4 ms·

Part of the problem is that too many people are going to college. (Why does a bank teller need a college degree?) And then when they have a degree they expect a

Part of the problem is that too many people are going to college. (Why does a bank teller need a college degree?) And then when they have a degree they expect a job that pays very well and offers full benefits. There are jobs for college graduates, but they may not be "dream jobs."

vaksel 17y ago
The problem is that college is too accessible. Kids are expected to go to college no matter what, there is no longer even a question of whether or not someone needs a college degree, they are expected to go, no matter how crappy a school they get into. And for kids they aren't making the decisions with their own money. If they had to pony up their own 30-40K, instead of getting "free money" from loans, they'd think twice, whether or not that Communications degree from some crappy 3rd rate college with no name is worth 60K.
antidaily 17y ago
Not exactly a great time to be a blue collar worker either.
- stanleydrew 17y ago
  Certainly true. Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital despite its obvious success at allocating other resources. It's (relatively) easy to make a rational decision to quit investing in oil in favor of biotech if you think that industry will perform better. But it's hard to say to workers who've spent their entire lives developing skills particular to an industry that they should just go and find a job in an industry that needs more workers. Retraining is hard. Relocating is hard. People are a lot less mobile than capital. Tearing down restrictions on immigration is one way to make people more mobile thereby allowing for more efficient allocation of human resources.
  - byrneseyeview 17y ago
    Which systems allocate human capital better?
    - Dilpil 17y ago
      As many philosophers have said in one form or another: Capitalism is horrible, it just so happens that everything else is ten times worse.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital Has something else found that efficient way?
    - stanleydrew 17y ago
      No, and I didn't mean to suggest that something else had.
  - azanar 17y ago
    But it's hard to say to workers who've spent their entire lives developing skills particular to an industry that they should just go and find a job in an industry that needs more workers. Retraining is hard. Relocating is hard. People are a lot less mobile than capital. Is this a worthwhile justification to keep investing in the old industry at the expense of the new? It is hard to say people need to go learn new skills, but it is harder for me to say that the main reason we aren't adopting something new is because the long-term benefits of adoption are outweighed by the relatively short-term pain of a group of displaced laborers. The people who experience the short-term pain may themselves benefit from this new technology being adopted. I get the sense a part of this is due to the sentiment that I've noticed that employers owe continuing retention to their employees. It is why layoffs carry such a social stigma. It created this sense the people should not have to retrain, and that they should not have to relocate. At the extreme, they shouldn't even have to change employers to do the same task. It would suck for me to have to do the same. I see it as a risk of living in an economy based on always pushing technology forward, which is what capitalism will tend to do. I've realized that no one else is responsible for making my life easier, whatever the expense. There is also this sentiment that skills do not cross-pollinate at all, and that current skills are all that matter. This is perhaps a broken bias on the part of the employer that skill set X now matters more than the ability to learn skill set Y,Z quickly in the future. This may be a product of thinking of oneself as an "X specialist" foremost, rather than identifying what conceptual basis one draws on to become an "X specialist". As for tearing down immigration laws, that only solves part of the problem. You still have to train someone, picking from a pool of people who have not been trained in the industry that came before will be just as hard, if not harder, because they don't have the prior skills to draw connections from.

vaksel 17y ago

The problem is that college is too accessible. Kids are expected to go to college no matter what, there is no longer even a question of whether or not someone needs a college degree, they are expected to go, no matter how crappy a school they get into. And for kids they aren't making the decisions with their own money. If they had to pony up their own 30-40K, instead of getting "free money" from loans, they'd think twice, whether or not that Communications degree from some crappy 3rd rate college with no name is worth 60K.

antidaily 17y ago

Not exactly a great time to be a blue collar worker either.

stanleydrew 17y ago
Certainly true. Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital despite its obvious success at allocating other resources. It's (relatively) easy to make a rational decision to quit investing in oil in favor of biotech if you think that industry will perform better. But it's hard to say to workers who've spent their entire lives developing skills particular to an industry that they should just go and find a job in an industry that needs more workers. Retraining is hard. Relocating is hard. People are a lot less mobile than capital. Tearing down restrictions on immigration is one way to make people more mobile thereby allowing for more efficient allocation of human resources.
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  Which systems allocate human capital better?
  - Dilpil 17y ago
    As many philosophers have said in one form or another: Capitalism is horrible, it just so happens that everything else is ten times worse.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital Has something else found that efficient way?
  - stanleydrew 17y ago
    No, and I didn't mean to suggest that something else had.
- azanar 17y ago
  But it's hard to say to workers who've spent their entire lives developing skills particular to an industry that they should just go and find a job in an industry that needs more workers. Retraining is hard. Relocating is hard. People are a lot less mobile than capital. Is this a worthwhile justification to keep investing in the old industry at the expense of the new? It is hard to say people need to go learn new skills, but it is harder for me to say that the main reason we aren't adopting something new is because the long-term benefits of adoption are outweighed by the relatively short-term pain of a group of displaced laborers. The people who experience the short-term pain may themselves benefit from this new technology being adopted. I get the sense a part of this is due to the sentiment that I've noticed that employers owe continuing retention to their employees. It is why layoffs carry such a social stigma. It created this sense the people should not have to retrain, and that they should not have to relocate. At the extreme, they shouldn't even have to change employers to do the same task. It would suck for me to have to do the same. I see it as a risk of living in an economy based on always pushing technology forward, which is what capitalism will tend to do. I've realized that no one else is responsible for making my life easier, whatever the expense. There is also this sentiment that skills do not cross-pollinate at all, and that current skills are all that matter. This is perhaps a broken bias on the part of the employer that skill set X now matters more than the ability to learn skill set Y,Z quickly in the future. This may be a product of thinking of oneself as an "X specialist" foremost, rather than identifying what conceptual basis one draws on to become an "X specialist". As for tearing down immigration laws, that only solves part of the problem. You still have to train someone, picking from a pool of people who have not been trained in the industry that came before will be just as hard, if not harder, because they don't have the prior skills to draw connections from.