Flat Pay Prompts 1 In 3 In IT To Consider Jump

CWmike writes "Companies have cut salaries and training, held back on bonuses and piled more work on employees in response to the economic downturn. These tactics may well be pushing many IT pros to go job hunting, Computerworld's latest salary poll has found. More than one third (36%) of the 343 respondents to a recent poll said they are looking to move to a new employer in the next six months. And 69% reported they had not received a pay raise in the past six months. The poll was conducted during the last two weeks in September. For employers, the warning could not be more clear. As the economy improves, the most able IT workers may leave for something better."

Comments

As the economy improves???

[Cornwallis]

I love a good fiction story.

I'm gonna become a farmer.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Lord Ender]

The economy(GDP) has been growing for a while. The employment market overall is nearly stagnant, but that certainly differs by industry and specialty.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bberens]

I'm more curious about this:

69% reported they had not received a pay raise in the past six months.

If raises were given evenly distributed throughout the year you should see 50% answering no. My experience is that most companies give raises at the beginning of the year (Feb/March) so 70% saying no isn't surprising. Is anyone really getting raises every 6 months? If you do, is your company hiring Java developers? I've clearly been doing this wrong.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Mongoose Disciple]

It probably depends on what you do.

Around here, the job market for developers was pretty rough last year. This year? Not so much.

Re:As the economy improves???

[danlip]

Well the better job is another job in the same field.
I've been a software engineer for 15 years, and during that
time I was lucky to get 1 or 2 cost-of-living pay increases.
But I got enormous pay bumps by switching companies (and
the last switch was mid-2009, the height of the Bush economic
meltdown). Why companies insist on doing things this way is
a mystery to me, but that's how it is.

Re:As the economy improves???

[jgagnon]

Obviously you've never been a farmer or lived near one.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bennomatic]

What I like is that statistic about 69% not getting a raise in the last 6 months. Most companies I know do pay raises as part of an annual review cycle, so excepting those getting a mid-cycle promotion, I would be completely unsurprised if at any given time of the year, very close to 50% of people would not have gotten a raise in the last 6 months.

And right now it's October. My employer finalizes reviews at the end of Q1, so my last adjustment was (two weeks) more than six months ago... I'll be others have review cycles which allow for adjustments at other times of the year; maybe others from that 69% will be getting their raises later this month.

Statistics, misused, are useless.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Mongoose Disciple]

I've worked at companies (as a Java developer, even!) that did reviews and thus (smaller) raises on a 6 month schedule, though I'd say they're in the minority and your observation is an astute one.

Re:As the economy improves???

[jgagnon]

I don't think that's the problem at all. Companies have learned to do more with less... so why make things less efficient again before absolutely necessary? Adding employees is expensive, especially so if you don't have an immediate and profitable use for them.

Re:As the economy improves???

[dave562]

It already is improving. We are hiring and picking up new business left and right. It might take a little while for the effects to trickle down to the rest of the economy, but in corporate America things are looking pretty good. On the other hand, it is quite likely that America will never get back to where it was before the housing bubble burst. A lot of the economic improvement will take place overseas.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Cro Magnon]

Farming or IT, what's the difference. Either way, you're dealing with manure.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Anonymous Coward]

This is due to fiat currency and fractionel reserve banking.

Re:As the economy improves???

[larry bagina]

My current job does an annual review/raise on the anniversary of your hire date (so I haven't had a raise in 6 months, but I'll have one in 3 months and I had one 9 months ago). Previous job gave out promotions (and raises) every so often (depending on your development) and had annual reviews/raises in June (well, except when a salary freeze was in place). A 12-month time frame would be a more meaningful measure.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Excelsior]

Any chance that
while you aren't
getting any raises
you are sending
emails with forced
carriage returns to
your boss? I'm
just saying...

Re:As the economy improves???

[IndustrialComplex]

Lockheed Martin generally does/did their raises in February. I've always assumed it was pretty much industry standard. Or at least at the end of the FY.

I too did not receive a raise in the last 6 months, I'm not worried at all, our raises come in December.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Low Ranked Craig]

Bush economic meltdown

I'm no fan of Bush, but fixating on him is shortsighted. Remember that congress appropriates money and originates budgets, not the president, so, I suppose all the Democrats in congress had nothing to do with it, right? I mean, they've only been in control for the last 4 years. And of course the fact that the spending over the last 18 months dwarfs what happened in 2007/2008 and the impending tax increases has nothing to do with businesses being reluctant to hire, right?

Congress is corrupt, the executive branch is corrupt and the judiciary is most of the way there. If you think that R=bad and D=good, or the inverse you are deluded. They all suck

Re:As the economy improves???

[ArhcAngel]

Statistics, misused, are useless.

Looks to me like they were used precisely in the manner for which they were intended.

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Marshall, Mark Twain and many other dead people.

Six months immediately struck me as peculiar.

Re:As the economy improves???

[need4mospd]

The only reason the GDP has been growing is because "GDP" includes government spending. Considering a huge chunk of that is borrowed, I wouldn't call that growth.

Re:As the economy improves???

[AuMatar]

Every company does them at different times, although annual is common. ALso, end of the fiscal year is meaningless in calendar terms, a fiscal year can as easily end in July as January.

Re:As the economy improves???

[AuMatar]

IF anything tax increases should be a reason for them to hire more. They get taxes on net profits, not gross. So by hiring more their net would be lower and their tax losses higher, while the additional people are an investment that should reap future profits.

Re:As the economy improves???

[lwsimon]

Assuming that each person gets one raise per year, and no one moves gets a promotion, you're correct.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Dishevel]

Yes. Developing in Java is doing it wrong. :)

Re:As the economy improves???

[Skjellifetti]

The current business surveys show that lack of demand is why most businesses are holding back on hiring. The uncertainty claims are mostly a tea party fiction. The number of businessmen complaining about regs and taxes is about what it has been for the past 20 years. The number complaining about lack of demand has skyrocketed. NFIB surveys have the data. Also, the current research suggests that stock returns always do best during the 3rd year of a President's term regardless of which party holds Congress or the White House and that gridlock has a small negative effect compared to non-gridlock. Don't believe the hype that stock returns will be great because the Republican's won. The data don't support that.

Re:As the economy improves???

[MysteriousPreacher]

Yeah, same here. Until a week ago I'd have said that I didn't get a rise, and in seven months I'll be able to say the same - but for now I'm not in that camp. Twelve months is definitely a sensible measure.

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

Uh, no.

http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=482

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/0/3/6/p110361_index.html

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/wolff120606.html

Got any facts yourself?

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

I know I gave up.

Unless a miracle occurs and I find a job in November, I'm going to earn a third degree in Public Policy. Or possibly Business Administration. Haven't really decided which is the best course yet but I know hardware/digital design has reached a dead end. The stuff is getting outsourced to low-cost Indians (and I don't blame the managers; I'd do the same).

Re:As the economy improves???

[dubbreak]

I've seen this in companies as well (refusing to give pay increases that would match wages elsewhere), however I have also seen a few companies that understand the value of paying their staff well.

If you pay your good employees above the going rate and provide competitive or top tier benefits then it is no longer a factor for low moral or "jumping ship". Aside from the moral issue and retaining valuable employees, turnover is costly and many businesses don't understand how costly. If you lose someone due to low wages the replacement will most likely expect the wages your recently lost employee left for. Rather than just paying the lost employee those wages you are costing the company hiring costs (i.e. finding someone), the risk of a new hire (could not work out, and you'll have to rehire), low initial productivity due to training/getting them up-to-speed (at my company it can take 3 months+ for a dev to get going full-speed) etc

In the end it would have been cheaper to just pay your valued employees a competitive wage than risk losing them to another company that pays more.

I have recently found myself in the position of leaving for better wages. Yearly reviews are coming up and my current wage is 86% of what I could be making elsewhere (by pure gross wage), and my current pension/retirement options are not even close to what is offered elsewhere (off the cuff including pensions it would be 75% of what I could be getting elsewhere). If my wage increase comes up short I'll be jumping ship. I enjoy my work, coworkers etc, but there aren't enough intangible benefits to settle for a wage that is not competitive.

To any HR people that may read this a warning: I won't be telling anyone in management about my plan to leave before hand. Why? Aside from the fact we had a discussion the previous year about competitive wages and how they still had leaps to catch up on my wage there is the more important point that it won't do any good. It will be taken as a threat no matter how I deliver the fact that my wage isn't competitive and will receive the response a threat generally receives in a company.

If a business isn't in the practice of keeping up with what going rates are then a single employee isn't going to change their mind on the matter. It has to come from top down not bottom up. Some companies are proactive (I have friends that work as such companies) and they have a mature employee base (i.e. low turn-over), better productivity and better overall company morale. Of course it's a bit of a chicken and egg issue. If you start out paying good wages and your company is profitable it's easy to maintain that state, if you start with underpaying your employees the extra costs that incurs makes it difficult to move from that state so they just perpetually run that way (until they go under).

Re:As the economy improves???

[GiveBenADollar]

It's not growth, its 'growth' TM. Just like it's not fiscal irresponsibility, it's 'stimulus'.

Re:As the economy improves???

[geekoid]

Control? no not in control. They barely have majority, but REP filibuster pretty much everything to death. There hand where tied as the previous republican majority mistake continued to ride. The tax measure that's expiring will not add any more jobs whether or not it expires.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bill_kress]

Very off topic, but wouldn't you think that someone spending that much on a military campaign without raising taxes would have some ramifications? To NOT blame Bush would be a new level of blinders. This HAD to happen.

I'm not disagreeing that they are all corrupt, but such massive failures as the huge deficit spending increase and allowing our corporate overlords to run rampant is significantly more dangerous--not recognizing that is shortsignted at best (Criminal may be more accurate)

Re:As the economy improves???

[cjb658]

Obama has pledged to raise capital gains taxes. Do you think anyone will want to buy stocks if the Democrats stay in power?

Re:As the economy improves???

[blair1q]

but fixating on him is shortsighted.

No, considering the man GW Bush to be the only thing meant when someone mentions "bush economic meltdown" is shortsighted.

Letting his party have control of America again would be a total disaster. The minute the Supreme Court put them in unchecked power in 2000, they fired up the pump and started draining the treasury and several decades' worth of future earnings, putting us in the deepest hole we've ever been in.

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

My guess is jobs won't improve much either way. As long as CEOs who layoff make more than those that don't, what's the incentive?

http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/executive_excess_2010

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

It would be much more irresponsible to *not* have done the stimulus. It should have been even bigger frankly. Gov't stimulus kept the economy moving while private industry stayed on the sidelines. Think of it as a bridge loan to when the economy starts ramping up again. You can pay some interest on the debt that you 'invest' for higher gains down the road.

That point is something that the GOP seems to forget. Stimulus is giving money to people that otherwise would not have had it. Why is this different than a tax break? because if you don't have a job a tax break doesn't do you a damned bit of good until maybe April. But foodstamps or unemployment checks do put money in your pocket that you will use right now.

Also, tax breaks for the wealthy that the GOP seems to love so much (remember 'small' business they want to help includes 2 of the worlds richest people the Koch brothers) don't help if the environment isn't good. They will just sit on the money until things improve, because, well, they can. They have money and don't need it for monthly expenses.

The poor and unemployed will quickly spend the money and food stamps, thus creating the 'stimulus' as that money ripples through the economy.

Infrastructure is likewise. Money that would not be spent because nobody is real positive about the future is spent by the gov't to build roads, new power lines, dams, whatever. That money goes into companies and employees pockets. So while paying for something you need to do anyway (said infrastructure) you are also putting money into the economy. Which allows money to circulate creating revenue and income for people up and down the chain.

Re:As the economy improves???

[joggle]

Yes. That's one of the lowest tax rates in the country (15%). Also, you are only taxed if you make a profit obviously, so it isn't like you would lose money should capital gains taxes increase although your profit would be reduced of course.

In addition, even some of the wealthiest people in the world are in favor of increasing the capital gains tax, such as Warren Buffett (who made his fortune from stocks).

Re:As the economy improves???

[Late Adopter]

Very off topic, but wouldn't you think that someone spending that much on a military campaign without raising taxes would have some ramifications? To NOT blame Bush would be a new level of blinders. This HAD to happen.

Deficit spending didn't cause the recession. It's still bad, and we should clean up our mess before it causes the NEXT one, but you misunderstand the banking crisis if you think the national debt is involved.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Nethemas the Great]

With respect to the so-called "family farm," there does seem to be a grain of truth to what AC is saying. Of those for which I am familiar the parents of the associated family tend to push the overwhelming majority of the work onto their children. Any contributions to labor tend to rest with moving the levers and other controls of their farm equipment while their kids do all the hard manual work. The better part of the parent(s)' day tends to involve any combination of hunting, fishing, drinking, and BS'ing with buddies. Gotta love U.S. child labor laws. Take them to work with you at the saw mill and you'll have C.P.S. on your case and possible jail time. Set them to work on the combine or hay baler and it's a called an American tradition and way of life.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Sparr0]

Consider a country with ten people, one making $1M and nine making $1k. If the first guy's income doubles and the other nine are halved, then the mean, median, and total all go up, while the average quality of life goes down. This may sound silly, but the situation in the USA is *worse* than this, proportionally.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Oppressive regulation? Do you mean like Glass Steagel and requiring actual due diligence when foreclosing on a house? Next you'll whine about high taxes and complain about how crappy your roads are.

Re:As the economy improves???

[toastar]

I don't have a problem with Roads, power lines, dams, or other items that provide for the general long term benefit of society. But what passes for stimulus these days is stuff like cash for clunkers. Building a bridge puts somebody to work today. Whereas buying a car requires you already have a job.

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

>>>It would be much more irresponsible to *not* have done the stimulus

Well let's see where that stimulus was spent:

- Besides the Slashdot story about sending the money over to Africa (to teach men to wash their penises), the money has also been sent to places like China, India, and Korea for various projects. Now many I'm just a dummy, but I don't see how spending money in OTHER economies is supposed to help stimulate the US economy. Let's spend that "anti-AIDS" dick washing here in our own cities. Link:

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/spending-fail-map/

Ooops and here comes the -1 mod patrol. Sorry but I'm only the messenger. Go attack the website if you disagree with them.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

At least being a farmer, you know you're going to be dealing with shit up front. IT? Yea, you learn the hard way.

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

>>>cash for clunkers

Can I get some cash if I go-round breaking windows? Just as demolishing cars made work for assemblyline men, my activity will make work for glaziers.

(Note: Both these ideas are economically flawed. Cash for clunkers/cash for window-breaking are equally stupid.)

Re:As the economy improves???

[feepness]

Control? no not in control. They barely have majority, but REP filibuster pretty much everything to death. There hand where tied as the previous republican majority mistake continued to ride. The tax measure that's expiring will not add any more jobs whether or not it expires.

I'm curious why the Republicans have been able to block the Senate with a historically significant minority, but the Democrats weren't able to block anything when the Republicans held the slimmest of majorities, or even none at all?

If it is a matter of the Democrats having no backbone or order, then how does voting for them help anything?

Re:As the economy improves???

[qbzzt]

No. If 9 make $1k, then the median income, the one for the "in the middle" earned, is $1k. If the first guy's income doubles and the other nines' are halved to $500, then the median is now $500.

You're right about the mean and total, which is the reason the median is more representative. But the median is more representative.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

Problem: Consumer demand for around 15-20% of our (US) economic output goods/services has been destroyed by both the stock (2001) market and real estate (2007-current) market collapse. This demand was of course artificial, propped up by "wealth" that didn't really exist (no, your house wasn't worth $30K more six months after you bought it).

So, the question is, how do you light a fire under the economic engine of consuming when most households are loaded down with mortgage, student loan, and unsecured/secured debt? Easily. You have the Federal Reserve buy out the underwater portion of debt.

Most, if not all of you, will say "That's not fair! I spent wisely and saved accordingly!" Good for you. You don't drive the economy. Those who consume do. So, to get those people consuming again, you need to get rid of this debt hanging out there. It's going to go away at some point anyway (research shows that if you're more than $10K underwater on your mortgage, you're 8-10 times more likely to walk away from the mortgage than someone who isn't underwater). The faster we eliminate that "zombie" debt, the more disposable income will be freed up for consuming goods, and the economy will start rolling again.

And please, don't say "You can't just make money out of thin air!" That's exactly what the Federal Reserve does. Inflation will be kept in check because we're already suffering from deflation. If the excess capacity doesn't get eaten up, the US is going to end up with the same problems Japan had. Once that excess capacity is eaten up, the Fed can raise interest rates to put the brakes on additional expansion.

Feel free to poke holes in my logic. A crowdsourced solution is still a solution.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Fulcrum of Evil]

There are no pending tax increases - that's just the temp tax cuts expiring. Calling something that's been on the radar for a decade an increase is disingenuous. Congress just irritates me any more - Ds are cowards and Rs are being obstructionist.

Re:As the economy improves???

[joebok]

I believe in your example the median would go down (from 1k to 500).

Re:As the economy improves???

[Sparr0]

I stand corrected

Re:As the economy improves???

[Quirkz]

Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. You wouldn't really expect that number to dip below 50% at any time (some places give smaller raises more often, but other places don't give raises at all). While there are any number of ways in which raises might be scheduled, I'd bet there's at least a little bit of weight toward the end of the calendar year and the beginning of the next one, which would cause that number to be higher in the fall. And in a slow economy, I'd expect it to go higher.

Still, I'm sure these survey people know what a "normal" year looks like and can probably tell if 69% is higher than typical for the same timeframe. Just wish they would have told us what that normal number is.

Re:As the economy improves???

[qbzzt]

Surprisingly, companies are in business to earn money, not to provide employment.

Re:As the economy improves???

[frank_adrian314159]

If it is a matter of the Democrats having no backbone or order, then how does voting for them help anything?

Because it keeps the Republitards from doing even stupider crap.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Speaking of deluded, what exactly does any of your assertions have to do with hiring? A growing, profitable business should not care about modest changes to tax rates or gov't debt, as long as inflation and interest rates are reasonable. This is a great time to poach talent from the competition. However, owners cash cows with no prospects of growth and no interest in hiring new workers care a lot about tax rates. The very people with the most incentive to care about tax rates are the least likely to hire. And the ones in a position to hire care little about taxes.

Re:As the economy improves???

[StikyPad]

the deepest hole we've ever been in.

Meh.. only in sheer dollars unadjusted for either inflation or GDP. That's like saying hard drive prices keep going up without considering that cost per byte is falling at a much faster rate. I'm no fan of GWB or our current economic condition, and the fact that it is *truly* the second worst in our short history means there's really no reason to resort to hyperbole.

Still, we have definitely been through *much* worse as a country, including obviously the Great Depression, but let's not forget that little thing called the Civil War either, from which many of the southern states have never fully recovered.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Skreems]

If the first guy's income tax is increased to 90%, then he can't create those new businesses. Now you have a man who USED to make 1 million but had to close-up shop because the heavy taxation made it impossible to survive

Only if he was dumb enough to not claim the money he invested in the company as a write-off. See, the money he would use to pay those fictional employees is NOT taxed at 90%, even in your scenario. In fact it's taxed relatively little, likely just the half of Medicare and Social Security tax that corporations pay on employee compensation. And the portion of it he spends on physical or service related costs of his business isn't taxed at all. The only way he's going to suddenly be out 900k is if he was taking that much in personal income one year, then turning around the next year and putting his personal assets back into the business.

If anything, raising personal income tax would be an incentive to invest more. If the choice is between taking an extra million in personal income of which 90% goes to taxes, or rolling that million back into tax-free investment in the company, the company is a much better option. Today you can take that million in extra income and pay only 30% in taxes, so it's a lot more appealing.

Basically, your argument is ridiculous, based only in fiction, and you appear to have such a loose grasp on the American tax code that I suspect you are overdue for an audit.

Re:As the economy improves???

[s73v3r]

In that situation, your guy who makes $1MM deserves what he got because he's an idiot. Any sane person would have written off the money used to start the business and pay wages.

Re:As the economy improves???

[scamper_22]

And what proof do you have that the stimulus did anything good.

Unlike real science where you can use the scientific method to repeat experiments, economics operates in the present and 'experiments' cannot be repeated... thus we really all know as much as Joe 6-pack...

To this day, people still have no idea and no agreement on what caused, what would helped... the great depression.
And any lesson you think you may have learned is not very applicable today given the vastly different circumstances ( women in the workforce, global competition, fiat currencies, heavy entitlements, heavy debt...)

For all we know, giving the stimulus has piled on debt, decreased people's confidence in the government and the future of the country, and is causing people to not invest...
Consider the run up in gold. If people were not so scared of a collapsing us dollar and debt, would that money be better invested in companies?

The point is... no one knows...
Certainly not me.

But most certainly all these people who seem to take grand economic predictions as facts.

Re:As the economy improves???

[s73v3r]

the money has also been sent to places like China, India, and Korea for various projects

Well, that's where the nation's businesses have been sending all of their money for the past 20 years.

Re:As the economy improves???

[s73v3r]

Remember that congress appropriates money and originates budgets, not the president

It was my understanding that the President creates the initial budget and sends it to Congress. They fiddle with it and approve it, and then it goes back to the President for final approval.

Re:As the economy improves???

[s73v3r]

If it is a matter of the Democrats having no backbone or order

Pretty much. As Jon Stewart says, the question isn't if the Democrats will fuck up, its how they will fuck up.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Private companies are not standing on sidelines, they are investing, only they are investing into economies that are actually competitive - abroad.

No, spending money that the country does not have by borrowing and printing and creating inflation (check gold prices) is not going to get the country with a 50 billion/month trade deficit and declining production job market out of this hole. There is no amount of money that can be spent to make the economy better. If you don't believe it, check out Zimbabwe dollars. USA can do the same - print trillions and trillions and to what end? USD will become useless in no time flat and the economy will not improve one iota.

The correct way to fix the economy is to cut 99% of all government spending, fire 99% of government workers, stop all wars of-course, bring all troops home from all over the world, get rid of SS, EI, all regulations, wage laws, all subsidies and all income taxes. Finally let the interest rates go up to award the savers and punish the spenders.

Let the economy crash, it needs to restructure. Economy needs to restructure and rebuild, at this point it will involve a crash, no matter what, many companies will go under. The capital needs to be restructured, new companies need to be created with new ideas and with saved money.

This will happen with or without stimulus, only with stimulus and spending and printing there will be hyper-inflationary depression in between the incoming crash and the incoming restructuring of the economy.

Re:As the economy improves???

[nedlohs]

Unless of course the economy needed to purge out the bad resource allocations and reset itself. You know by a recession causing lots of bankruptcies moving capital from those who clearly aren't good at using it to produce to those that are.

Yes stimulus can do good things, textbook Keynesian intervention can smooth out the bumps in the economy - which is a good thing from many perspectives.

Of course Keynesian economics also involves the government running a surplus (and hence reducing economic growth) during the boom times. The US decided to apply stimulus throughout the boom years, which has essentially rendered stimulus useless in the bust times since the debt levels are too high.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bhcompy]

While I'm not so as gungho about it, I do believe that the economy needs a reset. The Great Depression setup the growth of the next 3 decades while the late 70s/Stagflation era setup the growth of the 80s and 90s.

You need a crash to bring the boom. That's how cycles work. Just like the pine cones that only release seeds during forest fires while their parents burn up.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Z34107]

Most, if not all of you, will say "That's not fair! I spent wisely and saved accordingly!" Good for you. You don't drive the economy. Those who consume do.

That's not true at all - saving drives the economy just as much as consuming. Without saving, you can't have debt - banks need money before they can loan any out. Credit card companies likewise need a balance to cover everyone's credit limit until they get their end-of-month payment.

Savings also drives investment - no savings, no money to invest. No investment, no economic expansion.

Naturally, you need consumption, too. But dismissing the importance of saving and investment is taking a very short-term economic outlook. Also a very American one; we've had negative personal savings for a long time, which makes shocks like the mortgage crisis even harder to weather.

Re:As the economy improves???

[uniquename72]

Clearly, you've never owned a business and have no idea how taxation works on such entities.

BTW, the most prosperous period of the past 100 years happened with a 90% taxation rate on the top earners. And much of the Western world -- now in better fiscal shape than the U.S. -- has far higher taxation rates than us. Apparently the businessman in your example wasn't much of one.

I'm a conservative, but that doesn't make me an idiot. Think for yourself for a change.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider a country with ten people, one making $1M and nine making $1k.

The one making the $1M also happens to be an entrepreneur who likes to create businesses and hires the lower-income persons. If the first guy's income tax is increased to 90%, then he can't create those new businesses. Now you have a man who USED to make 1 million but had to close-up shop because the heavy taxation made it impossible to survive, plus 9 laid-off people living off government welfare.

But the government has no money due to poor fiscal policy (overspending), so it has to borrow the Welfare from China. That's the situation in the USA today. Not quite that bad, but trending in that direction with current policies.

Why are the anti-tax folks always so bad at accounting?

How come your entrepreneur can't survive on $100k, when his 9 countrymen survive on 1% of that? Why would he stop doing what he was doing to make 100x more than his countrymen because of high taxation? If I told you you could stop earning your 40,000/year income by working 40-60 hours a week and live of a government welfare check of $4,000/year, would you? Because in your scenario, you would do it for a $400/year check.

The government has no money because the last Republican President ignored warnings about Al Queda, then attacked a non-aggressor country (Iraq had no nukes, no ties to Al Queda, and was less of a threat than numerous other countries), lower taxes without offsetting long term decreases in spending (the sham lower tax rates = higher tax revenues has never proved itself). The last Democrat President left office with a surplus and a balanced budget, the last Republican President left us with two wars and a cratering economy. Clearly what we need are Republicans back in office to start a war with Iran.

Re:As the economy improves???

[uniquename72]

To this day, people still have no idea and no agreement on what caused, what would helped... the great depression.

Actually, there's a great deal of agreement, and no doubt on the part of main stream economists of what happened. When you listen to politicians spout off about it, you may not realize it, but I bet there's a school near you where you could take history classes and educate yourself. You could even try reading!

Re:As the economy improves???

[Zak3056]

Letting his party have control of America again would be a total disaster. The minute the Supreme Court put them in unchecked power in 2000, they fired up the pump and started draining the treasury and several decades' worth of future earnings, putting us in the deepest hole we've ever been in.

The Republican party had "total control" for about four months in early 2001 (from when Bush was sworn in, until Jim Jeffords left the party in May 2001), then for four years from jan 2003-jan 2007. In other words, the Bush presidency was almost evenly divided between "total control" and at least a split legislature.

It galls me to have to defend the Republican version of Jimmy Carter, but anyone assigning complete blame for the last decade to the Republican party is delusional.

Re:As the economy improves???

[toastar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

The fake boom was all that USA had ever since it started shedding off the productive manufacturing jobs that really were the core of export economy USA had.

Since then US had one stimulus after another, don't forget, Clinton stimulated with low interest rates, there was internet bubble caused by that 'stimulus', then it burst, but that time there was no Freddie/Fannie/FDIC to propagate the bursting of that bubble and so it was basically contained to the individual and some institutional investors losing money.

Bush did 2 or 3 stimulus packages as well, he inherited the crash from the internet bubble and again, followed the same Keynesian principles and stimulated and lowered the interest rates. However Bush also increased spending.

Since 2000 to 2009 spending increased by a factor of MORE than 2. So that's size of gov't, it's growing fast. At the same time the trade deficit increased by more than a factor of 2 due to losing more and more of productive capacity that offsets trade deficit.

The so called service sector economy is only good as long as services can be actually exported, but most services cannot. The Freddie/Fannie created a moral hazard that allowed the Bush stimulus (low interest rates and more spending) to create a bubble in another asset class - houses.

Now Obama is printing and Bernanke said that his SOP from now on will be on growing prices. The Feds mandate used to be price stability. Currently price stability only shows how much inflation there is, because in real terms there should have been deflation happening, but because there is so much inflation the prices are stable.

