The great jobs debate: Ideas for how to put the unemployed back to work

[JSt0rm]

Last I heard, Railways were extremely profitable (except for Amtrak.)

It's just impossible to build anything new today, due to Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies.

While they would probably like to build high-speed lines, it is impossible in today's world of Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies.

-John

Amtrak is profitable on the eastern seaboard.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Or we can start thinking of mutually acceptable ways to deal with this radical change in civilization. It makes more sense to me than everyone trying to win a last-man-standing rat-race. The real issue is population control.

Your first sentence is correct. Eventually we are all going to be unnecessary as robotics and computers are able to replace our economic niche. So, we do need to start coming up with a plan on what to do as larger and larger percentages of the population simply can not compete with a machine. Not everyone is able to be a creative worker, and soon that is all that is going to be left.

Your last sentence is sadly very off mark. It is not a issue of total numbers, it is an issue of percentages. Reduce the population by half and you will have half the demand, and half the jobs, so the same percentage of people will be out of work and eating the same percentage of the economic resources.

A eugenics program designed to create people custom made for specific jobs might work, but I personally don’t want to even consider such a future.

 

[Zorkorist]

The way past machines, and computers, is advances in areas that they cannot perform. Thought, risk, adventure, gain.

However, today, thought, risk, adventure and gain, are illegal, thanks to Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies.

-John

 

[BarneyFife]

You want to have Chickens in your back yard. Illegal.

You want to grow a garden in your front yard. Illegal.

You want to renovate your home. Illegal.

You want to drive a car without a seatbelt. Illegal.

You want to...

-John

You need to move to Alabama or a 3rd world country.

 

[Zorkorist]

You'll lose another 24 employees/workers/jobs, when I do.

-John

 

[SMOGZINN]

The way past machines, and computers, is advances in areas that they cannot perform. Thought, risk, adventure, gain.

However, today, thought, risk, adventure and gain, are illegal, thanks to Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies.

-John

Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies only do what the people want.

Each time you get pissed off because some power plant exploded and killed your parents, you give them the power to make it harder to build the next one.

Each time you demand some justice just because some company saved a few of its hard earned pennies by using toxic chemicals to in the food storage bins, you give the lawyers the ability to limit what you can do.

I'm not really sure how the insurance companies fit into this, but they are the same sort of thing. They get power because people want to have stability in their lives and not lose everything to a bad roll of the dice.

 

[Zorkorist]

Those might be good words, you said, smogzinn, except the over-run of Government, Lawyers, and Insurance Companies is well under way.

America was supposed to be a strong country, because we had a constitution that limited Government, and a Bill of Rights, that gave power to the people.

This has been proved patently false, and today only Government has power.

Government's ally's are the Lawyers (duh), and the Insurance Companies, which when mandated by Government (see car insurance, house insurance, etc.) are equally to blame for the destruction of the individual.

--

Government, does not do what the people want. This has been proven thoughout millenia. They do what THEY want, and it's up to the people to LIMIT Government.

It has never succeeded before, and it's not succeeding now.

Government is out of control.

-John

 

[Infohawk]

Your last sentence is sadly very off mark. It is not a issue of total numbers, it is an issue of percentages. Reduce the population by half and you will have half the demand, and half the jobs, so the same percentage of people will be out of work and eating the same percentage of the economic resources.

That wasn't my concern with population control at all. My concern are natural and environmental resources being destroyed by too large a global population. I don't care if people don't work in a future where there isn't a need for work, but I do care if people have a dozen children to take up resources.

 

[Atreus21]

Corporations are holding all time high levels of cash and not spending it (on new hiring, products, upgrades, anything). Over two trillion dollars. Apple just released that they have accumulated an additional ten billion in cash over the last quarter alone.

I'd like to know exactly what is meant by holding cash. Holding it where? In pillowcases?

 

[1prophet]

You need to move to Alabama or a 3rd world country.

Except for the seatbelt laws New York City allows all that including chickens.

 

[piasabird]

Quit importing cars.

 

[piasabird]

They built rail systems in St Louis, MO. However, when they connected to East St Louis, IL, crime increased near the rail service. Basically criminals come into St Louis, MO from East St Louis and probably other areas. Then the press tries to cover it up.

 

[piasabird]

I'd like to know exactly what is meant by holding cash. Holding it where? In pillowcases?

Well in case you dont know this all companies have to keep a certain amount of cash reserves on hand to do business. Some of this they reinvest They can invest cash in short term T-bills and other Cash-like securities.

