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Comment by tnorthcutt | Hacker News Reader

Today, we’re proud to announce that we will be working with the White House to get more kids and adults learning to code. With their Summer Jobs+ program, the White House has been working on finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of people over the summer.

Did anyone else's stomach turn when they read this part? I think it's great that Codecademy want to help people learn to code and are effectively reaching such a large audience. However, I also think it's absolutely revolting that such a program exists at the federal government level. I think that's ridiculously beyond the scope of what the government should be doing.

Remove some/most/all of the hindrances to running a business and hiring employees (convoluted and rage-inducing tax and HR regulations) so that more businesses would be willing and able to launch, expand, and hire. That would create jobs, including probably thousands of coding jobs.

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As someone who's just spent the past few months dealing with year-end paperwork at the city, state, federal and corporate level (the paperwork required to set up a 401(k) is incredible), I can honestly say paperwork required to start up and run a business is not a hinderance to starting up and running a business.

What is a hinderance? Finding talent. What would make that easier? Universal healthcare. More retirement security. A better education system. More open borders. Those three items would lead to a more fluid and talented work force, which is exactly what I need.

Removing paperwork? Meh. Yes, I wish the state of CA was less inept and more streamlined, and I wish setting up a business took only one click on a website. But the paperwork and regulations certainly are not preventing me from continuing with my business, and some of them are at least helping ensure I live the lifestyle that I do.

Okay. Let's try a government that conforms to your scope. No welfare, so employment is necessary for survival. No mandates for health insurance, facility safety or minimum wage.

A few already-wealthy individuals form companies that offer jobs with 18-hour days, no weekends, no vacation, no health insurance, and just enough pay to keep the employees alive. Anyone who can't work (even for medical reasons, or because of the employer's negligence) is left to die on the street, their position easily filled by a new hire. Employers realize that, so long as nobody starts it, competition is voluntary. Any startup threatening to raise the market value of labor is quickly purchased and disbanded or undercut on price until it fails. Those few people become fabulously wealthy until everyone else catches on and nobody can afford to buy things anymore.

Hm... sounds familiar. We went through this more than 100 years ago. Foxconn and other Chinese companies are still doing it. This is what happens when government doesn't step in with its "revolting" "hindrances" like making you pay people a living wage.

Stop whining about government and come up with a business plan that doesn't depend on slavery.

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Consumer protections aren't what set programmer wages at $100/hr+. Your entire premise is wrong.

Eh, I'll bite. We've got a bunch of entrepreneurs here-- has anyone reading this tried to start a business, overcome every major impediment to that goal, and been on the cusp of true success, only to be foiled by the insurmountable obstacle of government paperwork?

I won't argue that the government makes running a business easier, or that there aren't legitimately oppressive or protectionist regulations that should be taken off the books. But if a failed business owner tries to tell me that they would have gotten away with it if only they didn't have to pay taxes or comply with labor laws, well... That sounds to me like a business I'm just as happy doesn't exist.

It's not preventing me, but it periodically takes me away from more important things and makes my company less efficient. It's not the most important thing they could do, but it would be an accross-the-board efficiency gain, and simplifying things would likely close some of the tax loopholes.

Yeah, this is basically where I'm coming from-- I don't doubt it's inconvenient, and surely we could boost efficiency (and compliance!) by making compliance more convenient. Totally with you on that. It's just when someone suggests that the inconvenience of complying with the law means the law ought to go, I start wondering whose side they're really on.

There are many countries with little business oversight or regulations. They are not the places intl investors want to put their money into.

That's not the cause of those places being bad places to invest - that's much more because of corruption, which has nothing to do with a lack of regulations on the books.

I'm not advocating for absolute laissez-faire, I was just saying that the current business regulations are a clusterfuck, and are in need of a good cleaning out.

It clearly seems one party in the USA is advocating for regulatory cleansing. As you stated, lack of regulations and corruption are often found in the same place, one can see WHY regulation is needed, now more than ever, as this world becomes more complex, populated, polluted, and markets game-able.

No, I'm saying that you can't use a correlation like that as justification for saying that we need more regulations. In a country like the US, where the tolerance for overt, obvious corruption is very low, adding more complexity to the regulatory system creates more places for corruption to hide, thus making it more feasible. The tax code is a great example of this, but the same can be said for many of the regulatory agencies.

You think it's beyond the scope of government to be assisting low-skilled people to gain skills and employment in quality jobs in industries with a future? I don't.

By all means reduce regulation to encourage job growth, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I don't think there's much a government of 350 million people can actively do to help here. Any practical, on-the-ground effort is bound to drown in bureaucracy.

But this is not, as I read between the lines, what is going on here: This is a PR/photo-op thing where the White House puts it's considerable PR clout behind CodeAcademy's meetup push - maybe there's some spare change to hire a couple of CA coordinators, but nothing significant.

I agree with your point, but I think directing it at the White House program is somewhat harsh. Judging by its description[1], it seems to me more like a program to alleviate the problem of frictional unemployment[2] (something that even the most conservative economists would agree is a policy problem[3]). Sure, getting rid of regulations would increase the demand for labor (more businesses => more jobs available), but that still leaves the problem of whether the supply of labor is correctly trained/prepared/etc. for the jobs available.

[1] http://www.dol.gov/SummerJobs/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frictional_unemployment

[3] http://books.google.com/books?id=-X6YnkmadD4C&pg=PA214&#...

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