A very interesting collection of resources on intercultural business affairs.

Madhukar Shukla, XLRI, Cross Cultural Management, Online Resources

Dean: "The economy will become increasingly hollow. ... There will be people who are working on the very top end of innovation, and there will be people servicing them, with very little in between."

Decius: I have this ingrained distrust for unions. I used to be in one, until I found out that the money I was paying into it was being used to fuck me in Congress on Social Security. The majority of the people in said union were under the age of 30, but the union was primarily responsive to the interests of people over 50. What this amounted to was that I was "collectively bargaining" with a bunch of people who had no idea what the hell to bargain for, and let others worry about figuring that out. Apathy is its own reward.

However, I strongly agree that our society needs to seriously revamp the social structures around the 40 hour work week. Our health insurance, our taxes, our pensions, our labor laws... basically everything typically handled by an HR department is structured around the idea that you work for one company and you do it for 40 hours a week. There is no room for flexibility, for employee or employer.

I spent some time working for RHIC. I really like them. They are very professional. They do offer pensions and insurance for their consultants. They are a stab at the problem. But the legislation doesn't support their model. Insurance is only available if you are doing so much work with them that you pretty much look like a full timer on paper. Furthermore, they have a model which is so decentralized that it actually has a negative impact on geographic flexibility. They had no ability to transfer me to another office in an area where my skills were more in demand. Different RHIC city offices are totally autonomous. They are like different companies.

I want more flexibility. My employer wants more flexibility. So whose holding up the show here?

What's labor going to do about offshoring?

inignoct wrote:
] [ good point. so, what are the most likely new categories?
] What's bleeding edge right now? Nanotech? What else? -k]

The seven revolutions link discusses this, but that list hasn't changed much in the past few years... Nanotech. Biotech. Infotech.

Water desalination and purification technology developed today will prevent wars a few decades from now.

] point that we're gonna have to bust our ass and figure out
] which direction to aim ourselves is well taken though. -k]

By you, but apparently not by others. Nanotech. Biotech. Infotech. The Seven Revolutions website was pretty clear that Space is not on this list. They drove that point several times. Space is really the only place where our currently administration has demonstrated real technological leadership. What does that tell you.

N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, recently wrote "It is natural to ask what new jobs will be created in the future. Policy makers should create an environment in which businesses will expand and jobs will be created. But they should not try to determine precisely which jobs are created or which industries will grow. If government bureaucrats were capable of such foresight, the Soviet Union would have succeeded as a centrally planned economy."

There is a world of difference between leadership and central control. Policy makers cannot "determine precisely" which jobs are created, but they ought to have a pretty good idea, and they should encourage development that puts their nation in a strategically comfortable position.

Most western nations have a clear technology plan. They know where tech is going and how their country plans to fit into that future. A simple example is Japan's commitment to IPv6.

The U.S. also used to have such a plan. Investment and policy work in the early 90's (and earlier, in some cases much eariler) based on the vision of a "National Information Infrastructure" set the stage for the economy of the latter part of this decade by openning doors to the rise of the broadband internet as a platform for commercial and social activity. What is our plan today? How do we intend to lead in the future? I don't think its clear that we have one, and thats why Gregory Mankiw has to make leaps of logic. The United States has a technology leadership vacuum.

RE: Theory vs. Reality

] The job market may not be booming. But for many in the
] college class of 2004, it won't be quite as dismal as it
] was for last year's grads.

Some good news...

Most lucrative college degrees '04 - Feb. 5, 2004

] Expensing doesn't make accounting sense. There is no cost
] incurred by companies when they issue stock options to
] employees. Rather, they represent "capital income" and
] not compensation. Therefore, the basic expensing precept
] is misguided.

Expensing options will hurt the economy

] After this year, they say, the stock-option party may be
] drawing to a close.
]
] The party pooper is an accounting standard change slated
] to take effect in 2005. The controversial rule, proposed
] by the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board, the
] standards-setting body for the profession, requires firms
] to record a charge on earnings statements to reflect the
] cost of employee stock-option grants.

This is a travesty in every sense of the word. The Bush administration has basically robbed every middle class worker the opportunity to EARN OWNERSHIP and participate in the wealth building process. It will make it harder for companies to recruit, retain, and leverage their workforces. And it will further exacerbate the already ridiculous pay packages given to executives and insiders.

Last Hurrah for Stock Options

... an entire generation of lowered expectations ...

This author doesn't understand why we are ignoring the problem. If you look two articles back in my MemeStream to "Creative Class War" you'll get the why to go along with this article's what.

Education Is No Protection

Rattle wrote:
] Jeremy meme'd something recently about outsourcing where he
] made suggested that in come cases we are making the choice
] between wealth and security, and there is a balance.

This juxtaposition made me uncomfortable and now I see why.

Are we selecting between wealth and security?

The left says yes. Its either wealth or security. The better off you are, the worse off everyone else must be as a result. The better of the world is, the more you're going to have to sacrifice, because you are western, and your comfortable life is made from the blood of the poor.

The right says no. Its not a zero sum game. Its not an either or. Its a both or neither. The better off everyone else is, the better off you'll be, and the better off you'll be, the better off everyone else is.

Both sides seem to be talking past eachother, and we can't get past the dialog.

RE: Buffet: America's growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us.

] If hiring an American is noble, surely hiring an Indian or a
] Malaysian is even more so. No matter the current state of
] American job opportunities, such opportunities in
] developing countries are far worse.
]
] Ethically enlightened people should applaud, rather than
] jeer, companies that offer employment opportunities to the world's
] neediest people.

[Politech] Don Boudreaux: Why it's moral for firms to outsource overseas

] Forester analyst John McCarthy says jobs that are most at
] risk require fewer skills, are automated or are highly
] portable.
]
] Those include computer programming and software
] engineer jobs, that have long been leaving the country.

This article is entertaining for two reasons. The first is the juxtaposition above. I supposed they meant to indicate that programming is highly portable and not that its a low skill job. The second thing that I find entertaining is how different this is from what you read a few years ago. Someone on Slashdot asked if these researchers just take the slope of the graph from the last two years and draw it out without any consideration for how the situation might change? I reached a point during the .com boom where I mentally counter indicated anything that Jupiter Research published. Maybe I should start ignoring these people all together.

Vanishing Jobs - Dec. 18, 2003