[PLUG] Hire the Best

[Neil Anuskiewicz]

On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Preston Crawford wrote:

> The economy is interconnected. The reason there isn't enough work to be
> had is because the economy is tanking. The economy is tanking because of
> the liars and the criminals.

No, the economy has tanked because we are in a recession. Go look at your 
history, the economy has been on a boom and bust cycle. It is called the 
business cycle. The good times will come back again.

Will they be the same as the boom times of the 90s? No. They will be 
different and likely different sectors will drive it. There will be more 
tech jobs along with this boom but it is very likely that wages will 
not be as high as they were in recent years. Perhaps it will be nurses 
that will see higher wages or some other area of shortage. But yes things 
will get better in the tech sector as everything else does depend on it. 
Perhaps it will be biotech, pharmaceuticals, and medical type industries 
that really drive things in the coming years.That will mean more jobs for 
people who can develop good software solutions, databases, administer 
systems/networks, support desktops, etc., etc. Things will get better but 
perhaps not at as high a wages and not as high a demand as before.

It is possible that the tech industry could come out of all this pain 
stronger, more stable, more sustainable, and healthies than before. 
Perhaps it will be more like a table candle that burns steadily than like 
a roman candle that burns bright and goes out. Perhaps all this pain has a 
purpose as it were.

> True. But there is a middle ground between communism and unfettered
> capitalism without rules and regulation, isn't there?

Clearly, the SEC needs to do a much, much better job of enforcing the 
laws. I think there is a consensus now that the lying and cheating is not 
acceptable.

> There is a middle ground. I think. Somewhere there, though, we decided the
> private sector did EVERYTHING better. So everything was privatized and
> deregulated. Maybe it's okay if we retreat from that bad idea a little
> bit. The govt. is often inefficient and often crooked. But it should be
> apparant that an unregulated market is just as bad, if not worse.

We don't have an "unregulated market". We have plenty of regulations. In 
some areas the laws have not been enforced very effectively. That clearly 
needs to change.

The private sector does do many things better. At the same time there is 
an appropriate role for government. We have a pretty large government now 
that does many things. The suggestion that the size of government has 
shrunk substantially in recent years is not supported by the facts.


-- 
Neil Anuskiewicz