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points by tombert 3 days ago | 0 comments

Tinfoil hat thoroughly fixed upon my head, but a part of me kind of thinks that this might have been a long-game from big tech in the same vein as Grapes of Wrath.

Software engineers make a lot of money, at least historically because of supply/demand mechanics. By suddenly and continuously flooding the market with lots and lots of software engineers, you effectively can bring down wages, since if people are unemployed long enough they're likely to take a lower salary.

[–] Lammy 3 days ago

The FAGMAN companies got caught colluding to depress wages by avoiding hiring people already employed by the others, so they learned to accomplish the same thing without writing it down by having these periodic huge layoffs across the entire industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

[–] heresie-dabord 3 days ago

> The FAGMAN companies

For sardonic reasons, I prefer "MANNA".

It seems heavenly until the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

[–] tombert 3 days ago

I remember hearing about that.

Of course, this is just when they got caught doing it. Who knows how often it happens where they don't.

[–] anal_reactor 3 days ago

> The FAGMAN companies

Buahahahaaha

[–] endemic 1 day ago

Well, Freud was right.

[–] HumblyTossed 3 days ago

They (the industry) have always wanted to find a way to do this. Tools like Rational Rose and Visual Basic were touted as being able to do this. Sending work overseas is another way. AI is just the next in line.

I don't know what the overall answer is, but I would say that if you have high demand skills, you can still earn a living.

[–] roncesvalles 3 days ago

>Software engineers

This Microsoft deal for the large part is not being offered to software engineering orgs.

[–] Rapzid 3 days ago

The measurers? Software engineers have a lot of extra time to measure things now and are still much more valuable..

[–] jayd16 3 days ago

Only works if employees can't found something new. Which might be the case right now.

Really, it feels like we're in a quiet depression.

[–] Supermancho 3 days ago

The 3% growth in the us market is virtually (90%+?) all in AI company valuations/investment. It is a depression, that hasnt been announced. Wait till after midterms for the blame to be leveled with the announcement.

[–] HumblyTossed 3 days ago

Yep. We'll be told to argue over our collective political beliefs while corporations and billionaires continue to drive the economy for the 99% into the crapper. It's a machine that cannot stop until we all have nothing left.

[–] astrange 3 days ago

Looks pretty good for the 50%:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mehoinusa672n

[–] edot 3 days ago

If you believe in government-measured CPI, sure. No one I know (very median people) would say they’re doing better economically now than ever before. Literally zero people I know would say that.

[–] astrange 1 day ago

Across what time period?

Most people do better economically over their lifetimes because most people's earnings grow as they progress in their careers.

[–] drstewart 3 days ago

What is your definition of depression, exactly?

Besides "sounds cool with shock value online"

[–] Supermancho 3 days ago

> What is your definition of depression, exactly?

A real GDP decline of over 10% year over year for more than 1 year is the biggest signal. Ofc, I noticed the US Federal Government has been cooking the books since at least H. W. Bush (maybe longer) by including tech stock potential gains as part of GDP. Take out tech stocks, the US economy looks like it will to historians.

Even in the modern day, an economic depression is associated with massive unemployment, deflation, reductions in the trifecta of industrial output + consumer spending + international trade, with the final kicker being reduced credit availability. Currently, interest rates are relatively high (historically middling) which has effectively restricted consumer credit, while the national credit rating has fallen.

[–] drstewart 3 days ago

You can't just randomly exclude entire sectors of an economy.

[–] Supermancho 2 days ago

The model is as useful as the predictions. The factor by which the GDP is boosted based on tech stocks valuations is the random factor. Including tech speculation has distorted the published GDP. Granted, tech speculation is cause for increased velocity, without commensurate production.

Modeling that the GDP goes up because people are buying bitcoin would be the equivalent of the AI investment effect. A key difference being that the AI companies are currently included in the calculation and bitcoin is not. I don't mean to imply that the AI companies are transparently ponzi schemes, but they are all massively overvalued. The net GDP effect should be very very small if not negative, while the valuations are being used to justify a growing GDP that would otherwise have obviously fallen.

[–] HumblyTossed 3 days ago

Definitely

[–] AnimalMuppet 3 days ago

If they actually had a need for those software engineers right now, they wouldn't play that game. (Or rather, if they could make more money by having them create something than they could save on wages from playing the game.)

But at that point, they almost should be laying off engineers, even without playing any such game.

[–] geodel 3 days ago

To me it does not seem like any bigger conspiracy than people always wanted to pay less and earn more at the same time.