Not so much. The classic example is the minimum wage argument.

A person in a voluntary employment contract at $10/hour that roughly nets his employer a profit of say $10/hour, should he raise his demanded wage to $50/hour (or any arbitrary wage where the employer would no longer be profitable), would certainly become unemployed, either by being substituted with another worker, or by putting his employer out of business. Thus one clearly sees raising a wage causes unemployment. The large size of the raise helps make it clear that this would happen.

In practice, minimum wage and employment effects are nearly impossible to determine, because there can be all kinds of slop in the economic measurements (employers may not lay off immediately and may defer hiring, or may raise prices, or some other factor such as strong economic growth may offset the wage increase). So, we must reject empirical data that says marginal changes of a few percent don't obey the same laws as large changes.

There must then be further study to determine what factors may play into the apparent disagreement between the collected data and the presented argument. But the argument, being clearly true, can't be wrong in this case, so the data must be incomplete.

The climate science parallel is the disagreement between the apparent lack of warming in the past 11 or 17 years and the models. Given the disagreement, investigators had to determine why the model didn't fit the data, indicating a problem in one or the other (both, maybe).

In economics, the Austrian School folks agree with you so strongly that they reject the notion that empirical data can trump a priori reasoning. Recognizing that there is no "controlled experiment", any data that refutes a well-reasoned logical argument is considered incomplete. It's a remarkable rejection of empiricism and a recognition that economic activity is based on human behavior (praxeology) and as such can't be precisely quantified.

Who's saying it's a conspiracy with no evidence? They are actively trying to get bills passed to funnel withheld funds into government-controlled accounts. It's not a leap to think means-testing will be applied to "fairly" redistribute money when SS payments can't be made. It's also perfectly logical to see the sequestering of a percentage of my money into a 3% return as theft considering the substantial inflation we will hit.

Further, I'm talking about portfolio managers here, not flunkies.

Totally agree.

Confused here. Are you saying laws don't already exist regarding credible threats and harassment that apply in this case? Are you saying we need new laws to specifically apply in this case? I don't follow, and I might be in disagreement if you're saying we need new laws to deal with credible physical threats and harassment.

You see wrong. I have contacts in the financial services industry who believe that a significant partial appropriation through asset conversion to US bonds is unavoidable. When a knowledgeable, successful, financially prudent person who works in financial services forgoes the tax benefits of keeping retirement assets in a qualified account, you should certainly consider there's something to it.

Yes and no. Many developers I work with have been in one place too long, neither facing new kinds of challenges, nor growing to merit pay increases. There is a balance. Jumping every 2-3 years is probably the other extreme. 4-7 years is probably a nice sweet spot.

Also note, my father owned his own mechanical business and was hands-on to the point of often coming home cut/bruised/covered in filth. We were one of 2 or 3 families of maybe 30 on the street who weren't what you might call "professional class". I really never experienced any classist behavior from the doctors/lawyers/executives on the street or their families, and to this day have never heard anyone in my family say it ever happened. Maybe my experience is unique, but I don't think it was, not for the time in the 1970s through 2000 in the USA. During that time period, so much emphasis was placed on being productive and a respectable earner, so long as you had some level of manners, you were treated OK.

I do think I see a creeping tendency towards some classist behaviors from younger college-educated people, but few take it as more than puffed chests of lightweight intellectual wanna-bes.

You make some assumptions, which is fair, but please read my interesting story, and I hope you enjoy it:

Years ago I played in a fairly successful private event band; we did society parties in and around Philadelphia. One gig we showed up to was at an estate where the driveway was about 1/4 mile long. Realized that the valets refused to help our black musicians park/unload, but offered for us. That was clue number 1 (fyi we all unloaded and parked our own stuff). Clue two was constantly being shushed even though they paid for a six piece band. Clue three was making the wait staff hold the dessert plates at attention for 25 minutes while they prattled on with speeches. Clue 4 was that no one except the event organizer and wait staff looked us in the eyes the whole night.

Yes, there IS a class system in America, but this is the *extreme* high end, where you're in the billionaire range. Outside of that, it's largely nonexistent, except for various race related garbage, which isn't really classist.

Most gigs the people were actually pretty cool, especially the older males and younger women.

Now, what I have generally found in America is it's more about money. Since I make substantially more than most of the highly educated men in our social circle, I get a ton of respect despite not having a degree.

My interactions with people in the UK are different. If they know I don't have a degree, I get treated like an inferior until I can really pin someone down on incorrect knowledge or thinking in a major way.

Who says skilled trade is a downgrade from profession? You can still make the money and have the prestige. I think the problem is people who think that "professional" is better than "trade". Tradespeople make the world go around; getting past the idea that anyone other than MasterBlaster runs Bartertown is my approach to fighting my way up.

A thousand times yes. Developers who have the social skills and risk tolerance jump periodically and do well most of the time, and quickly recover after making a mistake (the one time I stayed 14 months at a job it was a recovery step). Those without the social skills and risk tolerance whine, but don't actually take the steps needed to get ahead.

I struggle with this. I recognize my experience may be different, but we can't find qualified people when we interview. Where are these cheap replacements? Do you mean offshore (India)? Seems like my shop is run pretty lean. Yes, there are heavy weeks above 45 hours, but there are a lot of 40 hour weeks. Management seems to be aware of the fact that they're always a moment away from losing a key person. My last place did the outsource thing for a few years, until even the most boneheaded bean counters realized it was counterproductive to use cheaper labor. I just don't feel so threatened. I feel like if I lost my job, I'd have a new one at the same salary within a week.

Visual Studio Express is already available freely to students and individuals. You can do C#, Visual Basic.Net, or JavaScript. I'm not sure what you consider "beginner", but I don't think there's anything significantly wrong with C# as a first language. Maybe not as simple as Pascal was for starters, but no worse than Java, which is taught at a lot of colleges as the first language.

If you do that, you also have to take into account that 3 of the 5 guys on my team who are pretty good didn't need college degrees to get their jobs. We're not *really* professionals in that sense. Almost more highly skilled tradesmen, in my thinking.

Treated like scum? I agree that I often feel that we're not treated like equals on par with management. I think we get treated better than a lot of other employee groups, though. When I think of professions I'd change places with, the list often comes up short.

From what I read when I was into jazz biographies, it absolutely has meaning beyond sociology. There were all sorts of hierarchies within the "one drop" gene pool having to do with trying to be at the top of the non-white heap. Hell, in my lifetime, only maybe 15 years ago, I witnessed a black woman I was hanging with (who had medium-light skin) look across the bar at a very dark skinned man and make an extremely negative comment about it. Her white boyfriend didn't skip a beat and said to her, "Well now, that's the pot calling the kettle black." She was not amused.