A Job Fair For Jobs In India — In California

dcblogs writes "Indian and U.S. companies are holding a job fair at the San Jose Convention Center this weekend for jobs in India. The job fair is aimed at Indian workers in the U.S., but anyone with an interest in working overseas can attend. India is pitched as a 'sea of opportunity' in a PowerPoint presentation about the job fair. That's in contrast to another slide that makes the obvious point that the U.S. has 'barely recovered from a downturn,' with 'signs that it's headed for another.'"

Comments

Recovered?

[fnj]

What the FUCK are people smoking when they say the US has "recovered" from its "downturn."

Re:Recovered?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "economy" will NEVER recover. It's simply too good an argument to keep wages down "because of the tough times and everybody has to sacrifice*".

*CEOs not included

Re:Recovered?

[Larryish]

"Sea of Opportunity"?

More like "Sea of Things I Don't Have Antibodies For".

Re:Recovered?

[bryan1945]

Need new terms for a lot of things. When unemployment goes up less than expected, that's an "improvement." When less people file for unemployment one month to the next, that's an "improvement." When cutting the *increase* of the budget, that's "saving money."
UGH.

Re:Recovered?

[chrb]

Did Obama ever actually claim "the economy has recovered"?

Anyway, it's all about how you define "recovered" - some economists argued that the economy had "recovered" once it showed 3 months of consecutive growth. See this businessinsider article for an example of that usage. The man on the street may well argue that "recovered" means the jobless % returns to previous levels, but others are arguing that may not happen at all in the "jobless recovery". So, by what metric is "recovered" measured? Profitability? Employment? CEO salaries? Salaries for everyone else? Economic growth? Consumption? House sales? The deficit? And over what time period is this metric to be measured?

Re:Recovered?

[overunderunderdone]

You're complaining that the definition of technical terms ("recession" and "recovery") having to do with one thing (economic growth) aren't a about another related thing (employment). There are already other terms that address the issue you think economists are missing (unemployment, underemployment, job growth etc.). And there's even qualifiers you might notice economists attach to terms like recovery, for instance "weak recovery" or "slow recovery" to describe exactly the situation we're in, a recovery that's too slow to add many of the lost jobs back.

An economy is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts. Dumbing down the vocabulary used to describe those parts to accommodate the ignorant it unlikely to help much. "Recovery" even qualified as "weak recovery" may sound too positive to people when it describes a situation with persistent high unemployment. On the other hand it's certainly more positive than the alternative.

Re:Recovered?

[jrminter]

It is technically true that the economy has recovered because the GDP measure is terribly flawed. it is defined as:

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)

Note that no distinction is made for government spending financed by tax revenue and that financed by borrowing. In his book, "Leverage" (p. 81), Karl Denninger has analyzed the official GDP data from the BEA GDP Series and debt from the Treasury's "Debt to the penny" source and has shown that when government deficit spending is removed from GDP, there has been essentially no growth in the past 30 years. This is why most of our wages have grown very slowly. The problem is that we have spent our way into a very deep hole that no matter what we do there will be a massive contraction in nominal GDP - a real depression. This is unavoidable. However, digging a deeper hole with with more debt will only make the eventual pain worse.

What we have here is an economy based on the foolish presumption that we can survive when our income and expenses are two diverging exponential functions. Our expenses have been growing much more rapidly than our income and it has all been financed with debt. This debt was used to fund immediate consumption, not to produce the means of generating more income. This is not sustainable for an individual family and is not sustainable for a nation. We now see both Greece and Italy on the verge of collapse. The US is just as vulnerable. The math says there is no doubt there will be a crash. It is only a matter of "when." We do not have the national political will to have an adult conversation about this and plan and carry out the triage approach to spending that will be required to turn this around. The best an individual can do is get out of personal debt and make preparations to survive a nasty situation.

Next

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian users complaining about the bad English of all those US based call centers.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I think you may be confused

[Sycraft-fu]

I've not heard anyone say the US has recovered, what I've heard is that the recession is over and that is correct. A recession is a period where the economy shrinks. The US economy is no long shrinking, and has not been for some time now. However it has not been growing fast at all, and it shrunk quite a bit during the last recession, meaning that the economy is still quite far off its peak.

So it is not "recovered" as in back to or above its pre peak level, but it is no longer in a recession, though there is worry it could fall in to another one.

Re:I think you may be confused

[Sycraft-fu]

If you think this is a great depression I suggest you go talk to someone who lived through the real great depression so they can slap you upside the head and explain to you the vast, vast, differences.

Oh and by your measure, there is still growth. The US has a very low population growth, as do most industrialized nations. It is higher than many other industrial nations (some of which have negative growth rates) but it still only 0.9% annually. In 2010, the GDP growth was 2.9%.

Re:I Work With Indian Talent

[msobkow]

Unfortunately my experience has been largely negative. It's clear that some of the so-called universities attended by Indian students are paper mills that don't do a decent job of educating them about programming.

There's also a cultural issue. For some reason, many of those I've worked with can't or won't search for internet howto's and help instructions on their own, though they'll follow those instructions if a senior developer sends them a link.

