The problem with Pittsburgh is that it's Pittsburgh~
So don't go there. I assure you there are plenty of very talented software people who are fine with it.
It's only cheaper in housing, everything else is pretty much the same price or more expensive. So be careful of the CoL trap.
Housing half as much so I can make half is a fallacy.
Who said half the pay? I can assure you that CoL is lower Pittsburgh than SV, and it's not just housing. Not paying $1M for a 3-bedroom bungalow has a ripple effect. Restaurants, car repairs, medical care, etc., etc., etc. are all cheaper.
Regardless of our debate about CoL or your lack of desire to live there, the fact remains that you can hire the same quality of person for a lot less in Pittsburgh than in SV, or a much higher caliber of person for the same money.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me about SV is that, for a place where so many people claim to be cosmopolitan or even "global citizens", so many are actually incredibly insular and provincial.
True. Americans don't hate wealth - they hate getting screwed. Zuckerberg has $9.3B. Good for him, but does he have to be so greedy as to screw Americans so he can hire help for a few bucks less?
Nor does the "business exists solely to make a profit" justify it. Thanks to Facebook's dual-class stock structure, Zuckerberg has 57% of the voting rights even after the IPO. Nobody can question his decisions. The board can't threaten to get rid of him if they don't like this quarters earnings. So when he pushes this crap, it's purely of his own accord.
As a software engineer, I appreciate the scarcity that has caused salaries in the Bay Area to rise more quickly in the last couple of years. But as someone who has interviewed endless streams of unqualified people, the industry really does need a larger applicant pool.
Or to realize that there are many places in the US, outside of the Bay Area, where you can hire talented people. While none of them is as large of a concentration as the Bay Area, they usually have less turnover, a lower cost of living, and hence lower salaries. For example, one such place is called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (that's a state outside of California). Helpfully, one of the best computer science schools in the world is there.
other than the Bay Area, and that while no one of the
I thought the 5 year clock only started ticking after you got your green card. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but time on a student visa doesn't count towards it, and it sounds like she spent years as a student here.
The bigger question, which the OP left out (and which to my surprise I've seen no one ask yet) is what is here current visa type/situation? If she is still on a student visa, then she shouldn't be working here.
So let 'em. No secret that in other countries you can hire help even cheaper than guest workers in the US, so if cheap is all they care about, they won't hire in the US anyway. Obviously they want at least some of their people in the US. As for "paying taxes", what sort of a tradeoff is it to have a guest worker paying taxes while an American doesn't because he's unemployed?
As I know people on H1B can't be paid less than their US colleagues because you wouldn't be able to get H1B if they offer you smaller salary than average for this position.
We also have laws against banking fraud. What's your point?
But nowhere have you said their prices are higher. So maybe the washing machine made in China costs the same in the US and India, but in India the price of having somebody wash your clothes is very low. My point was not that the average Indian lives large, which is rather obviously untrue, but that low prices aren't the only factor in standard of living.
This has been rather long winded on both our parts, but my point is that advocates of so-called free trade, you included, talk about the importance of low prices but dismiss lost jobs as "only a handful". In the past 10-15 years in the US, it's become painfully obvious that that "handful" just keeps growing and growing, with no end in sight. First it was people who made clothes, and free traders said "low wage work - we'll find something better for them". Then the manufacturing jobs (many of which were traditionally well paid) disappeared, and the free traders said "phooey on manufactured goods - we're a knowledge economy". So some of the old factory hands learned computer programming. Oops, now those jobs are fast disappearing. Where does this end? Who cares if everything is cheap, if you don't have any money to buy it with. Hence my analogy to India.
Now put protective tariffs on the clothes washer.
Good idea, because we need them to compensate for our so-called free trade. The one where we drop our tariffs and other barriers, but China keeps many tariffs, and manufacturing subsidies, and both manipulates their currency and refuses to make it fully convertible (as they were supposed to do years ago under various trade agreements). Our current trade regime is anything but "free" trade. That's just a slogan for people who don't look at the details.
