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Forums - Politics - Do people actually understand how welfare in America works?

Kasz216 on 10 June 2012
richardhutnik said:
Kasz216 said:

College Graduate unemployment is actually EXTREMLY low despite the level of people working in their fields being low... and most of them working very low end jobs.  The unemployment rate is over twice as high for people with a highschool education.  College degree unemployment is only 3.9%... and that's including people who only accept jobs in their field and can afford to, and people like richard who theoretically have outdated skill sets despite booms in their industries.  (IT is huge in need right now.)

Exactly WHAT part of the IT industry is booming in regards to jobs?  If it comes to software development, or anything that can be sent offshore, it is sent to India or Eastern Europe.  The Dept. that does labor statistics reported that the amount of programmers needed will decline in the coming years.

Are you referring to people who work and maintain servers and such?  Well, I know where I am, which is possibly a big part of it, there isn't a need for anyone.  And local governments aren't hiring either.  IBM has kept downsizing, leaving the local market where I am flooded with former IBMers.  IBM does consolidating and whatnot.  And if you are not local to a place, it is hard to end up even getting an interview with them.  The times are not like they used to be at all.

Are you talking manufacturing in the IT industry?  Well, chip manufacturing is down, and has been down, which came out recently when the GOP ripped a new one for saying during a video conference thing that a woman's husband should be able to find a job in chip design, because it was said hot, when hiring in that industry has been down.  BLS info has computer manufacturing unemployment for May 2012 at 5.8%, which is better than other sectors, but still high:

http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag334.htm

Well, maybe one can get lucky enough to have the right mix of skills, certifications and portfolio and not been out of work for less than 6 months, then they can pick up a corp-to-corp 3 month contract, without benefits.  Then go from contract to contract.  That can happen.  There is a need for JIT work, consisting of one being lucky enough to have the right mix of skills.


I'd have to refind the article, but it was from the same original article talking about college education shrinking.  IT jobs were the most unfilled and most created.  That and engineering.  For American jobs.  Not overseas. 

I'd be surprised if they were where you were though, you said in the food thread you live in a part of New York without much if any public transportation, which must mean your out in the countryside somewhere.



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richardhutnik on 10 June 2012
Kasz216 said:
richardhutnik said:
Kasz216 said:

College Graduate unemployment is actually EXTREMLY low despite the level of people working in their fields being low... and most of them working very low end jobs.  The unemployment rate is over twice as high for people with a highschool education.  College degree unemployment is only 3.9%... and that's including people who only accept jobs in their field and can afford to, and people like richard who theoretically have outdated skill sets despite booms in their industries.  (IT is huge in need right now.)

Exactly WHAT part of the IT industry is booming in regards to jobs?  If it comes to software development, or anything that can be sent offshore, it is sent to India or Eastern Europe.  The Dept. that does labor statistics reported that the amount of programmers needed will decline in the coming years.

Are you referring to people who work and maintain servers and such?  Well, I know where I am, which is possibly a big part of it, there isn't a need for anyone.  And local governments aren't hiring either.  IBM has kept downsizing, leaving the local market where I am flooded with former IBMers.  IBM does consolidating and whatnot.  And if you are not local to a place, it is hard to end up even getting an interview with them.  The times are not like they used to be at all.

Are you talking manufacturing in the IT industry?  Well, chip manufacturing is down, and has been down, which came out recently when the GOP ripped a new one for saying during a video conference thing that a woman's husband should be able to find a job in chip design, because it was said hot, when hiring in that industry has been down.  BLS info has computer manufacturing unemployment for May 2012 at 5.8%, which is better than other sectors, but still high:

http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag334.htm

Well, maybe one can get lucky enough to have the right mix of skills, certifications and portfolio and not been out of work for less than 6 months, then they can pick up a corp-to-corp 3 month contract, without benefits.  Then go from contract to contract.  That can happen.  There is a need for JIT work, consisting of one being lucky enough to have the right mix of skills.


I'd have to refind the article, but it was from the same original article talking about college education shrinking.  IT jobs were the most unfilled and most created.  That and engineering.  For American jobs.  Not overseas. 

