bostonbubble.com

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

When a market goes through contractions people become anxious about job security. People that get paid more than what they are worth tend to see market corrections. However certain industries have pretty good infrastructure and influence to keep their income levels up. People who control money, health care, politics and those that organize themselves sometimes have a stronger presence. However, when times are good, the IT Engineer isn't bird dogging the Union Government worker's salary levels, but when he has to work long hours just to stay in the game, it is going to piss the hell out of him to see Unions getting sweetheart deals like exemptions on their Caddilac Health Care Plans.

Man I listened to a good portion of that link that Kadrian posted and man, if that is true it is unbelievable. Basically it talked about how some of the auto plants controlled by Unions were run like prisons; people would get drunk, get high, have sex, fall asleep etc. And sure, I can see a lot of people in competitive industries having a real issue with seeing these same people wanting to exploit the public safety net. A side note is that NPR makes a sport out of bashing the United States. Anything that frames us as being weak and lazy they will run the story. What they don't realize is that although they are very Left leaning, they don't realize that the Unions are a big plank in the Democratic Party.

Just like the value propositions in education, home value exist, we are also seeing debate on the value of certain roles in society. I think it takes a handful of years to correct. I think a lot of people got into IT fifteen, twenty years ago because they thought they'd make a ton of money because the first IT Engineers did so you got a glut in the market. We got a glut of architects, real estate agents, etc. Now you're going to see a ton of people wanting government jobs because people today are saying how stupid they were to work in the private sector when they could have worked 1/3 the effort and gotten twice as far ahead.

I think 2010 will be about control of Congress. Obama put in a big Union Lawyer to be on the National Labor Relations Board in a recess appointment....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a6lxdPTFhd_k

When so many people understand that the Unions are killing us and bloating government, to do this appointment during a recess is begging for backlash. It's like when we're overspending, their solution is to spend more, and when we need to purge Unions because they are driving up costs, they are making them more powerful. It's not just politics, it's like if you want to win you put the people on the court that can put points on the board and if we want to win, we need to get the slugs off the court.

BD · Guest

I'm not going to get into a pissing match with you guys, except to say:
You have no idea what you're talking about. Unless you've been in the classroom, you can't opine with any authority. It's a tough job, period.

BTW, I'm a former software engineer and current math teacher.

And isn't this supposed to be a real estate message boeard?

Kaidran · Joined: 17 Mar 2010 Posts: 289

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have a report showing just how bad work in an American car plant was because of the union protection, without showing American workers were bad. The GM bankruptcy is surely a demonstration that the market decided that GM was not well run. Would not the ability to admit when we are wrong be a good thing in your firm handshake, steely gaze world?

The messages I got were more that the plant was terrible but it was turned around spectacularly by good leadership and cooperation. Also the failure at GM was at every level of management, so not just a problem with the Union. The problems seemed more caused by separation and protectionism from both the union and management. Also nobody believed that they could be out of work and without it nobody felt motivated to change.

BD: it gets diverted quickly because most people here have had the same RE arguments 50 times. What made you want to be a teacher?

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Yes it is a real estate board, but the mental calculus gives you a real sense of the predisposition of people's behavior.

For example, in the late 90's more and more stay at home moms were going to work and salaries started to go up. This economic activity along with lowered mortgage rates born the housing bubble. People saw their future as steep trajectory upward, overextended and had very little emergency funds because the market was plentiful. When you talk to a lot of people and you see them afraid for their jobs, then you can easily guess that people won't be extending themselves very much and making sure that they have a padded emergency fund.

BD, ignore the details about the arguments about the value propositions of different jobs in the market, but deposit the knowledge what people are weighing. If your buying or selling you can understand what people are marketing. An "Immune Town" the guys here have defined as a town that doesn't lose value because yuppies will always line up to send their kids to their school systems. This year, people are evaluating the fact that a neighboring town can have the identical house selling for $250K less and with this new price structure and overall thinking that the economy is going to shrink further, it is causing even yuppies who are predisposed to marching along with the program to reconsider their own conventional wisdom.

