it's not exactly straightforward to get your green card. There are background and medical checks, as well as pretty long waiting periods due to H-1B quotas and other administrative delays. It's much harder for friends of mine from India with *only* a Master's degree, who have to wait for something like 15 YEARS before they're able to get a green card. The uncertainty this breeds can be a real hardship, and I think it's unnecessarily cruel to ask good people who contribute more than they're paid to have to endure anything more than a few years of probation.
Yeah, people who don't have experience with the bureaucracy don't appreciate the PITA it is. They only see current green card and visa holders in their workplace, and assume it was a piece of cake. Selection bias.
When I worked at a startup, we had a solid candidate that we just couldn't hire because we didn't have the resources available to handle the immigration obstacle course. Though he was the best fit, we'd have to hire additional resource just to hire the guy we wanted for the position, not to mention the delay in getting the position filled. Our money and people resources were tight, and unfortunately, we had to fill the position with someone less-qualified, but legal to work.
This is what happens when producers (the drivers) can't freely set their own prices.
If the drivers are really independent contractors (as Uber claims they are) then they should be free to set their own rates. Staying off the road and waiting for surge pricing is just a clumsy way to get around a missing feature in the app. The result is not really great for anyone.... even the drivers, since they potentially will end up with less total profit in exchange for higher marginal profit.
So Foxconn clearly doesn't NEED to build a plant in Wisconsin. They're doing fine with what they have, and presumably they could've built this plant in China where wages are lower.
You could say the same about foreign automakers.... yet Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, etc. all have plants in the US.
Politics is always a consideration. But as with most business decisions, there are multiple benefits to consider. As automation improves, labor cost becomes less important. And as screens get larger, they become harder to ship. The panel and coverglass are the largest components. So I would expect Foxconn to import electronics from Asia and assemble panels in the US, using coverglass produced stateside by Corning, which is the leading supplier. And finally plastics: polyolefins from MTO in China is 5x the supply cost of polyolefins from ethane in the US. With half dozen world-scale plants coming online in the US in the next few years, plastics supply cost will be relatively cheap in the US.
So yeah, political reasons might have kicked it over the edge, but there are other considerations at play before a company invests billions of dollars.
Today, we've entered this weird alternate reality where employers do things like figure out a way to work without a human in the position, kill the project, claim that their aren't enough qualified people....
An employer needs something to get done. They have budget $x. If no one qualified is willing to accept that, of course they will look at alternatives.
Today is not some "alternate reality". Adept employers have always looked for alternatives. Why raise the wage of a courier if you can just outsource shipping to FedEx? Plenty of small companies outsource their payroll, accounting, and tax prep instead of hiring someone, since they probably wouldn't be able to offer a compelling wage rate. The optimal solution often is to outsource.
Likewise, some projects do need to be killed. If the costs (including people) aren't sufficiently lower than the benefit, maybe the project should be killed. At some point, paying an increasing wage to someone knowledgeable in an obscure programming language will cost more than rewriting the whole thing. The solution is not to increase the guru's wage, but to seek an alternative plan.
The only number that really matters is the number of people who would work if they could find a job.
What "matters" is highly subjective.
That definition might sound good to you, but what matters depends on the goal. If the government's goal is to maximize production, then a much broader definition would be desired, so it would include schoolkids and grannies. If the goal is high productivity per worker, then the "discouraged" job seekers are undesirable to add to the unemployment stat.
Kinda like how "sunset" has a handful of different meanings, depending on what you want.
A much better indicator is had by random sampling, such as the Gallup poll, which tracks both employment and "underemployment". Here, underemployment is "people employed under 30 hours a week, but want to work more"
It's not unequivocally better. Unemployment is a statistics are reported to be useful in policy making. Government can make policy to assist in people who want jobs to get employed, so they get get off of welfare. Broadening the focus to also assist people who are underemployed will affect the types policies enacted. It gets a whole lot fuzzier then.
Why is 30 hours the line? I'm awake 112 hours per week, but only work 40... therefore, I'm underemployed by 72 hours. Why do I not count as "unemployed"?
The common definition of "unemployed" is "not employed". The first online dictionary entry that google returned says "person without a paid job but available to work." Neither one includes any mention of "retired" or "wants to work".
The "weird ideology" here is called "the English language".
It's possible for the same word to have a different definition in different fields of study. Jargon overrides layman's English terms all the time. Consider reading a physics paper and just assuming that all the words you see fit the common definitions (quark is a cheese, right?). That would be incorrect.
There is no incentive to figure out meaningful shelf lives of drugs because the manufactures can, and would prefer to, make more.
There can be incentive: competition. If an EpiPen alternative lasts 3 years instead of 18 months, lots of people will switch away from the EpiPen.
It won't be the case for all meds, but most common ailments have attracted more than one manufacturer, since the market is big enough. Where you will hit a problem is with smaller markets, where there is one manufacturer. In those cases, extending expiration dates could even be detrimental... if it's a small-time drug maker that depends on a certain volume of sales to keep the production line running.
