[PEN-L:34236] Re: Re: Historians Against the War

[joanna bujes <joanna.bujes@xxxxxxx>]

At 03:15 PM 01/30/2003 -0800, you wrote:
> Did
> you know about Fundenberg, Holmstrom and Milgrom paper about long
> versus short term contracts, for example? Using heavy mathematics
> they "prove" that there is no difference between having a long
> term contract and a sequence of short term contracts. That means,
> don't worry, be happy, even when you have no job security.

In real-world terms, I have been happier with permanent vs free-lance
employment because free-lance implies/requires an ongoing shopping for and
renegotiation of contracts, which is time consuming and stressful....and
this in the best of possible worlds...where both long-term and short-term
contracts are plentiful.

That's not the world we live in anymore and no matter how heavy the
mathematics, if people feel insecure about their income (multiple
short-term contracts), they will shop less and that will definitely affect
the economy and everybody's level of "happiness."

As for economists and the working class....it looks like outsourcing is
going to include the "professional" classes, starting with programmers and
ending with...who knows...maybe even economists....at which point they may
well discover which class they belong to.

A few years ago a friend of mine wrote a letter to the Chronicle, which got
published, arguing that if companies really wanted to save some big bucks
they should outsource their CEO's. I howled with laughter reading it. The
CEO of the company we both worked for was extremely upset...but no harm
came to my friend, and all and sundry other employees at that company
enjoyed ruminating over that thought greatly

Best,

Joanna