Below you’ll find a chart, using the administration’s own forecast of how unemployment would decline with and without the president’s recovery plan. This helped them sell the $800 billion plan to a skeptical public, already upset with the previous administration for not doing enough to hold the line on spending.
I circled the points on the chart that correspond to the middle of this year. Had we done nothing, the president’s economists warned us, unemployment today would be a tad above 8% and declining.
With the latest figures of 9.1% unemployment, up one-tenth of a point over last month, unemployment is a full point ahead of where it was supposed to be without the near- one trillion dollar increase in federal debt.
Yesterday, we learned that we’re not creating as many jobs as are normally created right after a steep economic downturn:
Payrolls grew at the slowest pace in eight months and the U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly climbed to 9.1 percent in May, reinforcing signs that a slowdown in the world’s largest economy is persisting into the second quarter.
Employers added a less-than-projected 54,000 jobs last month, after a revised 232,000 gain in April that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington.
Emphasis added. Link via ILoveCapitalism. It seems the president and his economic team are uncertain what to do fix the economy now that it’s clear that their original recovery plan failed to produce the results promised. They just won’d admit the “stimulus” failed nor, as David Harsanyi suggests, do they have any new ideas to generate more growth and create jobs:
But what exactly has this administration done right? What creative ideas have they offered? How many alternative realities (you know, ‘things could have been worse’?) do we have to accept? Fact is, while these condescending technocrats accuse their opponents of being nihilists, ideologues and radicals, they are the ones that refuse to deviate from dogma no matter how much evidence of failure confronts them.
Via Instapundit. Harsanyi’s not exactly a fan of some of the ideas Republicans have put forward, but right now we’re wondering what ideas the party which controls half of the legislative branch and all the executive branch has any other plans to put forward beyond those that have already failed.
And why is it, even when their policies don’t come close to meeting expectations, Democrats can’t admit their errors?
UPDATE: “The White House’s chief economist Austan Goolsbee“, Nile Gardiner writes
. . . has described the figures as a mere “bump in the road.” In reality they should be a massive wake-up call for an administration that refuses to acknowledge the huge damage its big government policies have done to the American economy, with 13.9 million Americans now out of work.
Under President Obama unemployment has remained above 8 percent for every single month, with the exception of January 2009 when he entered the Oval Office, rising as high as 10.1 percent in October 2009. By any measure, this is a terrible track record, and as even The New York Times acknowledged earlier this week, “no American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.”
Via Instapundit.
Where are the solar power farms, the windmill farms, the fleets of hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles. Where’s the massive infrastructure projects? The highways, bridges and public improvements?
Instead we had tens of billions and hundreds of billions for subsidizing public-sector union jobs, sweetheart deals protecting union autoworker jobs and massive bailouts and handouts to the financial-sectors of insurance and banking, the titans of Wall Street.
What did the private sector and small business get? Obamacare.
But…but…but… BUSHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
I’ve read that some economists believe that “structural” unemployment is now in the 8-9 percent range (up from a few years ago).
There’s just not enough work for everyone who wants/needs a job.
Obama said during the 2008 campaign, that he would trade economic growth for what he called “social equity”…….. Well, guess what?
The Democrats want more “stimulus” which has proven to be an absolute failure! Obama is pushing for more spending with “government investments!” The fools never learn or are simply blinded by ideology.
Obamanomics is a clogged toilet that will not flush. So much for Socialism & “equality.”
Sure there is… if government would just get out of the way.
In a completely free labor market – where everyone who wants to work is free to negotiate some deal, at some price, with someone – there is no unemployment. “Structural” unemployment means that government has, through various measures (artificial backing of unions, costly mandates or restrictions on employers, etc.) messed up the labor market.
ILC – most people are not in any position to negotiate for a job. It’s not a level playing field when there are dozens of applicants for any given job (McDonald’s had a million applicants for their hiring spree last month. My guess is that those that were hired took what was offered.). Individuals seldom have much leverage. Remember the Grapes of Wrath?