Obviously I've worked with a lot of good Indian developers as well, but there are clearly some cultural differences that can cause friction and frustration.

Wage War in India

[That_Dan_Guy]

You are more right than you know actually. I work for an Indian outsource company. I was outsourced 3+ years ago. I talk to a lot of the guys over there and from over there. These companies now pay their people the same to stay in India as to come to the US. They used to pay them a lot more to come here. But in the last year or more there has been a pretty major wage war as the different India tech companies pilfer talent from each other at an alarming rate. It has led to a lot of turnover.

But then, I've been approached by recruiters here who want to pay me more than I get now. They are just desperate to oversell my skills (fine, unless they oversell to the point the client thinks they're getting a triple CCIE when they're only getting a CCNP/MCSE), and I currently have the best schedule ever being able to work from home anytime I want. If only I didn't have kids I could be making 30% more than I am now.

So?

[Weezul]

We invented languages like PHP and VB because we need many poorly skilled developers for drudge work. If you don't do brain dead easy work, then don't hire people trained for brain dead easy development.

There are *many* shitty universities inside the U.S. too, heck fraudulent education is a growth industry. You'd never hire developers from University of Phoenix though, simply because you already know they suck. Did you ever try asking your skilled Indian colleges which Indian universities are actually good?

Re:Can you handle the truth?

[Pinky's Brain]

If the US is Marxist/Keyenesian then why hasn't the Gini coefficient gone down? Sweden and Denmark might be called a Marxist/Keynesian fusion, but most of the west is crony capitalist.

Re:Can you handle the truth?

[Pinky's Brain]

So if not the EPA who is going to regulate ... you can say they do more harm than good, but we have plenty of object lessons in third world countries of free market inspired environmental destruction to say that some government agency has to keep the externalities under control. Maybe market forces could be incorporated more, but someone still needs to make the regulations and police them.

A factory owner will never have a contract with every person on the planet breathing the air he pollutes, contract law can't solve everything ...

Re:Can you handle the truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the classic mo-Ron philosophy. Ron Paul has zero grasp of economics, much less foreign affairs.

Lets say he and the tea baggers win. He pulls the military off the South Korean DMZ, the Navy aircraft carrier groups mothballed, and out of Pacific waters. Great cost savings. Come a few days later, Kim has invaded Seoul. China still has a grudge against Japan so their carrier fleet now is menacing that country. Taiwan becomes red. Now the West is in deeper shit because 1/3 of the total manufacturing capacity we have is now controlled by hostile countries or destroyed.

Ron pulls out of the Middle East leaving any allies (Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia) to their own devices. Iran starts striking Tel Aviv with rockets, Israel retaliates with nukes, but gets overwhelmed by every country in the region swarming them. Countries friendly to the west or at least not hostile (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) now have a bloodthirsty mob. Now, nuclear terrorism is going to be a primary threat to the world as a region-wide caliphate expands to threaten Spain and western Europe.

Ron pulls funding from hospitals, Social Security, and Medicare. Now hospitals and charity organizations have to take care of the sick, and we are back to poorhouses that are like African AIDS clinics where a drink of water, much less an IV of useful medication is a rare thing.

Ron sells off government land. Great money maker. Now Yellowstone Park is a privately run resort, with multiple golf courses in between the geysers. The parts of the park that just have animals running around are turned into ranches and deer leases.

The land that isn't turned into resorts gets logged. Ron Paul has been an enemy of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the EPA in general. Can't have people living in a country without acid rain.

So, after a while, the US starts looking like a post apocalyptic hellscape, even though the economy went up for a bit. Any areas that had old growth forests are gone, other land becomes toxic waste pits due to strip mining and contaminated water tables. Classic farmland gets taken away from families and handed to big agribusiness. Soon, the US doesn't even have the ability to feed itself (think the Irish Potato Famine where there was plenty of food, but England took it all.)

Don't forget Ron Paul's stance on national security (or lack of one). Once his defunding policies take hold, the drug cartels wouldn't just be a border menace, but would be happy to set up shop in cities, just like the mafia did. I'm sure local businesses would love to be paying an additional protection payment to the Spanish speaking people with the teardrop tattoos in most US cities.

Wow, what a utopia! I wonder how many people would love to live in a place with no national parks, lead in the water, a nuclear threat from foreign combatants whom we have no intel on due to no troops in the area. Any useful resources (rare earths), we will have to beg a Chinese-Russian coalition for. Of course, national security will be shit because the Army doesn't have enough boots to keep order when some town gets nuked.

I sure want to raise my kids in a country where I have to pay for a symbol on my house so the FD would come, a transponder on my wrist so an ambulance would actually stop, and where I had to pay the police to investigate a crime a la Heavy Metal. Schools? Screw that. The kids can have the luxury of working on farms as migrant workers, mines, or spend their lives in jails if they can't get work. Keeping people in prison for life helps private corrections, so that is important for US business. Literacy? Being able to read a contract and refuse signing is anti-business. Have to stamp that out.

