President Blames Unemployment On Lack Of Tech Skills

IEEE ^

[snooker]

Housing costs are dropping fast in CA. I will bet in CA the rise in taxes proposed and enacted has lost more jobs than outsourcing.

[dirtboy]

Housing costs are dropping fast in CA. I will bet in CA the rise in taxes proposed and enacted has lost more jobs than outsourcing.

I think the entire scenario is one big cluster-you-know-what. And we could see it played out across the country if we're don't alleviate these issues NOW. The worst thing this economy could face is implosion when workers can no longer service their debt loads.

[ninenot]

Well--spinners can't be bothered with facts.

Just looking at "tax freedom day" since 1950 or so will give most people the understanding--since then, the tax burden has gone up so that instead of a late-February date it's now a mid-May date. That's about 3 months, or 25% of a year.

And Regs burden now requires about 8/10ths of the work-year for the average Joe to pay for the cost of REGS--safety this, "green" that, EEO this, ERISA, etc., etc.

You pay for those regs every time you buy a slice of cheese...

[Southack]

"Outsourcing was part of the reporter's question. Bush responded that training was the answer - when there are many, MANY well-trained and experienced IT workers on the unemployment line."

The reporter was asking about what Bush was doing for people who were seeing **technology** replace their jobs. Bush gave an entirely appropriate answer, and it wasn't even remotely related to the IT world.

Look, my company is IT. This is what I do. I hire people like you. We develop software. We provide help desk services (a dying field, by the way). We provide QA. We place people at our clients' sites, and we also develop our own commercial banking software (among others) internally.

IT has entirely different problems right now than does the textile workers and factory workers of whom the reporter seemed to be speaking (in my opinion).

IT got a late start on Y2K (speaking broadly), an issue that ramped up in urgency (needlessly) and put an enormous amount of other software projects on hold in the meantime. Then the dot com boom got agressive in hiring IT guys away. Poaching talent from existing firms become the norm. Then Y2K was over, and the old projects that were put on hold started getting worked on. Then the dot com boom went bust. Then the backlog of projects was finally caught up. So all the Y2K techies were then out of work, plus all of the dot com techies were out of work, plus all of the workers brought in for the backlog were out of work, plus...now there wasn't such a demand for getting any new work done. We had a recession, a nationwide accounting scandal, then 9/11, then two wars...and a whole lot of laid-off techies were/are competing for a very few (relatively) IT jobs. So yeah, IT has been hammered, and IT looks bad now and looks far worse in the future.

On top of all of that, we don't need as many people as before. We've got better admin software, so that reduces demand for system administrators. We've got better web development software, so now we no longer need 25 Java coders to build an order-entry web page.

And there's more. Employers got burned by some really poor employee attitudes in the 1990's. That caused employers to agressively search for alternatives, and what they found was that 90+% of all IT work was really menial grunt work that could be performed adequately by much less talented (and far cheaper) workers (hence, outsourcing). Let's face it, most programmers can do what they are told, but few are creative-enough to write a "Tetris" or a "PGP" on their own initiative, and the corporate work that is left is mostly unimaginative anyway, leaving little room for adding value by being smarter or better educated, anyway.

But no President is going to solve all of those industry-specific problems for you. You can be bitter about your chosen field getting hammered for the rest of your life if you so choose, but that won't change the future.

[Southack]

"Just looking at "tax freedom day" since 1950 or so will give most people the understanding--since then, the tax burden has gone up so that instead of a late-February date it's now a mid-May date. That's about 3 months, or 25% of a year."

That's some really outdated data that you are relying on.

Bush's 2nd tax cut dropped federal income taxes to $45 (yes, fourty-five Dollars) per year for a family of four earning $40,000 per year.

That's an income tax freedom day of January 1.

[dirtboy]

But no President is going to solve all of those industry-specific problems for you.

Uh, Southack, I never asked him to. But his proposed solution flies in the face of current realites - that, if low-level tech jobs are being moved out of this country, giving someone $3,000 for some low-level technical training will convert someone from an unemployable manufacturing worker to an unemployable technical worker.

It's that simple. Which is why your response has to be so convoluted to try and get around it.

And I'm still waiting to see how a 1.8 percent average salary increase, coupled with a 2.2 percent inflation rate, is a good thing.

[dirtboy]

That's an income tax freedom day of January 1.

Of course, you still have FICA, gas taxes, excise taxes, phone taxes, cigarette taxes and many, many other taxes. And that's just at the federal level. Throw in state and local taxes, and Independence Day is still well into Spring. Unless, of course, you don't work, and that day comes a lot sooner.

[Southack]

"Adjusted for inflation, they did just that. Take out governmental jobs, and average salaries after inflation went down about 1.4 percent. That ain't spin. That's the ground truth."

You're beginning to sound like those government employees who claim that a decline in the rate of their budget increases is a "cut".

Average national salaries went UP. Did they go UP as fast as everyone would like? No. But going UP is certainly better than going down.

[Southack]

"his proposed solution flies in the face of current realites - that, if low-level tech jobs are being moved out of this country, giving someone $3,000 for some low-level technical training will convert someone from an unemployable manufacturing worker to an unemployable technical worker."

Get off the tech channel.

Bush was giving an answer for textile workers and factory assembliers, not tech workers, in my opinion.

[Southack]

"But others who were initially on your side agreed that the party that addresses these issues will be in the catbird seat come 2008."

Do I detect a third party agenda here?!

You're a libertarian or some such, aren't you?!

[dirtboy]

Average national salaries went UP. Did they go UP as fast as everyone would like? No. But going UP is certainly better than going down.