It's not good enough for the Fed, they want prices to increase! They think they'll take away your purchasing power and make you more competitive, but that's only a small part of a competitive economy - your purchasing power as it is related to your nominal salary. The other parts of it are (in no particular order): income taxes, payroll taxes, regulations, wage controls, price controls, subsidies to monopolies, laws that make it too difficult to start businesses, high costs of insurance, medical insurance costs, high costs of education, high cost of labor, high cost of rent/ownership of land/buildings. All of those prices are high because of gov't holding them hostage. As an example, Nixon caused prices for medical procedures to skyrocket because he turned insurance from insurance into basically NHS. The moral hazard is in everything, the regulations around new businesses are insurmountable, the taxes are high, it's not a good competitive environment.

So given all that and looking at what the gov't is doing, the potential and at this point a very likely outcome is hyper inflationary depression no less, because really, the gov't is actually bankrupt right now.

That's right, if the gov't cannot refinance its debt at low cost (and eventually they won't be able to) they won't be able to pay even the interest on the debt, forget about the principal. So gov't is juggling credit cards. It's bankrupt. Never mind the wars and troops, once the credit cannot be refinanced the spending will stop, the wars will stop.

Also note that SS is gone, it was spent on wars. I think wars are started to steal money that gov't has in possession, so I am always against gov't possessing money.

Nothing that the gov't is doing can actually make things better, they only have one tool: the printing press. They can print cash or bonds, it's money now or money later, but it's all the same thing.

The next asset class to have a burst is going to be US government bonds. That's going to be bubble of all bubbles and burst of all bursts. US Fed will obviously print USD to buy back all those bonds, so it'll guarantee hyper inflation.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Anonymous Coward]

There hand

Their hands

where tied

were tied

Fixed that for you. How does it feel to fail something that fourth-graders are expected to do correctly?

You're a dumbass. Note, that's "you're" and is not "your," just in case you got confused there.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

forgot to mention this: many other countries are also printing a lot of money not to be left behind, it's a race to the bottom in terms of inflating one's currency.

It's what created the Great Depression. So really, all currencies may go down in flames. Buy gold, load up on ammo and various non-perishable items including foods. It's not necessary that all countries will cause their currencies to go down the drain, but some will. Japan is doing everything it can to prop up the US dollar by devaluing its own currency for example.

Re:As the economy improves???

[onionman]

Consider a country with ten people, one making $1M and nine making $1k. If the first guy's income doubles and the other nine are halved, then the mean, median, and total all go up, while the average quality of life goes down. This may sound silly, but the situation in the USA is *worse* than this, proportionally.

Actually, the median would go down in the example you are describing. That's why we often care more about the median than the mean in population statistics. The median is less sensitive to outliers.

Re:As the economy improves???

[frosty_tsm]

That's not true at all - saving drives the economy just as much as consuming.

Quite the opposite. Saving takes money out of circulation. You're thinking of investing, which even then isn't as effective.

Lets say you are given $1 that you must spend and the recipient of that $1 must spend that as well. To the laws of physics, there was only one dollar bill. To the laws of economics, $2 were created. Saving that $1 in a mattress (yes, it's still done especially when people are afraid of banks) removes it from circulation. Even putting $1 in a savings account (due to good FDIC rules) has a limited effect on how much a bank can lend out.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Attila Dimedici]

OK, when the Repubs had a smaller majority than the Dems have now they did all sorts of bad stuff that everybody knew was bad, but now that the Dems have a larger majority than the Repubs ever had, they can't do anything to fix what the Repubs did? Is that what you believe? You do realize that the Dems had a filibuster proof majority from January 2009 through January 2010 and even now, it requires every Republican to agree to maintain a filibuster (the Dems are only one vote short of having a filibuster proof majority). The Republicans never had a filibuster proof majority.
If you believe that the Dems do not have control of the government now with one of the largest majorities in the history of the country for any party and control of the White House, then the Republicans never had control of the government because they never had anywhere near this large of a majority.

Re:As the economy improves???

[rubycodez]

you've been duped. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Federal Reserve has been pumping tens of billions of dollars into the economy through it's open market operations (POMO). and the markets mysteriously go higher as Primary Dealers use the cash to buoy markets (and your fake GDP)

analyzed in many financial blogs

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10838483/1/fed-pomo-stock-market-pump-daves-daily.html?puc=businessinsider&cm_ven=businessinsider

in early November there is buzz of QE2, the second Quantitative Easing, by which we propel ourselves into Zimbabwe-realm economics

Re:As the economy improves???

[turbidostato]

"I don't see how spending money in OTHER economies is supposed to help stimulate the US economy"

That's because you are a blatant ignorant.

Just have a look at your own recent History; you don't have to look too far away, just to post-IIW to see how exactly spending money in other countries stimulates USA economy. If you still don't get it, take a hint: how do you expect to sell your goods and services on undeveloped poor countries? Remember Henry Ford.

Re:As the economy improves???

[onionman]

I know I gave up.

Unless a miracle occurs and I find a job in November, I'm going to earn a third degree in Public Policy. Or possibly Business Administration. Haven't really decided which is the best course yet but I know hardware/digital design has reached a dead end. The stuff is getting outsourced to low-cost Indians (and I don't blame the managers; I'd do the same).

Good luck and best wishes on the tech job hunt. The MBA might lead to a larger salary, but it leads to the dark side. (Then again, I've secretly wanted to spray lightning from my fingertips for quite a while...)

Re:As the economy improves???

[turbidostato]

"The correct way to fix the economy is to cut 99% of all government spending, fire 99% of government workers, stop all wars of-course, bring all troops home from all over the world, get rid of SS, EI, all regulations, wage laws, all subsidies and all income taxes."

Hummm... that certainly explains why Haiti is one of the most powerful economies of the world!

Re:As the economy improves???

[aaandre]

I agree with your post up to the point where you say politicians suck. I think they are doing an excellent job. They just work, collectively, for themselves and serve the 1-10% percent of wealthiest individuals who practically own them.

Democracy! = Squirrel!

Re:As the economy improves???

[Z34107]

Saving doesn't "take money out of circulation"; it lowers consumption. The differences between the two are very important.

Even if consumption is the only thing that matters, an awful lot of consumption is made possible only by debt. How many people can afford to buy a house without a mortgage? How many could buy cars without loans? Even businesses have revolving lines of credit to make short-term obligations like payroll until long-term contracts come in. And "debt" like mortgages, loans, and lines of credit aren't possible without saving - without saving, there'd be no money to lend, and little consumption.

But, consumption is hardly the only thing that matters. Not only is consumption impossible without production, but production is what determines everyone's long-run standard of living. Increasing production - buying new machines, new training, new factories - requires investment. You're not going build a billion-dollar factory by spending every dollar you get as you get it. Even saving is inadequate; sitting on every penny you make for a decade or five means that factory won't get built any time soon.

This is why investment is important. Companies looking to expand can issue bonds or stock, which only works if there's savings available to purchase them. Spending every dollar you make means 1) no way to resist a economic shocks like the housing and financial crises, 2) no credit available to fuel consumption, and 3) no investment available to actually grow production.

Number three is especially important if you don't want unemployment to increase every time someone has children.

Re:As the economy improves???

[turbidostato]

"Lets say you are given $1 [...] putting $1 in a savings account (due to good FDIC rules) has a limited effect on how much a bank can lend out."

Good logics... it's only a pitty that both History and Economics theory from the fifteen century onwards shows otherwise.

If you have one dollar you can buy a Mac mini burger. If one hundred people have one dollar, they can buy 100 Mac mini burgers. If they save their dollars, the bank has 100 dollars and can start the building of a bridge which will do much more for the economy than you 100 mini burgers.

That's the very basic rationale for limited liability corporations (say, all of them).

What it's true is that you need a ballance, just like Henry Ford found. In order for the economy to grow you need savings, so you can build up a Ford factory out of money from investors, and you need pocket money on each individual so they can buy the cars you produce.

The current situation only seems to give you the reason because there is saved money: rich people is richer now, even after the crisis, than 20 years ago, so this part of the equation is OK. But mid class is poorer now than 20 years ago, specially after the crisis, so that's the part of the equation you need to ballance: look for means so mid class comes to have expendable money, so they can start buying Henry's cars again.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Machtyn]

As a previous poster rather rudely advised... there are jobs - get one. While it may sound harsh as there may be no jobs in your area, I know there are jobs in many other areas. Just this week I've had 4 placement agencies call me with opportunities in my area. The job I currently have I acquired when there were about 5-8 similar opportunities. And that's not counting the jobs that I might've qualified for had I a little more experience. If you can, look outside of your town/state.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Machtyn]

I agree completely. The question should have been, "Have you received a raise in the past year?" At my previous company, no one received a raise for the past 2 end of years. First, because the owner was projecting forward (it looks like a bad year, no raises and we let people go.) Small company, nearly destroyed morale. At the end of the second year, no raises because the owner was projecting backward (this past year was bad, even though we ended in the black - barely - but this next year looks great!, still no raises.) I understand his point of view and where he is coming from, but I object to basing an 2 outcomes from the same result. There were other problems (the owner liked pushing everyone hard). I was the first to leave, but 2 others left a week after I did. It was rather humorous, I thought. I'm now getting paid better and have slightly better work (if not quite as interesting).

Re:As the economy improves???

[Machtyn]

I don't understand that mentality of the business world toward IT/IS employees. Don't they want to keep the people around who have product knowledge and a history at the company? Why don't they give raises? But I agree. After my first year at my first job, I got a great raise. The next two years were -0-. I jumped ship and got a $20k (no benefits) raise.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Machtyn]

It's because the Dems knew a spanking was coming from back home. They stuck their necks out for the federalize health care bill. But that was after Obama decided the feds need to control the auto industry (hail the folks wagon) and control the "evil" wall street markets, among other things. It was too much, too quick. Thankfully so... now we can work to turn this mess around. Out with the liberals, marxists, socialists, communists, moderate republicans ... all of those that want to spend, spend, spend without any money in the coffers. (PayGo... it was a nice thought.)

Re:As the economy improves???

[JonySuede]

you for president of the USA !

Re:As the economy improves???

[schon]

Consider a country with ten people, one making $1M and nine making $1k.

The one making the $1M also happens to be an entrepreneur who likes to create businesses and hires the lower-income persons. If the first guy's income tax is increased to 90%, then he can't create those new businesses.

Why not? If his tax rate is 90%, he's making $100,000 after paying the $9,000 to his employees. (Remember, it's income tax, not gross sales before expenses tax.

The whole "rich people shouldn't be taxed as much because otherwise they won't create jobs" is pure, unmitigated bullshit.

Re:As the economy improves???

[frosty_tsm]

You misunderstand: I'm not saying savings is bad (it's a very good thing). I'm making a rebuttal to your argument that savings drives the economy as much as consumption. I agree that consumption isn't the only thing that matters. Most notably, you're equating savings with investment. They are different (the simplest example being the mattress vs the savings account).

Even investments aren't created equal. Investing in a CD or other bank savings account gives the bank the choice to lend or not (in 2008, they chose not to because their books were in bad shape). This is where most (but not all) funding for capital expenses come from (such as your factory example).

Investing in the stock market (usually) only directly gives money to other investors; not the businesses themselves. There is exception to this, such as when a business is selling stock to raise capital. Today, so many businesses are buying back stock that you could actually be hurting them by buying their stock (price goes up and they pay more per share).

The single best investment for helping the economy is investing in the small business, but carries the risk that 9 out of 10 new small businesses fail (I think it's within a year).

Yes or no, is this a satisfactory rebuttal to "saving drives the economy just as much as consuming"?

Re:As the economy improves???

[schon]

Do you think anyone will want to buy stocks if the Democrats stay in power?

Wrong question. The right question is "Do you think anyone will want to invest in stocks if the republicans get power?"

With an increase in capital gains taxes, people will still buy stocks. What will change is that they will hold on to them longer, which can only be a good thing.

With more "long" investors, corporations can begin to invest in long-term strategy, rather than focusing solely on short-term profits that cannibalize future profits.

Increasing capital gains taxes will have a negative impact on daytrading leeches, possibly forcing them to lose their gravy train and making them have to do something constructive.

This is pretty much a win-win-win-win scenario for workers, corporations, investors, innovators, and the economy.

Re:As the economy improves???

[DigiShaman]

And they will continue for another 20, 50, 1000 years. Or, however long it takes to reach global market equilibrium in the market place with regards to supply and demand. Way back when, the American engine was running under full boost. Once labor and services had a quick path to be outsourced to other nations, that's when our boost ran out.

Our standards of living have stagnated while 3rd world nations have had theirs improve. America is one of the richest countries, so naturally it will be one of the **last** industrialized nations to recover while we wait for them to catch up.

Re:As the economy improves???

[im_thatoneguy]

Actually the windows idea unlike the cars would probably pay itself off if you broke the right windows.

Not only would the glaziers do well but the home owners would recoup the costs in improved efficiency.

Re:As the economy improves???

[im_thatoneguy]

Consider a country with ten people, one making $1M and nine making $1k.

The one making $1M also happens to be an entrepreneur who starts a business, fires everybody and moves the production overseas. He now makes $2M and his ex-employees are living off of welfare. Unfortunately welfare doesn't provide enough money for his employees to buy the Entrepreneur's products anymore so he also goes bankrupt and everybody has $0.

Re:As the economy improves???

[im_thatoneguy]

Didn't you get the memo? Only wealthy people are smart and productive. If we didn't have rich people the stupid plebes would just wander around with a tin cup wanting for something to do. Now if the poor peasants had enough money themselves to start a business like the wealthy individual I'm SURE they wouldn't start businesses of their own. No, they are poor because they are lazy and stupid and deserve to be poor. The wealthy are wealthy by their own merit without any assistance. And their wealth is proof that they're just better than other people.

Geez get with the times.

Oh and if the Rich were taxed at 90% they wouldn't want to start businesses because they would all rather make minimum wage than subject themselves to a paltry $100k a year. It's demeaning to suggest that someone could make ends meet on $100k.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Dhalka226]

Did you actually look at this map? Most of them are retarded, and not for the reasons the creators think.

One of their entries is the Bell, California crew who gave themselves $800,000 salaries. Is that bad? Absolutely -- they're facing criminal charges. Does it help the economy? Of course not. It also has nothing to do with the stimulus; they simply voted themselves huge salaries and nobody paid attention enough to call them on it.

Then there's stuff like a highway beautification project in Oregon or a grant to Northwestern Illinois University to develop machine-generated humor. Silly? Yeah. But these are actually stimulus expenditures. People will be hired or retained to perform tasks like these, and that's ignoring the possibilities with some of the projects that actual technical advances might be made. Personally I'd prefer it be spent elsewhere, but it's not exactly failing to do the job it was assigned for. Other ones are complaining about it being "wasteful spending" to give overtime pay to government employees or how lots of money only created a few jobs, or complaining that building a truck driver training school is bad because big trucking companies make lots of money. It's still going to create the fucking jobs to build, maintain and staff the facility is it not? And then those big truck companies will use the facility to, you know, train new employees it's hiring right? What is the problem?

There's one about studying the effects of video games on the mental health of seniors. Apparently attempting to improve the mental health of seniors is a bad idea, or perhaps they're just trying to drum up indignation from ignorant people because the medium happens to be video games. I thought video games were destroying our children and needed to be banned? Surely if they have such a ridiculous effect on our minds it's worth studying if they can have a positive effect as well? Or is logical consistency not overly important to people on the right and we should just get out of their way when they're ranting?

There's even one that says Arkansas is not overspending (whatever that means) this year, has lost jobs and its unemployment rate has gone up. I have no idea how this is "bankrupting America" or bad stimulus spending. Isn't this the exact opposite? Isn't this NOT "wasteful stimulus spending" and showing that you're losing jobs with that approach? Maybe that "lots of money for a few jobs" thing in New York was actually an improvement in a bad economy? Are they simultaneously complaining about stimulus spending and the fact that Arkansas isn't getting much?

Nobody has ever accused the government of frugality or efficiency, nor would anybody claim that they always do the best possible things -- but most of these complaints are about actual, successful stimulus spending. If these mostly inane complaints is the best you can come up with, I'd call it a success. And if you're bitching about foreign aid like you appear to be, well, fine, but that is an entirely separate issue from the stimulus. This site doesn't even attempt to support your argument. Surely you can do better.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Z34107]

You make some good points, but I'd say it's not a satisfactory rebuttal. It may help if we specify what time frame we're looking at.

In the short run, production is fixed. In this time frame, firms can't hire or fire, expand, shut down, or otherwise change what they produce. By definition, consumption is the only things that matters.

In the long run, standards of living depend on production. This is ultimately determined by savings - higher savings means a lower real interest rate. This means, all other things equal, the cost of investing in capital is lower, which leads to more capital, which leads to more production.

Put another way: Say we're considering a million-dollar factory expected to yield $100,000 a year in profit, a 10% return. This factory will not be built if the interest rate is 11%. Say a plethora of other factories only return 5% - they won't be built when the interest rate is 6%. In the long run, savings determines the level of production.

Your existing stock of capital also depreciates - machines wear out and break down. If economic investment is less than depreciation, your economy quite literally shrinks.

I think we both agree in the short run, consumption dominates. Can we agree that, in the long run, savings and investment matter at least as much?

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

If there's a "-1 Troll" moderation, why isn't there a "-1 Dufus" mod? You may not like the projects on which it is spent, but that doesn't mean that it's not stimulating the economy. Do you somehow think that money just disappeared? That the people hired to do these things took the money and put it under a mattress?

Not to mention that a large number of the things on that map weren't done with stimulus money, and in some cases weren't done with federal money. If some town is stupid enough to pay its city manager $800k, it's no business of yours unless you live there. I wouldn't be surprised if half of them were gross misrepresentations or outright lies.

Re:As the economy improves???

[GiveBenADollar]

Manufacturers would be happy if they could at least sell their products here. If you want to jump start other economies to jump start ours then you have the cart in front of the horse. Right now China's economy is suffering because ours is and you don't see them spending large amounts of money over here.

Re:As the economy improves???

[frosty_tsm]

I think we both agree in the short run, consumption dominates. Can we agree that, in the long run, savings and investment matter at least as much?

Yes and yes. Long-term growth can't occur without investment.

Re:As the economy improves???

[im_thatoneguy]

You know what would drive expansion in our business? Customers.

If we had more customers we would hire more employees to fulfill the demand. We wouldn't need "investment" we would be responding to the market.

It's also one of the most "free market" solutions to the problem. Instead of "encouraging" investment--whatever that means you just give people money. That money will then be spent through free market principles. If you want a piece of that "stimulus" then you have to demonstrate that your product and service is useful and superior to the competitors.

Don't give businesses tax breaks to hire people blindly. If the business is a sound business the People Stimulus will bring those dollars to them to purchase their goods and services.

The real question though that nobody is asking is: "Do we need all these people?" Is there enough work for the entire population anymore to work full time? Do we want a 40 hour week with 10% unemployment or a 36 hour week with 0 unemployment? But that's unrealistic because you require training, persistence of attention to tasks etc. With automation I just can't see our economy lasting into the future as it currently is. Look at Amazon. In the not too distant future freight will be all but automated. Warehousing will be all but automated. You'll be able to run amazon with a relatively microscopic workforce that serves everybody that the grocery store, target and specialty store once serviced. VR will be sufficient to have no need to actually journey to a shop to play with it before buying it. VR will let you try on clothing, see how it looks on you.

Software makes people's lives easier. If you can learn your job in a few months or even a year a machine will be able to do it better in the not very distant future. Before too long we'll be running up against the limitations of many people's abilities to adapt. We're going to start people who are literally unemployable through no fault of their own. They'll be obsolete. What do we do with a population (and race) that's from a labor standpoint obsolete? How does the market operate when you hit 50% unemployment? The last remnants of 'moral superiority' in the rich will be gone. It'll be obvious that the unemployed aren't lazy. They're normal people who just are unneeded. I doubt we'll see our populations shrink. So I think we're going to have to start readjusting our incentives. If you want to work great, there are huge rewards for that. If you don't want to work, that's fine, we don't need you to, here is your pension, stay out of trouble... if you like try and come up with something cool.

If you look the online communities surrounding games for instance you'll see that people with too much free time and no profit motive still create things of value. Maybe a sub-market will emerge where you sell your idea online. As you emerge as creating something which people value you could spend it to move beyond the 'base' income into a more luxurious life style.

Me? I hope to work till I die. Stop paying me and I'll keep working because it's what I like to do. If you want to go sit on a beach 365 days a week be my guest, I would get bored. I would certainly in such a world work less but like work today if you wanted one of the coveted positions you would probably have to stick around for the shitty work in addition to the cool work.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Z34107]

Holy shit, two slashdotters came to a reasoned agreement. I think I'm doing something wrong.

Re:As the economy improves???

[im_thatoneguy]

Last I checked low stock prices wasn't a problem afflicting our economy.

Obama has pledged to cut taxes on the economic drivers: consumers. Do you think people will not want a piece of a profitable company's success as more affluent spenders seek businesses to give their dollars to?

You give everyone $5,000 and you will create jobs. Businesses would HAVE to hire people to handle the demand and keep enough product on their shelves. You give an investor $500,000 and what do they do with it? They buy some bonds. They put it in a company who is laying off workers and therefore becoming more profitable.

Giving people cash is a free market principle. Businesses are on an even footing to get the cash from the consumers, they just have to create compelling products and services to get that stimulus. It's capitalism at its finest. Those who create the most desirable product will get the most money.

Re:As the economy improves???

[toddestan]

Actually, it's a lot like the most of the rest of the stimulus. Sure, it does do something, but it's inefficient.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

No, spending money that the country does not have by borrowing and printing and creating inflation (check gold prices)

I could just stop reading there and know the rest of the post is bullshit because you have no understanding of economics. You think gold prices are an indication of inflation, when they are really an indication of increased demand for gold. You can check on inflation predictions by checking U.S. bond prices. China can't afford high U.S. inflation (i.e. a devaluation of the dollar) and will keep buying bonds. A cheaper dollar would be a problem for their deliberately undervalued currency.

Your "correct way" of fixing the the economy would make the great depression look like a lost wallet. The currency would collapse to zero and unemployment would hit 80 percent. It would be a great way of making the U.S. look like Somalia. At least until the revolution came. And don't think the rebels are going to turn the country into your libertarian paradise.

But most of all your post is a sad commentary on the state of education in this country.

Re:As the economy improves???

[drsmithy]

The whole "rich people shouldn't be taxed as much because otherwise they won't create jobs" is pure, unmitigated bullshit.

Especially once you understand that nearly all costs involved in "creating jobs" are tax deductible.

Re:As the economy improves???

[GiveBenADollar]

I do believe that if the fundamental problems with the economy are fixed then a real focused stimulus can work. The problem is that the fundamental problems are not fixed. We still have CEOs who are in the job for a couple years to make profit at the expense of the long term survivability of the company. We still have a manufacturing sector which cannot compete on price and is slowly losing the competition of quality. We have government spending and regulations which were written by businesses for the purpose of harming their competitors and boosting their bottom line. Also, we have a system of taxation which only protects the extremely wealthy and the poor while destroying anyone trying to create a business. Add to this a series of 'stimulus' bills which either put money into the hands of businesses which don't deserve it, or create government jobs which do not produce anything of positive economic impact. It's like trying to get your family out of debt by giving your kids more chores and raising their allowances, sure more work is getting done, but there is no extra money coming in. It's just shuffling money around and lining different peoples pockets with no real purpose. The congressmen in Washington are almost no different from their corporate counterparts, the only difference is that CEOs are out the door in a couple of years letting someone else pick up the pieces.

Re:As the economy improves???

[zippthorne]

Building bridges isn't necessarily a great thing either. You can't just build a bridge and magically have commerce, there needs to be stuff on either side that is made more efficient by the easy way across.

Historically this has been solved by building toll bridges, sometimes with entirely private funding: if the tolls pay off the bridge, then enough people had a use for it that it was worth the expense.

What the government needs to do regarding construction isn't to just commit to dozens of additional projects. They need to stop letting the contractors bid way past their capacity on the already existing projects. Road construction ties up traffic and is economically damaging, better to finish each project quickly one at a time than to let contractors sit on dozens of projects that that they drag out for half a decade.

If your project isn't waiting on chemistry (the massive concrete pylons of a modern high bridge can take months to cure), then the worksite shouldn't be empty. There's no reason why a road should sit grated out in the weather for weeks before finishing the paving. That's a logistics failure. Government spending on infrastructure should be for completing infrastructure projects, not for giving contractors a stable work order for decades out.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

Since then US had one stimulus after another, don't forget, Clinton stimulated with low interest rates, there was internet bubble caused by that 'stimulus', then it burst, but that time there was no Freddie/Fannie/FDIC to propagate the bursting of that bubble and so it was basically contained to the individual and some institutional investors losing money.

What Kool-aid are you drinking that alters hisory? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FDIC all existed at that time. What was different was that banks hadn't yet been given the go ahead to speculate in risky investments like stocks and derivatives. In other words regulation worked. Unfortunately that regulation was removed in 1999 by a Republican congress and a conservative Democratic president. The banks wanted to invest in those things because they could make them a lot of money. Unfortunately, as we saw, it can loose them a lot of money, too. The removal of that regulation is primarily what gave us this crash. But of course, conservatives such as yourself think that going back to the regulations that kept us depression free from 1937 to 1999 would be equivalent to Communism.

The SS trust fund isn't gone. It's in T-bills. The same kind of T-bills that keep on selling at very low interest. Apparently the people buying them are not yet concerned about inflation. In fact some people (think China) will keep buying them to keep the dollar overvalued compared to the yuan. Remember, there was a time when the national debt was over 100% of GDP, and we survived that.

Re:As the economy improves???

[GiveBenADollar]

Pick up a textbook, or even go to wikipedia. There are plenty of reasons for the great depression, in fact there have been quite a few times the economy has been in that territory. The question you need to ask is not what caused it, but instead what prolonged it. The economy swings like a pendulum and will continue to do such, but why did it end up stuck at the bottom for so long that time? I'll let you do your homework, but let me tell you this: If you leave it alone it will right itself and has done so in the past. Let the winners win, let the losers lose, let the banks that were stupid fail, and let those who were responsible with their money keep it. Sure it's painful in the short run, but either you deal with a lot of pain now or a lot of pain over a decade.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

It's what created the Great Depression. So really, all currencies may go down in flames.

Yes, currencies went down in flames but that was a symptom of the collapse, not a cause. The cause of the collapse was austerity plans (sound familiar? Europe is doing it again!) which reduced government spending and caused economies to shrink, which caused further austerity plans. Does this not ring any bells? Countries that increased government spending weathered the depression better than those that decreased it. What really ended the depression? The massive government spending leading up to World War II, a war that was to a large part a result of the German austerity measures.

As the saying goes "Those who don't learn from history are brain dead morons who deserve to repeat it."

Re:As the economy improves???

[feepness]

Because it keeps the Republitards from doing even stupider crap.

Apparently it doesn't.

Re:As the economy improves???

[russotto]

Not only would the glaziers do well but the home owners would recoup the costs in improved efficiency.

You haven't priced out window installation, then.

Re:As the economy improves???

[LeadTech]

This

Re:As the economy improves???

[russotto]

I don't understand that mentality of the business world toward IT/IS employees. Don't they want to keep the people around who have product knowledge and a history at the company?

No, because engineers are interchangeable monkeys. At least to management's eyes.

Why don't they give raises?

Because they don't have to. It's certainly been true since I started working that the best way to increase your salary was to move to another company.

Also, unlike many other categories of employees, engineers are unlikely to ask for a raise, and if they do, they're unlikely to be able to get past the usual standard refusals.

Re:As the economy improves???

[CodeBuster]

The tax measure that's expiring will not add any more jobs whether or not it expires.

Have you considered the possibility that allowing the tax measure to expire, thereby increasing taxes relative to prevailing levels during the measure, might result in even more job losses? Asking businesses to pay more taxes during the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression is undeniably stupid. Indeed, the biggest problem with the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, IMHO, is that they continually inject large amounts of uncertainty into the economy: uncertainty about tax rates, uncertainty about long term health care costs, uncertainty about environmental regulation and compliance costs. Is it any wonder that businesses and citizens are hoarding their cash and cutting their spending? If there is one thing that kills jobs and business it's uncertainty . In my view Obama has made the wrong decisions on just about every meaningful matter that has come before him. I can count on one hand the right decisions that he has made so far in his administration. When all of this is combined with Nancy Pelosi's disastrous leadership of the Congress we have a one-two combination punch to an economy that is still struggling to get back on its feet. If you are currently unemployed and looking work, do yourself a favor and vote the Dems out; the job you save may be your own.