I’m an engineer (and a fairly good one) but what leverage would I have in a negotiation – especially if I need the job (as opposed to switching jobs)? Few of us have skills so unique that we can dictate terms. Most of us can be replaced fairly easily (off-shoring, new grads == cheaper looking for anything, and H1B workers).
I cannot subscribe to the libertarian view of a totally free labor market. There is always someone, somewhere in the world willing to do it cheaper. Do we really want to compete with labor, in, say Bangladesh?
http://www.businessinsider.com/photo-dhaka-bangladesh-2011-3
As productivity (output per man-hour) has increased, we need fewer workers. New lines of work have appeared to replace lost work (e.g. we no longer have armies of telephone operators and bank tellers) but these new lines of work require fewer people (and some require above average intelligence and, by definition, half of us have IQs under 100).
I agree that government policy has contributed to this but so has business. I bought a bottle of eyeglass cleaner the other day (water with a little alcohol – a couple of dollars for a 3-4 ounces)… made in China. So Walgreens can’t take a few cents less per bottle in order to get them domestically?
The trick, IMHO, is to figure out an economic model that doesn’t rely on ever-increasing growth. I don’t know if that’s possible.
Do we really want to compete with labor, in, say Bangladesh?
Hell yeah.
I can list several reasons why you might prefer engineers in the US over ones in Bangladesh.
1) The time difference.
2) Travel costs
3) Language barrier
4) Education level of workers
5) Telecommunications and connectivity costs
6) Availability of service for your software, computers, etc.
7) Governmental stability
8) Taxation and regulation
By the time you add those additional costs, the salary costs become rather irrelevant — not to mention the fact that you’ve now nailed yourself down with a tremendous amount of assets in a foreign country, and the only way you’re going to ever be able to amortize that out is if you stay there for a prolonged period.
Chinese steel is an excellent example. The time difference alone makes it impossible to stay in close contact with your supplier. You cannot send exotic alloy information to them because it will not stay secret. You are dependent on whatever the Beijing government wants. If you want to see it being made or examine the process, you have a twelve-hour plane ride. Last, and certainly not least, you are paying every ounce of cost to have one of the heaviest substances made shipped thousands of miles, then delivered.
But since Barack Obama and his union owners want you to pay four times the labor costs so that his campaign gets forced kickbacks, four times the energy costs so that his racist allies like Van Jones get their kickbacks, and four times the regulatory costs so his governmental union workers give him kickbacks, there is no possible way that it can compete.
Worse, because Barack Obama is forcing up the price so that he can collect his kickbacks, the Chinese have no incentive to reduce their price or develop more intelligent ways of doing things; they need only charge slightly less than the cost of US steel, and they’re making money. Because Barack Obama has set “price controls”, Americans are being forced to pay more than what things are worth to get them. That sucks wealth out of growth and development just to stay stable.
The solution is simple. Get Barack Obama out of the way. Pass a Federal right-to-work law, for starters. Force Barack Obama to publish the actual cost-benefit analysis of any new regulations.
NDT – I agree with most everything you write here but the sad fact is that the flow of jobs to China, et al, has been occurring since before Barry started organizing communities. Regulation has exploded since the Nixon years (EPA was founded then). There may have been a slight slowdown in regulation during the Reagan years but it was temporary.
WRT engineering, I would prefer that engineering remain onshore but I don’t run a company. Those that do run companies have been busily off-shoring work and importing H1B labor to drive down salaries and displace Americans for a long time.
I don’t want to hijack the comments for this but my point is that there have been profound changes in our labor force coupled with profound changes in the need for labor and the solution may be painful. The left seldom (if ever) has the right answers but quite a few on our side don’t appear to have given these trends much consideration, either.
I think Reagan said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Corollary: a receding tide lowers all boats.
Saw an ad on TV, last night, saying that there were several companies ready and able to provide solar energy if only we would all “get behind it”. I take it that “get behind it” means subsidize it with tax payer money.
