10/5 Hypothetical question: Suppose there's a shortage of resources,
should the free market take its course which will hopefully
make self-corrections, or should the government intervene and
ration resources? What are the pros and cons for either approaches?
\_ don't know about pro and con, I just know that in reality,
free market is never allowed to distribute critical/essential
resources anywhere in the world during severe shortage, rather
it is food, water, petro, or steel.
\_ It happens everyday. A house costs more than an apple because
houses are harder to build and require more resources to do so
than an apple. A car costs more than an apple but less than a
house for the same reason. What is your question?
\- A1 steak sauce is $5. You can get a DVD player for $30.
I am not sure these things are really "a priori".
\_ Wrong comparison. How about comparing the A1 to the
B&O DVD player instead, or the generic brand sauce to
the no-namo DVD player? Either the more expensive one
took more work/more expensive ingredients, or they
successfully created an artificial demand (viz.
Godiva $5 chocolate covered strawberries.) Either
way you've proven that the market sets prices. -John
\- i am not sure what your point is but i didnt
really elabroate on mine. 10 years ago i think
somebody reflecting on "how difficult is it to
make steak sauce vs a dvd player" probably would
not have guessed the difference in price would
be under 6:1. so this idea of "difficulty" is
probably not meaningful outside the mkt price.
i am getting at the notion of price signals
in the hayakian sense. in fact i think you
should abandon the whole notion of "difficulty
to build" or resource use and just look at things
more abstractly ... this building/resource approach
might apply to mfgring [but really you have to
look at return on optimal mix of K,L since something
can become "easier" by investing more money] but
really doesnt apply to something like haircuts.
in the abstract setting you consider price,
willingness to pay, the difference being consumer
surplus, the marginal and average costs and then
thigns can get more complicated when you factor
in asymmetric information [like when the same
in assymetric information [like when the same
disposable contact lenses were sold at different
prices because they were labelled for diff #hrs].
here is an interesting question: movies clearly
cost $10m to $200m+ ... but why are all movie
tickets ~$10.
\_ Partha, It would be much easier to reply to you
if you used a spelling checker and didn't
ramble for 3 pages. As it is, I don't assume
that you're interested. -John
\_ Because the cost of a $200m is spread over a
much larger number of viewers. A blockbuster
will make a billion $ in sales (us, domestic, and
dvd) vs a less expensive film which is also less
likely to be known and recover it's costs. Also,
a big chunk of the "cost" of a $200m film is in
marketing and PR and often a $50MM/film hollywood
actor. I suspect most films will do just as well
or as poorly without all that junk heaped on top
of the base production cost. For example, the
Spiderman flick did super well with a no-name
actor (and now every moron in hollywood wants to
be a super hero) but Electra was a total bomb and
so was Dare Devil with well known actors who made
oodles more cash than the SM kid. Ok, nvm, I'm
way off topic and now ranting about the stupidity
of hollywood. I feel better now. :-)
\_ Why can't I afford to buy a house when I am a hardworking
intelligent person, while some dot-com millionaire who got
his money through sheer good luck instead of hard work lives
in a mansion and has a hot girlfriend?
\_ Because you live in the Bay area(or southern california).
\_ Because you live in the Bay area (or southern california).
It really is that simple. Anywhere else in the country
you'd be able to afford a home. No, I don't know how much
you make, but in most of the country, buying a house with
a 25k/year salary is feasable.
\_ You should've gone to medical school.
\_ This is why I stopped being a coder and went to law
school.
BTW, perhaps you should look down as well as up - there
are BILLIONS of people in this world who weren't lucky
enough to be born into a country where opportunity and
prosperity is everywhere and hardly anyone concerns
themselves about things like potable water and edible
food. One may easily ask what EXACTLY we did to deserve
our comfortable existence while everyone else continues
to struggle just to survive.
\_ Except many lawyers don't make all that much more than
a good s/w engineer. There might be more job security,
but maybe not. Medical school is your best bet.
\_ The problem w/ engineering is that there is no
long term job prospect - esp. in the valley.
Whatever your skill set is, it eventually goes
stale and some young kid is going to be better
at your job and mgmt can get rid of you and pay
him less to get the same work.
The practice of law is different, experience counts
and many practice areas never go stale b/c people
keep having the same problems over and over again.
BTW, the pay is better ~ 110-125K start.
\- also lawyers and doctors are smarter about
restricting competition.
\_ Are lawyers and doctors smarter about restricting
competition, or is less competent engineering
more acceptable (in the sense less subject to
remedy by the court system) than less competent
medical or legal service? Not in the sense that
foreign engineers are less competent, but that
official certification of engineering training
has greater value.
\_ I think he means that you can't practice
as a doctor/lawyer unless you pass an exam
and its reasonably hard to pass that exam.
There is nothing comparable to that in eng.
Sure there is PE, but outside of Civil hardly
anyone cares. In coding I'm not exactly
sure what difference an exam would make
b/c most of the really good coders I've met
were mathematicians, physicists, &c. rather
than EE/CS so an exam might actually keep
good people out.
