A Tale of Two Countries 518
theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Jon Bischke is troubled by the growing divide between Silicon Valley and unemployed America. While people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters are enjoying a boom/bubble, the number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide, labor under-utilization is 16.2%, and the mean duration of unemployment has spiked to 40 weeks. 'Which bring us to an important question,' writes Bischke. 'Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what's best for Silicon Valley also good for America?'"
Re:Wish we could move (Score:3, Interesting)
you can make a change if you really want to.
i lost over $80,000 in value in 2 years on a chunk of my "American Dream".
this is exactly what i did and i just closed my short sell a few weeks ago. some how i actually got a check from someone for getting it sold. rofl. suckers.
1) stop paying your mortgage and put the money in a bank account (this is the beginning of your new savings account).
2) wait for your bank to ask you if you need help
3) activate the bank assistance programs if you quality
4) start the short sell process. your hardship is that you live in a place with no jobs and you need to relocate for work.
5) give the bank a ton of paper work that they ask you for
6) wait for someone to come along and pickup your hilarious underpriced/undervalued home.
7) get out of the house at the cost of a few hundred points to your credit score.
8) never use credit again.
note: you can stay in your home during this whole process with free rent.
i must emphasis #8. your new goal in life is to pay cash for everything you need including cars, the land, and the house you will die in (read, retirement).
Re:are they capable of caring? (Score:3, Interesting)
Except the Bay Area is also the most socially liberal and philanthropic regions of the country.
What?
Socially liberal, I get. I have met very, very few non-religious 'social liberals' who are philanthropic, unless we're talking about "I support taking money from the public coffers and giving it to others".
But that's largely besides the point. The Bay Area, like almost no other part of the US, is incredibly myopically focused. The Bay, one of the richest regions of the world, is the center of the world. All that sits outside its cultural realm are where the barbarians live. As someone who has lived throughout the US, nowhere have I found such a high majority of natives who are ignorant of "elsewhere", despite so many being implants from other parts of the country and world. (As a newcomer, it's somewhat odd to be looked at with disbelief and/or disdain when you're not aware of where a specific local landmark or roadway is. You'd not get that in BFE, Nebraska.)
As for "helping people out of their hardship"... I don't see how the farmer in Iowa who's lost his crops due to flooding is going to be helped by a tech boom, other than the welfare check that pays for him to not work after he's lost his farm (or pays him to not work the land, once it recovers, by overpaying him). I don't see how the tech worker in New York or Georgia benefits by some asshole deciding "we'll make more profit by sending this work to India" (ultimately assisting in the company's demise, thankfully). That's what we term a short term gain. It hurts everyone, long term.