Well, Robert, I don’t think you’re hijacking the comments, because this is pertinent — and frankly, Obama’s solutions to it are exacerbating the problem.
But I do think we need to take a look at this first.
Those that do run companies have been busily off-shoring work and importing H1B labor to drive down salaries and displace Americans for a long time.
First off, in regard to the H-1B program:
1) Employers are required by law to pay an actual wage equal to the wages paid to other workers with similar qualifications and experience (and believe me, they check)
2) The quota for private employers is 65,000 H-1Bs per year, plus an additional 20,000 for workers with US advanced degrees.
3) The H-1B petitioning process costs between 3 – 5k per employee, making it an up-front cost that you have to pay before you can even hire.
Ironically to me, the one “protectionist” measure in the H-1B visa — the limit that you have to be sponsored and employed — is what creates the problem. From a workforce management standpoint, which is the employee that is more desirable — the naturalized US citizen who can work for any company, or the H-1B one who can only leave if they find another company with an available visa willing to sponsor them? If we abolished that requirement in the H-1B and simply made it one where a company had to sponsor you in, but then after that point, you were free to work where needed, it would drastically change the dynamic and reduce any “drive down salaries” effect.
Robert, I don’t think you understood my point. Yes, it’s true that most people are not in a position to negotiate a job. *Because we do not have a free labor market. Because government has messed up the labor market*. Government is the cause of “structural unemployment”. Government penalizes employers and, in various ways, employees as well, to prevent market-clearing.
Which happened in one of the most dysfunctional eras ever: the Roosevelt era, in which government artificially propped up the unions and put other restrictions and burdens on employers as well, maintaining artificially high real wages and basically *preventing* full employment.
Which implies that you support dysfunctional, un-free labor markets. Shame on you!
We already do. But here’s an idea for you: How about if we have a totally free labor market (no minimum wage, no maximum wage, no ugly mandates on employers, allow unions but don’t give them artificial privileges) just within U.S. borders, first? Bangladesh is a red herring.
Again, that’s a red herring. If you want tariffs on Chinese goods, that is a separate discussion.
Continuing on:
The trick, IMHO, is to figure out an economic model that doesn’t rely on ever-increasing growth. I don’t know if that’s possible.
I think that depends on how you define “growth”.
For example, the development of mechanization in agriculture did one of two things, depending on how you look at it:
1) It vastly increased the amount of crops (output) a given group of farmers could raise
2) It vastly reduced the number of farmers (labor) required to raise a given amount of crops
Either way, you’re going to get growth, and either way, you’re going to get change and displacement. If an economy remains static, it never advances and it never gets more productive — and it then gets run over by those who do.
The basic problem here in the US is that we keep trying to demand that the government eliminate that change and displacement — and unfortunately, the government keeps doing it. When the price of housing went up, the government started forcing and subsidizing lenders to make bad loans — and it exacerbated both the price increase and set up the problem for the crash.
I think at the core, we need a fundamental transformation in the mindset of the American worker — in two parts:
1) Working is better than not, that any job is better than no job, and that there is nothing that is beneath you.
2) Spend and plan your finances in accordance with the potential eventualities in #1.
(#13 continued) And what are you saying – that Walgreens should pay extra for eyeglass cleaner when it doesn’t have to (and thus make its American consumers pay extra), just so that product will be made in the U.S.? Not smart. The problem we have with China is not that this or that particular good is made more cheaply in China, but that (1) we have a regime of anti-production, anti-business, anti-employment policies here in the U.S., (2) that China doesn’t buy enough in return, of whatever it is that we do still make, as we let China keep its currency (and its living standard) artificially low. They’re policy problems, not problems with Walgreens.
Sure it is. The alternative to an economy that relies on growth and change is an economy that relies on stagnation, and history offers any number of examples of economies that rely on stagnation:
– Stone Age hunter-gatherers.
