I don't concede the point that our wages get lower. Our wages are objectively higher than in the countries these H1B people are coming from. If you don't have a huge pool of talent in the US, what keeps an employer here at all? They can hire 2 or 3 engineers for the same price elsewhere.
Incorrect. Having a ton of technically trained people in the US makes it one-stop shopping. People know that they can set up a business in the US and find plenty of technical people. Without this environment, what in the world would justify our above-average salaries? Why would a company set up shop in the US instead of China or India where the salaries are a fraction of what they are here? We need liberal immigration, especially for highly trained people. It benefits our entire society to have a pool of unbeatable talent.
Because H1Bs are limited, the process is a pain in the butt, and often you have to deal with a language or cultural barrier. They may have "years of experience", but probably not in the US. Often, they find their degree worthless and get a masters or PhD in the US before seeking employment. Some of the best co-workers I've ever had have been H1Bs. Some of the worst, as well.:)
In my experience, having a technical degree is a huge benefit in any of the fields you listed. I wouldn't suggest medicine (my wife is a doctor - massive debt, terrible hours, decreasing or stagnant pay), but should you go that direction, having an engineering or science degree puts you way ahead of your class. Business loves engineers. Sure, you need to brush up on finance and accounting, but if you got through a technical degree you can do those things in your sleep. Statistics, logical thought, and simply being decent with numbers and analysis give you a leg up in business, especially if your thing is quantitative analysis. Not that I would recommend that right now, either... bit of a glut:)
Increasing STEM has benefits even if people don't ultimately end up being life-long engineers.
To be honest, I've decided that teaching is the way to go. Or it least it has been the past 20 years - it might go sour. My brother is a teacher. The pay sucks initially, but they paid for his masters degrees, the benefits are sweet, and he'll be retired before he's 50. Since he's long been buying an not renting, and his wife the same, they will have their house paid off before then and he's picked up several rental properties and a vacation condo when the recession hit. In short, he and his wife are doing better than me and my wife who are a doctor and an engineer. We'll end up better off at the end, but only after my wife worked her freaking ass off and we won't retire as young, and don't have our summers off. Even when they "retire" and when they are "off" in the summer, they are free to get a job and make even more money. The only thing that can compare is a nurse anesthetist. B.S. in nursing school, a stint in the ICU, and another two years of nurse anesthetist training and you make 6 figures with few of the headaches that a full doctor would deal with, like liability insurance and unpaid overtime or call. Sweet. Deal.
We don't need or want more lawyers or politicians. We want more scientists and engineers. It probably holds my salary down in the short-term, but it keeps the US competitive and makes my relatively high salary more sustainable in the long term. $60k right out of school is a very comfortable wage.
The fact that no other corporation or government in the world are funding their retirement benefits
I'm sorry, but you have that completely wrong. 1/4 of private companies that still offer pensions fully fund them. And all of the others have to count their pensions as a liability on their balance sheet. We should be doing that at the federal level as well. We do in fact owe people more money than we state, and most of it is unfunded.
The USPS requirement is indeed aggressive. The main flaw was not letting them raise rates until the pensions are caught up. We could have also just ignored current retirees and required funding for just current employees... that would have been a lot cheaper and with some luck the Post Office would have survived long enough to see the current retirees through the rest of their lives.
I still maintain it is immoral to (a) promise someone a benefit you have no way to provide them, and (b) saddle future generations with debt for salaries and benefits. It's one thing if you build a bridge that is going to last 50 years and you take out a 30 year bond to pay for it. It's quite another to pay for your own comfort at your descendant's expense.
I really don't care what their motivation was, it was morally the right thing to do. I'm definitely aware of the Republicans' games. Politics is messy - even the Postal Union rarely works in their members' best interests. I'm commenting on the policy and not the motivation.
For what it's worth, the Republicans should have made ALL pensions fully funded, but they only imposed the requirement on an agency that can't raise taxes. Convenient, eh? Do the same thing to all federal employees and watch the federal government implode.
