CDZ Alright Trump supporters, sell me.

[Correll]

Sorry, not going to read a large pdf without a good reason.

First, I didn't point you to a "large pdf." In fact, I went out of may way not to direct you to (link) something longer than a paper/essay.

Second, there is a good reason: to gain a level of understanding about economics so you can credibly discuss the topic of which you've taken it upon yourself to engage in discussion. I didn't point you to editorials; the content I shared is original professional research and analysis of the research results by economists, not commentary from second and/or third parties. Frankly, one short PDF isn't really going to make you an expert; what you actually need to do is read (or re-read) a whole macroeconomics textbook for were you to do so, you'd not have to read the whole PDF for you'd then know exactly what you were looking for and would not have to read the whole thing.

And third, I'm not going to copy and paste it because:

1. the assertions and conclusions in the study are easily deduced by anyone who's studied economics (even having just taken the two basic survey course in macroeconomics); the only reason I linked it was for the benefit of folks who have not formally studied economics, and
2. the minute I do so, you or someone else in the "peanut gallery" is going to launch into some diatribe about how the professional economists who performed the study and issued the report as a result of their analysis are wrong, yet that assertion will be supported with nothing...no discussion or mention of the methodological shortcomings of the study/report, no regard for the caveats the study's/report's authors explicitly stated, etc.....just nothing other than a pontifical claim and no cogent supporting argument for it.

Your request to play a childish game is rejected.

the training that they need for their job doesn't require 4 years to teach. And when the field starts demanding that, it is just an added inefficiency in the system.

So you say, but you are wrong. The U.S. exports manufactured goods that are specialized, differentiated and have a high level of intellectual content. For services, everything about what we sell -- domestically and internationally -- is intellectually driven. What you simply don't understand and haven't bothered to consider -- in terms of economics, productivity and jobs -- is how producing "simple" objects differs from producing complex ones.

Indeed, one of the studies/reports I linked in my earlier post is one that expressly minimizes the efficacy of one of my own tacitly advocated approaches, and yet in doing so, the authors ultimately concluded that while the gains may be less than hoped for, the approach for which I advocated is yet better than the alternative approach.

You write of what is and is not required, yet, I have to ask what legitimate basis have you that gives you sufficient understanding of "the system"...

I have personally witnessed an attempt at degree inflation. It would have raised the degree required to do a job, that was being done just fine by people under the existing requirements.

INCREASING the requirements (while grandfathering in current workers) would have raised the status and in short order the pay of the profession, while increasing revenue for the educational system.

It would have raised the cost to students looking to enter the field, patients, insurers and taxpayers.

With no improvement in quality of care.

"More Education" has moved from a policy to a bumper sticker slogan.

lower than average intelligence is about 20% of the population. Hardly insignificant, a responsible Trade Policy would take them into account.

Rethink that; you've confused and conflated intelligence with actual performance in cognitive testing. The percentage of the U.S. population having physiological disabilities that militate for their genuinely not being able to perform some tasks breaks out as follows:

• All intellectual disabilities: ~13%
  • Specific learning disabilities: ~5%
  • Intellectual disability: ~1%
  • Speech or language impediments: ~3%
  • All the other types of intellectual disabilities: ~4%

You have confused Below Average Intelligence, and thus not really equipped to benefit from higher education, with Intellectual Learning Disabilities.

A nurse's aid, a janitor, a bus driver, a file clerk, a taxi driver, a house painter, ect. ect. ect. does NOT need a college degree.

Telling someone to "get with the program" is not an answer. It is a dismissal of their concerns.

It's only seen as that by you because you refuse to read/learn/master the information that shows/explains how it is not that at all. One's willfully remaining ignorant does not make the remarks of folks who already understand that same information be dismissive.

What does it take to "get with the program?" To the extent the topic under discussion is economic in nature:

• Learning macro and micro economics, part of which entails learning the extent to which economic principles and laws and have been shown to be "right"
• Applying economic principles to one's circumstances.

I had a great Physics teacher in College. I recall him discussing how when he was a student, that he was told of professors who were so brilliant that lesser minds could not understand them.

