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.
Letâs talk about âequities shortagesâ which are no more real than âlabor shortagesâ. That way every S.O.B. who whines about a labor shortage will hear: âOh. Itâs because of the Stock Share Shortage. You just have to print new shares of your company to get your workers energized.â
Letâs stop this âlabor shortageâ dead in its tracks. Letâs not print visas. Itâs 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
On X
2009
New Topic: "What's your vision of true academic freedom?" [Asks @Philip_Girvan.]
An old joke about the diference between the Soviet and US constitutions. Both give freedom to dissent. The US gives freedom the day after.
Academic freedom is about making secure heroes out of Margot O'toole, Doug Prasher & Nassim Taleb instead of pushing them to the periphery.
Academic freedom is freedom to invite a senior colleague to self-copulate for inserting himself before your name on YOUR paper..and survive.
Academic freedom comes from the academic *obligation* to schedule lectures if you have even the possibility of strong disruptive results.
Academic freedom entails a right for a non-expert theorist of high ability to cross boundaries and live on merit without seeking permission.
Academic freedom is the insulation from threat or want to continue in good standing for *any* and *all* contributions & reasoned dissent.
What few people admit is that opposing "String Theory", "The Great Moderation", "Scientist Shortages" etc...leads to excommunication.
This was best put by @BretWeinstein: "Selection is to be feared only when just individuals are prevented from returning costs."
So @ahaspel asks what institutional reforms are needed (which was where I was headed when a birthday party occured in physical reality).
First of all, I am focused primarily on science. If universities can't provide Academic freedom, science needs to move homes.
Next: Basic research in science is a public good (inexhaustible and inexcludible). Therefore we need higher levels of public funding.
To maintain academic freedom we need to move resources from what is falsely called 'scientific training' to the compensation of researchers.
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.).
Graduate training is actually much shorter than assumed. Typically one is a graduate 'student' in year 1,2 of a PhD and working thereafter.
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.
We must also fund entirely different sorts of people. Without Huxleys, Grossmans, & Hardys you don't get Darwins, Einsteins, & Ramanujans.
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.
Research & Teaching in Universities are as perfectly linked as Skiing & Shooting in the Biathalon: tenuously for all but Professors / Finns.
Last point for now: Freedom for academics is precisely freedom from academics. A real marketplace of ideas beats the pants off peer review.
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.
On May 23, 2003 an extraordinary talk at NAS called âExactly Backwards: Scientific Manpower Theoryâ was given.There is no record of this.
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.
The talk presented evidence to the National Academy of Sciences that NAS & @NSF partnered to manipulate markets over scientist salaries.
Now ask yourself why would @NSF be trying to weaken American scientists? Why would NAS help? How would NSF dependent scientists self-defend?
Gauge theoretic economics interest has come recently from @mathpunk @dabacon @diffeomacx @riemanmzeta @tylercowen @ahaspel etc... Loving it.
I should say that Gauge theoretic economics is also all about academic freedom, quashed as it was by the rennegade Boskin Commission idiocy.
2017
Spoiler Alert: Our US 50+ Year âSTEM labor shortageâ is *totally* 100% faked & rigged ... by the same political class that rigs primaries.
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
@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg First of all, nice to meet you Tom.
Iâm 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 donât speak the language of the academy. I think we can translate.
@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg 1/ Great. It sounds like we agree on a lot. Letâs agree we shouldnât 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.
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 thereâs awareness, but no loss of confidence in experts.
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.
4/ Here again, lay people believe that there *are* experts but that without special access (e.g. lobbyists) they canât 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/ 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.
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 âSTEM shortageâ to lower tech wages.
/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.
@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.
@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.
@RadioFreeTom @SamHarrisOrg
These are from trade theorist @paulkrugman in his âProtectionist Momentâ piece. Iâm not trying to win here. Iâm worried that you arenât watching how this neo-liberal edifice is being abandoned because the expertâs public stance was a lie.
@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 donât believe in such things.
