What the biggest employment problem in the economy?

I agree, none of us start at absolute zero. In fact, no person on the planet starts there either. But nit picking aside, I think you grasp the comment I made regardless of your desire to focus on semantics. Would it make you happy if I said we all start on first base? Nothing in my comment changes with this edit.

 

*shrug* Your comment about how you assume I vote and what you assume motivates me to do so didn't seem to offer anything worth grasping.

And yes, it's value doesn't change with this edit.




​

 

If you disagree with my comment about the essence of conservative values then provide a better explanation for their incessant ranting about a meritocracy, Horatio Alger and personal responsibility, persecution of the poor and a celebration of inherited wealth. I am willing to be open to a different interpretation but beware, I have been following them closely since the 60s.

 

Again, you're starting with assumptions. Start with a real observation and maybe we have something to talk about. Asking me to explain things that I don't agree exist is silly.




​

 

Start up business by definition, must compete with the existing business, even if with a new product or service. That is a customer base already exist, but resistance to entering the competition comes from uncertainty of the near and far economy. That then depends on interference from the different Governments.

If, as you suggest, the American or International consumer doesn't have the funds to purchase products, then explain Apple, which is now the highest valued company on planet earth and has made millionaire's out of thousands of people. This would be true for people investing in such companies as Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and others that have started up in 70's to about 2005.

This leads to "Trickle Down" where literally millions invested extra cash from tax cuts, some classified poor in the day, didn't blow it, and are now the ones you all are complaining about.

 

Really? Is that your consensus on the values of the conservative movement? My comments reflect the core tenets of conservatism. From your comments, you must either be a conservative or a libertarian for I know of no liberal who would disagree with my rather bland statements of fact. So what is it?

 

Yeah, the most productive population in the most productive country in the history of the world ain't entitled to jack (*)(*)(*)(*). We gotta start viewing ourselves as rice pickers in China and be grateful for the opportunity to have a pointy hat.

 

Can you demonstrate that?




​

 

Does this work on Townhall.com or redstate.com for you?

 

Debt is debt no matter who owns the debt.

Debt money is required to be paid back with interest...this is a cost.

US bonds do pay interest...

 

There are risks with all jobs today from automation, to robotics, to outsourcing, to green card immigrants, etc. so all workers need to pay attention to the industry trends and try to be proactive to maintain whatever it is they desire...

 

Suggesting folks demonstrate assertions that seem unreasonable? *shrug* I would guess it works pretty much anywhere.




​

 

Automation has not really eliminated any jobs. Human labor is just much cheaper than expensive robots.
Computer programs have, however, eliminated many entry level office jobs and clerical positions. Now they do not need people to think, just low wage people to enter some information into a computer that tells them what to do.

 

The interest we pay is paid for in the exact same way we paid back the principal. Money is fungible. Interest on federal debt allows us to control interest rates and lets us expand the money supply. We could have taxed those same investors and spared us the cost of printing money for the interest. Federal debt is not the same as personal debt.

 

IMO one of the problems with affordable labor hired for repetitive tasks with some supervision is job processes need to be broken down into their lowest common denominator task. If a hunk of metal is going to be machined, and they are making 1000's of them, one employee will not do all of the processes. There will be one employee rough cutting the hunk of metal, one employee precisely machining the metal, one employee drilling holes, one employee degreasing, etc. etc. Before robotics how many employees did it require to build a car with each employee only placing one part, or securing one screw, etc.? It did not make any sense to cross-train every employee to be able to do all tasks in the process...except for the rare super-employee. This way each employee got good at their tasks, minimized defects, maximized efficiency, and the employee could easily be replaced when necessary. Along comes robotics and employees are easily replaced. Automated processes can eliminate employees. Human labor has a cost and so does robotics and automation, etc. As labor approaches a cost level which begins to justify automation good bye labor!

You don't seem to like how companies treat low labor workers, but think about this; if those processes were not broken down into tasks which unskilled and lower-skilled workers can perform, there would be far less jobs available...

- - - Updated - - -

Federal debt and personal debt both are securing financing today to be paid back over time with interest...

