The world as seem by my students

[Anonymous]

“It’s because those jobs are perceived as being difficult, not lucrative and lacking in prestige and security.”

Uh, those jobs ARE difficult, nonlucrative, and lack prestige and security.

“Again, there is no shortage of American medical school applicants, and everyone and everyone knows how tough medical school is.”

“The reality is slightly different of course, engineering can be very lucrative, especially for those with a lot of experience.”

Nothing like medicine. An experienced specialist—and I mean the average one, not the top 0.1% hotshot—will make $3-500k a year now. The hotshots consult and/or found biotechs and make much more.

The level of job security and most importantly, portable job availability for a decent physician is enormously higher than for any technical profession, where job applicants are extremely limited at the high end to tiny niches.

This is absolutely nothing like the experience of 99% of PhD, e.g. in any technical subject. (Yes, I am one, and my maximum income was $67k and I am currently unemployed involuntarily.)

And the other reality is that high tech jobs, e.g. electronics and software, are being outsourced overseas far more and at a much higher rate than any other well-paid professional job requiring a similar amount of intelligence, schooling and work. Many jobs conceivably ‘could’ be outsourced. Only a small category actually are.

It is quite politically incorrect to point this out but this can often correlate with relevant management in the US company being East or South Asian national origin—they obviously have connections and (with China) language skills to make it work. This happens to be most common by far in high-tech companies.

[Anonymous]

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSCM).

Chinese manufacturing is destroying everybody else’s and growing even more powerful, gaining market share even from the other ‘low-cost’ countries.

Are they “bad” at global business?

Where’s the American equivalent of those 100,000 factories in clusters which can make just about anything for dirt cheap?

Doesn’t exist either.

[SD Realtor]

I assume you mean TSMC. They fabricate the ASICs that my staff designs, as well as a majority of custom ASICs.

America cannot compete simply because of the salaries. That is the way it is and the way it will be.

Actually there are other more worrisome elements to this sort of globalization even though it is raw capitalism operating at it’s best. That is the security element. If you think about it, a staggering amount of our custom ASICs (chips), parts for military equipment and other basic infrastructure are manufactured overseas.

There is a large ASIC manufacturing area being built in Mexicali. I am quite pleased with that if for anything just to have it closer to American soil. I think that sooner or later we will see that we need to bring more of this sort of manufacturing back physical locations that will be closer to home. If it means subsidizing our workers then so be it.

Everyone whines about loss of jobs. It sucks. I hate it and could lose mine at any time. However the bottom line is that people do what I do on the other side of the planet for a hell of alot cheaper.

SD Realtor

[barnaby33]

You mean, sell real estate for less than 6%! I thought the NAR would have locked themselves in with the CHICOMs for sure!

Josh

[SD Realtor]

heheheheheh…

Don’t get me started on NAR…and don’t get NAR started on me. Guys like me are on NARs hit list.

SD Realtor

[NeetaT]

I’m tired of hearing how bad everything is or will be. I’ve listened to this same rhetoric for the last ten years and have reacted to it by being very cautious with my money and as a consequence missed out on making large amounts of money. I still hold hope in this prediction, because I’ve done so for so long. Now I’m stuck. The truth is that most people have allot of money. It’s hard to make a case for a bad economy, when I can’t find a parking space at a shopping mall and have to wait in line at an Outback Steak house.

[Anonymous]

Bad economy?

Simple: read the “Onion”-Tribute today.

In one of the home or busines sections it described median income increasing something like 8.6% over 5 years.

Problem was that S.D. CPI was 9.7% over those 5 years.

So, yes in the middle of an ‘economic boom’, in one of the ‘good, booming cities’, real median wages went DOWN. The deca/centimillionaires might not notice, but many people do.

What do you think will be the direction in the next recession (probably pretty soon)? You think the median wages are going to go back up to compensate?

And maybe the CPI’s ‘hedonic adjustments’ result in significantly structurally lower inflation than reality?

Real median wages in India and China are exploding upwards.

Real wages are still actually increasing a bit in Old Europe, and growing greatly in New Europe (Ireland, Spain, better parts of the East).

Look at the lower table (entire US):

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f03ar.html

All time maximum real income (1966–2005)

First (top) quintile: year 2000: 177,879
Second (above avg) quintile year 2000: 84,781
Third (center) quintile year 2000: 57,525
Fourth (below avg) quintile year 2000: 36,602
Fifth (bottom) quintile year 2000: 16008

Top 5%: year 2005: 308,636

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