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| Re: ARTICLE: 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed (934875) | |||
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Re: ARTICLE: 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed |
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Posted by JayMan on Mon Apr 23 12:56:41 2012, in response to ARTICLE: 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed, posted by Concourse Express on Mon Apr 23 02:14:16 2012. Here's a recent Facebook post of mine that pretty much sums up the problem:It's in a business interests to get as much out of their workers while offering as little as they can get away with in compensation. The boost in worker productivity over the years is almost entirely due to improved technology. It is this fact that has allowed the top executives to reap the gains of this improved productivity without passing anything on to their workers. As well, it is this fact, more than any, that is responsible for the economic slump. The economy simply doesn't need as many workers to produce what it needs, so there are no longer enough jobs for everyone. This is a dirty little secret that you won't hear from anyone in Washington, on either side of the aisle; there is no lasting economic recovery to be had because of this problem. Often many will say that new technology removes older jobs, it creates new ones in entirely new fields (say IT). The problem is that that is no help either; the new jobs usually require greater cognitive ability than the jobs that were rendered obsolete. You need to have a much higher IQ to be a software engineer than what you need to be an assembly liner worker. And of course, people aren't getting any smarter (if anything the reverse may be true). On top of losses to automation, competition from foreign workers in manufacturing and other fields has eroded the job market for those in the IQ range of 90-110 (50% of the White population), which was this group's primary source of decent wage income. As well, wages for service jobs, many in retail, which now make up the primary source of income for the working class has been eroded by the lower purchasing ability of people in this class. People shop at Walmart because it's what they can afford. A large part of the problem is that the bottom segment is especially underproductive because it has a much lower average IQ than in other First World nations. The large U.S. populations of Blacks (mean IQ 85), Latinos (mean IQ 90), Appalachian and other related lower class Whites (mean IQ 93) gives the country a huge segment of people who are, by and large, negatively economically productive. The low purchasing power of this group eats out the wages for those at the bottom, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and stagnant wages at the low end. As well, the globalized economy allows the top executives to gain wealth without passing it on to their workers. Extra taxation of those on the top (who don't pay as large a share of taxes as you might then when all taxes are considered; of which Social Security and Medicare are two) is a start, but won't remedy the problem by itself, due to the deep structural (mostly demographic) problems built into the system. The author of the article recognizes some of this, as we see here: While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages. College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely. This passage is interesting. It sort of demonstrates, that, all else being equal, even in many shitty jobs, higher IQ (as determined by education level) is better than lower IQ: David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, said a bachelor's degree can have benefits that aren't fully reflected in the government's labor data. He said even for lower-skilled jobs such as waitress or cashier, employers tend to value bachelor's degree-holders more highly than high-school graduates, paying them more for the same work and offering promotions. Aside from the structural problems I talked about above (automation, low IQ masses, globalization), the other problem is signalling. Many jobs that don't need a bachelor's level knowledge or ability to perform, still ask for them because a 4-year college degree is a signal of conscientiousness and discipline. You can expect that your worker will at least show up to work every day and will likely not steal or defraud you if he has the degree. Overall, this testifies to the fact that far, far too many people are going to college. Partly because of a misunderstanding of the source of cognitive ability (one doesn't get smart by going to school, it's only that smart people typically get advanced degrees), and the signalling problem I just mentioned. Another thing I would add, if it is true that highly educated foreign-born individuals are competing with American-born educated individuals, then maybe we need to even reassess the logic of restricting immigration to those with demonstrable ability. This is not wise if they're going to compete with native born talent. I know a lot of people would happily argue for curbing immigration of high-IQ East Asians, as they are out-competing Whites in certain areas (that's not even to mention high IQ people of color). Only eugenics offers any hope of a long-term solution, along with a serious thought of limiting immigration (even of high-IQ individuals...glad I'm already here). By boosting the share of people with high IQs, those cognitively demanding jobs in science and engineering—which now suffer from good shortages (as Arne Duncan likes to point out; he claims there are 2 million high paying and cognitively demanding jobs waiting to be filled; only he thinks that we can educate our way into those jobs), will be filled, no doubt opening up more opportunities in whole new fields, primarily for other high-IQ individuals. Even then, more higher IQ individuals would overall lead to increased consumer demand, spurring the economy and benefiting everyone. This of course is totally not going to happen, unfortunately. |
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