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1   anonymous   2017 Jul 11, 5:01pm  

Gentle Reader,
Pay them and they shall come.
Regards,
Roidy
P.S. What!?! Our PROFITS would suffer! Someone shoot this asshole.

2   Strategist   2017 Jul 11, 5:27pm  

We don't produce enough skilled workers, that's where the problem lies. Our schools suck bigly.

3   Dan8267   2017 Jul 11, 5:53pm  

Strategist says

We don't produce enough skilled workers, that's where the problem lies. Our schools suck bigly.

College is worthless, but that's irrelevant. Good students will learn high tech skills on their own if doing so makes sense.

The problem isn't with schools, but with outsourcing and H1B Visas. Learning high tech skills requires a great investment of time and effort that could be used for many other things. It only makes sense to spend the inordinate amount of time and effort to learn a STEM field if doing so is a guarantee of a high income, stable career. There are many easier ways to make money than STEM, and most of them have higher prestige as well.

When companies and the government suppress STEM worker bargaining power and wages by importing STEM workers from underdeveloped countries and by outsourcing, it takes away the financial incentive to invest in starting a STEM career. Why would anyone enter a field in which you make far less than doctors and financial workers while being in constant fear of losing your job to some guy in India or China who will work for $100/day? You're better off going in some other career.

People respond to rational incentives and disincentives. Outsourcing and H1B Visas are a great disincentive to enter or stay in a STEM career. That's the truth. That's the reason why fewer and fewer people are choosing STEM, at least in America.


Per capita, American students are dropping out of STEM.

4   Strategist   2017 Jul 11, 6:48pm  

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

We don't produce enough skilled workers, that's where the problem lies. Our schools suck bigly.

College is worthless, but that's irrelevant. Good students will learn high tech skills on their own if doing so makes sense.

The problem isn't with schools, but with outsourcing and H1B Visas. Learning high tech skills requires a great investment of time and effort that could be used for many other things. It only makes sense to spend the inordinate amount of time and effort to learn a STEM field if doing so is a guarantee of a high income, stable career. There are many easier ways to make money than STEM, and most of them have higher prestige as well.

Doctors are the highest paid profession. Practically everyone wants their kid to be a doctor, and college students strive and strive to get into a medical school. Most do not make it. So why do we have such a shortage of doctors? We have a shortage of skilled STEM workers because most Americans hate math. And yes, you do need college, it's not worthless. By the way lawyers are highly paid too, but we don't have a shortage of those scumbags. I wonder why?

5   FortWayne   2017 Jul 11, 6:57pm  

Our worthless government at some point decided to have shitty education and outsource for skills. That combination is cheaper, but really screws our working class over. At least Trump is fixing that one by cutting down on offshore work force that left loves so much.

See I reckon we should stop all outsourcing, that'll make an incentive to provide great education. That does mean getting rid of academias stupid tenure system and putting a lot more money into better education for everyone.

6   FortWayne   2017 Jul 11, 7:01pm  

Strategist says

So why do we have such a shortage of doctors?

I think it's the cost. Growing up when I was choosing my future, I didn't even consider a doctor profession simply because of the amount of money I'd have to borrow. It wasn't realistic and I was afraid of debt. A lot of us have to make decisions by economic realities of survival. It is very odd the kind of monopolistic policies education institutions have in dictating prices. That needs to be addressed.

7   Strategist   2017 Jul 11, 7:09pm  

FortWayne says

Our worthless government at some point decided to have shitty education and outsource for skills. That combination is cheaper, but really screws our working class over. At least Trump is fixing that one by cutting down on offshore work force that left loves so much.

Ha ha ha. I love the way you put it.

FortWayne says

See I reckon we should stop all outsourcing, that'll make an incentive to provide great education. That does mean getting rid of academias stupid tenure system and putting a lot more money into better education for everyone.

No no no. If we stop outsourcing we will fall way behind other countries that produce more talent than us. We need to fix our educational system first. Otherwise it's only a matter of time before our Silicon Valley ends up in Bangalore. Companies will go to where the talent is at the best price, and there is no real way of stopping it in a world that keeps getting smaller.

8   Dan8267   2017 Jul 11, 8:53pm  

Strategist says

So why do we have such a shortage of doctors?

