Today’s Links: July 24, 2012

OPINION

JEFF GREENE: “Robots, Trade and Your Job”
“I’ll never forget the retiree with a heavy accent who said, ‘I worked in the garment center in New Yorkfor 45 years. How do we get those jobs back for our grandchildren?’ Struck by his sincerity, I delayed my departure for the next event to offer this gentleman a detailed response. ‘I don’t think we want those jobs back,’ I told him. ‘If we do things right, our kids will be so well educated and innovative that they’ll have much better jobs than that. If we fail, our grandchildren will wind up working at sewing machines.'”

A. GARY SHILLING: “Higher Education Needs a Financial Overhaul”
“The recent flare-up over huge student-loan balances, especially among jobless recent college graduates, is exposing deep flaws in the way higher education is financed. Historically, the U.S. has always emphasized education as the route to financial success. In much of Europe, the link between education and economic achievement has never been as deeply ingrained. ”

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: “Taller Buildings for Washington”
“[W]hat Laura Richards of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City has to say about this simply makes no sense: ‘Washington can grow its economy and house its residents without raising its Height Act.’ Can we? Well certainly not to the extent that we could if we did raise the Height Act. We have, for example, an existing network of highways, Metro trains, MTA and VRE commuter rail lines, and buses—all of which are built with the presumption of serving a downtown-focused commuter base. You of course could try to add new jobs someplace that’s not properly served by the existing transportation infrastructure, but it’s going to be a lot harder. But more broadly the question is how much growth in jobs and population do we want? A city that’s willing to settle for very slow employment and population growth can easily afford lots of restrictions on construction. But a city that wants to see rapid employment and population growth needs to build lots of buildings for people to live and work in.”

NEWS

GOVERNMENT SPENDING – Cash-strapped Argentine town pays employees by raffle
“A raffle will determine which civil servants in a small Argentine town will receive their pay first, due to insufficient funds, its mayor announced Monday.”

CHINA – As China costs rise, technology lures U.S. factories home
“Seesmart Inc, a small California lighting company, used to make all of its LED products in China, but last year that started to change. Frustrated by expensive and slow shipping and wanting more control over the manufacturing process, the 15-year-old company started building factories in Simi Valley, California, and Crystal Lake, Illinois.”

INNOVATION – Always Forget Your Password? Implant It in Your Subconscious by Playing a Video Game.
“To combat the human error that can leave passwords vulnerable, researchers have developed an alternative system, one that stores your password within your subconscious through a Guitar Hero-esque game.”