Mo Money

[prole]

The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell

 

If the feds don't spend money to put people back to work, the economy won't recover and politics will get uglier

 

By Robert Reich

 

Oct. 03, 2009 |

 

Unemployment will almost certainly be in double-digits next year -- and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' household survey, you can bet there's another either too discouraged to look for work or working part time who'd rather have a full-time job or else taking home less pay than before (I'm in the last category, now that the University of California has instituted pay cuts). And there's yet another person who's more fearful that he or she will be next to lose a job.

 

In other words, 10 percent unemployment really means 20 percent underemployment or anxious employment. All of which translates directly into late payments on mortgages, credit cards, auto and student loans, and loss of health insurance. It also means sleeplessness for tens of millions of Americans. And, of course, fewer purchases (more on this in a moment).

 

Unemployment of this magnitude and duration also translates into ugly politics, because fear and anxiety are fertile grounds for demagogues weilding the politics of resentment against immigrants, blacks, the poor, government leaders, business leaders, Jews and other easy targets. It's already started. Next year is a mid-term election. Be prepared for worse.

 

So why is unemployment and underemployment so high, and why is it likely to remain high for some time? Because, as noted, people who are worried about their jobs or have no jobs, and who are also trying to get out from under a pile of debt, are not going to do a lot of shopping. And businesses that don't have customers aren't going to do a lot of new investing. And foreign nations also suffering high unemployment aren't going to buy a lot of our goods and services.

 

And without customers, companies won't hire. They'll cut payrolls instead.

 

Which brings us to the obvious question: Who's going to buy the stuff we make or the services we provide, and therefore bring jobs back? There's only one buyer left: The government.

 

Let me say this as clearly and forcefully as I can: The federal government should be spending even more than it already is on roads and bridges and schools and parks and everything else we need. It should make up for cutbacks at the state level, and then some. This is the only way to put Americans back to work. We did it during the Depression. It was called the WPA.

 

Yes, I know. Our government is already deep in debt. But let me tell you something: When one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, this is no time to worry about the debt.

 

When I was a small boy my father told me that I and my kids and my grand-kids would be paying down the debt created by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression and World War II. I didn't even know what a debt was, but it kept me up at night.

 

My father was right about a lot of things, but he was wrong about this. America paid down FDR's debt in the 1950s, when Americans went back to work, when the economy was growing again, and when our incomes grew, too. We paid taxes, and in a few years that FDR debt had shrunk to almost nothing.

 

You see? The most important thing right now is getting the jobs back, and getting the economy growing again.

 

People who now obsess about government debt have it backwards. The problem isn't the debt. The problem is just the opposite. It's that at a time like this, when consumers and businesses and exports can't do it, government has to spend more to get Americans back to work and recharge the economy. Then – after people are working and the economy is growing -- we can pay down that debt.

 

But if government doesn't spend more right now and get Americans back to work, we could be out of work for years. And the debt will be with us even longer. And politics could get much uglier.

 

Update: This morning's job numbers are bad enough -- 263,000 more jobs lost in September, and unemployment now at 9.8 percent -- but look behind them and the news is even grimmer. The only reason the numbers don't look worse is that 571,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. Remember, too, that the economy needs about 125,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with a growing population. So we're even further behind.

 

The numbers would be even worse but for the stimulus package. According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, the stimulus is saving or creating between 200,000 and 250,000 jobs a month. Without it, job losses in September would have been nearly twice what they actually were.

 

State governments, meanwhile, continue to shed employees. Here's one of the most depressing statistics I've seen (if you need any additional ones): Some 15,600 teachers didn't return to work in September. They were laid off. So our classrooms are bigger, we have fewer teachers, and our students are presumably learning less -- at the very time when they need to be learning more than ever.

[Jim]

It's going to be sluggy for a while, especially with the other shoe about to drop on the remainder of write-offs of toxic assests coming.

 

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

 

In addition, the lagging maintenance of infrastructure in the US could use help as well. Friggin' A, getting tired of watching billions flushed down the Pentagon rathole when we could be spending those funds much more productively than the latest weapons system.

