Slashdot Mirror
Google Chairman on WhatsApp: $19 Bn For 50 People? Good For Them!
theodp writes "Speaking at an SXSW panel, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt emphasized that Google is 'very, very worried' about the class tensions that underlie recent Bay Area protests, where high-salaried techies have driven up rents. 'Ninety-nine percent of people have seen no economic improvement over the last decade,' he said, adding that 'the data suggest that the problem gets worse' and will become the 'number one issue in democracies around the world.' Schmidt's solution to this displacement? Foster conditions — e.g., better education, looser immigration laws, and deregulation in strictly-controlled areas like energy and telecommunications — that encourage the creation of fast-growing startups ('gazelles') that generate lots of jobs. When interviewer Steven Levy noted 'gazelles' like the 50-employee WhatsApp which was acquired by Facebook for a reported $19 billion seem to lead to more inequality, Schmidt brushed aside the apparent contradiction. 'Let us celebrate capitalism,' the tax-us-if-you-can Schmidt said, opening his arms. '$19 billion for 50 people? Good for them.' Eric, meet Tom."
Their solutions are not focused on getting higher paying jobs for the "99%." They are focused on lowering the amount they have to pay for their own talent.
Any time a company starts talking about deregulation and loosening immigration laws, it's french for "make our labor cheaper."
It's well-established by now that one of the most significant factors in destroying the lives of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers across the country has been the influx of similar immigrants from around the world.
Bullshit it's "well-established". What you are talking about is essentially a subsidy to labor by limiting the size of the labor pool. Limit supply and prices for the labor and every product that labor produces has to rise. Make labor cost more and you will pay more for the results of that labor. What you are forgetting is that we are in a GLOBAL economy. There are very few unskilled jobs that cannot be done elsewhere. Limit the supply of labor in the domestic market and much of that production will migrate elsewhere. If labor costs are too high relative to those available elsewhere then labor-intensive work will migrate to areas with lower labor costs like osmosis. Try to stop it and you will only drive prices higher and hurt the economy in the long run.
Here's how you enact a sensible immigration policy. You crack down on the employers of illegals such that no one will hire them.
You think that is the basis for a "sensible" immigration policy? You think a police state is somehow a good thing? It's unenforceable at any reasonable economic or humanitarian cost. It drives up costs making it harder to compete globally. Furthermore it doesn't address why they are coming into the country in the first place. They come because there is work available. What you should worry about is not whether people are coming into the US illegally. What you should worry about is if they STOP coming to the US because that means there are some serious economic problems.
hen, you only allow immigrants with provable skills to immigrate as singles or with their immediate family if they're married with children.
How does this work with unskilled workers? You think those crops are going to pick themselves? There is lots of vital work that does not depend on skilled labor. Furthermore if a family wants to migrate to the US then that is not a bad thing. Who the hell are you to tell them they cannot come?
That's just a recipe for waking up one day and finding a large ethnic enclave in an American city
Oh so it's really about race. I get it. You don't want those brown people who don't speak English immigrating to the US. Never mind that your ancestors were immigrants too and probably came here illegally as well and probably lived in "a large ethnic enclave in an American city". It's not as if we asked the Native American population if it was ok if we moved in.