Ron Paul's version of the US is a country full of robber barons worse than Carnegie and Frick. At least they left concert halls and foundations behind. Modern day CEOs leave nothing behind.

Ron Paul appeals to those who have failed economics, civics, and government in high school. I have yet to see someone who has any form of formal education champion his crap.

Definitely Qualifies as The Great Depression Redux

[tomhudson]

First, Take out the REAL inflation numbers, and GDP was negative.

Second, the only reason that this depression isn't having the same "misery index" as the first one is because of the greater safety net, and because we caught a lucky break with the weather. Without unemployment insurance and welfare, and the dust-bowl conditions of the 30s, it would already be just as bad as the first one.

The "real" unemployment rate - when you take into account those who are heaping on debt by staying in school because they can't find a job, those who have given up, etc. (the U6 measure), and we're into the same range as the Great Depression. The real rate of unemployment in California, for example, is now 20%. Another 5% and it will be equal to the peak in 1933 ... and it's heading there, as cities and states struggle with their own ongoing debt crisis.

There's almost 50 million people on food stamps. And housing is now already officially worse than the great depression (and it's going to get wors)

It's official: The housing crisis that began in 2006 and has recently entered a double dip is now worse than the Great Depression.

Prices have fallen some 33 percent since the market began its collapse, greater than the 31 percent fall that began in the late 1920s and culminated in the early 1930s, according to Case-Shiller data.

Half of all homes now have a mortgage that makes them unsellable - if there is equity left, it's not sufficient to cover the additional costs of the sale (real estate commission fees, etc). Strategic default is a problem, but another problem is that, without jobs (or only part-time or low-paying jobs), even people whose mortgages are now "ok" are in trouble.

The fact is that any rise in GDP is not being seen by the workers, and hasn't been for more than a decade. Ask anyone who's had to take a major pay cut, or simply can't find a job because for every opening, there are 100 or 1,000 applicants.

Re:Can you handle the truth?

[roman_mir]

Yep, the classic mo-Ron philosophy. Ron Paul has zero grasp of economics, much less foreign affairs.

- yet he is the only person in gov't who understands enough of it to build up a portfolio, with minimum gains of 300% and maximum gains of 2000% based on his ... 'misunderstanding'?

He pulls the military off the South Korean DMZ, the Navy aircraft carrier groups mothballed, and out of Pacific waters. Great cost savings. Come a few days later, Kim has invaded Seoul.

- first of all, yes that's a real cost saving, because USA has no money.

Secondly, South Korea is plenty capable of protecting itself. In any case it's non of US's business.

China still has a grudge against Japan so their carrier fleet now is menacing that country.

- all that China needs to do in fact for US to stop its militarism is to stop funding it.

Seconly, Japan is plenty capable of protecting itself.
Thirdly, Chinese rather trade with Japan than fight a war.
Lastly, it's none of US's business.

Taiwan becomes red.

- right. Why don't you attack them preemptively? The failed Vietnam war shows just how misguided the approach of proliferating the 'righteousness' of US ideals is, and now USA is trading with Vietnam.

Now the West is in deeper shit because 1/3 of the total manufacturing capacity we have is now controlled by hostile countries or destroyed.

- maybe it's good for the West. It now will have a perfect reason not to pay the debts back and to re-invent its own productive capacity. There you go - instant jobs.

Ron pulls out of the Middle East leaving any allies (Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia) to their own devices.

- terrorist attacks against USA stop. USA stops funding people that caused 9/11 (with money stolen via inflation and borrowed from China). That's just terrible.

Iran starts striking Tel Aviv with rockets, Israel retaliates with nukes, but gets overwhelmed by every country in the region swarming them.

- Israel has over 300 nukes. USA has nukes as well, if anybody attacks Israel with nukes it will immediately destroy the opponent and I am sure that Ron Paul would go to CONGRESS and ask the AMERICAN PEOPLE if they are willing to DECLARE A WAR.

What a fucking amazing concept, Anonymous Coward, isn't it? Who are you, Dick Cheney? How is bloodsucking going for you, you heartless prick?

Countries friendly to the west or at least not hostile (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) now have a bloodthirsty mob.

- Way to mix Saudi Arabia and Turkey into one crowd of 'non-hostile' or 'friendly' countries.

Again, 9/11 was FUNDED by Saudis, you fucking shit.

Now, nuclear terrorism is going to be a primary threat to the world as a region-wide caliphate expands to threaten Spain and western Europe.

- no no, you are Bill O'Reilly, aren't you?

Ron pulls funding from hospitals, Social Security, and Medicare.

- unfortunately that's not his platform, so you are a lying (what else is new).

Now hospitals and charity organizations have to take care of the sick, and we are back to poorhouses that are like African AIDS clinics where a drink of water, much less an IV of useful medication is a rare thing.

- More Bill O'Reilly.

Ron sells off government land. Great money maker.

- BETTER than the status quo, where the coal and gas and oil are extracted from these lands without ANY payments of any royalties. That, of-course, and all the moral hazards of the government setting liability caps and limitations while sniffing crack off toaster ovens and fucking with the company's executives.

Now Yellowstone Park is a privately run re