Your simple plan is dependent on having above average salary, not getting sick and no close family member getting sick. Low salary forces you into simple life and you still wont save all that much. It is kinda hard when cheap rent in bad district eats all money you earn. It is hard to concentrate on happiness when you drive almost hour and half each day to get home after long hours.
The plan you're criticizing depends upon saving a percentage of income. It doesn't require an above-average salary. If you save 10% of income, you're buying a year of spending every 9 years (assuming 0% inflation and 0% rate of return). If you save 25%, you're buying 1 year of spending every 3 years. Percentages don't care if you're bringing in $100k or $50k.
Savings rate is the most important number. A lot of people chase the income number, not accounting for the cost of attaining that income. This includes commute time and stress, which translates into health cost.
Most middle class people won't retire in their 50s not because it's impossible, but because their savings rate is out-of-whack. If you optimize for Problem A, don't expect a solution to Problem B.
I've seen this story posted on environmental sites touting this as a success. But it's really just no coal on the island... when electricity imports should also be considered (there are interconnections between continental Europe, and also Ireland). And then there's the other big coal user: steel. A lot of British steel has left the island; it's just produced elsewhere and imported.
So good for British air-breathers, but it's not exactly green energy transformation as some may believe.
You seem to have never read a history book before.
History books tell us that:
- the US went from 90% agricultural employment to 1% - human diggers were replaced by steam shovels - hundreds of thousands of switchboard operators displaced by automated switching
In these cases, some people lost their jobs but the majority benefited greatly. Even the job-losers had a chance to replace their dreary work (let's be honest, if a robot can do your job, it probably isn't that stimulating) with something else.
Slashdot Mirror
About the only thing of value Oracle has after buying Sun is Java; $7.4 billion for a language they can't really monetize.
But they tried! Twice so far. They were seeking $9B from Google in that lawsuit.
If Comcast doesn't see the expected ROI, they shouldn't sign the contract with the state.
it's not exactly straightforward to get your green card. There are background and medical checks, as well as pretty long waiting periods due to H-1B quotas and other administrative delays. It's much harder for friends of mine from India with *only* a Master's degree, who have to wait for something like 15 YEARS before they're able to get a green card. The uncertainty this breeds can be a real hardship, and I think it's unnecessarily cruel to ask good people who contribute more than they're paid to have to endure anything more than a few years of probation.
Yeah, people who don't have experience with the bureaucracy don't appreciate the PITA it is. They only see current green card and visa holders in their workplace, and assume it was a piece of cake. Selection bias.
When I worked at a startup, we had a solid candidate that we just couldn't hire because we didn't have the resources available to handle the immigration obstacle course. Though he was the best fit, we'd have to hire additional resource just to hire the guy we wanted for the position, not to mention the delay in getting the position filled. Our money and people resources were tight, and unfortunately, we had to fill the position with someone less-qualified, but legal to work.
Yes, some businesses will have to pay more for their labor. However the benefits to the citizens will be immense.
Benefits like... having to pay more for product and services?
Labor is an input cost which affects the price consumers pay. Immigration restrictions are basically an implicit tax. No thanks.
Now maybe we will see some legitimate news and analysis about the health of the company.
Burning $1.16B, having $3B cash on-hand, and considering a debt offering is legitimate news about the health of the company.
Tesla does carry very real financial risk: they need to ramp up production higher than ever before, and they're running out of money to do it.
This is what happens when producers (the drivers) can't freely set their own prices.
If the drivers are really independent contractors (as Uber claims they are) then they should be free to set their own rates. Staying off the road and waiting for surge pricing is just a clumsy way to get around a missing feature in the app. The result is not really great for anyone.... even the drivers, since they potentially will end up with less total profit in exchange for higher marginal profit.
Really... why is a stagnant (or even shrinking!) population such a bad thing?
Because social programs like Social Security depend on it.
So Foxconn clearly doesn't NEED to build a plant in Wisconsin. They're doing fine with what they have, and presumably they could've built this plant in China where wages are lower.
You could say the same about foreign automakers.... yet Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, etc. all have plants in the US.
Politics is always a consideration. But as with most business decisions, there are multiple benefits to consider. As automation improves, labor cost becomes less important. And as screens get larger, they become harder to ship. The panel and coverglass are the largest components. So I would expect Foxconn to import electronics from Asia and assemble panels in the US, using coverglass produced stateside by Corning, which is the leading supplier. And finally plastics: polyolefins from MTO in China is 5x the supply cost of polyolefins from ethane in the US. With half dozen world-scale plants coming online in the US in the next few years, plastics supply cost will be relatively cheap in the US.
So yeah, political reasons might have kicked it over the edge, but there are other considerations at play before a company invests billions of dollars.
Today, we've entered this weird alternate reality where employers do things like figure out a way to work without a human in the position, kill the project, claim that their aren't enough qualified people....
An employer needs something to get done. They have budget $x. If no one qualified is willing to accept that, of course they will look at alternatives.
Today is not some "alternate reality". Adept employers have always looked for alternatives. Why raise the wage of a courier if you can just outsource shipping to FedEx? Plenty of small companies outsource their payroll, accounting, and tax prep instead of hiring someone, since they probably wouldn't be able to offer a compelling wage rate. The optimal solution often is to outsource.