Re:As the economy improves???

[CodeBuster]

putting us in the deepest hole we've ever been in.

Which Obama and the Democrats promptly doubled in size. Indeed, Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined. Check out the official Congressional Budget Office PDF reports linked in the article, the numbers don't lie. How much longer will the left "blame Bush" for the failures of the Obama administration? President Obama is in charge, not Bush. He wanted the job and he is responsible, like it or not, for failing to turn things around. The buck stops with the siting President and what do we have to show for 19 months of Obama? Steady 9%+ unemployment? The worst business environment in a generation? Naive foreign policy? Filing lawsuits instead of securing our borders? What a mess.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bigbird]

It always surprises me that you *can* walk away from a mortgage that is underwater in the US.

You certainly can't just hand over the keys in Australia - you'll still get pursued for the remaining debt after the house is sold by the bank.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

Some mortgages are recourse and some are not. Even if they are recourse, lenders aren't going to pursue someone who has no funds as they can always go atomic and declare bankruptcy. We don't much believe in a debtor's prison in the US.

Re:As the economy improves???

[benjamindees]

You're an idiot. Answer this question:

In a 'consumer' economy, what is it that is actually economized?

Re:As the economy improves???

[fishbowl]

Now, can you explain why the debt is strictly a bad thing?
If we were not accruing this debt, does that imply that we would be consuming other resources at a similarly dramatic rate? If so, then what resources would those be? Why is it unequivocally "bad" that we have this particular debt? If it is "bad", is it merely bad for the United States, or is it somehow bad in global macroeconomic terms? Is there an alternative solution that could be feasible, and if so, what are its parameters?

Re:As the economy improves???

[lonecrow]

And please, don't say "You can't just make money out of thin air!" That's exactly what the Federal Reserve does.

I think people have a hard time with this idea because they labor under the misconception that money=value.

The Fed does not create value or wealth, they merely increase or decrease the number of tokens we can use to trade value around. If we had the same amount of tokens as we did in the 70's it would be hard to go shopping because there just wouldn't be enough tokens REGARDLESS of the amount of wealth we had.

Montary policy should be taught in every year of high school until it sinks in.

Re:As the economy improves???

[NGinuity]

That's not true at all - saving drives the economy just as much as consuming.

If this were the case, then how much are being held in deposits would not be seen as a negative factor. The fact of the matter is, gauging how much people are saving, and not spending by showing the ratio of deposits versus circulation shows whether the economy is slowing or speeding. When you save, that's not a form of investment. Exactly the opposite actually. When investors withhold money to savings, it's because they don't trust the market to invest in it because they don't feel the outcome will be positive. After all, why would I invest money knowing ahead of time there is a good possibility of negative return? The economy doesn't grow when you're holding on to all of your money. How could it?

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

You speak of bridges. You do realize that *lots* of the bridges in this country are past their expected lifespan date right? Things were built massively after WWII and it's coming up on 60 years. Concrete things don't last forever and need to be replaced.

I would bet there are quite a few projects waiting to be built.

As for delays, most modern contracts include penalties for being late and bonuses for being done early, so what is the motivation for them being late again?

You're point about logistics is fair, but the stimulus wasn't to 'finish' existing projects, but to start new ones so there aren't any work sites sitting around idle waiting.

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

Finally someone got it right!

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

You'd be right 10-15 years ago, before most of the banking industry was deregulated. Most investments now are coming from pension/non-individual retirements funds, hedge funds, or foreign sovereign funds. Hell, bond yields are at some of the lowest rates they've ever been. There is plenty of cash in the system, just look at the rate on US Treasuries.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

You touch on what is probably the crux of the pro/anti stimulus argument at least to me.

Is the massive short term pain of a full blown depression better or worse than mitigating that pain for a longer period at lower levels. It's a fair and debatable question.

let those who were responsible with their money keep it

But what if I was responsible with my money and the irresponsible banks lost it?

Let the winners win, let the losers lose

Pretty harsh when bad luck is all you have against you...

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

As long as a currency isn't tied to gold or some other physical representation to put limits on the system, yes, you can indeed have all sorts of debts without any sorts of savings (while incurring inflation). Example: The Federal Reserve needed to buy up over 1 trillion dollars worth of toxic assets. Lucky for them, they have a checking account with no limit to buy said assets.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Z34107]

After all, why would I invest money knowing ahead of time there is a good possibility of negative return?

You wouldn't. You'd pick something that has a good possibility of positive return. Also note that most people's idea of "investment" isn't ""economic investment."

The economy doesn't grow when you're holding on to all of your money. How could it?

Short version: Your money is only stagnant if you hide it in a mattress, and then burn the mattress. Long version: here. TL;DR version: Magic.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

Get off your high horse. Even the farking Economist agrees with me:

"America looks likely to avoid a second recession. But with households still overburdened by debt, years of slow growth lie ahead"

http://www4.economist.com/node/17041738

Mr Wilson now realises that his boom-year sales were a by-product of the state’s housing bubble. Dealers reckon that before the crisis a third of new cars in California were bought with home-equity loans. “Now there’s no home equity,” says Mr Wilson, “there’s no down-payment for cars.” He foresees no sales growth for another two to three years. “The country is not optimistic. If you’re not optimistic you don’t buy a new house or new car.”

He’s right: Americans are not optimistic. Official statistics say that the economy has been growing for nearly 15 months, but so sluggishly that most people seem to think it is still in recession. For a few months it looked as if the economy might even shrink again, as growth slowed to a mere 1.6% (at an annualised rate) in the second quarter, job creation almost stopped and home sales plunged.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TooMuchToDo]

Completely agree. If only people understood monetary policy, they'd have a much firmer grasp on our financial system. /not an economist //in another life, I would've been

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

Less people working (or working for less money) means less customers for the company's products which typically means less money for the company. That was Henry Ford's great insight that drove the US economy for most of the 20th century.

Ya know, the companies would have even more money if they paid in the CEOs less. Oh wait, they can't do that because CEOs are magic and without them making 2000 times what everyone else makes, all companies would fail. Of course you could never outsource CEO jobs because, they are magic. The folks these jobs have been outsourced to now know how the technology they are dealing with works and have been trained by us. How long will it be before China and India decide they don't need US companies running the show anymore and just start their own companies using the training and technology they have received from us and cut out the US entirely? I don't doubt that it will happen. Hopefully the folks that let it happen will finally be seen as the traitors that they are.

Surprisingly, the role of government is to regulate when the actions of businesses are detrimental to the country as a whole.

This ridiculous notion that, "what is good for business is good for the country", has been proven to be wrong. It's not good for the country for jobs to be shipped overseas, and really, it's not good for the long term viability of many businesses either, but US business are all about year to year earnings. Some other poor bastard CEO in the future is going to have to deal with the bad decisions made by the current crop to make those Y2Y numbers by selling out the company's future. These guys will be gone by then. Not their problem.

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

The difference is that the R's are ruthless and push stuff through using every trick they can find, the other party be damned. The D's are not ruthless and try to be above board and bipartisan.

The whole reason the tax cuts are on the table again is that R's used parliamentary procedures to push them through and those procedures prevented them from being permanent.

Just an observation.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Nikker]

If that's the idea then why didn't they pay off the citizens mortgages and give them some pocket change while the current bankers went bankrupt so new ones could take over to invest the citizens money? Kinda like cutting off a piece of dead skin so new healthy skin can grow back.

Re:As the economy improves???

[bennomatic]

Agreed. In other news, 99.6% of people have not gotten a raise in the last 24 hours!

Re:As the economy improves???

[complete loony]

Well, yes. Without the massive government response around the western world, things would be much bleaker.

Since the 80's banks have been lending money mainly using existing assets as security. When you go to an auction, the price of a house was set such that the interest burden was roughly equivalent to the cost of rent.

As interest rates have fallen all this has done is encourage buyers to borrow more while paying the same amount of interest.

Rising asset prices encourages "investors" to get into the market to make some easy money.

But all this did for the last 30 years was give everyone the illusion of wealth. Borrowing money against their asset value, where that value was based on how much people were borrowing. Increasing debt levels without doing anything productive with the loaned money.

Just before the party ended, the private sector of the US economy was borrowing $4 trillion a year. Adding significantly to demand, and dwarfing any amount spent by the government.

So now that party has finished. Debts are being repaid (or defaulted), and this reduction in debt is now subtracting from our ability to spend.

However it's not the change in debt that gives us the feeling of growth / recession. Just like in a car, it's the acceleration that you feel. The "credit impulse" that has a direct effect on GDP and employment. And right now, though the level of debt is still falling, debt growth has accelerated slightly. Giving economists the impression that we're out of the woods, and all our problems are behind us. (Steve Keen explains this idea in more detail here)

But we still have a mountain of debt to repay.

Re:As the economy improves???

[complete loony]

Without saving, you can't have debt

Bullshit. When you buy a flat screen tv on your credit card, you create a loan with the bank and a deposit in the retailers bank account. Only then does the bank go chasing their reserve requirements.

Loans create deposits. Not the other way around.

Re:As the economy improves???

[dropadrop]

. Currently price stability only shows how much inflation there is, because in real terms there should have been deflation happening, but because there is so much inflation the prices are stable.

It's not good enough for the Fed, they want prices to increase! They think they'll take away your purchasing power and make you more competitive, but that's only a small part of a competitive economy - your purchasing power as it is related to your nominal salary. The other parts of it are (in no particular order): income taxes, payroll taxes, regulations, wage controls, price controls, subsidies to monopolies, laws that make it too difficult to start businesses, high costs of insurance, medical insurance costs, high costs of education, high cost of labor, high cost of rent/ownership of land/buildings. All of those prices are high because of gov't holding them hostage.

I guess that's one view, but I would imagine the main reason why the government will be happy about inflation is that it also reduces the amount of debt you have. If you are so far in debt that you will never be able to pay for it, you can work on making that debt worse less. In theory this will piss of the people who loaned the money to you, but if their economy is also dependent on you using the borrowed money to buy stuff from them then they may not have a choice.

Re:As the economy improves???

[L4t3r4lu5]

The PHB told him to turn his screen resolution down to 640*480. Something about "Less pixels means less electrons" and energy saving directives...

Re:As the economy improves???

[Hognoxious]

Unlike real science where you can use the scientific method to repeat experiments, economics operates in the present and 'experiments' cannot be repeated... thus we really all know as much as Joe 6-pack...

There are two kinds of people - those who like false dichotomies, those who don't, and those who have never heard of them.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Kjella]

Statistically, about half US companies do the calendar year and half something else, so if you're trying to guess something from the percentages it might matter. Then again over here in Europe my last company used the calendar year like almost all here but salaries were adjusted in April.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Attila Dimedici]

The difference is that the R's are ruthless and push stuff through using every trick they can find, the other party be damned. The D's are not ruthless and try to be above board and bipartisan.

The whole reason the tax cuts are on the table again is that R's used parliamentary procedures to push them through and those procedures prevented them from being permanent.

Just an observation.

You mean the way that the Dems pushed through healthcare using parliamentary tricks to overcome all opposition? You know, the way the House "deemed" the bill to have passed?
If you think the Dems try to be "bipartisan, you really need to pay closer attention to what they actually do rather than listening to what they say.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

the main reason why the government will be happy about inflation is that it also reduces the amount of debt you have.

- it does not reduce the amount of debt you have. It distributes the debt to all the existing money and devalues the money. I am arguing that it is exactly what the government is aiming at and they will cause a currency crisis, USD will be destroyed, US bonds will be destroyed, US will no longer have credit and since US has a 50billion/month trade deficit, 75% of which is goods coming from various countries like China, US is going to have prices going through the roof and BTW the interest rates will skyrocket into high number, double digits, so this will limit the available credit. There will be shortages of actual goods, people won't be able to buy anything with their dollars. Zimbabwe dollars.

you can work on making that debt worse less. In theory this will piss of the people who loaned the money to you, but if their economy is also dependent on you using the borrowed money to buy stuff from them then they may not have a choice.

- see, that's the belief and many governments are doing the wrong thing right now devaluing their currencies to make it go down as fast as the USD, they believe they need US to buy the goods they produce.

They do not.

They need to let the manufacturers aim at local markets, and other markets that are not the US. By devaluing your currency you are taking away purchasing power from the people in your country, so your citizens end up paying for the inflation of the other country's currency and end up sharing their goods with people from country that produces nothing but inflation.

Japan is doing this right now, buying US bonds and dollars at increased rate by printing their own currency, but they are wrong in doing so. Unfortunately most governments are ran in way of Keynesian shamanism and are not willing to do the correct thing.

However it doesn't matter, even when all currencies devalue, what will be left is this: countries WITH productive capacity and countries WITHOUT productive capacity.

Countries with productive capacities will be fine, they'll aim at their own markets and their quality of life will suffer initially, but eventually will go up.

Countries without productive capacities will not be fine. They have nothing to offer even to their own citizens, they will have shortages of everything. All goods and services will become scarce and quality of life will go down.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Useless sarcasm. Comparing a tiny country that was constantly messed with by the US, excellent comparison. Haiti has actually inflated its currency into non-existence as well, and is suffering from lack of capital investment. That's what is going to happen to USA.

Re:As the economy improves???

[tehcyder]

This is due to fiat currency and fractionel reserve banking.

For believers in the gold standard everything bad is due to the abandonment of the gold standard.

Re:As the economy improves???

[meglon]

This stupidity again? Obama may have been in office that long, but he's only been working on his budget for the last year... prior to that, it was Bush's budget. Federal budgets start on October 1st, and the "old" presidents budget lasts 9 full months into the "new" presidents term.

Here's another one for you... Bush more than doubled the national debt. At the end of Clinton's last budget, the national debt was 5.806 trillion, with projected surpluses of 3 trillion over the next 10 years. Bush's first budget produced a deficit of $409 billion, which was the lowest of his presidency. Bush added 6.246 trillion to the national debt.

Or how about this... since the end of WW II, republican presidents have increased spending vs GDP by 43.7%, while democratic presidents have reduced spending vs GDP by 75.7%.

Which of course brings us to this: the last republican president to decrease spending vs GDP was Nixon in his first term. The last democratic president to increase spending vs GDP was.... Roosevelt, during WW II.

Or how about this one...Bush's last budget had a greater deficit (1.796 trillion) than Obama's first budget (1.690 trillion). In his first year, Obama is already starting to correct Bush's spending like a drunk sailors routine.

The only way you get Obama to double some deep hole is to blame him for Bush's spending, which is exactly what you did, roughly 1.3 trillion worth. He is turning it around.. but it's a slow process because of how very severely fucked up Bush caused things to be. It took Bush Sr. and Clinton twelve years to turn things around from Reagan's fuck-ups, and his was small compared to Bush Jr's.

Re:As the economy improves???

[TheCarp]

You may be right, but, its not clear that this is the only cause or solution, for that matter.

I tend to think this problem is driven, mostly, by large unions with unified currency. Sure, it makes things easier, but, exchange rates between areas allow individual areas to fluctuate independantly as they need to. Look at greece, if they had their own currency, inflation would happen, local development would follow, increasing exports, which would lead to it being seen as on a come back, and bring in outside investment.

I would advocate it here in the US, a central authority for currency made sense when we needed it to simplify things and information moved very slowly... these days, it seems a large number of individual currencies could be much more easily managed.

-Steve

Re:As the economy improves???

[AmiMoJo]

Nice oversimplification.

Most income tax systems increase the taxation level in bands, so while he might pay 90% tax on everything over say $500,00 the first $10k might be free, up to 20k at 10% etc. Of course no country has anything like that level of taxation, although a 90% top rate was tried in the 60s in the UK and wasn't a total disaster. Most of the people who claimed they would leave didn't.

We have had this debate recently in the UK because the government wants to take away child benefit from people who own over a certain amount. The argument against it is that it creates a disincentive for people to earn more because they will then lose significant benefit payments, but it is of course nonsense. If you boss offered you a £1000 pay rise but you knew you would lose £1000 in benefits you would still say yes. It's a step on the ladder, hopefully leading to another raise next year.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FDIC all existed at that time. What was different was that banks hadn't yet been given the go ahead to speculate in risky investments like stocks and derivatives.

- FDIC created the moral hazard that allowed banks to gamble with deposits. Glass Steagall was a 'fix' to this moral hazard, that should never have existed in the first place.

Fannie/Freddie were a moral hazard that stamped the mortgages with "will be bailed out by the government of US of A" seal of approval. Obviously if it is guaranteed by the US government then there is no risk in landing and handling these mortgages, so this allowed the banks to speculate with those without any risk of losing money (or so they thought).

US government has been creating moral hazard since the creation of the Fed. Fed should never have existed. FDIC should never have existed. FDIC was 'solving' a non-problem. Only 2% of all bank deposits during the bank runs were affected, FDIC should never have been created, it caused the entire banking system not to care to earn trust of the customers and caused customers not to care about which bank they are lending money to.

In other words regulation worked.

- no. The Glass Steagall was holding the dam of gambling with deposits, but it was the Freddie and Fannie that increased the stream of money to gamble with. And of-course the low interest rates. What better way to create an asset bubble in house prices than to lower interest rates to nothing and to create gov't agencies to remove the risk of lending the free money? Only a gov't can be so stupid.

Unfortunately that regulation was removed in 1999 by a Republican congress and a conservative Democratic president.

- it's not unfortunate, it's inevitable. Once a gov't messes with economy, it will eventually be completely bought out and will mix with corporations in a way that will remove any at all barriers to make as much profit as possible. Gov't should never be in economy in the first place, it inevitably leads to complete corruption and destruction of the Free Market and destruction of economy.

The banks wanted to invest in those things because they could make them a lot of money.

- no. The banks didn't want to invest. You see, you are completely off on all aspects of understanding of economy and politics and you want to teach me something? It's not working.

Investment implies that banks would be expecting a return on the money invested. Banks didn't want to invest, it was the old business model. Banks understood that it's better to subvert the government because it is ready to be subverted so they could take the money and give all the risk to the gov't. This had nothing to do with investing. Investing implies presence of RISK. This took all risk out of the deal AND provided banks with unlimited funding due to 0-1% interest rates.

Unfortunately, as we saw, it can loose them a lot of money, too.

- No. I didn't see the major banks 'looooosing' anything. However they did get bailed out. So their assessment of the situation was correct. There was no risk in that behavior, because gov't took the risk out.

The removal of that regulation is primarily what gave us this crash.

- No. The crash was caused by a blown up asset bubble. In that case the assets were home prices and the gov't acted as the pump. Eventually the bubble burst. EVEN if there wasn't any derivative trading that bubble would have burst, just like the Internet bubble a decade earlier.

Again, you have not a slightest understanding of economy, you should put a sock in it.

But of course, conservatives such as yourself think that going back to the regulations that kept us depression free from 1937 to 1999 would be equivalent to Communism.

- No. I am a libertarian. In the 1929 the bad r

Re:As the economy improves???

[tehcyder]

cash for clunkers

Don't know about the US, but here in the Uk this was done primarily for ecological reasons, i.e. getting newer, greener cars on the road.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Yes, currencies went down in flames but that was a symptom of the collapse, not a cause. The cause of the collapse was austerity plans (sound familiar? Europe is doing it again!) which reduced government spending and caused economies to shrink, which caused further austerity plans.

- what a dunce.

The actual cause of the great depression was the exact opposite of what your Keynesian shaman friends told you. The cause of the Great Depression was government inflating the currency and mis-allocating labor and existing credit to public projects and not allowing the economy to restructure.

The cause of Great Depression came from government trying to fix a recession, which resulted from a burst of an asset bubble, which government actually created.

The Fed was creating an asset bubble in stocks, the bubble burst. If the gov't stood to the side and didn't actually do anything, it would have been gone in a year, just like a recession that started and ended in the 1920. Gov't got involved, followed the inflationary principles and Keynesian shamanism and created an actual Great Depression.

There was no Great Depressions before that in USA, guess why? There were recessions and some depressions (deep recessions that lasted a year to 3 years) but a global Great Depression? That takes government involvement.

Countries that increased government spending weathered the depression better than those that decreased it.

- stupid bullshit. USA wouldn't even come out of the depression if there wasn't all that cheap labor available after the end of the war and if USA wasn't one of the countries that didn't have a destroyed infrastructure. But it didn't have a destroyed infrastructure and when the war ended it had a huge supply of cheap labor and it started producing quickly and came out of the depression.

As the saying goes "Those who don't learn from history are brain dead morons who deserve to repeat it."

- yeah. Only in your case it's this: Those who rewrite history never learn from it, so they are guaranteed to repeat its mistakes.

Re:As the economy improves???

[maxume]

I love the juxtaposition between your talk of asset bubbles and your certainty that the price of gold is a harbinger of the doomed dollar.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

I could just stop reading there and know the rest of the post is bullshit because you have no understanding of economics. You think gold prices are an indication of inflation, when they are really an indication of increased demand for gold.

- idiot. Increased demand for gold is inflation. Gold is capital on strike, it means that fiat currencies are inflating, what the hell is the size of your brain? You should try shooting yourself in the head, I bet you won't hit it.

You can check on inflation predictions by checking U.S. bond prices.

- yes, the next huge asset class that is being pumped and will soon burst in such a huge explosion, the Internet bubble, the mortgage bubble, even the stock bubble of 1929 will look like cheap fireworks compared to this nuclear option.

China can't afford high U.S. inflation (i.e. a devaluation of the dollar) and will keep buying bonds.

- China is not a Free Market, what it will do and why is not driven by free market but by the polit-bureau so I wouldn't make such bold predictions on how it will behave.

But what a dumbass you are, saying that China buying bonds will keep the inflation down! China buying bonds increases the bond bubble, but it only SPREADS the inflation into its own population, it does not reduce inflation. As we speak, China is allowing its citizens to run away from inflation and for the first time allows its citizens to buy actual gold. So again, you have not a single clue on what's going on, what economics is, how it works, it's amazing. You must have studied economics from some insane Marxist and Keynesian.

China would be SO MUCH BETTER OFF if it allowed its currency to float. Chinese PEOPLE would be better off because because they would finally see their money appreciate and prices fall for goods they produce in the country.

USA will be left without those goods, without money, without any way to get any credit. USA will see its quality of life diminish.

The currency would collapse to zero and unemployment would hit 80 percent.

- as it should.

USA has no useful production capacity that it can trade for, so all it does is inflating the money supply and the bonds. USA NEED TO LOSE 80% OF JOBS. Those are non-productive jobs.

USA needs to lose 99% of all government jobs and have those people allocated back into the private sector. USA needs this, it's very bad and it will happen. But the more inflation USA creates, the worse the situation will be for the USA at the end, when this bubble bursts.

Some believe that US will then just start a big war, but with what money? How will they pay their soldiers and how will they pay the companies that supply them, how will they pay for anything? No, when this bubble bursts, USA will be left with no army, 99% of gov't will be gone anyway on its own, the interest rates will skyrocket, the jobs will fall, I don't know if it's going to be 80%, but it will hit over 40% for sure.

THEN USA will be able to restructure by saving money FIRST because it won't be able to get any loans, no credit. So they will save money and start building factories, etc., and will restructure the economy.

All these measures that the Fed was taking, that the gov't was doing starting from Nixon was leading to this. The low interest rates from Clinton time, through Bush and now with Obama, all of this made the situation much worse while the gov't increased by a huge factor, more than 2 times from 2000 to 2009. The wars, the stimulus, the bailouts, the regulations, the taxes, etc.etc.etc., all of this will have to disappear before the economy restructures.

But most of all your post is a sad commentary on the state of education in this country.

- exactly CORRECT. Because I never went to any school in USA but you did. It's YOUR commentary that is the sad testimony on where the problems are in your society.

Re:As the economy improves???

[maxume]

It will be interesting to see if the tea parties help the Republicans pull defeat out from under the rug of victory.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

That comes from you not understanding that gold is not just a commodity, it's actual money. It was always used as money when other fiat currencies failed. It was what made it possible to jump from one fiat currency to another.

Gold is an indicator of inflation of the fiat currency. You are thinking gold is in a bubble?

Ha. The prices of gold are going up for a decade while the gold stocks (HUI index) is lower than it was in 2008.

There is almost nobody actually buying gold. Nobody really own gold. There may be a bubble in gold sometime, but probably not very soon, not in the next 5 years certainly.

Re:As the economy improves???

[jgagnon]

I can attest to this. There is a farm near me (as an example) where the grandfather (90+ years old) works just about as hard as his two sons, both 60+. None of the grandkids are interested as far as I can tell.

Re:As the economy improves???

[maxume]

Why would you argue that the price of the commodity going up without impacting the price of the producers is a sign of strength in the commodity?

Re:As the economy improves???

[Laurence0]

Which is a complete joke, given the amount of energy used in making a new car. It makes even less sense an an ecological move than as an economic one.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

OK, I will chew it out.

There is very little actual buying going on in gold, there is even less happening in gold miners. When bubbles actually occur, there is a lot of speculative buying, much more than what we are looking at in the HUI index.

You will know it's a bubble when the prices start moving up by huge factors in a day, not 3 percent up, 2 percent down, but actual moves like 10% up, 15% up, one after the other.

People have been telling me for years that gold is in a bubble. When gold cost 320 they told me that. When gold was 600 they told me that. When gold hit 800 and then 1000 they told me that. At some point gold came down to 750 after hitting 1000, they told me: see, it's a definite bubble, look at that correction.

Bull market climbs a wall of worry. Gold price is going up in USD terms and in other currencies, it's showing inflation in all currencies. It's decoupling from currencies. Saying something like: oh, gold is rising because of increased demand, not because of inflation.

Well hello, that's the demand - fiat money is losing value. I bet those stupid central banks of those stupid governments that were following the stupid Keynesian shamanism are pulling their hair out now. Good. They are buying now. But there is no real bubble until your average investor/speculator moves into the trade.

When your average investor/speculator moves into the trade you'll know. They'll be behind the wave, buying a bear market as usual.

Re:As the economy improves???

[tehcyder]

Ooops and here comes the -1 mod patrol. Sorry but I'm only the messenger. Go attack the website if you disagree with them.

You should have the courage of your convictions, and anyway, if you posted a link to the goatse guy or some insane racist site you'd be modded as a troll too.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

He is not right, he is wrong that's my reply.

Unions didn't cause the Great Depression, it was a recession due to an asset bubble caused by the Fed monetary policy. The recession could have ended in a year, just like a recession of 1920 and many many many other recessions before that in the 19 century, that lasted for 3 months to maybe 3 years. Recessions are OK, they are needed to reallocated resources that are incorrectly used. But gov't came in and caused a depression with Keynesian shamanism, printing, setting low interest rates, taking away people's actual savings (gold), creating all these public projects that further mis-allocated more resources and didn't let the economy restructure itself.

When the war ended there was a surplus of cheap labor coming back home and since the US didn't have its infrastructure destroyed, it quickly was able to retool its war factories to make actual goods people wanted and to export those, that was the reason depression ended.

Re:As the economy improves???

[tehcyder]

My guess is that the economy will improve pretty quickly after November elections if Republicans win. Not because they will do anything major but because the businesses will start spending and hiring more once the prospects of more oppressive regulation and higher taxes are diminished. So if you want some easy money, buy stocks now and hope for a Republican win.

This just goes to show that most businesses don't have a clue about economics, or indeed the real world in general. Business regulations and taxation don't stop businesses hiring people any more than paying income tax stops people from working.

Re:As the economy improves???

[LanMan04]

Can I get some cash if I go-round breaking windows?

If they're ancient, crappy windows that pollute the environment for no good reason, and are being replaced with triple-pane windows that will save hundreds of dollars in energy costs over their lifetime compared to the old windows?

We're not talking a 1 to 1 replacement here.

Re:As the economy improves???

[maxume]

So when you say speculator, do you mean the type of person that watches Glen Beck or would buy gold from a vending machine?

And I'm not sure how you would distinguish currency decoupling from a bubble.