And for what? To save a few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a... washing machine factory?
A few thousand here, a few thousand there...
Large appliances used to be an area where the US was very competitive, even when things like our car industry weren't. But if the game is rigged, and a CEO of an "American" company like GE says that his strategy is "China, China, China, China, China" (yes, 5x) then you might as well just give up.
That's an interesting essay, and I did read the whole thing. However I hope you realize my point was that CEO pay is obviously not market driven, but under capitalist theory it should be. Hence anybody saying they believe in capitalism while claiming that our current system is capitalist, or trying to justify CEO pay on any other basis, is talking out of the wrong end of their body.
Your reference to "workers to help start new businesses or expand existing ones" sure sounds like a reserve to me. What of my counterargument that unemployment isn't necessary for the purposes you claimed it serves?
it's the natural churn of people moving around, which is the normal result of companies going bust, people getting bored, all sorts of things
There's always that, but your descriptions of the "typical unemployed" were either inaccurate, or too dismissive of serious problems.
The people in this category very rarely stay in there for long
You're living in the past. I gather from your spelling of "labour" that you're not an American, though it's hard to think of many places in good economic shape these days. I can tell you that in the US long term unemployment is a major problem, and it's not because most of these people are unemployable (unless you believe that millions of people who were highly employable a few years ago are suddenly incapable of working productively). As I said originally, any reasonably prudent person should be able to take a few months of unemployment, so high unemployment where everybody takes a turn in the barrel doesn't bother me as much as long term unemployment. In the US the ratio of current to past long term unemployment is much higher than current to past unemployment, given almost any definition of "past" between the Great Depression and a few years ago.
It's perfectly normal that not everyone capable of being employed is employed 100% of the time.
It's the "how much less than 100%" that's the big question. Even Alan Greenspan didn't claim to know (one of the few things I credit him for is admitting that). And even by your definition of full employment, we ain't there in the US, and many places are worse.
What's your point, that low prices by world standards don't translate to prosperity because of even lower incomes? That's the point I was making originally.
.5 to 1% are the long term unemployed (and usually unemployable)
Long term unemployment means at least six months. Very common these days, and the worst type. Anybody who has been reasonably prudent can take a few months out of work, but long term and most peoples finances go to hell. So I'd hardly dismiss long term unemployment.
If somebody is truly unemployable then they probably won't be considered unemployed, as you have to have worked at some point and be actively looking now to count as unemployed.
students and teachers working summer jobs
Why would somebody working a summer job be considered unemployed? Teachers usually go back to their regular jobs after the summer, and full time students are not considered unemployed when they return to school.
people between jobs
You mean people using the standard euphemism for being unemployed?
Much more than 96% employment is bad for an economy since there are no workers to help start new businesses or expand existing ones.
Ah, the "reserve labor force" fallacy. If the prospects are good then people leave existing jobs to start new businesses all the time - no unemployment necessary. Similarly existing businesses can hire currently employed people (unless you have a Silicon Valley "no poaching" agreement of course). Standard market theory says that those people will be hired by the firms for which they can add the greatest marginal productivity. All very efficient.
Whatever it takes to make him realize that feeding his children is _his_ problem.
Obviously anyone who complains that government policy has made it more difficult for him to earn a living is a whiner who should just suck it up, but if we throw trillions at irresponsible banks, or invade a country at the behest of Halliburton, it's a policy designed to improve the economy.
You prepared to pay $20/lb for lettuce? Because that is what it costs when it's picked by Americans.
So? Buy Mexican lettuce. It's amazing how the US is supposed to be a bastion of free trade (which does not require either labor or capital mobility) but when it comes to the possibility of farm land owners (oops, I meant farmers) losing out to foreign competition due to labor costs, people act like it's catastrophic. Apparently it's ok for manufacturing workers, engineers, programmers, etc. to loose their livelihood due to "free trade", but heaven forbid that should happen to our sacred farm land owners.
