I'd ask him what exactly he thinks his point is other then to randomly try to scare a bunch of kids...
LockeColeMA wrote:
His basic premise: "You're here at the University of Delaware in a business class attempting to get a good education. Because of where you are, you are all bright. Above average. But do you know what you have against you?"
(Pulls up a map of Asia)
"Around 4 billion people who want the jobs that you want. Here is what you're up against. You've come to the point where being sharp isn't nearly enough. Everyone else is just as smart! You need to be imaginative as well."
He's a professor? Of what? Yes. I'm sure that thoe 4 billion people will all magically gain the professional skills to compete for US jobs, but at the same time no other jobs will ever appear. If 4 billion new people join the ranks of "skilled labor", you can bet that they'll want a higher standard of living to go right along with it. That means more banks, more car dealerships, more TV manufacturing, etc... Which means more jobs to build and manage those things.
You can't just look at one half of the economic equation. A professor of economics should understand this.
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Some facts he listed:
1-70% of people in general leadership positions end up failing. 80% of manufacturing plants close down within their first decade of operation. 80% of people who invest in stock end up losing more money than they put in.
And yet, despite that, the market keeps going up, the total number of successful businesses keeps increasing, and the total number of jobs available keeps increasing as well. None of these statistics actually tell you whether the economic picture as a whole is better or worse, or even whether these rates represent any problem at all. Perhaps it just means that there are more people with the capital to *try* new ventures. Even if a higher percent fail, the result is more new ventures succeeding. Which is good.
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2-The University of Arizona is the fastest growing university in America. Its classes, however, are taught online. My professor had this to say "In 5, 10, maybe 15 years, I won't have a job any more. At least not here. I'll be making videos if anything."
Doubtful. What percentage of the total does this university represent? If I were to start a new school tomorrow and managed to increase my student count from 0 to 1, I could also claim to be the fastest growing school in the country (infinite growth, right?). That wouldn't mean my school was poised to take over the entire education system though...
He's also not explaining what this means. Um. So he'll teach online instead of directly (assuming that this does take over or something, which I doubt). How does that affect things going forward? He's still just presenting random facts in a vaccum and implying a bad result. He needs to explain to me exactly how an increase in the rate of online education is harmful.
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3-In 1970, 87% of college graduates got jobs within a year after graduating. Today, less than 70% do (note, my professor didn't talk about the fact that many MANY more people attend college today).
That's still a pretty high percentage. He's also not taking into account the percentage that continue on to higher education. 40 years ago, a Bachelor's degree was sufficient for pretty much any job you might want baring actual academic employment. You technically "graduate" when you get your 4 year degree, whether you go on to get a masters or not. I'd bet that number is almost entirely made up of continuing students. He can argue that the higher requirements is "bad", but he needs to show that instead of just tossing the fact out there.
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4-If you didn't know, the link between productivity and profit is severed (http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_03222000). What this means is that productivity increases do NOT mean clear increases in income. Actually, that link is even worse; when you adjust for inflation, an average worker made $36,800 in 1970, and only $32,400 in 2000.
You missed a key part of the chart (and I'm guessing your professor did as well, or just choose to ignore it). The chart does not measure "workers", but "families". I'm pretty sure you'll find that the increase in single parent families (and just single workers in general) over the last 40-50 years is largely responsible for that number going down. The problem here is that he's not actually measuring what he thinks he's measuring. If we assume that every single household consisted of 4 people (an average used by a number of economic indicators), then the chart would indeed tell us about average standard of living over time. However, that's simply not the case. There are far more smaller families (single people, married couples without children, or with fewer children) then there were at earlier points on the chart.
If you measured actual salaries on a per-worker basis, I'm betting you'll find that much of the doom and gloom that appears here really doesn't exist. What you're really seeing is that people for one reason or another are choosing to live lifestyles that are less financially efficient (lots more single people supporting themselves on just their wages). We can debate whether that's a bad thing or not, but I'd suggest that more people live off single incomes because they *can*. Which is itself an indication of prosperity. In many other economies a typical houshold may consist of many more workers (including child workers in some cases). I don't think it's "bad" that we don't have to do that, and contriving a chart that would make families with working children look "better" is a bit disengenous, don't you think?
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5-The predictions for the future? The fastest growing job demand is for medical assistants, assisted living services, and elderly care, all of which pay low wages. What about the lowest demands? The demand for American technological and computer experts (because other countries can do it as good as us, but for 1/10 the price).
First off, he's contrasting two things using two different measurements. "Fastest growing" versus "job demands". One is a relative change-over-time value (like the U of A thing earlier), while the other is an absolute value.
The baby boomers are getting old and are wealthy enough to afford better medical assistance. That's why that's the fastest growing job area. If he's stupid enough to think this means anything other then supply and demand doing its normal thing, then he's not qualified to teach IMO. Demand for American tech and computer experts is "lowest", not because they aren't in demand, but because that's still a relatively new field. How about he be honest and compare the relative number of medical assistants and assisted living caregivers against tech/computer experts from 10 years ago versus today. I'm pretty sure that would paint a dramatically different picture.