I'd be surprised if they were where you were though, you said in the food thread you live in a part of New York without much if any public transportation, which must mean your out in the countryside somewhere.

Company employing people in the IT industry want the moon and stars, and don't want to pay to train anyone, and also don't want to pay well, if they can.  And they expect the market to magically deliver them every single thing they want.  The jobs go unfullfilled because they make no effort to address the issue systemically, just bank on colleges magically producing them who they want, or trust that people will know enough to get them their magic mix of skills.  And they will dispose of workers at a drop of the hat to.   End result, they have a hard time staffing.  When you make it hard to staff, you will have positions not filled.  There are numerous laid off IT folk they could hire, but they won't.  The want the magic mix to "hit the ground running".  And they want it from people who are currently working.  Again, make it hard to work, and they aren't staffed.

I am actually near Poughkeepsie, NY, out in the suburbs, and it is heavily dependent on a car where I am staying (with family).  They do run loop buses, but those are not ideal if you want to work, no matter how bad and low paying the jobs are.  The area was built to support IBM.  Then IBM went all downsizey, and it hasn't kept up.  There are issues with the lack of apartments to rent also.  

Pretty much IBM downsizes and area fails to recover jobwise, so it finds itself best suited to be a bed community for NYC, and people doing long commutes.  It helped prop up real estate prices... well, until the financial meltdown.  With the illegal Mexicans in this area also, it is a regular microcosm of what faces America, right down hoping green and green jobs would save everyone.



Kasz216 on 10 June 2012

You wouldn't reach "virtually" 100% unemployment with no minimum wage.

I mean, theoretically you could, but you wouldn't because some people would just refuse to work crappy jobs for crappy pay.

If we lived in a world where everyone would take the best job they could get, that would happen... I say "virtually" because there would be some lag between quitting/being fired and getting another job of course.

Of course... does that even matter?

I mean at a low enough price i'm sure people would be willing to pay people to do all sorts of things. Whether that person could live off that or not... i'd doubt.



SamuelRSmith on 10 June 2012
richardhutnik said:

If economic activity and growth has been the byproduct of malinvestment and excessive debt, cause excessive money floating about, and this excessive debt is not sustainable, when the contraction happens due to the debt not being serviced, or the money supply shrinks to service it, then what do you think will happen to unemployment?

It will sky-rocket. But that's because we don't live in a free society. See my initial response to Mr. Khan on why such incidences wouldn't occur in such a society, and how solutions would be found if they did.

Thing is that End of Work goes into that.  Have you even read the book?  If not, then you don't know the arguments.  And what you have seen happen is that manufacturing in the United States did increase, but labor demands decreased:

No. I haven't read the book. Never even heard of it. Don't want to read it, either.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/02/25/the-truth-about-the-great-american-manufacturing-d.aspx

 

And how about manufacturing jobs in China?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/03/that-giant-sucking-sound-of-manufacturing-jobs-going-to-china/

Well, China is also losing manufacturing jobs.

So, you will now say, "Well there is information technology jobs available".  Care to show there are enough of those around which could soak up the displaced manufacturing jobs?  Look around the Internet.  Care to show the future isn't going to be free content backed by advertising, that scales so that top IP producers get the lion's share of money, while the rest starve, or life won't be like Second Life, where things are so cheap to produce people can hang around forever producing free content for people, in hopes they can make it big some day?  No one is able to make a living in this free hell, but you can't afford to leave either.  And thus, I get back to The End of Work.

I would never make the claim that there are IT jobs available, or if it's going to explode. To pretend to know what the jobs of tomorrow are is the pretense of knowledge. I don't know whether IT is a more valuable use of labour, or whether it's cutting hair, manufacturing, or flipping burgers (actually, I believe the Feds count the last two as the same thing...). Nobody does, and anybody who claims that they do, and denying the price mechanism in the process, is lying. Isn't it something like half of the top 10 most demanded jobs of today, didn't exist 10 years ago? Some shit like that.

