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Occupy Wall St.

So it is foreign students that are the issue? Man, no wonder this country is going down the toilet. Instead of being more competitive we find every excuse to remain lazy and punish people with drive and hunger. I would prefer to hire a non American any day of the week.

America always has been and always will be the land of opportunity, not slam dunk hand out success.

And slam China for their currency manipulation while we print money like drunken sailors? Get real. China has every right to do what they want, just as we do. How about we stop spending like wildfire and stop ever increasing the size of the government.


Americans with college degrees have about 5% unemployment rate. That is perfectly fine. While some college students with educations cannot find work, the vast majority of us can. The real people who should be protesting are the black, Latino, and unskilled workers who are suffering through 10-20% unemployment right now. These people need to relocate and retrain. They don't need "stimulus" that will only hire teachers and union workers (buying votes for Obama right there). We also don't need additional misguided regulation. Every layer of regulation we put on makes working in the US less and less enticing.
 
Actually, Anthony, the unemployment rate for people my age is around 17%. The young people by no means have it easy. Yeah, people with a college degree. That includes everyone from new graduates to freaking managing directors at Goldman Sachs who graduated 30 years ago. Try to keep it a bit more current and parse the data a little bit.

As for unions, screw unions. I can't stand them either. Frankly, I think our teachers should be subject to the same competition as Silicon Valley, the Chicago trading loop, and so on. If you're good, you make a killing, but if you suck, then no union will support your rubbish.

And yes, foreign students very much are an issue. They wouldn't be an issue if American students could get that same education (and degree too, since that's the only thing that counts, unless Stanford's online courses completely revolutionize things), but when one foreign student gets "Dear XYZ foreigner, we're pleased to accept you into our prestigious program" and an American citizen gets "Dear ABC, as you know, we try to find the best candidates, and this year we received so many strong applications, so go eat a blueberry muffin", then yes, foreign students are a problem. And given the demographics of so many technical graduate programs, they're a huge problem, speaking by proportion.

As for increasing the size of government, we're in agreement there. Our military spending is far too large, and our entitlement spending, which only benefits the old and the poor to the detriment of everyone else, are ridiculous as well. Everything else is peanuts compared to that.
 
@ Alexei: my point is that the best teachers would do well regardless of a union or not. In fact, isn't the entire point of a union to protect the individually bad eggs? After all, if a teacher is amazing, he or she could certainly negotiate a better position for him or herself than a union could if a district didn't provide him or her with what he or she needed.

As for immigration standards: nope, they wouldn't apply. I was fully naturalized before applying to colleges let alone jobs. My mother started her own business teaching piano as well. The entire point here, though, is to reverse the effects of globalization. Plain and simple. Employers are using the H1Bs to expand their labor pool so that the intersection of supply and demand meets at a lower equilibrium price? Yoink. Not anymore.

American-educated foreigners going back to their countries with American educations? Yoink. Not anymore.

As for university costs: simple: have a BS cost 10% of your gross income for the next ten years, regardless of how expensive the university might otherwise be, and what kind of job you'd get. Go to NYU, major in feminist studies, can only get a job being a bartender? 10% of that the next ten years. Go to Stanford, get a degree in compsci, absolutely kill it in Silicon Valley? 10% of your salary for the next ten years.

AKA one year's worth of your average salary for the next ten years goes to your university, regardless of how much you make. This way, everyone can pay, and universities are incentivized to provide a good education.

That said, I'm sure the OWS may very well have other legitimate grievances as well.
 
With teachers: so you're saying all teachers are created equal--that if Stanford's Andrew Ng had to teach high school calculus, he'd be only as good as 98 other teachers, and only objectively better than the one bad egg? I beg to differ. I've had some good teachers, and I've had some not-so-good ones. I've had good professors, and not-so-good professors. I very much can tell the difference, and I'm sure many others could too.

Zeroeth. I take first to mean "born in the country", and if I was, I'd consider running for President myself at some point in my life (if you want something done right...do it yourself). And as for my mother...well...the American piano teacher here in town does much better than my mother does. (I also believe she's head of the music dept. at Rowan University too). I suppose your argument could hold true in theory. And no, my family and I entered the country legally. We emigrated from Russia, no Mexican border-hopping.

As for nobody else to have the opportunities I have: aside from the complete lack of opportunity for those who are recent graduates without years upon yeas of work experience, I have no problems with someone immigrating to the country, living here long enough to become a citizen, and getting a job. And as I said, rather than simply cap the number of H1Bs a firm can have, simply charge $50,000 for each one. Basic econ 101 says that if you have a much larger supply of labor (the whole world, instead of the US), yet only have a set demand, then so much the better for you. This legislation would simply "correct" for recent globalization trends--and reduce our deficit.
 
IlyaKEightSix said:
Well, this may come as a shock, but even I as a quant/engineer/whateverYouWantToCallMe support OWS. Why?