I also love how he tosses the "other countries can do it just as well but for 1/10th the price". Tell him he's spouting bogus trash for me, cause he is. Despite what some ignorant people love to spout, it's not actually *cheaper* to outsource/offshore most jobs. The labor cost really isn't the biggest issue. The costs to operate a remote site vastly outweigh any labor costs involved. And most of the "non-american" tech/computer experts? They aren't hired in place. We hire them from their countries (typically India, Pakistan, China, and South Korea), pay to get them work visas, pay to transport them here to the US, and we pay them the same salaries that American workers would get paid (quite well as a matter of fact). The reason we hire so many in this fashion is because there is more demand domestically for those skills then there are American workers to fill that demand.
Tell you what. You want a guaranteed 6 figure income? Get a CS degree, and specialize in silicon chip mask layout design. It's a tough job and not everyone can do it (it requires a combination of scientific and artistic skill sets that is hard to find). If you have the aptitude you are *guaranteed* a job in any of a hundred different locations in the US that are desperate for people to do this. The demand for that (and many many other skills) are really that high. Perhaps if your professor actually participated in the job market instead of just teaching about it from an academic point of view, he'd know all of this.
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6-Meanwhile, the disparity between CEOs and average workers continues to increase. In 1970, a CEO made 42x what the average worker made. In... 2003, I believe, CEOs made 412x what the average employee made. The top five Wall Street firms (Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos.) had bonuses in 2006 ALONE that were larger than the increase in wages of 93 million working Americans for the last five years. These firms employ 173,000 people total. The point? Try to be one of those 173,000, and not part of the 93 million others.
A valid point if only 173,000 people ever did well in today's market. This is a whole topic by itself, however companies would not pay those CEOs that quantity of money if they didn't feel they got their money's worth. Yes. You'll always hear about the handful that contracted into great deals and then did a crappy job. But you don't hear about the vast majority of CEOs who make huge decisions for their companies and bring them profits that vastly outweigh the salaries they command. I'd also like to point out that if it was such a simple job skill set, then anyone could do it, and there'd be more CEOs competing for those top jobs, and the salaries would drop (simple market economics). Clearly, those high paid guys are doing more then just sitting in a big leather chair and laughing about all the cash they're getting for doing nothing. And clearly also, they *aren't* easily replaced, or they would be. Perhaps by one of those 4 billion people who are just as smart, right?...
I'd also like to point out that CEOs are contracted. It's no different then a football player who gets injured his first year, but still gets paid his 15 million dollars cause that's what he contracted for. Businesses take a risk when they hire a CEO. They offer big bucks for the position, and the position can make or break them. He's welcome to try to run a fortune 500 company *without* hiring a "big gun" CEO. Perhaps he'll be in the 80% who fail?
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7-Finally, he introduced a site called "Elance" which allows outsourcing of tasks, anything from writing a paper for you to creating a website. The prices are pretty cheap, so if you want a professional website, I suggest looking there.
Sure. And there's this place called "McDonalds", which allows the outsourcing of cooking meals. See! I can toss out silly irrelevancies as well... ;)
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His advice:
"Stop working HARD. HARD working is not a good thing, and employers know this. They don't want hard workers; they want smart workers. If you take 40 hours for something that takes another guy 20 hours, then you either need to learn how to work smarter, or prepare to get a pink slip."
"The top qualities businesses want these days? Leadership, communication skills, adaptability. The ones they don't care about at all? Work ethic, ethics in general, cultural sensitivity, and technological skills. If you find your main strengths are those undesirable ones, I suggest you change. Quickly."
He's absolutely 100% wrong. While modern workforces do prefer smart workers to hard workers, that's not exactly a bad thing. Um. They also want you to work hard as well. It's not that you get to work only 20 hours because you can do twice as much work in that time. They'll want you to work 40 hours and actually *do* twice as much work. I'm also curious what he thinks would be better. We should reward employees simply for physically taking up space? A workforce that rewards efficiency generates more productivity then one that doesn't, which improves life for all of us.
He's totally off on what businesses want. Yes. They want leadership/communication skills and adaptability. But that's also not a bad thing. I'm not sure what his point about ethics was. Is he saying that because he knows anything? Or because he's just assuming that any business that requires that their workers be smarter and more capable is somehow automatically "unethical" in some way? I'm really confused why he puts "work ethic" in there, since that somewhat goes hand in hand with the whole "able to get twice as much done over time" bit. It's incredibly hard to find people who can do that, but don't have a good work ethic. Unless he's suggesting that some ideal economic system would reward people simply for showing up at their workstation on time and filling a full timecard without regard to how much they accomplish. Seems to me like he's pining away for the old days of monotonous factory work or something. Um... that was a pretty horrid work standard and hardly high on "ethics" of any kind.
I already covered the technical skills bit. He's so wrong on this one, it's laughable. You want to make sure you have the best skills you can possibly have. I'd argue that the best job opportunties right now are in technical areas. But of course, you actually have to have the skills for the job. You can't just show up on time and fill a slot for 8 hours and fake it like many could (and did!) in the old factory model. Those with the correct technical skills can literally write their own tickets in today's market.
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How does all of this affect you? Do you all worry about the future for yourselves and your children? Just curious; for me, it just supplied more incentive and more motivation, despite the odds against me.
It should. As you pointed out globalization is a good thing. Competition is a good thing. We should react to this by working harder *and* smarter. We should be moving away from the old "mindless factory drone" approach to labor. We *are* moving away from that. And it's a good thing IMO, despite your professors apparent fear about it.
Edited, Feb 8th 2007 9:54pm by gbaji