By design. Regardless of how many qualified medical students there are or how well they perform, the medical guild -- and that's what it really is -- won't let more than a low level of doctors enter the profession, and the guild can enforce this by federal and state law. So the guild creates an artificial scarcity to keep the bargaining power of doctors, and thus their incomes, high. Again, this is how capitalism works. Capitalism rewards one and only one thing, bargaining power. Productivity, innovation, and problem solving are irrelevant except for how they give you a little bargaining power. But the lion's share of bargaining power is based on control of production. I've told you this a million times and you never get it.

If software developers had a guild that prevented outsourcing and H1B Visas by law and limited those who could legally practice coding, then the median software developer would be easily making over a million dollars a year.

Strategist says

We have a shortage of skilled STEM workers because most Americans hate math.

We do not have a shortage of STEM workers. We do have fewer Americans entering STEM because corporations have decided to outsource STEM in order to reduce STEM worker bargaining power and thus keep a larger share of STEM worker wealth production for the owners. Again, this is a failure of capitalism. The owners will always do whatever they can to siphon off a greater percentage of other people's wealth production. This is the one and only feature of capitalism. Other things like commerce and free markets have nothing to do with capitalism.

You know what takes more math than most STEM fields? Finance. Yet there is no shortage of American men going into finance. Men chase dollars because dollars equals pussy. That's why men are far more likely to go into finance than women. It's not rocket science, and math is no hurdle when there is a lucrative and stable career to be had.

Strategist says

And yes, you do need college, it's not worthless.

College is a tax on entry into the skilled labor force. With rare exceptions of it being illegal to practice something without a license or under licensed supervision (say cutting up bodies), there is nothing that you can learn in college that you cannot just as easily, if not more easily, learn outside of college today. We live in the Information Age. Knowledge is information. Acquiring it is free. You need only spend your time and brain glucose to acquire knowledge of anything in the Information Age.

By the time I graduated elementary school, I knew more about software development than most high school computer teachers. By the time I graduated high school, I knew more about software development than all college professors in computer science. By the time I graduated undergraduate college, I knew more about software development than almost anyone on the planet. There is no reason that any person with a talent in any field, save the exception I mentioned, cannot do the same damn thing even more easily today. I did that shit without the benefit of the Internet. Repeating the process would be orders of magnitude easier today.

What was the secret to my success? I was curious, enjoyed programming, and was willing to spend the time and effort to learn everything about it from both what other people have done and from my own experiments. That's it. No magic needed. No mentoring needed. No special equipment needed. No guild of arcane lore bearers needed. No schooling needed. No degree needed. Just curiosity plus ambition plus time. That is the secret to success in any field.

Strategist says

By the way lawyers are highly paid too, but we don't have a shortage of those scumbags. I wonder why?

For most professions, work per capita equals the total fix demand divided by the number of workers. For lawyers, work per capita is a constant and total demand equals the number of lawyers times that constant. In other words, lawyers generate the demand for lawyers.

Image if the graviton, the messenger particle of gravity, had mass. Any tiny mass would generate more mass until the whole universe collapsed in a black hole. This is essentially what the legal profession is doing.

9   Dan8267   2017 Jul 11, 9:06pm  

FortWayne says

Our worthless government at some point decided to have shitty education and outsource for skills.

And that was mostly the Republican Party. Yes, the Democrats are partly responsible for outsourcing, but it's mostly a Republican thing. In fact, it all started with Ronald Reagan.

Democrats are also responsible for supporting teacher unions, which completely destroy the public education system. However, the Republican Party's core platform is dividing the nation into a few very well off haves and a multitude of have-nots to support the rich. The last thing the Republican establishment wants is an educated populace. The peasants need to be just smart enough to work all the machines, but no smarter lest they try to improve their lot in life and retain more of their wealth creation.

Trickle down economics requires a knowledge gap between the rich and the middle class.

FortWayne says

At least Trump is fixing that one by cutting down on offshore work force that left loves so much.

The left has many flaws, but outsourcing and H1B Visas are a product of the right. Put blame where blame belongs.

The left does the exact opposite. The left tries to create powerful unions that prevent scabs, today's H1B Visa holders and offshore workers, from driving down wages. Once again, you got reality completely upside down. How do you even arrive at such a backwards view of reality?

As for Trump, he hasn't done shit to stop outsourcing or reduce H1B Visas. I sincerely hope he does. It's the one campaign promise of his that I actually like and support. I'm rooting that he does, but I highly doubt he will. His entire life has been spent running bait-and-switch scams. I'd like to be wrong on this, but until I see the number of H1B Visas and offshore workers plummet, I can't give Trump an ounce of credit on this.

