Computers, Unemployment and Wealth Creation 948
Andy Oram writes "Anyone who writes programs or plans system deployment should start
thinking, "What can I do to bring average people back into the process
of wealth creation?"
A few suggestions."
wealth creation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wealth creation (Score:5, Insightful)
Write free software for individual industries
The increased productivity caused by computers is one of the reasons cited for rising unemployment rates. Isn't this new software likely to replace efforts now being done by hand and make the situation worse, not better?
Create a truly public key infrastructure
Assuming that we did manage to get corporate communications online, what happens to the current infrastructure that grew up to support widespread business travel? Airlines, hotels, etc.
The argument is that increased productivity causes unemployment, therefore we need to increase productivity so that small businesses can function more efficiently and cut costs, thus paving the way for more small businesses. I don't think you can have it both ways. Increased productivity can't be both our bane and our salvation.
Re:wealth creation (Score:5, Interesting)
If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right, that would keep more waiters, cooks, etc. employed more of the time.
This is probably true for lots of small businesses; if there was an open-source software solution that helped you run the business effectively, lots more people could get a business of that type up and running, and keep it running.
Re:wealth creation (Score:4, Insightful)
If there was a software package that helped restaurants with inventory, ordering, advertising, etc. that helped them get the business end right...
There are. A great many of them. And yes, they're somewhat expensive but they aren't a significant percentage of the start-up cost of a restaurant - the real estate, the appliances and the supplies cost much more. Restaurants are high turn-over businesses. Most of them will fail, and no amount of software will change that.Re:wealth creation (Score:3, Insightful)
This is true of most businesses. People start businesses because they know how to produce whatever the business produces. The reason they fail is that many of them don't know how to run a business.
While tools could be created to help people run a business, if they don't know how, they don't know how.
Also, keep in mind that most bus
THIRTY TWO HOUR WORK WEEK (Score:3, Informative)
Historically, industrial revolutions have reduced the average workweek by 15-20%. Damn, for the geeks here, you can model the macro-economy as two linear equations like this -
Each person has 112 waking hours ( 16 hours x 7 days ), on average.
That time is spent consuming (C) or producing (P) products. So C + P = 112.
Using the 40-hour workweek as a base, we have
40 X rateOfP = ( 112 - 40 ) X rateofC.
Got it?
What happens as rateofP increases?
As productivity inc
Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:2, Insightful)
In a global economy should there be an industrial approach for all markets.
Is it McDonalds world wide
or is it each local restaurant having the technology to minimise its costs to compete with the industrial produced goods. To have communication systems to purchase at best cost up to the minute. To have the accounting and in house automation to reduce its staff to lesson its cost and incr
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Interesting)
It might work; it might not. Neither model--capitalism or any kind of backward capitalism--has been proven to work, but capitalism is the rules of the system we're currently in. An issue is that it *is* the survival of the fittest, and in a capitalist world those who care and are willing to sacrifice their own needs-fulfillment for the needs-fulfillment of another should lose and die. They don't deserve, by the rules of the game, to pass on their genes.
But it's a healthy dynamic to have those who buck
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
What are you talking about? In capitalism the only way to get ahead is to fulfill the needs of others, by selling them goods and services. They'll do the same for you.
Why do you think that famine is practically unheard of in capitalist countries? It's because the farmers want to make MONEY! Why do you think that in non-capitalist countries starvation is wi
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Sahara is gradually shrinking as vegitation grows. Advances in technology and just general luck of weather over climate are likely causes. If your hypotheti
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:4, Insightful)
[source: Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom [amazon.com]]
Correlation or causation? You be the judge, but Sen makes a pretty good case for the latter.
What are you? Deficient? (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs and efficiency: cause/effect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
You oversimplify quite a bit . . . capitalism by its nature requires competition, which means massive duplication of effort. Additionally, it requires both "winners" and "losers" . . . the "winners" experience the wealth creation you're tooting about, and the "losers" do not.
Another unfortunate consequence of capitalism: since it uses "creating wealth" as a proxy for "productivity", you end up with lots and lots of people "cre
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
The current mode of our capitolism (in the US and most likely elsewhere) does not place the advantage in the hand
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jobs instead of efficiency? (Score:4, Insightful)
There _may_ be a limit, but it's likely far beyond what we are at now.
"This means it's impossible for everybody in the world to have the same standard of living as the US because there are not enough trees, water, and oil to accomplish such a thing."
Based on what data? History has shown us that technology can account for a dramatic increase in the usability of existing resources.
Most projections along these lines assume that there is no advancing technology, and everything stays at the same price. For example, the estimates of the supplies of oil usually have the following incorrect assumptions:
1) The current wells won't refill (we've found that many in fact, do)
2) We don't ever find any new reserves (in fact the ocean contains a vast supply, and we continually find new reserves)
3) The price of oil stays the same (there are considerable resources that are available that we simply don't dig up because it's not profitable at the _current price_, but will be if the price would increase)
The same kind of assumptions are in most of these "we're going to drain the planet" type of predictions.
The same thing everybody else should do (Score:5, Insightful)
(a) Buy stuff. Other folks are employed making it or serving it.
(b) Invest. This results in capital for businesses to hire more people employed making or serving stuff.
This method works. Simple, really.
* Within ethical and/or legal standards, of course.
"Investing" rarely is (Score:4, Insightful)
a) Participate in the IPO
b) Buy bonds directly from the company during its offering
Trading stocks with other stockholders doesn't give any money to the company. It's like trading baseball cards. Sure there are some side effects of having stock prices go up for a company, but usually a high stock price doesn't give any financial benefit to a company (except for subsequent stock issues, which don't happen that often).
If you really want to invest in a company, buy bonds when they are issued (don't trade bonds, because trading them just gives money to the bond holder - not the company whose bond it is!).
That said, the best form of investing in a company is to purchase their product.
Re:"Investing" rarely is (Score:2)
Re:"Investing" rarely is (Score:3, Insightful)
Couldn't be more wrong. The concept of a share market is based on trading in shares to allow investors to realize their investment without taking their money out of the company.
Consider the correct alternatives.
If I want to get out of Company X (assume I was in the IPO) I have two possible alternatives.
