The Unnanounced Class War

[Argus]

I don't disagree.

He's hired more Wall Street goons to run the government's finances, just like the Bush administration did. The regulations that were supposed to rein in Wall Street and prevent future collapses are just for show. They were neutered before the ink was even dry. The DoJ has been utterly toothless in pursuing Wall Street criminals.

The Tea Partyists keep shrieking "Socialist!" but the truth is, Obama is everything Wall Street could ask for.

-k

I wouldn't go that far. He might be helping along the capital markets, but if the Tea Party had its way government would basically remove all restrictions, oversight, and regulation of all industry, stop funding education and health care, remove environmental protection, get rid of unions, drastically cut back on pensions, and, of course, cut taxes for the rich and for corporations.

And to think, these people started out as an angry response to the government putting all that money into saving the banks. Now they're nothing but a mass of ignorant rabble herded along by wall street and the corporate world to scream at whatever they want screamed at.

[kimmy]

Well, yeah. As much as Obama sucks, the Romney/Ryan program would have sucked even more. All of the Wall St chumminess of the Obama administration plus an agenda to "get rid of these job-killing regulations!" and slash capital gains taxes "because that's how to create jobs!"

-k

[Bonam]

They already do. I made almost 200k in late 90's, and now I hire good programmers with two degrees for about 11 bucks an hour.

90s was the top of the tech bubble. And no, good programmers today don't get paid 11 bucks an hour. Good programmers still make 100-150k, and entry level programmers straight out of college with a Bachelor's make $50-70k. If you managed to hire a "good programmer" who agreed to work for you for $11/hour... well, congrats, you are getting an amazing deal, and the guy you hired must really love the job or else he'd disappear in a heartbeat to somewhere that would pay him at least 4 times as much. Unless you mean that you hired a programmer in India by outsourcing a job, in which case you'll be losing millions of dollars later when your products don't work because the people who program them don't talk to the people who envision them and market them and support them, as many companies have bitterly found out.

But yes, someone that is merely a "programmer" often makes less than someone who is skilled in computer science and can design and implement systems and mesh both hardware and software. Individuals must constantly upgrade their skills to keep up with the times, because technology and the economy are changing quickly, and expecting that one skillset that you learn in your 20s will continue to be relevant for the next 40 years is naive at best, idiotic at worst. Adaptability, quick learning, flexibility, are the traits that are now required to be economically succesful, rather than in the past when to be economically succesful one had to have a "career" of performing the same task over and over for 40 years. Now we have machines (and third world countries) for that, and humans (in developed countries) must do smarter work, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Bonam