Re less competent engineering - Just work
on any big project and you will find lots
of stuff that doesn't work or wasn't well
thought out, &c. The impact of something
like this is less unlike giving someone
the wrong medication or failing to file
a motion in a timely fashion, &c. At worst
you will lose some money.
\- the practice is law is defined very
broadly [see the infamous Nolo v.
Texas case. I actually wonder if
HARRIET THE JUDGE had a role in that]
as are medical practices ... like
you cannot to the best of my knowledge
go to a dental hygenist for a tooth
cleaning without a dentist involved
or go to an optician for a an
eye power measurement. however a non
PE engineer can do lots of work. my
parent never bothered to get a PE till
maybe 15yrs after his phd and had
billions of dollars of projects
under his belt. in the 70s the AMA
made certain certification test changes
specfically targetted at incoming
russian and indian doctors. i actually
think there are a fair number of sort
of iffy doctors. as they saying goes,
"what do they call the guy who graduated
at the bottom of his med school class?"
"doctor". but yeah, probably fewer
leem doctors because there arent that
many med schools. there are a lot of
clown lawyers and a huger number of
leem law schools and some of them may
have automatic bar pass ... i doubt
a lot of the PDs in boise are very good.
\_ no matter how many clown lawyers
\_ not matter how many clown lawyers
there are - and I agree there are
lots and lots of clowns - there
are clearly many more clown eng-
ineers. It doesn't take much to
get an engineering degree or to
find a entry level engineering
job. Maybe you don't meet these
\_ I believe it is harder to get an
engineering degree than a law
degree.
\_ Law school seems far
more difficult to me.
In engineering you
could get by w/o do-
ing much (I managed
3.0+ and I can barely
integrate)
\_ Did you take any humanities
classes? Anyone can get
a 3.0 at a CSU and get
into a mediocre law
school. Overall, I find
the average engineer to
be much smarter than
the average lawyer.
\- I was pretty much in
the middle of the pack
in upper div and grad
math/science classes
I took, but I was
definitely "order of
coif" the ConLaw,
coif"/summa in ConLaw,
I took (and at the dumb
end of a few seminars),
but I was definitely
"order of coif"/summa
cum laude in ConLaw,
Law&Econ, BusinessLaw,
Legal Philosophy, Legal
History and Law Seminars
I took.
I took, however these
were in academic depts,
not the law school for
the most part. (--not PP)
the most part. The people
in philosophy were prob
the smartest humanities
people. (--not PP)
people and a few smart
in econ. Pol Sci and Bus
school people were dumb
or apathetic usually.
(--not PP)
in my experience hum/
socsci grad students
in legit depts who are
legit admits are usually
sharper than most Boalt
students. (--not PP)
\_ I took a few, but
I mostly avoided
humanities b/c they
were a lot more work
than upper-division
engineering classes.
I'm guessing that if
someone like me can
make it through cal
engineering, it must
be *really* easy to
get an engineering
degree.
jokers in the ivory tower, but
I used to bump into them every
day in the valley.
\- hello, accroding to Bureau
of Labor Statistics:
stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm
compared to ~.9million people
licensed to practice law.
\_ Maybe I'm reading this
wrong but according to
bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm
there are about 700K
lawyers, while there
are about 1.5 million
engineers (+ 675K soft-
ware engineers:
bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm).
\- there are a lot of
"paraengineers" who may
be called engineers, while
there are paralegals who
are not lawyers. i have to
go to mcdonalds now.
russian and indian doctors.
job.
\_ so what? is your
determination of
what an engineer
is somehow more
authoritative?
\_ I read an article in WSJ that says lots of
companies are outsourcing jobs to lawyers in
India (eg. patent research). It also says
that in India job status ranking is:
engineer > doctor > accoutant > lawyer
Is that true?
\_ Re outsourcing - what I've seen is
that some of the grunt work of writing
a patent and lots of the prior art
searching has been moved offshore,
but the real legal work (esp. in
litigation and patent counseling
remains here).
Re India job ranking - partially true.
Software engineers are at the top of
the totem pole, but regular engineers
aren't that highly regarded b/c there
are so many of them. Until about 6 or
7 yrs ago, the top job was IAS (Indian
Administrative Service - civil servants).
\_ Re: outsourcing, yes this is true. However,
many lawyers think that the grunt work
is where lots of good skills are
learned. You don't start at the top.
It's akin to outsourcing medical
residents, but not practicing doctors.
FWIW, lots of radiology is also being
outsourced so medicine is not 100% safe
either.
Re India job ranking - partially true.
Software engineers are at the top of
the totem pole, but regular engineers
aren't that highly regarded b/c there
are so many of them. Until about 6 or
7 yrs ago, the top job was IAS (Indian
Administrative Service - civil servants).
Being a doctor was an okay line of work
but it didn't really fetch you much more
money than anyone else.
medical or legal service?
\_ Re: outsourcing, yes this is true. However,
many lawyers think that the grunt work
is where lots of good skills are
learned. You don't start at the top.
It's akin to outsourcing medical
residents, but not practicing doctors.