I can ask the company for the money back. Of course I will want to cash out the $1.00 which is the current value, not just the
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a very popular thing to say / do. On the same reasoning the governments are proposing "tax cuts" hoping / thinking that this money will make people go out and spend it.
In reality? I doubt it, most people are in debt, they want to get out of debt (if they are sane) and thus they will use any tax credit they get to pay back the money they owe (one might hope at least).
This method works. Simple, really.
Maybe, but I am just going the
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:5, Insightful)
People complain that politicians are evil and corrupt, yet want them to run everything? Only people who'll benefit are the ones with ties to the government officials.
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Most government officials are known for giving preferred treatment to people with ties, which means that you still cannot guarantee equal care for everyone. Let's say that Joe and John both need a new liver. Joe is a huge contributor to several government officals. I'm willing to bet that Joe will get the liver before John.
2. From serving as an intern for a state rep, I can tell you that the government has a huge overhead and good chunk of tax dollars for the healthcare will be wasted.
3. There will be a large amount of people who abuse the system (such as hypochondriacs) at everyone else's expense.
Not to mention that while I am willing to give a hand to people who are in the bad situations due to circumstances out of their control (like being born disabled), I am against giving help to people who put themselves in a bad situation (like frying their brains due to drug use).
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:4, Informative)
2. From working in the private healthcare industry, I can tell you that it has a huge overhead and a good chunk of your insurance premiums are wasted.
3. There are a large number of hypochondriacs who abuse every health care system at everyone else's expense.
I've worked in Federal government health care, city government health care, and private health care. The quality of service, overall, was about the same in all three. But IMO, overall efficiency declined in the order I've listed them.
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, americans don't all have the best insurance, or any at all for that matter - but the care you get uninsured for $40 at the outpatient clinic down the street is vastly better than what most of the world gets.
Competitive privatized industries have -never- been a disaster.
The simplest example, is comparing price/performance and advancement of the rail industry (government sanctioned monopolies) with the airline industry (competitive free market).
the 'disasters' you must be referring to regarding privatized prisons and energy production are not examples of privatized industry at all. They are the examples of a private company operating in a government funded monopoly. Privatized power generation in California hasn't hit a snag since the conversion was completed (which was caused by government imposed limits on power generation which were enacted before sufficient alternative companies had their generation online).
And while the bulk of the military itself has never been privatized (for the same reason the government hasn't - to keep policy decisions out of the hands of private industry and to keep soldier loyalty directly under the decision-makers), you would probably be amazed at how much -has- been privatized. The government hasn't made its own weapons (or commandeered industry to do it) since WWI - and the improvements in weapons and decreases in cost have been astronomical. Compare american military technological advancements to that of any other nation on the planet. These are all due to private industry research and development.
Private industry air and ship capacity is also used to transfer military personnel and equipment overseas in times of high need. Then there's military body armor, telecommunications gear, medecine, reconnaissance, etc.
Contrary to your claim, free-market privatization has proven to be the biggest asset of every American endeavor it has been a part of.
Not so fast pal. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, you know as you get older you start to fall apart in little ways and I had a bad tooth upon coming back to the States one year from where I lived in this little country called Taiwan that has socialized medicine.
I didn't have insurance and my tooth was hurting while I was in the States on vacation. So wanting to take care of my own affairs, I told my Dad I was going to wait and have my tooth done in Taiwan. But both of us were a bit concerned about how safe it really was. The ol' man insisted I go to my childhood dentist and ask him what he thought first.
So, I go in and this good ol' American dentist says yep you waitied too long. It looks like you're going to need a root canal. It'll cost about $1300. I can do it this week.
I told him my plan to go back and have it done in Taiwan and boy oh boy did he tell me some horror stories. Well, I don't remember all the exact details, but the sum of the story was that I was risking my life. If I insisted on doing this insane suicidal act, the least he would insist on is giving me clean needles because it was well known that those Taiwan doctors were notorious for re-using their needles to save costs!
Dear God. My father was so depressed that his son insisted on certain death, but after hearing that line of crap coming out of that old fucker's mouth, I was determined to see how bad it really was.
Well sure enough, I went back to Taiwan and had my root canal for thirty bucks. I got the same titanium post they use in the States. I got the same artsy fartsy thing where they send out the blank to be custom sculpted to match your other teeth and best of all it was almost completely painless. This is contrast to a root canal ol Dr. Lying bastard had given me as a kid when I busted one on the sidewalk. That sonofabitch let my novacaine wear off and gave me the ol Dustin Hoffman treatment.
The moral of the story is, you're full of shit. I'm an American and I can testify that I've gotten way better medical service outside of the US and was lied to by American physicians when I suggested I would try such a thing.
I also happen to know that the people struggling to get to American often ARE doctors. They're dying to get on the goddam gracy train.
You are misinformed.
Dad goes to Mexico for dental work (Score:5, Insightful)
I think reality of medical care in the US is that outside of the realm of exotic disease treatment (oncology, hemotology, rheumatology, immunology, cardiology), your run of the mill medical care in most developed and many developing countries is about as good as it is here.
Also, I think that US doctors (dentists and other oral pros included) run the largest, best-financed protection scheme anywhere. You can't get most lab tests or medicines without seeing a doctor, who often has nothing to do with the lab work or the medicine.
Most of this could be done by a nurse or even self-done with the use of intelligent computer diagnoses, but these cost-saving advances are routinely blocked by doctors when they're not busy blocking liability or taking kickbacks from the pharmaceutical industry.
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:3, Informative)
How much have you actually sampled the health industried in other countries? I have had the misfortune to sample it in 4 countries. Sad to say but the US was not at the top of my list. A third world country was able to give the broadest base of its citizens a reasonable level of health care that I have not seen in the USA.
However, the interesting thing to note is that the bulk of that care was not given via the government, but via private care.
So,
Re:The same thing everybody else should do (Score:3, Informative)
It's so remarkable, it's not even close to true. Look at Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed; it's not even possible to afford housing and food on minimum wage, much less "luxuries such as consumer electronics, broadband. .
The problem is not with "lack of wealth" (Score:2, Informative)
Techies ought to focus on how to take money from the wealthy and decrease the world's dependency on corporations, or even private companies (that later become corporations), by building cooperatives and collectives.