The real question is can a president do anything about outsourcing? Even if a president managed to shut down the H1B Visa program altogether, how could he do anything to prevent all those jobs going to outsourced workers? The entire infrastructure has been built to outsource STEM work to China and India, and all companies are international in the Internet Age. At this point I think it's impossible to undo the damage, so America's technological leadership is going to take a nose dive.

The capitalists decided that they didn't want to even run companies anymore. They just wanted to own the patents, the infrastructure, the brand, and the means of production. Everything else was just a cost including the workers producing all the patents, infrastructure, brand, and production. If people owned their own wealth production, we would have never gotten into this mess. If the income of the owners was directly tied to the income of the median worker, the owners would have had to increase the wealth of the working class in order to increase their own wealth. The financial incentives of the owners would be aligned with the interests of the working class. Capitalism fucked up big time on this and we'll be paying the consequences for the next century or two.

10   Strategist   2017 Jul 11, 9:17pm  

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

So why do we have such a shortage of doctors?

By design. Regardless of how many qualified medical students there are or how well they perform, the medical guild -- and that's what it really is -- won't let more than a low level of doctors enter the profession, and the guild can enforce this by federal and state law. So the guild creates an artificial scarcity to keep the bargaining power of doctors, and thus their incomes, high. Again, this is how capitalism works.

Hello? We import a lot of doctors and nurses.

Dan8267 says

Capitalism rewards one and only one thing, bargaining power. Productivity, innovation, and problem solving are irrelevant except for how they give you a little bargaining power. But the lion's share of bargaining power is based on control of production. I've told you this a million times and you never get it.

He he he. You are so funny. What does socialism reward?

Dan8267 says

We do not have a shortage of STEM workers. We do have fewer Americans entering STEM because corporations have decided to outsource STEM in order to reduce STEM worker bargaining power and thus keep a larger share of STEM worker wealth production for the owners. Again, this is a failure of capitalism. The owners will always do whatever they can to siphon off a greater percentage of other people's wealth production. This is the one and only feature of capitalism. Other things like commerce and free markets have nothing to do with capitalism.

LOL. So why don't the STEM workers who produce the real wealth start their own companies?

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

And yes, you do need college, it's not worthless.

College is a tax on entry into the skilled labor force. With rare exceptions of it being illegal to practice something without a license or under licensed supervision (say cutting up bodies), there is nothing that you can learn in college that you cannot just as easily, if not more easily, learn outside of college today. We live in the Information Age. Knowledge is information. Acquiring it is free. You need only spend your time and brain glucose to acquire knowledge of anything in the Information Age.

By the time I graduated elementary school, I knew more about software development than most high school computer teachers. By the time I graduated high school, I knew more about software development than all college professors in computer science. By the time I graduated undergraduate college, I knew more ab...

Instinct tells me you did not graduate from college. You are not successful. And you are full of it.

11   Dan8267   2017 Jul 11, 11:16pm  

Strategist says

Hello? We import a lot of doctors and nurses.

Total supply is still controlled.

Strategist says

He he he. You are so funny. What does socialism reward?

1. Socialism is not an economic system. It is a tactic.
2. The biggest socialist program in all of human history is the U.S. military
3. Socialism provides economies of scale. That's why the highway transportation system works and private roads don't.
4. There are an infinite number of possible economic systems, not just two. Quit your binary thinking.

Strategist says

LOL. So why don't the STEM workers who produce the real wealth start their own companies?

Control over production and distribution does not happen just because you create a corporation.

My point stands: the winner take all economy actually reduces overall wealth production by disincentivizing innovation and hard work.

Strategist says

Instinct tells me you did not graduate from college. You are not successful. And you are full of it.

And that is why your opinion does not count. You have no grasp of reality. You are obviously wrong, but delusionally sure of your incorrect world view.

12   Rin   2017 Jul 12, 2:00pm  

Strategist, I was a high honors in Applied Chemistry/Chemical Engineering, who'd left STEM for finance. If I can do it, I would imagine a lot of others, esp if they weren't a premed type, wanting to follow suit.

Today, I can afford hoes, anywhere around the world, preferring my New England neighborhood Montreal for convenience. At best, the STEM worker stuck in St Louis, is forced into buying a RealDoll or putting up with some nagging bitch for a poke.

13   Shaman   2017 Jul 12, 2:23pm  

Rin says

I was a high honors in Applied Chemistry/Chemical Engineering, who'd left STEM for finance.

