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Unemployment

ServiceSoon said:
Unless of course you work in that industry? I don't believe that you can completely correlate unemployment and education. I mean look at me :p There are most definitely other factors to consider. For example, the college grad is going to be more motivated to find employment. Another example, companies are drowning in health insurance premiums. See where I'm going with that one?
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Um... what industry? Level of education is one of the common metrics gathered with unemployment data. So, its pretty easy then to correlate level of education with unemployment. Just like it easy to correlate race, region and sex.

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest a college grad would be more motivated to find employment. can you support that claim?
 
Is it possible that much of the drop off in consumer spending is due to hysteria propagated by the the conservative media?

I tend to ignore the TV when it tells me to be afraid, so I have not altered my spending habits all through the recession. Have many others like me, who's incomes have not changed, starting socking away their cash anticipating greater future hardship?
 
delphi_ote said:
Huh? What is the logic here? If you don't go to college, you don't have to eat?
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This is true. I'm a college dropout and I only need to eat 1 meal a week. Had I never gone it would be 0 meals a week. You're a PhD candidate and I bet you get hungry at least twice a day.

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Beerina said:
Ok, let's do the opposite.

Tax hikes on those who hire people! That'll solve the problems!
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I don't think that there are significant increases in corporation tax planned.
 
Ducky said:
This is true. I'm a college dropout and I only need to eat 1 meal a week. Had I never gone it would be 0 meals a week. You're a PhD candidate and I bet you get hungry at least twice a day.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=299&pictureid=2155[/qimg]
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With the Freshman Fifteen™ still resting comfortably about their midsection, I think recent college graduates could probably go longer without a meal. :D

But I don't know how long they'd last without a beer...
 
delphi_ote said:
Okay. I've heard lots of "don't cut taxes on the wealthy", and that we get an increase in spending from distributing unemployment.

But this all still seems pretty hands-off to me. From my perspective, this is a serious crisis, and getting worse by the day. But I think there might be other ideas out there, and I'm interested in hearing them. If you had dictatorial power for a day and you could ignore what was popular or politically possible, what would you do to create employment on a large scale for the short and long term?

Seems to me something like the Works Progress Administration and the Tennesee Valley Authority would be a good idea. At least, the arguments in favor of an approach like that seem the most convincing to me. The census had a significant impact on unemployment. I know a lot of currently unemployed people that are getting by now largely on what they made from their census work.

Does anyone see downsides to this kind of approach?
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The are only two criticisms of such a plan:

1) It costs too much, THE DEFICIT IS FALLING, er, RISING!!!!

2) And INFLATION, WIEMAR, ZIMBABWE!!!!!!!

They are both foolhardy and idiotic. They BEST way to get the economy rolling is to give people who will spend money, money. Obviously it's better if they get that money for doing something useful. Thus, work programs are a really, really, really good idea.
 
Who says that even if consumer demand goes up that more employees will get hired. Increases in efficiency can eliminate jobs permanently and its not clear to me that unskilled/uneducated people will have enough work for full employment. I suppose this would put downward pressure on the price of unskilled labor which might lead to more employment but a much lower standard of living for those taking unskilled jobs.

I like the idea of public works programs to put people to work but is that really practical today? How much actual manual labor goes into building new roadways and other types of infrastructure today? We use powerful machines that have eliminated much of the grunt work. Sure muscle power is still important for a lot of construction but not to the level of employing massive amounts of workers for works projects. My guess would be that the capital requirements of construction have increased relative to the cost of labor vs the 1930's.

Anyway just some random thoughts.
 
fatewilleatyou said:
Is it possible that much of the drop off in consumer spending is due to hysteria propagated by the the conservative media?

I tend to ignore the TV when it tells me to be afraid, so I have not altered my spending habits all through the recession. Have many others like me, who's incomes have not changed, starting socking away their cash anticipating greater future hardship?
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This can't be possible because the media has a liberal slant :p

madurobob said:
Um... what industry? Level of education is one of the common metrics gathered with unemployment data. So, its pretty easy then to correlate level of education with unemployment. Just like it easy to correlate race, region and sex.

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest a college grad would be more motivated to find employment. can you support that claim?
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Do you work in the education industry? That might explain why you recommended college based on one statistic. A joke really. but I'm still waiting for your answer.

Remember, correlation does not equal causation.

madurobob said:
I don't think there is any evidence to suggest a college grad would be more motivated to find employment. can you support that claim?
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delphi_ote said:
Huh? What is the logic here? If you don't go to college, you don't have to eat?
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Eat, who's worried about eating when you can get food stamps.

The logic is that the average college grad is young, eager to apply that knowledge they just paid for, eager to make a name for themselves, and thus more motivated. I'm sure it helps that a lot of colleges have placement assistance. I'm not aware of any study about this. I'm only speculating.
 
How about another baby boom? Or did the economy need to go first? Ok, war, recovery, baby boom. Send for George Bush, he will fix it.
 
For every dollar given to people as unemployment benefits, there are $1.61 in economic activity. As a corollary, every $1 given as tax breaks to the rich generates - wait for it - $.32 in economic activity. So giving money to the rich helps the economy how? The wealthy have:

a) been getting much wealthier over the last decade
b) had the tax cuts in place for the past decade and haven't been hiring
c) won't hire until demand goes up but demand will only go up when the middle class has money to spend

So now I'm supposed to believe that just because they don't know whether or not their taxes will go up 3% next year is the reason they aren't hiring? What a load. We were a much more prosperous nation (and had much more stability) when tax rates on the rich were much higher.

The wealthy do not need more money, they will not hire if given more money, we will be in astronomically worse shape if they get more money, "trickle-down" economics is a scam (even Warren Buffett, the noted leftist/socialist, says so in so many words), severe economic inequality is not a good thing and we're still rewarding the Wall Street crooks with the largest bonuses they've ever seen while everyone else suffers. Remind me again why the top 2% need a continued tax break? Rational explanations will do; keep the ideology to yourself.
 
ServiceSoon said:
Do you work in the education industry? That might explain why you recommended college based on one statistic. A joke really. but I'm still waiting for your answer.
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Ha - no. I'm a 47 year old MBA with an undergrad economics degree who works in finance for a fortune 100 company. Pretty far from "the education industry" as you put it.

ServiceSoon said:
eat, who's worried about eating when you can get food stamps.
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It was your claim that college grads are more motivated to work. We're awaiting your evidence supporting this claim.

ServiceSoon said:
I'm only speculating.
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Imagine my surprise.
 
delphi_ote said:
I was wondering if anyone had any interesting perspectives or theories on how we might get out of this mess.
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This one's easy: time. We didn't get into this mess quickly, and we won't get out of it quickly. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you a line of crap. Just look at the history of the Great Depression: it took the United States nearly 20 years and World War II to get out of that hole.
 
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ServiceSoon said:
Since when are all policy decisions only based on their utilitarian weight? Don’t forget that people have rights.
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Utility counts very little in making policy decisions these days.

Which right are you talking about here?

The right of the extra wealthy to more easily get more wealthy?
The right of the unemployed to not eat?
The right of the people to expect their elected representatives to help sort out the mess that our elected representatives helped make?
 
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