Re:The problem is not with "lack of wealth" (Score:3, Funny)
Techies ought to focus on how to take money from the wealthy and decrease the world's dependency on corporations
Hacking bank accounts comes to mind
+5: Socialism Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
How sad is it when people are encouraged to take other people's wealth instead of create their own?
Why beat around the bush and just come out and suggest that everyone forks their paycheck over to the government so that they can give everyone an equal share (minus whatever government believes it is entitled to)? That's really what you're advocating, so why not come out and say it?
+5: Decrying Slashdot 'Unintelligentsia' (Score:4, Interesting)
How do you suggest that we 'create' money? Hmm? Press our own? Make gold from lead? The invention of money and through it capitalism rests in the laws of scarcity, as someone said. There are inherent problems with any economic system, but in any one of them, it comes down to the idea of ownership (even the disallowing of ownership acknowledges the concept fo ownership). In the case of US capitalism, each dollar is owned by someone, the simple act of wealth creation dictates in and of itself that the source be from another individual or group capable of ownership.
Granted the original poster might have been zealous in his defamation of corporations, but when you have large groups capable of ownership, the capacity is there for them to hoard scarce resources (scarce as in limited), thus removing them from the total amount of recources available to the populace. That's bad enough, but if efficiency enables a corporation (or similarly large group) to simultaneously accumulate more resources and displace workers, you've just exacerbated the problem by increasing the pool of those in need, and decreased the pool of available resources. That can be reduced to simple algebra.
Cry all you might that corporations will not exploit that, but look back into history, it happens all the time. Company A might hold their moral ground, but if Company B does it, their pool of resources will grow beyond Company A's, and they will eventually surpass them, if not crushing them along the way. Note that I'm not an advocate of socialism, but I am quite fed up both with the opportunism of corporate policy and with those who defend it under flimsy or false pretenses.
Re:It's a zero-sum game. (Score:5, Insightful)
A remarkably blindered view. Wealth is only zero-sum at a given instant.
Wealth is properly measured by value - what is the value of a great medical system, a great transportation system, varied and efficient communications systems? What is the value of having the time to attend your daughter's soccer games? What is the value of a multitude of research efforts into extending life and making it healthier, or of a US infant mortality rate of 6 per 1000 compared to say Angola's 200 per 1000? Did the US somehow "steal" Angola's ability to produce healthy babies or did the people of the US slowly build their wealth to one that allowed the "purchase" of a society that could provide the lower rate?
Wealth is (to some degree) exponential and viral - it is used to create more wealth for others if applied in a free market system - one in which those who offer a service or product are free to charge what they can and the buyer is free to choose WWWWW to buy. When wealth is stolen by those-that-know-how-to-spend-your-money-better (that is, tax used for social purposes) then it takes longer for wealth to grow and spread - those who had wealth now have less of it to spread through their own acquisition of products and services, and there is tremendous waste and fraud because of a lack of personal interest in seeing that value is obtained for the expenditure.
The kid next door charges more every year to cut my grass - I could look for another grasscutter or I could make some lawnmower manufacturer happy by buying their product and using it instead of allowing this young fellow to practice capitalism, but I've chosen how I want to spend my wealth (my cash) and the kid's chosen how he want's to spend his (his time). I have the luxury and wealth (and gray hair) to be lazy, and the kid trades his time and effort for my cash. This is not a zero-sum game - the world had to invent the lawnmower for the kid and the plasma TV with Angelina Jolie on screen to interest me for this transaction to have occured - else I'd have more inclination to cut my own damn grass.
This kid is using his saved wealth to buy a car, so that he can get to "a real job", so that he can save money and go to school, so that he can invent bigger plasma screens or extend the average lifespan even more or eventually bring sanitation and sane government and decent health care to Angola, or free-market education to the masses, etc.
The ability to pursue happiness mean the number of people enjoying longer, healthier lives with more free-time increases continuously, as it has. That is not zero-sum - it is the growth of wealth.
Re:The problem is not with "lack of wealth" (Score:2)
Very true (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Basic economics (Score:5, Insightful)
For a start, a 3-year sample isn't big enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. We're just in the down phase of the economic cycle, that's all. Smart people salted away some of the high salaries and bonuses that were easy to come by in the recent boom years, when shortness of staff drove up the price of labour. Now, some people look for blame - but it's hard to see how some of these can be blamed. Wars and conflict drive up employment in the engineering and aerospace sectors. Tax cuts can't increase unemployment except amongst government workers, and there have been no reports of government layoffs - if anything, the government is busily hiring.
Let me make this clear: wealth is not created by governments. It's created by risk-taking entrepreneurs. Right now, the markets need to recover from excessive risk-taking in the late 90s. This is perfectly natural. When sufficient capital has become amassed, the cycle will begin again and there will be another boom.
But capitalism is atrocious at distributing the fruits of innovation
I was in a store the other day, I saw a 3-megapixel digital camera for GBP 99, a DVD players for GBP 49. 5 years ago, these products cost hundreds of pounds. That's what capitalism delivers: more and better for everyone. The "poor" in a capitalist society are far better off than the "poor" in any other system - and capitalism generates the surpluses that fund the entire welfare system.
Each labor-saving device means the idling of thousands of people, wasting their years of experience, rigorous training, and practical insights.
Yawn, they said exactly the same things when the car started to replace the horse drawn carriage, when mechanical looms replaced hand-operated looms, when automation was introduced to farming, in fact whenever any technology has revolutionized an industry. Getting laid off is always a little disconcerting (yes, it has happened to me so I know what I'm talking about) but unemployment is what you make of it.
And meanwhile governments, businesses, venture capitalists (what are you doing with all that money your pets in Congress and the White House brought you, tails all awagging?),
Ah, now we see the author's real agenda - I should have realized when I saw the words "tax cuts". I will merely point out that the dotcom bubble economy was created under a Democrat president and began declining in mid 2000 - there is nothing Bush or Greenspan could have done to prevent it bursting.
Re:Basic economics (Score:2, Interesting)
"the vast majority of those folks that lost their jobs over the past three years shouldn't have had a job doing what they were doing in the first place and the (lack of) success of the companies that they worked for and the "products" they produced showed that.
