Furthermore, attempting to polarize this matter into "omg Republicans vs Democrats" is naive of you, at best. I've already seen people who were happy Obama won, who have renounced their support after seeing what he's done so far in office.
Yeah, but what about all the Republicans who voted against him, but now that they realize he is a promise-breaking cronyist, support him fully?
I know plenty of conservatives who asre now happy with Obama, because they realize that all that "change" isn't going to happen.
Seriously... damn Republicans want to have their cake and eat it too. "Oh no, don't vote for Obama, he wants change" and "Oh no, Obama's just like all the other lying politicians". Republicans should be rejoicing, they have the president they wanted in the first place.
Because most of us came to this realization: http://xkcd.com/538/ or the fact that 90% of it doesn't matter.
The problem with the xkcd cartoon is that it only applies if whoever wants your information knows that you have it.
The point of general encryption is that fishing expeditions are impossible... so the "juicy" stuff that would warrant attention from the powers that be is hidden in the morass of all the other encrypted data.
Yes, a ten-dollar hammer can be used to get my keys from me... but how do you know I've got the goods if you've never been able to read anyone's data?
Not the same Crazy Eddie (who is probably dead, still in jail, or living overseas on funds he managed to transfer out of the country)... but it was in the news last week that some investor planned to open 16 stores in the NY-NJ area under the Crazy Eddie brand.
Who knows? Maybe the new Crazy Eddie will be successful, and we'll have a new B&M chain to scoff at.
Heh... for NJ Transit trains, a train is only recorded as late if it is more than six minutes late. It used to be four minutes... but now they can brag that they've significantly reduce the number of late trains.
When the trains are very late, they sonetimes don't bother collecting tickets... so one-way, round-trip, and ten-trip riders get a free ride, and monthly pass holders get to grumble.
In NJ, for example -- the pharmacist must dispense the generic (not just offer it) unless the physician or patient have specifically asked for the brand name drug.
No, I shouldn't. The link to "Bobby Tables" was intended to convey the usual XKCD joke, not suggest that anyone try. I'm very concerned that if I tried, I might succeed. Which would not be a good thing.:-/
Trying to CYA now?
Too late. Now when they do get hacked, you're #1 on the list of suspects.
Have fun when the federales show up (unless you live in CO, then have fun when the State cops show up).
Used cars are sold all the time. It has no bearing on new car sales. If those people could afford a new car, they would buy one.
I can afford new cars... but I always buy used. This is because the transportation value of the car (in terms of miles left before dead) decreases much more slowly than the dollar value (due to insanely high 1st-yr depreciation). At any rate, I buy used cars because I'm a cheapskate, not because I can't afford new ones.
Availability of used cars *does* reduce new car sales... but the car industry isn't as stupid (clever?) as the game industry, who think they can overcome the 1st sale doctrine.
Well why don't you go to your boss the first thing and suggest your wage gets lowered? Show us all the benefit of being paid less for more work!
No need for that... price inflation outpacing wage inflation will take care of that.
Protectionism doesn't harm the economy, quite the contrary: it benefits me and most citizens of a developed country doing it. The only ones who it doesn't benefit are those who don't work for a living; since that means the rich and the powerful, you can rest easily: our economy isn't going to be protected.
Sorry to see that you have no understanding of what protectionism REALLY does to an economy. Go ahead, do some research... or read some of the other comments to this article. Protectionism trades short-term gains with long-term losses, which is part of why we're in such a mess anyway.
Look to history to see what happens to protectionist economies in the long run. They get far eclipsed by non-protectionis countries.
The only reason to institute protectionist policies is to get a nascent industry off the ground. We don't need that... we just need to be able to compete on labor costs, which protectionism is never going to fix.
A cat powered Roomba would would vacuum energetically for about 15 minutes daily and spend the remaining time in the first warm sunny spot it ran across
Far better just to upholster your entire apartment in fur and let the cat lick it clean.
Very good point, I agree that would help... it would raise the labor cost in those countries, better allowing us to compete (while being a very humanitarian achievement as well).
But, I wonder how well the international community would respond, it reeks of American Imperialism, and this taint is already hurting us wrt demand for our products/services.
The cost of living has nothing to do with the standard of living.
That's incorrect. Reduce the standard of living, and you reduce the cost of living.
As you point out, income potential in local economies also affects cost of living. Try this one out for size, before you go on about me not knowing what I'm talking about: Instead of monetary cost, compare cost of living by labor cost. My skills earn me $x a year in Bumbletwit Arkansas, $3x a year in Centerville NJ, and $4x a year in Manhattan. Cost of living, normalized for income, is much more constant in the US than you make out.
