Can Trump really bring jobs back?

[FlyerInHi]

Talking about protectionism, you have to be objective and admire the Internet Great Wall of China.

With a world wide network, the great advantage that dominant American internet companies have is that they can reach beyond borders and operate extraterritorially. Despite the American advantage, China was able to create Internet giants.

It’s too late to backtrack on free trade deals we worked out. But the lesson is that we do need public policy and industrial policy. Trump is right that people are laughing at our laissez faire gullibility.

Interestingly TPP is a way to foster trade with other countries in the Pacific as a way to contain China. For example, to bring Vietnam closer to the US and less dependent on its big neighbor, China.

[Anonymous]

[quote=flu]Building a damn is also slightly different. The work literally has to be done here, unlike building a portable product or service. Different set of rules.[/quote]

Even that’s not so true any more:

Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label

Got any more damn things to say?

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality]
flu you’re being very literal.
[/quote]

Well yes, because depending on the occupation, the current level of technology, it dictates how practical work can be outsourced or offshored,

[quote]
not sure what local wages are when the global environment is dictating what wages are. Top talent only justifies local presence if there shortage of that talent outside of the area or you’re required to have local presence for other reasons.
[/quote]

Sure it makes a difference. You don’t think a HVAC guy in Mexico charges $400 to change a capacitor do you? Or a BMW mechanic billing out $150/hr in labor? Or a guy that replaces a faucet that takes about 20 minutes, $100 for the labor alone. There are jobs that can be outsource/offshored, and there are ones that cannot. And some of your desk jobs might not currently be offshored because it’s current or new, but give enough time, it will be, unless you change and do something else that no one else has started working on yet.

Software is a perfect example…When android first came it, it was the latest thing. And to do really easy stuff, most people could probably do it. But short of a simple “hello world” program, people quickly figured out to do anything slightly more complex, nothing existed. So the top architects and designers worked on the stack, worked at the framework, and created a bunch of libraries, toolkits, shared services, so that the not-so-top-talent could more easily build stuff.

And then, you had not-so-top-talent reusing a lot of the libraries/tools/etc to build even more stuff on top of that for the slightly-more-stupid talent to be able to do useful things….

And eventually, given enough time, and enough people working on the same platform, piling things on top of things, you end up with saturation in which your idiot-“programmer” that barely can do anything with threading can finally write a hello world program without even know what threading is, what Binder is, what RPC does, etc….

And for about 70% of work that is left to be done at this stage is pretty much crap work that is copy-cut-paste from some website that someone already wrote about years ago that already solved the problem…So that some guy in some IT shop overseas could write something that worked reasonably well and that solved 70-80% of the problem at 3/10th the cost…Depending on the type of the company, they might only care about 70-80% of the solution and not be willing to pay for the remaining 20-30% of the solution, especially if the company is not really a tech company and just needs some “programmer”.

So yeah, as your american software engineer, you really don’t want to working when just about everyone else in the world can do what you claim is your skill at the current moment. Java J2EE engineers are a perfect example. Dime a dozen. Move on, find something else new, become an expert in that thing, before everyone else is, and milk as much money you can while you are the expert before you and every other expert starts making it easier for everyone else.

[quote]
When today’s local top talent retires who will replace them?
[/quote]

Well, you’ll have a natural death of certain technology. So a lot of people won’t be replaced. And you’ll have a bunch of young people that learned something new that a bunch of old people refused to learn, and those new things will end up being used by the latest tech companies, while things that the old guys learned ends up becoming something like Fortran and Cobol.

And hopefully if you’re one of the old farts that decided to stop learning, you’ve saved enough F.U. money from when you were milking it when your skills were in demand, that you don’t care anymore in your old age. Or you have passive income coming from elsewhere.

[quote]
hint: the guys off shore that already replaced the mid-level talent.[/quote]

Not really

[Coronita]

Speaking of which….
China’s Reviving the American Heartland — One Low Wage at a Time
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/china-rises-in-the-american-heartland-giving-as-it-takes-away

[flyer]

From what we’ve heard from friends in tech, you’d better have your F. U. funds and/or passive income rolling in at least by the time you’re 50, and that also seems to apply to lots of other fields today, as more and more people become more and more dispensable in the workplace as they grow older. I’ve always believed that was the smart way to go, even if you continue working past 50.

[ltsddd]

[quote=flyer]From what we’ve heard from friends in tech, you’d better have your F. U. funds and/or passive income rolling in at least by the time you’re 50, and that also seems to apply to lots of other fields today, as more and more people become more and more dispensable in the workplace as they grow older. I’ve always believed that was the smart way to go, even if you continue working past 50.[/quote]

Regardless of the situation, everyone should start working on their go-to-hell fund as soon as they start working. Your goal shouldn’t be to be gainfully employed past 50, but to be able to say Fvck it at an age where you still have your health and can still enjoy life.

btw., wrt the topic – sure jobs can always be brought back. Question is, how much more are you willing to pay for those products?

[flyer]

.

[flyer]

[quote=ltsdd][quote=flyer]From what we’ve heard from friends in tech, you’d better have your F. U. funds and/or passive income rolling in at least by the time you’re 50, and that also seems to apply to lots of other fields today, as more and more people become more and more dispensable in the workplace as they grow older. I’ve always believed that was the smart way to go, even if you continue working past 50.[/quote]

Regardless of the situation, everyone should start working on their go-to-hell fund as soon as they start working. Your goal shouldn’t be to be gainfully employed past 50, but to be able to say Fvck it at an age where you still have your health and can still enjoy life.[/quote]

Totally agree. Since we were able to create the gth fund very early in our lives, we’ve pretty much been in a financial position to choose the things we enjoy doing most of our lives–and was actually commenting on the comment below wrt tech employment in my previous post. . .

