Alan Lichtenstein <arl RemoveThis @nospam.tld> wrote:
>> Simple. Since the number of visas is not being increased, and yet
>> American business isn't collapsing, apparently they are managing to
>> find the people they need to fill the jobs, despite the claim that
>> they supposedly aren't there.
>
>That assertion actually contradicts your claim. if the motivation was
>to get even cheaper labor, it would stand to reason that companies could
>get even cheaper labor from someone not yet here, and thus there would
>be an actual increase in H1B visas.
Companies don't get to choose whether to increase visas; the
government does. Thus from the standpoint of the companies, foreign
labor is a fixed supply. If the American supply was shrinking with
demand constant or increasing, salaries should act like gas prices and
go through the roof. They haven't.
When a science Phd is making what a doctor or a lawyer with similar
education makes (two professions where there is truly a controlled
fixed supply in this country and little way to increase it from out of
country), then I will tend to believe the tales of a talent gap.
>Regardless, business isn't
>collapsing because companies simply aren't filling those positions.
Then they aren't needed, since the US economy is still growing under
current conditions.
>but then the new products aren't being developed, and technology is not
>advancing as rapidly as it could.
It is growing rapidly enough.
>As another effect, our edge in
>developing technology is slowly being eroded to countries such as India
>which are now beginning to form their own companies to compete. That is
>the far more serious byproduct which you seem to want to ignore.
But that is an inevitable result of more countries moving from
"developing" to "developed" status.
Our economy cannot healthily grow as rapidly as the Chinese and the
Indians, so we have no wherewithal to take advantage of too rapid
technological growth. We'd actually be aiding THEM, because they
steal our technology and use it in developing new infrastructure,
whereas the US has its enormous investment in its current
infrastructure that hasn't been amortized through use, and so cannot
build new infrastructure as rapidly. (The effects of this can be seen
in some of the lesser developed nations that vaulted past us to
near-universal cell-phone and high-speed Internet usage a few years
ago, while many Americans have neither.)
>> Furthermore, the salaries for qualified people aren't going through
>> the roof, as would be expected if demand significantly exceeds supply.
>
>No, they aren't, because there are still enough qualified FOREIGN
>applicants to take those positions.
Then the limits on H1B Visas is apparently sufficiently high.
>> Too many. And yet only 18% of Americans worked more than 48 hours per
>> week.
>> http://www.expertbusinesssource.com/article/CA6516841.html
>>
>>>Just look at Wall Street for one example.
>>
>> The pay on Wall Street is enormously higher than for scientists and
>> engineers.
>
>Not for everyone. For the FEW who happen to be highly successful
>positions. Most people who work on Wall Street don't come near those
>salaries.
I am sure that they make more than scientists and engineers. But of
course it is the perception that they CAN make the high salaries that
draws people to work on Wall Street. That leads to plenty of supply.
>>>As far as your claim that these occupations are difficult to unionize,
>>>that is hardly the case. Teachers, nurses and in a few instances,
>>>doctors have been unionized.
>>
>> Government employees can be unionized. In private industry, it isn't
>> happening.
>
>We have laws that permit unionization, and we'll shortly have a new law
>that makes it easier to do so. Problem is that most of those who aren't
>unionized have bought into management's position.
They've been bought into management's position.
>IMHO, a foolish
>position,and IMHO, I believe that eventually, when it's too late,
>they'll see the error of their ways. But the fact remains, it can be done.
I am considering what is sociologically possible. The sociology of
the industry is what makes it impossible, not the labor laws.
>As far as nurses and doctors are concerned, I wasn't aware that all
>hospitals and agencies in which they work were government operations.
>Non profits, perhaps, but not government. Perhaps you have some
>evidence to support your claim.
It is not the case that all, or even most, nurses and doctors are
unionized. I suspect that this is unusual in private sector
hospitals.
>> It may be their fault, but it is the nature of the professions that
>> the people who work those kinds of jobs are the sorts of
>> individualists who wouldn't support a union.
>
>I seem to recall when they said that about teachers. So much for your
>conjecture.
Teachers are government employees.
>>>>So are the number of working hours per employee, I believe.
>>>
>>>Your beliefs are not evidence.
>>
>> The cited article above noted an increase in the average workweek of
>> about 5 hours in just a few years,
>
>The WSJ has published on numerous occasions, articles on worker
>productivity. True, increased work hours are a factor, but there are
>many other factors which do not permit one to isolate one single thing
>to claim that it controls increased productivity.
I don't give a damn about increased productivity. Most kids who are
choosing a profession want one that allows them a life away from the
office. You can call that laziness, while I call it healthy and sane.
>And besides, your citation makes no distinction between mandated work hours and overtime.
