Am I the only one who's annoyed by the twisted logic employed by the author? For example, in the quoted paragraph, he looks at the rising profits at the 7 biggest companies vs. the declining employment in THE WHOLE SANTA CLARA COUNTY. Why not look only the employment at the 7 companies? I'll bet you that it has been rising steadily as profits have been growing.
Also, there was the argument that startups being more careful with their money results in less employment. Give me a break. First of all, I doubt that new startups could more than make a dent in the overall employment stats. And by the way, how can companies being more efficient be bad for the economy? Remember, startups are more careful with their money because there is less money. And any extra capital will probably be used to fund other startups (if there are any new ideas around, of course).
Finally, the whole idea of comparing levels of empoyment against the boom years is just stupid. Of course, the NYT has become so politically correct that they'll avoid stating directly any truth that could potentially offend anyone. In this case the truth is that a big bulk of all those people who came to the valley during the peak years were simply underqualified. Every liberal arts graduate and their dog came to design web pages. Now that only the real engineering jobs have remained, a lot of those people are not qualified enough to fill them in. Many good companies (my employer included) have been hiring constantly during the last several years. The truth is that it's hard to find good people to hire. Of course, that's not a good politically correct story to print in the NYT. It's so much better to blame outsourcing and corporate greed than the simple scarcity of homegrown talent.
I participated in this contest twice, in '96 and '97. The first time, I was studying at a Bulgarian university (Sofia), and we scored 4th at the finals; MIT scored 5th. Two of us transfered to MIT that same year. Even though we had the skills to do well in such a contest (quick, efficient coding; algorithms knowledge; a little bit of teamwork), there's far more to computer science and engineering than that, and the rest is not taught in any Eastern European university.
And this is basically why programming contests are so hot in that part of the world. And why American students generally don't do well. It's all about the incentive! Kids in the US don't need to do it, and have little to gain. Whereas in Eastern Europe, it's the way to get some kind of recognition, and get on the fast track to a good education, a good job, etc. (Usually, involving immigrating, of course.)
Also, you should understand that these kids have been training for 5 years for such programming contests. Programming as a sport starts around 7 or 8th grade (IOI is the equivalent international contest for highschoolers), so by the time these kids get to college, they are highly experienced.
So, yeah, I expect the winners to apply to the best American universities and get in, of course. MIT and Stanford can only gain by losing in that competition.
It bothers you that American universities attract the best minds from all over the world and bring them to the US? 99% of those foreign students actually stay in the US, for good. For some it is the original goal, the rest just stay because they become overqualified for any job back where they came from.
Or maybe you have a problem with immigrants coming to the US? Somehow, I doubt your gradparents were from the Apache...
I just loved the irony in that article, even though it seems to have escaped the author himself.
The university teachers are leaving their jobs because of the meagre pay. Yet, at the same time they are on strike protesting the fee raises and the general "marketisation" of higher education !
Well, the money's gotta come from somewhere. I wonder if the economics professors are participating in the strike... That would be a double irony.
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Am I the only one who's annoyed by the twisted logic employed by the author? For example, in the quoted paragraph, he looks at the rising profits at the 7 biggest companies vs. the declining employment in THE WHOLE SANTA CLARA COUNTY. Why not look only the employment at the 7 companies? I'll bet you that it has been rising steadily as profits have been growing.
Also, there was the argument that startups being more careful with their money results in less employment. Give me a break. First of all, I doubt that new startups could more than make a dent in the overall employment stats. And by the way, how can companies being more efficient be bad for the economy? Remember, startups are more careful with their money because there is less money. And any extra capital will probably be used to fund other startups (if there are any new ideas around, of course).
Finally, the whole idea of comparing levels of empoyment against the boom years is just stupid. Of course, the NYT has become so politically correct that they'll avoid stating directly any truth that could potentially offend anyone. In this case the truth is that a big bulk of all those people who came to the valley during the peak years were simply underqualified. Every liberal arts graduate and their dog came to design web pages. Now that only the real engineering jobs have remained, a lot of those people are not qualified enough to fill them in. Many good companies (my employer included) have been hiring constantly during the last several years. The truth is that it's hard to find good people to hire. Of course, that's not a good politically correct story to print in the NYT. It's so much better to blame outsourcing and corporate greed than the simple scarcity of homegrown talent.
I participated in this contest twice, in '96 and '97.
The first time, I was studying at a Bulgarian university (Sofia), and we scored 4th at the finals; MIT scored 5th. Two of us transfered to MIT that same year. Even though we had the skills to do well in such a contest (quick, efficient coding; algorithms knowledge; a little bit of teamwork), there's far more to computer science and engineering than that, and the rest is not taught in any Eastern European university.
And this is basically why programming contests are so hot in that part of the world. And why American students generally don't do well. It's all about the incentive! Kids in the US don't need to do it, and have little to gain. Whereas in Eastern Europe, it's the way to get some kind of recognition, and get on the fast track to a good education, a good job, etc. (Usually, involving immigrating, of course.)
Also, you should understand that these kids have been training for 5 years for such programming contests. Programming as a sport starts around 7 or 8th grade (IOI is the equivalent international contest for highschoolers), so by the time these kids get to college, they are highly experienced.
So, yeah, I expect the winners to apply to the best American universities and get in, of course.
MIT and Stanford can only gain by losing in that competition.
It bothers you that American universities attract the best minds from all over the world and bring them to the US?
99% of those foreign students actually stay in the US, for good. For some it is the original goal, the rest just stay because they become overqualified for any job back where they came from.
Or maybe you have a problem with immigrants coming to the US?
Somehow, I doubt your gradparents were from the Apache...
I just loved the irony in that article, even though it seems to have escaped the author himself.
The university teachers are leaving their jobs because of the meagre pay.
Yet, at the same time they are on strike protesting the fee raises and the general "marketisation" of higher education !
Well, the money's gotta come from somewhere. I wonder if the economics professors are participating in the strike... That would be a double irony.