Re:As the economy improves???

[tehcyder]

No, considering the man GW Bush to be the only thing meant when someone mentions "bush economic meltdown" is shortsighted.

It's called synechdoche, "GW Bush" stands for the whole (Repulican) administration. Similarly, when you say "Reganomics" nobody seriously believes that the intellectually lightweight Ronald Regan actually dreamed it all up on his own.

Re:As the economy improves???

[ciderVisor]

Worst. Haiku. Evar.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Jalfro]

wot about mya dumb ass?

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Speculator in stocks, speculators unlike investors, don't bother with actual commodities. So a speculator moves into stock to trade it quickly and pump the price up.

I have no idea why you are mentioning Glen Beck, who has provided people with a terrible advice of using Goldline without telling them they should not be buying gold that is marked up by 70% (even with goldline you can buy gold that is only marked up by less than 5%, but it's still expensive. You can actually buy gold and only pay 1% premium for resale.) But I suppose you actually think I am a republican and care about republicans and their talk show hosts, then you have completely missed my points and you do not understand my reasoning.

Currency decoupling means that spot gold prices go up in all currencies when gold goes up and not only in USD. That's decoupling.

Bubble in gold will happen when everybody and their mommas are buying gold, which is nowhere near the case, otherwise we'd see gold stocks and index rallies in double digits per day.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Oh, and if you want to see a bubble being pumped in action, it's easy.

US bonds. Government is promoting them. Fed is printing. Everybody is buying, all asset management firms, all pension funds, mutual funds, banks are buying etc.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Ignatius]

Without saving, you can't have debt - banks need money before they can loan any out.

While this seems to be a common conception, nothing could be further from the truth. Banks create money out of thin air by loaning it out (bank money creation). What they need (or should need) is not deposits from savers but collateral from the debitor to back up the debt claim. Regulation also requires them, for certain kinds of accounts, to keep a certain amount of reserve, but this applies to both, funds acceped (i.e. deposits) or funds created (against a credit contract backet by collateral).

The bank needs money on days where more cash is withdrawn than deposited but of course, this averages out to zero across the whole system (inluding central bank money), so some banks are bound to have surpluses that day which they are usually willing to lend away to other banks in the interbank market (at the LIBOR rate). If not, the bank can still get funds from the central bank (the the FED rate) against collateral.

Deposits from "savers" are nice to have as (1) they create fees, are (2) usually cheaper than interbank loans and (3) depositors don't ask for collateral whereas central banks do; they are, however, not necessary for a bank to run it business (in which case, the bank would be an inverstment bank as opposed to a commercial bank).

saving drives the economy just as much as consuming.

It is true that you need both, the question is: What is the limiting factor? In a regime of full-employment where the economy runs at full capacity (like in the decades after WW2), you are in a supply-side regime and there are enough "good" investment opportunities so that additional savings can be put to use in the real economy to create future wealth. Alas, most industrial countries have left this regime in the 70s and have now entered a demand-side regime of structural unemployment where the economy runs below capacity. In this regime, you don't have a lack of savings but a lack consumption and thus a lack of profitable "real" (i.e. good or service producing) investment opportunities. As a consequence, additional savings don't fuel the real economy but will merely blow up speculative bubbles in asset markes (stocks, real estate, commodities, "financial innovations" etc.) without creating any additional wealth. Worse, the "surplus" savings are permanently withheld from the real economy and lead to additional bankruptcies as there is more "active" debt than "active" money to pay it down and you get a classic deflationary downward spiral.

While this is the sad state of affairs in almost all western countries, in the US it's even worse as you have moved most of your production overseas and thus have even more unemployment and even less investment opportunities than you would otherwise have - and a huge net-debt on top of it.

ignatius

Re:As the economy improves???

[El Rey]

When did you ever see the R's screw around for months trying to get the D's support on anything like the D's did trying to get R support on healthcare?

If D's hadn't screwed around trying to get R support for the healthcare bill they would have passed it months earlier. That would be pushing it through. As it turns out they spent months talking to R's.

Deemed as passed is just confirmation of something that has already passed, so I don't see that as much of a trick since the thing passed the house in the first place.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Ihmhi]

One thing I've always wondered:

A large portion of previous economic fuckups were poor investment (which the government can't really control) and poor regulation (which the government can control.

If there were sufficient regulation in place to make any highly unwise or unethical financial practices (offshore tax shelters, the shit that allowed the sub-prime catastrophe, etc.) impossible without breaking the law, would this in effect protect the economy from everything other than a mass of bad investments (like the tech boom of the early 2000s)?

Re:As the economy improves???

[mcgrew]

Inflation is a way of raising taxes without raising taxes. Your purchasing power stays flat or even drops, while your income is increasing, putting you in a higher tax bracket.

That's how thay paid for the Vietnam War. Inflation was a real bitch in the '70s. It's likely that that's how they'll pay for Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Well of-course inflation is a way to raise taxes without saying it, but when your currency is distributed through the world and international deals happen in it (like purchases of oil/weapons etc.) then it's not as simple as taxing just your own population. It's taxing the entire world.

That's taxation that is definitely without any representation.

However it is not going to be the same as it was in the '70s because then USA was a net exporter of goods and could sustain such politics, it was also a net creditor.

Now USA is a net debtor and net importer on huge volumes of money and products, both, so raising inflation now will have a different effect. Looks to me that Japan is going down the drain by trying to prop up the US dollar and eventually many other currencies will as well, but again, as USA is a net importer of goods, it does not have the production capacity to get out of this hole once the bond bubble bursts and USD is printed out of existence, but other countries do have that production capacity, so it will be a much deeper problem in USA than anywhere else.

Re:As the economy improves???

[mldi]

It's OK to have good debt. This is not good debt. This stimulus only propped up failures while creating economic volatility. If a huge problem on your table is your debt, you don't create more debt. That's insane, especially when the problem will solve itself anyway. I haven't seen one shred of evidence to support the idea that the stimulus actually helped anything beyond a year, if even at all.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Muad'Dave]

The National Bridge Inventory has data on Deficient, Structurally-deficient (SD), and Functionally-Obsolete (FO) bridges. The numbers are very disturbing.

I once found a listing of bridge 'health' numbers as a percentage from 0-100% - a bridge I go over every day is at 10%.

Here it is. Search for 0009500 in the "Fed Struc Id" column. 10.5% sufficiency rating.
Ugh.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Attila Dimedici]

Deemed as passed is just confirmation of something that has already passed, so I don't see that as much of a trick since the thing passed the house in the first place.

What had passed in the House in the first place was a different bill. The Senate had passed a different bill then the House and the Dems couldn't get the bill that was passed in the House passed in the Senate, so they "deemed" the bill passed by the Senate as passed so that they could use a parliamentary trick to ammend it.
As for the months they spent talking to the Repubs, that was an attempt to get political cover for a bill that the majority of Americans still oppose and want repealed.

Re:As the economy improves???

[GameboyRMH]

I saw a documentary on your economic solution once. I highly recommend it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079501/

Re:As the economy improves???

[jhaverkamp]

Why are the anti-tax folks always so bad at accounting?

Because only people who are bad at accounting think its a good idea to be THAT radically anti-tax.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

My 'economic solution' will be coming to pass, the question is will there be a hyper-inflationary depression between the crash and restructuring or not.

That's all.

Re:As the economy improves???

[ChrisMaple]

Raising personal income tax is an incentive to find loopholes or emigrate. Neither adds to the GNP.

Re:As the economy improves???

[ultranova]

Can I get some cash if I go-round breaking windows? Just as demolishing cars made work for assemblyline men, my activity will make work for glaziers.

Speaking of broken windows, I seem to recall reading somewhere that some locales in the US are considering demolishing the houses that were abandoned due to the crash, because otherwise their price might fall to the point where even not-so-rich could afford a nice one. Does anyone know anything about this, or is it just an urban myth?

Re:As the economy improves???

[King Coopa]

"Civil War , from which many of the southern states have never fully recovered."

Well, I suppose it is a little difficult to replace free labor.

Re:As the economy improves???

[RajivSLK]

Cash for clunkers was done to save the auto industry and the many thousands of jobs that go with it. It worked too; look at Ford and GM today.

Re:As the economy improves???

[ChrisMaple]

When I last did the calculation in 2001, stock market gains for democrats and republicans were identical once adjusted for "inflation". It would be more informative to measure stock market gains versus political philosophy, but in the last 100 years there have only been 2 or 3 presidents that weren't kleptocrats.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Cyberax]

"Can I get some cash if I go-round breaking windows? Just as demolishing cars made work for assemblyline men, my activity will make work for glaziers."

Please, do. It might seem that both ideas are ineffective. And they are, in a working economy.

However, we're in a depressed economy right now and additional spending (even from fixing broken windows) will help us to boost the economy.

Yes, it's not intuitive

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

>>>newer, greener cars on the road.

Ahhh but in the US a lot of the cars which qualified as "clunkers" were already clean (low emission vehicles). Greenercars.org did a study, and found the energy used to build the new 2010 cars was MORE than the energy (and pollution) if the owner had kept his older 2005, or 2000, or 1990s models.

So the program actually produced MORE dirt, not less.

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

All the windows in my newly-built area are just over 20 years old, and of the triple-pane variety.

There would be zero benefit gained by breaking them, and then replacing them. You would use MORE energy (in manufacture) not less. And yet the way the Cash for Clunkers law was written, they would have qualified (exceeded the age requirement).

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

>>>their price might fall to the point where even not-so-rich could afford a nice one

Yeah heaven forbid a poor person be able to afford a McMansion. Gotta keep the brother down. Demolish those suckers so the poor can't move in. (God I hate politicians and their stupidity.)

Re:As the economy improves???

[benjamindees]

You still haven't answered the question. You can quote struggling SUV-selling-ex-high-school-athletes all day long, but that doesn't change the fact that you haven't demonstrated the least bit of understanding of what the word "economy" even means.

What is the point of your proposal exactly? To reward failure? To encourage further recklessness and future crises? To waste energy and resources creating products that we have no use for? To increase "growth"? To increase employment? Or just to make some arbitrary metrics go up in value? Because that part is easy, and doesn't require destroying the real economy to accomplish. In fact, the US government has been doing it for decades. Just re-define the meaning of "growth" or fudge the calculation of those artificial metrics. Voila, problem solved. We can even create some ditch-digging jobs, or build a pyramid or something, in order to increase employment, and that should make everyone happy.

But as far as I'm concerned, the 15% of the economy that relies on dipshits taking out second mortgages on their underwater mcmansions to buy useless crap they can't afford, can just fuck right off. It isn't the "engine" of anything and the responsible people are sick of subsidizing it.

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

There's also a great deal of DISagreement about the US Depression.

Ever year more and more economists are saying the government stimulus (by Hoover first, then FDR) did nothing to pull us out, actually made it worse, and the depression never really ended until the early 1950s, when government spending was CUT and industries were free to spend money on innovation rather than IRS taxes. They also point to the rest of the world which suffered a shock, but did not use government stimulus, and quickly recovered by 1933 or 34.

Link to hundreds of college/university professors:
http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/alternate_version.html

Re:As the economy improves???

[ChrisMaple]

Warren Buffett's advice is an expression of his political philosophy, not what actually does him (or the country) good. He's old and he's made his money, he isn't interested in a lavish lifestyle. Assuming no outright theft of all wealth occurs, he's so rich that nothing the government does affects him.

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

>>>Is the massive short term pain of a full blown depression better or worse than mitigating that pain for a longer period at lower levels.

Hmmmm. 3-4 years (how long the recession lasted in europe) versus 20 years (how long it lasted in the US).
I'd rather rip the bandaid off and/or jump in the cold pool immediately, rather than do it slowly centimeter by centimeter.
I'd rather follow europe's policies that ended the recession circa 1933-34

Re:As the economy improves???

[commodore64_love]

You make it sound so easy.

I've had 4 interviews this past month, and they all had the same thing in common: ~50 engineers competing for 1 position.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Nethemas the Great]

I speak as someone who lived in the BFMONW rural Midwest America for close to 10 years. I was surrounded by family farms whose children were exploited by their parents for labor both hazardous to their immediate as well as long term health. All the while they were provided an inexcusably poor education which all but guaranteed their career choices were limited to unskilled labor or semi-skilled trades. Given the economically blighted nature of such an area this generally meant they were very often forced to continue working on the farm or sometimes fork it as a start to their own.

I also speak as someone who rescued his wife from such a life. I'd watch the insults. I very much do care when children are exploited for labor to the detriment of their future. The issue is far more personal than you would've ever imagined. I would never suggest that the parents don't care about their kids, but I would very much suggest that they can be short sighted and lack understanding about the consequences of their choices about them.

Re:As the economy improves???

[mcgrew]

Actually, I think it was the price of transportation that made everything come crashing down. Gasoline here was $1 per gallon when Bush took office, and climbed to $4.50 before the economy crumbled and Bush left.

You have folks doing reasonably well so they buy a bigger house and an SUV, then WHAM -- more than a fourfold increase in transportation. It would have hit especially hard on those with long communtes to work. Then they start getting behind, and before they know it the bank has their house and they're renting because their credit isn't good any more. It snowballs to the point of house prices actually falling; this hasn't happened very often in hostory (although here's and example of when it did).

As to making money out of thin air, the folks who fill scuba tanks for a living do. And whoever said "money doesn't grow on trees" never owned a commercial orchard.

BTW, the link above is to Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. I was assigned that book in an undergrad history class at SIU in the late seventies, still have the book on my shelf. It's a good read.

Re:As the economy improves???

[StikyPad]

Not really; it just made them compete on even footing with places that didn't have free labor. Regardless, the point is.. things have been worse, and a little perspective is in order.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

That comes from you not understanding that gold is not just a commodity, it's actual money.

More Libertarian bullshit. Gold is subject to the same rules of supply and demand that any commodity is. It's not a magical device that ignores economics.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Oh, shut up, you have not a slightest clue about what you speak, you have shown your level of 'understanding' enough times in this thread.

It's not gold, that 'ignores economics', you ignore it completely, you are 100% ignorant on the subject of economics, so stuff it.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

Your understanding of economics comes from propaganda and is essentially zero. There's more to economics than can be found in Ayn Rand and the Turner Diaries.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

You and your understanding of economics should go drown in a bathtub filled with US bonds and dollars. You should do that.

Keynesian ideas have nothing to do with economics, it is what it is - shamanism. We'll sprinkle some pixie dust and print more money, the problems should go away.

You go ahead and behave according to your ideas and I'll behave according to mine. I know who'll be better off.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

I agree to some extent, but would contend in the case of Europe that it's a unified currency for a union that does not form a commonwealth. Here in California, there's a net outflow of our tax dollars to the red states in order to prop up their economies. That's true even in good times. And it makes sense because California would be worse off if conditions in the red states were worse.

Of course the red states call that socialism, but that doesn't stop them from cashing the checks.

The rest of the EU would have saved a lot of time and money and hurt if they had just assumed Greece's debts. Germany could have payed off the whole thing without even noticing the additional debt because of the difference in the size of their economies. But Germany would rather lose half a trillion of tax revenue than to pay off 50 billion of Greek debt.

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

The actual cause of the great depression was the exact opposite of what your Keynesian shaman friends told you. The cause of the Great Depression was government inflating the currency and mis-allocating labor and existing credit to public projects and not allowing the economy to restructure.

ROFLMAO! That's funny! You should take that show on the road!

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

Your answer is the relatively uninterrupted growth from the Great Depression through 2008. And what changed?

The Glass/Stegal Act from that time was repealed in the late 90s allowing the bad investments to now start affecting people who had simply bought a house.

Obviously this is a massive simplification, but it's one of the main underlying causes of our current situation.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

You know my opinion of you, so why do you bother?

Re:As the economy improves???

[LanMan04]

You would use MORE energy (in manufacture) not less

Maybe. How much energy is saved (or not) between an older car driven another, say 50,000 miles (and then replaced with, well, something) at 15mpg vs a new car driven 100,000 miles at 40mpg? And all the energy used to pull that oil out of the ground, turn it into gas, etc.

We also need to take into account the reduced pollution/emissions. What are those "worth"?

Re:As the economy improves???

[SETIGuy]

I am so through with this. I don't know where you went to school, but they didn't do you any favors when it comes to economics or history. You sound like a combination of modern AM radio and a 40 year old book on how hyperinflation would destroy the country by 1984.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

The 'stimulus' wasn't meant to help much more than a year or a few years.

That's why it's a 'stimulus' package and not an ongoing plan to keep providing that same amount of input.

The time when private industry wasn't investing or buying or selling was the time that the gov't created the economic activity that kept the country from delving deeper into recession/depression.

Studies have shown that for every dollar you put into foodstamps you get $1.74-$2.24 back in economic activity. For tax cuts you get $0.74 back. Which is a better way to stimulate the economy (when it wasn't doing enough on it's own)?

It's a valid strategy to simply stop when you're in debt; I would say wrong headed, but valid. However, when your output depends on the activity level of the overall economy, shrinking the overall economy as austerity budget cuts would do, will create more problems rather than lessen the problem.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

I used to drive over the 'Old Cooper River Bridge' in Charleston, SC. It got a '4' out of hundred. Ouch.

It was replaced a few years ago, but still it's a perfect example of the problems we face.

And of course the republican governor back then was arguing that this bridge, on US Rte 17, was actually a 'local' bridge simply because of it's location and prime usage. So the local (democratic leaning) people should pay for the replacement rather than the state with the gov't highway money.

Just about a perfect example of the current situation, GOP's 'you deal with' mantra rather than actual future thought and planning for the greater good.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Good riddance. You have not a single actual idea, I have shown a number of idiocies that you have presented in this thread. Clearly you do not actually have a working brain, just a record player. Cheers, go buy some US bonds.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

Uh, one of the reasons the Depression lasted so long here was exactly because they stopped the stimulative efforts after only a few years and so the economy started shrinking again...

that sorta says that continuing stimulus is actually better.

Re:As the economy improves???

[maxume]

I'm mentioning Glen Beck because it is apparently worthwhile for Goldline or whoever to advertise on his program. That's the entirety of my meaning.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Well imagine that he got a bunch of people to buy gold at almost 70% premium!

If I could advertise my business with Beck, I'd see tremendous returns, he was very useful to goldline. Very useful. Also very bad for some people who accepted goldline's offer to buy certain coins at 70% markup, just terrible.

BUT that is not a bubble.

Re:As the economy improves???

[mcgrew]

Why should someone who earns $75k/yr as a roofer pay higher taxes on his income than someone "earning" $75k/yr playing the stock market? IMO there should be no capital gains tax; tax capital gains as income. If there's to be a tax on capital gains, make it in addition to the income tax on that income.

When Reagan lowered the Capital Gains Tax there was an orgy of corporate takeovers. I worked at Disney at the time, and there were people trying to do a leveraged buyout, wanting to split it all up and sell off the various properties. Nobody came out ahead except the bankers and lawyers. Those of us actually working had our hours and incomes cut so Disney could pay off the lawyers and bankers.

Re:As the economy improves???

[jwhitener]

"Asking businesses to pay more taxes during the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression is undeniably stupid."

citation please.

The 1950's up to Reagan had huge top tax rates (up to 94%) and the country enjoyed a long period of stability and prosperity. And again in the 90's, Clinton raised taxes 3% on the top, and it did not have any job less effect.

Henry Ford was once asked why he paid his workers so much, and the answer was "so they could afford to buy my cars".

However, trickle down theory is bunk as we've seen wages decrease (against cost of living) over the last 10 years, and the measly 39% (from 36) tax that will be applied to the high income bracket is only going to affect 3% of the REAL small businesses, which John Boehner admitted. He clarified his admission by saying, "well yes, but those 3% of businesses have the majority of the small business wealth.".......see anything wrong with that?

That 3% of small businesses are S-Corporations. Google a bit on what businesses organizing themselves as S-Corps. You'll be surprised how "un-small" they are.

Republican had 10+ years to do something for the average American, and they did jack squat. Their "low taxes" did NOT create any jobs, and the average income in America went DOWN.

I really don't understand average citizens that vote Republican. It is easy to demonstrate that Republican Policy has not benefited the average person. Republican policy is based on ideology, not reality.

Re:As the economy improves???

[jwhitener]

How many auto workers did it re-employ though? That was its specific purpose (in addition to trying to cut emissions, get people spending again, etc...)

Re:As the economy improves???

[jwhitener]

Skreems, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Haven't you heard, increasing taxes from 36% to 39% on upper income brackets is going to destroy America. After all, let us not forget the 1990's when the country was indeed close to hell on earth. I think it may have to do with the numbers 3 and 9. 9 - 3 = 6. One third of the way to 666, coincidence? I think not.

I can only shudder in horror at the thought of a 90% tax rate. I'm fairly certain that the universe would implode.

I beg of you, please watch Fox News, and for sure listen to Rush Limbaugh. They can explain these things far better than I can.

Re:As the economy improves???

[Skreems]

Yeah, we lost so many top-notch entrepreneurs during the 40s-70s when we actually HAD a 90% top-tier tax bracket. Your argument is entirely based in historical fact.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

there are stories just about every week about auto plants re-opening...so yes it is doing its job.

The program, along with the stimulus program was basically a bridge loan until the private sector got back on its feat.

Unfortunately thanks to the GOP, we had a 1000 ft chasm to cross and they insisted we stop at about 500-600 feet.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

you don't see them spending large amounts of money over here

lol, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting chinese funded enterprises. Hint, it's the gov't and all the debt we're racking up, they are buying that debt up left and right. They are spending plenty of money here and it's a damned good thing, we'd be royally screwed if they stopped.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

Have you looked at job number trends? When Bush left office we were losing 750,000 a MONTH. Within a year or so we were about breaking even, with some months actually positive in growth. It's what everybody wants...a job trend going UP. Sure it's low, but after Bush and CO destroyed the regulations, safety programs and the economy you don't get the luxury of starting out with high job growth (like Bush did). Except just like the budget surplus, Bush squandered even that, they lost about 3 MILLION job in 8 years. Not exactly a booming track record to complain about Obama's numbers.

but back to the point. As the GOP is now pointing out, things are starting to slide backwards as state and local govt's have to scale back. The economy isn't quite ready to run on it's own just yet, but the stimulus has pretty much run its course.

So yes, it was too friggin small thanks to the GOP.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

The Cato Institute is your example of history? LOL

What decidedly *most* reputable scholars know is that the Depression was significantly worsened because they tried the very same policies being espoused by the GOP now. "its bad in 1933-34, the stimulus stuff (1930ish) hasn't worked so cut things to the bone to save our way out."

The economy stayed in park because exactly nobody was spending money. Not the rich, not the poor, and certainly not the private industry. The Gov't was the last resort and it went to the sidelines and we got another 5 years of solid Depression.

WWII is what brought us out of the depression, not the 'cutting of spending' in the 50s. Which I would beg to differ was a time of heavy gov't spending, building little things like the Interstate Highway system and a good many of the bridges we still use today. Infrastructure doesn't come from private industry, it comes from the gov't for the greater good of the society.

Re:As the economy improves???

[pixelpusher220]

That comes from you not understanding that gold is not just a commodity, it's actual money.

Did Papa Beck tell you that himself? Money itself is a made up commodity, in whatever form you choose to express it. It is a way to assign a common measure of value to a particular item.

Gold is nothing more than an element/ore. Societies have attached value to it, but that is no different than the paper money we use today.

Re:As the economy improves???

[roman_mir]

Beck is your papa, I am not even an American to watch your stupid TV.

Gold is an ore, it is. It is also used as money and when fiat money fails (it all fails, it always fails) what is left is gold, and those who have gold again, can establish a new fiat currency.

This has been proven true over lives of men and countries. All fiat currencies fail. Gold does not.

Re:As the economy improves???

[CodeBuster]

This stupidity again? Obama may have been in office that long, but he's only been working on his budget for the last year... prior to that

Nancy Pelosi became Speaker when the 110th Congress convened on January 4, 2007, what where they doing between that date and January 20, 2009 when Obama was sworn in? The Dems have been ipso facto in charge of the purse for nearly 4 years now. Are you going to tell me that Bush, lacking a majority in both houses of Congress during the later half of his second term, had them so off balance and distracted that they couldn't find the time to put forth a sensible budget? Please.

with projected surpluses of 3 trillion over the next 10 years

You know how the government "projects" right? If they plan to spend X trillion but only spend X/2 trillion then they call it a "surplus", but they conveniently forget to mention that actual tax revenues from those years don't even amount to X/2 so the difference between the true tax receipts and X/2 trillion is the actual deficit. It's a cheap accounting trick, but some people keep falling for it year after year.

republican presidents have increased spending vs GDP by 43.7%, while democratic presidents have reduced spending vs GDP by 75.7%.

Citation please?

He is turning it around...

He had better hurry up. The American people are rapidly loosing their patience and persistently high unemployment grinds down approval ratings like nothing else. The Misery Index is up 3.02% so far under Obama and he still ~2.5 years to go.

but it's a slow process because of how very severely fucked up Bush caused things to be.

Let me ask you a question: At what point does it become Obama's fault? Suppose, for example, that 2012 rolls around and things are still just as bad or even worse. Will you still be an Obama apologist even then? The voters will have an opportunity to pass judgment soon enough come November; I don't believe that they will be as forgiving as you seem to be. Are you better off now than you were almost 4 years ago in January 2007 when the Dems took control? Most Americans would have to answer "no" to that question and like it or not, the November elections are a referendum on Obama and his failed policies.

Re:As the economy improves???

[meglon]

Let me break it down for you by presidential term:

D - Roosevelt/Truman 45-49 = decreased 24.4%
D - Truman 49-53 = decreased 21.7%
R - Eisenhower 53-57 = decreased 11%
R - Eisenhower 57-61 = decreased 5.2%
D - Kennedy/Johnson 61-65 = decreased 8.3%
D - Johnson 65-69 = decreased 8.3%
R - Nixon 69-73 = decreased 3%
R - Nixon/Ford 73-77 = increased .2%
D - Carter 77-81 = decreased 3.3%
R - Reagan 81-85 = increased 11.3%
R - Reagan 85-89 = increased 9.3%
R - Bush Sr. 89-93 = increased 15%
D - Clinton 93-97 = decreased .7%
D - Clinton 97-01 = decreased 9%
R - Bush Jr. 01-05 = increased 7.1%
R - Bush Jr. 05-09 = increased 20%


Summary is pretty simple:
Last republican president to not increase spending in relationship to GDP was Nixon in his first term.
Last democrat to increase spending in relationship to GDP was.. someone before the end of WW II (obvoiously i'm going with Roosevelt).
Since the end of WW II, Republicans have caused an increase in spending vs GDP of 43.7%
Since the end of WW II, Democrats have caused an decrease in spending vs GDP of 75.7%

Citation: basic math. If that's too hard for you to do, well, that's another problem altogether, isn't it.

While you want to claim the Dems have had control since 2007, only a true blind idiot would have missed the intentional obstructionism that has been the republicans only goal since then. When les than 60% of the senate wants to govern, it's pretty hard to get anything done.

CBO projects the revenue, and the spending, one minus the other gives us a projected surplus, or deficit. Yes, those numbers change.... which is why you see a new projection every month or two. You can't figure actual surplus/deficit until after the end of the year, when you have a specific number for both revenue and spending. It's not an accounting "trick," it's called a cost projection, and every business that is anything does it. Not real hard stuff.

It does get harder when they do budget projections, because yes, they leave out off-budget items. That said, one reason why the official budget projections of Bush were massively lower than the end deficits was because he intentionally left off all sorts of spending.. like.. ALL of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In the end however, it does come out (although fucking idiots still can't understand that).

It took Bush Sr. and Clinton twelve years to undo enough of the damage that Reagan did. Anyone who thinks Obama should be able to fix all that Bush Jr. fucked up so quickly is either an pure fucking idiot, or an extreme partisan hack.

It's interesting that every special election since Obama became president was a "referendum on Obama's policies" right up till voters in all of them except Scott Brown's case told conservatives to go fuck themselves. You can be a loud obnoxious partisan fuckwad all you want, but just because you act like a screaming little baby doesn't mean it's anything more than you have shit in your diapers.

Re:As the economy improves???