The amount of fly-by-night IT "professionals" that were born in the dot-com days was retarded. And now that companies are no longer hiring just to fill slots so th
Re:Basic economics (Score:2)
Re:Basic economics (Score:3, Interesting)
Granted, though, Greenspan played a hand in creating the bubble in the first place. When you see high purchase levels of stock with P/E ratios of 200+, it's time to bump UP the interest rate.
Tax cuts now will not solve the problem, except to create a larger debt burden. This country, both government and populace, is debt-strapped. Also tax-cuts at the federal level often affect more directly porrer states, since federal aid tends to drop and either services drop, local taxes go up, or both. Look at how wel
Re:Basic economics (Score:2)
And you don't think the "17%" who are under the poverty line in the U.S. are better off than most of the rest of the world?
Wealth creation is overrated (Score:5, Funny)
Or.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or.... (Score:5, Interesting)
You could fit 6 billion people into Texas, and it would be less densly packed than Tokyo, Japan.
Re:Or.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take NYC, an environment more familiar to most slashdotters than Tokyo, and apply that landscape to the entire state of Texas. Maybe I'm just not a city boy, but that scenario sounds miserably depressing to me. I like being in incredibly urban environments, but only if I can get when I need to. As the urban sprawl spreads, those places of sancutary will only become more exclusive, affordable only to those with abu
Re:Or.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe it or not the native born population of the US is still increasing. Here [cia.gov] it gives the following statistics (estimated for 2003) for the US:
- birth rate: 14.14
- death rate: 8.44
- migration rate: 3.52
- fertility rate: 2.07 children per woman
In much of Europe though, things really are m
Complete rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not my goal to place restrictions on investment or innovation; it is only to present a new way of thinking that some people may find stimulating.
Here's looking forward to some creative new thinking...
Write free software for individual industries
What the f***? How is that supposed to help reverse falling unemployment?
Slashdot - if you're going to post links to economics related subjects, can you please make sure it is written by someone with a clue about economics?
Re:Complete rubbish (Score:3, Insightful)
What the f***? How is that supposed to help reverse falling unemployment?
Most businesses are small businesses that can't afford (until very recently) SAP and similar software, so creating free systems that target their needs is a way of lowering the bar to increased effiency and productivity, therefore helping them grow.
Or it could be bollocks. I don't know, I'm just a clueless programmer.
Good grief... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm too bored with this line of thinking to even trot out the buggy whip analogy. Please save me the effort and just read this:
Creative Destruction, again [libertyhaven.com]
This has happened a thousand times before, but somehow, this time is different. Whatever.
Re:Good grief... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good grief... (Score:2)
Absolutely correct. Things that work outlast things that don't. That's true in technology, it's true in economics and it's true in evolution. That principle is baked into our very DNA. If something better comes along, you won't have to worry about whether it will supplant that which presently exists. It inevitably will.
Capitalism is a powerful economic system precisely because this concept of competition is harnessed. Economic systems that att
earn more money by clicking these links! (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations, though, don't spend in the short term on warm bodies. They are cautious about economy fluctuations. They do love to take advantage of cost cutting benefits though. It just seems to the pencil pushers that cutting costs starts with eliminating workforce.
Wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Does he not undersand?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Putting more people to work means paying more people which means lower profits unless those people are able to increase efficiency or sell more product. How can you expect any business to strive to spend more money if there is an alternative? It may work for the government, but if businesses go out to their way to use more workers and pay more people they won't be around very long. There needs to be an economic reason (aka an incentive) for businesses to hire people. They are not going to, and can't, do it out of the kindness of their heart.
This article scares me... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a plea to socialize the software industry. Don't work on what you want to work on, work on what society NEEDS you to work on. But do it for SOCIETY, that is, do it for FREE. This will allegedly help a struggling 'cutting-edge' business grow. Give them free software, and all will work out.
This is hogwash. And the article goes all over the place. It starts off with blaming "financial scandals, wars, tax cuts, stagnation" on why people have lost jobs "or had to accept menial ones". But then concludes "there is little doubt that a large contributor to rising unemployment is rising productivity". We see this every new age. This guy is bordering on a Luddite. He's also overly dramatic which makes me dislike him even more "I can no longer avert my eyes from the consequences of the field I have chosen" so noble. "... and no one else who programs, administers, or promotes the use of computers can morally avert their eyes either" oh jeez.
It gets worse, "The gigantic combine of capitalism has always obsessively pursued effiencey..." yeah, that's the point. That's why it works. No, Capitalism is atrocious at GIVING AWAY the fruits of innovation. It doesn't reward people who don't partake in it. That is why it's so efficient. Add _YOUR_ efficiency to the overall efficiency and you will be paid for its value.
This really frightens me: Great, lets all make inefficient processes and software to run those processes so that costs will skyrockets, and we'll be beat by someone with a more efficient process. You can't do that in a free market. It's the whole point of the free market. The market balances between efficiency, cost, and quality. If you artificially try to create more jobs by making it take 5x as many more people to assemble a car, you will collapse that business.
gut instinct huh? Thanks for sharing that. I'm sure we can all base decisions on your gut instincts.
So his solution boils down to three ideas:
1. Write free software for individual industries (ie, give custom built small business software away for free). His thinking is this will help the small business get started and they will in turn hire more people. But damn the person who wrote the software, he's SOL. But it was for the 'good' of the 'people'.
2. "Make devices more responsive and easy to customize", he request: "I would like a computer to plan ahead for me, track things that are too much trouble for me to remember, and combine inputs to suggest efficient courses of action" OK so he wants smart agents. What this has to do with this article is beyond me. I think he just threw it in there because he wanted to.
3. "Create a truly public key infrastructure" I don't understand why he feels the need for a 'truly PKI is so important. It seems to go along with his socialist viewpoint. I guess it would make on line filing of unemployment that much easier when he plans leads to the failing of a nations economy.
He ends it with more FUD: "We don't have all the time in the world. And meanwhile governments, businesses, venture capitalists (what are you doing with all that money your pets in Congress and the White House brought you, tails all awagging?), universities, and NGOs seem paralyzed in the face of this economic disaster"
You could "monetize" Linux (Score:2)
That would certainly create a lot of wealth according to Darling Darl et al.
