Absolutely.

The profits of the rent-seekers and middle-men are through the roof, while labor is in the gutter.
Another example: my local Hyundai dealership charges $300/hr, the most senior mechanic there makes $48/hr - the difference goes to the private equity owner, landlord, insurance and whatever other middle-men not directly contributing to getting your car fixed.

A lot of labor has moved to the gray economy and a lot more to follow as the rent-seekers are squeezing every last drop of blood out of the system.

Another app, another account, more random issues with authorization and connectivity - nice! I already have 11 charging apps on my phone that need updating, password resetting, etc.
The reason my next EV is a Tesla.

They want UBI - the govmt to deal with the impoverished masses by giving them a pittance of printed fiat money, while the real wealth concentrates in hands of the oligarchs. That UBI won't come from taxing "the rich" - it will be funded with the destruction of the $USD.

Leadership don't care long'term. They will make bank to comfortably retire in the next 5 years. Generational fortunes to be made right now for some.

AI is a real productivity boost for Sr. Engineers. I'm on the front lines, I see it.
They no longer have to spend half their time in meetings, asking for resources, training Juniors only to see them leave in 18 months - now, they just get it done.
Vibe-coding is a different story.

I'm on my phone because the plot is unengaging. It's usually a bunch of random events and/or "everybody is an idiot" that drive the plot - there is no story line.
Repeating that multiple times doesn't fix it. Most content has turned to background noise for my living room.

Being on my phone is not the cause, it's the effect of unengaging story lines.

Costco meat has been a disappointment for the past couple of years in my area.
TJ now has better pork chops, chicken and salmon at same prices. Costco chicken is particularly bad - watery and stringy - consistently bad for years now.

Not really "popular" but the only sensible choice due to heavy taxation of ICE cars. EVs are exempt from VAT tax, registration tax, circulation tax, even free parking, toll roads and ferrying in some cases.
ICEs are effectively double the cost due to govt mandates.
Whether the govt mandates are a good or a bad thing - it's another debate, but EVs were forced on people and not that popular.

After two decades of bidding wars and job hopping, managers have realized that training your employees just benefits the next company (competitor). So everyone resorts to paying top $$$ for talent that exactly matches the current need. Full-time employment has turned into a chain of 6mo contracts.

It will take another decade or so with no career mobility to get back to long-term employment with training, if things don't get completely offshored.

That's exactly it, from a highly visible corporation.

CEOs are fearful for their jobs if they don't demonstrate progress towards adopting AI and keeping up with the times. We will be seeing a lot of "AI driven efficiency" signaling from executives to keep investors and the board happy.

It is interesting to observe how the narrative for the same process is different in the US and Europe.
In Europe, the talk is all about how AI is going to make workers more productive and relieve them from tedious work, but not a whiff of layoffs.
In the US, the talk is all about cutting jobs and increasing profitability.

What you say is true - it's common sense. And is also common sense for the JPM management.
The fact that they know this and still press hard with RTO means there are other forces at play which we don't see.
Maybe the company is ok with all office employees quitting? Who actually generates the business? - maybe a bunch of servers and top-level political connections? Maybe the in-office employees are just for customer service? Maybe super capable in-office employee is simply not set up to generate value due to org structure, and therefore it doesn't matter how talented. Maybe as long as the phones are manned from 9-5 that's all that is needed. Who knows....

Become an employer of at least 15 people and see how this goes.
https://www.eeoc.gov/overview

Yeah, tell that to the NBA.

Sounds like your definition of meritocracy is nepotism, and you want to fight nepotism with reverse discrimination - good luck.

Knowing low-level stuff first makes it much easier to understand high-level concepts otherwise everything turns into rote memorization and cargo-cult.

Start with C (without the oddities) and computer architecture. Throw in some assembly to bridge the understanding between comp arch and C.
Then learn higher level abstractions through an imperative and a functional language. A "computer languages" course helps to bridge the syntactic sugar/high-level abstractions with low-level C.

The rest is operating systems, networks, advanced algorithms and data structures.

Not sure if this was posted as anti or pro Trump, but is a good exercise in reading comprehension - it can be on an SAT test.

According to this text:
What does Trump think of the H1b program?
a) abused to substitute American workers with lower-pay foreigners
b) used for temporary low-skilled workers at Disney parks
c) is a highly-skilled immigration program
d) used for illegal immigrants to obtain legal status

What happened at Disney?
a) jobs were eliminated and workers were laid off
b) American workers were replaced with H1b workers
c) visitors got a refund when it rained
d) all workers at Disney are from India

What is Trump committed to?
a) eliminate the rampant abuse of the H1b program
b) end the H1b program
c) end the hiring at Disney
d) use H1b as cheap labor program