– Feudalism.
– Communism.
– Fascism.
I just wouldn’t consider life civilized or especially worth living, under any of them.
Obamanomics….who knew Michelle meant for all of us to plant gardens to keep from starving.
Baracks remarks after Fridays jobs report, cruel and heartless.
Hi SCR,
I have been enjoying your thoughtful exchange with others on the site.
“The trick, IMHO, is to figure out an economic model that doesn’t rely on ever-increasing growth. I don’t know if that’s possible.”
The point was raised by NDT about “how one should define growth.” However, we usually fall back on “growth” as a function of GDP and/or productivity increases, as NDT suggests in #14.
A thoughtful article that begins to address your concerns can be found here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/looking-backward-economics-and-the-cult-of-yesterday. It was written by Jonathan Rowe, who I had just started getting to know in our community, before he suddenly died, earlier this year. He has left a big and sad hole that will not be easily filled. But he looked at problems with a fresh perspective which may or may not strike a chord with you.
Thanks, Cas, for the link. I will give it a look.
ILC, NDT: as far as my example of the eyeglass cleaner… for Walgreens to save a few cents per unit, we *are* paying the difference: high unemployment, record food stamp usage, and all the rest.
I agree that government efforts to mitigate the negative side effects of fundamental changes to the economy usually end up causing more problems than they solve. But trying again to make my basic point is that we’ve been seeing a fundamental shift in our economy for years and I don’t think we’ve yet figured out how to deal with it.
Earlier shifts (e.g. from agricultural to industrial) were painful but ultimately beneficial for all with lots of jobs and steadily rising living standards. But it appears to me that current trends involve a lot of displacement with no “new big thing” on the horizon as a payoff. Despite the hype, businesses like Facebook, add little if any actual value.
I remember a few years ago reading of a poor community in Alabama losing a factory that made underwear to a foreign plant. Nothing replaced it.
At heart, I am a capitalist. But at the same time, a nation is more than a collection of economic actors. I think tariffs do little more than start trade wars and weird economic distortions but I, for one, am quite willing to pay a couple of extra pennies for eyeglass cleaner in the interest of keeping our own people employed and my cash circulating in our economy. The alternatives are greater dependency and the corrosion of our society that will be our undoing.
Cas – that is an interesting article and I tend to agree that our measures of economic “health” are faulty. Metrics are useful but only in context. (Mexico is #14 on the GPD list… sure doesn’t seem like it.)
His comments on productivity struck a chord: the truth is that a lot of the productivity increase that we see(?) is actually a shift of burden from company to customer. Microsoft and Apple, for example, charge a substantial sum for their products yet force their customers to rely on “community support” (unpaid labor).
Ditto for the hours we’ve all spent on hold hearing that our “call is important – please remain on the line”. In the late 70s, I had a summer job at a bank. Back then, calls to the bank were answered by a person and customers received information from a clerk that “put the phone down” while looking the data up on a microfiche viewer or in a file.
The bank made money, people got paid, and customers were happy with their service. My savings paid five percent (not zero-point-one like now). How many are happy with their megabank now?
This was a largish local bank but the president wasn’t paid millions. In fact, we lived next door to him.
My savings paid five percent (not zero-point-one like now).
During the late 1970s, the prime rate was between 6 and 18%. When I can charge 12% interest on a home loan, I can afford to give 5% interest on savings.
No thank you. No interest in going back to those days.
Microsoft and Apple, for example, charge a substantial sum for their products yet force their customers to rely on “community support” (unpaid labor).
In the winter of 1986, my grandfather, as a present for us kids and as an educational investment, bought us a Tandy 1000 EX – remember those? I was the proudest kid around with this computer — 128k memory, a single 7.16 MHz processor, and not one, but TWO 5.25″ floppy drives. Including the external modem, fancy 14 inch RGB monitor with “high-end” graphics, and dot-matrix printer it was $1,500 total, as I recall.