Overtime (Score:3, Informative)
Urrr....but, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, if competition is the engine of capitalism, then surely efficiency is the fuel.
Editor Mod -1(Off Planet)
It's never about computers (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally don't focus my attention on 'computers' or any other tool I work with. It's all about creativity and good ideas - getting the job done. Has the computer changed my way of doing things? Yes, and so did the invention of the gun powder - we use what we can - but in the end wealth creation depends on people not tools.
I've thought along these lines for a long time (Score:2)
Proprietary is great if you're doing something where you'll never need to customize anything, or do anything slightly outside the norm (or you just don't care if it works.) BUT, if you're like most businesses, you probably have som
Why is "making work" a good answer? (Score:2)
Why is the answer to that problem to "make work?" That's a rhetorical question because obviously the reason is the author is unwilling to consider an alternative to winner-take-all as the only way for society to operate.
The answer to inequality in the face of hyper efficiency is to distribute wealth in an equitable manner? Abundance is only a problem
Rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is typical example of the lump of labour fallacy, which usually goes something like this: we produce all this stuff to make society run. Now, if we find a way to make the same amount of stuff with less people (using computers), we'll end up with less employment.
If this was true, almost everybody would have been out of work by now. 2000 years ago the work of almost everybody was needed just to grow enough food for everybody. The truth is, that there is no limit to the amount of possible work. What matters is total production of society and how we divide it. Computes will raise total production of society, so it could make us all richer. If we succeed in distributing the wealth in any kind of just way, employment could rise. Or we could choose for a society where the rich have a lot and the poor are unemployed. But that choice does not have anything to do with the amount of efficiency improving computers do.
- - - - towards a lawyer free interent [douweosinga.com]Wealth creation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Over 50% of my income goes to taxes of one form or another. I'd say that's subsidy enough for the other guy.
Commie bastards. 1/2:)
Re:Wealth creation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you counting the upstream burden that's built into the price of the consumer goods you purchase? (e.g. the portion of the cost of that loaf of bread that the farmer had to charge to pay the sales taxes on his tractor and the property tax paid on the factory where the bread was baked, and the payroll, social security, and medicaid taxes of the guy who delivered the bread to the store)
Just curious, because it's probably more than 50% - didn't w
...what planet is he from? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's alot of wealth, but at present the western system is optimised to cause wealth to drift up and get locked-up in the economic upper-crust.
There's tons of work that needs to be done! Examples - teaching arts and music, daycare, senior care, cleaning and renovating neighbourhoods, rehabilitation of ecological damage... but the powers refuse to see these as priorities or raise the minimum wage so that a person can actually make a living at one of these jobs.
The author first slams us for being clever and writing efficient stuff, then tells us the answer is to just run out and program more/ charge less. Oh, and let's run everything on scripting languages too. That'll help...
Re:...what planet is he from? (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, under capitalism, the rich get richer faster than the poor get less poor. But it does enable the poor to escape poverty much quicker than any other economic system. Thus, your choices are to: a) Be really poor just like everyone else b) Be not so poor bu significantly disadvantaged compared to some others.
As a poor person, I would certainly pick B. As a rich person, of course, I would most definitely pick B.
*shudder* (Score:2)
Interesting idea, BAD choice of words.
Keep Microsoft in business. (Score:2)
I never thought I'd say this, but it sounds like Microsoft has been doing the economy a favor all this time...
It's easy, become a conservative. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's easy, become a conservative. (Score:5, Insightful)
Under the tutelage of presumably "good conservatives," we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing the "defense" industry and using it to conquer a major Third World petroleum producer. The latter not only also a multi-hundred billion dollar subsidy for the energy trading industry, but also one of blood. Nearly 200 American soldiers dead, and over 1500 wounded, to say nothing of the thousands of dead Iraqis and tens of thousands of wounded. How you see this as being against big government eludes me completely.
You are right, but for the wrong reasons. You, like most, have fallen into the trap. It is not about liberals or conservatives, Republicans vs. Democrats, Hawks vs. Doves, Right to Life vs. Freedom of Choice, etc. It is about the actual day to day mechanisms of political action. Who do politicians pay attention to? To whom are they beholden? What segment of society drives political action in our country? Do they represent your interests, or do they consider you an expendable "Human Resource"? Is your employment status of any significance to them, or is it at best figured into some large-scale economic indicator? Wake up, my friend, we are all in the same boat.
Today's stolen sig:
The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging.
I don't get it (Score:2)
1. Write free software for individual industries
2. Make devices more responsive and easy to customize
3. Create a truly public key infrastructure
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I don't see those three things leading to "wealth for the common person." Certainly there are some businesses out there that would love to have free software, or not have to pay for basic encryption for POS systems. However, providing them with
The easiest way to create jobs... (Score:2)
Nope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Word of advice... (Score:3, Interesting)
A manager sat me down and explained that the company had had software for 20 years, and throughout that time the headcount had grown, because extra technology across the market had meant that companies launched more and more different and diverse products, and more people had been needed to support them.
If the world stood still, this would be a problem. Instead, people are needed for the new jobs and a myriad of support jobs. Think of mobile phones - how many people are involved in support, development, sales and marketing of phones and the infrastructure of phones, the legislating of phone companies, the sales of pointless clipons.
The more serious problem is that (in the UK) there are areas of deprivation where there is now generational unemployment - children grow up without working parents and see no opportunity. Where areas of central Wales are like deserts - because companies won't move in there.
Cut taxes on labor (Score:5, Insightful)
HUMOR: Steps techies can take in job creation (Score:3, Funny)
2. Even wealthier techies finish designing a space plane which can cheaply get up into orbit and back down to earth. They build a fleet of twenty, hide them in widely-spaced mountain retreats staffed with Linux geeks, stock them with thousands of pounds of ramen noodles, coffee, videogames, and porno, and start sending missions up into orbit to de-orbit satellites used by offshoring companies. Bored teenagers pilot the space planes, marvelling that "Man, it's even better than Descent -- Freespace!" The economy rebounds a little more. But, then -- damnnit! -- the offshoring companies start using sneakernet and mules to courier work back and forth. So...