What's the difference? If your official on-paper workweek is 40
hours, and the boss wants you to stay late, you stay late. Or you go
to the top of the layoff list. And as I said, those extra hours are
unpaid in most technical jobs.
> If the additional hours are due to overtime, which in many cases is
>voluntary,
It isn't voluntary; it is "voluntary".
>then what we are seeing is a labor shortage,
No, we are seeing that companies find it cheaper to demand extra
unpaid labor from a worker than they do to hire a new worker.
My wife's company has had a couple of layoffs in the last few years to
cut costs. The net result is that rather than being responsible for
one project, and maybe helping out on the side on a second project,
she is usually juggling two or three high-priority projects with an
equal number waiting on the side. This has led to extra overtime, no
extra pay, and my wife is becoming burnt out whereas before she used
to love her work.
The same happened to me back in the 1980s.
>>>And increased work hours are generally compensated by a little thing
>>>called 'overtime.'
>>
>> Not for "exempt" employees, which most professionals are (and the Bush
>> administration made it easier for an employer to classify someone as
>> exempt).
>
>True. But you have no evidence that distinguishes your claimed data.
I have trouble determining what you would consider "evidence"
>> Very few programmers or engineers get paid overtime. You get the same
>> pay for working 80 hours as for working 40 hours, but if you work only
>> 40 hours you get replaced. I lost my first programming job in 1975
>> because I wasn't sufficiently willing to work Saturdays when the boss
>> demanded it, even though I tended to stay later on weekdays.
>
>No argument there. So? Are you making the claim that your experience
>applies to ALL?
My assertion was "many". I seldom make universal claims.
>>>>In any event, an American could earn less and still live much better
>>>>than the average Indian who doesn't come to the US.
>>>
>>>Maybe. but what has that to do with the fact that industry needs those
>>>Indians to come here because America can't or rather won't provide the
>>>necessary labor pool?
>>
>> Except that industry doesn't really need them, since it isn't acting
>> like it needs them by raising salaries and benefits enough to entice
>> more to enter the field.
>
>You don't seem to understand that you can raise the salaries to
>astronomical heights and it would still go unfilled,
If they tried raising the salaries, then you could make that claim.
Right now, there is insufficient premium paid for premium employment
skills, to entice kids to get them. They can get almost as much money
for lower skills, and with shorter lead time.
Dom actually had the answer here. The people who get those premium
job skills usually do so because they LOVE that kind of work. Someone
who loves their work more than "real life" has no trouble being a
workaholic. Of course companies always *want* more workaholics, since
they actually cost less (requiring no additional salary or benefits
for longer hours).
>because there still needs to be someone to fill the position. There just aren't.
If you raise the salaries, and improve the working conditions, then
the perception that the job is more remunerative leads more people to
undertake the effort to get into that profession.
There are no shortages of pre-med students, and doctors require more
and tougher, education than engineers. The perception is sufficient
to add more kids to the pipeline despite the difficulty. There are
shortages of doctors mostly because the profession controls the number
of med-school slots that add to the profession.
>>>Now, what' you're telling us is that American youth is
>>>lazy, self-indulgent and afraid of hard work.
>>
>> Not quite. Unwilling to do hard work unless remunerated, and with the
>> short-term focus of youth, that does not mean "after graduation". Kids
>> can make money NOW by working 20, 30, or 40 hours a week while in high
>> school. Doesn't leave much time for homework though.
>
>I disagree.
You disagree that kids are working more while in high school? or that
this cuts into homework time? In this case, my source has been the
various international studies like TIMSS, which survey students.
American students BY FAR have a higher percentage of kids who work
more than 10 hours per week while in school than any other country.
American kids are accustomed to having money NOW. I can tell you that
this has hurt my kid in college. He hasn't managed to make the shift
in lifestyle to "poor college student" and thus is building up debt
above and beyond school costs. He's considering dropping out, because
he wants to work, and have money NOW, even if this will cost him
future income.
>they seem to have an inflated opinion of what they are entitled to get.
No, it is NOT inflated. They want it now, and they can get it now if
they work for pay instead of for education.
>The marketplace is telling them that they are wrong.
Unemployment of the young isn't rising.
>Perhaps a few years of unemployment and not getting what they want will
>disabuse them of their inflated opinions of their skills and abilities,
Not likely, since they won't be unemployed. They may not be able to
afford to buy a house, and if they should have a kid, the costs will
stun them. But most young people think in present tense, or of the
very near future. And American culture encourages this.
>but regardless, that does nothing to alleviate the failure of our
>educational institutions to produce these people. If you want to extent
>the blame to societal factors, I won't disagree.
If it is societal factors, then there is nothing wrong with the
educational institutions, which aren't going to change the societal
culture but have to deal with what they get.