[CodeBuster]

The spending vs GDP percentages do not show whether the absolute GDP increased or decreased for the years that you cite. For example, isn't it possible for GDP to decline and for spending also to decline, causing a reduction of spending vs GDP? If GDP declines will that not hurt the average American whether or not government spending declines along with it? You seem to want to use GDP vs government spending as a proxy for economic prosperity or the satisfaction of the voters during those periods of decreased spending, but that does not seem to fit in all cases. For example, the Carter administration was not very popular by the end of his first term and the people voted him out, even though spending relative to GDP decreased during his presidency.

While you want to claim the Dems have had control since 2007, only a true blind idiot would have missed the intentional obstructionism that has been the republicans only goal since then

There have been Senate majority leaders in the past who where successful in getting legislative business done, despite minority obstructionism. Consider for example, the period of time between the years of 1955 - 1981 when the Republicans were the continual minority in the United States Senate. Those Democrats were still able to act during those years. The health care brouhaha didn't begin in earnest until Obama was already in office, so the Republicans must have been pretty good obstructionists to continually checkmate the sizable majorities of Pelosi and Reid for two years before Obama was sworn in; either way, it doesn't speak well of the governing abilities (or lack thereof) of Pelosi and Reid.

When les than 60% of the senate wants to govern, it's pretty hard to get anything done.

For purely budgetary items the Dems could have used the Senate reconciliation procedures which only require a simple majority.

CBO projects the revenue, and the spending,

The CBO does a pretty good job of collecting the numbers after the fact, as you pointed out, because once all the amounts are known with certainty (i.e. they are in the past) they can no longer be disputed. However, when the CBO projects into the future it is bound by one very specific disadvantage that private businesses are not: The CBO must take Congress at their word when making projections. For example, if Congress says that it will cut spending by 20 percent in two years the CBO is obligated to assume that this will happen, even if everyone else can see that the probability of that happening is low. In private business they consider the likelihood of projected eventualities in their calculations whereas the CBO is required to believe 100% that Congress will do whatever it says it will. It would be interesting to see a history of the relative accuracy of the CBO's projections vs what the actual numbers eventually turned out to be. The CBO would probably argue that their rules require them to ascribe complete faith to statements of intent by Congress and they would be right, but their accuracy in projecting would suffer all the same.

It does get harder when they do budget projections, because yes, they leave out off-budget items. That said, one reason why the official budget projections of Bush were massively lower than the end deficits was because he intentionally left off all sorts of spending.. like.. ALL of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In the end however, it does come out

It is true that items get intentionally left out of the official budget and this is unfortunate, but even the staunchest paleo conservatives didn't argue that wars cost nothing. In any case, the Republicans are hardly the first ones to hit upon the idea of leaving things out of the official budget, the Dems have been running that play for decades.

It's interesting that every special election since Obama became president was a "referendum on Obama's policies"

Except

Re:As the economy improves???

[turbidostato]

"I don't understand why people keep bringing "bridge" up as an example."

Because it's a clear and obvious example that properly illustrates the theme at issue (expending collective money on building infrastructures, here). In other words, it's a paradigm.

"Look, building bridges and roads in the middle of the century helped because US actually produced things."

"Building bridges and roads will do nothing [...] We do not produce anything anymore"

Or will do it? You need maintenance and USA could take advantage for a better railway system, for instance. And if USA really does not produce nothing, you'd better start changing this which, again, will take removing obsoleted infrastructures (physical, logical, political) and developing new ones: such a process is are covered too by the "building bridges" paradigm.

"Fixing up the crumbling infrastructure will do almost nothing (short term construction gain)"

"Short term"? Short sighted, I'd say. Let your highway infrastructure cripple and you will see what happens to your Walmart services. The fact that it would lead to a short number of direct employments says nothing about its overall impact.

"IT is getting outsourced [...] Financial instruments? Pffft, can be run from anywhere"

Do you know why IT can be outsourced and why financial instruments can be run anywhere? Because they can be serviced by those new "bridges" that are called the Internet (probably "the intertubes" for you). And do you know how those new bridges can be built? Because there are big thingies called "corporations" that by means of limited liability can collect savings of lots of people and apply them to projects (which, again, are identified by the "bridge" paradigm) that couldn't have been achieved by any single individual.

"R&D, okay maybe, until other countries surpass us in physics and chem"

So don't allow them to surpase you. And, do you know how you can do that? By, again, building "bridges": founding education and R&D, in this case.

Re:As the economy improves???

[turbidostato]

"With all due respect, that's rather utopian thinking. Just ask the Japanese how their roads and bridges to nowhere are serving them."

You mean, Japan, as in the second biggest economy in the whole world, as in Japan, that little country that basically was reduced to ashes merely 50 years ago? Well, with all due respect, I think Japaneses will tell you that all those roads and bridges do serve them quite OK, thanks.

"i.e. make useless work for people to keep everyone fed."

Even if that was the only think that could be achieved by corporate money, I wouldn't diminish "keeping everyone fed" as a lowerish goal -with all due respect, you can ask about 2/3 of the world population about that.

"If people spent their money on books, for example, they would be far better off than either buying hamburgers with that money or having someone lend money for the sake of busy work like building bridges."

It's only that without roads, and bridges, and trains, and corporations a book would be a matter for the top rich people because they'd cost a fortune.

Guess what ...

[oldspewey]

The company you "jump" to is facing the same economic realities, and will funnel those same pressures on to you.

Re:Guess what ...

[jafiwam]

Yes.

However sometimes you must switch jobs for the 'tards in charge to realize that the salary offered is not making the position attractive to employees.

No amount of pissing and moaning will get me more money. Period.

On the other hand, if I can find a position elsewhere, I get to actually have a salary discussion. Whereas that's not on the table now.

I risk getting fired if I talk about money. I do not risk getting fired if I talk about money with a new company.

I can pick and choose where and when, and to a certain extent what I do with a new company. I get shit thrown at me to do extra at my existing company.

If companies don't like the brain drain, they can fucking step up to the plate to talk about salaries once in a while.

I have nothing to lose by talking to some other company about a job, that turns a 0% chance at a raise to a non-zero chance, with some slight risk.

Re:Guess what ...

[DrgnDancer]

Perhaps, but when they want you, they're willing to play ball at least int eh short term.

You are a company. You have a sys admin. He does shit. you don't really know what kind of shit, but he must be doing some shit because the computers mostly work. He wants more money and keeps talking about needing some training and upgrades. Fuck him... you don't even know what he does and the computers mostly work.

You are a company. Your sys admin left a month ago. The computers have stopped mostly working. They now often don't work, and sometimes threaten employee's children with things that you're almost certain will get you fined. You have found a person with a pretty good resume who appears not to be a Troll. He says he can get the computers to mostly work again. He wants more money than the old guy, but he says he can get the computers to mostly work again. He wants a training budget, but he says he can get the computers mostly working again. He says you need to spend some money on infrastructure upgrades, but PLEASE GOD GET THE COMPUTERS WORKING AGAIN.. Ahem.. sorry... yes.. we can probably pay that.

You see. There's a difference. In reality land probably not quite such a huge difference, but companies are always more willing to negotiate and play ball with a new hire into a "need to fill" vacancy than they are with a current employee.

Re:Guess what ...

[Kepesk]

True, but what a lot of these companies should realize is this treatment of IT staff is only worsening their situation.

The company I used to work for was one of the very first to start putting pressure on their IT staff, threatening (and carrying out) pay cuts and layoffs, and in a few cases even outright lying to their employees to misrepresent the financial and employment situation.

In response, all the most qualified and experienced of the IT staff left quickly for other pastures (many even left for lower-paying jobs; they just wanted away from the company that had treated them so poorly). They were promptly replaced by poorly-trained staff overseas, and now IT in the company is an absolute disaster. It's now a study in how not to run IT. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing because the people who were instrumental in that communication left and are not coming back. Most of those who are left are super demoralized because of this miscommunication, because they are no longer given the tools they need to make their former level of productivity possible (many of those who developed and managed those tools are gone), and because they now make less than when they were originally hired years before.

It will take the company years to recover anything resembling efficient IT operations even after the recovery because of how poorly they treated their employees.

Let this serve as a warning to other employers: don't treat your IT like dirt (or at the very least don't lie to them), or you too may see your IT come grinding to a near halt.

Re:Guess what ...

[oldspewey]

Yup, lying does more damage to employee morale (and everything else that follows along after morale) than just about anything else you can do. People who feel lied to go into self-preservation mode and it's almost impossible to get them back out.

Re:Guess what ...

[Grishnakh]

Doesn't matter. It was like this even in good economic times, and hasn't changed at all; the only thing that's changed is how much hiring is going on.

Companies don't give substantial raises, period (except to executives, of course). They give paltry raises, and that's it, and that's only in good times. However, they'll pay "market rate" for new hires, regardless of the current economy. So if they want a guy who has 10 years' experience, they'll generally pay the current going rate for that position with that much experience (what the going rate is can be easily found in salary surveys, which there's several websites that specialize in). The companies do this, because if they don't pay going rate, they won't fill their open positions at all, and the time and effort spent interviewing candidates is significant and costly, so it's not worth it to interview a bunch of people only to have them reject your offer for being a low-ball.

However, for existing employees who are loyal and don't jump ship for the next higher offer, companies don't bother much with raises. They might give you a 1% raise here and there to keep you happy, but that's about it. It doesn't match the market rate, so if you stick with a company for 10 years, you'll find that the new hires (with the same experience level as you) are getting much higher salaries than you are, for the same job.

The only answer is to change jobs every few years. Don't be one of those suckers that stays at the same job for 15 years; it's a rare company that actually keeps your pay in line with market rate (if you found one of those, and you like the job, then great! Stay there.).

Why do companies do this? As best as I can tell, it's because of the aforementioned suckers that are too lazy, afraid, or whatever (perhaps overspecialized?) to change jobs. The companies are happy to exploit them and their fear of change.

Personally, my "secret recipe" is to make sure you have skills (and take jobs that require and use these skills) which are in high demand, keep your skills up and constantly improve them on-the-job, and change jobs every 2-3 years. Changing jobs too often looks bad (under 1 year is very bad), and changing too slowly means you're missing out on a much higher salary. Also make sure you live in an area where there's plenty of competition for your skillset; don't live in some podunk town where there's only one employer that needs your skills, because they'll take advantage of that, knowing that you'll have to pack up, sell your house (good luck!) and move long-distance to get a higher salary. I've also found it's good to stay at one (probably large) company for a longer time; I have a 7-year stint at a megaTechCorp that looks great even though my subsequent jobs were much shorter. One long term will balance out any short terms. This can also be helpful if you find yourself in a job you really, really hate and need to leave early.

So no, the new company will NOT "funnel those same pressures on to you", at least not until it's time for a raise (1 year). They'll pay the going rate or else you won't take the job, and they know it (well, there are a few companies that are rather clueless and give low-ball offers; pass these by). And when it's time for a raise, it doesn't matter what the current economy climate is. In a great economy, you'll get a paltry-to-mediocre raise, and in a poor economy, you'll get a zero-to-paltry raise. There's not much difference between the two; $1-2k/year difference really isn't very much money. Just put in your time there, and after you've been there between 2 and 4 years, start looking at new jobs.

Re:Guess what ...

[blunte]

The companies never really figure out what's going on. Your lead or immediate project manager may have a clue, but their management (all the way to the top) just doesn't get it.

Ironically, the argument for the huge CEO bonuses, even during the bailouts, was that "we have to pay this much to retain our 'talent'" (talent being the executives who brought the disasters upon these companies).

Face it. US styled (quarterly earnings per share centric) capitalism simply doesn't work long term.

Re:Guess what ...

[dave562]

That is exactly the position I found myself in. I knew that I was way under compensation for the job I was doing. My department was cut in half and nobody got compensated for the added work. I tried all of the subtle ways of asking for a raise. I asked for a clarification of my job responsibilities. I asked for a new job description to reflect my increased responsibilities. I put my resume online and started receiving offers, then went to my employers and told them that the market was willing to pay me X. In the end, it went no where and I left for a better position at another company.

It seems like unless you really, really, really like where you are working, it is easier to go find another job than it is to try to squeeze blood out of a rock with your current employer.

Re:Guess what ...

[afaik_ianal]

There's certainly an element of that in there, but I think it's more thought out and planned than you suggest.

If a company has 100 staff, all being paid 20% below "market" rate, it'll cost them 20% more to bring all their salaries up. By leaving your pay where it is, they're calling your bluff and assuming they'll get it right most of the time.

If they give you a payrise, then their line that no-one's getting pay rises this year won't stick so well, and they'll need to give more people payrises.

If 20% of people leave because of the pay, and they need to hire replacements at market rate, increasing the total salary costs by a whopping 4%.

Sure, *we* know that the productivity of new hires will take ages to match those they're replacing, but try telling a manager that a 20% increase in costs is better than a 4% increase.

Re:Guess what ...

[Nexzus]

In the rare case that your current employer will match or beat a new offering, you're still left the fact that your employer had been knowingly underpaying you for the period you worked there.

Re:Guess what ...

[dave562]

You say that like the knowledge is a bad thing. Businesses make money by cutting costs and earning more than they spend. I do not begrudge anyone for not voluntarily offering up more money than they have to. People need to stand up for themselves. Part of that involves asking for pay that is commensurate with their worth. In the case of my last employer, other people in other departments got raises to compensate them for their increased responsibilities when positions were eliminated. My boss just happened to be a complete prick and did not feel the need to compensate us. The unspoken message to me was, "You aren't an important part of the organization." To which my unspoken response was, "Fine. Have fun without me."

Re:Guess what ...

[DrgnDancer]

And there's certainly an element of that too. There's a number of reasons why, but it's pretty clear that employers will meet or even exceed market rate for new hires, but rarely go though the trouble for current employees (with occasional exceptions to counteroffer on someone they really want to keep for some reason). You can also often negotiate perks and responsibilities a bit more at the beginning.

Re:Guess what ...

[Surt]

But they'll be paying you more to handle those same pressures. Otherwise, why did you jump?

Re:Guess what ...

[Surt]

That's not that bad. You're pretty much demanding that they figure out, every year, exactly how much your worth has grown. Almost no company has the resources to do that for every employee. It would be ridiculously expensive and a waste of resources. Why shouldn't the burden be on you to make a case that your compensation level has gotten out of sync? And having made your case (successfully), and gotten adjustment, why should you be unhappy?

Re:Guess what ...

[couchslug]

Quite like getting laid. If you never ask, you won't get the discussion going.

Re:Guess what ...

[syousef]

I agree with more than 90% of what you've said but there is a signficant problem. It's easy to change companies every 3-5 years when you're in your 20s and 30s, especially when the economy is good. As you get older and have a family depending on you 5 things happen:

1) Because you're older you are a less desirable hire and companies will try to negotiate down on market rate. You can mitigate this to some extent by being competent and developing a reputation and a track record that says you can get jobs done that others might fail at. But the bottom line is there is ageism in this industry.

2) The consequences of the new job not working out becomes higher. Your family has to eat. You don't want to get into a position where they don't have money for the basics. Especially if you're the only bread winner. If you can avoid being the only bread winner it does take the pressure off a little.

3) The risk of your job not working out increases. Higher positions are more demanding. You will already have ideas on how things should be done and they may not fit in with your new role. The role itself may not be what you expected (conditions, pay, role). The trick is to stay flexible and roll with the punches..

4) Your specialised skills become outdated. It doesn't matter how many years of that old language you have or how expert you are. Even if a company has a niche that needs to be filled for now, they're looking to move off that old technology because it's difficult to hire for it. You have several ways to mitigate:
    a. Reskill (but then you're still not as desirable as that cheap fresh out of college young gun who's got nothing but spare time and interest and has read 16 books and a certification on that new language.).
    b. Play the niches. Realise your job security is zero and make sure you demand a high salary to fill that role that's difficult to hire for. (You still have to be reasonable). Realise that it will dry up, so keep renewing skills in other areas. Some companies will want someone with your background but only if you can talk current technologies too.
    c. Go into management (but only if it's something you want to do or at least can tolerate. It's a whole other job)
    d. Leave IT (but you'll face similar challenges in other industries, and reskilling is expensive in both time and money)

5) The longer you're in the industry the more exposure you have to periods of economic downturn. 2 years ago looking for a new job was an insanely risky proposition, with little chance of reward.

Re:Guess what ...

[Grishnakh]

1) Because you're older you are a less desirable hire and companies will try to negotiate down on market rate. You can mitigate this to some extent by being competent and developing a reputation and a track record that says you can get jobs done that others might fail at. But the bottom line is there is ageism in this industry.

Yes, this is a very serious problem. I don't have any quick-and-easy solution for it, but a few suggestions:
1) Become an expert on something in-demand, and become a consultant.
2) Start your own company.
3) Move into management (I know, yuck).
4) Find a new industry.

Staying in your current job won't help you that much with age discrimination. Companies downsize all the time, and if you're hit, through no fault of your own, then you're going to have the same problem as if you had left on your own. The bottom line: you need to save plenty of money by the time you're 40, so that you can afford to be out of work for several years or more, or retire by 40 and find a new line of work. Don't like this? Don't go into this industry. The tech industry can be rewarding if you play your cards just right, but it's no place for long-term, secure employment. Even if you try to be the loyal, obedient employee that gets no real raises and is making $75k while everyone else is 10 years younger and making $125k, you'll still be out on your ass when you're 45 unless you've moved into management. In all the places I've worked, I've met very, very few engineers who were over 40 and were still engineers.

2) The consequences of the new job not working out becomes higher. Your family has to eat. You don't want to get into a position where they don't have money for the basics. Especially if you're the only bread winner. If you can avoid being the only bread winner it does take the pressure off a little.

As I said before, you need to always save lots of money. If you tend to spend everything you have, you need to find another line of work. But yes, there is a risk in changing jobs. However, it's been my experience that a job "not working out" isn't likely if you stick with big companies. You might not have some of the opportunities to do more groundbreaking work that you might have at some smaller firms, but the jobs are pretty safe. You can have a pretty good career just shuffling between a bunch of big companies. It's the smaller companies where you have to worry a lot more about things being unbearable, I think. For instance, at my last job (which I just quit a month ago), it was company policy that all important information be passed to employees by gossip and rumor. No kidding: you were expected to simply overhear everything you needed to know. In a big company, silliness like that simply doesn't happen, as everything is more formalized. Keeping employees up-to-date on future products and roadmaps, for instance, is done by emails or official department meetings. At my last job (an 1800-employee company, but only 200 at the US location), there were absolutely no meetings or official communications whatsoever; you were just expected to overhear anything you needed to know, or ask your manager.

) Your specialised skills become outdated. It doesn't matter how many years of that old language you have or how expert you are.

Don't specialize in something that's obsolete: you have to keep abreast of technology changes, and be expert (or at least very competent) in things that are currently in-demand and likely to stay that way. When you see things changing, change your own career and expertise to something up-and-coming before it's too late. You can't rely on your employer to manage your career for you. They'll happily throw you out and exchange you for a newer model whenever convenient.

a. Reskill (but then you're still not as desirable as that cheap fresh out of college young gun who's got nothing but spare time and interest and has read 16 books and a certification on that new language.).

Not necessarily. I

Re:Guess what ...

[syousef]

Now we agree less. A lot less.

Management isn't the only way to stay ahead. I know plenty of developers over 45 years old. I know a few that are 60 (mainframe). That's more achievable than succeeding in starting your own IT business.

It takes a different type of person to manage. A good developer can be a good manager but that overlap isn't always there. And managers are much more expensive and much easier to cut in a rough economy. I've already turned down being groomed for management at a couple of companies. I dislike pure management and little hands on tech so much I honestly think I'd be opening myself up to severe depression if I took a management roll.

Saving plenty of money by the time you're 40 is a noble goal, but one that few achieve. When you're younger you're not that well paid and you're less careful. When you're older you have more responsibilities.

Starting your own company is also no silver bullet. I've been employee number 6 in a company that's now 200 strong. It's incredible how hard it is to break in to large companies if you're small - you're seen as a risk. Starting a business in any profession is a huge risk, and you'll be working many, many more hours. For every success there are dozens of failures and ruined personal lives.

Re:Guess what ...

[zippthorne]

They do it to their customers, too. They'll spend millions on poaching customers from other companies, but only the barest minimum on retention. The best deals are always for new customers. Just as you'd be foolish to keep working for the same company for decades in most cases, you'd be similarly foolish to stay with the same phone company for more than one contract-term.

It's marketing 101.

and 203, 241L, 320, and 495.

Re:Guess what ...

[drsmithy]

In the rare case that your current employer will match or beat a new offering, you're still left the fact that your employer had been knowingly underpaying you for the period you worked there.

There are only two ways an employer can find out what you're "worth":

* You tell them, with evidence (ie: another job offer).
* They hire someone else with your skillset and experience.

Re:Guess what ...

[nahdude812]

I'd be cautious about showing another job offer. To many employers, that's a sign that you're ready to jump ship (maybe you are), and although they may make a compelling counter offer for the short term, in the long term you may find you're a marked man.

There's an axiom in the employment and recruiting industries: never accept a counter-offer. If you show them another job offer, whatever comes across the table next (short of, "Good luck, clean out your desk by the end of the day") is a counter offer.

It's much better to show evidence of what the job market supports. IT Salary Surveys are a big way to do so, and so are anecdotes: "My old college buddy who has pretty much identical experience to me just took a job for $X," rather than, "I've been interviewing around, and I can make $X at this other company, they've extended me a job offer." You only do that if you really are ready to jump ship, and the counter offer had better be damn impressive to take the risk that you'll still have a job there 6 months later (when they have had time to find a replacement for you).

Re:Guess what ...

[einar2]

You really think people ever complain about their salary?
And do you really think a CFO of a working company one day decides "oh, let us create more cost by handing out bigger salaries"?
So basically, you do think salaries just increase for no apparent reason.

Re:Guess what ...

[drsmithy]

I'd be cautious about showing another job offer. To many employers, that's a sign that you're ready to jump ship (maybe you are), and although they may make a compelling counter offer for the short term, in the long term you may find you're a marked man.

Absolutely. "I've had an offer from somewhere else, can you beat it" is the Joker, and you can only play it once. Depending on your situation, it might be worth it - but you need to be damn sure before you embark on the process and you *have* to be prepared to carry through with it (which is generally in direct conflict with why you might want to stay).

It's much better to show evidence of what the job market supports. IT Salary Surveys are a big way to do so, and so are anecdotes: "My old college buddy who has pretty much identical experience to me just took a job for $X," rather than, "I've been interviewing around, and I can make $X at this other company, they've extended me a job offer." You only do that if you really are ready to jump ship, and the counter offer had better be damn impressive to take the risk that you'll still have a job there 6 months later (when they have had time to find a replacement for you).

I've never worked for anyone who puts any stock in Salary Surveys when determining raises. They will do it for new hires (though not the kind of Salary Surveys you can find online, the ones that HR departments get), but never for raises. This often goes hand-in-hand with a "I'm never giving anyone a raise of more than X%" attitude, even though the salary being offered new hires is significantly more than X% over existing salaries.

Of course, this ends up with a ludicrous situations like the following (happened to me earlier this year trying to keep/hire staff):

Employees A and B are earning X while working in location P. Said employees have a great record and reputation in the company, and have been with it for 3-5 years (thus meaning they also had extensive experience with how the company operates and its environments). Company moves corporate headquarters to location Q. Employees A and B have to move because policy dictates that any employee must have a direct supervisor in the office they work in, and my job was moved to location Q. They are told they have to move as well or new people will be hired to replace them.
The budget for the new hires in location Q is approximately 1.6X - 1.9X (partially because the existing employees were underpaid and partially because location Q has a higher cost of living). However, I am told in no uncertain terms that I cannot offer employees A and B a raise greater than 1.15X (and even that was a struggle), even though I know (and have explained) that both would happily relocate for a new salary of 1.5X, plus relocation assistance totalling about 0.1X.
Thus, I was forced to let two extremely good people go, along with all their acquired knowledge, and spend _months_ short-staffed while trying to hire replacements (couldn't believe how hard it was to find decent people - recession my arse) who ended up being paid ca. 1.8X and with the associated losses in productivity due to a) aforementioned period of being short-staffed and b) the new employees taking the normal couple of months to become really useful.

The root cause of this madness seems to be the unerring and genuine belief that basically all employees are trivial to replace and there is no productivity lost during both a) the short-staffing period after people who couldn't get raises decamp to other employers and b) the 2-3 month training period before new employees become genuinely useful.

Re:Guess what ...

[CFresquet]

Any reason you didn't call up former employees A & B after the move and offer them 1.5X once the interview process for replacement employees started in the new location?

Re:Guess what ...

[drsmithy]

Any reason you didn't call up former employees A & B after the move and offer them 1.5X once the interview process for replacement employees started in the new location?

Because by then they'd already found new jobs (without having to go through the expense and trauma of relocating across half the country).

This just in...

[sunking2]

IT really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to engineers. Again, for the most part.

Re:This just in...

[Tablizer]

IT really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to engineers. Again, for the most part.

They both have their hard sides. IT changes faster than engineering, for example. There's also less age-discrimination in engineering.

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

Hehe.... I manage $10M in construction. I deal with contract disputes, State and Federal funding and regulatory agencies, local politics, you name it. Oh, and I'm a licensed engineer.

My pay is less than the guy who goes around wiping viruses off people's computers.

Go ahead and jump, IT. There's nothing on the other side.

Re:This just in...

[master0ne]

Working on the space shuttle really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to rocket scientists. Again, for the most part.
being a CEO really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to big shots. Again, for the most part.
Designing Bridges really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to engineers. Again, for the most part.

etc...

Re:This just in...

[Nickodeemus]

IT really isn't all that hard for the most part. It's time to stop equating yourselves to engineers. Again, for the most part.

That's because you're doing it wrong. IT done properly, with change management, proper testing, business deadlines, purchasing, project deadlines, budgeting cycles, politics, etc. etc. can be very stressful and difficult. People who think its easy are likely not doing these things, or not doing them properly. Flying by the seat of your pants can be pretty easy most of the time, but most of the time it also gets you in trouble.

Re:This just in...

[NetNed]

Yeah, because IT people only deal with one type of person, answer to no one and only "wipe viruses" off people's computers.

And the costs of certs and education in the computer and network field is ALWAYS just a drop in the bucket compared to becoming a "licensed construction engineer" in any city or state. I mean they have that fee you have to renew every once in a while.

Re:This just in...

[BuckaBooBob]

Sounds like you should dust off your resume and look for a new job. You are the reason why people are underpaid.. You accept a shitty wage. Move to green pastures.

Re:This just in...

[Jaysyn]

I work with communications engineers that pull down between $100k & $200k a year.

What are you doing wrong?

Re:This just in...

[digitalsushi]

nothing done properly is stressful.

if you're doing too much, you're doing it wrong. live with doing it wrong, find a boss that isn't bad, or be a better boss.

Re:This just in...

[Defenestrar]

69% have not had pay raises in the last six months

They work in an industry where 31% have received pay raises across a short span of time which likely doesn't intersect with the organization's fiscal year (e.g. did many run on Federal or Calendar years). [sarcasm] Oh, my - what a hardship.[/sarcasm] In such a climate as this - that sounds pretty good to me. You want to talk about flat pay - then make that time period at least a year, and compare it to other fields.

Re:This just in...

[spun]

Whoa there cowboy, don't go blaming the victim, it's not like he was "asking for it." He is not the reason why people are underpaid. You confuse symptom with cause. The cause is C*O pay, plain and simple. These guys call the shots, and surprise, surprise, they decided they need to get paid more, at the expense of people who actually create value instead of shuffle papers.

Re:This just in...

[khallow]

Whoa there cowboy, don't go blaming the victim, it's not like he was "asking for it." He is not the reason why people are underpaid. You confuse symptom with cause. The cause is C*O pay, plain and simple. These guys call the shots, and surprise, surprise, they decided they need to get paid more, at the expense of people who actually create value instead of shuffle papers.

In other words, the C*O knows how to bargain, the people doing the work don't. Maybe it's not a good idea to jump ship right now, but when the economy improves, someone who can handle that kind of work can be getting paid more for it.