3. The two groups of techies, determined to save the economy, begin to resort to black-bag techniques to foil the mule's attempts. Some switch bags on the couriers, replacing the suitcases full of cd-roms with suitcases full of scat-fetish pr0n. Others simply mug the couriers, dragging them into the airport restrooms for a quick beating and a swirly. Some, truly getting carried away, have a Quake III flashback and detonate the couriers. This, unfortunately, is misinterpereted by the Office of Homeland Security and all hell breaks loose. America declares war on France. By the time it is revealed that the Quake III fanatic was actually Belgian, it is too late... Paris is in ruins, its people reduced to eating air-dropped big macs. Millions commit suicide. So then...
Despondent at having caused the big-mac-induced suicides of millions of people and wishing for some good to come out of it, the belgian Quake III fanatic issues a statement that he did it all for the MPAA/RIAA. The remaining French declare war on those two organizations and send the French Foreign legion to the U.S. to retaliate. They infiltrate coffee shops throughout L.A. It becomes impossible for record-company execs to get a decent cup of coffee without a heaping helping of attitude. Unable to understand why the waitstaff isn't nice to them anymore, the entire recording industry commits suicide en mass. LA is briefly caught in a panic, but when they realize just what has happened, ten million people shrug and go about their business.
End result: things are kinda cool again! Hooray!
So get busy, techie geeks! We're counting on you!
Constructive Ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to help people cope with the fact that advances in technology have rendered them redundant, either supply or support education. If you have a valuable technical skill, look into opportunities for teaching it to others. If you're not the teacher type, find ways to support local technical education programs, especially those that target people who might not have the means to pay for a college education. The goal here is not to maintain the number jobs in any given field, but to make the transition from an old field to a new field as easy as possible.
The main current problem is distribution (Score:3, Interesting)
Does it really seem fair to you that a PHB should be paid twice what you are paid? If so, then ignore what I say. My position is basically an anti-monopolist position, with the term "monopoly" significantly generalized. And it's not on an all or nothing basis.
The way in which wealth is distributed is basically determined by power politics. Fairness doesn't have very much to do with it. But even given this system, NOBODY should be able to earn over, say, 1,000 time what a minimum wage job earns. The 1,000 is an arbitrary number, and I know of no decent way to assign it a value. But the larger the value, the less democratic the society will be. When wealth is centralized, then power will be centralized with it. And the power will be used to ensure that the wealth remains where it is. Similarly when power is centralized, then wealth will be centralized. It's a simple feed back loop operating off of self-interest.
In Athens slightly before the time of Xerxes the factor of difference in income between the wealthiest citizen and the poorest was about 50. This is probably somewhat related to population size, so a significantly larger civilization should probably expect a larger difference in income. But the relation should be less than linear, as what we are dealing with here can be modeled as the ability of a hierarchical pyramid to structure the relative importance of people at various levels. The narrower the angle at the top, the more weight each individual at the bottom must support. (I.e., the greater the proportional difference in income.)
future utopia (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I think it's health care that stops that vision from becoming reality. It seems like the best health care will always be expensive...I could almost see robots building me a humble paradise, but knowing by accepting a lowerbudget lifestyle I was denying myself the best in life preserving and extending technologies would be a fly in that ointment.
I won't shed a tear. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, folks, but I will avert my eyes. Histroy doesn't shed too many tears for those who lost transcription jobs after the invention of the printing press, nor the buggywhip manufactures during the dawn of the automodible. This equation gets it all wrong.... From the view of the recently unemployed, they lost a job where their role was easily and reliably replaced by technology. Looking at the big picture and the history of innovation, the world loses little when this happens, because the population as a whole can better utilize human resources whenever there is a surplus of unutilized people.
A simple example.... Without modern advances in farming, all of the great technologies and techniques that came about over the last 2 centuries, I think it is reasonable to say that billions of people would spend their lives working framland rather and that advances in education, medicine, and technology would not have been remotely as great as they are today.
It's going to get worse (Score:5, Interesting)
We're still in very bad shape.
Zero-sum hand-wringing (Score:3, Interesting)
Why shouldn't we put everyone out of work? We need neither the vindictiveness of mercantilist gouging under cover of the label 'capitalist', or the lazy poverty of diggers masquerading as 'socialist'. Both these factions are merely taking out their S&M neuroses on the rest of us. Like moths to the flame, both assume that the wealth they see is all that exists, and the game is thus zero-sum - what feeds the capitalist barracuda must bleed the poor children (won't someone please think
There's enough nuclear energy blasting down over time to support 100 billion spacefaring Earthlings (or to fry them all), and enough information in the planetary DNA library (5G years of research into no-holds-barred competition/collaboration) to keep us in Phd papers and lobster-flavored luaus indefinitely.
Halliburton
It all depends on what we want. Employment? What would a world of geeks do with the galaxy of hi-tech toys it would take to support the above, besides improve it all day for free, especially if it produced paradise in the process?
This post brought to you by some old hippies, Timothy Leary, and several thousand doses.
Software: Good and Bad Productivity (Score:3, Interesting)
The long-term impact of software is less clear. Software has the unqiue ability to replace human mental labor. All that ERP, supply chain, and workflow software means companies need a bunch fewer workers to crunch the numbers, keep all the customer orders straight, etc. Rather than hire or train a bunch of experienced people, you put in a software system that uses Ph.D level logistics algorithms to run your company. I'm not saying that the software is perfect, but then neither is the average middle manager.
The point is that software is helping to engineer humanity right out of its claim to fame -- the ability to perform mental labor. Nobody was too upset when horses replaced people for carrying stuff nor when motorized drills replaced hand drills. The automation of physical labor seems uplifting to all but a few die-hard communists. By contrast, the automation of mental labor has more sinister potential.
It all comes back to the two types of productivities. In the long-term does a particular bit of software enable people to really do something qualitatively better or different than they did before. Or does it merely help them do the same stuff, but with fewer people.
I'm not saying that companies should eschew software that lets the do the same job with fewer people. Companies that free up resources in one area (by firing workers) can apply the savings to other innovations or forms of competative advantage. But if all that software can do is provide efficiency, then I fear that this could lead to the further stratification of society.
