4 ms·

What Shortage of Scientists and Engineers?

5 points by robg 18y ago

biohacker42 18y ago
Excellent article. Governments around the world have intervened massively on the supply side. Because in their flawed logic, more science and engineering graduates == more innovation and prosperity for everybody! But anyone who knows economics 101 knows how silly that is, all that this massive intervention on the supply side has done, is depress pay for scientists and engineers.
- Dilpil 18y ago
  And anyone who has ever written a line of code knows how silly what you just wrote is.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    What does coding have to do with an oversupply of engineers? Do you mean that coding is hard and thus we need more coders? Don't you think it might be better if we had better, not more coders?
    - Dilpil 18y ago
      By coding applications people want, you create wealth. There is not some fixed amount of software to be written, the rewards of which need to be distributed equitably. There is an infinite amount of wealth ready to be created.
pasbesoin 18y ago
There is a shortage of work in the U.S. And despite the work being redistributed worldwide, the ability to travel to take that work is limited (various and numerous reasons; legal, social, and practical). Another aspect of the fallacy of describing the current world-wide economic system as "free trade". So, once again, we (this comment is U.S. centric) mortgage our future to pay for the present. This time, our intellectual and productive (as in real things, as opposed to words and paper) future. When we have no products to offer in return, we will be reduced to selling our capital -- the country itself -- in order to pay for the things we need. All the more so as other economies continue to develop both the legal structures and "service sector" workers to do to jobs that we were -- in grotesquely misinformed and/or misleading descriptions -- supposed to retain. Not to mention that, even if we did retain such work indefinitely, there's not enough of it to go around. Furthermore, not everyone's inclination nor ability lies in being a banker or a lawyer. A society consists of a diverse population; it is morally reprehensible to disenfranchise entire segments via such unsustainable market imbalances.

5 points by robg 18y ago

Excellent article. Governments around the world have intervened massively on the supply side. Because in their flawed logic, more science and engineering graduates == more innovation and prosperity for everybody! But anyone who knows economics 101 knows how silly that is, all that this massive intervention on the supply side has done, is depress pay for scientists and engineers.

Dilpil 18y ago
And anyone who has ever written a line of code knows how silly what you just wrote is.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  What does coding have to do with an oversupply of engineers? Do you mean that coding is hard and thus we need more coders? Don't you think it might be better if we had better, not more coders?
  - Dilpil 18y ago
    By coding applications people want, you create wealth. There is not some fixed amount of software to be written, the rewards of which need to be distributed equitably. There is an infinite amount of wealth ready to be created.

pasbesoin 18y ago

There is a shortage of work in the U.S. And despite the work being redistributed worldwide, the ability to travel to take that work is limited (various and numerous reasons; legal, social, and practical). Another aspect of the fallacy of describing the current world-wide economic system as "free trade". So, once again, we (this comment is U.S. centric) mortgage our future to pay for the present. This time, our intellectual and productive (as in real things, as opposed to words and paper) future. When we have no products to offer in return, we will be reduced to selling our capital -- the country itself -- in order to pay for the things we need. All the more so as other economies continue to develop both the legal structures and "service sector" workers to do to jobs that we were -- in grotesquely misinformed and/or misleading descriptions -- supposed to retain. Not to mention that, even if we did retain such work indefinitely, there's not enough of it to go around. Furthermore, not everyone's inclination nor ability lies in being a banker or a lawyer. A society consists of a diverse population; it is morally reprehensible to disenfranchise entire segments via such unsustainable market imbalances.