I can go to the Apple website today and buy a new iMac with 4GB memory, a 2.5 GHz processor, 500 GB hard drive, built-in Wi-Fi and networking, a 21.5 inch screen that is as far above the Tandy monitor as a 747 is above a bicycle, and a wirelessly-linked laser printer that can run circles around the dot-matrix in quality and speed — for the same price.
By the way, when one considers that the average price for a new car in 1986 was about $9k versus $29k in 2010, what we can see is that Microsoft and Apple are offering products today that are a quantum leap ahead of their previous replacements — for the same dollar value.
So take some of the money you’ve saved and pay a computer consultant instead.
Hi SCR,
Thank you for reading the article. As you know, I am ideologically in a different place to many commentators here, but I do care about the issues you speak to. I do not believe that reciting the “free market rules” mantra is going to help us here. Nor do I believe that slavish adherence to government intervention is the way to go either. What was interesting about Jonathan’s work was that, though “progressive,” even “liberal” he was no fan of big government, and looked to redefine issues that might then be looked at in different ways.
His guiding light was the issue of comparing and contrasting corporate markets with what he saw as the social commons (the shared property and heritage of us all), and focusing on what he called “we-side economics.” http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/go-local/how-commerce-consumed-the-commons
A collection of his articles can be found at: http://network.greenchange.org/blogs/6033-jonathan-rowe-on-economics-corporations-and-the-commons
I found the articles on corporations very interesting.
His guiding light was the issue of comparing and contrasting corporate markets with what he saw as the social commons (the shared property and heritage of us all)
Coupled with:
Metrics are useful but only in context. (Mexico is #14 on the GPD list… sure doesn’t seem like it.)
Actually, that’s a great example; Mexico’s constitution was the first in the world to enshrine “social rights”. Let me show you a few examples.
Article 3
I. According to the religious liberties established under article 24, educational services shall be secular and, therefore, free of any religious orientation.
II. The educational services shall be based on scientific progress and shall fight against ignorance, ignorance’s effects, servitudes, fanaticism and prejudice.
It shall be democratic, considering democracy not only as a legal structure and a political regimen, but as a system of life founded on a constant economic, social, and cultural betterment of the people;
It shall be national insofar as – without hostility or exclusiveness – it shall achieve the understanding of our problems, the utilization of our resources, the defense of our political independence, the assurance of our economic independence, and the continuity and growth of our culture; and it shall contribute to better human relationships, not only with the elements which it contributes toward strengthening and at the same time inculcating, together with respect for the dignity of the person and the integrity of the family, the conviction of the general interest of society, but also by the care which it devotes to the ideals of brotherhood and equality of rights of all men, avoiding privileges of race, creed, class, sex, or persons…..
Religious corporations, ministers of religion, stock companies which exclusively or predominantly engage in educational activities, and associations or companies devoted to propagation of any religious creed shall not in any way participate in institutions giving elementary, secondary and normal education and education for laborers or field workers.
This is a great one.
Article 4
All people, men and women, are equal under the law. This article also grants all people protection to their health, a right to housing, and rights for children. Everyone has a right to an appropriated ecosystem for their development & welfare.
And my personal favorite:
Article 27
The property of all land and water within national territory is originally owned by the Nation, who has the right to transfer this ownership to particulars. Hence, private property is a privilege created by the Nation.
Expropriations may only be made when there is a public utility cause.
The State will always have the right to impose on private property constraints dictated by “public interest”. The State will also regulate the exploitation of natural resources based on social benefits and the equal distribution of wealth. The state is also responsible for conservation and ecological considerations.
All natural resources in national territory are property of the nation, and private exploitation may only be carried out through concessions.
And particularly ironic when you consider Mexico’s squealing:
Article 32
Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable.
So let’s see; Mexico’s system enshrines government control and redistribution of wealth and property at the government’s whim to ensure “equality”, outlaws any public exercise of religion or religious beliefs in education, and guarantees the rights of everyone to a cradle-to-grave social welfare program.