If you really want to create software that makes a positive difference, then create software that helps people do something that they never could do before. Mere efficiency or cost improvements (i.e., free versions of existing software) are not going to lift people out of poverty -- giving them a new way to create new forms of value will.
Fascinating (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm impressed. I'm not surprised that he doesn't have a bunch of pat answers- they don't exist within that context. But I'm impressed that he's asking the right questions, even if there aren't convenient answers.
There's no such thing as 'feed the world' under capitalism, or any social benefit from efficiency or technology: if you could generate a world-day of foodstuffs for 29 cents with a wonderful machine, capitalism is about seeing who gets to hoard as much money as possible from that situation, and politics is about controlling as many people as possible by exerting power over that cornucopia. The bounty won't feed anyone if you don't let them have it. If you have enough power to withhold that bounty, you can control the people you're depriving. That gives you more power, and you win.
This is not really very complicated or mysterious.
I guess it IS pretty cynical, but open your eyes.
The whole concept of making people better competers by giving them free software or whatever is within the context of raw capitalism- the idea is that they are then to beat up on the others who don't take advantage of these things. That's fine for the vicious and the tough and scrappy, but they would have won anyway with or without the tools- in capitalism it's not about the tools or even about the standard of living and least of all about 'wealth', it's about WHO you are as a personality. It's a structure decreeing certain social behavior. The idea is that it's less prone to being abused than a more nurturing social structure, because people will take advantage of anything nurturing. That may be true. People seem to take advantage of capitalism too, though. Pick your poison.
My own experience speaks to this whole situation. So you should make software to empower people? Andy, I've been doing that, in my field. I write CD mastering software- in some areas it is genuinely cutting-edge. I have a revolutionary approach to wordlength reduction and the redistribution of quantization error. I have various tone shaping adjustments that don't appear anywhere else. I've been GPLing this stuff for years now, for just the motivations you describe.
I'm starving and poor and have started dating a woman I cherish who has a 3-year-old kid and you know what, I'm sick of flushing my work. I'm sick of trying to be benevolent and being taken as useless because of my lack of greed. Nothing is going to make me a hardcore capitalist, but as far as this audio-domain program, I'm less and less motivated to help people have it for nothing. I'm not spending my own money to port it to more recent architectures, I'm not spending time and effort setting it up with a help system- by now I'm of a mind to still put it out, GPLed, make no fuss about that, but use this tool for ME and try to, basically, compete against anyone who might have picked it up but doesn't have the expertise with it. That, or not put it out at all- or put out only the source, maybe?
Capitalism means even I get beat down to the point where I can't stand trying to be benevolent or altruistic anymore. I'm unusually capable of being that, but it seems to be not even helping. The last time I talked with a GPLed audio project, they didn't even know what dither was or how it worked. We're sitting around trying to make tractors out of cabbage. It gets old.
I think as long as the context is free-market capitalism, society will be hopeless. There's no answer within the system. I'd prefer to ditch the raw capitalism. Something more like partly-cooked capitalism would suit me. Somehow manage some system where somebody does a reasonably okay job of finding people and projects that do benefit society and quality of life, and bankroll the buggers.
What's so wrong with that? That's just what happens right now, except it's Ken Lay of Enron who gets bankrolled and rew
The REAL Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I know what the real problem is. But before we get to that let's talk about what the problem is not.
The problem is not captialism, not Western Culture, not HMOs, not PPOs, not private health care, not the military, not global warming, and not Microsoft.
The problem is that slashdot readers in general watch too much Star Trek
Do you remember the episode where the people from the past (20th century) show up on the Enterprise? (I think they were dethawed or something, but I don't remember exactly. It doesn't matter for this discussion anyway). Remember the cowboy-ish guy, who wants to know where his land is, where his money is, who works for him, etc. And Picard gives him the lecture about how "we're past all that now" and "it's about bettering yourself, etc.", essentially saying, "Stop being a greedy bastard."
The problem is that people really believe that can happen. You'd think after 10,000 years of recorded history people would figure it out, but then you would underestimate hope (that attribute the Architect aptly described as simultaneously the source of greatest strength and greatest weakness, but I digress).
Systems such as socialism/liberalism/etc. are all predicated on the belief that people will generally lookout for the good of the common man. And the proponents of these systems constantly tell everyone else that the reason they're poo-pooing these systems is because everyone is a bunch a greedy bastards. Well, I have news for you, YOUR ALL GREEDY BASTARDS YOURSELVES.
Face it, humans seek after their own interests first. You do it every day. Sure you go into work and bitch and moan about how Bush is screwing over the world and the captialist bastards are ruining your life and you're being held down by The Man, etc, etc. Then you drive home and you cut off the person you're pissed at on the Freeway. You gossip about your co-worker who's doing a better job than you, you keep the $20 bill you found in the bathroom at the movies, you steal towels from the hotel, you eat a dozen grapes at the grocery store you never pay for. Tomorrow you'll lie to your boss about why the report isn't done. You'll spend an hour surfing instead of writing code. And then you'll go home and bitch about how braces cost $3000 and how you can't afford it, all while sitting on your couch watching Monday Night Football on your big screen TV. I know you're selfish. And I am too.
Socialism puts all the power into the hands of a few good liars who are able to convince the masses that they will look out for their good. Simply bull. They'll be the same selfish, greedy, bastards you will be, but now they have permission to screw over more people.
Free-market captialism is the only system that can handle the selfishness of humanity in a way that gives the most people the most opportunity. Sure, capitalism will make a few people very rich this year. But you know what? Those people may be the very poor next year. And the very poor this year might be the very rich next year. Every day is a new opportunity. You're held back only by your own ambition (or lack thereof).
Do some people need an extra hand in life? Sure. And that's what charities are all about. Groups who get together specifically because they care about the interests of others. So give to charities. Or start one. But face it, at the end of the day, we're all selfish greedy bastards looking out for ourselves. No one owes you anything. Now get out of your holodeck and readjust your worldview.
Re:The REAL Problem (Score:3, Informative)
Okay I'm stupid.
