The Disappearance of the Middle Class - Jacob Fisker

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by Automatika When I was in college (EE) some used to call engineering "Pre-Business"

30 years ago the joke was "Sooner or later, you'll go General"...

[Independent]

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Originally Posted by FD Some jobs in finance, medicine and law pay well but not all. Only a small fraction of the work force can ever hope to fill the well-paying jobs in those fields (after all less than 2% of American workers make more than $200K a year IIRC) so these jobs do nothing to sustain the middle class (back on topic) and they are not the answer. The majority of the workforce has to look elsewhere to find well paying jobs. Science and engineering offer good opportunities for people who want a shot at making a decent living. DW is a scientist and she makes more than the average family doctor.

It seemed to me the posts I was reading were looking at finding American students for science PhD programs. So I figured the people who could be in those programs would expect to be at the high end of the income scale in other professions.

I'll agree that the big problem for the American economy is finding jobs for the middle and lower-middle sections of the bell curve.

[ItDontMeanAThing]

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Originally Posted by GregLee I think it is odd to judge membership in the middle class by how many assets you own. Middle class concerns your place in society and, indeed, your wealth, but not in the sense how much your IRAs are worth, or whatever, but how well you can live. You can be deeply in debt, but if your credit cards still work so you can mostly buy what you want, and live pretty well, you can still be middle class, or even upper class. There's a confusion between means and ends here -- owning many assets may enable you to live well, and impress your neighbors, but it's not the assets that count in reckoning your class in society.

Money (assets, wealth, income, etc.) however one measures it does not equal class.

NY Times did a special section on class in America called 'Class Matters'.
Class Matters - Social Class in the United States of America - The New York Times They didn't define class, then proceeded to talk about class almost entirely in financial terms. That's because there are good statistics on such matters that can be used to support one's argument that the class is shrinking. Government statistics on income lump everybody at 250k and above into a single category, that's why some declare it to be the beginning of 'rich'.

Reasoned and well researched essays on the shrinking middle class or the growing rich ususally come down to lies, damned lies and statistics. Everything I've seen on the size of the middle class as reported by people who self-identify says it ain't changing much.

So is the middle class shrinking or not? Who knows. Only thing I know is that when one uses only money related measuers to define a class, one is doomed to failure from the get go.

[Emeritus]

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Originally Posted by FD Or you can forget about going to college. I just had a plumber replace all the faucets in our house. He charged $110 an hour. Secure job with no risk of being outsourced. He can't find any qualified, trustworthy help.

It's the license that gets the plumber the money. In most jurisdictions licenses are carefully controlled.

Its one of the reasons they cant get help, since there is little tradition for paying the non licensed people what they are worth

[Emeritus]

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Originally Posted by landonew I am a practicing patent attorney, and I can assure you that this is not always the case. Some inventors are PHDs, but the majority are not. Many of the members sitting on IEEE and ITU standardization boards do not have PHDs.

Joke time

Why are tax attorneys happy about patent attorneys?
They are glad SOMEBODY has a more boring job.

My SIL's father is a well known and very fine patent lawyer. He has a garage that is more organized and cleaner than my China closet.
I teach law to engineers. The engineers who later become patent lawyers are often my brightest students, but I sometimes suspect they come from a different planet.

So what's new useful and unobvious?
A patent lawyer with a sense of humor !

[FUEGO]

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Originally Posted by Emeritus So what's new useful and unobvious? A patent lawyer with a sense of humor !

You botched the joke and have woefully misstated a key element to patentability.

To quote the US Patent and Trademark Office, 35 USC 103 clearly requires "nonobvious" subject matter to allow a patent to be issued.

[Emeritus]

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Originally Posted by FUEGO You botched the joke and have woefully misstated a key element to patentability. To quote the US Patent and Trademark Office, 35 USC 103 clearly requires "nonobvious" subject matter to allow a patent to be issued.

Actually it uses non-obvious
35 U.S.C. 103 Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter.

(note the hyphen)
The section itself only uses the term "obvious" therefore any negative of obvious is acceptable e.g.

The Patent Office indicated, however, [450 U.S. 175, 198] that a programmed computer could be a component of a patentable process if combined with unobvious elements to produce a physical result. The Patent Office formally adopted the guidelines in 1968. See 33 Fed. Reg. 15609 (1968).
DIAMOND v. DIEHR, 450 U.S. 175 (1981)

See also

2116.01 Novel, Unobvious Starting Material or End Product [R-6]

2116.01 Novel, Unobvious Starting Material or End Product [R-6] - 2100 Patentability


:greetings1 0::greeting s10:

[FUEGO]

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Originally Posted by Emeritus Actually it uses non-obvious 35 U.S.C. 103 Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter. (note the hyphen) The section itself only uses the term "obvious" therefore any negative of obvious is acceptable e.g. The Patent Office indicated, however, [450 U.S. 175, 198] that a programmed computer could be a component of a patentable process if combined with unobvious elements to produce a physical result. The Patent Office formally adopted the guidelines in 1968. See 33 Fed. Reg. 15609 (1968). DIAMOND v. DIEHR, 450 U.S. 175 (1981) See also 2116.01 Novel, Unobvious Starting Material or End Product [R-6] 2116.01 Novel, Unobvious Starting Material or End Product [R-6] - 2100 Patentability :greetings1 0::greeting s10:

Well, it says nonobvious all through the text of sec 103. The actual text of the statute is what conveys meaning. They also use "obvious". Never unobvious.

And citing sections of the MPEP to controvert a US Code citation? Weak sauce buddy. We all know the hierarchy of authority for patent law goes USC > CFR > MPEP. I thought that it would be obvious to you. Apparently it is unobvious. Or nonobvious. Or non-obvious.

[Texas Proud]

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Originally Posted by FUEGO Well, it says nonobvious all through the text of sec 103. The actual text of the statute is what conveys meaning. They also use "obvious". Never unobvious. And citing sections of the MPEP to controvert a US Code citation? Weak sauce buddy. We all know the hierarchy of authority for patent law goes USC > CFR > MPEP. I thought that it would be obvious to you. Apparently it is unobvious. Or nonobvious. Or non-obvious.

It is so unobvious what you two are talking about....

[MichaelB]

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Originally Posted by Texas Proud It is so unobvious what you two are talking about....

+1

YouTube - Argument Clinic

[FUEGO]

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Originally Posted by Texas Proud It is so unobvious what you two are talking about....

It's like this - I picked a completely inane and irrelevant minor slip up in someone's post and nitpicked it. There was no real point to it, and it is clearly irrelevant to the subject of this thread. Not that that keeps certain other posters from posting similarly here.

[landonew]

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Originally Posted by FUEGO Well, it says nonobvious all through the text of sec 103. The actual text of the statute is what conveys meaning. They also use "obvious". Never unobvious. And citing sections of the MPEP to controvert a US Code citation? Weak sauce buddy. We all know the hierarchy of authority for patent law goes USC > CFR > MPEP. I thought that it would be obvious to you. Apparently it is unobvious. Or nonobvious. Or non-obvious.

Bingo. The correct term is non-obvious.

[ERD50]

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Originally Posted by Emeritus Its one of the reasons they cant get help, since there is little tradition for paying the non licensed people what they are worth

Huh? If you can't get help you offer more. Basic supply/demand. It's OK to say "I can't get qualified help at X price", but it's silly to say "I can't get qualified help" if you are not willing to pay the going rate for it.

My old man described "worth" as "whatever you can get someone to pay you for it". He was not very educated (or maybe you could say he was well educated from the school of hard knocks), but had a pretty good grasp of some things.

-ERD50