But, it seems we (and, from what I can tell, the author of your book) have very different views on what a job is. You guys seem to think of jobs as the ends in and of themselves, I do not. I believe that work is a means to an end. We've gone from a point of people working from childhood to their graves, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, dawn 'til dusk to a point where the average worker works 5 days a week, has a couple of weeks vacation a year (plus public holidays), 8 hours a day with a lunch break, doesn't really have to enter the workforce until their mid-20s, and can leave with a couple of decades before the end of their life. All the while, they can now afford a standard of living lightyears ahead of what they could before. This trend will continue.

It seems to me that people above a certain income value leisure far greater than they measure work. This is why you often see white-collar workers moaning about overtime, while blue-collar workers pray for it. What this means that (this is my prediction, here), as prices "fall" (in this inflationary world, I mean, relative to incomes), and people get wealthier, they will opt to work fewer hours, for fewer years. Essentially creating more jobs in that the demand for labour would fall relative to the supply.





richardhutnik on 10 June 2012
Kasz216 said:
You wouldn't reach "virtually" 100% unemployment with no minimum wage.

I mean, theoretically you could, but you wouldn't because some people would just refuse to work crappy jobs for crappy pay.

If we lived in a world where everyone would take the best job they could get, that would happen... I say "virtually" because there would be some lag between quitting/being fired and getting another job of course.

Of course... does that even matter?

I mean at a low enough price i'm sure people would be willing to pay people to do all sorts of things. Whether that person could live off that or not... i'd doubt.

I would have to wonder about all this, because you see from ample examples today, and in the past, that you will have people doing hours, months and years of work without getting paid, for a number of reasons.  You have people trying for fame.  You have examples on the Internet now.  And you have situations where people bag groceries in Mexico for merely tips.  Heck, if you factor in college internships, there are people who actually pay money to do a job.  And businesses will exploit this also to make the students doing the intern get coffee and other grunt work, that has nothing to do with what they are majoring in.  It actually gets bad sometimes to where colleges have to crack down on it.

A question is, left to its own devices, could a market produce a form of a hell where people work their entire lives for no pay in an area, provide value and don't get compensated.  I see this form happening on the Internet.  I mentioned Second Life is full of this.  You have people on there paying money to run businesses, and not existing.  Cost to stay afloat is so low, people will do this indefinitely, if they can.  And then you have the porn industry also, getting killed now financially, because free porn is running amok.  Used to be you had to pay people for this.  Then you find that people will actually do it for free, because doing it is a reward unto itself.  And, does anyone here not think Game Stop couldn't get away with paying people pennies per hour, if that, if there wasn't a minimum wage law?  They don't have problems staffing, because they get videogame fanboys there, who would even pay money to convert people to their system of choice.

Only thing that stops this cycle is the labor pool does the equivalent of striking, and refuses to do things unless compensated somehow.  A question here I would ask: Is it going to get to a place where most jobs could be such where business owners wouldn't even have to pay people enough to live, because the pool of labor is large enough to allow them to not do this?  Maybe it wouldn't be totally so, but it could be that it happens in increasingly large numbers.



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richardhutnik on 10 June 2012
SamuelRSmith said:

I would never make the claim that there are IT jobs available, or if it's going to explode. To pretend to know what the jobs of tomorrow are is the pretense of knowledge. I don't know whether IT is a more valuable use of labour, or whether it's cutting hair, manufacturing, or flipping burgers (actually, I believe the Feds count the last two as the same thing...). Nobody does, and anybody who claims that they do, and denying the price mechanism in the process, is lying. Isn't it something like half of the top 10 most demanded jobs of today, didn't exist 10 years ago? Some shit like that.

But, it seems we (and, from what I can tell, the author of your book) have very different views on what a job is. You guys seem to think of jobs as the ends in and of themselves, I do not. I believe that work is a means to an end. We've gone from a point of people working from childhood to their graves, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, dawn 'til dusk to a point where the average worker works 5 days a week, has a couple of weeks vacation a year (plus public holidays), 8 hours a day with a lunch break, doesn't really have to enter the workforce until their mid-20s, and can leave with a couple of decades before the end of their life. All the while, they can now afford a standard of living lightyears ahead of what they could before. This trend will continue.

