Labor Shortages

We've talked about the problem that the National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation faked a labor shortage during the 1980s under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, passing to Eric Bloch, as head of the NSF, and passing to Peter House as head of the Policy Research and Analysis Division. We've heard nothing on this front, even though we claim that there was a study done in 1986, that clearly showed that we were going to fake a science and engineering shortage that could have been cured by the market, which is what happens in the market economy.

- Eric Weinstein on The Portal Ep. 40

I feel gaslit when grown-ups talk about labor shortages in market economies w wage mechanisms.

It's basically an admission that capitalism is meant as a TRICK where workers can't benefit from markets.

Let's talk about the ongoing equities shortage & printing shares for workers.

You see, longterm labor shortages don't exist in large market economies.

But the news media counts on workers being too dumb to understand the wage mechanism. So everyone in media pretends to believe in labor shortages. Like they were jackalopes.

Let's print shares & not visas.

Let’s talk about “equities shortages” which are no more real than “labor shortages”. That way every S.O.B. who whines about a labor shortage will hear: “Oh. It’s because of the Stock Share Shortage. You just have to print new shares of your company to get your workers energized.”

Let’s stop this “labor shortage” dead in its tracks. Let’s not print visas. It’s time to recognize workers are suffering from a *share shortage*. We need to print shares not visas and add them to compensation packages.

Bingo! Look at that: totally fictitious problem solved.

- Eric Weinstein on X, August 19, 2022

The mythical Jackalope as analogue for labor shortages in large market economies with wage mechanisms.

On X

2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

New Topic: "What's your vision of true academic freedom?" [Asks @Philip_Girvan.]

8:04 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

An old joke about the diference between the Soviet and US constitutions. Both give freedom to dissent. The US gives freedom the day after.

8:10 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is about making secure heroes out of Margot O'toole, Doug Prasher & Nassim Taleb instead of pushing them to the periphery.

8:17 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is freedom to invite a senior colleague to self-copulate for inserting himself before your name on YOUR paper..and survive.

8:22 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom comes from the academic *obligation* to schedule lectures if you have even the possibility of strong disruptive results.

8:24 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom entails a right for a non-expert theorist of high ability to cross boundaries and live on merit without seeking permission.

8:27 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Academic freedom is the insulation from threat or want to continue in good standing for *any* and *all* contributions & reasoned dissent.

8:31 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

What few people admit is that opposing "String Theory", "The Great Moderation", "Scientist Shortages" etc...leads to excommunication.

8:37 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

This was best put by @BretWeinstein: "Selection is to be feared only when just individuals are prevented from returning costs."

8:48 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So @ahaspel asks what institutional reforms are needed (which was where I was headed when a birthday party occured in physical reality).

10:55 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

First of all, I am focused primarily on science. If universities can't provide Academic freedom, science needs to move homes.

11:42 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Next: Basic research in science is a public good (inexhaustible and inexcludible). Therefore we need higher levels of public funding.

11:43 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

To maintain academic freedom we need to move resources from what is falsely called 'scientific training' to the compensation of researchers.

11:48 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

To get strong individuals, our target for researchers should be something like MA by 21-22 PhD by 25-26, permanent job by 26-28 (approx.).

11:57 PM · Dec 19, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Graduate training is actually much shorter than assumed. Typically one is a graduate 'student' in year 1,2 of a PhD and working thereafter.

12:04 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Raising PhDs should be Eusocial. Giving students to PI's in a 1 on 1 relationship is like parking choir boys with priests. Better in theory.

12:06 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

We must also fund entirely different sorts of people. Without Huxleys, Grossmans, & Hardys you don't get Darwins, Einsteins, & Ramanujans.

12:14 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

A central point: scientists are supposed to be K-selected but universities are hell bent for leather to r-select PhDs.

Yet that's insane.

1:40 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Research & Teaching in Universities are as perfectly linked as Skiing & Shooting in the Biathalon: tenuously for all but Professors / Finns.

1:53 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Last point for now: Freedom for academics is precisely freedom from academics. A real marketplace of ideas beats the pants off peer review.

