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Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attemp

Which is certainly unfortunate, but it has to happen sooner or later. The whole "STEM shortage" hysteria (see FWD.us[0]) is nothing more than a shameless attempt to drive down engineering wages by increasing enrollment in CS programs, pumping up H1B allocations, and wage fixing[1]. Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay[2], despite running companies into the ground, often because of their inability to perform basic management tasks correctly[3,4,5]. 0: http://www.fwd.us/ http://www.fwd.us/ 1: https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/ https://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valle... 2: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/marissa-mayer-severance-benefits/76781384/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris... 3: http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-doesnt-sit-well-with-workers/ http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-... 4: http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-polyvore-acquisition-2015-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-jackson-slams-yahoo-for-... 5: https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-motors-stole-my-car/ https://www.atlantic.net/blog/how-elon-musk-ceo-of-telsa-mot...

splintercell 11y ago
Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  > splintercell > if labor prices fall drastically ... more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. > somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining Next time a bubble pops and I get a 30% pay cut I will take comfort in the fact that the prices of goods & services around me will soon fall by >30% to compensate (because of all the prosperity) thus preserving my quality of life and proving that my concerns were merely "emotions kicking in" and "childish whining" rather than predictions that the terms of my social contract were about to get dramatically worse.
  - splintercell 11y ago
    The post I was responding to was about how companies want relaxed immigration rules because they make more profit. My post was responding to the fact that increased immigration (of high tech or white collar, both) helps people in general by increased prosperity (nothing in this post was about an emotional outburst of the conditions and welfare of immigrants). You respond by talking a non-sequitur about a bubble. It doesn't make any sense. Funny thing is, what you wrote rhetorically is exactly what happens in a crash. As a consumer you don't care whether your salary is $100K or $50K, what matters is what you can buy from your salary. If you can buy a home on mortgage on $50K salary and save for your kid's education, but can barely pay rent and groceries on $100K then the $50K Salary is higher 'real salary' (albeit a lower 'nominal salary'). Any recession is only cleared when real wages fall faster than the real prices of the goods (because only then businesses can be profitable again). According to free market economists, let wages and goods of prices fall. This will eventually clear the market. According to non-free market economists (which includes Keynesians and monetarists) increasing the money supply is the solution because it lowers the real wages (albeit keeping the nominal wage high). So at the end of a recession you still make same salary as you did at the start of the recession, but you can afford fewer goods now. This ALSO clears out the market and businesses become profitable again. Introduction of educated immigration labor would actually result in faster recovery (just like lowering of interest rates would make businesses more profitable).
oldmanjay 11y ago
You say that, but a huge proportion of working software engineers have almost no idea how to be a professional and do the job correctly. Which I used to be all about, since I cleaned up their messes at inconvenient rates. The problem isn't a shortage of engineers, it's a shortage of quality engineers who don't subtract more value than they produce.

splintercell 11y ago

Any productive activity is a sum of the 3 factors of production: Land/Natural Goods + Labor + Capital If you increase any one of these factors, you get more production (i.e. more prosperity). For instance, Capital: if Chinese/Russian billionaires decide to invest all their money in American companies in America, then it would result in huge economic growth. Similarly Natural Goods: If prices of oil fall drastically, or lots of natural goods (even land) are discovered, then again there will be increased production of goods (i.e. more prosperity). Finally, Labor: if labor prices fall drastically, or labor force is increased, again more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. The first two makes sense to most people, but somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining: > Tech execs and investors love to complain about having to pay six figure salaries to the engineers doing all the real work, all while carting home hundreds of millions themselves in just severance pay< The whole job of tech execs and investors is to increase production. Acquiring capital for cheap (lower interest rates) would do the job, acquiring land/natural goods for cheap (like moving office to a cheaper part of the town) would also do the job, and finally getting cheap labor would also do the same thing. Complaining against a businessman trying to find cheaper labor is like complaining against the QA for trying to find bugs in your code.

jjoonathan 11y ago
> splintercell > if labor prices fall drastically ... more production will happen. Prosperity will ensue. > somehow the third point doesn't because most people are part of the labor force therefore emotions kick in. The simple logic you're demonstrating is a childish whining Next time a bubble pops and I get a 30% pay cut I will take comfort in the fact that the prices of goods & services around me will soon fall by >30% to compensate (because of all the prosperity) thus preserving my quality of life and proving that my concerns were merely "emotions kicking in" and "childish whining" rather than predictions that the terms of my social contract were about to get dramatically worse.
- splintercell 11y ago
  The post I was responding to was about how companies want relaxed immigration rules because they make more profit. My post was responding to the fact that increased immigration (of high tech or white collar, both) helps people in general by increased prosperity (nothing in this post was about an emotional outburst of the conditions and welfare of immigrants). You respond by talking a non-sequitur about a bubble. It doesn't make any sense. Funny thing is, what you wrote rhetorically is exactly what happens in a crash. As a consumer you don't care whether your salary is $100K or $50K, what matters is what you can buy from your salary. If you can buy a home on mortgage on $50K salary and save for your kid's education, but can barely pay rent and groceries on $100K then the $50K Salary is higher 'real salary' (albeit a lower 'nominal salary'). Any recession is only cleared when real wages fall faster than the real prices of the goods (because only then businesses can be profitable again). According to free market economists, let wages and goods of prices fall. This will eventually clear the market. According to non-free market economists (which includes Keynesians and monetarists) increasing the money supply is the solution because it lowers the real wages (albeit keeping the nominal wage high). So at the end of a recession you still make same salary as you did at the start of the recession, but you can afford fewer goods now. This ALSO clears out the market and businesses become profitable again. Introduction of educated immigration labor would actually result in faster recovery (just like lowering of interest rates would make businesses more profitable).

oldmanjay 11y ago

You say that, but a huge proportion of working software engineers have almost no idea how to be a professional and do the job correctly. Which I used to be all about, since I cleaned up their messes at inconvenient rates. The problem isn't a shortage of engineers, it's a shortage of quality engineers who don't subtract more value than they produce.