B) Yes, there are twits who got unmarketable degrees. But what of us who got what we thought would be marketable degrees? Such as oh, I don't know, a BS in operations research and an MS in statistics, as well as Stanford online coursework? Even despite this, with my mentor needing to build up trading revenue, time is so precious that even training me for free by proxy is very difficult for him at the moment and I'm thankful for everything he does for me, so I could get up to speed to be an entry-level analyst when he gets enough trading revenue.

And I'm not exactly what you call "stupid". And on top of that, I have work experience (some number > 0). And the job hunt is still ridiculous, because no employer wants to train--they just want someone to come in and be a solution, regardless of the fact that oh, they're a young, new graduate who is quite trainable!. Now imagine most people my age. Where do they go and find work? This is a recursion process with next to no base case...certainly not large enough to absorb all of the graduates coming out. What is supposed to happen--to have anyone without an engineering degree from Stanford or MIT (or the like) go flip burgers (aka the intersect of MIT/Stanford/etc. and engineering degree)?


IlyaKEightSix - I think you have lot of education to be unemployed, especially not having to worry about work permit to work in this country. Not trying to offend you, but if i were in your place i would look for another line of work. I think your upto no good.I think people are simply wasting their time trying to argue with you. I dont think digging deeper and deeper into the this field is not going to help
Click to expand...
 
IlyaKEightSix - I think you have lot of education to be unemployed, especially not having to worry about work permit to work in this country. Not trying to offend you, but if i were in your place i would look for another line of work. I think your upto no good.I think people are simply wasting their time trying to argue with you. I dont think digging deeper and deeper into the this field is not going to help
 
@ Alexei: How am I an exception? I am a US citizen. If someone were to immigrate to the US when they were 4 years old, live here for 15-20 years and get naturalized along the way, I have no complaints.

My issue is with employers just enlarging the labor pool they can select from via work visas. Here's an example:

Employer A: has an application from a scientist with a decade of research experience who can add a million dollars or more in revenue. Sponsoring him for an extra $50,000 is a no brainer.

Employer B: is recruiting a class of analysts/entry-level positions. If they had to pay an extra $50,000 for each foreign national, then they'd be far more incentivized to hire as many American citizens as possible, including ones which may not be as good as foreign nationals, but who can very much be value adds if trained properly. This gets young people in America (read: American citizens) working, I suppose at the expense of young people elsewhere in the world. Oh well. It's a big world, and clearly, we're filled to capacity here.

Yes, I am an immigrant. I also hold US citizenship. I suppose I am "lucky" in that regard.

Edit @ Katrina: you also need contacts/references and experience in today's economy in addition to an education. And believe me, I am looking in many other fields besides finance.

And once again, to get *back* to the OWS discussion, if someone such as myself (quantitative degreeS, US citizenship) is not having a walk in the park finding work, what about all of the rest of the people my age, who may not have known that they wanted to be number crunchers, and got some not-as-marketable major? Are they just supposed to eat a blueberry muffin, and work at Starbucks the rest of their lives as a coffee server?

People say to the OWS protesters to get a job, well, as Ari Gelber said on the Dylan Ratigan show, those people need to get a clue!

Frankly, our lawmakers in Washington, as inept as they are, need to realize that hey, the OWs protesters are protesting economic inequality--so find a way to get people back to work, doing good, meaningful jobs. Once that happens, the protests will go away. Before then, if people have nothing better to do, then they sure as heck are justified being there.
 
Oh, I'm not planning to vote republican for many other reasons. And I hardly call US citizenship in this day and age "winning the lottery". But I mean it's pretty clear that republicans are completely bought and paid for by multinational corporations, and democrats are little better. The problem is that what's good for multinationals (cheap labor) isn't good for America.
 
ilya:My issue is with employers just enlarging the labor pool they can select from via work visas.

That alternative is that they send the work overseas which I suspect you don't want either. Alternatively they don't and are undercut by those that do, or they hire less good staff. If you reduce the set of people who employers can choose between, they will hire less good, more expensive people. I see that as bad for the US economy.

Also, you must have seen the question I have posed before, but you did not answer...

If the US does not hire these smart people, do you think they will disappear or use their degree in physics to work in a paddy field ?
Do you have any solution or answer to that ?

We live in a globalised world. you may not like it, but if the US cuts itself off from cheap sources of good talent it will be fucked.
 
I must have missed that question. You're right, that's a valid criticism, and every time someone says "so we let in smart people into our universities, give them a world-class American education, then let them go away to other countries to compete with us?", to which I respond "there are plenty more applicants, some of them even American citizens, who want those seats in those universities". My entire point is that I'm sure there are plenty of Americans itching for an opportunity to go to graduate school at a world-class American university, who are more likely than not capable of doing the work and understanding the material. Instead, time and again, they are turned away. Then people ask "where are all of the talented Americans?" Well, they're getting rejected by graduate schools without even a chance to earn a decent degree, then turned away by employers because they don't have a name brand education.

