I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Quote from my sister after reading another horrifying news article: "A friend of mine said that this feels like being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver. Feels more like a plane driven by a drunk driver."

The drunk driver is 13. And blind. And has narcolepsy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The drunk driver is 13. And blind. And has narcolepsy.

And keeps telling you what a great driver he is.

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Nope. Fight all of them. Burn the motherfucker down.

And so Not Bob ends his discussion on the Politics Board for at least a while (never say never, amirite?) and starts living. So, in honor of the late* Mary Tyler Moore, he gives you Joan Jett singing "Love Is All Around" live on David Letterman.

* Poor Atticus.**

** It was him with the Laura Petrie fetish (NTTAWWT), right?

Nothing against Joan Jett, but c'mon: Husker Du!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks0to2QuJtM

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Adder

You work? I thought you were a full-time wandering vagabond.

Almost 3 years as the Law Offices of (LessinSF), in-house coverage counsel for AIG.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This seems to be onto something.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

You really have to start reading more/better sources. Jesus man. Blue areas are having a hard time finding workers.

How is my assertion there's not enough blue state work to absorb the labor glut in red states undone by the argument that blue states cannot find enough workers? I'll grant you it's a related point worth making, but... really? Really?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Actually, we have severe shortages of employees around here. I think our California colleagues will report the same.

A good example of how red states shun our work: There was a multi-billion dollar federal program set up to develop clean energy technology spin-outs; it was specifically envisioned as a way to generate replacement jobs for placing losing them. The University of West Virginia was solicited to participate - a good chance to fund a couple professorships with full labs and to fund several tech spin-outs. West Virginia doesn't believe in clean energy, and didn't want the work - there wasn't a place on the faculty for those folks. MIT got two major grants for new technologies it is spinning out - Massachusetts (and New Hampshire) will get several hundred more jobs.

You'll get no defense of WV, or any other backward shithole employing that sort of idiocy, from me. That's depressing.

BTW, I think you might want to swap "believe" for "recognize." Not believing in global warming assumes it's a thing to be believed, perhaps in debate. It's not a theory. One can probably poke larger holes in Evolution, comparing Wallace's work with Darwin's, than one could trying to refute global warming.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

How is my assertion there's not enough blue state work to absorb the labor glut in red states undone by the argument that blue states cannot find enough workers? I'll grant you it's a related point worth making, but... really? Really?

There is a shit-ton of tech work out there and a handful of places capturing it. There is no reason Pittsburgh shouldn't be able to compete with Shanghai for some of that work, especially as labor costs for educated people in Shanghai approach Pittsburgh's over the coming few years. But it takes big investment in the universities and teaching hopsitals to kick it off (both of which Pittsburgh has and could work with).

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

How is my assertion there's not enough blue state work to absorb the labor glut in red states undone by the argument that blue states cannot find enough workers? I'll grant you it's a related point worth making, but... really? Really?

First, because that isn't what you said:

There's not even enough of it to fill most blue states these days.

And second, there probably is/could be enough blue state work to absorb red state labor capacity, because as usual your sense of magnitude is way off. Not that it matters due to skills mismatch, though.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

And second, there probably is/could be enough blue state work to absorb red state labor capacity, because as usual your sense of magnitude is way off. Not that it matters due to skills mismatch, though.

I don't think its a skills mismatch. A lot of jobs that are hardest to fill are fairly generic, like lab techs and software sales positions. The ultra-highly skilled people who fill the CEO and CSO jobs around which the larger number of jobs are built have become increasingly mobile; many of them will commute almost anywhere in the country and are will move mainly places in the country. A lot of them come here from abroad, and aren't deeply tied to one place.

It's a values mismatch. The blue state jobs get built around places with universities and hospitals and they want employees who are eager to learn, willing to work hard, and comfortable interacting with people all over the world. The places that attract them, including places in red states like Atlanta, Austin, Nashville, the Triangle, etc., are outward facing places or have turned themselves into outward facing places. The places Sebbie is talking about are more inward facing places.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. You and I gave us this country. Because we supported a system in which the underclasses could only survive via redistribution, which is an unsound system on every conceivable level.

People do not want redistribution. They want work. They want to feel like they can fend for themselves. Sure, some are handout junkies ("Hands off my Medicare!" sorts). But most don't want a handout from our table. They want a chance to have a seat at it.

Are they deluded? Sure. But they have the vote. So you and I would have been better served to have placated them a bit in the past, with some protectionism.

Your inability to look past the very first level of this issue is fascinating. Although you seem to understand that technology has made whole industries outdated since the beginning of time, you simply cannot seem to comprehend that the fix in the current era is not protectionism, but evolution.

So you are absolutely wrong to say that we created this problem. Ty is absolutely right that Republicans have. If ditch digging with shovels is now obsolete because of earth movers, the correct approach isn't forcing industry to use workers with shovels. The correct approach is to teach those who used to dig with shovels to operate earth movers. This will necessarily mean there will be some shovelers who lose out. And here's the key (and you should unplug your ears now, so you can hear this): Those who lose out need to be trained in another field.

If you have a political party that feeds shovelers a bunch of bullshit about how they are going to protect their shoveling jobs while actively resisting investing in building the new industries as well as the training for modern options, that party is at fault.

Your solution of "placate them with some actual protectionism so you can capture their vote" is so fucking simplistic and short-sighted that I wouldn't understand how it was possible it could be made with a straight face if anyone else was proposing it.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You understand, probably better than me, that this is again a largely regulation driven problem. Banks traditionally want predictable sorts without much creativity. The industry is characterized by that dullness. But flooding it with rule custodians and compliance twits has only made that problem much worse. The ideal loan officer has become a box checking, blockheaded "no" man.

This is absolutely, positively not true. You are, once again, completely full of shit.

Banks hate regulations because of two reasons:

1. They want to do whatever the fuck they want because the people making the decisions make their money on bonus system which means they have no aversion to risk.

2. They are extremely lazy.

Regulation isn't the problem. It's the target of greedy, lazy bankers who want to make as much money as they can as quickly as they can. And since they are almost always Republicans, as a pavlovian response they shit all over the regulation that aims to keep them from creating the same problems for everyone that they created in the lead-up to 2007.

TM

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

So apparently we're next going to see an E/O cutting back on H1B visas, which are critical for tech companies.

Maybe instead we could suggest not using them to get in visa slaves to work cheap at Mar-a-Lago but focusing them on folks whose work will create more jobs and sometimes whole industries? Or doctors who can save lives?

[Adder]

It's sure a good thing that we never took Trump literally, right? And boy, he's sure no different than Hillary.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

It's sure a good thing that we never took Trump literally, right? And boy, he's sure no different than Hillary.

Speaking of literally, what is "a regulation"? I missed the part of law school where you learn to count them.