<story><title>Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/opinion/andy-groves-warning-to-silicon-valley.html?action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;region=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atom-morgan</author><text>And when they&amp;#x27;re done? What about the jobs!</text></item><item><author>tw04</author><text>Given the absolutely embarrassing state of our country, hole diggers are exactly what we need.  Legitimately go pay someone to dig holes all day and lay single-mode fiber to every home.  Pay them to turn a wrench replacing support brackets on a bridge.&lt;p&gt;The Works program was the single most successful employer in this country&amp;#x27;s history and we replaced it with welfare because &amp;quot;unemployment is low and we don&amp;#x27;t need it anymore&amp;quot;.  Stupidity.  The US is a prime example of exactly how a government focused on job creation can be a raving success!</text></item><item><author>luso_brazilian</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Although a valid concern putting &amp;quot;job creation&amp;quot; as a goal for governments can (and in a lot of occurrences in recent history, did) backfire spectacularly.&lt;p&gt;In the most reductive analogy it creates incentive for the government to create &amp;quot;hole diggers&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;hole fillers&amp;quot; type of jobs that, in aggregate, generate very few useful work while fulfilling this basic goal of job creation.&lt;p&gt;I believe this &amp;quot;job creation as priority&amp;quot; approach is inferior to both the &amp;quot;laissez-faire&amp;quot; capitalist alternative and the &amp;quot;basic income&amp;quot; social democratic one.&lt;p&gt;As an example of its dangers it suffices to see the kafkaesque process of fund allocation (and sourcing) for the public funded aerospace industry, both the military procurement (fighter jets, bombers) and the civilian NASA one.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jernfrost</author><text>While a job might not produce anything of value to a customer, I think it is often forgotten that a job also has the dual purpose of skills training.&lt;p&gt;People doing &amp;quot;useless&amp;quot; jobs might acquire the skills to do other and more useful jobs in the future. Keeping people unemployed has a high cost in the form of loss of skills over time, mental health etc.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t keep things going you might risk losing some people forever as their skills become so obsolete and their motivation and work capacity destroyed.&lt;p&gt;Companies will usually not higher long term unemployed so that is why many people can get permanently lost to the labour market.</text></comment>
<story><title>Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/opinion/andy-groves-warning-to-silicon-valley.html?action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;region=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atom-morgan</author><text>And when they&amp;#x27;re done? What about the jobs!</text></item><item><author>tw04</author><text>Given the absolutely embarrassing state of our country, hole diggers are exactly what we need.  Legitimately go pay someone to dig holes all day and lay single-mode fiber to every home.  Pay them to turn a wrench replacing support brackets on a bridge.&lt;p&gt;The Works program was the single most successful employer in this country&amp;#x27;s history and we replaced it with welfare because &amp;quot;unemployment is low and we don&amp;#x27;t need it anymore&amp;quot;.  Stupidity.  The US is a prime example of exactly how a government focused on job creation can be a raving success!</text></item><item><author>luso_brazilian</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Although a valid concern putting &amp;quot;job creation&amp;quot; as a goal for governments can (and in a lot of occurrences in recent history, did) backfire spectacularly.&lt;p&gt;In the most reductive analogy it creates incentive for the government to create &amp;quot;hole diggers&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;hole fillers&amp;quot; type of jobs that, in aggregate, generate very few useful work while fulfilling this basic goal of job creation.&lt;p&gt;I believe this &amp;quot;job creation as priority&amp;quot; approach is inferior to both the &amp;quot;laissez-faire&amp;quot; capitalist alternative and the &amp;quot;basic income&amp;quot; social democratic one.&lt;p&gt;As an example of its dangers it suffices to see the kafkaesque process of fund allocation (and sourcing) for the public funded aerospace industry, both the military procurement (fighter jets, bombers) and the civilian NASA one.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tw04</author><text>When they&amp;#x27;re done they start all over again.  Unless you&amp;#x27;ve invented some magical material that never needs replacing it will have broken down by the time they finish.  It&amp;#x27;s not like we have so many unemployed people that we&amp;#x27;re going to replace&amp;#x2F;upgrade every piece of infrastructure that needs it in a year.</text></comment>