2019
Nothing would be better for the United States than a 50 year dire âlabor shortageâ without a drop of âlegislative relief.â This will never happen. Nevertheless, itâs important to laugh at industries pretending to believe in labor shortages in mkt economies with wage mechanisms.
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
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.
Nearly half of US female scientists leave full-time science after first child
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.
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.
What we need is a multi-decade âlabor shortageâ 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.
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 âTrainingâ
Weâve 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.
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
Interesting that so many assume this is referring to US situation. I guess the problem is widespread
@whereisdaz Itâs originally driven by the US and the Cold War. But it spread to every developed nation with a decent scientific research enterprise. Itâs now world wide as a problem.
We are our so often own worst enemies
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 theyâre workers. Then as post-docs we âapprenticeâ them for more extraction.
Then after multiple PDs we push them out. https://x.com/locoono2/status/1117450902946729985
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.
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 â90s when it felt like he and I plus 2 folks at the Sloan foundation were the only STEM PhDs who hadnât been zombified by the STEM shortage myth.
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.
Pipeline = âpush out the supply labor curveâ to make wages FALL.
Wouldnât you want to push up the Demand Curve to make talent crazy expensive and want STEM employers in pain so they would hire every competent soul?
Politicians/employers always get this wrong. Huh. I Wonder why.
Women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ Americans are often underrepresented in STEM jobs. Fixing the problem starts with investing in our classrooms. That is why Iâve introduced a bill to build a pipeline of diverse talent for these good-paying jobs.
Why wouldn't an employer want to increase the pipeline? It's 100% in their interests.
And why wouldnât politicians want to please rich STEM donors rather than poorer STEM workers??
But thatâs so cynical Iâm told. So....letâs forget the whole supply and demand thing and go back once again to concern for the marginalized groups we want to lure into the pipeline...
2020
2021
One of many journalists to wake up to the idea that the US STEM shortage is an employer hoax...but she was open & honest that she had been played. And she may have been first in MSM to call Bullshit.
She was very kind to me for opening her eyes.
I admire her integrity greatly. https://x.com/dabeard/status/dabeard/status/1350967115528994817
Prof. Norm Matloff was one of a tiny group of Left leaning patriots who led the fight against the hollowing out of American science and technology.
This is one hero of mine saluting another from a movement whose story has never been written.
We tried. We failed. But we fought.
She was the first writer in the mainstream press to expose abuse of the H-1B work visa, long before bipartisan recognition of the problems. See this article quoting @EricRWeinstein https://www.sharonlbegley.com/scientists-engineers-will-work-4-food
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.
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.
Unfortunately, I canât live under either. So each of the warring parties thinks Iâm against them & for the other team. In their mentalities if you arenât on their simplistic team you are, de facto, working for the other side. Thereâs no basic concept of *responsible* heterodoxy.
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 âGreat Moderationâ, Great Reset...everywhere institutions want a âconsensusâ.
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.
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 donât exist.
These are the folks who tell you âmasks donât workâ rather than âsave masks for doctors as we forgot to restock them and moved all manufacturing to China like moronsâ. They will then spin on a dime to tell you âOnly bad dumb people donât wear masksâ. This is the worst of Harvard.
So I donât 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 canât control as dangerous.
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 â˘.
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 arenât that good.
Managed Reality ⢠has a weak spot. Itâs not run by our A-team anymore. Fauci isnât Francis Crick. Biden isnât Elon. Janet Yellen isnât Satoshi.
In general, the A-Team is going independent because tech/media/Ed are enforcing way too much conformity through personal destruction.
So why am I worried?
Well, Iâve been trying to save the institutions. Itâs 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.
If I were a tech guy Iâd retreat into wealth. If I were a professor Iâd shut up and collect my salary with job security. If I was a politician or journalist Iâd follow the other sheep.
But Iâm a science guy, an American and a dad. And I want my kids to have a particular future.
Thanks.
