Results for “those new service sector jobs” 205 found
Sunday assorted links
2. Those new Brazilian service sector jobs (in Portuguese).
3. “After Denmark’s Queen Margrethe stripped the royal titles from four of her grandkids, news has surfaced that Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise may suffer the same fate.” Link here.
4. Knausgaard talk on the novel, recommended to me I have not heard it yet. But for this installment of The Norwegian Century you need to ff to about 29:00.
5. AI writes a thread on productivity hacks.
6. The real Stable Diffusion art.
7. Regulating the homeless (Ezra Klein, NYT).
Friday assorted links
1. Report from EA Global DC, mostly about me and Matt Yglesias. Matt’s points made good sense to me.
2. Who is good at prediction and why?
3. British pound back to where it was before the tax cuts were announced.
2022 as the year of AI?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
But the benefits of AI do not accrue only to those in the technology sector. AI makes many goods and services cheaper, and that in turn benefits the poor and disadvantaged. If software routes packages and shipments more efficiently, then transportation costs will be lower. If software and AI programs help economize on the use of electricity, then it will be easier to mitigate climate change. As computational biology improves health care, the sick will benefit.
The people who least need AI are the super-rich. They already can hire armies of servants to manage their obligations, schedules, and so on. They do not need to economize on the use of human labor. The rest of us do, whether directly or indirectly through the businesses we patronize.
Another benefit for lower-income groups is that current manifestations of AI do not usually displace the jobs of the poor. Many poor individuals hold jobs in the service sector or perform manual labor. Those tasks are either hard to automate (a robot gardener?) or, because wages are low, less profitable to automate.
It may be true that the costs of AI in the labor force — displaced jobs — are more visible than the benefits of AI — new jobs and lower prices. So it’s not surprising if AI is not entirely popular.
Recommended.
Wednesday assorted links
2. The latest on severity, from South African data. And a more general Omicron update.
3. Those newer (older?) service sector jobs: “Finding healthcare ‘soul-destroying,’ some turn to online sex work.”
Real consumption must at some point fall
That is the theme of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
The best way to adjudicate competing claims about today’s economy is to consider opportunities for consumption. Over much of the last two years, labor supply contracted significantly, in large part due to the pandemic. That means the economy produced less. If you produce less, sooner or later you have to consume less, too. And if you consume less, you will be dissatisfied with economic conditions, especially in America, where the consumer typically is considered to be king (or queen).
There isn’t any way around this basic logic, no matter what the data say. Even if measured consumption is currently high, at some point it will have to fall relative to expectations. And indeed there are a host of problems, with shortages, supply-chain delays and a sluggish service sector. In a normal year, more Americans would have seen “Dune” on the big screen and gone to concerts. Americans are not quite able to get what they want, and that is obscured in the aggregate statistics.
The biggest messenger for consumption losses is the rate of consumer price inflation, which measured at 6.2% on last reading. Not so many Americans expect to get an offsetting raise…in return, and above-average inflation is likely to continue for a year or two, some would say for longer. So real wages for many millions of Americans will be noticeably lower for the near future, too. That will translate into lower levels of consumption, with the timing of those losses depending on the spending and borrowing plans of individual households.
Add to all this growing and unprecedentedly high debt for the federal government, plus unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security.
Even if they don’t understand the exact economic logic here, most Americans grasp the common-sense truth that inflation and deficits are bad — for them, for their real wages, and for their future opportunities. They are happy to have higher savings in the bank, but they see the treadmill turning ever faster.
Some parts of the labor shortage also qualify as a decline in consumption. One reason for the “great resignation” is that people cannot get the kinds of jobs they want. That too is a manner of enduring lower consumption, even though it does not show up in consumption statistics. It’s not just the unemployed, as many people took jobs they were only marginally happy with. A job might involve a higher risk of Covid exposure than a worker feels comfortable with, or an internship might take place in a largely empty office.
Monday assorted links
1. The roots of why people refuse to engage in win-win thinking.
2. Those new Mozambique service sector jobs: “This musician will sing about your enemies over WhatsApp.”
Saturday assorted links
2. New IMF working paper “Mask Mandates Save Lives,” note pre-Delta.
3. People who have been working two jobs from home (WSJ): “The money is incredible, the 29-year-old software engineer says. So is the stress: “I’ll wake up in the morning and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is the day I’m gonna get found out.’ ”
4. Those new (and temporary) service sector jobs. And circa 2020, NYT publishes Op-Ed from the Taliban, outlining what they in fact want.
Tuesday assorted links
1. Updated data on unicorns, including Chinese numbers.
2. Those new Indian service sector jobs: A CCTV Company Is Paying Remote Workers in India to Yell at Armed Robbers. And Stalin’s Economic Council.