>> The percentage of kids who worked that kind of hours while in high
>> school was a lot lower in the 50s.
>
>Parent's were less indulgent then, and perhaps parents now should return
>to those values.
Parents don't have the control. They are too busy working to
supervise their kids (this of course isn't necessarily their choice -
they have to pay the bills). In the 50s there were fewer single
parent families, and more stay-at-home parents.
>> We've never had the competition levels that exist today, involving
>> such a high percentage of the student body. 50 years ago, only half
>> as many students (or less) went to college, and there were plenty of
>> career paths for those who did not have the competitive mindset.
>
>Oh please, competition has drastically declined today because of the
>Social/Emotional School. You know that, and it's preposterous for you
>to make that claim.
The article that started this thread says otherwise.
In the 60s, I felt almost no competitive pressure. If I jumped
through the course requirement hoops, I could get into the University
of California. You didn't need an exceptional GPA; there were few
enough kids that took the required courses that the UC system and the
California State College/University system could accommodate most of
the California students who met the requirements.
>>>Besides, even still, suicide removes the
>>>weaklings. Better for the species, as Darwin would say.
>>
>> Thereby lowering yourself to the level of a social Darwinist.
>
>You support Darwin only when it's convenient? How quaint.
I don't "support Darwin". I support the theory of evolution, which is
entirely amoral. The concept of "better for the species" suggest that
you are attempting to put a moral cast on Darwin's theory.
There is no requirement in the theory of evolution that a species
"improve". Some dinosaur species survived for millions of years
without a lot of change or "improvement".
>> Progress has its disadvantages, especially when too rapid. I read
>> Toffler ages ago, and still remember that.
>
>I disagree. Progress can never be too rapid; only too slow.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
>>>Your vision would turn our society into the Eloi of H.G. Wells' Time Machine.
>>
>> Or maybe into something more like those other developed countries
>> where a month's vacation is common and professionals ARE paid
>> overtime.
>
>Which is why France is having severe economic problems, and Sarkozy now
>had to actually begin efforts to increase the work week. Conservatives
>have frequently made the argument( which perhaps may be the only valid
>argument they make ) regarding the cost of the social programs and
>benefits in Europe, that they decreased productivity, increased costs
>and simply removed considerable wealth from the economies unnecessarily,
>and were unsustainable as a result.
France can increase its work week a great deal and still have a lot
more leisure than the US has.
>> If they spend the energy to earn it, then they won't have the TIME to
>> enjoy it.
>
>I don't see many of the wealthy lacking for time.
You spend a lot of time with the wealthy, observing them?
>>>>And I think most of those suffering foreclosures are those of the late
>>>>boomer generation, and not the ones just getting out of college.
>>>
>>>Actually, most of the foreclosures were of people of lower middle and
>>>low class socioeconomic categories.
>>
>> Such people couldn't afford house payments.
>
>Obviously. But NONE of the people who had their homes foreclosed could
>obviously afford the payments when their mortgages reset.
The keyword is "reset". The people didn't read the fine print, and
assumed that at most the payments would rise with inflation or perhaps
a little faster. Moreover, those with balloon payment provisions were
assured by lenders that a "refi" later would be no problem. But of
course when the economy turned sour, it WAS a problem.
>>>>I personally think that no student should be REQUIRED to put in more
>>>>than a 40 hour week in order to succeed. If some elite universities
>>>>want to demand such, then we need to lower the level that we call
>>>>"success" so as to allow other options.
>>>
>>>I think any student should be REQUIRED to put in as much time and effort
>>>as REQUIRED by the competitive nature their goals create,
>>
>> Then you shouldn't be surprised when "too few" Americans are willing
>> to adopt the goal you want them to adopt - i.e. to be employable in
>> the degreed technical professions.
>
>if you're saying that studying a science is requiring too much effort,
>that doesn't say much about the drive and motivation of our children.
It says a lot. It says that their drive is towards opportunities with
more immediate gratification, of which there are plenty. The rewards
for "drive and motivation" are insufficient to sustain it.
>>>Your statements are directly contradictory of the push for science
>>>education after Sputnick. The only difference between those students
>>>then and students now is that earlier students had a better work ethic,
>>>and weren't afraid of a little hard work.
>>
>> Bullshit. The "push for science education" in those days wasn't
>> nearly as demanding as it is now.
>
>Bullshit to you as well. Curriculum was drastically updated immediately
>after Sputnik to bring it into the 20th Century.
Yeah. High school physics courses started requiring a little algebra,
whereas before Sputnik (and even a good while after in many places) it
was possible to get a high school diploma without taking algebra.