Once again, please demonstrate how a 1.8 percent increase in average salaries, coupled with a 2.2 percent rate of inflation, is a postive for working Americans. And, it IS relevant to differentiate government salaries from private-sector salaries - because WE pay for government salaries out of our taxes. So if government salaries went up, so did our tax burden. And the private sector drives economic growth.

So, once again, private sector salaries only went up .8 percent last year. Which means a net decline of 1.4 percent in purchasing power after inflation is factored in. Which means people are falling behind, dipweed. And that doesn't even factor in millions of unemployed.

I don't expect you to grasp this, I'm just revealing to the rest of the forum just how deranged you are willing to make your posts.

[Southack]

"Once again, please demonstrate how a 1.8 percent increase in average salaries, coupled with a 2.2 percent rate of inflation, is a postive for working Americans. And, it IS relevant to differentiate government salaries from private-sector salaries - because WE pay for government salaries out of our taxes. So if government salaries went up, so did our tax burden. And the private sector drives economic growth."

Average salaries going UP is always a positive for working Americans. Certainly the alternative is unattractive.

And what your tax burden is now is one thing, what it might be in the future, however, is mere speculation.

You have already admitted that your paycheck is larger due to Bush's tax cuts, so your tax burden is lower, not higher.

That you feel compelled to go into future "might be" scenarios simply shows that your overall argument has no merit today.

[dirtboy]

Do I detect a third party agenda here?! You're a libertarian or some such, aren't you?!

When all else fails, try to impunge the motives of the other party, eh? From a previous post of mine on this thread.

And that's exactly the point I am making. There are major issues nowadays of job loss due to outsourcing overseas, illegal immigration and the H1-B/L1 visas. There is the genesis of a completely new political movement happening now. The party that realizes it will be in power in 2008. If neither party realizes it, a new party will form and will be the dominant party then - and it will probably be center-left. The only way it can be center-right is if Bush and the GOP start understanding this sea change and adapt to it NOW.

I would hope that the GOP is the party that realizes what is going on. As it is, if the GOP and the Dems fail to realize it, I think a third party will probably form and obliterate the Dems, who have become the party of victim groups. But that is NOT something that I want to happen, as such a party could get ugly in a hurry.

Look, spin-boy, the GOP won't have a presidential primary this year. We won't have the ability to present ideas and candidates and air out differences this time around. So NOW is the time to listen to what the various factions are saying, and respond to them instead of belittling them. Your tactics will only drive your base away, instead of holding it in place. And if Bush and Rove emulate your approach here, they'll get creamed by swing voters who are feeling the economic uncertainty.

[snooker]

The sky is falling. I looked outside and some dirt fell on the sidewalk.

This same BS went around when computer automation was going to replace every US worker. Didn't happen then won't happen now.

I assume you want the Indian guy to fly in and re-boot your computer or replace the bad disk.

Did you ever think technology might mean technology, like how to operate the latest computerized tools or shelf stocking devices. Workers that can't do this (or won't or can't learn)won't get jobs. Like Bush said retraining is important to stay gainfully employed.

[Southack]

"Which means people are falling behind, dipweed. And that doesn't even factor in millions of unemployed. I don't expect you to grasp this, I'm just revealing to the rest of the forum just how deranged you are willing to make your posts."

Hey, don't forget "reprehensible," which you also called me.

You've got quite a few ad hominems to attempt to compensate for your dearth of facts, but can you substantiate your wild-eyed claim that the American middle class is physically shrinking in size?!

[dirtboy]

Average salaries going UP is always a positive for working Americans. Certainly the alternative is unattractive.

First of all, spin-boy, the point was, what is happening to salaries? You say they went up. But, after inflation, they went down. And that is what the bottom line is. Salaries could have gone up 10 percent last year - but if inflation was fifteen percent, folks are way behind. Just ask folks from the 1970s about that.

You have already admitted that your paycheck is larger due to Bush's tax cuts, so your tax burden is lower, not higher.

You act as if the federal income tax is the only tax we pay. Hint - it isn't. I pay state tax, Wilmington city tax, FICA, and myriad other taxes.

That you feel compelled to go into future "might be" scenarios simply shows that your overall argument has no merit today.

Uh, dude, government salaries went up last year. That isn't the future, that's the immediate past.

You just can't help yourself, can you? You are making not one lick of sense.

[dirtboy]

You've got quite a few ad hominems to attempt to compensate for your dearth of facts, but can you substantiate your wild-eyed claim that the American middle class is physically shrinking in size?!

Well, your main point that such isn't happening just got shot down. Salaries went down after inflation, and private-sector salaries dropped by about 1.4 percent. So I'd say I'm ahead of you. Throw in the fact that there are millions of unemployed, and my position looks quite a bit stronger than yours.

[LanPB01]

Can you add me to your "tired of the entitlement crowd" PING list? All this talk about "shipping our jobs to India", as if they have a constitutional right to those jobs, is making me ill.

[dirtboy]

Like Bush said retraining is important to stay gainfully employed.

Once again, there are many, many well-trained and experienced IT workers who can't find jobs now. How is giving someone with no prior IT experience $3,000 for a couple of community-college classes going to help them get an IT job in that kind of economy. Hint - it isn't. And the types of jobs they would be qualified for are the ones being most heavily outsourced to other countries.

[Southack]

"First of all, spin-boy, the point was, what is happening to salaries? You say they went up. But, after inflation, they went down. And that is what the bottom line is."

No, that's not the bottom line. American industry and the jobs market is one thing, how much cash that the federal government puts into circulation (i.e. inflation) is an entirely different beast. A beast, I might add, that **you** felt compelled to dredge up to cover up your earlier insinuation that wages had actually declined (which they did not do).

In the jobs market, salaries went up by 1.7% last year. Now you hate that fact because you want to paint a negative picture. You want everyone to see gloom and doom. But the sky isn't falling simply because the official inflation rate was 2.2% last year.