Who are "those guys"? You think that because social Darwinism was a trendy rationalization in the 19th century (even though it was expressly denounced by Darwin himself) that everybody was a social Darwinist? Go read some history books and get rid of your cartoon image of that era. The 19th century was filled with social reformers. Throughout the 19th century Parliament passed laws that limited child labor, improved working conditions, and so forth. Most Victorians thought of themselves as socially progressive because of this, and by the standards of the time they were right.
Why do the socialists
Socialists, where? Unless by the dreaded 'S' word you mean anyone who isn't a devout "free trader" or thinks that government policy should promote prosperity. By those standards Alexander Hamilton was a devout socialist. Who knew that old Al was a fellow traveler.
Why do they think people lined up for factory jobs if those jobs were so much worse than their lives on the farm?
In the UK it was mostly because those people's farmland had been stolen by enclosure. In the US it was mostly immigrants who forgot to bring their farmland with them, and didn't have enough pocket change to buy new land.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with Pittsburgh is that it's Pittsburgh~
So don't go there. I assure you there are plenty of very talented software people who are fine with it.
It's only cheaper in housing, everything else is pretty much the same price or more expensive. So be careful of the CoL trap. Housing half as much so I can make half is a fallacy.
Who said half the pay? I can assure you that CoL is lower Pittsburgh than SV, and it's not just housing. Not paying $1M for a 3-bedroom bungalow has a ripple effect. Restaurants, car repairs, medical care, etc., etc., etc. are all cheaper.
Regardless of our debate about CoL or your lack of desire to live there, the fact remains that you can hire the same quality of person for a lot less in Pittsburgh than in SV, or a much higher caliber of person for the same money.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me about SV is that, for a place where so many people claim to be cosmopolitan or even "global citizens", so many are actually incredibly insular and provincial.
True. Americans don't hate wealth - they hate getting screwed. Zuckerberg has $9.3B. Good for him, but does he have to be so greedy as to screw Americans so he can hire help for a few bucks less?
Nor does the "business exists solely to make a profit" justify it. Thanks to Facebook's dual-class stock structure, Zuckerberg has 57% of the voting rights even after the IPO. Nobody can question his decisions. The board can't threaten to get rid of him if they don't like this quarters earnings. So when he pushes this crap, it's purely of his own accord.
And it amazes me that in a country that claims so much meritocracy bases so much on where someone was born.
Guest workers are hired based on cost, not merit. For truly exceptional people there have always been visas like the 'O' series.
As a software engineer, I appreciate the scarcity that has caused salaries in the Bay Area to rise more quickly in the last couple of years. But as someone who has interviewed endless streams of unqualified people, the industry really does need a larger applicant pool.
Or to realize that there are many places in the US, outside of the Bay Area, where you can hire talented people. While none of them is as large of a concentration as the Bay Area, they usually have less turnover, a lower cost of living, and hence lower salaries. For example, one such place is called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (that's a state outside of California). Helpfully, one of the best computer science schools in the world is there. other than the Bay Area, and that while no one of the
It would be nice if these companies would be putting this time and effort into pushing for / funding more S.T.E.M. education in the US.
No good. Those damn American citizens, with their sense of entitlement, always complain about indentured servitude.
I thought the 5 year clock only started ticking after you got your green card. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but time on a student visa doesn't count towards it, and it sounds like she spent years as a student here.
The bigger question, which the OP left out (and which to my surprise I've seen no one ask yet) is what is here current visa type/situation? If she is still on a student visa, then she shouldn't be working here.
It's hardly surprising that most Americans aren't interested in STEM degrees
The trick is to find people who are smart enough to get a STEM degree, but stupid enough to think it's worth it.