(And it wasn't all that immediate - the new curriculum was still being
implemented in the mid-60s, and included the New Math that Herman
often decries)
But even if the courses got a little more updated, the numbers taking
high school physics didn't increase that quickly. That took into the
80s and 90s as the percentage of college-bound students grew, and as
schools started increasing the level of required courses needed for
graduation and for college admittance.
>At no other time was there such a rapid advance in science education as there was then.
The advance was in level of the courses, not in numbers taking the
advanced track.
>Your assertion simply doesn't hold water. We're essentially operating with
>the same curricular base now as we did immediately after Sputnik.
No, because even 10 years after Sputnik, my high school didn't even
OFFER a calculus class, leading me to graduate after my junior year.
The middle schools did not offer algebra, and much of what was taught
in first year algebra then (elementary set nomenclature, simple linear
equations with one unknown) is now considered "pre-algebra" and taught
in the lower grades. And the percentage of students taking 4 years of
math was very small; only two years were required for graduation, and
most kids took only two years (and one of those was usually
pre-algebra in my school)
>so, there really is no bid difference between then and now, except that this
>generation didn't have the culture shock of radical change that the
>Sputnik generation did, and met the challenge.
I was part of the Sputnik generation - I started elementary school in
1958. There was no culture shock, and not much challenge. My kids
had MUCH tougher science and math, at lower grades, than I had (indeed
all of their classes were tougher than mine until I got to high school
and got into "honors" classes - and I know what the non-honors classes
were like because I earned a little money as a tutor and teacher's
aide my last year of high school.
>Your rationalization is
>simply an effort to avoid the fact that our current students are
>lazy, self-indulgent and want the easy way out.
Our generation was lazy, self-indulgent, and had no trouble finding
the easy way out. We grew up in the post-Sputnik 60s, when colleges
were shut down by sit-ins, college kids were taking LSD in order to
trip out and not Ritalin in order to stay awake.
I wasn't into drugs, but a surprising number of my peers who were
seemed to make it through school anyway, and their achievements aren't
any less than mine.
>>>This is where we disagree.
>>>You're afraid to tell these kids that the party's over and life requires
>>>a little hard work.
>>
>> My daughter dropped out of college within a year and went to work. She
>> works plenty hard (and then plays plenty hard). She might have made
>> more as an engineer (a laughable thought, since my daughter's math
>> skills are abysmal), but she is making money NOW, whereas if she had
>> stayed in college, she would still be racking up college debt at $20K
>> per year.
>
>So?
She has no trouble with hard work. But only if she gets paid NOW.
That seems to be the case with my son, who I often thought was lazy in
high school. Yet when he is at work, he apparently is highly
productive and well thought of.
>>>>case is not clearly made that a science major who drops out of the rat
>>>>race (as I did - I did not go to grad school, and my field of
>>>>astrophysics has negligible opportunities short of the PhD level)
>>>>often is at a competitive advantage in the non-sciences even though
>>>>they don't have the specific training.
>>>
>>>You could have chosen a field where there were more opportunities.
>>
>> I did. I went into programming. A field where I didn't really need
>> the degree that I had, though it probably helped get me in the door.
>
>So why are you complaining?
I'm not. But I certainly didn;t understand, or consider, the
economics of my choices when I was a kid.
(My dad wanted me to study accounting. As he put it, I could become a
CPA, make a lot of money, and hire an astrophysicist to look at the
stars for me. That was the working-class view of the world, and I
think my dad confused a CPA with an MBA, but his point was that the
sciences didn't pay.)
>> I haven't gone back to work since the kids were grown. It isn't clear
>> that I will do so. The tradeoff is some added income for retirement
>> vs a higher stress level that might mean that I don't live until
>> retirement.
>
>Maybe you should try to get a job just to prove me wrong in my conjecture.
That's a lousy reason to go to work.
>>>Maybe we should take a lesson from them. Self indulgence breeds sloth
>>>and decay.
>>
>> And human rights and liberty
>
>we had no problem insuring human rights and liberty
Unless you were female or had a dark skin color or ...
>when we had a competitive and well trained student body.
We never had the latter, except for the tiny percentage that went for
advanced degrees. We had the former mostly because most of the world
was illiterate with huge portions of the populace getting no more than
an elementary education, if that much.
If you only want 2-3% of the population to get advanced degrees, then
they will be as you put it "well-trained" and "highly motivated". If
you seek to expand that percentage to 10% of more, then society will
have to supply the motivation. Barb I think posted an article showing
that even people in India see that our society actually denigrates the
advanced sciences rather than valuing them.
Remember that this is the country where half the population won't
accept the theory of evolution no matter how much evidence is found.
And you think it is "laziness" that keeps the kids back?
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist
lojbab RemoveThis @lojban.org Lojban language
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