If college is part of a signaling arms race, if we conceive of education purely as a labor market good, why are we asking the laborers to stand down from that race and not the employers?
Indeed, if everybody knows that a college education is empty signaling, then how is it possibly still effective?
The best and biggest employers should have the best information on the value of college education (in whole and in terms of its parts, such as humanities courses). They could expand their potential labor pool and make better or cheaper hires by adopting different hiring standards. If there's an information arbitrage going on here, somebody should be able to make money from it.
In my view the elephant in the room is that maybe a college education is valuable after all, but we haven't put our finger on the precise reason.
>The best and biggest employers should have the best information on the value of college education (in whole and in terms of its parts, such as humanities courses).
Depends how one defines "best"; though this is debatable, because one could say that these are the most beholden to the signaling arms race despite the data they may have to the contrary (i.e alphabet, amazon, et al).
>In my view the elephant in the room is that maybe a college education is valuable after all, but we haven't put our finger on the precise reason.
I don't think this is the elephant in the room at all, people routinely say that some parts of a college education can be valuable for various reasons, while others (as judged by value by the marketability of the graduates) are not valuable at all.
In my view, the "best" and biggest employers like it because it signals some default level of competence (which is growing weaker as the incentives are to push everyone through to get some kind of degree) as well as relative malleability and conformance to institutionalized authority (those who opted out, or didn't go might not conform to the corporate identity or end up making it expensive for the employer to employ them, compared to their counter parts; after all, hiring based on objective measurements/metrics without any human involvement isn't something that happens today). Also these companies are largely affected by the turnover rates compared to smaller ones, so it's easier to target colleges graduates as a cohort.
>If there's an information arbitrage going on here, somebody should be able to make money from it.
I do think some employers take advantage of this environment, though I doubt it's alphabets, amazons, and apples…
Who is we? Certainly not the author of the article we're discussing. He specifically talks about recommending going in to higher education to the individual.
Scientists are running because they feel their class interests are being threatened. Typically, scientists are apolitical because they feel they get more benefits by maintaining the status quo (e.g. military and civil funding). In the face of a bald attack on the EPA and climate science, scientists are attempting to show class solidarity.
Unfortunately, many of the problems we have are not technical problems, but are clashes between left and right. The favored positions of both sides have long been established. Science will help implement an ideological solution, but will not replace ideology. To the extent that the scientists running are leftists compared with centrist democrats, this will be somewhat significant.
However, I suspect that many established scientists are ignorant of politics and see the current struggle as some kind of surface level fact vs fiction debate. They will be disappointed.
I agree with points 1-3, but I would be remiss not to mention, that with respect to point 4, diseases like sickle cell anemia, which is hideously painful and fatal as a double inheritance (25% homozygous offspring in a heterozygous pairing, ss), but a wonderful defense against malaria in heterozygous offspring (Ss, 50% of said pairing). The remaining 25% homozygous wild-type (SS) are healthy, except when encountering malaria.
I would think that a mendelian genetic disease like sickle cell might well be on our hit list for all the trouble it causes. Of course, it could be argued that mosquito nets and drugs (i.e. technology) are a better, less costly defense, than these inborn genetic mutations.
I think his point was, that in general, even the terrible mutations like sickle cell serve a purpose in ensuring the survival of our species in the face of diseases like malaria (which if it was much more potent, or our population much smaller and closer together, could wipe us out). From an "effectiveness of evolution" stand point generating those sorts of terrible diseases is a feature of the "algorithm".
We are smart enough to face the consequences of eliminating such things, of taking control of the selection function used by evolution. The question is if we are wise enough to understand that we must be prepared for the consequences, or even understand that there will be consequences.
Mainly because it's hard to suppress laughter if you think about it at all beyond a surface level. See discussion in another thread. I don't want to repeat myself.
They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc).
2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A healthy U6 is probably closer to 6% (from around 2000). That 2% of 160M is 3.2M jobs. Thus, in one fell swoop without even affecting operations overly much, Apple could reduce the magnitude of the economic crisis by a little over 2/3.
These are astonishing numbers that would have real impacts on people's lives. Imagine what we could do with the profits of the other large conglomerates.
Instead, they're spending a tiny amount on PR and reduced taxes that they lobbied heavily for to do what? Probably stock buy backs. The adulation of the rich and powerful continues at the expense of the working class.
EDIT: added some comparison numbers
EDIT: You guys are too much! So many questions, keep on asking, but I'll have to let others answer. I have other things to do today. Keep thinking critically about the political economy of the system. :)
There is no diversion about it. Remember that people, voting individuals in the US, have decidedly different stances on what "appropriate" amount of taxes should be. Business, particularly public ones, have a responsibility to their share holders to handle money as fiscally responsibly as they can.
From my perspective, Apple isn't "grabbing" anything. They are moving their money from Bank A to Bank B and paying a 20% fee on their balance simply for doing so. You may say this is a PR piece and a continued way to screw workers, but i see it differently. Apple had no need to repatriate this money. This is part of a conscious shift in their fiscal policy moving forward. It stands to benefit US workers a great deal more than them keeping these funds overseas.
Would you mind clarifying what you mean? The implications i read in this comment are that Apple isn't paying taxes and do not invest in technology. Both are of course false, even before this announcement. I haven't fished through documents but i suspect Apple spends Billions on both every year.
Apple lobbied for and received an incredible tax break for repatriating its money. It should be paying the full 35% corporate tax rate. Apple invests in some science and technology, that is true. However, for some reason, despite its fervent dedication to the arts and sciences, it hasn't figured out how to spend 200+ billion dollars. Weird.
