147 comments on So they all knew it was a bubble, now?
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147 comments on So they all knew it was a bubble, now?
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Hi SacredCowTipper,
Yes, BSEE and MBA.
Of the two, the MBA has proven far more valuable as US corporations have hollowed out technical staff in favor of outsourced expertise.
Quite counterintuitive.
By the way, I PAID for both of these degrees myself - no handouts from anyone!
I wonder how many here are aware of this other phenomenon, namely, that being all you can be and getting an engineering degree is the new lie of our society?
Prole is not kidding. I work in a tech-affiliated field and see over the recent years how the engineering ranks have been decimated in the USA.
The big laugh is watching politicians (like Barak Obama on CSPAN this morning) extolling the virtues of getting a higher education and graduating more engineers in this country. He probably means well. Just doesn't have a clue.
Today, even getting an MBA is questionable as the financial remnants of our hollowed out economy begin to crumble under the stress.
I had a friend in law school whose brother graduated from Notre Dame with a an engineering degree and high honors. Could not find a job. Wound up going to DePaul law school.
Problem is ... everybody is going to law school.
There are WAY too many lawyers. It is a pretty sad commentary on our society that everything has to be settled by litigation or incarceration.
Better that than settling everything the old fashion way ... by uncivil action, such as by a duel to the death.
But my point was not that. Rather; when they "all" graduate from law school, who is going to be their client? There won't be anybody else left.
While it is true that a single lawyer in a small town starves while two do well, the curve doesn't keep going that way. If the whole town is filled with nothing but lawyers, they're all unemployed.
Milton Friedman made the observation years ago that our economy was heading towards a unsustainable service economy where there would be two insurance salesman facing each other at a table and trying to sell each other insurance.
Bruce,
My records show it is time for us to meet and reassess your current insurance policy. We have many novel packages that will match with your evolving needs. We have a new post-peak plan called Catchusifucan which is ideally suited for your demographic.
"If the whole town is filled with nothing but lawyers, they're all unemployed."
That would be..... Buffalo, NY.
Well, as they say, a town that cannot support one lawyer can always support two.
We're trying to do something about the lawyer problem.
http://www.prosefights.org/nmlegal/nsalawsuit/nsalawsuit.htm#reportresponse
I have an MS in Mechanical Engineering. When I started school in 1967 the LA Times had (no kidding) 100 pages of employment ads for engineers. Even though I don't look for work anymore I am amazed at how few engineering jobs are available in the SF Bay area. I suppose if your talents are in software or specialized EE areas you are employable but for mechanical types: head for China.
Ditto for Silicon Valley.
There was a time, before the 2001 dot.com bust when the Sunday paper was thicker than two telephone books because of all the help wanted sections.
Now it is an anorexic shadow of itself.
There aren't even the same number of regular advertisements.
Who are you going to advertise to? The unemployed engineers?
(Of course, part of the problem is that jobs, classifieds, etc. are now advertised on the internet rather than via newspapers which is why papers are dying. However, the general trend is still that all the hardware jobs are heading to China and all the software jobs to India and Romania. Silicon is no longer made in "Silicon" Valley. It's all made in China, Taiwan, Malaysia. We have "evolved" into a "new" economy thanks to globalization.)
I'm an underemployed engineer myself - Iowa State's computer science program, and now I work in that icky VoIP area. Its booming, even today, but I'm underworked due to disability. I have a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome - I look and act normal a good bit of the time, but I'm different enough in person that its caused me immense grief in employment.
A number of people posting here seem to have mentioned Asperger's. If there's ever a new demographic questionnaire done, that might be an interesting question for it. Could be that hyperanalytical people are disproportionately drawn here.
Or maybe not caring about social herding cues confers an advantage for 'black swan' type perceptions.
Or perhaps we're just peculiar.
You can add me to the list. I definitely have ADHD and may have some kind of aspergers/high functioning autism. Or just have lousy social skills. In any case, one person said I have it and other people say I don't. People don't come to TOD if they think the solution to peak oil is to con some other poor bastard out of their oil.
I also have Asperger's. I have also noticed more and more those posting on this forum and others saying the same thing. I too have wondered what the percentage of "Aspies" or others on the Autism scale are represented on TOD. I do know that we with Asperger's tend to view the world differently than most.
Anyone else out there?
Given the high maths involved, the aspect of this case being very complex, though very interesting, from a logical point of view, so counter-intuitive (from the business-as-usual standpoint), anti-social, and so fundamentally "big", I have no wonder at all that many "aspies" are interested in this subject. For me it is corroboration that it is such an interesting phenomenon...
New lie? You think this is a new lie? You obviously haven't been around very long. Engineering is and has been a terrible career for anyone wanting steady income and security. I know engineers who spent half the 70s on unemployment after the aerospace crash. Every senior engineer I know from the 80s on has told me to get my MBA if I want a chance of staying with a company beyond the completion of a contract.
You're much better off becoming a plumber. Toilets always need unplugging and it's not a job that can be successfully outsourced to India (the trip charge is a deal killer!).
Orion,
I'm right there with you. I was on one of those on the unemployment lines in the 70's (when the Vietnam war ended and there was no more of a need by our Great Society for engineers to calculate how much Butter is needed for lubing the Guns).
However ...
Do realize that every year our universities graduate a new litter of technology-armed graduates, salivating at the mouth, wagging their tails, and eager to serve their masters. The Market will provide.
You got a surplus of skilled engineers? That is one of the bottlenecks in the Swedish workforce. You dont happen to also have a surplus of skilled programmers, welders, plumbers, metal cutting machine operators, concrete workers and so on?
Its odd if skilled people cant get work, you ought to invest like mad in the energy sector and so on.
Hi prole,
I'm right there with you since my life to date fits much the same profile. I also hold a BSEE and hope to be finishing an MSEE in a month or two. I tell myself the MSEE is for me, but I probably wouldn't be doing it if the company wasn't paying. Sometimes I think I should've spent all that time going out to get high and get laid.
As luck would have it I also work in the MI-complex. My idiot managers are throwing my skill, training, and intellect away on filling out Excel spreadsheets and adjusting sliders in MS Project.
To put things in perspective, I was working with Excel and drafting architectural plans in AutoCAD in middle school. I was designing and conducting my own mechanical and acoustic science experiments in high school. I helped design, build, and successfully field test cellular repeaters in college.
I get my passive-aggressive revenge on management by constantly showing up late and doing about 10 actual hours of their 'work' a week. Somehow I wound up with two cubicles, so I can almost always tell these pukes, "I was in the other building dude." If that fails, then "I was taking the Browns to the Super Bowl."
My friends and I find it physically painful to watch "The Office" on NBC. That's how accurate a picture it paints.
It's a "cost plus contract".
You're the cost and your managers are laughing all the way to the bank.
They are not "idiots".
Instead, you are Dilbert.
Why do you live in a cubicle (or two)?
Don't you deserve an office?
For heavens sake you have a BSEE degree!
P.S. When I was young, I too worked as a double E (with MS!) in the MI-complex. I was too dumb to understand that I was just cannon fodder for the cost plus contracts. They didn't want me to actually do good work; just to run up justifiable costs. That's your real job dude. Figure out how to charge Uncle Sam more without being caught.
I can still find work with my MSEE degree but now it has to be with military industrial companies prevented by the nature of their work from offshoring. I spent the first twenty years of my career making products people actually wanted to buy.
I think a science education is a very useful and scarce thing to have even if it doesn't directly lead to lifetime employment. There are already too many idiots out there. Why do people get liberal arts degrees? They think reading Shakespeare in the original Klingon makes them a better person.