What I meant to say was, YOU'RE ALL GREEDY BASTARDS YOURSELVES.
The rest of this post is just extra text to get around the lameness filter encountered because of the all caps text. Please ignore.
Re:The REAL Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Well I don't believe you.
But, for argument's sake, let's assume you really are a perfectly selfless, righteous individual looking out for your fellow man. The problem is there are still self-absorbed pricks like me in the world, and as long as there are no socialistic system can ever work.
Furthermore, everything you've just spoken of (food, home, leisure time) is a scare resource. That is, there is not enough to go around (demonstrated by the fact that not everyone has as much as they want). As long as a
Lots of BS here - take my 2 cents: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats utter rubbish. War is the only way to fix things *in this current system*, which isn't capitalisim, but more a pseudo capitalisim. If this system were to work right, we'd need a stronger degrading of moneyvalue than inflation offers.
The way it is now, all goods if not sold lose value, only money increases in amount more than it loses by inflation. That's what has to be _corrected_. Not changed or overthrown completely, but corrected.
Then further on:
Productivity has something like quadrupled in the last 100 years. Actually my very job is to increase productivity by an average of 20% in the information shifting business - I do lot's of data migration automation and stuff. While my job is just to find methods to cope with the plain pointless information overload (lucky me it's there) there is one thing that has to be done to cope with massively increased productivity:
Robot taxes. That's right: Robots paying taxes.
The other one is a society problem: We need to grasp the value of services and custom craftsmanship again. Which actually *does* have a real value. Actually OSS is all about moving Software development away from a 'childs game' to engineering to real solid traditional craftmanship. Just like the plumber that fixes your pipes when they've rotted after 20 years of use. You could do it yourself, but you pay the expierienced guy 'cause he does it faster and you've got less fuss. And Pipes and Putty are the least you pay for. Usually.
World Problem Solution (TM), Bottom Line:
1.) Turbine Tax and improved Money Rot for money just lying at the bank and not fed back into he money cycle. Yes folks, we've got to much of it and to few are getting more and more just by leaving the most universal good on the shelf. That is *NOT* the concept of capitalisim. Trust me.
2.) Robot Taxes. Robots paying taxes. It's really that simple. Make that Microtaxes, if that makes you feel better. BTW: Count computers doing automated tasks (and not acting as books or TVs or stuff) as robots.
3.) Society shifting to a 98% service orientation. And a 98% self-employed society, where required tasks can be dealt with in a flexible manner.
At least Germany still has a long way to go in both of these.
As I said: My 2 Eurocents.
Re:Average people? (Score:3, Insightful)
A wealth hoarding population creates a lack of wealth a creation of classes and ultimately a failure of the system.
Re:We hate rich people. (Score:2)
Interesting... I would say you have your arguement backwards. Seems smart people figure out how to make the $$. Of course, there's the unethical people (Enron execs) who made it dishonestly, but I would hardly call them stupid.
Stupidity seems to lie in the folks who did nothing for their money.. those that inherit old money. And even then, it's more simply those that inherited, and didn't bother to educate themselves
Re:Anyone who writes programs or plans system .. (Score:5, Insightful)
that you only need to think of yourself. That you make money in a vacumn. That is the central problem with the current conservative movement. You can see how they are taking the money and running. From the head of the New York Stock Exchange to World Com, to Enron. Its all part of the same irresponsible attitude. And its killing us.
The latest, I'll take my money and run" trend is to move all the jobs offshore. Good for them but not good for us. Where are those Republican patriots? I guess they figure why not ME why can't I just pull the plug on all the jobs in a town. Let them find another job somewhere else, I'm going to make a bundle shipping computer work to India. So what if you worked for me for 20 years, and have a house and children to take care of. So what if you can't find a job because all my other CEO buddies at the country club are doing the same thing. We laugh about how much we are making over golf. So what if you end up on welfare and homeless. And Oh Yes I'm going to work real hard to market the idea to you that we should get rid of welfare and social security. Why should I pay for that. Thats your problem.
exhale...
Having worked for several family run business I know there is another way to run a company. Another way to make money with a community of people working together. This cras objectifiction of business has got to stop before our whole economy colapses under the weight of the weathy company owners. Let start teaching real ethics and morality in the schools again. We may have to start it in the kindegartens and work forward, because I think most of those comming out of business school today are a lost cause when it comes to community responsibility. (some notable exceptions)
Rinse, Repeat (Score:5, Insightful)
What no one seems to remember was that very quickly there was a surge in self-employment (duh, what else are you gonna do with all that spare time?). Naturally, all those fledgeling companies grew and started hiring (well, some did and some died). The unemployment rate slowly fell and people stopped complaining.
My pet theory is that this is all a normal swing of the economic pendulum. High employment leads to low productivity (how many cumulative hours did you spend doing watering-hole-like things at the office, last time you were employed?). High unemployment just wakes people up and starts getting them motivated and productive again ("Oh, that's why I needed that 'paycheck' thingie [that was auto-deposited, out of sight and out of mind] to pay these 'bill' thingies [also auto-withdrawn].")
Bottom line: Get a job! Can't *get* a job? Make one up! We did, and we haven't missed a financial beat, yet. My spouse is also "unemployed", but works FT for our startup business. Recently we started outsourcing work to a couple of out-of-state freelance developers, part time. Soon we'll have more work for them than they can handle. If you're still employed, start a business anyway. You're just fooling yourself if you think it's "permanent" employment.
When I lost my cushy day job, three months ago, we had no spare cash reserve, either, no nest-egg (how completely American employee is that). What we did was just to scramble as fast as we could to get business. You really would be shocked at how much business there is in the SMB sector. Just dress up a bit business-like, read a good book on how to sell things (e.g. Socratic Selling by Kevin Daley comes to mind) and get out there and do what you used to do for "The Man", just do it for yourself, now.
Oh, and find the best attorney and accountant your money can buy, first! And by all means write those miles down (I still have a hard time with that, but they do add up so fast).
Re:Rinse, Repeat (Score:3, Informative)
Why is everyone worrying about unemployment when talking about the economy? Unemployment figures are not the key to understanding true unemployment. True unemployment may be defined as the nu
Re:Rinse, Repeat (Score:3, Informative)