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[Angle]

Bleh. This is why I think that capitalism is unsustainable - eventually theres no one left to screw over everyone thinks that they need someone else to give them work to do, and everything collapses.

This makes me curious. Elaborate please?

[SalmonGod]

everyone thinks that they need someone else to give them work to do

hehehehehehe.......

Ummm yeah this is very true, considering the amount of time and/or capital required to do anything on one's own.  In my case, I have project ideas that I think could be very successful, which I have the knowledge and tools for.  I could launch a career independently.  However, I would need 7-8 months, at the very least, of concentrated up front time investment to actually do the work.  In the meantime, I have a family of four to provide for.  It's not happening in the foreseeable future.

[Fenrir]

Of course, now you can not do that, but before you had a family, you may well have been able to achieve that. Obivously doing something on your own is not an option for everyone.

[Truean]

I second SalmonGod's sentiments.

As someone looking into starting a law firm. The upfront investment and risk are enormous. Finances are scarce and pre existing obligations don't go away to help with that.

Economists would call this "Barriers to Entry." Allegedly, the inefficient firms will die off replaced by "more efficient" new firms. Curious, no one seems to be able to start those new firms, without them, those same firms who originally screwed up will eventually be the only ones in a position to tackle the business of Clients. Also the public is wary of anything new.

Starting a new law firm as a new lawyer is hard because people look for old lawyers: this is foolish.

I find this hilarious given that people will go to an older lawyer because he looks like he knows what he's doing, and that's exactly how the scam works and what it counts on. Said older lawyer is a pretty face. Said pretty face charges $500 an hour, which, who the crap are we kidding, your average person has no ability or desire to pay. So, they will have the old guy focus on corporate clients that make your average person's case look like small potatoes. He will focus on the case that brings in $20,000 in legal fees and could care less about your (to him) measly couple thousand. It's not a hard choice for him to make....

Except, you know, its something to pay the light bill I guess... those smaller claims says older lawyer. How does he get the money without doing much of any of the work? That's simple. He hires me to work for peanuts and do all the work. He literally never looks at your file again and probably forgets your name chalking it up to a "senior moment" and smiling charmingly.

Summary, the old lawyer just hands off the case to the younger one who does everything while the old guy plays golf with some corporate officer anyhow. Why not cut out the middle man?

Of course, now you can not do that, but before you had a family, you may well have been able to achieve that. Obivously doing something on your own is not an option for everyone.

Because it's somehow easier to start a business right out of college or high school? Granted you don't have the expense of a family, but meh.

Bottom line: It is really hard to start a new business. If old businesses aren't hiring and new ones are scarce, jobs are really hard to find.

[Aqizzar]

Of course, now you can not do that, but before you had a family, you may well have been able to achieve that. Obivously doing something on your own is not an option for everyone.

You're the one that started making fun of him.  What is your awesome solution for him then?

[Fenrir]

Where did I make fun of him? It was not even his post that I quote-edited.

[Aqizzar]

My apologies, it was not.  The point stands though, you acknowledge that the "take the initiative and make your own fortune" plan doesn't work for everyone.  When there's no jobs around to work for, what's your solution?

[Fenrir]

Must a single solution work for everyone? Of course, it may well help everyone, as, the more businesses that are started, the more opportunities for employment there are.

I mean not to trivialize anyone's financial plight, and I certainly understand that SalmonGod is trying his best to support his family, and his options are limited, but I am trying to point out that I think the “take the initiative and make your own fortune” plan is not often given enough consideration, and it may well be part of the problem rather than “people screw people over” as Angle implied.

[SalmonGod]

This is my criticism of society in general.  We try to organize the whole of society according to rigid sets of absolute rules, and of course they just don't work for everybody.  Every type of government or economy is a great idea from a theoretical logic vacuum, but unpredictable circumstances of reality are more common than we give credit to and fuck with everything.  Society as a whole needs to be designed for greater capability to improvise.

[Levi]

Viva la revolution!

I got to agree, but I honestly don't see how we can improve things.  Big business pretty much owns corrupt government, and one vote every four years or so for a small selection of candidates isn't enough for people to change it.

[Truean]

This is my criticism of society in general.  We try to organize the whole of society according to rigid sets of absolute rules, and of course they just don't work for everybody.  Every type of government or economy is a great idea from a theoretical logic vacuum, but unpredictable circumstances of reality are more common than we give credit to and fuck with everything.  Society as a whole needs to be designed for greater capability to improvise.

*Slowclap*

We can't all be #1; in fact the overwhelming majority of us can't. There's nothing wrong with that. The system should work for most of the system's people or else why should those people support it?

There are way over 10 million unemployed people in the U.S. They get called lazy and every other name imaginable but that's kinda B.S. There's a fundamental mismatch somewhere in this mess. Those millions of people have to be able to do SOMETHING worth being paid for except there's no one willing to pay them.

Crumbling infrastructure? Government is CUTTING spending rather than fixing it. There are enough out of work construction workers that could totally do this if we paid them. Instead, the roads continue to crumble and more potholes break our cars....

[SalmonGod]

Viva la revolution!

I got to agree, but I honestly don't see how we can improve things.  Big business pretty much owns corrupt government, and one vote every four years or so for a small selection of candidates isn't enough for people to change it.

This is where it's really hard not to lay down my entire anarchist perspective in a gigantic rant.  I'll try to address this as minimally as possible.

The problem here is all of the rulesets for society that most people accept as valid involve centralized decision making and absolute authority structures.  They involve a handful of people making decisions for large amounts of people, and having the power to enforce consequences on those who don't play along or simply don't fit into the equation.  Of course this leads to suffering.  Even the most well-intentioned leader just doesn't have the time, energy, and knowledge to make things work for everyone.

It's also important to note how these systems translate into culture and evolution.  Inequality is hard-coded into them, which naturally creates competition and rewards the most ruthless competitors.

Before the information/mass communications era, this was simply the only possible way to organize a large scale society, but given the capabilities of modern communications, I don't see why this is the case anymore.  The reason things aren't changing is most people are incapable of imagining the fundamental changes to our ways of thinking that would be required for this kind of change, and because it goes against the individual interests of those in power.

[alway]

Furthermore, you know we can't all be software engineers and even if we could you're wrong.... That is being outsourced to India and has been for years.... I can show you with relative ease numerous software engineers who got outsourced.

Can you show me aside from anecdotes? I'm getting my info from here, stating a 34% increase over 10 years (or about 3% growth per year): http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As with other information technology jobs, offshore outsourcing may temper employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers. Jobs in software engineering are less prone to being offshored than are jobs in computer programming, however, because software engineering requires innovation and intense research and development.

Aside from that, software engineering was simply an example of an in-demand and growing field; in general, most technical fields are growing rapidly, as are opportunities in the healthcare field. For example, the demand for nurses, a field whose salary has a median of $62k, is expected to rise by 600k positions over the next 10 years (in addition to the already-existing positions); a 20% increase in a position which requires only an associate's degree.

I'm not defending high education costs or the silliness of some student loan related law, I'm merely pointing out that a blanket statement of everyone being unable to find well paying jobs after graduation is false.

[Virex]

It's also important to note how these systems translate into culture and evolution.  Inequality is hard-coded into them, which naturally creates competition and rewards the most ruthless competitors.

And this is bad because?

[Africa]

Because ruthless means you screw a lot of people over?