Exactly. Anyone smart enough to be a STEM graduate is smart enough to enter a profession that pay much better like finance.
If corporations want such people to work in STEM, they should be prepared to dangle a little more carrot.

14   FortWayne   2017 Jul 12, 2:31pm  

Dan8267 says

And that was mostly the Republican Party. Yes, the Democrats are partly responsible for outsourcing, but it's mostly a Republican thing. In fact, it all started with Ronald Reagan.

I sure remember Democrats constantly selling outsourcing as much as Republicans in the past under the mantra of "worker shortage". You got to give Trump credit, he's turning that one around into "American worker first".

15   Dan8267   2017 Jul 12, 3:16pm  

FortWayne says

I sure remember Democrats constantly selling outsourcing as much as Republicans in the past under the mantra of "worker shortage".

The Democrats are definitely guilty as well, but Republicans especially Reagan are the leaders in selling out America. It's a key feature of their laissez faire economics and trickle-down theory. So yes, Republicans have been considerably worse on this during the past 37 years. And since I work in I.T. I know. Today, pretty much every person I work with is an H1B Visa worker.

FortWayne says

You got to give Trump credit, he's turning that one around into "American worker first".

I'll gladly give Trump credit for this when he actually does something. So far he hasn't done shit. He's all hat and no cattle.

Of course, accomplishing a complete shutdown of H1B Visas and outsourcing -- which I think is impossible now, and with outsourcing H1B Visas would just be replaced with offshore workers -- would be a great accomplishment, but not enough to fix all the other things Trump is fucking up. Trump would have to make major changes in his policies and appointments to redeem himself. But yes, if Trump actually did shit, I would give him credit for it.

Quite frankly, if the U.S. so desperately needs tech workers -- of course, that's bullshit; they want cheap labor not skilled labor -- then the company asking for foreign labor should have to pay at least twice the market rate for the imported labor for at least five years, and the foriegn laborer and his or her entire family should get immediate U.S. citizenship. If you're not willing to make them U.S. citizens, then you don't really need them. Of course, this would drastically increase their bargaining power as well as the bargaining power of native U.S. citizens because the average salary would go up. Because of this, you'd find absolutely zero corporations claiming they need to import STEM workers. And that's why the so-called STEM shortage is absolute bullshit.

Ultimately, a few greedy executives are screwing over America by creating the greatest brain drain in human history. The most valuable STEM asset is the STEM worker base in a society. Without consistent career security, you lose mentoring and the passing of the torch form one generation to the next. It takes a good 30 to 40 years to go from start to a solid base of workers in any STEM field, but it only takes 10 years of offshoring to destroy that base and to have to start all over again. Our base is largely destroyed. This will greatly reduce our productivity and innovation over the next half century. Although it will likely be hidden by branding, innovation will move to Chinda.

16   bob2356   2017 Jul 13, 5:29am  

Dan8267 says

By design. Regardless of how many qualified medical students there are or how well they perform, the medical guild -- and that's what it really is -- won't let more than a low level of doctors enter the profession, and the guild can enforce this by federal and state law.

The number of doctors is limited to the number of residency slots the government aka medicare is willing to pay for. The last time there was a funding increase for residency training was 1997. The population has increased by 49 million since then. The "medical guild" has actually been lobbying for more residency slots. https://news.aamc.org/press-releases/article/gme-expansion-legislation-05012017/ But hey enjoy your fantasy of the evil doctor guild keeping out competition. Don't let facts confuse you.

There isn't a shortage of doctors. The US is a little below average for first world countries at 2.3 per 1000 comparable with Denmark, England, Finland, Australia etc. There is a poor distribution of doctors. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/31/5953247/institute-medicine-report-doctor-shortage-gme Big cities have more doctors than you can shake a stick at. Rural areas are sucking wind. No one wants to be a doctor in east bumfuck nebraska. The ratio of specialists to generalists is also way off. Everyone wants to be a highly paid specialist, which considering the debt levels required to be a doctor is understandable. Even if residency slots are increased dramatically it won't cure this problem.

17   Dan8267   2017 Jul 13, 7:50am  

bob2356 says

Big cities have more doctors than you can shake a stick at.

And yet, big city doctors make more money than rural doctors, and health care costs are higher in big cities.

