can't, all the major highways which were originally paid by taxpayer monies have been reconverted into tolls , and now they are using variable rates... for the same stretch of roads that used to cost $5 just a year ago, routinely cost $6.7 now...
American Economics Thread
- Thread starter Bernard
- Start date
Are you talking about California? I was just there a few weeks ago for family, you could get pretty much anywhere you wanted to go without tolls. It's a huge inconvenience, but it's doable.
Hard to take these articles seriously. Or any MSM seriously nowdays.
Though certainly, it is super annoying to see prices not budge on anything, while Chinese people are protesting because EV cars prices are dropping too fast. What a clown world to live in lmao
If I were you, I'd relocate to living somewhere as close to work as possible. My partner and I live a 5 minute walk from her office. We pay more for it and lose out on square footage, but we save on commute time, gas/electric, wear & tear on vehicle, etc.
There’s a difference between a quantile regression and adding up cross-tabs.
They really do not. Individuals have the same net worth conditional on age regardless of generation but that wealth is distributed more unequally than before
Not really. Foreign-born individuals don’t have a right to work in the U.S. absent employment authorization so a lot of the PhDs are for meeting green card requirements, not for human capital development per se. Flip side of that applies to US individuals - they can get employment with lower credentials and staying for a doctorate is extremely costly in terms of lost earnings so they will only do it if they are extremely dedicated to the cause.
Click to the bottom of the site with the Tableau - similar outcomes. 70% of STEM employment that requires a degree is US-born ~20% of US STEM workers are Asian (which is much broader than Chinese). US workforce development and education is broadly fine (and not the meme partisan caricature you think it is). All companies at the same time have a number of positions that are not stem but also require a college degree/human capital to fulfill - finance, legal, accounting, HR, etc, etc and those are going to be substantially less foreign-born than STEM positions since no one will sponsor a green card for that. The “brain rot” you claim exists doesn’t exist and whatever “brain rot” exists was worse many decades ago and yet, these firms exist. Your meme caricature is just wrong.
In general: US individuals and households are doing fine financially and US public service provision (including education) is good and better than ever; that does not preclude room for improvement, but it does preclude nonsense about “omg the young people only care about critical race theory and can’t add read”.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Well, if you don't think they conflict, then here you go; this is America:
(Source 1)
(Source 2)
(Source 3 for later below)
What is this, your fantasy for trying to explain away the power of foreign PhDs as just a greencard application? LOLOL Also, foreign-born does not mean foreign citizen needing a greencard. Lots of young immigrants were naturalized long before serious education even began.
You're basically so pathetic that you're trying to pretend that American non-PhDs are undervalued and foreign PhDs are overvalued.
You didn't like the last source you got which gave a 45% foreign born number? Need a new source cus last one wasn't working out? Well, this won't ain't gonna work out for you either.
"The global contribution to America’s economy was especially visible in the STEM workforce: 29% of college-educated STEM workers were foreign-born.
This was most notable in the tech sector, where foreign-born people made up about a third of computer workers with a college degree and about half with a graduate degree."
Having an undergrad degree as a computer worker means Geek Squad. PhDs in computer science carry the real research. Half foreign born, higher than 45%.
"Native-born STEM workers (who did not go through the visa screening filter) were less likely than their foreign-born counterparts to have a STEM-major (69% vs 81%).
Yup, American brain rotted "STEM workers" are actually mostly construction guys and nurses while the truely scientifically-trained from youth are mostly foreign born. And we all know that 69% "American" number is heavily padded by Chinese and other Asians.
In general, "doing fine" has no meaning. You say that greater inequality (Source 2) with less wealth per capita in Millenials than GenX and less in GenX than Boomers (Source 1) with an average income growth of 0.2% annually over 18 years (Source 3) is fine, so it's fine for you. It's a disaster if it were my country. You say education is doing better than before but mathematical illiteracy is being rampantly seen in major US cities, and all US math comps are represented by Chinese, but they "recitified" it by dumbing down standardized testing so I guess that's American style for making the scores "better than ever."
Oh no, I didn't say that young people can't read; I said the one with poor reading comprehension is you. And charts as well; that's another thing you can't read. As for adding... well, that's math and that's America's weakness, though I think basic adding is still fine... for now until they have to dumb down the SATs again for those who can't. But in general, America's failure in highly educated STEM positions even in its own country would reinforce what I said about the American youth being only interested in "LGBTQ values, racial equality, pop media or sports, (and drugs, don't forget drugs)."
Tell me about it, at my current place I got "volunteered" into the company's "DEI" committee, when I said hey can I start an "AI" committee (the company had a bunch of useless committees but not one for AI etc) it got turned down...