1:59 AM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Something occurs to me. If you've never had reason to test your own academic freedom, you may have absolutely no idea what animated me.

1:55 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

On May 23, 2003 an extraordinary talk at NAS called “Exactly Backwards: Scientific Manpower Theory” was given.There is no record of this.

2:29 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The talk was so extraordinary that it was repeated again at NAS 11 days later on June 3, 2003. Again there is no meaningful record of this.

2:33 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The talk presented evidence to the National Academy of Sciences that NAS & @NSF partnered to manipulate markets over scientist salaries.

2:38 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Now ask yourself why would @NSF be trying to weaken American scientists? Why would NAS help? How would NSF dependent scientists self-defend?

8:11 PM · Dec 20, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Gauge theoretic economics interest has come recently from @mathpunk @dabacon @diffeomacx @riemanmzeta @tylercowen @ahaspel etc... Loving it.

3:02 AM · Dec 21, 2009

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I should say that Gauge theoretic economics is also all about academic freedom, quashed as it was by the rennegade Boskin Commission idiocy.

3:11 AM · Dec 21, 2009

2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Spoiler Alert: Our US 50+ Year “STEM labor shortage” is *totally* 100% faked & rigged ... by the same political class that rigs primaries.

2:15 PM · Nov 3, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Just listened to my friend @SamHarrisOrg w/ @RadioFreeTom.

I was unexpectedly bewildered. Given the right forum, it would be an honor & privilege to steelman the substantive case against experts & their institutions into coastal-friendly PhD-style expert terminology & language. https://t.co/qVf4udNnco

1:46 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg First of all, nice to meet you Tom.

I’m concerned that many of those rejecting the highly trained, experienced & credentialed are trying to send a cogent & reasonable message that can be strawmanned because they don’t speak the language of the academy. I think we can translate.

2:08 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg 1/ Great. It sounds like we agree on a lot. Let’s agree we shouldn’t attack real expertise or fetishize the simple wisdom of laypeople in expert matters. What I think is happening is that lay people are catching on that they are being priced out of the market for expert loyalty.

4:59 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

2/ I think most lay people believe in experts...and the new words for expert are personal, private, etc. They believe experts are now private doctors. Personal chefs. Private pilots. Private police and fire depts. So there’s awareness, but no loss of confidence in experts.

5:07 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

3/ This then leads to the public experts & intellectuals. Here laypeople are increasingly conscious of real games played in back rooms & razzledazzle at the podium. This is the realm of the Esoteric/Exoteric experts w public theories for the out-group & real ones for insiders.

5:13 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

4/ Here again, lay people believe that there *are* experts but that without special access (e.g. lobbyists) they can’t command the expected loyalty of a public servants and thinkers. Who, after all, is informing the public about the minute to minute changes in a tax bill?

5:17 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

5/ If I take what I saw as the big three trust breakers in the 2016 election:

I) Free Trade
II) immigration
III) Terror

Each was defended by experts to the public by a suite of out and out lies that were maddeningly self evident. As if outsiders and morons were the same thing.

5:24 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

6/ In all three cases there was essentially a reality embargo to the public by expert cartels. Krugman called the case for freer trade an elite scam. The Immigration act of 1990 *actually* involved an expert conspiracy to promote a fictitious “STEM shortage” to lower tech wages.

5:38 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

/End And in the case of terror, it was so weird that politicians would look for any motive except *religion* for some reason that must be from some policy. The level of fiction given to the public was beyond insulting. It was outright derision & contempt. And the derided saw it.

5:43 AM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg Okay. I'm claiming that if we put the adjective 'private' in front of nouns associated w expertise (physician --> private physician, school --> private school, etc.) you'll find lay people believing it represents real expertise & thus an unfair advantage. They believe in experts.

4:04 PM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg What they intuitively don't believe in as much are their experts: ones they pay for/elect (H&R Bloch, their HMO, their senator etc..) or the ones provided for them (news analysts, columnists, public intellectuals). And this distrust is about expert loyalty, not expertise itself.

4:23 PM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg

These are from trade theorist @paulkrugman in his “Protectionist Moment” piece. I’m not trying to win here. I’m worried that you aren’t watching how this neo-liberal edifice is being abandoned because the expert’s public stance was a lie.