The people with physics degrees will clearly go to other nations, hence why we should encourage universities to admit American. People say "buy American, hire American", what about for educational purposes? I mean I hope Stanford is onto something with its online coursework and answer checking that Andrew Ng does, but I highly doubt that four years of taking 4-5 courses at home this way for four years would substitute for a degree (I wish!). So in that light, we have to recognize that those with American degrees not given American jobs will leave America, but that's why we should have more Americans in those universities.

And there can be plenty of legislation levied to absolutely crush any economic incentive to outsource work. Heck, if you outsource any sort of non-menial labor, such as outsourcing software engineering to India, then bam, I smash you with a 15% outsourcing tax immediately after your expenses are subtracted. Any cost you may have saved on outsourcing your labor will instead be extracted from your earnings and sent to Uncle Sam's treasury.

You say that if the US cuts itself off from cheap sources of good talent, it's fucked. Well, what about the cheap sources of talent already in the US? I've accepted work for $40,000 a year pay before if only to get experience and not live under my mother's roof. And heck, while I'm living under my mother's roof, I even say that I'll simply work for experience and acknowledgement that I have a good attitude so that I could build connections.

My point? There is (in all likelihood) plenty of cheap talent here in the US. There are plenty of young people willing to work hard, with a good attitude, willing to learn the necessary parts of a programming language if their employer would be so kind as to take a few weeks to teach them, and in return take an apprentice's salary, so that they can pay their loans, pay the rent, and not have to buy the $1 unhealthy food from the freezer section of a sketchy supermarket.

Now is it really the case that I'm a complete exception in that I'm a product of the US public school system that actually loves numbers, stats, machine learning, etc. etc.? I really refuse to believe that. I had plenty of smart friends at Lehigh, most as American as apple pie.

I think that America has so much of the talent it needs being born and bred here. I'm sure people my age would be willing to work for very cheap, if they know what's good for their futures. After all, my philosophy is take a "you're-an-apprentice" salary until you can do something, and then (and only then) make a killing.

So given this philosophy, my background, etc. etc. etc., what else do I need? What else do Americans my age need? How far are the goalposts still?
 
ilya : I completely understand your frustration with employment opportunities, but i think you have it made. If i were in your position i would probably not just be anti - immigrant but probably have become 'racist' even though i am not "white".

What i think you need to do is head out there to the OWS rally in a town near you and try to pick on some women and have kids, try to pace them out like - have one kid every 5 years until your 70. Once you have a family going with no decent employment you are eligible for section 8 housing, food stamps and welfare check. I am not sure if your familiar with section 8 housing, but they are quite generous, they are just regular apartments that the government pay rent directly to the complex, that can be upto $1,500/month depending on your circumstances.

The people on quantnet are mostly immigrants or pro immigrants, and your going to have a hard time winning an argument with them and are kinda smart if you have noticed. I say raise the white flag and head over to the nearest OWS rally.
 
The reason that it makes economic sense for companies to import labor (H1Bs) or outsource it is that there aren't strong enough economic disincentives against it. Twits like Sarah Palin say "oh, you poor companies--the taxes and costs of labor force you to do X, Y, and Z". Are you really going to side with such an imbecile? The reason it makes sense to locate your factory in China instead of Michigan is that the cost per worker in China is $2,000 a year (if that), while the cost of an American worker is $50,000.

However, if after those costs you got slammed with an overly punitive tax on outsourcing to negate the economic benefits of outsourcing, what do you think a company would do? Fire all of its workers and move its HQ to another country?

Look, all I'm saying is this:

There is plenty of technical talent here in America. Plenty. I am sure plenty of firms can fill their ranks with perfectly capable employees with US citizenship in this economic climate. And probably won't have to pay top dollar either.

But whatever. Odds are, none of you are buying it. I'm just of the opinion that a government full of civic-minded individuals would see to it that those who are looking and are willing to work who are capable of learning and have shown it in the past be taken care of first.
 
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

Unemployment rate for people with a Bachelors - 4-5%


As for the government shrinking

http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/edhistory.pdf

Dept of Education spending over the past 20 years


http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/agriculture

Ag Dep spending over time


http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/hud

HUD



I could go on and on. The government is not shrinking by any means. The government continues to add workers faster than the private sector. The Dept. of Homeland security is a great example of the expansion.
 
Oh, certainly, government isn't exactly phenomenal at managing money (oh hey, hint hint, set up a quant shop to do the massive optimization problem), but the least it can do is to align the interests of those with the money to the interests of well...all of the hundreds of millions without it.

The massive problem IMO is most of our congressmen are bought--from both parties. Granted, the dems are slightly the lesser of two evils IMO since they at least pay lip service to someone besides the filthy rich (not that there's anything wrong with being rich). The key word being slightly--after all, Obama's biggest individual campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs.

Odds are, if all of our senators and reps were like Dr. Rush Holt, we'd probably be in a much better place. But I suppose I can only dream.
 
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