You can find the same situation without leaving the US, to a lesser extent. See how much it costs you to rent a house in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Then travel up to New York and see the crappy apartment you'll be able to afford for the same cost. Same amount of money, way lower standard of living. New York's cost of living is higher than that of Rock Hill.
We're talking about labor here, so costs of living should be calculated in terms of labor units, not monetary equivalents. And as far as standard of living, there are a lot of intangibles (and tangibles) that make the standard of living in NY higher than SC. Better water... better mass transit... better access to cultural phenomena... better access to varied cuisines, foods, etc... better access to medical care... I could keep going, but what's the point?
Right off the bat, the US is at a critical tipping point for such things as just plain water availability. It's in the headlines, read up on it, we CAN'T support very many more people just from that single reason. We can barely maintain what we have now is huge areas of the nation. And don't negate the seriousness of this either or think it isn't a factor.
This can be addressed by changing how we use water, how we approach development, etc. This is not a problem without solutions (pardon the pun) -- restrict development in water-limited areas. Reduce water consumption (I did mention reducing standard of living, and egregious consumption is part of that -- I also mentioned the unsustainable natural resource use, which water is part of).
Next, in a fast shrinking economy, dumping more labor into the pool further exacerbates the jobs-available situation, it doesn't create more jobs by having more people looking for jobs, and startups are by the zillions and are almost all failing, because of point one, a fast declining labor market that is also reeling from being too much in debt.
The economy needs to be retooled. Increasing the labor pool also increases demand for consumer goods -- and reduced wages will enable us to competitively manufacture consumer goods (especially as fuel and energy costs continue to rise globally).
Another facet is we have no affordable housing, especially at entry level, even with price drops, housing is becoming more and more untenable in the ownership arena. We have gone from 10 year mortgages to now 30 year mortgages and even interest only mortgages, ie, a fancy way to say a renter forever but delude yourself you are even going to be an "owner". The places with affordable housing have no jobs, places with still decent jobs still have extraordinarily skewed housing prices. And all other costs of living keep going up, food prices for example from commodities skimmers and parasites are a big one there as well.
The affordable housing issue will sort itself out, if we have the contraction that is needed. It'll be painful... but note that the intense inflationary period we'll be going through in the next decade will wipe out a lot of the housing pain. We need to pay the piper.
As to protectionism, way back when we had a true smaller constitutional government and government was funded mostly from sane import and export tariffs, we built the largest and most fantastic industrial base and ag base ever seen on the planet. Once we stopped that, and let those thieves at the Fed and the other bankers and wall street traitors run the economy, it all went to shit. FAILURE to protect the indigenous middle class and purposefully leading them on to "invest" in your casino stock lies and fiat credit based liars currencies is exactly what caused the first great depression, and now they did it fucking again, the great huge ripoff version two plus they want to be PIAD via more tax payer debt as a REWARD for their fraudulent policies.
Ah, here is where your true nature shines through. Let me give you hint -- first, the global economy is very different than it was in the 1800s. Just advances in transportation have changed the very nature of how economies work. Never mind the fact that the economy went to shit plenty of times before the institution of the Fed, of income tax, etc -- the Fed was created BECAUSE the economy went to shit so often.
And our labor isn't expensive, it was just about perfect for a robust middle class until around 25 years ago when this huge ripoff got in high gear. It was fine before the greed merchants decided to go whole hog and destroy it all for SHORT TERM GAINS. Our FATCAT SALARIES at the top are the only "too expensive" labor we have, along with a government make work busy work create a million new regulations a year jobs program that is 5 or 10 times bigger than
Thus decreasing the economic advantage of pursuing science or engineering as a career, especially relative to law, management, or finance.
What's to say those professions don't also need to go through the same re-adjustment?
There's already a big surplus of management professionals, and hire rates and salaries reflect that... and it will get worse in a couple years -- have you seen the recent application & enrollment figures for MBAs? Through the roof! It appears lots of laid-off professionals decided to go back to school and get that advanced degree they've been putting off for so long.
Finance? I'm in the finance field, and if you don't think we face stiff competition from labor overseas that is limiting salaries... well... feel free to continue thinking that.
At any rate, if students flee to other professions, those professions will also experience labor oversupply.
Seriously, the US needs an across-the-board standard of living adjustment, and if it begins in a couple industries, it will trickle up/down the vertical and also horizontally to other industries. This is painful but necessary.