They do pay taxes elsewhere. They are subject to each country's tax laws that they make income in. You are probably referring to the Irish/EU arrangement, but that has little bearing in Japan or China or wherever else China makes money.
Your reference to the double Irish arrangement completely undercuts your point. You admit that they aren't paying substantial taxes in a huge market they participate in.
With respect to Japan and China, a multinational company, an effectively stateless entity (or possibly a state unto itself) can simply move to the most profitable country, thus forcing countries to compete for its tax dollars. Thus, the multinationals, unless resisted via solidarity, will cause a collapse in all nations treasuries.
Apple must pay taxes where they make money. Apple's retail operations in China/Japan can't be moved to a less-tax country, it is physically impossible to be in China/Japan and not be in China/Japan at the same time! You simply cannot operate in a country without paying taxes, the EU rules being weird and an exception because of their one market principle.
Ok, last one. :) You've really just made a mockery of the ideology of competition haven't you? In fact, that is what corporations do. There's an awful lot of highly concentrated market power lying around for exactly that reason.
Would you please not use HN for ideological battle? At the point this stuff gets generic, it gets predictable, and therefore boring in HN's sense of the word.
That doesn’t make any sense though. Why would Apple just create millions of jobs that they don’t require?
This is the key mistake people make when they say that tax cuts will create jobs, or minimum wages will cost employment. Companies try to be efficient, and therefore don’t create jobs they don’t need, and don’t get rid of jobs they do need if wages go up. That’s why there is pretty much zero statistical correlation between tax cuts and employment, or wage price and employment.
Apple will create jobs if their operations require them - they’re not going to make up busywork out of the goodness of their hearts.
Let’s not forget that US-based competitors are getting the very same tax cut, while foreign-based competitors likely had more favorable tax environment to boot. Creating the jobs one doesn’t need by one player increases that player’s costs and affects margins long-term, meanwhile competitors who did nothing can simply lower their prices.
Exactly right. Why would a for-profit company work to improve the lives of the population that birthed them? I'm merely making the point that we can do better than this.
I think companies should pay their fair share of tax, comply with stringent labour, environmental and other regulations (high minimum wage, decent holidays, humane limits on work hours per week etc.), even donating part of their profits to charity would be cool.
But you can’t expect companies to randomly create new jobs just for the sake of making jobs (because they have a bit of spare cash)... It just doesn’t make sense.
Are you under the impression that a sizable portion of those currently unemployed have the skills that Apple looks for in their employees? Or are you suggesting they start up a pastry shop, carwash and clothing conglomerate?
If they don't really need that money, why not give it to the people that could really use it?
I'm suggesting that capitalism is going to encounter a crisis point sometime in the next decade or two at this rate. It will destroy itself leaving either barbarism or socialism in its wake.
There are a variety of alternative arrangements that have been proposed. Economic democracy is one of them (that is, the workers control the company via elections, which will influence their pay).
The workers benefit somewhat from Apple, yes, in the form of a consumer gadget. I will grant Apple some utility, it did find a way to fuse existing science and technology in an interesting way to produce a very nice pocket computer.
However, this has had many effects, some good (access to information and maps), some bad (dissolution of privacy, addictive interfaces, the creation of "apps" at the expense of the open internet). Apple then uses this commodity to vacuum up dollars from consumers in excess of what it cost to produce... and do nothing with them other than allow executives and securities holders to slake their desire to accumulate. It's an addiction in itself.
I'm sold! I'll go in and refuse my pay check because my employer offers me high quality products that even I can purchase.
I can't, because I won't have the money to purchase them, but they are "in business to make money," and I'm clearly only here for the opportunity to buy the products that I make.
OK, sarcasm isn't especially productive, but I hope my point is clear: if my employer takes all the money and pays only subsistence wages, which the huge power imbalance enables, then he's doomed because nobody can afford his products.
At the very least, mine would be if he hadn't managed to get massive tax breaks for being a "job creator" who's also persuaded the government to subsidize those jobs with public funding, and then decided that he's not topping those wages up with the money his business earned. Basically, running costs are funded by the public while he pockets all the profits and pays me with my own tax dollars.
The working class needs more than just the benefit of stuff being offered for sale. We need to be able to spend and save, the ability to shape the economy and keep it running, otherwise it all breaks down.
You have the right idea. That's probably what they will do, but not as a dividend (those are taxed as ordinary income). Instead they will buy back stock, reducing the supply of stock and increasing the price. Long term sales of stock incur a 15% tax rate.
I'm not saying this is good, but this is what they will do.
ahh so the bankers make $$ for an arcane opaque "buyback" I would rather have the $ now and as my apple holdings are in Investment trusts in my ISA I don't pay tax on dividends.
U6 is still high. Most of the jobs created after 2008 were more transient than old jobs. Hence, the term "gig economy". The precariousness of the working class has increased dramatically and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
It's kind of unbelievable that NPM is a for-profit company that serves the node community for free. You can't possibly expect them to make the right choices when the community isn't whom they are directly responsible to. NPM should be a nonprofit foundation, a coop, or some other organization that has its operations funded by the community and has elected positions.
Their lack of financial or other interests in the community directly explains their policies.
Just FYI, you're describing socialism and there is a large body of theory that you can read about that discusses these ideas. It even takes into account the mistakes of the mid-20th century.
I don't know in detail, but suffice it to say that for many years we've had mouse strains with particular genetic alterations that appear to mimic Alzheimer's. Not my field, so google for more info.