That's only by torturing logic. They are requiring them to (a) fund current employees and (b) fund retirees. Add that together, and you get a number that is similar to 75 years of funding. It's politician speak... This isn't as unique as the opposition would have you believe - a quarter of private businesses choose to pre-fund their pensions.
We should be doing this everywhere - anytime someone is promising money to someone in the future, it should be treated as a liability. Private companies have long had to treat pensions as a liability, and it's high time the government did as well. Detroit (and Stockton) should be a wake-up call, but for some reason Democrats oppose this union-friendly measure. I suspect because it would reveal how high borrowing really is and it would require taxes to go up or services to go down - just like at the post office. I suggest a compromise position: forget about current retirees and fully fund only current employees. Sure, it's kind of a dick move to the current retirees, but if we are lucky we won't run out of money for them, and eventually the problem will "die off".
Really? That's insane! I figure someone my age (38) needs about $4 million in the bank to maintain their standard of living at upper middle class when they use a 65 retirement age.
They haven't - that's a tortured exaggeration from the opposition. They are (a) catching up on unfunded obligations to current retirees and (b) catching up on unfunded obligations to current employees. Add those together and you get a number similar to paying for "75 years in advance". It's tortured logic, but it plays well on the news shows.
It's not in a money crunch, so long as retirement benefits go unfunded. Make them actually keep the promises that they are making to their workers and all of the sudden their finances look bad. The fact that other agencies aren't funding their retirement benefits is perhaps one of the most monstrous, immoral things this generation is doing to its public servants and future generations.
The stock was up on the "bad" news today, so I'm quite happy. The margins were expected to shrink - they were artificially high because Apple had signed a bunch of long-term deals with suppliers during the recession, when prices and demand were at a bottom. I think that their relative performance in the pitiful PC market is encouraging, and they continue to see 20% yearly growth in phones. The flat tablet sales are not great news, but you can't expect them to keep 70% marketshare in the tablet market when they have such an expensive product. I suspect it will shrink down to a 30-something marketshare over time.
Last time I checked, the government does control the airwaves and auctions off rights to use big chunks of 'em. They could use some other form of rationing, but I can't imagine what the benefit would be.
That's how it was at most apartments I've lived in as well. Not that big of a deal - generally you stop by the mail area on your way home from work.
I'm all for a small fee to deliver to the door. I might even pay it if it meant I don't have to install a box at the curb:) The delta seems to be about $10/month.
Indeed I am a stockholder, so my focus is on them retaining their margins. I only care about marketshare in terms of them keeping developers on their platforms. Marketshare is currently not a problem with any of their products. I believe that the PC market will stabilize eventually and Apple will be in a strong position when that market resumes growth, as they have improved marketshare without taking . They are almost certain to lose marketshare in the tablet market, but that too has plenty of growth opportunity. They've never had anything approaching a monopoly in phones, so there's always been plenty of room there and clearly development has not been an issue.
I don't think their lack of vertical integration would suit them to the low end - I'm happy to cede that to companies like Samsung. I'm not currently holding Samsung except indirectly through an ETF, but I feel they will always have a bit of trouble at the high end, since that requires a lot of focus and they have a much bigger product spread.
Naturally Chromebooks are selling well - they are basically giving them away. If there is any profit on them, it is very slim. I certainly don't want Apple in the "giving away stuff" market. They've never been in the under-$800 notebook market, and they've kept their margins up as a result. To get Apple-style margins on a Chromebook, they would have to sell for $450. At that price, no one would buy them.
Losing 7% sales when global PC sales are down 12% is a net market share gain - and they are doing it all at the high end. I'm not sure that's a bad story.
Slashdot Mirror
Lower wages make your life better.
I don't concede the point that our wages get lower. Our wages are objectively higher than in the countries these H1B people are coming from. If you don't have a huge pool of talent in the US, what keeps an employer here at all? They can hire 2 or 3 engineers for the same price elsewhere.
Stockholm syndrome.