It seems to me that people above a certain income value leisure far greater than they measure work. This is why you often see white-collar workers moaning about overtime, while blue-collar workers pray for it. What this means that (this is my prediction, here), as prices "fall" (in this inflationary world, I mean, relative to incomes), and people get wealthier, they will opt to work fewer hours, for fewer years. Essentially creating more jobs in that the demand for labour would fall relative to the supply.
 

 

I do suggest you read up on "The End of Work" if not read it itself.  It looks at the shift in what people do.

As for what you also said there, in no way, shape or form, do I argue that work is an end in itself.  I do believe it is important people do SOMETHING constructive with their time, because not having this erodes people's being and is not good at all.  Work is what one is to do, in what they are competent at, in order to acquire what they need to live and have a better life for themselves.

Issues that can be debated here is whether or not markets, and markets alone, are sufficient to end up insuring that people can be able to support themselves.  Some individuals, ideologically driven by the belief in free markets as their main frame of reference, believe that markets can do everything, and no one even has to think about issues, because markets magically sort out issues regarding poverty and externality issues (negative and positive) so that everything gets properly priced, and every form of negative externality will fail.  Anarcho-capitalists would say markets do that, Libertarians would argue you also needs courts, and conservatives would argue also for more government intervention, particularly ones with a bent for nationalism.  Others would argue markets alone aren't sufficient to insure this, and either require some things, or if you get into anarcho-communists, believe markets will permanently fail at this (and I guess people will eventually see this, and join a Venus Project Commune, where a master computer know it all properly allocates resources).

A problem we have now with prices falling to adjust things, is that the currency we use is based on debt.  The natural assumption is that the money supply MUST keep increasing, to service the debt by which it entered, because all currency is now lent into existence, even if it isn't printed.  So, prices can't drop and make everyone richer.   End result now is we have annoying cycles where the debt exceeds ability to service it, and it call comes crashing down, as it had around 2008, and still hasn't recovered.  I would say, if you could get currency backed by real goods and services, then there wouldn't be things as inflation or deflation, there would be just proper evaluation.  That being said though, it still doesn't mean everything will get out, because there is the case of "the rich getting richer".  Rich getting richer is natural in economies given to allowing for scaling and improving.  There ends up a compounding effect that happens.  With this happening, you get wealth accumulation following.

Hmm.. I think it may be time for another thread on this.



killerzX on 10 June 2012
Mr Khan said:
Marks said:
richardhutnik said:
Marks said:
Welfare creates the welfare trap where it's easier to just stay on welfare than get a job that would only pay slightly better. I could get behind the negative income tax, which encourages you to find work, since your income would be boosted.

But of course my top option would be to get rid of welfare all together. I'm a 20 year old with no past work experience, this summer is the first time I've tried to find a job, and I was able to get a job for the summer within a week of sending out my resume. The employer got back to me in I think it was 1 or 2 days after I emailed him my resume, an interview was set up, and he hired me on the spot after the interview. I don't get why the government lets people stay on welfare for so long when it's easy as fuck to get a job. If welfare is to stay around it should be for a maximum period of about a month after getting laid off/fired. If I can find a job within a week with no past work experience, then you can't tell me the people on welfare now can't find jobs.

There is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is almost like the negative income tax, for people who do work.  If someone does work a job, they can get the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Federal Government sends them money during income tax time.  

The thing today is that it isn't as easy as fk to find a job.  It may of been better than before, but it just isn't there as prevalently.  They had a year or two ago, the National Hiring Day where they hired 60000 people out over 1 million that applied.  Around 20% or less of teenagers out there currently have jobs.  The rest of the jobs are filled with college graduates and also seniors who are working.  You happen to be one of the lucky ones.


The EITC sounds pretty good. I'll have to read into that. I would love a program like that to replace the welfare system entirely. 

And I probably did get a bit lucky being hired that quickly, but I really don't know how it can be that hard for people to get jobs. Everywhere I got fast food places and random stores have help wanted signs up. I think the problem really is people just don't want to do shit work like fast food so they'd rather not even apply.