Is there any real evidence to prove that h1bs have been all that helpful to US technology? When did msft start all hiring so many h1bs? Right after XP and before Vista wasn't it? Banks have been hiring tons of h1bs, and they are all just doing great aren't they?
Rose-colored glasses, you must have. Remember that XP was a buggy steaming pile of dung when it was released, too.
As for banks, that has nothing to do with engineers or coders, that has to do with top-level decisions and deregulation.
Keep in mind that Citibank's core software was developed in India long before any of this shit hit the fan.
Correlation !- causation, and it's either ignorant or disingenuous of you to link either MS's crapware or ting fiasco with H1B employees.
There are plenty of highly qualified US tech workers, many of whom are unemployed, why is so critical to keep flooding the market with h1bs?
Please read any number of the posts above that explain why increasing the labor supply is important to maintaing the US economy in the long run.
Thus they are *labor* not immigrants and many cannot simply "stay". If they were actually immigrating to be citizens and engineers, chances are the wages they would paid would be lucrative enough to get Americans to do the jobs since the immigrants would have the same chances at other jobs as Americans (eg, if engineering doesn't pay, do something else instead of being brought here because you are an engineer).
No, it would increase the supply of skilled labor, thus reducing cost of labor across he board for those skilled positions. The immigrants would get paid less, and non-immigrant (native/already naturalized labor) would also get paid less.
I think this is necessary if we want to fix our economy long-term... reduce labor costs to make them more in line with global labor costs. Reduce our standard of living to more sustainable levels (unless you want to keep borrowing from China to support your SoL).
-Cause stagnation via protectionist policies, then wait for other nations to pass us by on their way to a higher standard of livin and eocnomic vitality?
The risk is that we adopt protectionist policies, and other nations adopt them against us -- but not with eachother. Thus we get left behind in the expansionary economies the other nations will go through. This is the problem that Krugman misses... protectionism globally will reduce the impact of economic problems in each country on the whole, only if the protectionism is directed to all trading partners. If the EU, for example, raises protective barriers agains the US, but not the rest of the world, we've got problems. Please note that this is in re: protective trade restrictions; subsidies (like the stimulus package) are another form of protectionism, that by nature are partner-agnostic, and I think this form of protectionism is what Krugman refers to.
However, we're discussing labor protectionism, which is a slightly different beast.
In my biased opinion in general becoming a generic MBA is easier than engineering/science so if eng/sci is being filled by immigrants, natives will go the other route. When the immigrants leave with all our IP all we are left with is paper pushers.
Gee, I don't know... maybe instead we could encourage them to stay? That way, *they* become Americans, and suddenly, we don't have a shortage of Americans with eng/sci backgrounds.
Oh good god. Pick an industry and grow it "forever" and see where it takes you. Real estate? Fast Food? Cell phones? Even securities? Every market can saturate. The saturation of the securities market is what led to the creation of these risky-mortgage based securities -- they needed a new market to grow in.
Why are you limiting the discussion to specific markets, first of all? Why not general economic activity? Saturation of capital in a market (like the securities market) can be bled off if other markets are more profitable... this is the basis of almost all investment. The securities problem of mortgage-based assets was not due to saturation, it was due to improper valuation of those securites, making them more attractive than other investment alternatives.
Furthermore, saturation of supply in a market is simply a supply issue... this doesn't mean that the market can't continue to grow.
And one thing I failed to mention that I wish I had (not that it adds much to the argument) is the still present trade deficit. We are buying more than we are selling. What we are selling is largely to ourselves in decreasing numbers. The poor are getting poorer.
Agreed. And this is because it is too expensive to produce goods here, because labor is too expensive. More on this below.
We do need protectionism. We need to protect our assets. We once had the strongest agricultural production and now we don't. We once had the strongest manufacturing and now we don't. We once has the strongest technology development and it is rather doubtful that we can wear that badge any longer. What do we have then? The most "rich people?" We do still have a high concentration of wealth but that concentration is confined to less than a percent of the population and a non-existent middle-class.
Agricultural production -- we're still one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in the world. Agricultural products remain one of our biggest exports. Manufacturing -- this industry has died because labor is too expensive here. Technological development -- this is dependent on 'innovative spirit' and cheap labor, both of which are stimulated by immigration -- immigrants tend to be risk-takers, which innovators by nature also are.
We do still have a high concentration of wealth but that concentration is confined to less than a percent of the population and a non-existent middle-class.
