Quote: (06-16-2013 01:32 PM)Samseau Wrote:
Quote: (06-16-2013 01:51 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:
Quote: (06-14-2013 08:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:
I'm waiting for you guys to pass laws that force companies to hire college students. Because that's the only way they'll get a job. No one is going to pay for the "privilege" to teach skills to students that never learned shit in school.
You guys are brainwashed. This isn't about politics, it's about economics. WHO IS GOING TO PAY unskilled workers 10 bucks an hour to file papers?
I am willing to bet $100 to anyone that unemployment will rise as a result of this. Who else is willing to put their money where their mouth this?
I suspect it would be more or less impossible to prove one way or the other with any degree of objective certainty whether making people pay interns raises unemployment. There are too many variables, and one could never do a random-assignment prospective study.
Asserting that only if companies are being forced to hire them will college graduates get hired seems like an factually incorrect assertion due to the presumed fact that new college graduates are being hired every day.
Actually we do know:
Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data:
• The level of entrepreneurship has declined in recent years. That is, the number of self-employed in the U.S. has dropped notably. Incorporated self-employed fell from 5.78 million in 2008 to 5.12 million in 2011.
• Meanwhile, the number of unincorporated self-employed declined from 10.59 million in 2006 to 9.45 million in 2011.
• While incorporated data only go back to 2000, unincorporated self-employed numbers date back decades. The 2011 number actually was the lowest in a quarter century.
- See more at: http://www.sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts...cx34x.dpuf
Unemployment reaching lows not seen since the 1970's:
So small business are dying, unemployment is highest it's been in decades...Quick guys!!! Make things more expensive that's gonna fix everything!
#math
You can't just make a few statements about what is contributing to an outcome without knowing how strong the effect is and say, "alright my point is proven". The economy, and in this case entrepreneurship, is part of many many factors reinforcing and negatively reinforcing an outcome. By this method of argument, I can make a good case that the raise of unpaid internships are systematic of what is causing entrepreneurship to fade if I choose the right factors. Econometric models with 100's of variables are not that great at predicting the economy, I doubt choosing just 1 or 2 can do a better job. I believe the lack of entrepreneurship is a generational problem with many facets, some more important contributors than others. And we can debate all day about that point.
But, I can tell you costs to start a business should not be one of them. Costs to start a business have never been cheaper than ever before (well except before this law). An Economist article recently wrote about the gains from all this globalization plus automation have mainly gone to 3 winners: consumers, investors and entrepreneurs. The losers are workers, particularly unskilled ones.
Today, you can automate and outsource pretty much every function of your business and only pay for what you use at the time of sale, meaning no underutilized fixed costs. Cloud computing for your server/transaction processing, drop-shipments for manufacturing and shipping, cost per a click for advertising, commission based sales-force, outsourced per a call support lines. And for times you actually need a hire someone, you can hire him based in a country that can do the job for like 1/10 the costs of a developed country worker, an illegal immigrant, or some kid from a prestigious school for beans. It is quite possible to be a one man enterprise today, and this could not have been done before the exposition of technology and globalization the last 5-10 years.
Unpaid interns are symptomatic of a problem that most business can be fine without them, hence they are paid what they are worth. The only people that can provide value above what can be automation, outsourcing and unskilled labor will be hired. And as time goes on, there's less and less people that reach that bar. This is an issue that America and most developed countries are facing.
Making recent grads work for free, and over time free longer, means fewer people will reach that point where they can provide value above globalization,automation, or unskilled labor. Forcing businesses to pay min wage is a government intervention in the market. But college grads with the potential to learn a field, who are forced to take jobs not in their field to pay rent/food, are a net loss to the economy more than forcing businesses to pay a 7.25 an hour to test them out. And because you are forcing all businesses to do it at once, you're preventing the businesses who don't do unpaid internships from losing to the other ones who do since those firms have better cost structures and lower prices. Also companies have been too cheap on training for awhile, partly because they fear other companies will take a worker right after he completes training. But if everyone is forced to do training, its a net benefit for the companies since that breaks a different prisoner's dilemmas issue about training investments. (Really, nearly all annoying issues social issues are PD or chicken games and their variants, e.g. stag hunt, tragedy of the commons).
But again, I think there is a greater issue of learning the right skills that are resistant to automation, unskilled labor, and outsourcing since having to work for free means you don't have them. Of course, it is questionable if all people can learn those skills.