 

Well isn't this a load of crap. Your post reeks of generalizations. I'm guessing you've never met a straight A student with 6 years of college in a non liberal arts degree who has failed to find employment paying more then 18k a year. Perhaps there is an entitlement problem but you people who constantly parrot crap like this have no logical basis to back up your point. There most certainly is a problem with not enough high paying jobs and what decent jobs do exist wages are kept low because there is a surplus of workers. Will the market eventually sort it out on its own? Probably, but it has very little to do with being entitled.

People like you constantly put up a circular argument that adds very little intelligent to the discussion. "You're poor because you're not willing to work hard!"

And for those who have worked hard and have been met with unfortunate circumstances "you're just entitled!" Why can't you just say something that requires you to think first and reason like "hmm maybe the job market sucks right now".

 

Yes Job market sucks right now, is a well thought out elegant argument. Who am I to argue such logic.

 

The job market for highly skilled and educated workers is weak largely due to competition from foreign workers able to do the same work remotely in places like the former USSR, China, India, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is clear that private industry will not produce enough of these jobs domestically even in the most favorable environment for them. They are all making huge profits and spending billions buying back their own shares rather than invest in our people via job creation. Tax policy is not going to change this equation. The only player left that can employ these people is the federal government who could create jobs for them overnight if the will existed. Millions could be employed doing research, building better power systems, roads, bridges, schools and so on. We choose the unemployment rates we want, it is not the other way around. The problem is that so many seem mired in a post-Keynesian mindset that guarantees high unemployment rates. Just consider how the Fed looks at the maximum employment rate. Their numbers point to a rate around 5.2% as full employment because that is when the dreaded inflation genie appears. Guess what? We are almost there and there is no inflation really. In fact, we have a possible deflationary spiral ahead of us. In order to fully grasp the potential solution that is right under our noses, we must throw out the old economics paradigms that ruled us for over 30 years. It must go before we can grow again. Until then, expecting the private sector to produce enough high paying jobs to give our kids a future is futile.

 

A business cannot create jobs? A business needs to satisfy demand of it's products and services. Demand comes from consumers. A business can promote their products and services and gain a little competitive edge but this still does not guarantee consumption of their products. A business can research new products, and all of them are doing this, but every research project does not turn into mega-products. And, all US companies are competing with global labor and materials, and with the high demands from shareholders to increase profits/dividends, the company must respond by utilizing competitive resources in the USA and around the world. Bottom line; the economy cannot guarantee the perfect job for all Americans. The economy is what it is and all the cash in the world won't change this until consumers decide to increase demand. If you have a better idea how to manage a business, how to create jobs in the private sector, how to greatly expand the economy...let's hear it...

 

Not sure where our debate lies, I agree with you in terms of the private sector. You prove my point which is that if demand is insufficient, then another player must create that demand and that player is the government. The key is to invest in things that matter. There is plenty we could do to further research into all manner of issues. For instance, we could fund a manned expedition to Mars which would put millions of technical people at work. I am sure that the worlds scientists and thinkers could come up with a long list of wonderful projects for us to spend money on and put folks to work. We could start with the power grid, then our water systems, our rail and mass transit infrastructure, remaking fisheries, cleaning up rivers and aquifers, the list is endless. And do you know what the best part is? It would essentially cost us nothing at all because all of these workers are willing to work for money we create out of thin air. One keypunch is all it takes to make billions appear on a balance sheet.

 

At least that statement can be easily backed up by data. During the recession a large amount of skilled workers were forced to take low paying jobs because there were very few high paying jobs and what did exist was highly competed for. Being entitled had nothing to do with it. We could also turn the argument around and claim the employers were entitled because they wanted the absolute best employees for the lowest pay. What makes them entitled to perfect employees that they don't want to pay their worth? Everything costs something right? We can constantly argue who is entitled and who isn't. I could easily make a list of reasons as to why businesses and corporations are operating under an entitled mentality, between corporate welfare, outsourcing, cheating taxes etc etc, but that doesn't actually add any objective data to the discussion. The facts are the facts and there is usually an explainable reason behind those facts, one that can be consistently demonstrated.

Govt. Jobs are all well and good but the majority of them lack profitability. The private industry creates wealth through its employment.

Which will never change until people are gainfully employed.