Yes. But protectionism feeds into this. There is no middle class because there aren't good jobs. There aren't good jobs because labor is too expensive. Labor is too expensive because the cost of living is too high. The cost of living is too high because we've leveraged unsustainable resources (natural resources and credit, to be specific) to inflate the standard of living. Solution: Reduce the standard of living so US labor is competitive, either by attrition (which protectionism will cause) or via immigration (which will create a larger market for US goods).
The problem with protectionism is that while it may maintain our standard of living as long as we have lots of natural resources and credit from other nations, it's not sustainable. We'll only be able to correct the trade imbalance if we all become poor (and thus globally competitive).
If we open the immigration doors, we increase the availability of cheap labor, which benefits most of us. Sure, it'll be painful until we're able to develop competitive local manufacturing, and until the waves of immigrants are economically strong enough to function as a market for our goods... but the alternative is to slowly stagnate while the rest of the world passus us by. Protectionism left China in the dust for decade after decade... only a loosening of that protectionism allowed them to raise their standard of living. Let's not follow the same path.
It simply does not matter if an American is equal to, or better than, a foreign counterpart, because the American has an insanely high cost of living and cannot hope to compete wage-wise with someone that lives in a country with a low cost of living.
And so what's the answer? We have several possible ways to fix this, which do you prefer?
-Reduce the American standard of living via increased immigration to correct the high cost of labor? -Increase the global standard of living via offshoring to correct their low cost of labor? -Cause stagnation via protectionist policies, then wait for other nations to pass us by on their way to a higher standard of livin and eocnomic vitality?
In all seriousness, if we open the gates to immigration, we'll reduce the cost of American labor and thus be more competitive from a labor standpoint... and if we do it via naturalization instead of stupid H1-B and other temporary visas, we'll get to *keep* the best and brightest here. If we continue to offshore jobs that we cannot compete with on labor costs, we'll raise the standard of living overseas and help level the playing field.
The truth of the matter is that the US standard of living is unsustainable, we've only kept it high so long by leveraging limited natural resources (like fossil fuels) and borrowing.
An adjustment will happen, and the US standard of living will become more like the rest of the world's... but the question is if we can help ensure that this is by elevating the SoL outside the US, or if it will be simply a reduction in the SoL in the US. I know which I'd prefer (both for selfish and humanitarian reasons).
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls... but you're kidding right?
The US's great economy in the past was built on the shoulders of the SLAVES of THIEVING immigrants, and now we want to shut the door to protect "our" jobs? That sounds about right.
Slavery aside, which is mostly a straw man to my argument...
Cheap labor has been crucial to economic growth in the US. Typically this was immigrant labor in the past. Now we've reduced the flow of cheap labor to a trickle, and it's killing our economy.
We should welcome hard-working and bright immigrants with open arms... not bar the gates against them simply because they are foreign or different. Competition for jobs will improve the US workforce. It will free up labor to do more valuable jobs.
I agree offshoring is a problem for the US economy, but it's a complex issue, and the reasons I think it's a problem are not because it causes some Americans to lose jobs. That's simply an effect of the overpricing of US labor.
The problem with offshoring is that we don't export much to developing nations. If we had a manufacturing base (impossible with our high labor costs, though environmental restrictions are another problem[1]) then creating jobs and wealth in developing nations would be a good thing. But since the only thing we export really significantly is entertainment, we're shit outta luck.
The answer to this is not protectionism. It's the opposite -- reduce our labor costs so we can export to the countries we offshore to. Then we both benefit.
[1] I don't advocate reducing environmental restrictions. Instead we need to make sure our trading partners have equivalent restrictions, so we're all on an even playing field.
Let me start by saying that your username is apropos.
I just have to wonder how much more of this erosion of the U.S. the U.S. is willing to accept and permit? H1-Bs and lowering of wages, offshoring and outsourcing services are all great ways for companies to increase their bottom lines.
First, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing. Hell, I outsource my lawncare to a neighborhood kid. You do know that outsourcing is substantively different than offshoring, right?
But when EVERYONE is doing it, these companies ultimately create poor and unemployed customers! This is not sustainable.
You're right it's not sustainable; eventually those unemployed people find jobs that are either more productive and valuable to society, or they find employment doing something else... at a price more in line with what the work is worth. There is no inherent reason an artificial restriction on labor (tight immigration policy) should be allowed to prop up wages... in the long run, this results in a smaller market for goods.
In re: offshoring, I'm sure we completely disagree, but from a humanitarian perspective, it's far better to lift some people out of abject poverty in developing nations than it is to slightly increase someone's already-high standard of living in the US.