As he mastered his field, he realized that truly brilliant minds who have truly mastered a field, are the ones who can explain complex ideas clearly and in simple terms.

While insecure people hide behind professional terminology, and arrogance.

I reject the idea that America's "day in the SUn is over".

The element of it that is over is not manufacturing in general, but specifically the segment of manufacturing in which the human labor requirements to produce goods is directly proportional to the quantity of goods produced.

To understand it, consider the production of a complex product and a simple product: video games and bicycles. Contrast one additional sales unit of a video game vs. that of a bicycle. The additional unit of a video game costs pennies -- one could sell millions of copies without needing a single additional worker. In contrast, a physical bicycle requires one or several people to form and assemble all the parts that make up a bicycle. One cannot produce and sell a million bikes without hiring a lot of additional workers. That is the difference between producing/supplying products that have a high degree of intellectual capital in them vs. goods that have little or no intellectual capital in them.

The U.S. has a comparative advantage in designing high intellectual capital products, but not in actually building them. Why? Because once the design is done, the build of those goods is little other than "putting square pegs in square holes." It takes little to no intellectual acuity or training to assemble what people see as a video game, that is the DVD disc or cartridge that contains the software that is the actual game. Designing the programming the software itself, however, does take a high degree of intellectual acuity, and, guess what, writing that software program is a job that pays well. Moreover, U.S. employers of all sorts actually can't find enough qualified software developers and engineers. And among the things it usually takes to be either of those things is a college degree, although a small quantity of folks can gain the requisite skills without going to college to get them.

So, what part of that explains why we can't have a healthy software industry in California and a healthy bicycle industry in Ohio?

Our current Trade Policy, that has lead to our loss of manufacturing jobs is a choice and one that can be reversed.

... There are six things that shift the supply curve and in doing so impact jobs. None of those six things is trade policy, and it's certainly not our free trade policies which expressly remove tariffs and subsidies.


Trade, and specifically free trade -- trade unencumbered by tariffs and subsidies -- creates jobs when producers can and do produce goods/services that can in turn be exported to and purchased within other economies. The thing is that if a supplier makes "something" and it is not seen as sufficiently inelastic by buyers, those potential buyers won't become actual buyers, demanders. On the import side, free trade keeps prices lower than they otherwise would be for buyers in the importing country/area.

The "Free Trade" you refer to is a Trade Policy.

Number #4, in your link, specifically refers to aspects of Trade Policy. Which, makes your claim that Trade Policy has no impact on jobs very wrong.

Furthermore, there are a number of factors, some obvious, some not so much, that would have the effect of "4

Vat taxes and rebates, currency manipulation, differences in minimum wages, costs of pollution controls, for 5 quick off the top of my head examples.

And considering the lopsided nature of trade with quite a number of our trading "partners" I strongly suspect polices of "cheating" on those Free Trade agreements, possible by methods hidden from all but the most inside of International Trade insiders.

Their is no reason that Silicone Valley can't be a high tech boom city, while Detroit is home to a healthy manufacturing population.

The Silicon Valley already is a "boom" area and the workers there are doing exactly what I said more people need to do...working in a field whereby they produce/provide intellectual capital, largely to design things or invent/apply concepts, rather than providing physical labor to build things.

Good for Silicon Valley. That was sort of my point by mentioning them.

Now, perhaps you could explain why that means that Detroit can't be a healthy manufacturing city?

I want both.

Well, guess what, you can't have both. You want to return to an economic model/system that predates the Information Age. Well, the fact is the Information Age has arrived and isn't going away unless and until some massive natural disaster wipes it out, but even there it's just a matter of time before it comes back.

What you can do is acquire the skills needed to get the jobs that are available/offered and then get one. You can also bitch about not having them as others do acquire them, in doing so get left behind. It's entirely your choice as to which of them you do, but rest assured that if you don't do the former, you'll be relegated to only being able to do the latter.

Nothing in that post explains your claim that we can't have both.







An additional factor for you to consider regarding education.