“And hopefully if you’re one of the old farts that decided to stop learning, you’ve saved enough F.U. money from when you were milking it when your skills were in demand, that you don’t care anymore in your old age. Or you have passive income coming from elsewhere.”

[The-Shoveler]

Multiple streams of income (Better than FU money).

FU money can disappear or be inflated away faster than you can accumulate it.

I would advise working on getting multiple streams of income as soon as possible (I would put this as a higher priority than college).

anyway my 2 cents.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=The-Shoveler]Multiple streams of income (Better than FU money).

FU money can disappear or be inflated away faster than you can accumulate it.

I would advise working on getting multiple streams of income as soon as possible (I would put this as a higher priority than college).

anyway my 2 cents.[/quote]

or find a line of work or small business that you can somewhat enjoy and do to an older age? this seems more probable for the majority. also better fir the mind and body, to be engaged?

[Coronita]

[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=The-Shoveler]Multiple streams of income (Better than FU money).

FU money can disappear or be inflated away faster than you can accumulate it.

I would advise working on getting multiple streams of income as soon as possible (I would put this as a higher priority than college).

anyway my 2 cents.[/quote]

or find a line of work or small business that you can somewhat enjoy and do to an older age? this seems more probable for the majority. also better fir the mind and body, to be engaged?[/quote]

Some professions don’t require to to do this. For example, in your case if you’re a doctor or a lawyer, you can easily practice all they way until you are 70. First, you can’t easily be outsourced (maybe paralegal/clerical work can, but you can’t). Second, all the skills and knowledge you learn and know pretty much is still useful 20-30 years from now. Maybe you need to brush up here and there, but for the most part, your skills aren’t going to be completely outdated. My kid’s pediatrician is turning 70 and he is being forced to retire by his organization. So he is moving to UCSD, so he can continue to practice.

Same could be said about plumbing, electricians, etc,but those things have another issue…they are physically demanding and it may be difficult to continue doing those things when you are 70+.

Technology, unfortunately, changes quickly, so you have to constantly keep up. If you like it, it’s great. If you are only in it for the money, you won’t last very long because you won’t be motivated to keep up.

Running a small business, is not a walk in the park. And it’s probably not something you want to start doing when you are 70. While there are some people who probably succeeded having a auto-pilot small business, what I’ve seen is small business needs active participation from the owners for it to remain profitable, which means “working”. Most small business owners I’ve seen work hard to generate income, which is then used to invest to generate passive income. The only difference is probably the take home income from a small business can be more than take home income from a salaried paycheck, with all the special tax variables you can play with a business versus just a W2/1099 paycheck. So you might be able to reach financial independence quicker…or not…

By the time you are 70, you’re money should be on autopilot working for you.

[Coronita]

Earlier I meant FU money not meaning it’s just going to sit there and do nothing. FU money means you have money that is working to provide you sufficient income so you don’t need to work for the same income.

It’s one of the main reasons I’m not a huge proponent of increasing taxes on capital gains, dividend, and investment income. For those of us that don’t have pension (which is long gone), or who don’t have a profession which you could practice indefinitely, who took the time to plan financially ahead and try to achieve financial independence, many of us are counting on that passive income to live on so we don’t need to work. And those sort of “breaks” are available to anyone else that have put in an effort to save/invest and plan…

The problem though, is a majority of the people in this country don’t save/invest/plan, and spend almost everything they earn when they are still a paycheck slave. And some others even if they don’t necessarily splurge on their paycheck, don’t bother to learn how to invest/earn (typically the doomsayers that think the sky is always falling)., but gripe about how their paycheck/benefits/etc is getting smaller and eaten away by inflation.

Short of having a guaranteed pay from a retirement plan, doing nothing is a sure way to almost guarantee failure when you are old and can’t (for whatever reason) work.

[no_such_reality]

I think the money needs to be on autopilot and able to sustain you by mid-40s.

To be honest you can retrain. But very few businesses outside of desperately new tech are willing to pick up a retooled 40 something at a lower level and pay than previous. SW dev and changing platforms and languages and not retooling the whole plant of the persons skill sets.

Switching platforms like to the phone is still an incremental step with same core principles involved. Crossing core is much more difficult and businesses are much less interested in those attempting it.

Meanwhile back on Rancho California, our Governor signed extended climate change legislation yesterday impacting our cost environment locally.

[poorgradstudent]

As much as I love Bill Clinton, the President gets more credit (and blame) for the economy than he (or she) deserves. At the minimum without buy-in from congress it’s tough to do anything. On top of that, 90-95% of the economy and jobs is controlled by forces beyond government control.

The biggest area it can be controlled is short term jobs created by infrastructure projects. If Trump does bring those jobs back it would be in very un-Republican, fiscal conservative fashion, as they are very Big Government.

[flyer]

As far as the jobs topic goes, I agree that bringing back or creating sustainable new jobs is going to be a challenge for any new president, with many pros and cons, as everyone has mentioned. Only time will tell if any of the campaign promises will be fulfilled by either candidate, but I hope no one is banking on any of them.

I only got into the sustainable income issue on this thread as it relates to the topic of jobs in this county, and how it seems more and more people are becoming more and more dispensable earlier in their careers than ever before, which makes proactive financial planning even more essential.

On that topic, I probably didn’t communicate my thoughts correctly before, but I agree that establishing multiple streams of income to support your desired lifestyle as early as possible for the balance of your lifetime (and, hopefully for future generations of your family) is definitely the way to go, and is what we’ve done.

That doesn’t mean you have nothing meaningful to do, it just means you are free to pursue what you consider to be important in your life without financial concerns.

[Author]

Posts