They don’t. Individuals conditional on age have the same average net worth (as the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis verified). The within distribution is more disputed. And the third link doesn’t conflict - if you click on the mean income, it’s grown substantially so aggregate national income has grown substantially. Higher income earnings can result in less working/income for other individuals due to higher savings - ex., college students that don’t work, people who retire at early ages, maternity leave, and individuals with health issues who could work but it may be risky.
1. It’s well documented foreign-born workers undermatch in the labor market landing in positions that require less education than they have (thus US-born individuals will have less formal schooling than immigrants for equivalent positions and U.S.-born workers simply will not pursue further education) -
2. Foreign-born individuals who want to work in the US are limited to a narrow set of specialty occupations before they receive a green-card. US born individuals have no such restriction - and thus US born individuals are much more free to do non-STEM items, even after earning a STEM degree (hence a substantial number of stem degree holders working in not-STEM)
3. To the extent foreign-born individuals naturalize earlier in life, they would’ve received more education in the U.S. and undercut your argument
It’s the same source. It’s an analysis of the American Community Survey. It’s just crosstabs.
If you’re narrowing down to the smallest of the smallest cohorts, you’ve lost the plot. US firms are at the technological frontier, primarily due to the work of U.S.-born individuals who went to school in the U.S.
Or…US born individuals have social connections, professional relationships, and otherwise that allow them to find employment without a need for either an educational signal and they are able to stay in the U.S. without college degrees (neither of these is the case for foreign-born workers). Even if you continue your blood and soil shitck - 80% of the stem workers with bachelors degrees are not Asian.
Yes - mass universal education wasn’t a thing until the 1950a/1960s and “major U.S. cities”; and the graduation rates have been increasing while the NAEP math scores have been flat (if the mean is the same even as you add more adversely selected individuals, that means the population mean is increasing), city school districts are going to encompass the most adversely selected students (redlining, residential segregation, etc) and are a small share of total enrollment. More students are enrolled across the fragmented school districts of DuPage and Lake Counties than in Chicago Public Schools, for instance. Math education is certainly not ideal but it’s still better than ever before - and the high school graduating classes of the 1980s-1990s, now nearing mid-career and retirement created the most competitive financial, insurance, pharmaceutical, and statistical software publishing companies in the world (the types of firms with the most direct math application)
These are selection effects: both for which types of individuals the 1965 Immigration Act selects on, under matching in labor markets for foreign-born individuals, and native born individuals having less of a need for education - either for signaling or for continued residence in the U.S.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Cool, so basically, modern America has greater inequality with less wealth per capita in Millenials than GenX and less in GenX than Boomers. That's meaningful hard-hitting research and your rando blog guy "has no particular meaning." That's settled.
Never said this conflicts; I put it in there to use as Source 3 above.
The reason people prefer median to mean is because median reflect the common situation while the mean is heavily affected and skewed by the ultra rich. A growing mean with a stagnant median means greatly increasing inequality.
This is written diarrhea and has nothing to do with median or mean income.
So your excuse is now that American STEM scientists are less educated because they don't need as much education to land the job due to familiarity with the surroundings? OK, I do believe that the job market in America favors Americans. But the result is still the same; Americans are less educated. A man who is just educated enough to perform the job is no equal of a man who is overqualified because the latter can learn from the job, improve it, and overachieve. One of the biggest jokes that Chinese scientists say about their American peers in the US, sometimes even their bosses, is that they got where they were with their mouths while Chinese scientists earn our places with our minds.
There is no such thing as being "free" to do non-STEM after a STEM education. That's called educational failure. The physics PhD who becomes a bus driver; the biochem PhD who sells cars; these are all examples of failure. In China, professors are ostracized and ridiculed for having doctorate students leave their field in numbers. At the US institute where I got my PhD, my professor was not in good standing with the board because they said he pushed his students so hard, they became PhDs who became salesmen and bicycle mechanics. This is a shame of the society and you call it "free."
No, it's not about the quality of the education but the quality of the person and how s/he was raised to view the importance of education by his/her parents. Put a thug into Harvard and he's still a thug. Put a genius into community college and he'll still become the innovator he was meant to become.
Didn't like that crosstab; needed a new crosstab, whatever.
No, the plot is in the hands of the educated elite. Your government data is stupid and they included so many people into STEM that they said over 50% of whom they included didn't even have a bachelor's degree. So they basically included menial labor in a STEM setting as STEM when the true drivers of a nation's innovation lies in the smallest of cohorts that I pointed out.
The plot is the Chinese firms are a the technological frontier, basically purely from the work of Chinese individuals while the success of American lies 50% with immigrants and another large percent in the Chinese-American minority.
Addressed above.
