ORH_wxman

I worked a summer job for a dot-com company in June/July 2000 in Austin, TX....that was really close to peak dot-com absurdity and Austin was probably like a top 5 or 10 city for that crap. I made 15 bucks an hour doing "network monitoring" (basically I was a glorified button pusher every 15 minutes). 15 bucks per hour back then was pretty sweet for a 19 year old. The place was filled with tech bros who were swimming in more cash than to know what to do with and the place was like stocked to the gills with whatever food or drink you wanted on the house. These dudes in their 20s were obsessing over how they wouldn't have to work in like 10 years with how much cash was sloshing around there. It was also in a fancy office park that overlooked the river and the city beyond that. You would've thought you were working for Goldman Sachs if you didn't know any better. The place was busted out by 2003. I always think of that place when I hear about the dot-com bubble or people talk about a new bubble happening in some other sector. At the time, it looked invincible, but then it all came tumbling down like a house of cards.

My 5 year old already had covid, so I don't think we'll be getting him vaxxed any time soon.

Probably a combo of both. The cynical view is the first one where they just did it because some insurance company told them it would reduce premiums and they don't care if it's safer or not. But there's also a famous line about how don't attribute malice to something that can be perfectly explained by stupidity or ignorance. So Phin could be right too that some idiot convinced them it would actually make customers happy.

Yes. But it really doesn't matter who is in power. I don't want to make these discussions partisan....because they actually aren't and then the thread just becomes toxic anyway. It's basically been zero anti-trust since the middle 20th century. Doesn't matter who has been in power at any given time. You hardly ever hear libertarians talk about it anyway...some of their anti-gov urge is so strong, they are perfectly happy to let the country be run by a few monopolistic entities as long as it doesn't have "government" next to their name. Regardless, I don't think anyone disagrees that the virus lockdowns and the unemployment that goes with it have distorted the labor market for now. There will be a clearer picture when the enhanced unemployment benefits wind down.

Cost of living would depreciate or at least stabilize in many areas if we let it. But instead we insist on subsidizing things like the stock market. As long as you have tons of $$ sloshing around, the wealthy will continue to buy up real estate and drive prices up on everyone else. Our anti-trust enforcement is a joke too nowadays. If free market/libertarian people want a true free market, then they have to grit their teeth and be OK with some government anti-trust enforcement ala early/mid-20th centruy. Otherwise, there's no point to claiming "liberty, baby!" when it is Amazon and Facebook oppressing/ruling over the country instead of the government....just replace one with the other...same shitty difference. You could argue the latter is even worse.

Yep, that is the model now that many are striving for. Though many are afraid of this "purge" of low skilled jobs, it's probably overhyped because they will just be replaced by other low skilled jobs.

This is econ 101 too...if you can't find people to fill your crappy job, then give them more incentive (raise wages and/or benefits). We'll see what happens when unemployment winds down more, but it takes 2 to tango. A healthy job market will have plenty of competition. Now, we can go down the rabbit hole on how healthy competition is stifled by things like monopolies (and very generous unemployment benefits), but no need to go down there. Bottom line (whether it's "fair" or not, all barriers aside), if you want to attract workers, make it worth their while.

The obesity trends in the United States certainly support this. Though not all of this is due to lifestyle/employment....we subsidize obesity in the U.S. All you have to do is look which food products are subsidized and which ones aren't to see why. Corn syrup anyone? One day, we'll eventually start subsidizing produce instead. Who knows when.

I am not sure how different it would be if this same thing happened 30 years ago. Maybe on the margins but probably not the larger picture. This is econ 101....when you subsidize something (in this case unemployment), you get more of it. When you tax something, you get less of it. These days, everything gets amplified with millions of opinions on social media too. Either way, it's going to be winding down this year so we'll see how the employment numbers respond. I was saying earlier, that this may be a golden opportunity for would-be entrepreneurs over the next year or two....a lot of small businesses folded up so there will be some demand to take advantage of.

Charlie Ward was a freak. Ended up in the NBA but I always thought he could’ve been a bigger football star. He was a tad small though...esp for back in the 1990s when you could knock QBs back to the Stone Age and not get a flag. Health wise he def made the better decision. I remember the epic FSU/ND game late that season. FSU was #1 and ND was #2. ND pulled it off and then the very next week (I think?), BC goes into South Bend and upsets undefeated ND. That was back when BC had Tom Coughlin as head coach and Glenn foley at QB. They were good but still massive dogs in that game. A lot of people said that game was the beginning of ND’s decline as a perennial powerhouse. I don’t think they’ve been ranked #1 since that 1993 game.