On the stock market they look at stocks and things like ratios for both money borrowed and cash reserves on hand. If they are paying dividends they also have to hold earnings till the dividends are paid. If your cash reserves are low the risk for owning the stock may be considered high.

They also invest in each other's stock. Sometimes a company can operate at a loss and still make money on their investments.

 

[sm625]

Unfortunately our entire culture is infected with "something" that will make it virtually impossible to create jobs into the future. And if we do manage to create any meaningful amount of jobs, it will surely be in the form of a massive malinvestment, such as the housing bubble was 10 years ago. I use the word "something" in quotes because I do not have a single word or phrase to desribe exactly what it is that is keeping us down. All I know is that this is a generational thing. Our generation cannot fix it, and will not fix it. Read up on Kondratiev Cycles if you want to know more. This has happened before. We are actually in an economic depression right now, masked by increasing government share of gdp. That part has to come out. It will come out. And when it does reality is going to smack about 20 million people in the face all at the same time. And when it does those 20 million people are going to destroy 20% more of gdp in a kneejerk reaction. Then suddenly we will find ourselves in a 30% gdp hole, and there will be no denying the mess we are in. Then the anger at allowing this to happen will become so strong that WWIII will be the only solution. I have argued many times that societies reach a point where war is the only option. No one in my generation understands how that can be. But they will find out. Again, I cannot stress enough how important it is to know long wave cycles, or Kondratiev Cycles.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

The people running around this country with a middle class victim complex need to get a fucking clue.

Free choice is a bitch, if the "middle class" elected to sign loan papers and turn their houses into a credit card there is nobody to blame but the middle class. All of the cash floating around made people and businesses lazy, now that the music has stopped and there aren't enough chairs who's really to blame? What's happening in DC is a reflection on a problem with the culture and the country at large.

We've been living in an age of false prosperity for the past 10 years, chasing bubble after bubble in pursuit of funny money from inflated tech stocks and real-estate idiocy backed up by a government bail-out that rewards failure and poor decision making. The products and services bought and sold with the fake money were created in response to demand from the public including the demand for cheaper goods made in China.

As much as people gnash and complain about the current state of things we have nobody to blame but ourselves... not dirty politicians (who we elect) or "banksters" who fed our demand for big houses full of shit we don't need. Real consequences (bankrupcy, homelessness, etc..) for people who made dumb ass decisions, individuals/families/corporations/banks, etc... would encourage smart behavior. Continuing the cycle of bailouts that reward failure and and witch hunts for people who fed into the madness is simply a chicken shit way to avoid taking responsibility. We have, as a country, gotten ourselves here and until we collectively take responsibility and begin behaving like self-sufficent adults that hold one another accountable for our actions we don't deserve prosperity.

Yeah right

The old "Majority of Americans made bad choices and deserve what they get" argument. Sorry but thats total bullshit! Yes bad choices made by some made their plight worse as bad choices always do, but to blame the total of wealth redistribution to the top over the last 30yrs on bad choices made by the middle class is arrogant and dishonest. And most of those who did make bad choices did so as a last resort trying to hold onto a lifestyle that was acheivable and sustainable just a generation before.

 

[soulcougher73]

The only step that matters is increasing the purchasing power of the masses. For years we've been fed a load of crap about that being done by lowering production costs, but while that has made some things more affordable, for the most part it just translated existing prices into profits (ie wealth concentration). Moreover it was accompanied by the eradication of the middle class, which is the ONLY class that can be large enough to be a consumer base (lower class not having the money, and upper class not being big enough).

Acknowledging the utter failure which is supply side economics the answer is painfully clear: get money into the hands of a large body of citizens who can exist as 'middle class'. Only when a sizable portion of the country has significant disposable income can enough goods and services be purchased to fuel business expansion and thereby lead to job growth.

While I'm in complete agreement on many of the protectionist ideas from posters above, it's moot unless/until the bulk of the country can afford to buy something. That means abandoning the debt model (for consumers and the nation), reversing wealth concentration, and encouraging REAL price competition (not profit competition) to drive down prices and keep them tied to real earning inflation to prevent future collapses (ESPECIALLY with regards to real estate). At the same time we need to somehow get people paid a middle wage (instead of having 50% of people making less than 25k/yr, and another 25% between 25k and 50k/yr). The bell curve is your friend, even with income.

This. Dont think i could have worded it better.

 

[sm625]

Yeah right

The old "Majority of Americans made bad choices and deserve what they get" argument. Sorry but thats total bullshit!