Re:This just in...

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Depending on what you mean, you are either correct, or incorrect. Sure, installing a mouse is easy. Installing a $WindowsApp is easy. Try writing a mostly idiot proof install script for some cheese sandwich to use to not break their system. Choose the best performance settings for your new $LinuxApp. Yes, it IS engineering. Yes, it can be hard.

Re:This just in...

[Lord Ender]

I have a degree in engineering. I design and analyze complex interconnected systems. What I do is magic to 99% of the population. It's engineering.

Now, there are IT engineers and there are IT technicians. Don't call yourself an engineer if your job is to answer the phone and advise people to reboot their laptops. But if you design software or make complex systems work together optimally, you're doing engineering.

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

Oh hell... C*O salaries are set by boards, which are populated by other C*Os. No bargaining involved; "you give me $100M today and I'll give you $100M tomorrow." No bargaining involved.

Unfortunately for most of us we have other people who are all too willing to take the job at a lower pay scale. No bargaining involved; "you take what we offer or we go to teh next guy in line."

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

If you haven't noticed, there's a recession on. Construction has taken the brunt of lost jobs, stagnant wages, and wrecked careers.

It's taken me 2 years to get a call back on a resume. In the meantime my shitty wage feeds my family.

My point is that many IT people still expect the salaries from the 90s, when simply knowing how to spell IT was a guarantee of a high paying job. It's changing, and not for the better.

Re:This just in...

[mlts]

It really depends on the IT position:

If you are an operator, it is fairly easy. Look for lights on servers that glow differently from others, run a script or two, clean packets dropped on the floor by the N5ks and N7ks, pass any complicated stuff to L2, and dig out a good beer from the stash in the CRAC's cooling duct.

If you are a junior admin, it is easy to hard, depending on how much stuff falls on your plate. On more staffed places, it might be just basic system maintaining and pushing out profiles, and handling calls from users.

If you are a senior admin, or an admin at a small company, your job requires as much as any engineer. Capacity planning, security (physical or network, internal or external), risk in general, disaster recovery scenarios, automating tasks, having a real time alert system in place, future expansion, dealing with other departments like development to make sure it is budgeted not just what they need now, but down the road, offsite disaster recovery centers, log management and archiving, handling motions of discovery, infrastructure planning, and so on. So, because of all the knowledge picked up (and this is NOT stuff you can learn in college for the most part), a senior IT admin is on an equal footing with engineers most of the time. Don't forget trying to do all of this while in meetings.

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

If you haven't noticed, there's a recession on. Construction has taken a huge hit and probably borne the brunt of the recession in terms of wages, jobs, and careers. It's taken me the better part of 2 years to get a call back on a resume. For now my shitty wage feeds my family.

My point is that I think a lot of IT people are living in the 90s, when wages were ridiculously high and just knowing how to spell IT was a guarantee of a good job.

Not so much anymore. The job market sucks for everyone right now.

Re:This just in...

[Nickodeemus]

Your comment would be correct if you had complete and utter control over every aspect of everything you do. Clearly, this is an impossibility.

Re:This just in...

[mordred99]

To quote (I think Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson): "Once the people in power realize they can vote themselves a pay raise, Democracy will die." Same thing for companies and their bosses.

Re:This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've climbed the IT ladder pretty high over the last 15 years, spending time in small companies that shoot from the hip, medium companies that try to do things "right", and large megacorps who seem to buy red tape from the bulk isles of Costco.

I am convinced that the stressful and difficult part of IT is entirely in the politics of work. People artificially create what I would call "false work" to look busy and add additional responsibilities justifying their current and future roles. If you take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what needs to happen from a company perspective, I bet you'll find that your work week is about 2-3 days long (or less).

Originally I hoped this was simply an American cultural phenomenon, but as IT at has been pushing globally over the years I've noticed it is not isolated to this side of the world.

Re:This just in...

[minorproblem]

I am an electrical engineer who use to work in IT, and i found that most people i worked with where to lazy to implement any sort of system for improving what the company can do with its information and when you finally do get someone enthusiastic enough to make a difference it takes years to get the cogs in the bureaucracy turning...

Going back to engineering was the best decision i ever made.

Re:This just in...

[geekoid]

Depends.
IT is a stupid almost meaningless term.
It's like saying :
'Roads really arent that hard for the most part.
  Who are you talking about? the street sweeper? the back hoe operator?, the engineers?

Proper software design is engineering. Running software to remove malware is not engineering.

For the record, I am a big fan of creating a "Software Engineer" as a protected licensed title.

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

Actually, I'm a "Professional Engineer" and yes, I have to stay on top of a lot of stuff. Like Federal and state regulations, laws, current lawsuits, environmental laws, OSHA regulations. And I have to know the intricacies of BOLI v. Davis-Bacon wages, record keeping, etc. And I have to walk a fine line because of the crazy tort system we have in the US. The license fee I pay is a drop in the bucket.

Pretty much like any professional in any other field. And the guy who goes around wiping viruses off desktops should, by all rights, be making more too, and should have a job more in line with his training and education and certifications.

It sucks for everyone right now, but all you hear is that benefits should be cut, wages should be cut, retirements should be wiped clean, "the other guy" should be screwed to the wall. And there's precious little work out there that is rewarding, well paid, and doesn't require you to sell your soul.

Re:This just in...

[cjb658]

A lot of the construction jobs have shifted from the private sector to government jobs. I see road construction *all the time* now.

Re:This just in...

[cptdondo]

That's ARRA money; those were required to be "shovel ready" projects - in other words, projects that local gov'ts had in the can waiting on funds.

Very few professional level jobs were created by these and most of the blue collar jobs are on the order of 6 months duration. Although they are Davis-Bacon wages, which means they are well paid short term jobs.

Re:This just in...

[Evildonald]

Oh I jumped... and it was about $35k a year more!

Re:This just in...

[NGinuity]

nothing done properly is stressful. if you're doing too much, you're doing it wrong. live with doing it wrong, find a boss that isn't bad, or be a better boss.

Even "properly" can be stressful. If anything, "improperly" is the least stressful. It's not the technical work, it's that 1 in 10 jackass you're required to work with every now and again to accomplish something, whether it's in your group, company, or anywhere else. I believe that falls under what he described as "politics" (and just for the record, what Nickodeemus described is exactly what I deal with on a daily basis). I have the best bosses and greatest coworkers in the world, but at the end of the day, we're not a silo. We have to interface with other organizations, other companies, and any number of things on the outside world. Not everyone agrees with everything you want to do or claim to need, because at the end of the day, they're in business to make money, just like your company. It sucks, but it's the price of doing business, and THAT is part of where better wages come into play. You're not compensated that much to sit there while everything is peachy keen. In so many words, you're compensated in return for them slowly killing you with doses of stress.

Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[crow]

Most employers do annual pay adjustments, so asking if they received a pay increase in the past 6 months would, on average, get at least 50% saying no. The report was engineered from the start to get the result that they published.

Re:Six months?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even get any raise, you insensitive clods!

Pay raises?

[Haelyn]

I work for Hewlett-Packard. "Pay raises" happen to other people

Re:Pay raises?

[TheEyes]

I work for local government, and had my pay cut last year (furloughs), and looks like it will be cut again this year (increase health care costs)

Flat pay happens to other people.

Re:Pay raises?

[mark-t]

Deliberately cutting down the amount of time a particular employee is allowed to work, or reducing their hourly wage or take-home pay for a given number of hours worked can very easily be construed as harassment to try to get the employee to quit of their own volition so that paying retirement or severance packages can be avoided (qv. Grounds for constructive dismissal)

Re:Pay raises?

[zippthorne]

Hewlett Packard used to compete in a market with IBM and Xerox.. Now they compete with Dell. You do the math.

The laundry list

[oldspewey]

From TFA:

In years past, it may have been good enough to have six to eight out of a list of 10 technical skills wanted by an employer, but now "there are enough people who don't have work that they can find someone who has all" the qualifications being sought, said Hibbits.

I still see a lot of job ads where the list of mandatory skills and experience is ridiculous, including a half decade of "proven" execution in each of 3-4 often competing technology areas or methodologies. My first thought when I read them is "seriously? you have all that in your shop? and you want a single person to be responsible for all of it?"

Now move on to the list of "desirable" skills where we see pink unicorns prancing through fields of golden sunshine, an acronym farm, and an MBA thrown in for good measure. There is no sane hiring manager who legitimately expects to see a candidate with every checkbox filled in ... or if they do have that expectation at the beginning of the recruitment process they quickly readjust after a few weeks.

Re:The laundry list

[El Rey]

Those kinds of ads are what they use to prove that they couldn't find anyone in the US to do the job and justify their H1B visa for someone who doesn't have all those skills either. That's been happening for years.

Re:The laundry list

[MBGMorden]

Either that or they're tailoring it to a specific person they've already picked out, but due to policy or law they still must publish all vacancies.

They do it where I'm at. We're in government. You can't just promote someone directly to a higher position. They have to apply for it and go through the standard HR process. The catch is that if the person hiring has already picked them for that job, they're going to write up the skill description to be so specific that the person they're looking at is the ONLY person who will be qualified.

Re:The laundry list

[tompaulco]

You forgot 5 years of experience in a product that the company you are applying for makes and only uses internally.

Re:The laundry list

[DrgnDancer]

Or the five years of experience in three year old technology. You don't see that quite as often any more, but it used to be a popular one. Especially when Java was first coming into its own. The template for hiring "senior developers" at a lot of companies apparently wanted ten year of experience in the language being hired for. SO you regularly saw jobs for "Java developers with at least ten years experience" well before Java was ten years old.

Re:The laundry list

[Maltheus]

I've begged every manager I've had not to hire based on acronyms. All it does is narrow down your talent pool to a couple of people (if that). In a field where most programmers create more problems then they solve, you want the widest pool possible to draw from. I'd rather hire a good programmer with no experience in what we're doing, than a half-ass programmer who has every acronym.

Hell, on my last job, our manager hired a former PM to be a senior software engineer simply because she listed 300 acronyms on her resume. We kept on trying to point out that she had zero programming experience and was not in fact a programmer, but our manager just couldn't get over all those letters so she overruled us. I left within several months of that.

Re:The laundry list

[enjerth]

Or 5 years experience in Office 2007.

Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[Colin Smith]

Anyone who stays more than 3 years in a position is going to be very much left behind and facing increasing inflation in housing prices, cars, and eventually the basics as well.
 

Re:Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[Seumas]

By "credit", do you mean "cost of living"? The cost of living does tend to increase an average of something like three percent, but it seems to me that pay typically scales along with it, over time. (You may have a company-wide pay freeze this year, but a five percent or more raise next year, for example).

The problem seems to be that there is so much instability right now, that that next thing you might be moving to could be a sinking ship that takes a chunk of your career down with it, for awhile. The number of people I've seen move on from one place -- to another and another and another -- in quick succession is fairly stunning, recently. And these are seasoned professionals that any company would be fortunate to employ.

Re:Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[tompaulco]

The cost of living does tend to increase an average of something like three percent.
No, that is the governments consumer price index (which is supposed to indicate the cost of living) you are thinking of. The cost of living actually increases at about 20% per year.

Re:Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[blueg3]

20% per year? You've got to be joking.

A bit of quick math. 20% a year over 10 years is about a sixfold increase. So imagine if you were making a sixth of your current salary, ten years ago. Could you maintain the same or a similar lifestyle?

I can answer that pretty definitely for myself.

Re:Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[Sporkinum]

That's assuming you can get away to take vacation. I am setting on almost 500 hours of vacation time. That's 12.5 weeks!
BTW, I work in a hospital.

Re:Credit typically increases at 9-12% per year

[clodney]

20% a year? I beg to differ

The CPI may be off (and I have read articles suggesting that it overstates inflation, not understates it), but 20% a year is absurd. Let's think about this:

1. My mortgage amount is fixed, and even were that not the case, the cost of housing is dropping, not rising.
2. Gas is roughly equal to what it was 2 years ago.
3. Electric, water, heat, trash - no utilities price changes anywhere close to 20% annually.
4. Appliances and electronics continue to get cheaper.
5. Telecom maybe up slightly, or it could just be the fact I have bought a smartphone with a data plan.

I think food prices have risen, but that is a tiny slice of my budget. Last year my employer held the line on health care price increases, though they have warned us our contributions are going up this year.

So what significant category is experiencing 20% inflation?

Re:Jump? No better word?

[Tablizer]

Cause they couldn't figure out a better way of saying Switch Jobs...they used JUMP...I was totally thinking something else when I read the headline...

You could try polymorphism too: "WTF, I'm a chick today! Hey, this feels niiiiice."
   

Ageism.

[AnonymousClown]

An energy industry employee, who asked for anonymity, said younger workers have greater job security because they cost less, but the better-paid baby boomers are in danger of job loss.

Is that news to anyone?

As far as taking classes, it's been my experience that if you don't have on the job experience with those skills, it doesn't matter. So, if you take classes in something, be ruthless about using it on the job - figure out a way to make it part of your job.

Re:Ageism.

[Seumas]

Baby boomers are mostly in their 50s and 60s, so that quote is fairly stupid, anyway. There are far fewer of them in the industry to begin with, I suspect, simply because the industry boom (and therefore, population within the industry) didn't happen until that age group was well into their careers.

Not to say there isn't age-ism and I certainly hope I don't become involved in it (I have no aspirations for MBA or management - I like tech). Just that it seems a hard statistic to validate, considering the shift in popularity and numbers of the age groups over the course of the industry's growth.

Also, younger workers don't have all the job security suggested by that claim, since there's always someone willing to do your job cheaper and be worked over with less complaint somewhere else. We're in a global economy and that means that while you have a fixed cost of living defined by the country you live in, the employer has an entire planet to cull from in direct competition to you. Even if you're an eager twenty-two year old kid happy to sleep under his desk for two hours a day so he can work the other 22 for low wages.

Grass is not always greener...

[carp3_noct3m]

Its not always about money. I recently (about a year ago) went from being a partner at an up and coming IT firm, to the number 2 IT guy for an agriculture company. Before, I was stressed out, always worrying about this client or that client, income, taxes, ticket systems, just in general had too much on my plate. I left due to business structure and strategy disagreements, but now I am working in a laid back environment where I do a good job, and can still take the time to study after hours. IT guys are far too often over-taxed, over-used, and under-appreciated. That is why I think there needs to be a shift in the work environment for IT people or else we will continue to see this constant migration to the always greener grass.

Insert sensationalist headline here

[Local ID10T]

• Economy bad...
• People not getting raises every 6 months...
• IT professionals looking for better jobs...

Computerworld couldn't find anything else to fill their pages with than this? I knew they were useless, but this is pretty sad.

Flat technology!

[spaceyhackerlady]

My concern isn't so much flat pay - I have more money than I know what to do with - but flat technology. I spend my days fixing idiotic bugs in legacy systems, with few prospects for learning anything new.

...laura

Re:Flat technology!

[clarkkent09]

I have more money than I know what to do with

I presume you might be just being facetious, but if that's really true then you are not doing it right. Invest. Start a business or help someone else start one. You'll be helping yourself and the economy. That's how the world works, you know. There are more uses for money than spending it on crap.

Re:Flat technology!

[CRC'99]

My concern isn't so much flat pay - I have more money than I know what to do with - but flat technology. I spend my days fixing idiotic bugs in legacy systems, with few prospects for learning anything new.

I think you're probably the majority. When I decided to take the leap out of IT nearly 3 years ago now, I was on roughly the same wage as I first started in IT nearly 10 years earlier. Yes, it was a little better, but nowhere near what I would expect.

My positions were:
1) Desktop support / network admin - first ever IT job - ~$40k AUD
2) 3 months contracting - much more than $40k when averaged over the 3 months.
3) 3rd level network support for a telco - about 300,000 users or so - ~$48k AUD
4) VoIP design / rollout - ~$41kAUD
5) Network Operations - mid-size ISP covering AU/SG - ~$45k AUD
6) Call centre team leader - ~$41k AUD.

Then I left IT to go fly planes. Less stress. Less bullshit to deal with. More enjoyable. Go Figure.

Re:Flat technology!

[uzd4ce]

I have more money than I know what to do with

Are you hiring? I'm looking for a position outside my current company....

Re:Flat technology!

[Sponge Bath]

Working legacy systems can also provide some job security. Nobody new is learning those systems and competition for your spot is limited. Look on the bright side of life... de do, de do

Re:Flat technology!

[sockman]

Oh wow do I hear you! I'm a stamped maintenance programmer for life, I think. I guess it pays the bills and I can contribute to open source, but it sure gets depressing spending at least 8 hours a day fixing old code.

Re:Flat technology!

[warkior]

I have more money than I know what to do with

You could spend some of it supporting good causes... to help those who might not be in the same financial situation you are.

Re:Flat technology!

[benjamindees]

New stuff has bugs too. Surely after years of fixing bugs in the same old system, it would have to improve? You say you have enough money. Why would you want to learn new stuff if not to increase your job prospects and thus salary? You can always play around with new stuff on the side or use it implement new features.

Re:Flat technology!

[shooteur]

Assuming they were dedicated roles, you should of been getting 60-80k AUD at least, for 3, 4 and 5. Even 50K for the CC Team leader. I can see why you got out.

Re:Flat technology!

[StikyPad]

My concern isn't so much flat pay - I have more money than I know what to do with - but flat technology.

In that case, and since I have the opposite problem, I'd be happy to trade jobs with you.

Re:Flat technology!

[apoc.famine]

I have more money than I know what to do with

Well, if you're looking for things to do with it, you could support an idiot who went back to grad school a decade late.....I might know one....had to stop drinking nice scotch...talk about a tragedy....

Re:Flat technology!

[Krishnoid]

There are more uses for money than spending it on crap.

Definitely -- take a cue from Dogbert, who was in that same situation some years ago.

Re:Flat technology!

[Slime-dogg]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. At least, that's the justification for my company keeping an accounting system around that sits on top of a 45 year old technology. It is very difficult to pull data out of this system, and with the company's recent push toward data accessibility, this just complicates things.

But, again, it's a very old and stable system that does what it's supposed to do fairly well. It would cost an enormous amount of money to switch, and the benefits don't outweigh that expenditure. We *can* pull data out, it just isn't very easy.

So, if a technology seems "Flat," it sticks around because it's old and proven, and typically very expensive to replace.

True (sample size 1)

[Bob9113]

True for me. I made the jump this past January. 2009 my company said no raises for anyone (except executives, of course). 2010 they claimed the same thing, I declined, they offered me an insulting pittance, and away I went.

Cut my expenses to the bone, picked up some contract work, and now doing economic research most of the time. Getting ready to publish my first paper, if the vetting goes well. Also took some time to do my first fine woodworking -- produced two nice footstools(*), which I gave to my parents.

Damned fine thing. I strongly recommend it if you can bzip your budget.

* http://beach.traxel.com/img/footstool-ts/footstool-with-cushion.jpg

Re:True (sample size 1)

[e122aa0b9c4149d57533]

Nice craftsmanship.
Was the marble countertop & stainless steel stove part of cutting expenses to the bone?
It might also be wise to turn off directory browsing. Not sure if Bob at work wants to be on /.

Re:True (sample size 1)

[butlerdi]

Nice footstool

Re:True (sample size 1)

[mortonda]

beautiful wood!

Re:True (sample size 1)

[Bob9113]

Nice craftsmanship.
Thanks!

Was the marble countertop & stainless steel stove part of cutting expenses to the bone?
heh -- definitely not -- that's my Dad's house. :)

It might also be wise to turn off directory browsing. Not sure if Bob at work wants to be on /.
All the really good stuff is in the directories you can't see. ;)

Re:True (sample size 1)

[Bob9113]

beautiful wood!

Yeah -- went to this little Mom & Pop lumbermill out in the country in Ohio and asked what they had with figure. One of the guys took me out to the barn and was showing me some curly maple. Then he says, "Oh! Come look at this!" And pulls out the piece of curly red oak that made the sides. "Most of our customers use red oak for crown moulding. They can't match curly pieces, so this board has been sitting here for two years."

I nearly did the poor fellow an injury ripping it out of his hands. :)

time for a union?

[Joe The Dragon]

time for a union?

Re:time for a union?

[clarkkent09]

Yep, that worked out really well for the auto industry. It will work out even better for the IT where the jobs are dead easy to move overseas.

Re:time for a union?

[Kenja]

Good luck getting the people in India etc to join your union.

Re:time for a union?

[El Rey]

Agreed.

I read that the SCOTUS is taking a case to decide if AT&T has property rights. If corporations are people, can companies that ship jobs overseas be tried for treason? Same thing for the companies that caused the crash and put the nation in danger. I mean they are people and everything, right?

Funny how they are people when it comes to rights but not when it comes to responsibilities...

Re:time for a union?

[operagost]

Yeah, it did work. The auto workers got to keep their pensions and benefits, and the bond holders and taxpayers got the shaft.

Re:time for a union?

[clarkkent09]

One thing they didn't get to keep is their jobs: http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr/2010/spring/images/auto_fig3.gif

Re:time for a union?

[IshmaelDS]

No, time for an IT organization that peer reviews work habits and puts the info publicly available so that employers know what they are getting. It would also help to have an organization like that to backup why the it managers need 3 employees instead of the 1 that upper management think they should get. They would have a body of standards behind them.

Re:time for a union?

[Bacon Bits]

People in India don't want higher pay and better working conditions?

Re:No problem, we'll just ship more jobs overseas

[Tablizer]

Mrs. Fiorina, Welcome to Slashdot!

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[Anonymous Coward]

True.... but its not entirely wrong, 69% is still above the expected 50% by almost 20%. We haven't gotten a raise in about 2 years here, with a hiring freeze. This resonates with me since, its exactly what I told a head hunter last night.... I am looking to leave because they haven't given raises in 2 years, and the group dynamic means that I can epxect to be waiting quite a while for a promotion....all the while being told "you are one of the senior guys"... even though I don't have the title.

That and, I know I could make more elsewhere.

Six Months

[David Greene]

Six months without a pay raise? Is that all? I haven't had a significant pay raise (over the rate of inflation) in several years. Most people in the U.S. have had declining real wages for 30 years.

Re:Six Months

[tompaulco]

I include myself in that statistic.

Re:Six Months

[mlts]

If one looks at the average pay a graduating college student gets for a job in the early 1990s, compared to what they get now, the figures have barely budged. In fact, graduating college doesn't mean employment is waiting once a person has their diploma.

Re:Six Months

[aardwolf64]

I work in IT at a state university that hasn't given raises in over 6 years... I've only been here a year and a half though...

Re:Six Months

[Jeng]

Company I work for only gives out cost of living increases, across the board from top to bottom.

The cost of living went down last year.

Re:Six Months

[xero314]

Company I work for only gives out cost of living increases, across the board from top to bottom.

In theory, if your company offers good salaries initially and you are already a trained and experienced employee, then this is how things should be. The only reason companies should offer a raise above Cost of Living, would be if they undercut your salary initially and need to catch up, or if you actually supply more productivity than you did previously. Usually after a year or so you are doing your job at, or near, your peak efficiency so a raise is not really warranted. Now a promotion on the other hand is a different story.

Even when the market was "good" this was true.

[Narcocide]

I never once got a raise I was promised. All any employer ever did was blow smoke up my ass in the performance reviews. I never once got a salary increase that I didn't have to quit my old job for. Once or twice jumping ship for better pay got the rest of the team members *their* promised raises though.

Re:Even when the market was "good" this was true.

[Jaime2]

Bad luck for you. Where I work, last year we had no raises, but we did get performance bonuses. This year, even the worst reviews got raises and we all got bonuses. A raise and a bonus for every man, women, and child in a 50 thousand person company. I've had five figure raises twice in my career, both times without changing job titles.

Re:Even when the market was "good" this was true.

[einar2]

It is not rocket science. It is supply and demand.

The emphasis is on a raise you are actually worth. How to decide your market value? Apply for jobs! What company would pay you defines your market value.

Every time I thought I am underpaid I gave early enough a signal to my line manager. Early enough because getting approval for a salary raise takes long in most companies. So, do not complain and expect them to increase your salary next month. Expect a salary increase at the next opportunity.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[Defenestrar]

It's not so much the CEO pay that concerns me as it is the ratio to everyone else in the company.

Unionize.

[Beelzebud]

Despite what fanatical libertarians around here may say, this is exactly the sort of situations unions are for.

Re:Unionize.

[Narcocide]

Think it could work? Or would all the jobs just immediately go to India?

Re:Unionize.

[Seumas]

Okay, you first.

Re:Unionize.

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite what fanatical progressives may say, this is exactly the sort of attitude that makes people hate unions.

Unions were started to eliminate gross injustices in the labor system. That purpose has shifted, apparently according to you, to guaranteeing raises every six months for 100% of the workforce. Show me a company with that policy, and in ten years I'll show you an empty office building. As other commenters have noted, only 50% of people who are not new hires have probably even been up for a performance review. Unionize over 20% not getting raises in an economic climate like this? I'm just guessing that there may be 20% of companies that aren't doing too well in general.

Re:Unionize.

[TheEyes]

Not if it's done right. The way it works is you add in a corporate profits tax--you know, the kind of tax that paid for all our previous wars, before Bush decided we can fund these ones on our Chinese credit card instead--but allow a deduction for domestic workers' salaries. Use the proceeds to lower the deficit, or maybe to fix our decaying roads and bridges.

I'm actually kind of surprised no Congresscritter has thought of this. We're in a unique position these days: corporations are declaring record profits, and funneling those profits into mergers, acquisitions and lobbying for Republicans, while unemployment is high. Engineering a good tax incentive could possibly change all of that.

Re:Unionize.

[AnonymousClown]

It's 7 billion and 120 million more every year.

Labor of any kind is a commodity.

Your only hope is to get a job with the government

I'm going to write an economics book based upon the labor and wealth cycle of countries:

1. Growth - work hard get rich
2. Maturation: Get educated do well - rich get richer poor get better off
3.Slump: jobs go to cheaper places, rich get richer everyone else gets poorer (This is where America is now)
4.Flat: rich stay rich, unions galore, employment stagnant, if you want a future, work for government (Europe and soon to be America)
5. Collapse: Everyone in the World gets to #4 and there's not enough resources because we all used them in our consumption based economies - Capitalism, Socialism, Mercantilism, every-lism is based upon consumption to keep the economy going.

Re:Unionize.

[elrous0]

A union isn't going to fix a shitty economy. And bringing one in will only add one more incentive for a company to outsource to India or China. I like the idea of a union too, but I also know their limitations.

Re:Unionize.

[DerekLyons]

Ask the steel industry how that worked out. Or the auto industry. Or any of the half dozen other industries chased offshore because (in part) of unions that insisted on never ending pay and benefits increases - regardless of how the company and/or the economy was faring.
 
Don't get me wrong, unions have accomplished a lot of good, but they've also done a lot of damage.

Re:Unionize.

[satoshi1]

You're right. Unions, when done right and behaving in the original spirit of the idea, are extremely beneficial to everyone. The employees get more money and the employers get happier employees. Happier employees perform better.

The problem is that no one ever hears about the good unions.

Re:Unionize.

[afaik_ianal]

Yeah, because the situation is terrible. 69% of people not getting payrises in the last 6 months, suggesting an average of 19-20 months between pay rises, in the worst economy many of you have seen in most of your lifetimes. It's time to picket!

Re:Unionize.

[royallthefourth]

Those industries you mentioned have always been quick to complain about the unions, but they can't be bothered to take a second look at $25 million executive compensation.

They think a union hurts them? They should be thankful the workers aren't killing them and taking their money.

Re:Unionize.

[geekoid]

I'm in a union. This year we voted to give up our COLA, this year, and depending on certain factors, next year as well.

Yes, it could work and does. No it doesn't need to be hostile. It does need to be reasonable, and the contract and managers need to recognize that people in the IT side of things cannot be managed like a factory worker.

OTOH, a lot of manufacturing jobs disappeared because manufacturing CEOs sold the technology overseas. So the got theirr million(it was the 70's) and the US lost manufacturing base.

Re:Unionize.

[geekoid]

I'm in a union, your turn.

Re:Unionize.

