Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Rust Belt Reset

From the Wall Street Journal:

12 comments:

rootvg said...

Yes, but when those new grads figure out how out of date the business culture is there, away they'll go to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles or (if they can afford it) New York, Boston and San Francisco.

Jim Russell said...

They won't go to places where hiring is decreasing. You need to update your understanding of economic geography.

rootvg said...

You need to get out more. We were in the Rust Belt for Thanksgiving and it's as depressed as I've ever seen.

When we go home and meet with friends and family, it takes somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes to explain what we do for a living. Here in the Bay Area, it takes about forty five seconds. How do you get someone who doesn't begin to understand the value of what you do to pay you a professional salary? Answer: You don't!

Jim Russell said...

I'd say you are a lousy communicator. If you can't successfully explain what you do to any audience in about a minute, you probably offer little in the way of value.

rootvg said...

How can you be a lousy communicator one place and a great communicator in another place?

That's a stupid thing to say, Jim.

Jim Russell said...

When the audience is full of people who share your daily experience, communication is easy. Any dipshit can do it. Communicating to a foreign audience takes actual skill. Clearly, you lack that skill. Also, you lack a fundamental understanding of communication. Go figure.

rootvg said...

No...it's because the audience in one place is grossly over educated (Bay Area) and the audience in another place (NE Ohio) is grossly undereducated. They're educated for another time and place that for no longer exists.

What do you think this is about?

Jim, do you know how long I've been posting in forums? Decades! Do you know how many Google hits there are on my name? You should look out there. If you go to Usenet, there are even more.

Jim Russell said...

What do you think this is about?

It's about you grinding your ax. All your comments are rants against NEO. Many of your comments don't even make sense in the context of the post. You are a troll.

rootvg said...

I'm no more a troll than you are.

I speak the truth and you know it.

NE Ohio and some of the other economically disaffected regions up that way have incredible potential (Buffalo and Syracuse come to mind) but certain people have to be pushed out of the way. Yes, the winters are bad but it snows in Minneapolis as well and they're doing relatively well, considering.

Again and again, it's always the same. Certain people don't want change. They don't want to make the investments in physical infrastructure and primary/secondary education and changing their business culture because some dried up old man feels threatened. They want to be victims and believe me, they are!

Jim Russell said...

Yes, there is some truth in your rants. I've acknowledged those kernels. I'm well aware of the legacy challenges. You also spew a lot of misinformation and ignorance.

To me, you seem small and bitter. You seek out forums to vent and bitch. I hope it is cathartic because for the rest of us, it is only noise.

rootvg said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40739464/ns/politics

I thought this wasn't happening!

Anonymous said...

First, when you start a comment with a sentence like, "I'd say you are a lousy communicator," you are a lousy communicator. I am not a troll, I just feel compelled to point that out. It's your post, you are smart enough to defend it without being unkind.

Second, Economic Geography being what it is, I do think there is a case to be made for a more nuanced approach to the data. New grads regularly land in Los Angeles. I live in a neighborhood that is an attractant to the fresh-out-of-film school types. Their parents support them while they call in a few favors and kick start careers with entry level positions in television - the area where most new film grads get traction. Only a small percentage of us are from here, and fewer still are those of that cohort who enjoy gainful employment. Yet, still they come. In droves.

Sometimes those push-pull factors have as much to do with prestige and big dreams as they do economics. They also often share connections to employers that are not geographic, other than nodally - city of orgin to big city. Finally, hiring practices favor the bright-eyed bushy-tailed newies from Oklahoma, especially along gender lines.