50% of yr 2000 CA tech workers now not in technology jobs

[Robert Oak]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/9866921.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Battered by the technology bust, half of the Californians working in tech in 2000 have left the field, a new landmark study of 1 million workers shows.

Nearly one-fourth of the tech workers have taken non-technology jobs that often pay less, according to the study by the Sphere Institute, a Bay Area public policy research firm. Another 28 percent have fallen off California's job rolls altogether -- having fled the state, joined the ranks of the unemployed or become self-employed.

[necso]

1. Sounds about right. n/t

[Newsjock]

2. The Bush economic plan is working!

The plan to eliminate the middle class.

[bemildred]

3. This is how boom and bust works.

It was clear in 1999 during the Y2K panic that there was going to be
blood all over the floor in a year or two. The government's supine
attitude about cheap foreign labor has just been exploited to make
matters worse, further strengthening managements hand. Unfortunately,
management is the US has no better clue about what to do now than it
did five years ago, or twenty. It's all slash and burn economics,
eating the seed corn so the current crop of MBAs can make their fortune
and bail out.

[necso]

4. Nice post.

I like "smash and grab economics" myself.

"Slash and burn" can be tolerated -- if you give the "land" enough time to recover -- and you have lots of it.

"Smash and grab" is a tactic of destruction and theft -- then selling the "loot" for a small fraction of what it is worth.

[bemildred]

5. "Smash and grab" works too.

The level of balls-out feckless theft and fraud today is amazing.
Everybody just hopes things hold together for a while longer so they
can make a killing and get out.

[necso]

6. The weird thing is that

I am beginning to believe that there is some sort of time frame to all this.

Statistics on the number of Americans buying homes (and already owning them) in other countries would be interesting.

And what do you do when you have smashed everything worth smashing and stolen everything worth stealing? -- Bolt and radically devalue or hyper-inflate, maybe?

The "rulebook" is out the window, and (as I remember it) Adam Smith never liked corporations anyway.

But American "management" has been failing us for decades. Demming, after all, had to go to Japan with his message (as I remember it).

You only have to look as far as the "colonias" in Texas to see where we are headed. And all the walled, private communities (with their own security) is another good indicator... Third world, here we come.

But all this "high flown" economics talk doesn't "get to" most people. -- And the terms with which you have to talk to them about it, scare the heck out of most responsible people.

I would not be one of those people, however. Screw "free trade", "free market" and the rest of the BS (it has all been turned into BS anyway, even if some of the basis is sound) -- and do what's best for the country.

[necso]

7. The unenlightened selfish

are those who eat your seed corn (theirs and yours) not knowing what it is.

The unenlightenable selfish are those who eat your seed corn (theirs and yours) knowing what it is.

There are many of this kind.

And this is a place where Demming went wrong -- such men are only "lead" with the carrot and the stick -- and these must be placed right in front of their noses.