People constantly ask "so protectionism is the answer?" Right now, yes it is!
Yes, we have a surplus of labor right now. And that's painful for some. But protectionism is not the answer. It lengthened and deepened the great depression, and it will do the same thing now. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
It seems that everyone and every entity is seeming short, fast turn-around and ever-increasing bottom lines using "growth percentage" as a metric for success and viability. (Reality check! In no part of the universe is growth a sustainable metric!!)
Except, perhaps, the universe as a whole. Joking aside, why should economic growth not be sustainable long-term? Seriously? It's not like it's constrained by physical goods or anything... it's an intellectual construct that doesn't have absolute limits. I fully agree that "short-termism" is a flawed way to assess economic vitality of a company, and country, or an economy. But I disagree that growth is not sustainable. Consider that every trade transaction, in theory, represents economic growth (economics is not zero-sum, in case you have no knowledge of economics).
At any rate, protectionism is not the answer, now or ever. It only serves to reduce economic vitality... and this is especially so if other nations retaliate (which they surely would). If you had your way, we'd lose the benefit that all these immigrants, etc, would bring to our future economy. You want to talk about being motivated by short-term profits? You sir, with your talk of protectionism, are doing exactly that.
I work with 1 H1B and a few naturalized immigrants who all are very well educated (masters for two of them) and their drive is well beyond what the average "American" I see today. They still want it all. The difference is that they are willing to sacrifice and work for it.
And with the H1-B, we show them the door instead of welcoming them to stay. These are the people that we should be encouraging to naturalize... hell, we should scrap H1-Bs completely, IMO, but raise the immigration cap for those wishing to naturalize.
The US's great economy in the past was built on the shoulders of risk-taking, hard-working immigrants, and now we want to shut the door to protect "our" jobs? That's a recipe for economic stagnation.
Your local grocery or department store could have catalogs available at the entrance that show you where in the store the item you're looking at is located, and how many are left. You could pick one up when you enter and leave it when you're finished shopping. That I suppose a PDA could do, but if you're shopping with small children, having something that's easy to read (because of its size) and durable could be useful.
Not for nothing, but no department store or grocery store would ever do such a thing. Their stores are designed to (1) Maximize the amount of time you spend in the store -- the longer you're there, the more you spend (2) Make you pass by impulse items on your way to whatever you really want to buy. If you have to go down a couple wrong aisles, great! You'll spend more.
There's a fine line between pissing customers off because they can't find what they're looking for, and maximizing sales by forcing them to spend more time in the store. Interestingly enough, causation has been demonstrated in this case... it's not just that people buying more spend longer in the store... it's also true that causing people to stay longer from inefficient layouts, etc, actually results in higher sales.
This is simply put, an article solely put out there to rile readers.
Troll articles? In my slashdot?
Surely you're kidding!
The entire point of most slashdot articles is that they are trolls -- that is, they are intended to evoke a response amond the readers. I'd say very few of them are malicious, but inflammatory or inaccurate summaries/"articles" are part and parcel of slashdot... and most news-aggregator discussion sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but what about all the Republicans who voted against him, but now that they realize he is a promise-breaking cronyist, support him fully?
I know plenty of conservatives who asre now happy with Obama, because they realize that all that "change" isn't going to happen.
Seriously... damn Republicans want to have their cake and eat it too. "Oh no, don't vote for Obama, he wants change" and "Oh no, Obama's just like all the other lying politicians". Republicans should be rejoicing, they have the president they wanted in the first place.
The problem with the xkcd cartoon is that it only applies if whoever wants your information knows that you have it.
The point of general encryption is that fishing expeditions are impossible... so the "juicy" stuff that would warrant attention from the powers that be is hidden in the morass of all the other encrypted data.
Yes, a ten-dollar hammer can be used to get my keys from me... but how do you know I've got the goods if you've never been able to read anyone's data?
Crazy Eddie's coming back!
Not the same Crazy Eddie (who is probably dead, still in jail, or living overseas on funds he managed to transfer out of the country)... but it was in the news last week that some investor planned to open 16 stores in the NY-NJ area under the Crazy Eddie brand.
Who knows? Maybe the new Crazy Eddie will be successful, and we'll have a new B&M chain to scoff at.
Heh... for NJ Transit trains, a train is only recorded as late if it is more than six minutes late. It used to be four minutes... but now they can brag that they've significantly reduce the number of late trains.