[EmagGeek]

The problem with unionizing is that the top 20% of performers will resent being paid the same as the remaining 80% who are essentially useless, and will leave. The top 20% will have to give up their larger raises in order to pay the extortion fees to the bottom 80%, and that will go on for a year and then all you'll have left are the 80%.

Re:Unionize.

[feepness]

Despite what fanatical libertarians around here may say, this is exactly the sort of situations unions are for.

Libertarians aren't against Unions, after all, they're just voluntary associations of people.

It's the various laws around them (not right to vote by secret ballot, forced participation to work, forced dues), that gives them the heebee jeebees.

Re:Unionize.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Hello, record profits and stagnant wages?

Re:Unionize.

[DaMattster]

Despite what fanatical libertarians around here may say, this is exactly the sort of situations unions are for.

+1

Re:Unionize.

[roman_mir]

Nice troll.

As a libertarian I do not care if you have a private union and people join it.

My concern would start when you'd use lobbying and money and connections to subvert the laws to achieve your particular goals.

This is the same truth for all entities, unions and corporations and private individual alike.

Re:Unionize.

[Legion303]

Ah yes, like the CWA, which I was forced to either join or give an equal portion of my pay to charity. I chose the union because I figured maybe they would at least help me in the event of layoffs. So after the company laid off pretty much everyone, the union told me to get fucked when I asked about job placement, references, or anything else they could do to help keep me in telecom.

So I'm not against unions because of my slight libertarian leanings, I'm against them because the only behavior I've seen out of them is "fuck you, I got mine." You go join a union. I'm happy telling them to shove it.

Re:Unionize.

[roman_mir]

Corporations do far more spending and lobbying (with far more success, as is easily visible) than unions

- yes, as I said earlier I am against gov't being involved in all aspects of economy.

To de-escalate both, you must regulate the corporations FIRST (which also almost completely strips the unions of their reasons to exist). Doing it the other way around is, of course, what the corporations are spending their lobbying dollars on.

- no, you have to let the market take care of it by creating competition.

It's the same way you can tell that "I want to cut taxes and cut spending" Republicans are lying right to your face. The only way to REALLY do that would be to cut the budget first and dial down the taxes in proportion, but, of course, the Republicans always want to do the full tax cut immediately with a promise to cut the budget later and the budget never gets cut. Clearly they only ever intended to cut the taxes, and ran with the other promises to get more votes.

- no argument. I am for cutting 99% of all government spending immediately.

Ask yourself that same kind of question any time a politician is proposing something. How hard are each of the things they want to do, and what order do they want to do them in? Don't forget to ask the same questions of the Libertarians; the endgame they promise doesn't jive with the things they say they want to do and the order they want to do them in.

- as a libertarian you can ask me.

I'd fire 99% of all gov't workers, stop the wars and bring all troops home and reduce the size of military force by 99%, cut all spending on all programs that subsidize any and all businesses, remove SS, EI, FDIC, Freddie/Fannie, sell all government assets, liquidate everything and pay the debt.

Immediately stop collecting all income taxes, implement a flat sales tax on goods that are not essential for survival. I would eliminate all government programs and would only provide these services:

1. Justice department.
2. Minimum military to avoid foreign threats.
3. Cops/prisons.

but I am not a politician.

Re:Unionize.

[Money for Nothin']

As a libertarian (left-libertarian, formerly a right-libertarian) for several years, I disagree with you.

The vast majority of libertarians are right-libertarians -- the sort who hate unions precisely because they reduce the ability of a corporation to make a profit for its owners; unions act as their own inflationary pressure, after all, keeping wage increases higher than they would be (and these days, are) if people negotiated wages individually (as is true for 93% of all American workers), rather than collectively (the remaining 7%, who are unionized).

Even in my right-libertarian days, I was uncomfortable with that position. If as libertarians we claim to fear centralized power, "whether in the hands of government or anyone else" (Milton Friedman, "Free to Choose", last chapter), why not that of corporations? If we are so vehemently in favor of free market solutions, then why not the free-market solution to countering the negotiating power of the capitalists/management i.e. that of laborers/non-management bargaining collectively -- as has been done via a union?

Consider the force vectors in the marketplace, and the anti-union position becomes clearly unsustainable. Yet, it is the political-economic intellectual fashion of the last 30 years, thanks largely due to the right-libertarians (and unions' own corruption).

It's one reason why I am not a right-libertarian anymore. And it's why I think most of my counterparts in IT -- who tend to be blindly right-libertarians -- are morons, in this respect. Like the sheep we are, we slit our own throats at the alters of the corporations -- and sadly, governments too -- that we blindly declare, Rand-like, our gods.

I think I get the intention of this article

[GodfatherofSoul]

I bet the author xeroxed it and left a few copies laying strategically around the office.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[crow]

Yes, it is above the expected 50% if the date of pay raises was random, but I doubt it is. My company is within that 50% for its date, but until a few years ago it wasn't. The question is plainly biased.

Further, saying that 36% are looking is a much softer threshold than saying 36% have submitted resumes or job applications. At least it wasn't the completely nebulous "considering" that they sometimes use.

That said, changing jobs is often the best way to get a pay raise, and I don't blame you one bit for trying for it.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[j0nb0y]

Seriously. I want to see the result for the past year. Or better yet, the past two years. Not everyone in the private sector gets a pay raise every year, even in good times.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[tsstahl]

You are assuming that pay raises everywhere follow the calendar year. Almost every place I have worked at has adjusted pay based on their fiscal year.

Pay Raise?

[Archangel Michael]

I work in Public Sector, I like my job, I work hard, and I'm not paid very well for what I do (51K/yr) I haven't had a pay raise in two years, and this year they are requiring three furlough days (pay cut). Next year, they're saying four.

I realize that is is popular to criticize Public Employees as being lazy and overpaid Union drones, but guys in IT at the Public Sector are often the exception.

I realize that times are tough, and with unemployment hovering at (or hidden) above 10%, I'm just thankful I have a job.

The world has changed.

Re:Pay Raise?

[sockman]

I've recently looked over how much the city I reside in spends in licensing fees for top-name products. I think the bigger issue facing public IT is the lack of finding cost-effective solutions that don't come from IBM, Oracle, etc. The real value to add would be looking for cheaper alternatives and pushing for reduced license fees but I see very few public employees willing to take risk. I cannot blame them for not wanting to take risk (no one gets fired for going with the biggest/most known, right?) since tax payers get very upset when money is wasted on "failed" projects. It still depresses me.

Disclaimer: I am a contractor to the federal government at the moment, and I've seen firsthand the risk-aversion in action.

Re:Pay Raise?

[geekoid]

Ironically, furloughs have ended up costing cities more money.
Anyone can create more cheap jobs, but lower income doesn't help. What we need is more high paying jobs.

Re:Pay Raise?

[Archangel Michael]

Where I work, we're trying hard to come to grips with "licensing issues". I can assure you, I'm on of the biggest proponent for things like OpenOffice and other Open Source products.

The reason why people spend money on things like licensing is because they "Need" it, and IT has no say in that decision.

Most of the people in IT that I know, are not that "risk adverse", it is people in high profile and elected offices that direct the rest of us.

And they ARE risk adverse!

Re:Pay Raise?

[Archangel Michael]

And with ObamaCare, that is gonna change. And I can assure you, that I will NOT be getting a good deal with ObamaCare.

HealthCare Benefits and Retirement package are part of the reason I took a lower paying position than I would get in the private sector. If that goes away, my incentive to work for public sector quickly goes away.

Re:Pay Raise?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You realize that we pay well above what most countries in europe pay for health care? This is on a per person basis, so we should be able to get UHC for less than we spend now. All you have to do is machine gun some lobbyists first...

Re:Pay Raise?

[Jaime2]

I've worked for a lot of government customers and they all say the same thing. They all get under market rate pay, but better benefits and better job security. These customers weren't only in IT, the lawyers and accountants say the same thing. However, I once knew a public sector employee that got paid for 12 months after they stopped working because they had 250 sick days accrued.

Re:Pay Raise?

[zippthorne]

You're making nearly 20% more than the median income in the US. How do you think your health-care, pension, and other benefits would stack up against the private sector?

Every public sector employee, no matter his pay, says that it's barely liveable and gets very defensive. They've always got some reason why people in the private sector just don't understand

This is crazy talk!

[orsty3001]

According to my girlfriend's students they are all going to grow up to be big rich software engineers. They will all run their own companies and have no one to answer to. It's just the old neck beards that worry about the economy.

Re:This is crazy talk!

[El Rey]

She must be teaching in India or China...

Re:Six months?

[lordmetroid]

You get to keep your salary?
My salary decreases over time, you insensitive clod!

Outsourcing and visa abuse

[Thundercleets]

It and engineering pay has suffered badly because of outsourcing and visa abuse. According to Love to Know here: http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Facts_and_Figures_on_Outsourcing It seems that if the Obama administration was to take job creation seriously and curb outsourcing of American jobs to cheap foreign contractor slavers it would save close to 1.5 million jobs for Americans. Most of those in IT are familiar by now with the visa abuse that takes place in the US. Many unscrupulous companies are playing games and pulling stunts to meet even the lax standards setup for foreign nationals to obtain work visas in the US. If the Obama administration were again to take job creation seriously then they could come up with almost 5 million US jobs by simply denying visas per the US State Department. http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/FY09AnnualReport_TableXVII.pdf

Re:Outsourcing and visa abuse

[El Rey]

Obama can't even control his own branch when it comes to this:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/integration/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202

its pretty clear

[Charliemopps]

It's pretty clear how most companies work today. They hire kids from the local community college that are half way to getting their 4yr degree and little more than they could make at McDonalds and then don't give them raises with the clear intention of driving them away so they can rehire other students even cheaper. Most places only have 1 or 2 people with any real experience. Usually those are the ones too lazy to go looking for something better.

Re:its pretty clear

[jonescb]

Sounds like my situation. I started here when I was 18 doing Java, then we expanded our software so now I use some C and PHP as well. I'm the only developer we have, and even with all the code I have to manage by myself I'm barely making more than I would at McDonalds. The minimum wage here in Illinois is $8.25, and I basically had to beg my boss to raise me from $9 to $9.50. I'm getting a crapload of experience and I still live with my parents while I go to community college though, so it's not all bad.

Re:its pretty clear

[Maltheus]

Odd. I'm 37 and I've always found it remarkable that I've always been the youngest programmer on any job I've ever had (still am). I've always wondered where the kids are, I guess there's a whole nuther set of companies out there that work in reverse.

Re:its pretty clear

[gujo-odori]

I'm in my late 40s and two of the five guys on my team are older than me. One is somewhat younger and one is far younger. We have a few straight-from-college people on other teams, but not a lot. We mostly only hire experienced people, and when we do hire fresh grads, we're mostly hiring from schools with "name" CS departments, like UCSD, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT.

WRT the original topic, no one here got a bonus last year, and no one got a raise unless it was because of a promotion. This year, I got an outstanding review, a modest raise (but hey, it's way better than last year) and an exceptional bonus.

Sure, a lot of people in IT have gone a while without a raise or bonus. The recovery thus far has been slow and weak for most companies. Mine is doing well but still cautious on raises (this year's was by far my smallest despite my great review), but many aren't to this point yet. I don't know what makes people think the grass might be greener in some other field, though. Change careers and a pay cut is even possible. I would only leave IT if I were moving into a career which I was beyond certain would offset any initial pay cut. Or to buy or open a bait and tackle shop when I retire :-)

Re:Good

[kiddygrinder]

hah, that's hilarious, screw the old guys because I'LL NEVER GET OLD

desktop != to "IT"

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Desktop is a piece of the IT pie. Usually the entry point for young people. Definately not a career job. IT as this article refers to it is probably a combination of analysts, PMs, Developers, Sys admins, server engineers, and app admins.

Probably not going to jump if you are in desktop, and are skilled and patient, now might be a good time to transition to one of the other "opportunities."

-Paul

Well actually it is

[decipher_saint]

For a lot of IT people priorities change, when I started out I was content to work my ass off for no good reason as long as there was experience, then it was pay, at some point the pay started to not matter, the fact that life was passing me by mattered, so I changed my situation. Less money rolling in but a lot more sanity.

I see people working around me that find the pace too sedentary and want to work like maniacs and make bigger money, for them, the grass is greener where I was situated before.

What I do find disturbing though is that overall the average IT persons pay doesn't seem to sync up with inflation. I look at seniors who are just a generation or two older than I am and by the time they were my age they had mortgages, vehicles, families and curious things called "savings", most of my peers are still renting, driving older vehicles or riding transit and are all about as far away from family life as one could imagine, I have a mortgage and some RRSP in the bank but not anything like my parents or grandparents.

Does IT in general just have less value these days?

Re:Well actually it is

[lgw]

If you lived like your grandparents did, you'd have plenty of money. A house smaller than a typical apartment today. A car that sometimes runs, with no safety features. A TV, washing machine, and a refridgerator luxuries to be saved for. What's a computer?

People talk about having less buying power, but usually it's just higher expectations. Still, if you avoid debt you can meet those expectations by your 30s.

Re:Well actually it is

[decipher_saint]

Well, using my own family for reference...

My grandfather was a copy editor for the Toronto Star, he lived in a large (six bedrooms) two story house located in the Beaches in Toronto, he also had a cottage, two Buicks and 4 daughters.

My other grandfather died from cancer at age 22, but my grandmother worked for Newfoundland light and power as a telegraphist and then later as a flight dispatcher for Syncrude, she had been struggling with a single income since 1947 yet still managed to have all the amenities available to most middle class working people. She had two sons to support, which she managed to get through post secondary (and flight school for my uncle, cadets for my old man). She eventually married an Englishman who was a millwright by trade, they spent their free time travelling the world with at least one trip to England a year and one other fun trip (usually somewhere hot). She retired comfortably in 1987.

I have a television, two computers and a 2 bedroom apartment condo. I don't drive, I don't have kids and I certainly don't have any vacation property or jet set around the world every year. I can't help but think there's some kind of incongruity here.

Re:Well actually it is

[mlts]

I'd say people have less buying power. Look at salaries for various professions in any field in the '90s, and compare to today. They essentially have not moved upwards, except for law based professions. However, law always has been like that where a J.D. is a guaranteed income for life.

Even more basic. Look at cars. Compare what types of cars people bought when graduating college in the 80s and 90s to what they buy today. Today, I see a lot of Honda Fits, Ford Focuses, Mazda 3 series, and other subcompacts, where just 10 years ago, the roads were crammed with SUVs, sports cars, and luxury cars.

Don't forget that college was *MUCH* cheaper 10 or 20 years ago. A public school's tuition would run $1000 a semester in the early 90s. Now it is easily ten times that in some places. Private schools even more so. So, graduates are coming out with $50,000 worth of student loan debt, as most scholarships have dried up, or only cover a small portion of what comes in. To boot, there are not jobs available for people to work their way through college. What once were entry level jobs intended for people who graduated high school are taken by college grads. So, for a lot of people, student loans are the only way they can get their degree.

So, someone coming out of college at 22 has a lot worse time than someone who graduated in the past. They have a large chunk of student loan debt. The starting income is the same as 10 years ago, except inflation has chewed a good chunk of that away. There is no guarantee of work once getting a diploma [1].

[1]: The only way to really stack the odds in your favor is to run internships, paid or unpaid, so a graduating senior has something more than just a diploma in his hand.

Re:Well actually it is

[Maltheus]

Starting sometime during the Carter administration, they changed the way they calculate inflation in order to understate it. They introduced techniques like hedonic adjustments say and that they can say meat's cheaper this year because this year's hamburger prices are cheaper than last year's steak. If this year's computer is twice as fast as last year's, then the "price" fell by 50%, and so on. They also leave out the bubble assets like housing to tweak it further.

Everything in our economy, including GDP and your salary adjustments are based on that now phony figure and that's why pay no longer syncs up with real inflation. It also means most people are actually losing wealth on most of their market investments. Shadow stats has continued to calculate the CPI using the old techniques:

http://www.shadowstats.com/

Re:Well actually it is

[decipher_saint]

That's pretty goddamn scary...

Re:Well actually it is

[lgw]

That's a good point - university tuition is the next bubble. The entire system makes no financial sense these days (except community college, which hasn't gone over the top yet).

The economy has been pretty flat for a decade or so, no doubt. The same thing happened in the 70s, mostly as a result of the gold shock and OPEC coming of age (but that was followed by 15 years of solid growth). It's harder to pin down causes this time around, but absolutely retarded levels of government spending can't possibly be helping.

My point was that you can't really compare "owning a car" today with "owning a car" 50 years ago: they are two very different pieces of equipment, and if we returned to the sort of car made in the 50s, they'd be quite cheap. Many things we take for granted toady were wonderful luxuries 50 years ago. Over the past 30 years we've moved from houses that on average had fewer rooms than people living in them, to today where there are on average more bedrooms than people living in the house.

But how things would look if we (including our government) were spending less than we made and paying down that debt? I think it's likely things will get much worse, as the money borrowed to support those lifestyles of 25 years ago comes due, with brutal interest.

Re:Jump? No better word?

[Nadaka]

Cause they couldn't figure out a better way of saying Switch Jobs...they used JUMP...I was totally thinking something else when I read the headline...

Back in the day we used to call that dual classing. It was the only advantage humans had over elves in the long run but most people used house rules instead.

Now with FFXII you can switch jobs by putting on a new outfit and in FFXIV you can switch jobs just by picking up a new weapon. Kids these days...

Re:Good

[Anarke_Incarnate]

You make more mistakes, work more because of them and generally have no idea of what things cost or how much your extra hours of JOLT fueled crap cost the company down the line. I'm not really old myself, but frankly, $50K/yr here is enough to rent an apartment and make payments on a cheap car. Listen to your elders. Sometimes they have more than war stories to share. Process helps. Sometimes, the wrong answer is burning through it. You burn out doing it.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[blunte]

"Most employers do annual pay adjustments", you say...

Source please?

Sorting by ability

[Peeteriz]

Flat pay means that the poor and mediocre guys stay and are happy, and the good ones leave.

What you reward is what you get.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[kent_eh]

Yeah, it's hard for me to stay motivated when our CEO makes 204.76 times more per year than I do. (real number, I just did the math)

Especially after sitting thru a mandatory video conference that he presented yesterday.
What exactly is it that he does again? I couldn't really tell from that meeting.

Agreed, but two problems...

[jeko]

I agree with the sentiment in theory, but voting with your feet is not as easy as you make it sound.

The extremely large company where I work just fired, well, had a layoff of one, of a guy whose next prospective employer's HR department called to check references. Last I heard, this guy has been unjustly tagged as a malcontent by the boss, and he has not found a new job. HR is giving a very dour and tight-lipped "name and dates of employment only" response that, while skirting the law, makes it very clear the company considers him a horrible employee. It's a small industry, and looking around carries the risk of getting prematurely helped out the door. It can absolutely be done, but the risk is not zero.

Secondly, health insurance. One of the guys I work with has a chronic health problem with one of his kids. Every time he changes jobs, he gets to start the fight anew to get the kid's medical issues covered. It is not trivial, it frequently gets right up to the lawyers, and each time his kid's medical care is interupted, there's a small but real risk that his child could actually die.

Employment has so much "friction" it might as well be considered a market failure. If McDonald's screws you over, Burger King is across the street. If your employer screw you over -- and unjust poor references seem to be the weapon of choice -- then an uphill legal battle lasting years and costing up to hundreds of thousands of dollars might be your only rememdy.

Don't kid yourself. "Voting with your feet" isn't nearly as safe and effective as we would like it to be, or as it should be.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[Baby Duck]

HR is giving a very dour and tight-lipped "name and dates of employment only" response that, while skirting the law, makes it very clear the company considers him a horrible employee.

Not necessarily. Some HR departments enforce this policy across ALL its former employees, on principle. If they respond "he's a malcontent," then the ex-employee might sue. It's not skirting the law. It's proofing yourself to lawsuit. If the same HR department showered some employees with glowing praise and was neutral for others, then we'd have a problem.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[BlackSnake112]

Remember it that how you say something can be more important then what is said. Someone from HR or the prior boss may say nothing negative at all. How they say it can infer negative things. I have seen and heard this often.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If the same HR department showered some employees with glowing praise and was neutral for others, then we'd have a problem.

That's germany; it's illegal to badmouth, so neutral to positive commentary = bad, while obsequious praise = good.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[gknoy]

From what I read, he said that now that he's left three employers, he is unable to get a job with a new one. In the meantime everyone admonishes him to get a job, which he is already trying to do. "Get a job" isn't really helpful advice if one can't get one.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

In his journals (which he deletes and re-posts to remove comments he doesn't agree with), he's been asked why he doesn't get a job at McDonalds or something temporary. Basically, if it's not served on a silver platter, that he can also keep, he isn't taking it. He's chosen to be homeless but tries to convince himself and others that he was forced into his current situation.

Re:Agreed, but two problems...

[nahdude812]

It sounds like you could target your coworkers by calling your HR department and asking for a reference for them (or getting a friend to do it so it's not your voice).

Also, most legitimate companies understand that people are often looking for a job while they still have one, and their previous employer doesn't know about it. Usually they will ask if they can call the previous employer for a reference before they do so (and especially if it says "2003-Present" would never make the assumption they could just call).

Also, many companies would take receiving such a call as a sign that this employee is unhappy, and open negotiations with him/her. It is always expensive to hire a replacement for essential employees since the new employee will take a while to be as productive as the old employee. That wouldn't happen if the person hasn't done anything to distinguish themselves, or if the company was already dissatisfied with their performance.

If the company he inquiring with called without consulting him, that sucks, but that's the exception not the rule, and I'm not convinced people should avoid looking on that chance. If someone is worried the same thing would happen to them, then withhold the name of your current employer (put Confidential, available on request in the employer name). That's fairly common, especially with resumes put on job boards - who knows if someone in HR is searching for their company name in job boards. If and when that information is requested of you, you have the ability to caution the prospective new employer that they should not call your current employer for a reference, and explain the reasons.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[viking099]

I used to work for a State government, and I hadn't seen a bona fide raise since around 2003. The only pay bumps I got were when I changes jobs, the last of which was in 2006. My pay was actually negative because the money I might have gotten as a raise went instead to health insurance. If it weren't for my outside consulting gigs, I would be in some serious financial trouble.

I finally jumped ship into the private sector a few months back, so we'll see how it goes.

I want to fully be back in IT

[StarTux]

Hardly just pay, my current job is too easy, and the rules concerning personal life is far too strict, plus my boss only has a GED while I have some college. Yes, this doesn't work at all...I'd take less money to get out. I wish everyone luck as always, only had one interview in the past 3 months.

Would I jump ship? A different job usually ends up sending you down the wrong path and then you will want to switch back as you realize the grass may look greener, but thats because it has many bare spots hidden by the fence.

Re:I want to fully be back in IT

[Vegeta99]

Only a GED? Buddy, it's the same as a high school diploma now. I dropped out of high school and got my GED. I was accepted to Penn State and earned two degrees there, working on a JD now.

Don't knock the GED as some lowly thing - on the educational credential scale, you and your boss are on the same level. =)

This isn't just IT...

[HockeyPuck]

My wife is a nurse with 25years of experience. The local colleges crank out nurses at an alarming rate, all with no experience and willing to work for peanuts. The hospital knows this, and this is why my wife has to work on Xmas and New Years.

Re:This isn't just IT...

[AuMatar]

Your wife is a nurse. People don't stop being sick because it's a holiday- someone has to run the hospital and take care of them. Which means it will be your wife some percentage of the time. That would be true even if every nursing school in the country had closed 10 years ago.

Companies are dumb

[tompaulco]

For as long as I have been in the market, the company you are at will not give you a significant pay raise. They may give you 3 or 4%, but to get a significant pay raise, you have to go to another company. Then your company will have to hire somebody else (at much more than your current salary, else why would they leave wherever they are now?), and then spend a lot of money to train them. Instead of paying another $10 grand a year on someone who knows their system, they now have to spend another $20 grand plus another $10 grand in one time cost to train someone who is not familiar with the system.

Re:Companies are dumb

[Beerdood]

They may give you 3 or 4%, but to get a significant pay raise, you have to request a larger raise or go to another company

Fixed that for ya. You're right in the sense that a company you're with won't suddenly give you a large raise - why would they? Unless you're being offered a promotion, your salary probably won't increase by much unless you specifically ask for it. If you're good at your job then the company may be willing to pay you a lot more - especially if your IT position is highly specialized (knowing some more obscure software or development platform etc..) The cost of hiring a new employee and training them up to your speed may be more than giving you a more significant increase so they'll bite. I managed to negotiate a 30% raise based on past accomplishments (and the fact that it would take a lot of training and knowledge to know the ins and outs of our software). You gotta ask for that raise, that company isn't going to give you more just because you're doing a good job.

Re:Companies are dumb

[DaMattster]

+1

Re:Six months?

[lgw]

Your salary is positive? In my day, we'd get up 2 hours before we went to bed, pay tuppence a week for the priveledge of working at the mines, and when we came home our fathers would kill us and dance upon our graves.

Re:Jump? No better word?

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

Oh if only it were so easy. *sigh*

80% of employees are useless drones

[Overzeetop]

I say this after being on both sides of the table. Most people out there are bordering on a waste of oxygen - taking valuable time from the useful ones to solve inane problems. About 10% of workers are truly talented, and can solve problems independently - those are the guys you want. The next 10-15% are good - not really independent problem solvers, but reliable and honest, and would prefer a productive work day to being bored 'cause there isn't enough to keep them busy. Everybody else is just killing time for their meal ticket. An, honestly, I was a combination of the first and last groups for a lot of years. I sure as hell wouldn't have given my former self a raise of any significance. In the past three years I've been asked by several people to join their staff or lead a new department - but I've also got 8 years of running a very successful firm (~30-40% growth every year for 7 years, we'll probably drop back to about 20-25% year with the recession).

If you're not getting a raise, one of three things is happening:

1) the company really is on hard times - they're keeping you, perhaps at a loss, because you're valuable.
2) you're boss is not giving you credit for what you do, or nobody with decision authority sees your brilliance and work ethic.
3) you're in the 75-80% of people who really aren't that good.

If you're in the rare #2 slot (I'm going to put that at less than 1%; good odds are that you're really a #3), I feel for you, and you definitely need to find another job. If you're #1, you have to decide if it's worth bailing on the company who is keeping you employed. If you're #3, good luck. You'll always be disappointed.

Re:80% of employees are useless drones

[DigiShaman]

I'm at #1. I get paid fair according to my skills and the average employment statistics. Not bad, not good either.

I'm staying for two reasons. 1. I don't want to rock the boat in this climate, besides I've been with the company a long time. 2. I'm in the process of advancing my career to the next level. Gaining experience now is valuable for future advancement and negotiation of a pay raise.

Re:80% of employees are useless drones

[El Rey]

I've seen a lot of, "You're very good, get excellent reviews (i.e. you get credit), but the executives make more money if they offshore the jobs and those folks are good enough, so there's no point in giving you a raise. If you leave we'll just hire more overseas."

Re:80% of employees are useless drones

[p8nt]

I say this after being on both sides of the table. Most people out there are bordering on a waste of oxygen - taking valuable time from the useful ones to solve inane problems. About 10% of workers are truly talented, and can solve problems independently - those are the guys you want. The next 10-15% are good - not really independent problem solvers, but reliable and honest, and would prefer a productive work day to being bored 'cause there isn't enough to keep them busy. Everybody else is just killing time for their meal ticket. An, honestly, I was a combination of the first and last groups for a lot of years. I sure as hell wouldn't have given my former self a raise of any significance. In the past three years I've been asked by several people to join their staff or lead a new department - but I've also got 8 years of running a very successful firm (~30-40% growth every year for 7 years, we'll probably drop back to about 20-25% year with the recession).

If you're not getting a raise, one of three things is happening:

1) the company really is on hard times - they're keeping you, perhaps at a loss, because you're valuable. 2) you're boss is not giving you credit for what you do, or nobody with decision authority sees your brilliance and work ethic. 3) you're in the 75-80% of people who really aren't that good.