Right now we have a national policy of "Mainstreaming" where we try to get as many children as possible in the mainstream class room and advance them all towards a goal, or nearly all towards the goal of being ready to go to college.

This results in slow learners struggling to keep up, and normally failing, while fast learners are bored out of their minds, and school becomes a mind numbing experience.


We do NOT have a public school system that focuses on, and celebrates excellence.


We have one the focuses on trying to help those who need help.

Very much in keeping with our democratic history.

Not one that produces all the STEM workers you were complaining about shortages of earlier

 

[Indeependent]

You're a laugh a minute stating that American Entities want American, or even European, IT talent.
That's why requests for H1-Bs are skyrocketing.

As a principal in an industry that hires (most often on a contract basis, but as employees whenever possible) H1-B talent, I can tell you exactly why: because not enough qualified (experienced hires) Americans apply for the jobs offered. It's really that simple.

It's not that we don't look domestically to fill a position, but the economics of the consulting business do not allow us to have a cadre of software developers on staff "just in case." Yes, we hire lots of recent computer science, engineering and math grads to fill technical roles such as software development; however, their career path in the firm necessarily leads to their not remaining as developers. Assuming they are high performers, they will move up and as they move up, their tasks shift from actual code writing to project management, business development and business analysis.

Additionally, things are different now than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. For example, in the '80s and '90s, ERP systems were in their nascence. Basically, if a person could spell SAP or Oracle and had actually ever seen the applications/databases, that was practically sufficient qualification for them to be part of a project team implementing the software. The ERP industry has matured and today, clients demand truly experienced team members. That makes it harder and harder to staff fresh college grads on projects and it means we have to hire experienced programmers and DBAs.

Countless are the instances wherein I've bid/proposed on an engagement wherein upon winning it the only solution I've (or more precisely the principals who manage the IT component of my projects) had is to go with developers from a foreign temp services firm. Sure The largest firms in my industry (management consulting) have actually purchased foreign IT firms so they can have a ready supply of internal IT talent, and even then the demand for that talent outstrips availability.

Quite simply, if the client informs me that we've won the engagement on Monday, they will expect the project to begin on the following Monday at the latest. As a practical reality, we just cannot reliably expect to advertise for the position, interview qualified candidates, "on board" them, and then have them onsite at the client's facilities in a week. Yes, from time to time, we get lucky and there is a domestic person who interviews and we know immediately they are great for the job and we can complete the process in a week, but being able to do so depends on luck.

And, yes, we use more avenues than just ads in papers or on websites to fill positions. I and the other principals have a long list of headhunter contacts whom we routinely instruct someone on our staffs to contact to see if they have someone suitable. In fact, upon learning that I've won an engagement, those calls are among the first ones my admin makes -- calls/emails to foreign labor resource providers are the next set of communications made -- when I have any project role that I can't fill with someone who's not currently assigned to a project. As I've said, demand outstrips availability when it comes to domestic technical resources.

So you ask yourself why is it that folks from places like India have the sense to see where the major economies of the world are headed and thus study and perform well in math and computer science, yet Americans would sooner bitch and moan about not being able to get a manufacturing job putting "square pegs in square holes" instead of getting the training to qualify for those jobs. Even an entry level (in terms of work types and responsibility, not in terms of career path) developer job pays decently, never mind that it pays better than being unemployed or working in a customer facing role at, say, McDonalds or Macy's, and at the beginning is where everyone has to start. Better to get started than to just keep griping for the latter will get one nowhere good.

In one word...Bullshit.

TY...with that remark, it'll be a cold day in Hell before I bother to respond to you.

No problem...I've dealt with your nonsense explanations hundreds of times.
The bottom line is that companies want the cheapest labor possible no matter how poorly the work is done.
You can't get away from the fact that the people who developed all the software that made the major tech companies what they were suddenly became incompetent one day and that every single person not from India is an idiot.
Most mega companies rely in Institutional Trading and not as much on great software.
However, legislation that explicitly states that hands on scientists don't have the skillsets required for today's market place, without specifying those skills-sets, is pure MBA gibberish.
Not to mention that I have been "blessed" to work with the Best & The Brightest, and they are anything but that.