They can get their slave anywhere in the world
So let 'em. No secret that in other countries you can hire help even cheaper than guest workers in the US, so if cheap is all they care about, they won't hire in the US anyway. Obviously they want at least some of their people in the US. As for "paying taxes", what sort of a tradeoff is it to have a guest worker paying taxes while an American doesn't because he's unemployed?
As I know people on H1B can't be paid less than their US colleagues because you wouldn't be able to get H1B if they offer you smaller salary than average for this position.
We also have laws against banking fraud. What's your point?
Indeed, some peons attitude towards this "protectionism" brings to mind an old term: useful idiots.
whenever you attempt to type a capital S it turns into a dollar sign
Have you no respect for tradition?
their prices aren't that low
But nowhere have you said their prices are higher. So maybe the washing machine made in China costs the same in the US and India, but in India the price of having somebody wash your clothes is very low. My point was not that the average Indian lives large, which is rather obviously untrue, but that low prices aren't the only factor in standard of living.
This has been rather long winded on both our parts, but my point is that advocates of so-called free trade, you included, talk about the importance of low prices but dismiss lost jobs as "only a handful". In the past 10-15 years in the US, it's become painfully obvious that that "handful" just keeps growing and growing, with no end in sight. First it was people who made clothes, and free traders said "low wage work - we'll find something better for them". Then the manufacturing jobs (many of which were traditionally well paid) disappeared, and the free traders said "phooey on manufactured goods - we're a knowledge economy". So some of the old factory hands learned computer programming. Oops, now those jobs are fast disappearing. Where does this end? Who cares if everything is cheap, if you don't have any money to buy it with. Hence my analogy to India.
Now put protective tariffs on the clothes washer.
Good idea, because we need them to compensate for our so-called free trade. The one where we drop our tariffs and other barriers, but China keeps many tariffs, and manufacturing subsidies, and both manipulates their currency and refuses to make it fully convertible (as they were supposed to do years ago under various trade agreements). Our current trade regime is anything but "free" trade. That's just a slogan for people who don't look at the details.
And for what? To save a few thousand uncompetitive jobs at a ... washing machine factory?
A few thousand here, a few thousand there ...
Large appliances used to be an area where the US was very competitive, even when things like our car industry weren't. But if the game is rigged, and a CEO of an "American" company like GE says that his strategy is "China, China, China, China, China" (yes, 5x) then you might as well just give up.
Hey, I like my '97 Saturn. I used to drive a Ferrari but my cousin liked it so much I gave it to him.
That's an interesting essay, and I did read the whole thing. However I hope you realize my point was that CEO pay is obviously not market driven, but under capitalist theory it should be. Hence anybody saying they believe in capitalism while claiming that our current system is capitalist, or trying to justify CEO pay on any other basis, is talking out of the wrong end of their body.
It's not a reserve labour force
Your reference to "workers to help start new businesses or expand existing ones" sure sounds like a reserve to me. What of my counterargument that unemployment isn't necessary for the purposes you claimed it serves?
it's the natural churn of people moving around, which is the normal result of companies going bust, people getting bored, all sorts of things
There's always that, but your descriptions of the "typical unemployed" were either inaccurate, or too dismissive of serious problems.
The people in this category very rarely stay in there for long
You're living in the past. I gather from your spelling of "labour" that you're not an American, though it's hard to think of many places in good economic shape these days. I can tell you that in the US long term unemployment is a major problem, and it's not because most of these people are unemployable (unless you believe that millions of people who were highly employable a few years ago are suddenly incapable of working productively). As I said originally, any reasonably prudent person should be able to take a few months of unemployment, so high unemployment where everybody takes a turn in the barrel doesn't bother me as much as long term unemployment. In the US the ratio of current to past long term unemployment is much higher than current to past unemployment, given almost any definition of "past" between the Great Depression and a few years ago.
It's perfectly normal that not everyone capable of being employed is employed 100% of the time.