Likewise, some projects do need to be killed. If the costs (including people) aren't sufficiently lower than the benefit, maybe the project should be killed. At some point, paying an increasing wage to someone knowledgeable in an obscure programming language will cost more than rewriting the whole thing. The solution is not to increase the guru's wage, but to seek an alternative plan.
The only number that really matters is the number of people who would work if they could find a job.
What "matters" is highly subjective.
That definition might sound good to you, but what matters depends on the goal. If the government's goal is to maximize production, then a much broader definition would be desired, so it would include schoolkids and grannies. If the goal is high productivity per worker, then the "discouraged" job seekers are undesirable to add to the unemployment stat.
Kinda like how "sunset" has a handful of different meanings, depending on what you want.
A much better indicator is had by random sampling, such as the Gallup poll, which tracks both employment and "underemployment". Here, underemployment is "people employed under 30 hours a week, but want to work more"
It's not unequivocally better. Unemployment is a statistics are reported to be useful in policy making. Government can make policy to assist in people who want jobs to get employed, so they get get off of welfare. Broadening the focus to also assist people who are underemployed will affect the types policies enacted. It gets a whole lot fuzzier then.
Why is 30 hours the line? I'm awake 112 hours per week, but only work 40... therefore, I'm underemployed by 72 hours. Why do I not count as "unemployed"?
The common definition of "unemployed" is "not employed". The first online dictionary entry that google returned says "person without a paid job but available to work." Neither one includes any mention of "retired" or "wants to work".
The "weird ideology" here is called "the English language".
It's possible for the same word to have a different definition in different fields of study. Jargon overrides layman's English terms all the time. Consider reading a physics paper and just assuming that all the words you see fit the common definitions (quark is a cheese, right?). That would be incorrect.
Isn't that the fault of the reporters then?
There is no incentive to figure out meaningful shelf lives of drugs because the manufactures can, and would prefer to, make more.
There can be incentive: competition. If an EpiPen alternative lasts 3 years instead of 18 months, lots of people will switch away from the EpiPen.
It won't be the case for all meds, but most common ailments have attracted more than one manufacturer, since the market is big enough. Where you will hit a problem is with smaller markets, where there is one manufacturer. In those cases, extending expiration dates could even be detrimental... if it's a small-time drug maker that depends on a certain volume of sales to keep the production line running.
I assume lots of people will switch to propane. No, they're not going to shiver.
Everything has social consequences
That's great if you have a hill to pump the water up to. Out here on the Great Plains we don't have many hills.
New plan: use excess electricity to power robots to make some hills. Then pump water up hills.
Every time, really? Are you subscribed to any science channels on YouTube?
Or maybe it's the other way around: when you come across talking about "women in science or technology", the speaker is a woman.
if I move to eastern Kentucky how much welfare can I expect to get?
That depends on what you're eligible for, and how efficient you are at converting non-monetary entitlements into cash:
https://theweek.com/articles/452321/appalachia-big-white-ghetto
Like when Obama expanded offshore drilling (before the Deepwater Horizon disaster):
http://www.politico.com/story/2010/03/obama-expands-offshore-drilling-035223
Mine also has one, labeled "privacy room". Fridge, sink, etc. Couple hundred people, men:woman ratio is 2:1.
Your simple plan is dependent on having above average salary, not getting sick and no close family member getting sick. Low salary forces you into simple life and you still wont save all that much. It is kinda hard when cheap rent in bad district eats all money you earn. It is hard to concentrate on happiness when you drive almost hour and half each day to get home after long hours.
The plan you're criticizing depends upon saving a percentage of income. It doesn't require an above-average salary. If you save 10% of income, you're buying a year of spending every 9 years (assuming 0% inflation and 0% rate of return). If you save 25%, you're buying 1 year of spending every 3 years. Percentages don't care if you're bringing in $100k or $50k.
Savings rate is the most important number. A lot of people chase the income number, not accounting for the cost of attaining that income. This includes commute time and stress, which translates into health cost.
Most middle class people won't retire in their 50s not because it's impossible, but because their savings rate is out-of-whack. If you optimize for Problem A, don't expect a solution to Problem B.
I've seen this story posted on environmental sites touting this as a success. But it's really just no coal on the island... when electricity imports should also be considered (there are interconnections between continental Europe, and also Ireland). And then there's the other big coal user: steel. A lot of British steel has left the island; it's just produced elsewhere and imported.
So good for British air-breathers, but it's not exactly green energy transformation as some may believe.
You seem to have never read a history book before.
History books tell us that:
- the US went from 90% agricultural employment to 1%
- human diggers were replaced by steam shovels
- hundreds of thousands of switchboard operators displaced by automated switching
In these cases, some people lost their jobs but the majority benefited greatly. Even the job-losers had a chance to replace their dreary work (let's be honest, if a robot can do your job, it probably isn't that stimulating) with something else.
Increased efficiency is a Good Thing.
You seem to be under the impression that people without jobs will never have jobs.