I've applied for all sorts of fast-food work, and haven't gotten hired by anyone since KFC in 2008 (which i had to give up to go to college). McDonald's, Wendy's, no minimum wage job will hire me, because i'm overqualified, and they know as well as i do that i'll drop them for the first real opportunity that comes up. Meanwhile, i don't have experience for real jobs and don't have the money to get unpaid experience (and even free  internships are hard as hell to get).

It isn't pleasant out there, due to employer greed.

aww... have you come to the shocking realization that running a business isnt a charity?



richardhutnik on 10 June 2012
killerzX said:
Mr Khan said:
Marks said:
richardhutnik said:
Marks said:
Welfare creates the welfare trap where it's easier to just stay on welfare than get a job that would only pay slightly better. I could get behind the negative income tax, which encourages you to find work, since your income would be boosted.

But of course my top option would be to get rid of welfare all together. I'm a 20 year old with no past work experience, this summer is the first time I've tried to find a job, and I was able to get a job for the summer within a week of sending out my resume. The employer got back to me in I think it was 1 or 2 days after I emailed him my resume, an interview was set up, and he hired me on the spot after the interview. I don't get why the government lets people stay on welfare for so long when it's easy as fuck to get a job. If welfare is to stay around it should be for a maximum period of about a month after getting laid off/fired. If I can find a job within a week with no past work experience, then you can't tell me the people on welfare now can't find jobs.

There is the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is almost like the negative income tax, for people who do work.  If someone does work a job, they can get the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Federal Government sends them money during income tax time.  

The thing today is that it isn't as easy as fk to find a job.  It may of been better than before, but it just isn't there as prevalently.  They had a year or two ago, the National Hiring Day where they hired 60000 people out over 1 million that applied.  Around 20% or less of teenagers out there currently have jobs.  The rest of the jobs are filled with college graduates and also seniors who are working.  You happen to be one of the lucky ones.


The EITC sounds pretty good. I'll have to read into that. I would love a program like that to replace the welfare system entirely. 

And I probably did get a bit lucky being hired that quickly, but I really don't know how it can be that hard for people to get jobs. Everywhere I got fast food places and random stores have help wanted signs up. I think the problem really is people just don't want to do shit work like fast food so they'd rather not even apply.

I've applied for all sorts of fast-food work, and haven't gotten hired by anyone since KFC in 2008 (which i had to give up to go to college). McDonald's, Wendy's, no minimum wage job will hire me, because i'm overqualified, and they know as well as i do that i'll drop them for the first real opportunity that comes up. Meanwhile, i don't have experience for real jobs and don't have the money to get unpaid experience (and even free  internships are hard as hell to get).

It isn't pleasant out there, due to employer greed.

aww... have you come to the shocking realization that running a business isnt a charity?

And even a charity, properly run, is a business.  Charities have other motives besides the accumulation of money beyond what they need (aka, profit) but they need to be run as businesses to be able to exist.



SamuelRSmith on 10 June 2012
richardhutnik said:

And even a charity, properly run, is a business.  Charities have other motives besides the accumulation of money beyond what they need (aka, profit) but they need to be run as businesses to be able to exist.


I'm going to be honest, it came as a massive shock to me when I found out that charities engaged in lobbying.



richardhutnik on 10 June 2012
SamuelRSmith said:
richardhutnik said:

And even a charity, properly run, is a business.  Charities have other motives besides the accumulation of money beyond what they need (aka, profit) but they need to be run as businesses to be able to exist.


I'm going to be honest, it came as a massive shock to me when I found out that charities engaged in lobbying.

Everyone tries to game the system, when large enough, and metagame it, in that they will look to write the rules to their advantage.  Recognized charities are corporations after all, and function like them, just with the motivation to accomplish a mission that isn't accumulating extra cash: This is why they are called non-profit corporations.

On that note, I get a bit of a kick out of when I hear someone go, "But I got rich playing by the rules" and then they go off and lobby to have the rules change to suit them.  Part of what has been in Occupy is to try to bring this to light and say those with money have an easier time to rig the system to their favor.  Of course, considering how much rabble floats around in Occupy, that has been lost by a hundred of other messages that has people arguing Occupy is about getting freebies, and doing drugs in tents in parks.  It happens.  Shame that that part gets lost, as it is one that could have a good impact.