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It baffles me that the first instinct of some students in response to massive budget deficits is to protest budget cuts and layoffs. They should move to Califor

It baffles me that the first instinct of some students in response to massive budget deficits is to protest budget cuts and layoffs. They should move to California when they graduate, they would fit right in. I was on the mailing list of a few organizations that urged me to fight the state government's plans to cut back staff positions and hours in response to our multi-billion dollar hole. What do they think we should do, close our eyes and wish the deficit away?

davi 17y ago
Small subset, fun for author of article to profile. The one person I know personally who protested was concerned that the lowest paid, most vulnerable workers (janitors, contract security guards, etc.) were the first to feel the bite, ahead of the 'fat cats' who had the power within the institution to fight back to protect their turf. Most of us just said, "Eh, that's too bad" and went back to work.
- mdasen 17y ago
  To play devil's advocate. . . It's not that the 'fat cats' have power to fight back. It's that they're less easily replaced. If you get rid of a janitor and need to replace them in a couple months because you really needed them, it's an easy HR process. If you get rid of a 'fat cat', there will be months of interviews to replace them, you might not get someone as good, etc. It's not that you have power in the institution, it's that you have other options and are of higher value to the institution. I mean, I'm a lowly computer programmer a couple years out of college. But if they wanted to replace me, there'd be a long interview process and then a huge learning curve as they brought the new person up to speed on the byzantine systems we have. So, they can't let me go as a test of whether they could get by without me because the cost if they're wrong is high. That doesn't make it righteous, it just means that it isn't simply having power in the institution so much as being of less easily replaced value to the institution.
  - vermontdevil 17y ago
    But isn't the same fat cats that got the whole business in trouble to begin with? So what makes them so valuable?
    - dschobel 17y ago
      This discussion is useless unless you get more specific than 'fat cat'.
      - davi 17y ago
        Yes, I regret the choice of words. Harvard is a federation of many nearly autonomous entities. The Business School cannot tell the Medical School what to do, etc. By 'fat cats' I meant power centers who can't be commanded to downsize -- at least, not quickly -- by anyone. The people protesting layoffs were, essentially, protesting this structure, whether they realized it or not. Some of them did realize it, and so were a little more aware than the G-G-P's hypothetical Californian voting for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses.
lacker 17y ago
What do they think we should do, close our eyes and wish the deficit away? No, they think we should raise taxes on people richer than they are. Your political opponents are not crazy, they just have different goals.
- gaius 17y ago
  Presumably the people poorer than them also feel the same way? If you look at the numbers - at what percent of people pay what percent of the total collect from income tax - the inescapable conclusion is that a lot of people aren't pulling their weight, and those aren't the highest earners...
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    You're starting your rebuttal from the wrong point. Those who earn more are indeed contributing more tax. But why are they earning more? Is it that their contribution is worth so much more to society? Doubtful. More, perhaps, that much more, unlikely. For example in the article the guys earning 30million a year (10% of their gambling wins) are only able to earn large amounts because they're on a buoyant market. It's largely random fluctuations - they win for 15 years and then lose it all (except they don't personally lose of course); others win for 15 days and lose it all. So, the guys paying the most tax, the investment managers &c. are adding little to overall productivity (except some lubrication which could be provided without the ineffecient losses of traders wages) but are creaming off inordinant amounts of wealth from the top all the time simply because of a mathematical glitch -- if you waited 100 years and analysed the gains of any investment firm I'll guess they do marginally better then inflation but extract far more worth for the traders. Those doing productive work, even the highly paid Harvard professors are earning pennies compared to the investment teams. So are the investment managers pulling their weight in society by creaming off the wealth by gambling with other peoples money? I don't think so. Capitalism means the rich get richer, some clever people manage to use other peoples money to be rich first. The rest of us are being suckered.
    - gaius 17y ago
      You're starting your rebuttal from the wrong point. No, you are :-) It's not a zero-sum game like a casino. There is value created by the allocation of resources. That's what Warren Buffett does. OK so it's not what LTCM did, but that's a flaw in the implementation, not the theory, of capitalist economics. The gambling metaphor simply doesn't fit.
e40 17y ago
Harvard professors are the highest paid in the nation. The students want professors to give something up. People responsible for cost cutting rarely apply the same logic to themselves and their own organization as they do to others.