When the trains are very late, they sonetimes don't bother collecting tickets... so one-way, round-trip, and ten-trip riders get a free ride, and monthly pass holders get to grumble.
The same is true in many states in the US.
In NJ, for example -- the pharmacist must dispense the generic (not just offer it) unless the physician or patient have specifically asked for the brand name drug.
Trying to CYA now?
Too late. Now when they do get hacked, you're #1 on the list of suspects.
Have fun when the federales show up (unless you live in CO, then have fun when the State cops show up).
I can afford new cars... but I always buy used. This is because the transportation value of the car (in terms of miles left before dead) decreases much more slowly than the dollar value (due to insanely high 1st-yr depreciation). At any rate, I buy used cars because I'm a cheapskate, not because I can't afford new ones.
Availability of used cars *does* reduce new car sales... but the car industry isn't as stupid (clever?) as the game industry, who think they can overcome the 1st sale doctrine.
No need for that... price inflation outpacing wage inflation will take care of that.
Sorry to see that you have no understanding of what protectionism REALLY does to an economy. Go ahead, do some research... or read some of the other comments to this article. Protectionism trades short-term gains with long-term losses, which is part of why we're in such a mess anyway.
Look to history to see what happens to protectionist economies in the long run. They get far eclipsed by non-protectionis countries.
The only reason to institute protectionist policies is to get a nascent industry off the ground. We don't need that... we just need to be able to compete on labor costs, which protectionism is never going to fix.
Far better just to upholster your entire apartment in fur and let the cat lick it clean.
Very good point, I agree that would help... it would raise the labor cost in those countries, better allowing us to compete (while being a very humanitarian achievement as well).
But, I wonder how well the international community would respond, it reeks of American Imperialism, and this taint is already hurting us wrt demand for our products/services.
That's incorrect. Reduce the standard of living, and you reduce the cost of living.
As you point out, income potential in local economies also affects cost of living. Try this one out for size, before you go on about me not knowing what I'm talking about: Instead of monetary cost, compare cost of living by labor cost. My skills earn me $x a year in Bumbletwit Arkansas, $3x a year in Centerville NJ, and $4x a year in Manhattan. Cost of living, normalized for income, is much more constant in the US than you make out.
We're talking about labor here, so costs of living should be calculated in terms of labor units, not monetary equivalents. And as far as standard of living, there are a lot of intangibles (and tangibles) that make the standard of living in NY higher than SC. Better water... better mass transit... better access to cultural phenomena... better access to varied cuisines, foods, etc... better access to medical care... I could keep going, but what's the point?
This can be addressed by changing how we use water, how we approach development, etc. This is not a problem without solutions (pardon the pun) -- restrict development in water-limited areas. Reduce water consumption (I did mention reducing standard of living, and egregious consumption is part of that -- I also mentioned the unsustainable natural resource use, which water is part of).
The economy needs to be retooled. Increasing the labor pool also increases demand for consumer goods -- and reduced wages will enable us to competitively manufacture consumer goods (especially as fuel and energy costs continue to rise globally).
The affordable housing issue will sort itself out, if we have the contraction that is needed. It'll be painful... but note that the intense inflationary period we'll be going through in the next decade will wipe out a lot of the housing pain. We need to pay the piper.
Ah, here is where your true nature shines through. Let me give you hint -- first, the global economy is very different than it was in the 1800s. Just advances in transportation have changed the very nature of how economies work. Never mind the fact that the economy went to shit plenty of times before the institution of the Fed, of income tax, etc -- the Fed was created BECAUSE the economy went to shit so often.
What's to say those professions don't also need to go through the same re-adjustment?
There's already a big surplus of management professionals, and hire rates and salaries reflect that... and it will get worse in a couple years -- have you seen the recent application & enrollment figures for MBAs? Through the roof! It appears lots of laid-off professionals decided to go back to school and get that advanced degree they've been putting off for so long.
Finance? I'm in the finance field, and if you don't think we face stiff competition from labor overseas that is limiting salaries... well... feel free to continue thinking that.
At any rate, if students flee to other professions, those professions will also experience labor oversupply.
Seriously, the US needs an across-the-board standard of living adjustment, and if it begins in a couple industries, it will trickle up/down the vertical and also horizontally to other industries. This is painful but necessary.
Rose-colored glasses, you must have. Remember that XP was a buggy steaming pile of dung when it was released, too.
As for banks, that has nothing to do with engineers or coders, that has to do with top-level decisions and deregulation.
Keep in mind that Citibank's core software was developed in India long before any of this shit hit the fan.