2022
âImmigration has no negative effects.â
âI wonât make you pregnant.â
âTwo weeks to flatten the curve.â
âNAFTA is a rising tide lifting all ships.â
âUS STEM employers are facing a deep labor shortage.â
âInflation is transient.â
âCPI is a measure of the COL.â
âIraq has WMD.â
genuinely curious:
the fed has smart people. how were they so wrong about inflation being transient, when it seemed so obvious to most people that it wasn't going to be?
I feel gaslit when grown-ups talk about labor shortages in market economies w wage mechanisms.
Itâs basically an admission that capitalism is meant as a TRICK where workers canât benefit from markets.
Letâs talk about the ongoing equities shortage & printing shares for workers.
Joining @Morning_Joe in a few to discuss the ongoing labor shortage and inflation. Where are Americaâs workers?
You see, longterm labor shortages donât 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.
Letâs print shares & not visas. https://t.co/1BamM9kNEo
Letâs talk about âequities shortagesâ which are no more real than âlabor shortagesâ. That way every S.O.B. who whines about a labor shortage will hear: âOh. Itâs because of the Stock Share Shortage. You just have to print new shares of your company to get your workers energized.â
Letâs stop this âlabor shortageâ dead in its tracks. Letâs not print visas. Itâs 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. đ
If I have 1 piece of advice: Vote for whoever in Congress is most likely to hold PUBLIC hearings on
COVID Origins
Epstein Connection to IC
UFOs
CPI as Tax Increase/SS Reduction
Fake Labor Shortages
DHS meddling in Social Media
Etc.
I donât believe the US is still on the ballot.
2023
2024
2025
We need a new concept, and I donât know what to call it. Cognitive Poisioning by Mid Level National Security/National Interest. Or something. Anybody?
Essentially our national interest infrastructure appears to be wholesale dumping low level cognitive sludge into the public discourse absolutely everywhere. On TECHNICAL issues.
Who came up with this??
How do you expect to get away with it?
Biden is sharp as a tack (anti-neuroscience).
COVID came from a wet market pangolin (anti biology).
The CPI is a Cost of Living measure (anti-mathematical economics).
All humans should be represented equally in all elite activities (anti-Evolution).
There is only one theory in fundamental physics (anti mathematics and physics).
We have labor shortages in STEM (Anti market economics).
Vaccines are absolutely safe (anti-medicine).
Steel Buildings just collapse like that (anti structural engineering).
Etc.
That is bad enough. But somehow, we are willing to absolutely revoke the credentials of any expert who is not in on the fiction via this one crazy tool: reputational destruction.
Here is how it works.
Some collection of your government attached professional colleagues lose control of a cover story. Thatâs their problem. It shouldnât be a âyou problemâ.
Francis Collins and Toni Fauci lost control of a virus cover story. Tough shit boys.
Prof Dale Jorgenson and Senators Moynihan and Packwood lost control of a CPI cost of living story. Shouldnât have cooked the books gentlemen.
The Military lost control of a FAKE UFO special access program. What were you thinking?
The Whitehouse installed a committee to replace a Parkinsonâs president. And you want neuroscientists to lie on behalf of an unelected committee?
You wasted 40 years of physicist putting an end to the career of anyone who wouldnât believe in Ed Witten as the quantum gravity fairy. And that makes the people who called it into crackpots?? Walk us through the logic.
You blew up the world financial system on a story called âThe Great Moderationâ. And this makes those of us who called it into charlatans? How exactly? Be specific.
We canât afford to kill all our strongest minds, all the time on EVERY botched operation.
Letâs face facts. Our national interest folks suck at their jobs if they have to take down people smarter than them to do their work.
Period.
We canât pollute every technical area for national interest. These people just arenât very good or ethical. Iâm sorry.
You canât just pollute all technical fields. You are just bad at your jobs. And we arenât going to cover for you out of modesty any more. Youâve just gotten too agreessixe.
Youâre simply preposterous.
We are better. You are worse. All you have over us is your cloak of covert authority. And that is it. That one thing.
Tough shit, gentlemen in the shadows.
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)