We’re moving towards a jobless society. But the definition of labor is changing to include ‘gigs’ like on Task Rabbit that may not be included in the official labor statistics. The problem is too many people, especially liberal arts grads from no-name colleges, don’t have the skills employers are seeking, combined with cost-cutting measures implemented since 2008 where employers are realizing they have been paying too many people too much to perform redundant, obsolete or useless jobs that could otherwise be outsourced or eliminated. Before the financial problem there was a labor glut, a financial services glut, a housing glut, a liberal arts degree glut, and now market forces are creating a new equilibrium.
Learn to code apps, learn technical writing, learn math and physics, learn networking, open a trading account and buy and hold the S&P 500 – that’s where the money is. But there’s also millions of unfilled job openings https://www.google.com/search?q=jobs+unfilled The economy is changing but many people are stuck in a mindset that things should remain the way they were decades ago, blaming immigrants, rich people, college, and multinationals for trends that are not only outside of the control of individuals, but economically beneficial.
Unsurprisingly, STEM jobs require a high IQ and also pay more. This is more evidence IQ has become the most important determinant of success or failure in today’s economy. The left wishes this weren’t so, which is why they want economic crisis, because the cognitive elite would lose a lot of money from falling asset prices, making everyone more equal at the expense of the rich. Also, here’s more evidence Larry Summers was right all along about women lacking aptitude at the high end to excel at math and science.
We’re in a day and age where there is greater economic prosperity and wealth creation than ever and yet so much uncertainty from getting fired, to getting sick and not having insurance or being underinsured.
America, especially since 2008, has become a hyper-meritocracy in overdrive. If you like coding, have a prestigious degree and a high IQ, now couldn’t be a better time to be alive, although having the first two qualities pretty much guarantees the third. We’re in a high-IQ, STEM, wealth creation feeding frenzy on a biblical scale. The Rockefellers, Vanderbilt and Carnegies actually had to build something to get wealthy, which took decades and thousands of people. Now start-ups less than three years old are making instant billionaires out of their youthful founders and early investors. Even in the 90’s – what many consider to be the epitome of a bubble – a typical tech start-up was seldom valued at over $60-100 million. Now that is just the Series A round. The Bay Area housing market is going nuts in all-cash bidding wars above the asking price due to endless fed money, rich foreigners, web 2.0 founders and investors flush with cash, and private equity. There is so much wealth being created in relatively few hands. Outside of the Bay Area tech scene and Wall St., there’s an abundance of low tech opportunities catering to the new rich, such as nannys, butlers, trendy restaurants, landscaping, and home restoration. America, more specifically its elite institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT as well as its tech giants like Google and Facebook and the Bay Area have become epicenters of innovation and wealth creation. The left predicted in 2008, incorrectly, that the over-hyped financial problem would usher in a post-America era. The exact opposite happened. As evidenced by historically low treasury yields, a perpetually rising stock market that has vastly outperformed its peers, a strong dollar, surging Bay Area real estate, tech companies and Ivy League institutions being inundated with foreign applicants, America has, more than ever before, become the center of the universe and envy of the world all over.
What happened to the China boogeyman? To the disappointment of the paranoid left, it looks like China would rather trade than make war. How about Putin taking over the world? Looks like that was a dud, too. To quote Steven Pinker, the world is becoming less violent, but the left would rather have crisis and upheaval, because they loathe any progress that doesn’t benefit everyone equally. To the left, crisis is an opportunity to reset the system to a more egalitarian state, with less emphasis on individual merit and more redistribution at the expense of the most productive individuals of society.