But that's exactly what happened. It was just a string of really bad choices that led to the evisceration of the middle class. Whose choice was it to buy 9 million iPads in the last 3 months, instead of saving that $6 billion dollars to invest in something useful down the road? It was the choice of 9 million middle class morons. And I bet at least 30% of them are going to have absolutely nothing of value 10 years from now. Why did they make such bad choices? Because they watch too much tv, they accept too much propaganda that was all generated by the elite wealthy for the sole purpose of driving the middle class to spend all its money, ie give it to the rich. All these poor choices lead to complete destruction of the values which cause us to protect our wealth. Look at the inner city neighborhoods. Look how they are trashed but yet 10% of the cars have nice expensive rims? WHY? No logical reason. It can obviously only be the result of aberrant conditioning. It is easy to see in some cases, much more difficult to see in other cases, but there are literally thousands of cases that in sum total the destruction of the middle class. Listen to Alan Watt for more info on societal conditioning. ( http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/ ) This doesnt end until we become aware. Until then, we all choose to be ignorant, and thus we choose a future of poverty. Because no matter how ignorant we pretend to be, we all know that very few people are actually in control of the world. It is just a matter of knowing how that control system works.

 

[soulcougher73]

On the face a great idea, in actuality a bad one. It does not create jobs. The problem with this economy is not that the unemployed are not getting hired; the idea this person puts through will bias toward hiring somebody unemployed for a particular position (as opposed to pulling away an already-employed from their position--a position which is theoretically now open to others). The problem is that companies do not want as many people as are now available for work.

We all must realize that at some point--I'm not saying it's now, but it's at some point--the the low-quality employee; the barely motivated with or without a high school degree, simply has nothing to offer an employer. We are in an economy that outsources much of its labor to third world nations and outsources much of it to machines locally. These people will be increasingly squeezed out because they simply aren't worth anything to the economy as employees earning a wage. Surely an increased safety net, and we see ours increase decade after decade, encourages this "worthless employee" situation.

If you want to extend my logic further imagine we had an unlimited supply of dogs. What use are they? Smart, well trained dogs are good in a few positions, as guide dogs or drug sniffers but they cannot operate machinery or computers. We just don't need many of them. A person, even one of average intelligence, at some point becomes more expensive than a machine that can do his job for cheaper and do it better. He'll always be worth something but if he can scrounge out a basic existence with AC and TV and not starve to death his demanded salary is more than you care to pay him, and so he stays out of work.

That is why you need minial jobs for the masses. If every dog was a bomb sniifer or seeing eye dog..that would be way to many and youd just end up in the same boat. Except now you have millions of skilled people for only thousands of jobs for example.

 

[soulcougher73]

I'd like to know exactly what is meant by holding cash. Holding it where? In pillowcases?

Are you retarded or something?

 

[soulcougher73]

But that's exactly what happened. It was just a string of really bad choices that led to the evisceration of the middle class. Whose choice was it to buy 9 million iPads in the last 3 months, instead of saving that $6 billion dollars to invest in something useful down the road? It was the choice of 9 million middle class morons. And I bet at least 30% of them are going to have absolutely nothing of value 10 years from now. Why did they make such bad choices? Because they watch too much tv, they accept too much propaganda that was all generated by the elite wealthy for the sole purpose of driving the middle class to spend all its money, ie give it to the rich. All these poor choices lead to complete destruction of the values which cause us to protect our wealth. Look at the inner city neighborhoods. Look how they are trashed but yet 10% of the cars have nice expensive rims? WHY? No logical reason. It can obviously only be the result of aberrant conditioning. It is easy to see in some cases, much more difficult to see in other cases, but there are literally thousands of cases that in sum total the destruction of the middle class. Listen to Alan Watt for more info on societal conditioning. ( http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/ ) This doesnt end until we become aware. Until then, we all choose to be ignorant, and thus we choose a future of poverty. Because no matter how ignorant we pretend to be, we all know that very few people are actually in control of the world. It is just a matter of knowing how that control system works.

I can haz ipad for $1?

 

[her209]

Well in case you dont know this all companies have to keep a certain amount of cash reserves on hand to do business. Some of this they reinvest They can invest cash in short term T-bills and other Cash-like securities.

I think it depends on the business. If you can turn over your inventory fast enough, you could get away with operating on net 30, 60, 90. That shifts the onus down the line to the suppliers to keep enough cash to cover the bills.

There was story about it
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2011-07-12-small-business-late-payments_n.htm

 

[Tom]

the only way to increase employment is to increase growth.