First off, just because we operate on a fiat currency does not mean our money has no value. If I have ten boxes of bananas, and someone says that 20 bills represents the value of those ten boxes of bananas, and either the amount of bills doubles or the amount of boxes of bananas doubles, the value of those bills changes. Doubling the bills doubles the currency value of those bananas, because regardless of how many pieces of paper I have floating around my banana supply doesn't change, if the amount of bananas doubles either we can print more bills to reflect the value of those bananas or the currency deflates to double its value (ie 1 Bill buys 2 boxes of bananas) since the supply of bills must be equal to the supply of bananas once it's spent. You can't represent it as all the bananas being bought and still have bills left over, otherwise those bills are worthless, likewise you can't have bananas left over after I spent all of those bills, otherwise there's no way to buy those bananas. If every bill in circulation in the US was spent it'd have to consume all our GDP. This is how the value of money works. Printing money without an increase in product inflates its value. That's why $100 buys a cart of groceries when several years ago it would've bought two carts, because the supply of money slowly doubled over time without the amount of product doubling. Inflation when it takes place rapidly is a very bad thing. If I have $1000 dollars in the bank and the value of money inflates to double in one year then I just basically lost $500. If I take out a car loan for $10,000 the apr would have to be 50% just for the bank to get its value back.

Secondly you're correct, our infrastructure is awful and deters companies from setting up production here. While it would be costly to fix in the short term, it would be a good roi in the long term. Thirdly, the other problem is we're competing in an unfair market. Even if we manufactured our stuff here and paid the workers nothing to do so, it'd still cost us more, because China's govt subsidizes part of the cost of materials, and even though their workers only get paid $2 a day it's a decent wage, because the Chinese govt has artificially suppressed the value of its currency. The only way to solve this problem is universal trade laws, such as universal minimum wage, universal governmental trade rules, universal tax code. We'd have to remove unfair governmental advantages that keep our jobs outsourced. unfortunately that will never happen.

 

The economy didn't suddenly change in 1981 that resulted in the skyrocketing inequality and more and more of the nation's income going to the richest.

Something else happened that year.

 

The price of bananas has nothing to do with the supply of money since bananas are neither in short supply or one of the basic needs of a citizen. One can decide to eat a banana or an apple with the 100 bucks you have to spend. One can only eat so many bananas per day. We all have more money in our pockets than we spend on bananas, I have never met a person who made 100 grand a year and spent every nickel of it on bananas. So your example is inadequate to make your point. When you say prices have gone up over time, that is true of almost everything. Reasons for these rise in prices are varied and are based upon demand, supply, energy costs, land costs, water costs, packaging costs, demands of corporations for increasing levels of profit, the list goes on and on and on. One of the things that has not driven up costs is labor, labor costs are low in almost every industry. When one thinks about inflation, you must address it on a macro level not at the individual product level. The supply of money must fill the need for products and services and match the capacity of an economy to buy these products and services. Almost every product imaginable is now available via free trade from just about every source on the planet. Services that can only be done locally have limits upon how much service any number of people can provide but then productivity increases make each worker more and more efficient.

 

It doesn't have to be bananas, it can be anything really. Our money is based on GDP, if GDP goes down, money becomes less valuable if it goes up, it's more valuable. This even works on a gold standard. If gold is used a a measure of currency, and there is a ton of gold, that gold is less valuable per gold coin, if there is very little gold, it becomes very valuable per gold coin. It does not matter what form of money you use. Even if people used gum wrappers, if there was a ton of gum wrappers, and very few products to trade, things would likely cost a lot of gum wrappers and vice versa. I used bananas simply because its simpler to visualize one product vs a lot. If you increase a free floating currencies value in raw numbers, its buying power drops, because there is a lot of volume vs things to buy. You can't just create money and it add value to an economy. You must create something worth trading along with it. Inflation can occur for a lot of different reasons, money supply is one of them but not the only one obviously. If there is a large supply of anything, its value drops, whether that's money or goods. Costs can inflate either because the price of a commodity goes up or because the value of money goes down. For example, people may spend twice as much money on something now then they did 50 years ago, but wages may also be twice as high, or someone could spend twice as much after adjusting for inflation because of a high gas price. The point is you cannot just inject currency into an economy without also adding economic value of goods, otherwise that money loses value.

 

This is true, in a way. The value of government money is determined by taxes, which are basically a percentage of the economy.
If the economic output doubled, the taxes would automatically double, and the government money would be worth twice as much, because money is needed to pay taxes.