In other words, it’s anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, and exactly what the Obama Party wants to impose on the United States today.
And look at what a bastion of prosperity, stability, and good government that it’s made Mexico.
This is what I don’t get. Americans have an example of what Obama Party politics do when applied to a similar country for nearly a century just south of our border. What are they not understanding?
Having read that, NDT, I now understand why the Mexican President thinks it’s a violation of their Human Rights to require Mexicans to reside in Mexico.
Hi NDT,
You might want to read some of Rowe’s work, and see what SCR was referring to. You might find it interesting… or not.
Oh, and, as for using Mexico to beat the idea over the head, if it amuses you to do so, OK then, But under that rubric, it would be just as jolly to look at another country, the way that Kristoff does:
” It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs.
This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled.
The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.
So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/opinion/05kristof.html
Totally unfair, I know. And totally simplistic as an approach.
NDT – I don’t need a computer consultant. I’ve been making a living writing software for industrial instrumentation, telecom, and video systems since the Z80 was top dog.
Nor am I holding up Mexico as a model… it’s obviously broken. Just pointing out that GDP by itself doesn’t tell us much.
My last post on this thread… it seems that I’ve not done a very good job trying to make my point. It’s hard to do in a few paragraphs.
NDT – you might enjoy listening to “Radio Derb” at NRO (weekly podcast). Derb touches on some of the points I’ve tried to make from time to time. He’s much, much smarter than I am and does a better job of presenting the “gloomycon” view on these things. And his podcast is a lot of fun.
Oh, I think you’ve made your points clearly, Robert. And I understand the motivation; the free market is a messy place, where there are so many variables it’s hard to get the outcome you want and it’s tempting to lean back on the iron fist of law to get something done.
But my point, and I think ILC’s, is that restricting the market to guarantee certain outcomes carries its own consequences, and thus should be avoided. Indeed, as ILC points out, the reason that we cannot compete with countries like Bangladesh is because we chose to hogtie our labor market in the name of “equality” — and ended up being worse off because it disincented employers to do work here in the United States.
The lesson in Atlas Shrugged and society at large is clear. The unproductive will only be supported by the productive up to a certain point, and if the unproductive are rewarded at the same rate as the productive, the productive will stop working.
You may try to use the iron hand of government to level out the market, but all you’re doing is changing the rules under which the game is being played — and the clever individual will find a way to outwit you.
But under that rubric, it would be just as jolly to look at another country, the way that Kristoff does:
” It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes.
Which just goes to show that Kristoff is little more than a demagogue and a liar.
Perhaps you should read the article to which it is linked. There’s a very good reason why Pakistan only receives that much.
The rules say that anyone who earns more than $3,488 a year must pay income tax, but few do. Akbar Zaidi, a Karachi-based political economist with the Carnegie Endowment, estimates that as many as 10 million Pakistanis should be paying income tax, far more than the 2.5 million who are registered.
In short, there is nothing wrong with the tax structure in Pakistan; there is a catastrophic problem with peoples’ willingness to pay and with how it’s enforced.
And where does that apparently start? At the top:
But behind the opulence lurks a troubling fact. Very few of these households pay income tax. That is mostly because the politicians who make the rules are also the country’s richest citizens, and are skilled at finding ways to exempt themselves.
Gee, you mean like Obama Party leaders John Kerry, Charles Rangel, Timothy Geithner, Kathleen Sebelius, Hilda Solis, and vast numbers of other Barack Obama administration and Party employees that exempt themselves from paying taxes?
Ever seen Kristof criticize that? No; he’s too busy pissing himself trying to spin and cover up for the fact that he and his fellow Obamabots scream and whine and demand more taxes on OTHER people — they never pay, and have no intention of paying, themselves.
That’s why you don’t get to piss and moan about “tax cuts for the wealthy”, Cas. Your own rich Obamabots are not paying their taxes at all, and you support and endorse it.