Correlation !- causation, and it's either ignorant or disingenuous of you to link either MS's crapware or ting fiasco with H1B employees.
Please read any number of the posts above that explain why increasing the labor supply is important to maintaing the US economy in the long run.
No, it would increase the supply of skilled labor, thus reducing cost of labor across he board for those skilled positions. The immigrants would get paid less, and non-immigrant (native/already naturalized labor) would also get paid less.
I think this is necessary if we want to fix our economy long-term... reduce labor costs to make them more in line with global labor costs. Reduce our standard of living to more sustainable levels (unless you want to keep borrowing from China to support your SoL).
Citations:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Protectionism.html
For you Austrian school folks (God, I can't believe I'm linking to Mises to support my position): http://mises.org/rothbard/protectionism.asp
For the interventionists, a counterpiece by Krugman, saying protectionism has a place... provided that other means fail: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/protectionism-and-stimulus-wonkish/
Another piece:http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2007/20070126-Fri.html
In the news, another danger of protectionism (as was seen in the great depression): http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/world/world/general/wto-fears-protectionism-domino-effect/1449424.aspx
The risk is that we adopt protectionist policies, and other nations adopt them against us -- but not with eachother. Thus we get left behind in the expansionary economies the other nations will go through. This is the problem that Krugman misses... protectionism globally will reduce the impact of economic problems in each country on the whole, only if the protectionism is directed to all trading partners. If the EU, for example, raises protective barriers agains the US, but not the rest of the world, we've got problems. Please note that this is in re: protective trade restrictions; subsidies (like the stimulus package) are another form of protectionism, that by nature are partner-agnostic, and I think this form of protectionism is what Krugman refers to.
However, we're discussing labor protectionism, which is a slightly different beast.
The problem posed by the article is the same that you mention... that these temorary visas are depriving us of potential innovators.
This is not the same article we see very year.
Gee, I don't know... maybe instead we could encourage them to stay? That way, *they* become Americans, and suddenly, we don't have a shortage of Americans with eng/sci backgrounds.
Why are you limiting the discussion to specific markets, first of all? Why not general economic activity? Saturation of capital in a market (like the securities market) can be bled off if other markets are more profitable... this is the basis of almost all investment. The securities problem of mortgage-based assets was not due to saturation, it was due to improper valuation of those securites, making them more attractive than other investment alternatives.
Furthermore, saturation of supply in a market is simply a supply issue... this doesn't mean that the market can't continue to grow.
Agreed. And this is because it is too expensive to produce goods here, because labor is too expensive. More on this below.
Agricultural production -- we're still one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in the world. Agricultural products remain one of our biggest exports. Manufacturing -- this industry has died because labor is too expensive here. Technological development -- this is dependent on 'innovative spirit' and cheap labor, both of which are stimulated by immigration -- immigrants tend to be risk-takers, which innovators by nature also are.
Yes. But protectionism feeds into this. There is no middle class because there aren't good jobs. There aren't good jobs because labor is too expensive. Labor is too expensive because the cost of living is too high. The cost of living is too high because we've leveraged unsustainable resources (natural resources and credit, to be specific) to inflate the standard of living. Solution: Reduce the standard of living so US labor is competitive, either by attrition (which protectionism will cause) or via immigration (which will create a larger market for US goods).
The problem with protectionism is that while it may maintain our standard of living as long as we have lots of natural resources and credit from other nations, it's not sustainable. We'll only be able to correct the trade imbalance if we all become poor (and thus globally competitive).
If we open the immigration doors, we increase the availability of cheap labor, which benefits most of us. Sure, it'll be painful until we're able to develop competitive local manufacturing, and until the waves of immigrants are economically strong enough to function as a market for our goods... but the alternative is to slowly stagnate while the rest of the world passus us by. Protectionism left China in the dust for decade after decade... only a loosening of that protectionism allowed them to raise their standard of living. Let's not follow the same path.
And so what's the answer? We have several possible ways to fix this, which do you prefer?
-Reduce the American standard of living via increased immigration to correct the high cost of labor?
-Increase the global standard of living via offshoring to correct their low cost of labor?
-Cause stagnation via protectionist policies, then wait for other nations to pass us by on their way to a higher standard of livin and eocnomic vitality?
In all seriousness, if we open the gates to immigration, we'll reduce the cost of American labor and thus be more competitive from a labor standpoint... and if we do it via naturalization instead of stupid H1-B and other temporary visas, we'll get to *keep* the best and brightest here. If we continue to offshore jobs that we cannot compete with on labor costs, we'll raise the standard of living overseas and help level the playing field.