1. increase demand
a. create wealth
b. distribute wealth to maximise demand for what we produce. (tax policy)

2. expand market
a. make babies
b. welcome immigrants
c. use our bargaining power to enforce fair trade globally

3. reduce cost of production
a. improve transportation infrastructure
b. reduce cost of power
c. healthy workers are more productive
d. educated workers are more productive
e. create incentives for long term improvements that won't happen with only short term market pressure. ie, government mpg standards for vehicles.

4. develop new markets
a. invest in research to develop new products

Some of those things are done via private enterprise, but some are best done by government and public enterprise.

So one big problem we have is the relentless attack on government spending as if it is always bad, which is mostly being done for political advantage, not in the interest of the people.

 

[piasabird]

There is no such thing as fair trade. What happens is if your/our government raises taxes and it is cheaper to produce products in another country, then say goodbye to your jobs. California is raising taxes and all the jobs are going places like Arizona.

 

[dmcowen674]

The old "Majority of Americans made bad choices and deserve what they get" argument. Sorry but thats total bullshit!

Yes bad choices made by some made their plight worse as bad choices always do, but to blame the total of wealth redistribution to the top over the last 30yrs on bad choices made by the middle class is arrogant and dishonest.

And most of those who did make bad choices did so as a last resort trying to hold onto a lifestyle that was acheivable and sustainable just a generation before.

Good honest post

The ones that keep shouting "Americans made bad choices and deserve what they get" are the ones that Americans need to go after since they caused this situation.

The good news is I do see slowly many waking up and realizing who the enemy is.

Another one was found guilty today and will be put away for a long time.

Many more to go

http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-jury-convicts-ex-ceo-110-million-fraud-225819944.html

NYC jury convicts ex-CEO in $110 million fraud

A Manhattan jury convicted a former Industrial Enterprises of America Inc chief executive on Tuesday of stealing more than $110 million from the chemicals company and its investors, prosecutors said. James Margulies, 47, was convicted on 30 felony counts, including grand larceny, scheming to defraud, conspiracy falsifying business records, and violating the Martin Act, a state law used to combat securities fraud.


According to prosecutors, Margulies ran a "pump-and-dump" scheme from 2004 to 2008 in which he fraudulently issued 43 million Industrial Enterprises shares totaling more than $90 million and used the proceeds to inflate the Pittsburgh-based company's balance sheet.


They said the Cleveland resident then sold his stock at inflated prices to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, including expensive homes, a $350,000 ring for his wife, a $500,000 vacation club membership and private jet travel.


Investors including an Ohio teachers' pension fund and the Methodist Church lost more than $20 million, prosecutors said.


Industrial Enterprises filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2009.


Mazzuto testified he and Margulies created bogus minutes of board meetings that never took place and tried to conceal the fraud by falsifying documents of consulting services that were never provided.

 

[werepossum]

Good honest post

The ones that keep shouting "Americans made bad choices and deserve what they get" are the ones that Americans need to go after since they caused this situation.

The good news is I do see slowly many waking up and realizing who the enemy is.

Another one was found guilty today and will be put away for a long time.

Many more to go

http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-jury-convicts-ex-ceo-110-million-fraud-225819944.html

NYC jury convicts ex-CEO in $110 million fraud

A Manhattan jury convicted a former Industrial Enterprises of America Inc chief executive on Tuesday of stealing more than $110 million from the chemicals company and its investors, prosecutors said. James Margulies, 47, was convicted on 30 felony counts, including grand larceny, scheming to defraud, conspiracy falsifying business records, and violating the Martin Act, a state law used to combat securities fraud.


According to prosecutors, Margulies ran a "pump-and-dump" scheme from 2004 to 2008 in which he fraudulently issued 43 million Industrial Enterprises shares totaling more than $90 million and used the proceeds to inflate the Pittsburgh-based company's balance sheet.


They said the Cleveland resident then sold his stock at inflated prices to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, including expensive homes, a $350,000 ring for his wife, a $500,000 vacation club membership and private jet travel.


Investors including an Ohio teachers' pension fund and the Methodist Church lost more than $20 million, prosecutors said.


Industrial Enterprises filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2009.


Mazzuto testified he and Margulies created bogus minutes of board meetings that never took place and tried to conceal the fraud by falsifying documents of consulting services that were never provided.

Hopefully that dude gets life without parole. In maximum security, not in Uncle Sam's Country Club where his biggest complaint will be the lack of a drinks girl on the ninth hole. This guy did way more damage than your average armed robber.