Part of marketing is delving into the minds of the people buying and selling. Don't get caught up on the actual points people are making, think about WHAT subject and what issues they are weighing and try to get a sense of how much value they are adding. It is amazing how looking at these things can give you insight...

jfunk138 · Joined: 27 Mar 2010 Posts: 10

Boston ITer · Joined: 11 Jan 2010 Posts: 269

GenXer · Joined: 20 Feb 2009 Posts: 703

I don't think I'm jealous of teachers. It is a hard job. And I wouldn't want to be a teacher in Boston. But which jobs are easier? This doesn't mean that the job I chose is any easier - it only means that I didn't pick the teacher's job because it would not have worked for me. I'm sure that I will reconsider someday - I like to teach, and I was a TA in college/graduate school. My argument is that when public money is involved, we need to be able to replace teachers who don't perform with those who do. Then maybe only those who truly want to do it will be represented. It appears that being a teacher can be considered as a cushy job for some who would rather not try to find a job in the private sector, where there is competition and the pay is much worse (if you can find a job). Also, there is a reason why some towns have good schools, and some don't - it has nothing to do with the money that is spend per student - there is no evidence that this makes any difference. I'd venture to say that this has to do with the quality of the students themselves.

BD · Guest

I was a SE for 9 years and have been a teacher for over 10 years now. I posted earlier that the BPS pay scale is very high. I suspect it's battle pay. We suburban teachers don't make anywhere near that much.
I don't know any teacher that's bored.
And as for job security, my school is terminating a tenured teacher this year. It's a myth that you can't fire a teacher. There's a procedure for termination, but that's true in private industry also. The only security my contract affords me is that RIFs are done by seniority.
Most school systems fire plenty of nontenured teachers.
I love my job, but it's not easy, and it's not boring.

jfunk138 · Joined: 27 Mar 2010 Posts: 10

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

BD · Guest

Where are all these low performing - high seniority teachers ?
People buy into these myths. Of course there are some bad teachers. But the VAST majority of them are competent and hard-working. If they're not, they can be terminated.
I said I didn't want to get into a pissing match, so I'll stop here.

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

My town is part of a regional school district. They located the regional school in the centroid of 4 towns. Within a few years of building this school, one of the towns split off.

The teachers were given a choice as to either stay at the regional district or go to the school for the town that was splitting off. The teachers with seniority decided to stay with the current regional school and the younger teachers went to the school for the town that was splitting off.

Guess which school's scores went up more? The school loaded up with the older teachers with tenure and seniority PERFORMED SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE. So now, our school district is more expensive and doesn't perform as well as the town that branched off and the school is further for me from the new physical location's centroid now that that other town has split off....

Boston ITer · Joined: 11 Jan 2010 Posts: 269

CC · Guest

If many engineers think any engineer can become a teacher or engineers have the diverse training to succeed as teachers, and also think teachers get paid well, probably better than engineers, why don't you just change your carrier. If it's easy, and you are just around 40 years old, it's not late.

It's easy to become a teacher. The job is easy and secured. No worry about layoff. Pay well, 3 months vacation.....etc, you should just have the diverse training to succeed as teachers.

I strongly suggest you to change your carrier while you can. Though by the time you become a teacher, you probably will complain why engineers get paid so well, why your school does not offer stock options, why parents are so difficult to deal with, why American kids just don't want to learn, why do you have to prepare classes in the summer, why people think teachers are over-paid or teaching is a bad job.....etc.

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Seriously, it's not easy to be a teacher. I don't know about elementary or high schools, but for college level, it's very hard to get a job. Sometime more than 400 people apply for a stupid part-time job. And they don't pay well. Besides, I guess a lot of teachers are teaching in private schools which are not in public system.

Of course, I can understand it's much harder for engineers to keep their jobs. My friend who used to work for Lucent got lay-off twice. They have to learn new techniques in order to stay in business. It's a tough job. However, please do not use that kind of attitude to judge other professions. Everyone has difficulties!

BTW, I was a bit shocked that American kids' math is so bad when I arrived the US about 15 years ago. I really don't know what they learned in schools, but I also have to admit a lot of American kids are very creative. That's probably even more important, though for averaged American kids, I don't think they are very competitive in the near future.