If you're in the rare #2 slot (I'm going to put that at less than 1%; good odds are that you're really a #3), I feel for you, and you definitely need to find another job. If you're #1, you have to decide if it's worth bailing on the company who is keeping you employed. If you're #3, good luck. You'll always be disappointed.

I think you forgot #4... -Your company is doing ok and wants to stay high on the hog. Im going on 3 years with no raise. Had to take a pay/benefit cut 2 years ago when we really were not doing that bad. We get emails every week about how good we are doing and how our customer loves us, but nothing at the end of the year. Oh, we might get a pizza party... fuck that. I know my boss and the customer that i support loves me and the team I'm on. We have gone through hell for them and always come out like white knights. Yet, we get nothing, and we are told to like it.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[antdude]

Over here and many other employers, it is years. It's rough right now. I'd rather be employed with pay and without raises than having no job.

...off bridge

[elrous0]

If it makes you feel any better, pretty much every profession is suffering now. IT may have been excluded from past recessions. But with the increases in outsourcing, it was only a matter of time before it got hit too.

Re:...off bridge

[DaMattster]

If it makes you feel any better, pretty much every profession is suffering now. IT may have been excluded from past recessions. But with the increases in outsourcing, it was only a matter of time before it got hit too.

I respectfully disagree. IT (or at least infrastructure IT) has always been the first to go during a layoff situation. The dot com bomb hurt us very badly.

That's me

[aardwolf64]

Yep... I got tired of being in a place that hasn't had raises in quite a while (since a few years before I came...) so I started applying everywhere. I ended up with an interview, and am expecting to hear if I got the job tomorrow. The cool part is the pay is likely a 20% raise over what I'm making now.

Although, I've also read that my generation tends to change jobs on average once every 2 years... so maybe it's just time.

Re:That's me

[DaMattster]

That is really the only way to get ahead outside of working for the Federal Government, keep changing jobs. If companies don't want to help you better yourself, by all means you should take the initiative. Loyalty and respect are a two way street, we are taught this by our parents from early childhood. Yet, somehow corporations believe they can treat you as an expendable commodity and demand your total respect and loyalty. The corporations have us so much in fear that they can be downright tyrants in a way we would never accept from our own government. If Senator Whomever were to pass a law threatening anyone who doesn't have an occupation with incarceration, we would be at his or her door with pitch forks and torches. We bow our heads and take it - the corporations successfully gamble on it.

Glass is half empty?

[lazlo]

So that means that 31% have received a pay raise in the last six months? I don't know about anyone else, but quite a few places that I've been do performance/salary reviews annually, so assuming (yes, it's a false assumption, but illustrative) that everyone gets an annual review, and half of everyone deserves a raise, then it looks like 12% more employees are getting raises than deserve them. If everyone in the 40th percentile of performance is getting a raise, that sounds sort of like good news... Especially with relatively low inflation (which I think we have now, purely looking at interest rates as an indicator... but don't take my word for it, I don't keep close track of these things.)

Flat pay isn't my concern.

[FriendlyPrimate]

I work for one of the large IT companies. Pay isn't my concern. I'm pretty happy with my salary.

My concern is job stability. They've been laying off people simply to prop up the stock price. Year after year, its round of layoff after round of layoffs despite near a record high stock price and record profits and revenue. We got rid of the low performers years ago, yet the layoffs keep on coming. They've even laid off distinguished engineers. That tells me that even if I perform so well in my job that I reach one of the highest levels for an engineer, even that's not going to keep me from being laid off. So what's the point? If I stay, I risk being laid off when I'm 50 when it's going to be even more difficult to find a job.

I'd be willing to take a $10k-$20k cut in salary for a more secure job...one that isn't going to lay me off unless it at least has good reason to.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[Reason58]

I'd be willing to take a $10k-$20k cut in salary for a more secure job...one that isn't going to lay me off unless it at least has good reason to.

Then best bet is to work for the federal government.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[toxonix]

Take a few of the C-level executives hostage and make the board pay out their salaries for a year to you as a ransom to an offshore account. Make your escape, move to a 'friendly' country (ever been to South Africa?) and enjoy your new life.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I work for the same organization as you. Tomorrow is my last day.

Nothing about that bump indicated to me that it would make me any more valuable to the organization. I was at 120% utilization last year, which meant that I worked an average of 48 hours per week on a billable project. My bill out rate was 2 times my internal cost. They gave me a 1% raise and told me I had to do the equivalent of 100 hours of paper work on my own time to justify why I should get a promotion.

Instead I took 3 hours to go through an interview at a competitor where I will get a 25% raise, up to a 30% bonus, AND overtime.

It began to seem to me that all the hoops to jump through for promotion that they'd implemented under the auspices of "best practice" were really just ways to keep you from getting a raise. This recession stuff isn't going to last forever and companies need to remember that it is far cheaper to retain good, ambitious employees than to hire replacements for the ones that leave.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[benjamindees]

Yeah, no one ever considers that Tournament Theory works in reverse too.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[DaMattster]

You have a legitimate concern. The unfortunate reality of today's economy is investor greed. How much money is enough? I think this will happen in many companies. Ultimately this is a very self destructive practice that results in low morale and even reputation damage. Blogging and epinion websites will quickly rack up negative opinions of some employers. Prospective employees might read these opinions and chose to to turn down the employment offer. It happened to me - I had the opportunity to work for the Vanguard Group. I am so glad I read about the work environment prior to accepting the job as it kept me from making a huge mistake. I turned down the employment offer.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[DigiShaman]

I'd be willing to take a $10k-$20k cut in salary for a more secure job.

Seriously, tell that to your boss. Tell him that you want to keep your job so much, you are willing to take a $15k drop in salary if that would help put you at the bottom of the list of people to layoff. Then, when the market improves and they start hiring again, you renegotiate your salary for a higher paycheck.

Never in my life had a thought about this. But sure why not? Less pay is better than zero pay. Especially true when there are people standing in soup lines.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[zippthorne]

I'd be willing to take a $10k-$20k cut in salary for a more secure job...one that isn't going to lay me off unless it at least has good reason to.

You're not. And you wouldn't be able to recognize it until after you put in a lifetime anyway. Better to sock that extra $10-$20k away until you've got a big enough buffer that you can weather through the storms. Better still to jump ship for an extra $10-20k on top of that and a slight improvement on the stability by finding a company that's not slowly riding its declining equity into the ground.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[antifoidulus]

Hah! Investor greed. Do you REALLY believe those executives when they say they are going to give the money back to the stockholders? Hint: CEO pay is growing 2x as fast as the S&P 500 and that ratio is only going to increase. Since Bush absolutely gutted the SEC and basically told CEOs that they can give themselves as much as they want without nary a concern for investors executive pay has skyrocketed without any increase in performance. When Obama suggested that *gasp* shareholders should have a say on CEO pay the Republicans screamed bloody murder. The modern American corporation exists solely for the benefit of the CEO and the board. Any money paid out to investors or employees is considered collateral damage that must be abided until the CEO can completely bankrupt the company then somehow make sure they get first in line to receive their severance from the liquidation. After the SEC announced that shareholders no longer have a say in CEO salary I sold all my US stocks and bought stocks in countries where they don't worship executives and it has paid off in droves!

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[J4]

Good luck with that. This is America, job security doesn't exist. Even tenure is no guarantee.

Re:Flat pay isn't my concern.

[Chowderbags]

Executives see senior level engineers getting several times the base pay of a fresh US graduate (and dozens of times what it costs to farm out work to Singapore) and assume that since they don't understand what engineers do they're completely replaceable like cogs. Never mind things like experience and a broad skill base.

Re:Good

[grepya]

dude... if you're envious of a $50K salary.... and you really are a college grad (with a relevant degree for IT work).... you're seriously, seriously underpaid. Move to another company NOW. And if there's not another good company in your geographic region... move to a bigger market (recent college grad... should be willing and happy to move).

If the same HR department showered some...

[jeko]

"If the same HR department showered some employees with glowing praise and was neutral for others, then we'd have a problem."

Which is pretty much the standard operating procedure these days.

"Hi, I'm from XYZ Inc, calling to check Bob's references..."

"Bob? *sigh* *grunt* Yeah, Bob. Bob used to work here for the past couple of years. That's all I'm going to tell you."

"Can you tell me if Bob was a good employee?"

"Bob used to work here. Now he doesn't. That's all I'm going to say. Understand?"

"Yes, yes I do."

And this is how Bob gets torpedoed, in a perfectly legal way...

Re:If the same HR department showered some...

[L4t3r4lu5]

This is becoming de facto in the UK. Companies being lambasted for giving poor references (Much more protection for employees over here than the US) are now refusing to state more than the dates that they were employed between and the job title. Like the parent said, it's lawsuit-proofing.

Re:If the same HR department showered some...

[tehcyder]

My experience is that most people get personal phone references now in the UK if they want anything meaningful, as it's effectively off the record if anyone comes back later to try and sue you.

The "Bob worked here from x date to y date" sort of responses from HR departments are only useful to check on blatant CV lies, for a reference from someone who actually worked with the candidate, use the phone.

Re:If the same HR department showered some...

[Shadow99_1]

This has actually become something of my issue for me... Both of my last former employers won't say anything except the dates I worked for them... Having heard what the conversation sounds like for former employees I'm not really surprised:

"Hello? Yes that person used to work for us. Give me a moment... They were here from July 200X to December 200X. I'm sorry, but we can't really say anymore about them other than dates worked. Yes. Ok, well have a nice day."

It's all neutral and monotone and says absolutely nothing worth knowing. Because it's company policy even my bosses who I worked for rather than HR can't say anything when used as a reference. One of my former bosses got in trouble for trying to give a good reference actually.

But to a new employer I may as well not list previous employment with either place. I have one reference even further back who will give me a real reference, but they were a client when I worked consulting and so don't have much weight with a company hiring me for a desk job.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[Sechr Nibw]

He deals with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. He has people skills; he is good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Wait, what?

[autophile]

"More than one third (36%) of the 343 respondents to a recent poll said they are looking to move to a new employer in the next six months." Why are they so certain that it will be different with any other employer?

Re:Wait, what?

[DaMattster]

When moving to a new employer when you are already employed, you are in the driver's seat. You can accept or reject offers as you see fit. My own company will hire external people and pay them more than promoting from inside. This practice is just plain bad, bad for moral and a bad business decision. From the standpoint of a bad business decision, you have a new employee that must get up to speed and learn the particulars of the company. By promoting from within and giving the same salary raise, you get someone already up to speed that can beging contributing from the very begining. Also, moral improves overall because employees see that they can really better themselves.

Re:Wait, what?

[einar2]

Every company I have worked for does hire internally. You can apply for any open position and they even consider internal movers first. Because of the network, the specific business experience etc.
My current employer even has a policy so that my line manager cannot stop me. In this fashion, they do not support bad line managers who fail to provide an interesting enough position for their employees (aka using resources efficiently).
I would be surprised if your company is different. Ask HR.

Re:Good

[mlts]

If you have been in IT a while, you learn things that you never thought of when starting off.

When you start in IT, you think on a tactical basis. You need a server up, so you reach for the RHEL media, install it, make sure RAID works, install all patches, set users, put the application on it and go to your next project.

As times go on, you start thinking on more than just that level. You learn to start thinking strategically. You know that the default filesystem may bring the box down, so you do a custom filesystem so if /var fills up, it won't cause things to grind to a screeching halt. Or, you figure out a standard imaging process so each box, be it Linux, Windows, Solaris, or what have you has patches, security profiles and other items that differ from company to company built in. As you gain experience, you don't just rush out and build an x86 box when you need another server. You install VMWare on the hardware and install the box in a VM. This way, when your boss decides to move to blade enclosures, it is a matter of just a move of some VMDK files as opposed to major brain surgery with a production application.

None of this stuff is immediately apparent when starting in IT. You learn from mistakes. You think a firmware upgrade of some disks can be done in 5 min + a reboot, only to find that it caused the machine to kernel panic on bootup, and have to back the changes off. Or you might have tested your disaster recovery plan with tons of restores... but forgot to back up the license keys for the backup server, and find that everything is ground to a halt with trying to get data pushed until the maker of the software ships new keys... and all the while the clock is ticking. You take the molly guard off the big red button to get enough clearance to get a server by... forget to put it back on, then some junior admin's derriere EPOs the data center.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[RajivSLK]

Interesting because there are basically 204 plus some odd working days in year. Less for the CEO because I'm sure he gets more vacation that you do to. So that means he makes just about your annual salary in per day.

If it makes you feel any better he is probably in a higher overall tax bracket than you...

do it people normally expect raises every 6 months

[Surt]

If they get the standard 1-year raise pattern instead, I'd expect 75% rather than 69%, so maybe this is a good industry to be in?
(Half of employees wouldn't have had their 1-year review within 6 months, and half would not have deserved a raise). There's been no COLI so there's no reason to expect COLA.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[MacGyver2210]

100% of statistics can be made to say anything you want 73% of the time.

Economic History supports the opposite conclusion

[TarPitt]

Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov published the results of their work in "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," which was featured in The Journal of Finance in October of 2003. The duo analyzed stock market returns using Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) indexes, including the value-weighted and equal-weighted portfolios. CRSP portfolios track the major market indexes and are created according to clear, unbiased, systematic processes. As such, they are widely used as a foundation for academic research.

Unlike most studies, which are based on total returns, Santa-Clara and Valkanov based their efforts on the average excess return of the indexes over the return of the three-month Treasury bill. The results were striking. When a Republican president held office, the value-weighted return delivered nearly a 2% premium over the T-bill. When a Democrat held office, the premium was nearly 11%. While the 9% difference clearly favors the Democrats, the results from the equal-weighted portfolio were even more telling, with a 16%+ result in favor of the Democrats.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/political-party-democrat-republican-stock-returns.asp

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[oldspewey]

A CEO deals with customers?

99% of managers can't tell the difference.

[HornWumpus]

Because they are useless drones themselves.

For a few years I worked for a small consultancy with a boss that could tell the difference.

It was bliss.

Eventually it grew to the point where he hired a 'professional HR department'.

Inside of two years I had a 'project manager' over me that couldn't find his butt in the dark if his fingers were flashlights.

I was gone a few years later (before it completely wrecked me mentally).

Good luck managing your growth. It sounds like you understand the importance of hiring well. Don't hire professional HR or you will be very sorry.

Re:99% of managers can't tell the difference.

[Late Adopter]

A professional HR department can suck out a lot of the tedium and paperwork, as long as it has a good director, and managers still have most of the input on hires/fires. Just like any service department (IT take note), don't let them call the shots.

Re:99% of managers can't tell the difference.

[HornWumpus]

They usually filter out the good prospects leaving only air thieves in the pool.

The theory as I understand it is you use professional HR to eliminate the bad candidates and have managers do the actual hiring.

In my experience a keyword matching resume scanner does a better job of filtering (not a very good one at that).

IMHO the only people that can reasonably spot the 10% 'good ones' described in the GGP post is another one of them.

'Professional HR' can't even separate out the net negative producers.

Most good hires come in the side door (via contacts) once HR has its hooks into a place.

That said hiring is _the_ most important role for management.

They have no one to blame but themselves if they pass it off onto a lackey.

That applies to my former boss Mark as well.

In hindsight it was apparent he didn't care if the company went dysfunctional.

At the point he let things go bad he decided to grow it fast and sell before it imploded.

He laughed all the way to the bank.

The purchasers, not so much laughter.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[blair1q]

Really? When was the last time you called a company that has engineers on the payroll and got the CEO?

He farms the customer service out to Bangladesh and pockets the money he saves on that. Then he keeps Engineer pay flat while turnover continues to lower average salary, pocketing the money he saves on that, even while introducing new products the Engineers developed, which improves his bottom line, and he pockets a fat bonus that's negotiated into his contract because of that.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[blair1q]

Yes, generally in the same way he deals with employees: by telling them a big lie that makes them think they're the ones getting the deal.

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[Foxxxy]

They chose the perfect time to do the survey, most companies I have ever known someone at would do it in Dec/Jan for Calendar year, Mar/Apr if their fiscal year ended then, or Oct/Nov if their fiscal year ended then. So in my view it is an expected 66% NO. I hate it when information like this flows around. 100% of people agree**

** - Survey of 10000 people with 1 respondant

People have to understand economics

[Anonymous Coward]

We are in a global economy now, and companies that provide products and services in "low cost" countries cannot compete if they make their products and services in "high cost" countries. It's as simple as that.

I cannot stay in business selling widgets if I'm paying people $8/hr to make them and selling them to people who make $0.25/hr.

I similarly cannot afford to compete with my competitors if they are having their remote server maintenance done by people making $0.25/hr when I am paying my people $8/hr.

So, natural market forces must be allowed to prevail.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[h4rr4r]

In what company does the CEO ever deal with customers?

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[IICV]

Oh god yes. I'm taking a stats course, and the professor was talking about the motivation behind transforming data sets - namely, that you'll frequently apply functions to charts so that they look like simpler random variables. He offhandedly gave the example that you'll often graph salaries on a log scale because that makes them look more like a normal distribution. What the fuck? Since when was it at all reasonable for the upper end of the salary scale to be two or three orders of magnitude higher than the middle?

I've got you beat...

[Anonymous Coward]

My company was bought by HP.

Re:Jump? No better word?

[Tablizer]

It is: yard pruner

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[Surt]

Well, except for the tax havens he uses to hide his income from the government.

How does this compare to other fields?

[Beerdood]

You know there was a recession in the last couple of years - could it be that employees in most or all industries have received little or no pay raise in the last couple of years? Wouldn't all industries have a similar issue?

Re:Raise in the past 6 months? Try year.

[Threni]

A single source? What would that prove?

It's self evident. Suppose you go and demonstrate that "most" employers either do pay adjustments at other intervals, or not at all?

There are jobs out there.

[FatSean]

Go get one.

Flat salary?

[toxonix]

I looked at my social security statement and found that I actually was paid 10% less for the last two years. Nobody was really getting raises, and bonus payouts completely dried up. YET, they did manage to hire new executives, and hire them at higher pay rates than the previous ones. Go figure.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[TooMuchToDo]

If it makes you feel any better he is probably in a higher overall tax bracket than you...

At some of the lowest tax rates in US history. Feel better? I'm sure some folks are looking for pitch forks.

Re:Economic History supports the opposite conclusi

[j0nb0y]

There's not enough data for that to mean much of anything. Additionally, the Republican party radically changed their platform with the Reagan revolution in '80, so any data before that for Republicans is especially meaningless.

Also, http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/10/republicans-democrats-and-stock-market.html

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[frank_adrian314159]

He actually understands what the hell is going on (and what should be done about it). The increase of moral hazard of supporting bad creditors is much less bad than the economic certainty of a depressed economy for the next twenty years if nothing is done.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!

[russotto]

He actually understands what the hell is going on (and what should be done about it). The increase of moral hazard of supporting bad creditors is much less bad than the economic certainty of a depressed economy for the next twenty years if nothing is done.

Ignore the moral hazard, and you set the economy up for an ever-accelerating cycle of bubble and crash, which quickly ends in "crash". When people learn that working hard and living within one's just means greater taxation, whereas spending other people's money like a drunken sailor leads to debt forgiveness with no consequences, lots more people are going to opt for the latter course.

Re:Economic History supports the opposite conclusi

[StikyPad]

I think your sig's a letter.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[tenaciousj]

Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh

Go watch Office Space then come back and re-read his comment in proper context :)

Re:Good

[roman_mir]

So I see, may I ask if your plan includes a Glock and a single bullet or is it a bar of soap and a rope? Or do you prefer something more exotic, like self-immolation?

this is an exaggerated problem...on the other hand

[cyberidian]

Seems to me IT is the best career option available out there. It certainly has been for me. Maybe it's rough if you are newly graduated or if you don't keep your skills up, but I get recruiting calls every week and my employer has trouble finding people to hire with the right skill set. Personally, I am doing better than ever, but I do spend at least 5-10 hours per week of my own time keeping my IT skills strong. I definitely think it is my responsibility to make sure that happens - not my employers. I do think employers are using the economy as an excuse to keep wages low, but I really can't blame them. The US is a capitalistic country. Making a profit is actually a primary responsibility of any company and if they don't do that there are no jobs, let alone raises! My company did give out small cost of living raises, but they keep me dedicated to them with family friendly flex hours and telecommuting. At this point, I would need a very large raise to pull me away from my flexible schedule, although I will say that without it I would change employers within 3 months. To everyone that says their company isnt paying for training, I got mine to let me watch Microsoft Webcasts at the office and they provide all the training I need. MS has a ton of free training material free online so there is really no excuse for not training yourself.

Smart Emplyees

[b4upoo]

When a company puts a hold on raises it is a sign that the company may very well fail and it behooves employees to find a more stable position. At the very least it may indicate a desire at the top to take advantage of employees during hard times. Either way it is time to jump.

Possible Unions for IT

[DaMattster]

Having had some time to think about it, having a union for infrastructure employees in IT is not really a bad idea. If you think about it, in the airline industry, line maintenance personnel are union. Line maintenance, much like IT infrastructure, are critical to the success or failure of an operation. No mechanics means the planes don't fly and no infrastructure gurus means that networks do not operate. I could see a case for IT infrastructure employees; especially because software engineers are given a disporportionate amount of project credit and funds. All of the best code in the world is meaningless if the infrastructure to support it does not exist.

"able IT workers may leave for something better"

[wonkavader]

"May"?

Jumping for an Education

[Geccoman]

I'm currently looking to jump ship to work for an online university. There will be a pay cut, but I will get free tuition for me, and 80% discount for my spouse and children. Where I currently am, no one has gotten a raise in 3 years, and everyone I know is actively shopping the market for new work.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[kent_eh]

Interesting because there are basically 204 plus some odd working days in year. Less for the CEO because I'm sure he gets more vacation that you do to. So that means he makes just about your annual salary in per day.

If it makes you feel any better he is probably in a higher overall tax bracket than you...

Foolishly, I googled him.
According to Forbes, he's also on the board of his former employer.
Another 2* my salary per year.
*sigh*

Yea.

[endus]

Been lucky enough to be employed through the recession, but I haven't gotten a raise in the last TWO FUCKING YEARS and thats on top of my cheap ass company refusing to give me what would be considered an insulting raise at any for profit on a promotion to augment my piddly salary. Piddly salary isn't an exaggeration by the way...they've raised my pay 3 times now (well before the last two years) because they did a salary survey and figured out they weren't paying me enough. I could have told them that.

On top of it all the workload is getting insane and NOW they are talking layoffs, even as they bring on more affiliates. So...let me get this straight...you have money to buy hospitals, but the cost of supporting them is killing you leaving you with a budget shortfall which you have to make up by laying off the already overworked staff. Well that certainly sounds like a recipe for a successful IT organization.

IT is bullshit. Never work for a matrixed organization. If I get laid off Im getting out of this industry. Management uses the recession as an excuse to treat IT workers like dirt.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[turbidostato]

"In what company does the CEO ever deal with customers?"

I'd say most if not all of them.

It is not a matter if the CEO deals with customers but which customers the CEO deals with.

Re:No problem, we'll just ship more jobs overseas

[zippthorne]

Gah, she's running for office. She might get a position of power in the government.

She might get to help our economy the way she helped HP's bottom line!

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[drsmithy]

In what company does the CEO ever deal with customers?

All of them.

Now, he certainly doesn't deal with the kind of customer demographic *you* probably represent, but for those who individually make up whole- or double-digit percentages of revenue, you better believe they're getting a call - and quite possible an in-person visit - from the CEO (or someone similarly high up) every quarter or two.

Not to mention major shareholders if it's a public company, all of whom will get similarly personal contact.

can't find a job to begin with

[jsepeta]

I'm an IT pro with 20 years experience and there are NO IT jobs in my hometown. And since losing my job 2 months ago (which paid 40% less than the previous job), I look forward to finding an employer who respects my talents and background. But to do so will likely require moving to a larger metropolitan area where there's more competition for work and much higher living expenses.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[Hognoxious]

It's not so much the CEO pay that concerns me as it is the ratio to everyone else in the company

So you'd prefer to get 35k a year in a company where the CEO gets half a million rather than 150k at one where he gets four million?

yeah, yeah, fight the system, comrades

[einar2]

The semi communistic cliches handed around are really funny.
Think about it for a second. What would you do if you were the CIO of your company:

• Good employees are difficult to get. So, you would use reasonable effort to keep them.
• Very good employees are impossible to get. So, you would use reasonable effort to develop good employees into very good ones.
• You would only train/support the development of employees once they show themselves initiative. Pumping training money into static people is no receipt for success.
• You would not promote employees because they still do the same job. You promote employees because they do more (responsibility, scope, talent)
• Average employees and pure technology knowledge you can hire. Why would you increase the salary for such employees?

Some don't care

[meglon]

Some companies simply don't care anyway. I worked at hosting company in VA that would fire the techs who were being payed the most in order to hire college kids. The owners theory was.. the customer would eventually figure out what the problem was if they had a problem, and if not, then they were too much work (to costly) of a customer.

It ended up with basically no one in the place knowing jack shit about anything, other than how to install an OS (done through an installer program one of the real techs developed before he left), and get it onto the net (plug and play, plug and play). There was even one "tech" who's answer to any problem was a re-install... regardless of the problem (it was THE only thing he knew how to do). We're talking the level of knowledge where servers would be marked as needing repair or RMA'd when the only thing wrong with them is.. they weren't turned on... I shit you not.

In the Uk

[tehcyder]

Most people I know are happy just not to be taking pay cuts (4 day weeks or whatever).

Wealth is not money

[ChrisMaple]

Food stamps and other such "stimulus" temporarily increses money flow, but does not improve overall wellbeing. Food stamps make it possible to continue living without producing, to be a net drain on the economy. To make this perfectly clear, since leftists are logic and reality rejecters, consider a world where everyone got food stamps and $1000 a day from the government and nobody produced anything. What would the money and stamps buy, with no production? Poverty and starvation would be universal.

When you run out of victims, you die.

Re:Wealth is not money

[pixelpusher220]

Food stamps make it possible to continue living without producing

Thank you. A perfect representation of the GOP.

"If you're poor, you should just die and not inconvenience us"

How about Social Security? Medicare? those to make it possible to continue living without producing.

So much for helping your fellow man, huh? What about people who were made poor by the banks? they should just die because in a tough economy there aren't jobs to take in the short term?

So?

[Cyberax]

Also they were used to buy wooden arrows.

But so what? These expenses were trivial. And the bulk of spending was in the US and it was sorely needed.

Negative savings

[ChrisMaple]

The claim of reduced savings is based on the government using an obsolete measure of savings, the amount of money in bank and credit union accounts. It ignores investments in stocks and businesses. Likely savings has gone down, but gov't stats can't be used to prove it.

Re:Economic History supports the opposite conclusi

[ChrisMaple]

Excess return is irrelevant. What's important is the gain referred to a constant value, i.e. corrected for "inflation". Historical evidence shows no difference between democrats and republicans before the 2001 crash.

The T-bill is out of phase with the economy and the stock market. Low rates indicate either a stable money base and a moderate economy (late 1950s), or a government desperate to boost a cripled economy, loading up to create a huge devaluation not yet happening (now). On the other side, high rates indicate high ongoing inflation (1979-1980) or an attempt to reign in a bubble.

To some extent, trying to control the economy by changing treasury rates is like pushing on a rope.

Re:Good

[cheekyjohnson]

"You make more mistakes"

Some of them do, yes. Experience is not limited to age, but knowledge. Generally, however, that is true, but not because of their age.

Re:Good

[cheekyjohnson]

"dude... if you're envious of a $50K salary"

I'm envious of a $50,000 salary because I used to watch people who lived on less than $20,000.

Re:Good

[Anarke_Incarnate]

I meant it only due to a correlation of willingness without experience. Sometimes, the rush and do attitude is a bad one.

Re:They don't seem to have a problem with CEO pay

[jahudabudy]

Possibly, if this held true across the board in companies. I haven't done the math (not even sure I could), but it seems possible to me that my standard of living would go up in this scenario. If our society doesn't have to support the upper echelon at such great heights, that wealth doesn't just disappear, it goes back into the system somehow. If McDonalds doesn't have to pay quite as outrageous executive compensation, maybe my cheeseburgers become cheaper.