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> Industry is crying about a skill shortage

Perhaps they are crying because a skill shortage means they would have to pay more, but instead they would rather the government encourage more people to train as software developers, increasing the supply so that salaries could be lowered.



This. Also, money doesn't grow on trees if you're a normal business. Rising wages means many businesses would have to close. It wouldn't matter to employees, because by corollary they'd have better opportunities, but if you were the owner of such a business, you'd be crying too.


Rising wages could also mean shareholders just accept lower profit margins. Still profits, just less.


The simplest mechanism to offset higher wages is stock options. If a company needs to attract talent they can use that.


isn't that just how a market works?


Yes, but new markets have high network effects and winner-takes-all outcomes. There is a non-zero risk of having a couple of trillionaires and billionaires living isolated from a pariah sociality. That would cause a enormous instability, violence and crime.




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