3. NYT profile of Emily Oster.
4. What is ranked-choice voting, and why is NYC using it?
5. More arguments about Tether and crypto stability.
6. Why are so many people writing about social epistemology?
7. Happiness researcher Edward Diener has passed away (NYT).
Friday assorted links
Wednesday assorted links
1. The economics of vending machines.
2. Geneva introducing a minimum wage of $25 an hour.
3. Senegal proceeding with festival that usually attracts four to five million people (NYT).
4. Those new service sector quarantine work for the super-rich jobs. And Covid-19 and acedia.
5. New calculations on what is needed for herd immunity.
6. A much quicker and easier serological test.
7. Lessons from the Israeli second wave. Good stuff, but I would note a common tension found in many discussions. When arguing against herd immunity and “segregate the old” approaches, it is common to note “you can’t stop the young from infecting the old,” though that point in the broader picture does not in fact work against herd immunity approaches.
Tyrone joins…that group…
Many of you ask me for reports of my evil twin brother Tyrone, but of course I demur because I am too embarrassed to pass along his doings. They get worse and worse. Nonetheless, Tyrone said he was going public with this one, so I thought the damage was done in any case. The sad news is that Tyrone is now an active proponent of QAnon. How can he fall for such fallacies and stupidities? He sent me this letter to explain his decision:
Dear Tyler:
You have yourself blogged about the import of child abuse, and asked why it is not condemned more widely, most of all among elites. You even wrote that the right wing ignored the issue — I thought it is time to remedy that! We needed a right-wing movement to protect the world’s most vulnerable citizens, and it turned out that looked like QAnon. Besides, who is more of an elite than I am?
To be sure, the QAnon movement has its excesses, but do not all social movements? At least it attacks criminals rather than defending them. The key question is whether social movements shine a light on abusive practices that need further scrutiny, and there QAnon passes with flying colors.
QAnon truly has attracted attention — just look at all the complaints about Facebook enabling it. In this world you haven’t arrived until someone can turn a criticism of you into a criticism of Facebook.
Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of…stuff…and the world’s elites continued to treat him as normal and to take his money and fly on his plane. He wasn’t cancelled.
Roman Polanski had a successful and feted career after repeatedly doing very bad…stuff.
The sexual abuse of children has turned out to be rampant in the Catholic Church and also in Hollywood.
I saw the new HBO documentary Showbiz Kids: “In my experience, I know a lot of kids that grew up in the industry. And what surprised me when I got older was finding out that pretty much all of the young men were abused in some way, sexually.”
French intellectuals — and was there ever more of an elite than them? — petitioned to repeal age of consent laws so they can do…bad stuff…with less fear of the consequences. (See? Petitions really are wrong!)
By the way, Berlin authorities placed children with pedophiles for thirty years. And that is in Germany, a country with relatively responsible governance.
This is all so sickening I can’t go on any further, and we haven’t even discussed all that goes on over the internet.
There is in fact an epidemic of child abuse, it ruins or seriously damages many millions of lives, and elites are complicit in covering it up and refusing to address the preconditions that generate so much of it. These same elites often downplay or discourage the elevation of social conservatism, one of the few possible regulatory mechanisms society might have. In the very worst situations, these elites are directly complicit in covering up the abuse of children. Many of the elites partake in it themselves.
Which group has done more to publicize these failings than QAnon, the worthy successor to The Jerry Springer Show?
Yes, Yes I know. I do not endorse all of their hypotheses concerning political economy. Maybe Donald Trump will not in fact set all things straight, and perhaps the apocalypse is not around the corner. No, the molesters do not worship Satan, but given their behavior they might as well. Should we lock up all those journalists? I don’t know. Comet Ping Pong was never as good as Pupatella anyway. But look — this is what you get when you build a mass movement. The message does get dumbed down and the crazies climb on board, just as we have Antifa and some other weird groups and demands connected to what are otherwise valuable social marches. Tyler — you have to get used to this new world of internet communications! Walter Cronkite is gone. Either compete or give up, and I’m not willing to do the latter.
For whatever structural reason, elite media seem less obsessed with child abuse as an issue than is “non-elite media.” That is simply a reality we need to work with, and our unwillingness to discard traditional canons of journalism has led to the perpetuation of these abuses for centuries, indeed dating back to the very founding of the American nation.
Haven’t you read Marcuse on repressive tolerance?
And come on, this very serious guy just wrote this, but not about QAnon:
“But actually diving into the sea of trash that is social science gives you a more tangible perspective, a more visceral revulsion, and perhaps even a sense of Lovecraftian awe at the sheer magnitude of it all: a vast landfill—a great agglomeration of garbage extending as far as the eye can see, effluvious waves crashing and throwing up a foul foam of p=0.049 papers. As you walk up to the diving platform, the deformed attendant hands you a pair of flippers. Noticing your reticence, he gives a subtle nod as if to say: “come on then, jump in”.”
The rot runs much deeper than the fallacies of QAnon.
Besides, it seems that the guy behind QAPPANON (don’t ask) is “
And Tyler, I know your criticize me for following these conspiracy theories. But you yourself have written of the need to imagine a future very different from the present and then bring it about? Is that not what a conspiracy tries to do? Do we not need to counter these evil conspiracies with some more benevolent plans?
Most of all, when it comes to evaluating social movements, you can only elevate so many victims at once. Isn’t the notion of children as the true victims the most universal and indeed the only vision that can unify this great nation? People complain about the truth-stretching in QAnon, and OK I get that, but isn’t their real worry the revolutionary re-appropriation of which groups in society can be granted true, #1 victimhood status? Just as Christianity accomplished a similar revaluation way back when? (And look at some of the wacky stuff that they believe — ever read The Book of Revelation Tyler?)