PAY YOUR OWN TAXES FIRST BEFORE YOU DEMAND OTHERS, CHEAT!
Sorry to be late.
International services are going to continue since not only cost is an issue, in some cases convience is an issue too.
A lot of medical transcription is done in India now, in part because of cost sure, but also because of convience. A doctor can read into a computer, the MP3 is shipped off to India, they work on it during the day (our night) and when the doc comes in the next morning, the transcribed file is sitting in their inbox. As we become more information driven, we’re going to see more things like this.
OK… just one more…
NDT – I think this was an interesting back-and-forth.
Bottom line is that I don’t think the iron fist of gubmint is the answer to our problems. I do think that our problems are fundamental (the “paradigm shift”) and that solutions will take some new thinking.
Livewire in #32 mentions off-shore medical transcription. All well and good but that means the economy needs to create jobs for the US-based transcriptionists that are now unemployed.
California’s hostility to business (see recent comments by Intel and Cypress CEOs on difficulty of building semiconductor fabs in CA) certainly demonstrate one way to not have job growth.
Bullsh*t. Walgreens being able to offer consumers cheaper eyeglass cleaner is *not* the cause of high unemployment. Really SCR, listen to what you’re saying.
To the extent that eyeglass cleaner from China has an economic impact (and it’s a small one – which is the first big problem with your claim), the impact is a net positive: consumers have more money to spend on other things, creating employment elsewhere. That is how trade works.
To say it another way: If the Chinese are stupid enough to create eyeglass cleaner at lower wages than necessary (thus lowering their living standard and raising ours), let them. They are *not* stopping overall U.S. employment (the creation of new jobs elsewhere), by doing so. A variety of bad policies that restrict overall freedom in the U.S. economy, is what stops U.S. job creation.
What shift are you referring to?
Again: because of bad U.S. policy that inhibits the creation of new businesses, industries and jobs. Both parties share some responsibility, but Obama has taken it to a new level (of badness).
Sorry, but you do not sound like one at all. I do not believe you.
Good, you do that. Nothing is stopping you; you can give Walgreens some extra pennies right now. Oh wait, you really mean that, using policy / government, you want to *force others* to pay more.
By the way, you could also use your money right now to solve unemployment in a more direct fashion. You can give some money to an unemployed person. If you don’t feel comfortable giving it to them as a gift, you can let them pay you back with… oh I don’t know… some work that you need done. Perhaps you won’t be able to give them much, but I’m sure you can find one who will gladly take it, and who will be able to do something you need.
That is called job creation, see? Oh, wait – You will swiftly find that the government gets in your way, making it painful for you if not impossible. To my point.
To say that government is limited in Pakistan is simply false. It’s one of the more oppressive countries in the world. Thus, Hi Cas, your argument is invalidated – and you are shown to be unserious.
The freest countries in the world tend, over time, to be the richest: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
The U.S. is only #9 (down from #4 a few years ago, and #1 more years ago). Pakistan is #123.
Back on the job creation thing: To be clear, the government may decide that SCR’s arrangement (that I proposed, wherein he uses a little of his money to employ some unemployed person) is illegal. Illegal! And hence, that SCR is *a criminal* for providing said employment.
You can have two parties who are legal (e.g., citizens, of age, etc.)… who agree on arrangement by mutual, voluntary consent… and in the government’s eyes, they are criminals for engaging in that productive, mutually beneficial. That is not a free labor market. And the U.S. is not, in fact, a capitalist country; we only pretend it is.
Hi ILC,
Two things:
I looked at the country chart you suggested. It is interesting to note that many of these countries above the US have more “socialist” kinds of medical care insurance systems than the US does, and they do have mixed economic systems. So, I am unsure if this really supports your conclusion, except in so far as mixed economic systems (with more socialist leaning medical care insurance systems) appear to be good for the economic well-being of a country.
