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To: TopQuark
Your response has so many assumptions, misstatements, ‘revisions’, and ignored questions that it would be a waste of time to address them all. So here are the highlights.

You are using many, many words to avoid the points I made regarding the comments by Norm Matloff on the WSJ article. You keep harping on the rationing of “skilled work” and constraints on production as if this theory is relevant to the decrease in salaries in IT. You conveniently dismiss the fact that you stated with great authority in post#35, and repeated in post #82 that the US suffers a huge shortage of skilled workers. It follows there is no shortage of skilled work to be done, only a shortage of skilled workers to do it. In a free market without rationing, a shortage would drive up prices (salaries)luring more to join the field; it would not drive them down.

As to those poor benighted recruiters:
1. “The cost is thus pushed onto the recruiters, who now take longer to weed out additional resumes. In other words, they are now less efficient “. You are assuming that they are hand screening all those additional resumes. Along with the ability to submit resumes electronically, came software with adjustable filters to screen out resumes that don’t conform to posted job requirements.
2. You assume again that recruiters are receiving a greater number of resumes only because the use of electronic submissions has facilitated their submission. While there is most likely an element of truth to this, you dismiss the possibility that the increased number of resumes could be related to an increased supply of skilled first-class workers seeking jobs.

By the way, cute twist on Greenspan’s remarks that we the US should import more skilled workers specifically to lower salaries. Sound like you are arguing for government control. Since when is how many people are in a given field and what they are paid up to the government?

As to you comment in regards to higher “American salaries” being better - “It is not always so”, are you volunteering to lower yours?

Re:” [You may be interested: today's NYT quotes the former chancellor of MIT who says that we are 28th among the industrialized countries in the number of science/engineering graduates. Need I say more?]”
Yes you do. I could think of all kinds of interpretations for this statement. Being 28th does not automatically man we graduate inadequate numbers of scientists and engineers. You are assuming that is what it means. Among many things you are ignoring the fact that education is a business; what good business man does not drum up more business, in this case students. In other words, the chancellor could have an ulterior motive for his statement.

Re:” Re: your quotation “skill work” from my post. This was a typo; that should've been "skilled work." I am surprised you found it important to point that out, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
Interesting interpretation on your part. I was actually copying and pasting rather than typing since I’m poor typist and worse proof reader.
83 posted on 10/29/2010 10:04:00 AM PDT by algernonpj (He who pays the piper . . .)
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To: algernonpj
1. "It follows there is no shortage of skilled work to be done, only a shortage of skilled workers to do it. In a free market without rationing, a shortage would drive up prices (salaries)luring more to join the field; it would not drive them down. "

The last statement is false, as I have stated earlier and explained in detail (production nust be unconstrained). Your reply gives no indication that you have even read my post.

2. TQ: “The cost is thus pushed onto the recruiters, who now take longer to weed out additional resumes. In other words, they are now less efficient “.

algernonpj: "You are assuming that they are hand screening all those additional resumes."

Where did you even get this connection? Did I say anything about the technology they use? You continue to put words in my mouth.

The recruiters are less efficient because it costs them more to achieve the same objective. That is the definition of efficiency.

3. "you dismiss the possibility that the increased number of resumes could be related to an increased supply of skilled first-class workers seeking jobs."

Yes I do. The first thing you should learn about labor --- and do so before you arrive at conclusions about complex issues such as labor shortages --- is that it changes very slowly. It takes 25 years for changes in an educational policy to show its effect, for instance; you cannot double the number of Masters' degree recipients in one year. Yes, when the number of applications increases significantly in a span of a few years, it cannot be that first-class workers increased in number, unless they have suddenly arrived from Mars.

Unfortunately, are still missing the problem which I addressed in my original post: the sources that argued for the absence of shortages have persuaded you on false grounds. They brought in irrelevant data and based spurious correlations.

Your difficulties are largely of logical kind. To show that WSJ is wrong or at least inconclusive when they say "A causes B" is sufficient to focus on the relationship between A and B, and that is what I did. Whether A and/or B are true is entirely irrelevant (if you want that formally, look up a book on logic). And that is what you want me to do --- to prove that A (there is shortage of skilled labor) is either true or false.

3. "By the way, cute twist on Greenspan’s remarks "

The patronizing tone you have adopted from the start of your post and continue in this sentence only emphasizes the weaknesses in your logic and holed in your knowledge. Knock it off. You look silly when you characterize someone's statements as cute after you reveal complete ignorance of the substantive issues and the inability to adhere to your own line of logic. If you knew whom you are speaking with you'd know the full extent how immature and stupid you've made yourself look.

4. Here are some more words you put in my mouth:

"the US should import more skilled workers specifically to lower salaries. Sound like you are arguing for government control. Since when is how many people are in a given field and what they are paid up to the government?"

The connection with government control exists only in your head. It appears you don't know what it is and, confusing it with policy, you probably don't know what that word means either. And that is after I suggested that you should first understand the words Greenspan uses.

"Since when is how many people are in a given field and what they are paid up to the government?"

It's a waste of time for me to keep repeating "no, I did not say that; no, there is no connection here.."

I thought you fell into a subtle trap and bought into this anti-corporate garbage of "how they screw our workers." It is now clear that that was not an accident: you arrived at your conclusions first (corporations, Greenspan bad; no shortage, etc.) and then reach for the sources that appear (but fail) to support your desired conclusion. Well, stick with it. Continue to have strong opinions about complex matters while being ignorant about basics --- it's so much easier than opening a real book (without pictures).

Have a good night.

84 posted on 10/29/2010 3:35:08 PM PDT by TopQuark
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