[rapind]

My point is you are drawing conclusions about the labour market when there are likely very large and potentially unpredictable changes in store.

One (just one) question is whether anyone has the political will or clout to make things worse in the short term to potentially correct it in the long term. Interest rates should have been raised long before covid if you’re thinking long term and yet that never happened. Raising rates right now could be political suicide (albeit the most logical path). There are a lot of other hard to reason about factors. Economists a couple months ago were predicting lower inflation this year, like in the 4% range. Seems unlikely now.

Any conclusion about the labour market is predicated on some pretty massive assumptions and therefore complete speculation.

[bobkazamakis]

>you are drawing conclusions about the labour market when there are likely very large and potentially unpredictable changes in store.

...isn't that the entire point of this particular thread? Looking at possibilities without necessary prediction?

Is there any point in history where you can't say "there are likely very large and potentially unpredictable changes in store."? Why predict anything ever then?

[rapind]

> Is there any point in history where you can't say "there are likely very large and potentially unpredictable changes in store."? Why predict anything ever then?

Pardon the rudeness, but that’s silly. Of course there are times of varying turbulence where predictions can be more / less accurate. To be honest though economic predictions in the last 20 years haven’t done better than a coin flip.

I think we’re mostly in agreement except the part about everyone will suffer so demand for software engineers will decrease. In fact I think the economy is probably worse off (not just QE causing issues) than you laid out.

But the demand for software engineers decreasing? I mean, maybe, but I don’t think your points support that. I think there’s a mountain of assumptions you need to make to conclude that.

In a vacuum I would actually argue the opposite and say software engineering is even more important today than yesterday and that we aren’t producing enough. For example (anecdotal), the almost complete lack of technical fluency shown during the remote learning shit show that was my kids education last year. But we’re not in a vacuum and the economy is so untethered to reality that I can’t predict anything about the labour market.

[Apocryphon]

> But the demand for software engineers decreasing? I mean, maybe, but I don’t think your points support that. I think there’s a mountain of assumptions you need to make to conclude that.

If all businesses are suffering in that scenario, then who will employ the software engineers?

[rapind]

> all businesses are suffering

This is itself a massive assumption. What extremes are we assuming and how likely are they? There are businesses who flourished under covid and also businesses that basically print money during conflicts / wars. Almost all of them require and use software. So are we talking apocalypse here? If so, then I have no idea what the job market will look like, and neither does anyone else.

[Apocryphon]

Maybe we are talking about the apocalypse here, as per upthread. No one knows what will happen once interest rates go up.