A lot of trade schooling is very tough work. One of my cousins went through welding courses/certification and I saw how much crap he had to master and remember.

There’s still never been a winter storm that killed dozens of people while on their commute like that. All those people who died on 128 stuck while snow piled up around them. Only other commute that comes close in the past 40 years is 12/13/07...blizzard of 78 was like ‘07 except if the snow didn’t taper off that evening and just stayed heavy for another 24 hours and much higher winds.

Yes it is. Very valuable education too. But the trades have been demonized for so long that it’s been tough to shake the stigma. The narrative is definitely starting to turn but it doesn’t flip overnight. There will be more attacks against them because of how much money is at stake.

There’s a ton of money at stake in keeping the narrative about college going. Encouraging everyone to take out government guaranteed loans has been one of the biggest windfalls ever for colleges in the past couple decades. They don’t have to worry about any of those loans getting repaid since they are guaranteed...all up front money for them. Zero incentive to make tuition more affordable. When we were discussing the narrative in the 1980s/1990s earlier, another aspect back then was that college was more affordable than now...even when taking account for all other inflation.

I literally watched that 500mb loop at about the 7:30 mark at least 10 times. That is such an epic progression. Still haven’t seen one match ‘78 yet. Some honorable mentions with Dec ‘92, Apr ‘97, and Mar 2001 but they can’t quite match the big daddy.

Yep. Need a lot more Mike Rowes going around. There’s a lot of very good careers waiting and many of these skilled trade also open avenues for entrepreneurship which has been on the decline in the US for 30 years. Part of the problem is that people like Rowe then get attacked for being “anti-education”...which is obviously a nasty smear tactic. There’s plenty of room for both. College isn’t for everyone. Having more people go into trades would actually incentivize colleges to lower their tuitions too or at least stop the obscene inflation in tuition.

We usually reserved that one for the Harvard or Yale snobs. Cornell was the “ditch digger” of Ivy Leagues.

How is that not an onion article. You definitely have to worry about coronavirus spreading outdoors in high winds at 29,000 feet.

Engineering as a whole was hit pretty hard in the recession...not a total shock as a lot of construction projects and plans halted. It may have played a role though in lower engineering degree numbers in the subsequent years. There's been a pretty big increase in the number of natural sciences degrees though. Again, these things will probably ebb and flow as people adjust to the demand and pay incentives. Skilled trades are on the way up again but still have a long way to go to meet demand....so we'll probably see a relative boom there over the next decade or so. Engineering will prob come up again some as job prospects for them become more and more attractive with the current shortage. It definitely does suck for a lot of these students who had to make decisions about a career in that recession and post-recession period. It probably cost them hundreds of thousands (if not more) in career earnings coming into the job market at the wrong time.

Also be aware of the volatility....these aren't like high liquidity blue chip stocks. There are whales that can move this 20% or more. This is basically gambling....sure, there's some upside, but always understand the risk and volatility and your bankroll.

There was a joke at Cornell that the "Hotel-ies" (as they were called) were the dumbest kids there but would be making the most money once graduated. One kid I know a couple doors down from freshmen year was hired as a manager at Four Seasons right out of school....nice gig for a 22-23 year old.

Your generation also got into the job market at the worst time....anyone trying to get in during that 2008-2015 period really got screwed. Bad recession and slow recovery. College is still a good investment on the whole (esp for the STEM fields), but it's not for everyone and shouldn't be.

That is excellent. I love the old school radio broadcast in the background.

Yes this is true....and a lot of that has to do with networking and opportunity through those schools. I went to an Ivy League so I know a lot of the types you are talking about. They do some school-sponsored internship at some prestigious company and then they are in. A lot of these companies basically try to set up pipelines from those extreme top end schools even if they don't publicly admit it. If that opportunity fails for the ivy league grad, they have plenty of acquaintances from their college who can get them in somewhere too.

He'd be better off putting all 5k on red at the roulette wheel at Oxford Casino than his lawn.