I don’t want QAnon to be in charge, but what other tool do we have to force elites to deal with this issue? Aren’t these just Saul Alinsky tactics? QAnon isn’t going to control Congress anyway.
Besides, is not apophenia one of the roots of creativity? Have not Millenarian movements played key and sometimes beneficial roles in Western history? Is not Christianity itself a Millenarian movement? How about all that weird ass shit on the back of your dollar bill?
Child abuse is the #1 issue in society right now so…pick your side! If you don’t like it, stop your silly blogging and come up with a better anti-child abuse movement.
TC again: See? This is why Tyrone doesn’t appear much on this blog any more. It used to be a funny or sometimes even thought-provoking schtick, but these days things are so out of control you’ve got to stick with message discipline. You can’t just let one speculation lead to the next, because we have so many crazies with major league internet platforms.
Rationalism. Fact-checking. Only one family member at a time (sorry sis!).
Please return tomorrow, or perhaps later in the day, for a proper analysis of the incidence of property tax reform in eastern Colorado. And perhaps there will be some new service sector jobs as well — you can apply! In the meantime, let’s hope that Tyrone’s QAnon fandom isn’t one of them.
And no, I’m not going to try to reenter the Philippines.
Will the coronavirus make the digital divide worse?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
Now consider issues beyond specific user groups. The U.S. will almost certainly need to introduce a “track and trace” system, using information technology, preferably with privacy safeguards. One version of this idea uses geolocation methods, which tracks where people are in physical space and sends individuals a text message if they come into close contact with others diagnosed with Covid-19.
That technology requires participants to have a smartphone. The federal government probably will not mandate smartphone usage, which would both be politically unpopular and difficult to enforce. Nonetheless, businesses are likely to turn to such schemes to increase workplace safety. But again, exactly who already owns or afford a smartphone? Some of the jobs with the closest physical contact, such as service jobs, employ relatively low paid workers.
Companies may well decide to help workers buy smartphones, perhaps with government subsidies too. But that would then make having a smartphone a job requirement, including in the retail and public sectors.
This would create a new and in some ways more serious digital divide. Imagine you want to visit your local shopping mall. Its owners might require that you subscribe to one of the Covid-19 tracing apps. Or imagine not being able to get your license renewed without a smartphone certifying your health status.
All of a sudden the U.S. will have a new segregation — between those who have smartphones and those who don’t. If you’re on the wrong side of that divide, many places and services will be hard if not impossible to reach.
And to close:
It is plausible that the U.S. could end up with 10% or more of the population exiled from many key institutions of American life — simply because they lack the right kind of technology.
Don’t get me wrong; the digital divide deserves the additional attention soon to come its way. The trick will be ensuring that any proposed solutions don’t just trade one kind of divide for another.
I can’t even figure out how to work those parking spots that are “app only” for the parking meter. Pity me!
Friday assorted links
1. The Toy Tamer: those new service sectors jobs markets in everything.
2. Would you give up your airplane seat for Wole Soyinka?
3. Why doesn’t “tock-tick” sound right to your ears?
Will monetary tightening halt the labor market recovery?
My latest Bloomberg column is on that topic, here is one bit:
…these days more and more economists, especially those with Keynesian sympathies, are insisting that higher legal minimum wages don’t lower employment much, if at all. If higher real wages don’t much hurt employment, we shouldn’t expect lower real wages to much boost employment. This “new wisdom” on minimum wages contradicts Keynesian labor economics and implies inflation won’t much boost employment, if at all.
And:
One thing we do know about inflation is that voters hate it. Economists sometimes treat this belief as irrational, assuming that workers in aggregate will get raises to compensate for the higher prices. This is true for many top performers, whose income growth would exceed inflation regardless. But a lot of other workers are concentrated in somewhat bureaucratic service-sector jobs, they have weak bargaining power, and their pay is not indexed to inflation. If the rate of price inflation is 4 percent rather than 2 percent, for many people that means their take-home pay is worth 2 percentage points less than it would have been under modest inflation.
And this:
Most discussions about monetary policy aren’t about economic theory (properly understood) at all. Rather they are about blaming the system, as people feel a sense of outrage that somehow someone isn’t trying hard enough to fix basic problems. Most of the claims out there, when put under the microscope of reason, dissolve into a beautiful, brilliant agnosticism.
Here is the full column. Note that Bloomberg now has a paywall, with I believe ten free articles per month. Here is information on subscription offers, I urge you all to increase the velocity of money.
Monday assorted links
1. Virginia gets serious about congestion pricing on Rt.66, some tolls $30 or maybe higher?
2. Union Square chess hustling, circa 2017. Those old service sector jobs, but updated.
3. China Titanic markets in everything: “For a premium price of 200,000 yuan ($30,000), a guest can play the role of Rose, one of the movie’s star-crossed protagonists.”
5. “…☺ does not necessarily look smiling to everyone.”
6. Claims about Industrial Revolution wages.
7. Some written-out summary points from my podcast with David Perell.