It's the "how much less than 100%" that's the big question. Even Alan Greenspan didn't claim to know (one of the few things I credit him for is admitting that). And even by your definition of full employment, we ain't there in the US, and many places are worse.
Which explains the popularity of English cuisine.
What's your point, that low prices by world standards don't translate to prosperity because of even lower incomes? That's the point I was making originally.
.5 to 1% are the long term unemployed (and usually unemployable)
Long term unemployment means at least six months. Very common these days, and the worst type. Anybody who has been reasonably prudent can take a few months out of work, but long term and most peoples finances go to hell. So I'd hardly dismiss long term unemployment.
If somebody is truly unemployable then they probably won't be considered unemployed, as you have to have worked at some point and be actively looking now to count as unemployed.
students and teachers working summer jobs
Why would somebody working a summer job be considered unemployed? Teachers usually go back to their regular jobs after the summer, and full time students are not considered unemployed when they return to school.
people between jobs
You mean people using the standard euphemism for being unemployed?
Much more than 96% employment is bad for an economy since there are no workers to help start new businesses or expand existing ones.
Ah, the "reserve labor force" fallacy. If the prospects are good then people leave existing jobs to start new businesses all the time - no unemployment necessary. Similarly existing businesses can hire currently employed people (unless you have a Silicon Valley "no poaching" agreement of course). Standard market theory says that those people will be hired by the firms for which they can add the greatest marginal productivity. All very efficient.
So you mean just like the communist/socialist paradise where that happens right now?
Which communist/socialist paradise is that, comrade? You mean the one where they socialize the losses and privatize the profits?
Or are there no homeless in your city?
Sure there are, but some people don't think there are enough of them because it hasn't reached a "market equilibrium" or something.
Except for the labor, things are not generally cheaper in the third world.
So except for the thing that's responsible for most costs, things aren't cheaper.
Food and energy is either subject to global market forces
As are most natural resources. So part of the cost of things is the same as the US, and the rest of the cost (labor) is much cheaper.
Whatever it takes to make him realize that feeding his children is _his_ problem.
Obviously anyone who complains that government policy has made it more difficult for him to earn a living is a whiner who should just suck it up, but if we throw trillions at irresponsible banks, or invade a country at the behest of Halliburton, it's a policy designed to improve the economy.
You prepared to pay $20/lb for lettuce? Because that is what it costs when it's picked by Americans.
So? Buy Mexican lettuce. It's amazing how the US is supposed to be a bastion of free trade (which does not require either labor or capital mobility) but when it comes to the possibility of farm land owners (oops, I meant farmers) losing out to foreign competition due to labor costs, people act like it's catastrophic. Apparently it's ok for manufacturing workers, engineers, programmers, etc. to loose their livelihood due to "free trade", but heaven forbid that should happen to our sacred farm land owners.
Except that when those guys got into power
Who are "those guys"? You think that because social Darwinism was a trendy rationalization in the 19th century (even though it was expressly denounced by Darwin himself) that everybody was a social Darwinist? Go read some history books and get rid of your cartoon image of that era. The 19th century was filled with social reformers. Throughout the 19th century Parliament passed laws that limited child labor, improved working conditions, and so forth. Most Victorians thought of themselves as socially progressive because of this, and by the standards of the time they were right.
Why do the socialists
Socialists, where? Unless by the dreaded 'S' word you mean anyone who isn't a devout "free trader" or thinks that government policy should promote prosperity. By those standards Alexander Hamilton was a devout socialist. Who knew that old Al was a fellow traveler.
Why do they think people lined up for factory jobs if those jobs were so much worse than their lives on the farm?
In the UK it was mostly because those people's farmland had been stolen by enclosure. In the US it was mostly immigrants who forgot to bring their farmland with them, and didn't have enough pocket change to buy new land.
at the end of six months they have a barely functioning mess of spaghetti code that's basically worthless
So that's how Microsoft does it.
Yes I have, but the only response I got was "woof woof".