davi 17y ago

Small subset, fun for author of article to profile. The one person I know personally who protested was concerned that the lowest paid, most vulnerable workers (janitors, contract security guards, etc.) were the first to feel the bite, ahead of the 'fat cats' who had the power within the institution to fight back to protect their turf. Most of us just said, "Eh, that's too bad" and went back to work.

mdasen 17y ago
To play devil's advocate. . . It's not that the 'fat cats' have power to fight back. It's that they're less easily replaced. If you get rid of a janitor and need to replace them in a couple months because you really needed them, it's an easy HR process. If you get rid of a 'fat cat', there will be months of interviews to replace them, you might not get someone as good, etc. It's not that you have power in the institution, it's that you have other options and are of higher value to the institution. I mean, I'm a lowly computer programmer a couple years out of college. But if they wanted to replace me, there'd be a long interview process and then a huge learning curve as they brought the new person up to speed on the byzantine systems we have. So, they can't let me go as a test of whether they could get by without me because the cost if they're wrong is high. That doesn't make it righteous, it just means that it isn't simply having power in the institution so much as being of less easily replaced value to the institution.
- vermontdevil 17y ago
  But isn't the same fat cats that got the whole business in trouble to begin with? So what makes them so valuable?
  - dschobel 17y ago
    This discussion is useless unless you get more specific than 'fat cat'.
    - davi 17y ago
      Yes, I regret the choice of words. Harvard is a federation of many nearly autonomous entities. The Business School cannot tell the Medical School what to do, etc. By 'fat cats' I meant power centers who can't be commanded to downsize -- at least, not quickly -- by anyone. The people protesting layoffs were, essentially, protesting this structure, whether they realized it or not. Some of them did realize it, and so were a little more aware than the G-G-P's hypothetical Californian voting for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses.

lacker 17y ago

What do they think we should do, close our eyes and wish the deficit away? No, they think we should raise taxes on people richer than they are. Your political opponents are not crazy, they just have different goals.

gaius 17y ago
Presumably the people poorer than them also feel the same way? If you look at the numbers - at what percent of people pay what percent of the total collect from income tax - the inescapable conclusion is that a lot of people aren't pulling their weight, and those aren't the highest earners...
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  You're starting your rebuttal from the wrong point. Those who earn more are indeed contributing more tax. But why are they earning more? Is it that their contribution is worth so much more to society? Doubtful. More, perhaps, that much more, unlikely. For example in the article the guys earning 30million a year (10% of their gambling wins) are only able to earn large amounts because they're on a buoyant market. It's largely random fluctuations - they win for 15 years and then lose it all (except they don't personally lose of course); others win for 15 days and lose it all. So, the guys paying the most tax, the investment managers &c. are adding little to overall productivity (except some lubrication which could be provided without the ineffecient losses of traders wages) but are creaming off inordinant amounts of wealth from the top all the time simply because of a mathematical glitch -- if you waited 100 years and analysed the gains of any investment firm I'll guess they do marginally better then inflation but extract far more worth for the traders. Those doing productive work, even the highly paid Harvard professors are earning pennies compared to the investment teams. So are the investment managers pulling their weight in society by creaming off the wealth by gambling with other peoples money? I don't think so. Capitalism means the rich get richer, some clever people manage to use other peoples money to be rich first. The rest of us are being suckered.
  - gaius 17y ago
    You're starting your rebuttal from the wrong point. No, you are :-) It's not a zero-sum game like a casino. There is value created by the allocation of resources. That's what Warren Buffett does. OK so it's not what LTCM did, but that's a flaw in the implementation, not the theory, of capitalist economics. The gambling metaphor simply doesn't fit.

e40 17y ago

Harvard professors are the highest paid in the nation. The students want professors to give something up. People responsible for cost cutting rarely apply the same logic to themselves and their own organization as they do to others.