noticed.

Not a pretty situation, for a lot of people. I don't "whine" about it much, but *DON'T* try to trivialize the problem.

And, think the US has economic problems now? Wait another year. If the tech market doesn't start picking up, a lot (more) of us will end up declaring bankruptcy. What effect do you suppose that would have, half a million geeks, each owing as much as a quarter million dollars (typical house, or a really nice car and lots of toys), all defaulting on their debts?

Re:Depressing...

[thelexx]

"Programming is something you should do to support your real job. Get over it."

Right, and we all know how much world class software has been written by accountants, HR and marketing people. And how many VB jockeys even know who Donald Knuth is. Spare me.

teaching ability helps a lot too

[billstewart]

If you're going to teach, it's really helpful if you take a course or two in teaching methods, and a course in technical writing. Toastmaters wouldn't hurt either, if you haven't picked up equivalent experience at work. You really need to know how to do things like preparing lesson plans, having some clue about pacing if you're teaching a semester-long course as opposed to a one-night session, and in general how to talk without being boring, or scatterbrained, or running out of material, and it helps a lot to know about different learning styles that different people have, because some of your students will be great at abstract thought, some will be really concrete, some will be intuitives who get a lot out of examples if you've given them principles first while others do better with a few examples before you give them principles, but at least half the class learns differently than you do.

No need to do that at MIT or Stanford; your local community college can teach you that just as well. Real-world experience is always valuable too, of course, but the only way to get it is to teach people in the real world :-)

Remember the worst teachers you had in college? Besides the grad student who didn't speak English, there was that old guy who droned on and on and rambled without getting to the point, and the guy who discovered halfway through the semester that the class had only gotten through a third of the programming projects he'd planned for the semester, so he'd have to double your workload for the second half? All of them were nice people I'd studied under, one was a co-worker teaching a night course, and the last one really was a good teached but I had to drop a humanities elective to be able to finish his course instead. You could be one of them, or you could be a much better teacher than that.

A Better Idea...

[meldroc]

The fact is that ninety-nine plus percent of those companies who are employing people for options are not going to end up with stock that's worth anything.

So if you have to work for free, do it for yourself and start a project. At least you won't be deluding yourself into thinking your getting money when you're not.

You'll be able to work on exactly what you want to work on, and all the fruits of your labor will be yours in the end, even if it has no dollar value. You can sell your project if anyone will buy it, or you can give it away under the GPL and get karma++.

The job gap!

[AtariDatacenter]

I've only seen one person say this, and it was in passing. Probably one of the major benefits of this is not having a huge gaping hole in your resume. "Let's see, you've been unemployed for 8 months now? Well, sounds like we want to pick you right up!" The benefits are most important in the immediate term.

Although the parallels aren't exact, I think of it as selling a home. A just-on-the-market home is going to look far more appealing than one that has become a stale property. Everyone wonders, "what is wrong with this that it hasn't sold?"

There are some interesting parallels to this and what happened when the domestic oil market bottomed out... was that early 80s? Lots of unemployed oil workers (yes, even technical types). They eventually shifted into sales or other things. Here, I think they're trying to ride it out. I don't think it is going to make for a good recovery (pent-up worker demand for jobs).

Re:I have to disagree!

[wolfgang_spangler]

I know everyone doesn't count it as the end all be all...but many do.

Too many in this area anyhow :) I applied for a position at the company my brother works for and he was told I wouldn't get an interview because I didn't have a degree.

I DO have 8 years of network/support experience, a CCNA, 4-5 UNIX and Linux experience but won't be granted an interview for this job which is for a Solaris/Linux sysadmin position.

I know that is just one example, but I know it happens more often than not.

Re:Depressing...

[cduffy]

I think likewise in the healthfield you are getting more doctors how are designing the medical software because they know what is needed to get things done and not have it mediated by a programming team that has not a clue on the real intent of the product code.

Well, that's why we work reeeal close with the doctors -- keep one down the hall who can tell us when he wants something done different, and several more elsewhere on staff. The programming team doesn't do all that much "mediating" when our customer is right there providing instant feedback on how we propose to implement the features (and UI) he requests.

Having a team of competant programmers who act at a doctor's direction is much more effective than trying to expect reliable, scalable, secure software to be created by someone whose years of training and experience have been in a completely different field. I'd no sooner take over my CEO's place as an emergency room physician or our CMO's former job as a GP than see either of them try to write code. Large-scale software design, like medicine, requires specialisation and experience; trying to write or design software without the programmers is every bit as bad an idea as trying to perform surgery without the surgeons.

Re:Don't be depressed. They don't want experience.

[kcbrown]

They want techies fresh out of college, willing to go anywhere, work for any wage, any hours, with the sparkle still in their eyes.

They don't want 15+ years experience in 5 different platforms, 8 languages, database design, applications, systems analysis, or training and documentation backgrounds.

Uh, no.

They want techies fresh out of college, willing to go anywhere, work for any wage, any hours, and who have at least 10 years of experience with the specific hardware and software that they're using. They want people who have 10 years of C# experience and 15 years of Java experience (that those languages haven't even been around that long is irrelevant).

They want it all, and in this very down tech economy they can get away with demanding it.

This is why techies fresh out of college are having just as much of a problem finding work as experienced people. Companies want the impossible, and are just as happy to ask for it, since doing so only works in their favor -- people are eventually willing to work for free for them, so why not?

And that's only the beginning. You think things are bad now? You haven't seen anything yet.

We're headed for a real depression on the scale of the Great Depression, people, and I don't think anything's going to pull us out of it in the near future. It's going to happen because the only major things on the horizon to invest in (biotech and medical) are either highly regulated (and thus have the same future that personal aviation has had) or are morally ambiguous at best, and thus something companies won't touch here in the U.S. due to the political repercussions. Much safer for them to conduct such research and development outside the U.S.

Right here

[0x0d0a]

Yeah, that's right, you just coded yourself out of a JOB!

And this is a temporary situation, brought on by a recession, too many programmers from the dot-com era.

You think there won't be software development work left, because it's all consumed? Get real. Walk into a business, *any* business, and look at the amount of *crap* they waste time doing that could be automated. Same for government agencies. I still don't have good speech recognition or synthesis on my computer. My car doesn't drive itself. I can't check to see how much a Jolly Pirate (kickass franchise, BTW...easily beats Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Doughnuts) doughnut is and where the closest location is by making ten taps or so on my PDA. I can't set up random speakers with a couple mics throughout the house and have the computer tune itself and dynamically generate a house-wide surround sound system, able to make a sound appear to come from anywhere in the house.

Golly gee, there seems to be a *whole freaking lot of programming that hasn't been done yet*! And for the forseeable future, at least twenty years or so, I don't see those getting finished!

You're complaining about not enough jobs. That's because the industry is busy dealing with a change in the market. Sudden changes screw everyone. But as long as there's coding out there that people want and find useful, there's going to be jobs out there as soon a business decides to provide it.

Blame the baby boomers, who threw *way* too much retirement money into various mutual funds and stocks, and then got burned and yanked *everything* out. Don't blame the industry. The industry is fine, and seven years from now, it'll have plenty of work again.

Re:jobs not bombs

[0x0d0a]

Plenty of people on *Slashdot* are. The problem is getting Joe Sixpack away from CNN and "terrorist scare" stories that are doing a good job of keeping Bush's approval ratings high.

I mean, wartime presidents (as long as they avoid getting their ass kicked) get great ratings, and Bush just found the perfect solution -- a never-ending war that has no well-defined goals, is vaguely military in nature, and lets him accuse just about anyone.