18   anotheraccount   2017 Jul 13, 9:01am  

bob2356 says

The population has increased by 49 million since then. The "medical guild" has actually been lobbying for more residency slots

Good info Bob. Who is lobbying against the increase?

From my experience there are many crappy doctors (who can't diagnose anything right) that will prescribe whatever medicine their pharma rep told them about.

19   Strategist   2017 Jul 13, 9:43am  

Dan8267 says

Quite frankly, if the U.S. so desperately needs tech workers -- of course, that's bullshit; they want cheap labor not skilled labor

Dan, they want skilled labor at a cheap price. That helps the bottom line, and the bottom line is all that matters to a corporation.

20   Strategist   2017 Jul 13, 9:48am  

bob2356 says

The number of doctors is limited to the number of residency slots the government aka medicare is willing to pay for. The last time there was a funding increase for residency training was 1997. The population has increased by 49 million since then. The "medical guild" has actually been lobbying for more residency slots. https://news.aamc.org/press-releases/article/gme-expansion-legislation-05012017/ But hey enjoy your fantasy of the evil doctor guild keeping out competition. Don't let facts confuse you.

There isn't a shortage of doctors.

We must have some kind of a shortage of doctors if we are not keeping up with population increase.
I have never met an unemployed doctor.

21   Dan8267   2017 Jul 13, 10:35am  

Strategist says

Dan, they want skilled labor at a cheap price. That helps the bottom line, and the bottom line is all that matters to a corporation.

Labor, the people who actually create wealth, also have a bottom line. It's called their income.

Ultimately zero-sum games that favor the non-productive over the productive are bad economics. Productivity should be encouraged, not penalized.

22   BrownIncome   2017 Jul 13, 11:29am  

The elephant in the room...

Effort matters, but everybody is boned with an IQ. If you cannot find enough IQ people in your country, you'll have to import them ...

23   bob2356   2017 Jul 13, 12:22pm  

Dan8267 says

And yet, big city doctors make more money than rural doctors, and health care costs are higher in big cities.

No they don't. Super specialists do because they are almost all in urban areas. Bread and butter fp's, ob's, ped's, etc. make less in the urban area's. Considerably less in some area's. I've seen some big differences in salaries, with even bigger differences in things like CME, time off, signing bonus. . http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/how-much-money-do-doctors-make-way-more-rural-areas-report-says

24   bob2356   2017 Jul 13, 12:23pm  

tr6 says

Good info Bob. Who is lobbying against the increase?

Who lobbies against all forms of government spending?

25   bob2356   2017 Jul 13, 12:52pm  

Strategist says

We must have some kind of a shortage of doctors if we are not keeping up with population increase.

I have never met an unemployed doctor.

Rural areas have a serious shortage. There is enough in the cities and big suburbs for now, although far too many are specialists. The brutal competition in urban area's made it much easier to recruit doctors to rural areas in the past. That is ending. Other factors that help are that most of the population increase is immigration of young people who don't have a high need for medical care yet and medical care is being pushed downstream with more PA's, midwifes, and NP's. There has been some increase in residencies funded by the states and through other sources of funding. But you are right, it's not keeping up.

How would you go about meeting an unemployed doctor? At that income level, education level, and social networking level doctors don't need to be looking for jobs at the unemployment office. Doctors are constantly bombarded by recruiters looking to fill area's that are short. Put your CV out and it's like a feeding frenzy. There are hundreds and hundreds of jobs posted more or less constantly. But not in places like NYC, Dallas, or LA. More like Moses Lake WA, Fallon NV, or Morgantown WV that exist in a constant state of recruiting.

26   Strategist   2017 Jul 13, 1:02pm  

bob2356 says

Strategist says

We must have some kind of a shortage of doctors if we are not keeping up with population increase.


I have never met an unemployed doctor.

Rural areas have a serious shortage. There is enough in the cities and big suburbs for now, although far too many are specialists.

My Uncle just retired as a Urologist in a small Illinois town where he practiced practiced for more than 40 years. He now lives in Chicago. He told me his small town hospital has to pay doctors more just to get them to work there. Yes, no one wants to live in small boring towns with nothing to do.

27   Dan8267   2017 Jul 13, 2:02pm  

bob2356 says

No they don't. Super specialists do because they are almost all in urban areas. Bread and butter fp's, ob's, ped's, etc. make less in the urban area's.

I stand corrected. Some types of doctors make more in cities, and some make more in small towns.

However, the point that the medical guild suppresses supply in order to increase profits stands.

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