Incorrect. Having a ton of technically trained people in the US makes it one-stop shopping. People know that they can set up a business in the US and find plenty of technical people. Without this environment, what in the world would justify our above-average salaries? Why would a company set up shop in the US instead of China or India where the salaries are a fraction of what they are here? We need liberal immigration, especially for highly trained people. It benefits our entire society to have a pool of unbeatable talent.
Because H1Bs are limited, the process is a pain in the butt, and often you have to deal with a language or cultural barrier. They may have "years of experience", but probably not in the US. Often, they find their degree worthless and get a masters or PhD in the US before seeking employment. Some of the best co-workers I've ever had have been H1Bs. Some of the worst, as well. :)
In my experience, having a technical degree is a huge benefit in any of the fields you listed. I wouldn't suggest medicine (my wife is a doctor - massive debt, terrible hours, decreasing or stagnant pay), but should you go that direction, having an engineering or science degree puts you way ahead of your class. Business loves engineers. Sure, you need to brush up on finance and accounting, but if you got through a technical degree you can do those things in your sleep. Statistics, logical thought, and simply being decent with numbers and analysis give you a leg up in business, especially if your thing is quantitative analysis. Not that I would recommend that right now, either... bit of a glut :)
Increasing STEM has benefits even if people don't ultimately end up being life-long engineers.
To be honest, I've decided that teaching is the way to go. Or it least it has been the past 20 years - it might go sour. My brother is a teacher. The pay sucks initially, but they paid for his masters degrees, the benefits are sweet, and he'll be retired before he's 50. Since he's long been buying an not renting, and his wife the same, they will have their house paid off before then and he's picked up several rental properties and a vacation condo when the recession hit. In short, he and his wife are doing better than me and my wife who are a doctor and an engineer. We'll end up better off at the end, but only after my wife worked her freaking ass off and we won't retire as young, and don't have our summers off. Even when they "retire" and when they are "off" in the summer, they are free to get a job and make even more money. The only thing that can compare is a nurse anesthetist. B.S. in nursing school, a stint in the ICU, and another two years of nurse anesthetist training and you make 6 figures with few of the headaches that a full doctor would deal with, like liability insurance and unpaid overtime or call. Sweet. Deal.
We don't need or want more lawyers or politicians. We want more scientists and engineers. It probably holds my salary down in the short-term, but it keeps the US competitive and makes my relatively high salary more sustainable in the long term. $60k right out of school is a very comfortable wage.
The fact that no other corporation or government in the world are funding their retirement benefits
I'm sorry, but you have that completely wrong. 1/4 of private companies that still offer pensions fully fund them. And all of the others have to count their pensions as a liability on their balance sheet. We should be doing that at the federal level as well. We do in fact owe people more money than we state, and most of it is unfunded.
The USPS requirement is indeed aggressive. The main flaw was not letting them raise rates until the pensions are caught up. We could have also just ignored current retirees and required funding for just current employees... that would have been a lot cheaper and with some luck the Post Office would have survived long enough to see the current retirees through the rest of their lives.
I still maintain it is immoral to (a) promise someone a benefit you have no way to provide them, and (b) saddle future generations with debt for salaries and benefits. It's one thing if you build a bridge that is going to last 50 years and you take out a 30 year bond to pay for it. It's quite another to pay for your own comfort at your descendant's expense.
I really don't care what their motivation was, it was morally the right thing to do. I'm definitely aware of the Republicans' games. Politics is messy - even the Postal Union rarely works in their members' best interests. I'm commenting on the policy and not the motivation.
For what it's worth, the Republicans should have made ALL pensions fully funded, but they only imposed the requirement on an agency that can't raise taxes. Convenient, eh? Do the same thing to all federal employees and watch the federal government implode.
Come on, it's 75 years in advance.
That's only by torturing logic. They are requiring them to (a) fund current employees and (b) fund retirees. Add that together, and you get a number that is similar to 75 years of funding. It's politician speak... This isn't as unique as the opposition would have you believe - a quarter of private businesses choose to pre-fund their pensions.