"So your excuse is now that American STEM scientists are less educated because they don't need as much education to land the job due to familiarity with the surroundings? OK, I do believe that the job market in America favors Americans. But the result is still the same; Americans are less educated. A man who is just educated enough to perform the job is no equal of a man who is overqualified because the latter can learn from the job, improve it, and overachieve. One of the biggest jokes that Chinese scientists say about their American peers in the US, sometimes even their bosses, is that they got where they were with their mouths while Chinese scientists earn our places with our minds."
What's with the bachelor's obsession? Bachelors in a critical STEM field (yes, I'm narrowing it down to the tip of the spear because that's what's most important) is research aide at best. I'm talking about the PhDs who drive innovation. Much more than 20% are Asian, between both first gen immigrants and further on. And even those non-Asian, non-American, well, if they can be bought out by America once, they can be bought out by any adversary the next time. America's STEM PhD army is well more than 50% mercenaries between those who weren't born in American and those who were but belong to an oppressed minority.
Yeah ok, American education is "improving" in that there was no mass universal education until the starting point in the 60's LOL Nice high bar to set. In the mean time:
So keep making your American excuses. I know we don't have any of this bullshit in China, not even anywhere in Asia.
Been there, debunked that. In the US, Chinese students are the best. In the UK and the West, Chinese students are the best. On the global stage, Chinese students representing China are the best again, even compared to the Chinese students representing the pinnacle of other countries. No matter what excuses you make, Chinese students are the best every time everywhere. American excuses to Chinese results all day long.
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This is why those who grasp the grim realities are fleeing, despite these cities once being cherished homes.
An anonymous correspondent shared insights on the "Doom Loop" engulfing American cities—a universal spiral driven by the sinister twins of financialization and the prolonged erosion of cities' foundational industrial-economic roles.
The seeds of this decay are sown by the central banks' liberal monetary policies, which have transformed cities into hubs of financial maneuvering, stripping them of their original missions. The residents, sadly, are the last to catch on, trapped in a cycle that won't reverse until the centralization of capital itself is undone.
The popular narrative often skirts around the truth, suggesting that not all cities are doomed. However, in an era where physical presence in finance is increasingly obsolete, every sizable city is destined to share this fate, albeit with local nuances that might delay the inevitable, such as cities' utility as massive voter pools. But make no mistake, the decline is a fundamental part of the financial 'virtualization.'
Here’s the tragic ballet of urban decay:
1. **Corporate Takeovers:** Cities lose their financial backbone as Fortune 100 companies are absorbed by conglomerates nestled near financial centers—a direct consequence of easy access to capital facilitating massive acquisitions.
2. **The Illusion of Renewal:** Historically, cities were showered with government funds for flashy redevelopment projects, which initially masked the rot but lacked provisions for upkeep, leading to a swift deterioration. Today, any semblance of renewal is orchestrated by billionaires from the finance sector, whose fleeting interests evaporate without sustained investment.
In truth, the desolation of many American city centers is more akin to dystopian scenes than bustling urban life. I’d rather take my chances in a city of the developing world than walk the desolate streets of an American downtown.
3. **Sports as Fortresses:** Attending a major league game is akin to entering a militarized zone, where the danger of stray bullets pervades even within the supposed safety of stadium walls. Not surprisingly, some teams are now scouting locations far from the urban centers that house their relatively new stadiums.
4. **Federal Fortresses:** New federal buildings are constructed as bastions of isolation, contributing nothing to the local economy but standing aloof, accessible only by direct highway routes.
5. **Taxation Desperation:** With the highest tax rates in their states, cities in decline see dwindling tax revenues and respond by increasing business taxes and proposing levies on nonprofits—a financial death spiral. Threats of higher taxes have already prompted warnings of exodus from businesses and organizations.
6. **Lost Purpose:** The historical economic significance of cities, anchored in their geographic and transportation advantages, has dissipated in the information age. The bustling hubs of manufacturing and warehousing are no more.
7. **Unsustainable Costs:** Cities are suffocating under the weight of their enormous legacy costs. Attempts to replace their economic substance with entertainment and upscale lifestyles are feeble and ineffective. The essence of a city’s vibrancy cannot be recreated with fine dining and secure, isolated living spaces.
8. **Housing Wars:** The resistance from the upper-middle class against affordable housing developments in their neighborhoods is choking the life out of cities. Essential workers are priced out, and the calls for inclusion from YIMBY movements are but whispers against a roaring tide of exclusion.
9. **Political Paralysis:** The politics that dominate media discussions are merely symptoms of the underlying decline, not the cause. The endless political squabbling results in a stalemate, where myriad solutions amount to nothing more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
This is why those who truly understand these dynamics are making their exodus, even though it means leaving behind the cities they once called home...