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Comment by noahbp | Hacker News Reader

To paraphrase patio11, a disagreement between you and the market is not a shortage.

I'm surprised that anyone still believes the perennial "labor shortage" complaints. It has always been about employers refusing to improve wages and working conditions.

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How I view "labor shortage" complaints by default:

"What's with this shortage of new cars for $5,000!? As a hard-working consumer, I simply can't find enough of what I want at the limited price I am willing to offer, and I demand to know how the government is going to solve this pressing national crisis of enormous importance!"

Go out and look, and you'll see it's definitely a shortage... yet somehow it seems wrong to dignify it with a lot of concern, right? The conditions and causes of the "shortage" are quite important.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic (because you want a $5k car and they don't exist in your market) or serious (because you want a $5k car from China which they do actually sell at that price).

You can tell it's sarcasm because I have a second paragraph stating that it's wrong to dignify the pearl-clutching histrionics with a lot of concern.

> $5k car from China which they do actually sell at that price

Which will be +$2k to transport, and then someone will charge you more because of limited supply, and then it still won't be legal on public roads and highways.

In other words, that's a pretty big stretch.

Shortages can't be defined out of existence this way. Markets don't magically train workers or provide security clearances. People have to do that.

But markets can make doing those things financially worthwhile.

At most, markets can show whether they are financially worthwhile.

The market doesn't have agency. It's a projection of people's preferences.

One of the bigger problems with capitalism is that it reacts much too slowly to be a viable economic system.

It seems to run much of the planet and can go pretty quick when there are not bureaucracies slowing it.

One of the bigger problems of non-capitalist systems is that it requires whips to force people to do things they do not want to do without adequate compensation

They can hire people they can train. They chose not to, instead (whenever possible) whine for visas so they can steal trained professionals off less developed countries

>> People have to do that.

Companies can train people too.

And yet people don't, because it would reduce quarterly profits. So one market (for equities) does kind of magically prevent workers from being trained, by not allowing rational participation in another market (for workers).

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