9:22 PM · Dec 16, 2017

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg @paulkrugman What are your thoughts here @RadioFreeTom? I can go into detail on a number of these. We could do the fake STEM shortage backed by the @NSF and @theNASciences if you don’t believe in such things.

5:42 PM · Dec 17, 2017

2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Nothing would be better for the United States than a 50 year dire “labor shortage” without a drop of “legislative relief.” This will never happen. Nevertheless, it’s important to laugh at industries pretending to believe in labor shortages in mkt economies with wage mechanisms.

3:25 PM · Feb 12, 2019

zerohedge

@zerohedge

US Job Opening Soar To All Time High: 800K More Than Unemployed Workers https://zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-12/us-job-opening-soar-all-time-high-800k-more-unemployed-workers

3:19 PM · Feb 12, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

This is the elephant in the lab.

A secret reason (which we collected anonymously multiple times at NBER/ASCB) for delaying tenure decisions beyond healthy fertility is departmental fear of committing to top women in research for fear they will find motherhood more fulfilling.

4:10 PM · Feb 26, 2019

Sabine Hossenfelder

@skdh

Nearly half of US female scientists leave full-time science after first child

11:33 AM · Feb 26, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

You can blame the Principal Investigators who told us this (both male & female). You can blame the universities. You can blame the messenger. But we need to talk about getting STEM moms a LOT more money for help in the house & make more allowances for staying home for 5-10 years.

4:10 PM · Feb 26, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

And yes, Dads can be more present. But before you go too far down that road, consider that some of the STEM women we spoke to said that they would have WANTED to be at home, particularly with little children (<7) and what they really wanted was a way back to research afterwards.

4:10 PM · Feb 26, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

What we need is a multi-decade “labor shortage” in STEM that brings technical employers howling in pain about employee wage demands. Family demands. Maternal demands. The answer is simple: in STEM the wrong people are in pain. It should be our beloved administrators & employers.

4:17 PM · Feb 26, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The extractive structures suffused throughout Higher Ed are on death watch for collapse:

Grant Overhead
Student Debt Slavery
Far Above Inflation Tuition Hikes
Administrator Displacement of Profs
Prestige Journal Premiums
Labor reclassified as “Training”

https://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-System/245798

9:32 PM · Mar 1, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

We’ve been lying about a shortage of scientists continuously since Sputnik. We have too many scientists relative to our anemic level of interest in paying for the basic research that created our modern economy.

Why do we believe a >60YO lie? Because of who tells it.

Scientists.

Dr Darren Saunders

@whereisdaz

Job opportunities for science graduates have failed to match the push to get more students to study science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM). https://smh.com.au/business/workplace/glut-in-demand-for-science-graduates-challenges-stem-hype-20190327-p517zj.html

10:26 PM · Apr 13, 2019

3:07 PM · Apr 14, 2019

Dr Darren Saunders

@whereisdaz

Interesting that so many assume this is referring to US situation. I guess the problem is widespread

5:30 AM · Apr 14, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

@whereisdaz It’s originally driven by the US and the Cold War. But it spread to every developed nation with a decent scientific research enterprise. It’s now world wide as a problem.

6:31 AM · Apr 15, 2019

Dr Darren Saunders

@whereisdaz

We are our so often own worst enemies

7:21 AM · Apr 15, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

We train undergraduates in STEM. That gives science professors a salary. Then as graduate students, profs make them teach & do their research work while denying they’re workers. Then as post-docs we ‘apprentice’ them for more extraction.

Then after multiple PDs we push them out. https://x.com/locoono2/status/1117450902946729985

3:42 PM · Apr 14, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The tweet quoted was apparently deleted. It asked why scientists would want to glut their own market and drive wages down. The answer is that we glut the bottom of the pyramid and make sure that those people used to glut the entry never reach the top of the pyramid to compete.

3:46 PM · Apr 14, 2019

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Want to follow an unsung hero?

Norm has been fighting the lies of the academy as a STEM professor for years. There were times in the ‘90s when it felt like he and I plus 2 folks at the Sloan foundation were the only STEM PhDs who hadn’t been zombified by the STEM shortage myth.