 

And the politics are going to get a bit grim - likely more stimulus will be needed (pls, not another cash for clunkers) but there will be no political will and the talking heads and right wing turds will be screaming socialism all the way. Thanks - guess who got us in this money pit.

[ivan]

that movie was the source of my favorite black joke, which i figure i'm pre-approved to tell 'cuz it was told by a black guy:

 

why did the black man wear a business suit to see his urologist?

 

 

....

 

 

 

he figured if he was gonna be impotent, he wanted to look im'po'tant

 

thanks you wayans bros.

 

as to the governemtn needing to hire folks, hey, the marines are always looking for a few good men! be the first one on your block to come back w/ a confirmed kill!

Edited October 2, 2009 by ivan

[ivan]

 

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

holy shit, the trail that leads to half dome in yos is perhaps the most incredible mind-bending example of waht a hell of a lot of folks w/ hammers and pick-axes can render out of stone - like walking in minas tirith i tell ye!

[tvashtarkatena]

 

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

holy shit, the trail that leads to half dome in yos is perhaps the most incredible mind-bending example of waht a hell of a lot of folks w/ hammers and pick-axes can render out of stone - like walking in minas tirith i tell ye!

 

WTF are you talking about?

 

It's call dynomite, hombre. Lotsa fucking dynomite.

[tvashtarkatena]

Speaking of money, I'm taking a 2 lb loaf of french bread out of the oven right now...for about 75 cents investment.

 

Fuck

 

Yeah

[j_b]

clearly the most urgent issue today but since the corporate media has been pushing reducing-the-deficit-is-numero-uno, and Obama pledged to reduce deficit at the G20 while keeping the dollar up, the only possible outcome is more unemployment. It's called austerity and unless progressives put the heat on congress, matters are going to get much worse for real people.

[ivan]

 

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

holy shit, the trail that leads to half dome in yos is perhaps the most incredible mind-bending example of waht a hell of a lot of folks w/ hammers and pick-axes can render out of stone - like walking in minas tirith i tell ye!

 

WTF are you talking about?

 

It's call dynomite, hombre. Lotsa fucking dynomite.

naw, it's not just that its been blasted - each step hand hewn and hand placed for mile after mile - uber-kewl and far more worht the money than simply killing brown people

[prole]

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

 

I was watching the Ken Burns park segment the other night that highlighted the WPA. I've been thinking for years that this is what the parks need. There's a skill base of folks in timber towns that know how to work in the forest - roads, trails, facilities - and the parks and forests have a huge backlog of work.

holy shit, the trail that leads to half dome in yos is perhaps the most incredible mind-bending example of waht a hell of a lot of folks w/ hammers and pick-axes can render out of stone - like walking in minas tirith i tell ye!

 

WTF are you talking about?

 

It's call dynomite, hombre. Lotsa fucking dynomite.

naw, it's not just that its been blasted - each step hand hewn and hand placed for mile after mile - uber-kewl and far more worht the money than simply killing brown people

 

Zion's got quite a bit of that Road Runner goodness, too.

[j_b]

This situation creates no sense of urgency in Washington. Ask Summers what he's going to do about it, for instance, and he hems and haws about recovery act programs that have yet to take full effect. To our political elite, jobs are simply nowhere near as critical an issue as the other economic indicators, the stock market, or the financial health of the nation's top bankers.

 

Outside the Beltway, however, it's a different story. According to a new poll by Hart Research Associates for the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment and the lack of jobs "remains the dominant problem on the economic agenda for voters across party lines." In fact, it's not even close. Asked to name the most important economic problem facing the country, registered voters cited unemployment twice as often as they mentioned the deficit or even the cost of health care; and four times as much as the housing crisis or problems with the banking system.

 

A whopping 83 percent see unemployment as either a fairly big or very big problem; and 81 percent say the Obama administration hasn't done enough to deal with it.

 

And there just aren't a whole lot of things that more than 80 percent of Americans agree about.

 

Not coincidentally, large majorities of voters also see the government's economic policies as helping banks and Wall Street -- while few see themselves or average working families in general as benefiting.

 

 

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/washington-doesnt-get-it_n_307882.html