The truth of the matter is that the US standard of living is unsustainable, we've only kept it high so long by leveraging limited natural resources (like fossil fuels) and borrowing.
An adjustment will happen, and the US standard of living will become more like the rest of the world's... but the question is if we can help ensure that this is by elevating the SoL outside the US, or if it will be simply a reduction in the SoL in the US. I know which I'd prefer (both for selfish and humanitarian reasons).
Slavery aside, which is mostly a straw man to my argument...
Cheap labor has been crucial to economic growth in the US. Typically this was immigrant labor in the past. Now we've reduced the flow of cheap labor to a trickle, and it's killing our economy.
We should welcome hard-working and bright immigrants with open arms... not bar the gates against them simply because they are foreign or different. Competition for jobs will improve the US workforce. It will free up labor to do more valuable jobs.
I agree offshoring is a problem for the US economy, but it's a complex issue, and the reasons I think it's a problem are not because it causes some Americans to lose jobs. That's simply an effect of the overpricing of US labor.
The problem with offshoring is that we don't export much to developing nations. If we had a manufacturing base (impossible with our high labor costs, though environmental restrictions are another problem[1]) then creating jobs and wealth in developing nations would be a good thing. But since the only thing we export really significantly is entertainment, we're shit outta luck.
The answer to this is not protectionism. It's the opposite -- reduce our labor costs so we can export to the countries we offshore to. Then we both benefit.
[1] I don't advocate reducing environmental restrictions. Instead we need to make sure our trading partners have equivalent restrictions, so we're all on an even playing field.
First, there is nothing wrong with outsourcing. Hell, I outsource my lawncare to a neighborhood kid. You do know that outsourcing is substantively different than offshoring, right?
You're right it's not sustainable; eventually those unemployed people find jobs that are either more productive and valuable to society, or they find employment doing something else... at a price more in line with what the work is worth. There is no inherent reason an artificial restriction on labor (tight immigration policy) should be allowed to prop up wages... in the long run, this results in a smaller market for goods.
In re: offshoring, I'm sure we completely disagree, but from a humanitarian perspective, it's far better to lift some people out of abject poverty in developing nations than it is to slightly increase someone's already-high standard of living in the US.
Yes, we have a surplus of labor right now. And that's painful for some. But protectionism is not the answer. It lengthened and deepened the great depression, and it will do the same thing now. Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
Except, perhaps, the universe as a whole. Joking aside, why should economic growth not be sustainable long-term? Seriously? It's not like it's constrained by physical goods or anything... it's an intellectual construct that doesn't have absolute limits. I fully agree that "short-termism" is a flawed way to assess economic vitality of a company, and country, or an economy. But I disagree that growth is not sustainable. Consider that every trade transaction, in theory, represents economic growth (economics is not zero-sum, in case you have no knowledge of economics).
At any rate, protectionism is not the answer, now or ever. It only serves to reduce economic vitality... and this is especially so if other nations retaliate (which they surely would). If you had your way, we'd lose the benefit that all these immigrants, etc, would bring to our future economy. You want to talk about being motivated by short-term profits? You sir, with your talk of protectionism, are doing exactly that.
And with the H1-B, we show them the door instead of welcoming them to stay. These are the people that we should be encouraging to naturalize... hell, we should scrap H1-Bs completely, IMO, but raise the immigration cap for those wishing to naturalize.
The US's great economy in the past was built on the shoulders of risk-taking, hard-working immigrants, and now we want to shut the door to protect "our" jobs? That's a recipe for economic stagnation.
Not for nothing, but no department store or grocery store would ever do such a thing. Their stores are designed to
(1) Maximize the amount of time you spend in the store -- the longer you're there, the more you spend
(2) Make you pass by impulse items on your way to whatever you really want to buy. If you have to go down a couple wrong aisles, great! You'll spend more.
There's a fine line between pissing customers off because they can't find what they're looking for, and maximizing sales by forcing them to spend more time in the store. Interestingly enough, causation has been demonstrated in this case... it's not just that people buying more spend longer in the store... it's also true that causing people to stay longer from inefficient layouts, etc, actually results in higher sales.
Troll articles? In my slashdot?
Surely you're kidding!
The entire point of most slashdot articles is that they are trolls -- that is, they are intended to evoke a response amond the readers. I'd say very few of them are malicious, but inflammatory or inaccurate summaries/"articles" are part and parcel of slashdot... and most news-aggregator discussion sites.