Also, I am surprised that you would say: “your argument is invalidated – and you are shown to be unserious.” A closer reading, would show that at the end, I do say: “Totally unfair, I know. And totally simplistic as an approach.” So, I don’t disagree with you, ILC. However, I was making a point based on what had just been posted above it, which was, in my opinion, an equally non-serious country comparison. Of course, you are most welcome to disagree.
Which goes to show what I already said: that the US is not, in fact, a capitalist country.
Try again. The U.S. has had growing economic weakness, insofar as it has adopted more socialist measures over time. And the top 2 countries on the list – Singapore and Hong Kong – do not, insofar as I know, have socialized medicine. Finally, even if they did, my point would still be rest: the *relatively* freest countries tend, *over time*, to do economically better. In a world where there are no truly free countries, still, the ones who are “less unfree” will do better as the future unfolds. History shows that.
I assumed you were being sarcastic. Because if you truly believed that trying to cite Pakistan as a country with limited government (or a free economy) was “totally unfair”… then you would not have done so. Trying to have it both ways, eh Cas?
(To clarify my first sentence in #38: The index looks at freedom on a variety of measures; a country with socialized medicine can potentially be freer than the U.S. because the U.S. is un-free in other ways; and also, as a result of Obamacare mandates, the U.S. now has “virtually socialized” medicine; all of which is a testament to the progressive (pun intended) degradation of the U.S. under Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and now Obama.)
Follow-up on Singapore health care: It looks like its government is heavily involved with health care, BUT in a much more market-oriented way than other countries: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html
Many costs are recovered through user fees, which disciplines consumption under market forces. Perhaps emulating how Chile privatized Social Security, Singapore has mandatory (but nonetheless individual) health savings accounts: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html
Hi ILC,
“Trying to have it both ways, eh Cas?”
No, ILC. I explained why I did as I did, and I meant it. That is what I tried to convey with the beginning and end of that post.
Would it be fair to say that “freedom” in your mind encompasses more than the Heritage table’s “economic freedom”? Is it something that you define in all its forms?
Thanks for the information on Singapore. Though it values societal order and control, it also rates at 29 on their scale. New Zealand is still the place to live apparently…
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2011-GPI-Results-Report-Final.pdf
Human freedom – the real kind, anyway – is: individual rights to life, liberty and property under the smallest government that is can function impartially to protect those rights, i.e., under a government that consists of constitutionally-limited police, courts and military and nothing more.
Human freedom has both political and economic aspects. They reinforce each other and, in fact, are necessary to each other. For example, economic freedom is not effective in a political dictatorship, even if that dictatorship avoids overt socialism. Likewise, political freedom is not effective (or not fully so) in a mixed social-fascist economy, where
Obama grants ObamaCare waivers to his friendsgovernment regulators grant economic favors to their political supporters and punishments to their political enemies.Well, duh. (Some of us figured out Cas is unserious a long time ago.)
Thanks for the clarification ILC. You might find that index I mentioned interesting reading, or not.
Hi! Cas @ #18 linked to an article in a new-age magazine and I was immediately hooked. I have not seen such stuff since Jeremy Bentham decided to reorganize human nature. At any rate, I clicked a link within the article and I read another article that had this nugget:
Dear, me. The greatest good for the greatest number as decided by the politburo is alive and well in the hearts of the iron-willed socialists. Bring on the five year plan and (keep me, dear Lord, from the application of Godwin’s Law) fascist and socialist and communist dictatorship over people who don’t know what is good for themselves.
Congrats, Hi! Cas, your reading material is far more honest about who you are than anything you try launching from your own comments.
Now, as for me, I wish to live in a commune where others weave hammocks for me to lie in and serve me my favorite foods and play my form of soothing music and entertain and delight me and ask nothing from me in terms of labor or money, but do my bidding to make me happy. Please do not criticize my wants, because that would make me unhappy and that violates the charter of greatest happiness.
Also, wash my dog and cover your tattoos.
Yeah, they just give the lingo a new coat of paint, every generation or two.