Norm Matloff

@matloff

Some years ago, some grad students sued UC, claiming they were workers. Then someone from my campus administration ordered faculty to disagree. Yes, you read this right. Of course, we just ignored them.

3:50 PM · Apr 14, 2019

4:02 PM · Apr 14, 2019

2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Thanks for the invitation. I can try to explain my concern.

There really *is* a problem w MAGA, Trump, Qanon & conspiracy theories running rampant. And it will result in death & destruction if it spins out of control.

However it is being fueled by those who claim to fight it.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

CBR_wick

@CBR_wick

Hi @EricRWeinstein. Can you please explain to the public why you would be preemptive like this in a way that seems to contradict your value system? 🙏

12:42 AM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

The entire war over fact checking is a war of 2 low resolution teams.

One team wants absolute freedom to spread wild eyed theories that just about everything is a psyop or a false flag.

The other team wants to impose institutional consensus reality on everyone via media & tech.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Unfortunately, I can’t live under either. So each of the warring parties thinks I’m against them & for the other team. In their mentalities if you aren’t on their simplistic team you are, de facto, working for the other side. There’s no basic concept of *responsible* heterodoxy.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

No the Freemasons do not run everything on behalf of pedophile reptilians who faked Sandy Hook with crisis actors.

Yes there are/were conspiracies behind Epstein, H1B, @MSNBC, PPE, climate science, the “Great Moderation”, Great Reset...everywhere institutions want a “consensus”.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Having spent a good portion of my 20s at Harvard, I know *exactly* how this game works. Our betters sit down and try to figure out how to control others behind closed doors. They see themselves as the intrinsically enlightened people who need to do the thinking for all of us.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

When they wanted to cut our Social Security payments & raise our taxes they opted to try to change the CPI rather than pass legislation. When they wanted to pay less for scientists they knew to keep *silent* about NSF Labor Shortage claims even though such shortages don’t exist.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

These are the folks who tell you “masks don’t work” rather than “save masks for doctors as we forgot to restock them and moved all manufacturing to China like morons”. They will then spin on a dime to tell you “Only bad dumb people don’t wear masks”. This is the worst of Harvard.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So I don’t want Alex Jones and Qanon nor do I want @TwitterSafety, @msnbc and @Harvard. I see them as very different forms of the same thing: people who want to take away our ability to see clearly.

And, I assure you, @Harvard tries to paint anyone it can’t control as dangerous.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So, my belief is that anyone who rejects/questions Davos, Consensus Reality, Institutional Narrative, Public Health Campaigns, High Immigration, Peer Review, Primary Election Coverage, Trust & Safety...will be treated as Alex Jones sooner or Later.

This is Managed Reality ™.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

I cannot live in Managed Reality ™ because I think it defeats the purpose of being a human being. It negates being an American. It abdicates responsibility for our children.

I have defeated Harvard about half the times we have fought. How? Because they just aren’t that good.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Managed Reality ™ has a weak spot. It’s not run by our A-team anymore. Fauci isn’t Francis Crick. Biden isn’t Elon. Janet Yellen isn’t Satoshi.

In general, the A-Team is going independent because tech/media/Ed are enforcing way too much conformity through personal destruction.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

So why am I worried?

Well, I’ve been trying to save the institutions. It’s probably doomed, but almost no one is trying to do what I do: rescue the institutions from their death spiral by reinserting their critics in positions of prominence (eg Chomsky at MIT).

Hence my fear.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

If I were a tech guy I’d retreat into wealth. If I were a professor I’d shut up and collect my salary with job security. If I was a politician or journalist I’d follow the other sheep.

But I’m a science guy, an American and a dad. And I want my kids to have a particular future.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Eric Weinstein

@EricRWeinstein

Thanks.

3:50 PM · Feb 12, 2021

Related Pages

• Academic Freedom
• Eilberg Amendment (1976)
• How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers
• IMMACT90
• Immigration
• Issues of Legislation and Merit in Scientific Labor Markets
• Migration For The Benefit of All: Towards a New Paradigm for Migrant Labor
• National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)