We should be doing this everywhere - anytime someone is promising money to someone in the future, it should be treated as a liability. Private companies have long had to treat pensions as a liability, and it's high time the government did as well. Detroit (and Stockton) should be a wake-up call, but for some reason Democrats oppose this union-friendly measure. I suspect because it would reveal how high borrowing really is and it would require taxes to go up or services to go down - just like at the post office. I suggest a compromise position: forget about current retirees and fully fund only current employees. Sure, it's kind of a dick move to the current retirees, but if we are lucky we won't run out of money for them, and eventually the problem will "die off".
Really? That's insane! I figure someone my age (38) needs about $4 million in the bank to maintain their standard of living at upper middle class when they use a 65 retirement age.
They haven't - that's a tortured exaggeration from the opposition. They are (a) catching up on unfunded obligations to current retirees and (b) catching up on unfunded obligations to current employees. Add those together and you get a number similar to paying for "75 years in advance". It's tortured logic, but it plays well on the news shows.
So you are demanding highly effective management from the Federal Government? o-O
Why in the world is it "unreasonable" to fund the promises you are making to your workers? Detroit is exactly what will happen to them.
I can't believe that we've become so polarized that the union-friendly Democrats complain when the government fully funds a pension plan.
It's not in a money crunch, so long as retirement benefits go unfunded. Make them actually keep the promises that they are making to their workers and all of the sudden their finances look bad. The fact that other agencies aren't funding their retirement benefits is perhaps one of the most monstrous, immoral things this generation is doing to its public servants and future generations.
The stock was up on the "bad" news today, so I'm quite happy. The margins were expected to shrink - they were artificially high because Apple had signed a bunch of long-term deals with suppliers during the recession, when prices and demand were at a bottom. I think that their relative performance in the pitiful PC market is encouraging, and they continue to see 20% yearly growth in phones. The flat tablet sales are not great news, but you can't expect them to keep 70% marketshare in the tablet market when they have such an expensive product. I suspect it will shrink down to a 30-something marketshare over time.
Last time I checked, the government does control the airwaves and auctions off rights to use big chunks of 'em. They could use some other form of rationing, but I can't imagine what the benefit would be.
He's got one now, though. Franklin uses a Galaxy - he likes the big screen, the old bastard.
It still wouldn't solve the problem of needing it to work properly as a security light. Fortunately it seems pretty sensitive to bodies.
Thomas Jefferson called me, he says they totally didn't have iPhones back then.
Yes, the Detroit model. Worked out well for those retirees.
I've, um, never really had a problem with a pretty trustworthy guy sticking stuff in my door. Did you have some kind of bad experience or something?
That's how it was at most apartments I've lived in as well. Not that big of a deal - generally you stop by the mail area on your way home from work.
I'm all for a small fee to deliver to the door. I might even pay it if it meant I don't have to install a box at the curb :) The delta seems to be about $10/month.
Indeed I am a stockholder, so my focus is on them retaining their margins. I only care about marketshare in terms of them keeping developers on their platforms. Marketshare is currently not a problem with any of their products. I believe that the PC market will stabilize eventually and Apple will be in a strong position when that market resumes growth, as they have improved marketshare without taking . They are almost certain to lose marketshare in the tablet market, but that too has plenty of growth opportunity. They've never had anything approaching a monopoly in phones, so there's always been plenty of room there and clearly development has not been an issue.
I don't think their lack of vertical integration would suit them to the low end - I'm happy to cede that to companies like Samsung. I'm not currently holding Samsung except indirectly through an ETF, but I feel they will always have a bit of trouble at the high end, since that requires a lot of focus and they have a much bigger product spread.
Naturally Chromebooks are selling well - they are basically giving them away. If there is any profit on them, it is very slim. I certainly don't want Apple in the "giving away stuff" market. They've never been in the under-$800 notebook market, and they've kept their margins up as a result. To get Apple-style margins on a Chromebook, they would have to sell for $450. At that price, no one would buy them.
Losing 7% sales when global PC sales are down 12% is a net market share gain - and they are doing it all at the high end. I'm not sure that's a bad story.