<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>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>Not sure if those are fair analogies, nor an accurate representation of the choices. I live in a social democratic country and low unemployment has always been the cornerstone of social democratic policy. I associate basic income more with liberal politicians.&lt;p&gt;There are a lot ways in which a job centric approach would affect economic  policy which doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily mean hole diggers. E.g. in my home country Norway it was seen by the social democrats that maintain an industrial base and the jobs that came with that was crucial. That is why strict rules on usage of oil money in budgets were devised to hinder deindustrialization due to inflation and loss of industrial jobs.&lt;p&gt;When the oil was found, the conservatives in Norway were ready to hand all the work over to foreign companies. Norway had no expertise at all on oil drilling at the time. But the social democratic government decided that we should have our own oil industry and companies. They established schools, research and a state oil company to reach those goals. Some of the rules had similarities to what China has done to build up their industry with e.g. partnership rules. In fact the Chinese came to Norway decades ago to learn about our policies on this area (undoubtedly they went many other places as well). The previous Chinese experience was that foreign companies owned all the industry, knowledge and took all the profits.&lt;p&gt;The free market reforms in China has undoubtedly produced much prosperity. But it also seem clear to me that China including every other successful country has had some form of industrial policy. None of the successful asian tigers really follow a laissez-faire system. Pundits will argue they could have been more successful if they did, but I am not convinced.</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>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>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></comment>