FWIW, lots of radiology is also being
outsourced so medicine is not 100% safe
either.
\_ No, you are wrong regarding the valley, but you
have to work your way pretty far up the food chain
to realize that.
\_ I know lots of people who have been working
in the valley for 25+ yrs and I'm pretty
sure its true. Unless you move into mgmt
or something, there are no longer term
prospects.
\_ Trust me, you're wrong. The trick is not
"25+ years" but rather "pretty far up the
food chain". There are engineers with 25+
years of experience who are mostly worthless,
just as there are engineers whose worth never
expires.
\_ Maybe so, but what I noticed was that
high on the food chain positions mostly
went to politically connected people
rather than competent people (this is
at a big company - maybe startups and
vc firms are better).
at a big company though).
Anyway, making it high up the food
chain wasn't really an option for
me, so I chose something w/ more
stability and similar (or slightly
higher) pay.
\_ I can drop names if you wish. Are you
at Sun? The first generation of DE's
were mostly impressive, and many are
still technical. I am friends with
several (ehf, agn, and tvh--ehf is
officially a vp, tho he's still technical
and has no direct reports, i think; agn
got burned and is back at cmu again, i
hear; tvh is still retired, though his
role was technical and not managerial at
artx). I am less sure of the current
crop of Sun DE's. I was more thinking
of Gunning or Dobberpuhl when I answered
your original claim.
\_ I'm at Sun. I've met some current
\_ I'm Sun. I've met some current
DEs and I wasn't impressed - they
were mostly political appointees.
The major exception was Diffie,
but he's Diffie and I'm just random
coder.
My promotion from MTS to Staff
The promotion from MTS to Staff
Eng. also seemed to have a lot more
to do w/ politics than skill, which
was disheartening, esp. considering
I was responsible for a moderately
successful product that actually
makes money vs. the people who were
considering my promotion hadn't
shipped an actual product in 5+ yrs.
shipped a actual product in 5+ yrs.
I've also gone through the ARC
several times and the people were
pretty useless but they certainly
had job stability.
I also worked w/ some of the orig.
UNIX team at Bell Labs and saw
them get forced out b/c of bs
politics by complete tools.
\_ This is probably because
lots of the 1st generation
were academics. They have
given way (necessarily,
IMO) to businessmen who are
less special but possess a
different set of skills.
Maybe I'm just a little jaded.
I figure the legal thing is a
bit better b/c you can get a
decent practice going and just
stick to that.
\_ The first generation of DE's were
all pretty special, and even the
senior staffs from that era were
significantly smart. Since then,
I've been told DE's have beomce
yet another promotion and are now
much less special.
food chain".
\_ The people I know are at senior staff
eng. or principal eng. (or mgmt equiv
at director). I guess if you can make
DE or VP you can get some measure of
job security but I don't know too many
people who can get that far.
politics by complete fools.
\_ This is probably because
lots of the 1st generation
were academics. They have
given way (necessarily,
IMO) to businessmen who are
less special but possess a
different set of skills.
\_ The pay is marginally better. If you look at
salary averages there are a lot of lawyers not
making even $100K.
\_ Sure, but most lawyers aren't in technical
practice areas (patent, copyright). So few
lawyers can understand the science/technology
needed that the pay is much higher in those
areas.
\_ Well, this is like comparing the salary
of a surgeon to a pediatrician. Most
lawyers COULD NOT PRACTICE in a technical
area if they wanted to.
\_ The problem w/ engineering is that whatever your
skill set it eventually goes stale and some young
kid is going to be better at your job and mgmt can
get rid of you and pay him less to get the same
work.
The practice of law is different - and if you don't
like one area of practice or that area starts to
dry up you can always go work for a real estate
or insurance firm.
\_ No, you are wrong. But you have to work your way
pretty far up the food chain to realize that.
\_ sure, but I was responding to wages
in comparison to being a coder - the
income potential for a former coder
lawyer in a tech practice is quite
high.
\_ If the price naturally rises, it will allow substitutes which
were previously not feasible to enter the market. So allowing
the price to rise will potentially increase total supply.
\- it depends why there is a shortage. govt intervention !=
govt should provide/subsidize it. govt repsonses can include
things like changing ip regime. if you want a generic frame-
work to think about this, do mircoecon. if you want to talk
about a spcific case, you should mention what it is. in the
real world it's often unclear what constitutes a "shortage"
[is there a shortage of diamonds?] just like it is often
unclear if a firm has market (monopoly) power. also a "supply
shock" is not the same as a persistent shortage, say in the
case of water or power. the govt probably should not intervene
in the RARE MAGIC CARD mkt. and finally it depends on the
govt. a bad govt can clearly make things worse. see e.g.
AK Sen's work on famines.
\_ I agree there is a shortage of h07 42n ch1x in san jose.
\_ I agree there is a shortage of h07 42n ch1x in the bay area.
SOMETHING must be done!
\_ free h07 4zn ch1x for 1337 c0d3r5! w00t!
his money through sheer good luck lives in a mansion and has
a hot girlfriend?
case of water or power. |
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