Maybe We'll Be Remembered for the End of Jobs
I suspect that the great question of our time, when people/machines/monkeys in the future look back, will be: "Who was this mysterious Zac Efron?" Oh, kidding. Really it will be: "Why did so few people see job creation and worker security as a fundamental goal or value?" The June unemployment numbers will come out tomorrow, and they won't be horrible, it sounds like. But they're not good. Some perspective: "the economy needs to generate at least 100,000 net new jobs per month to keep up with population growth, and probably twice that number to bring down the jobless rate." That ain't happening. 4.6 million people are still on unemployment. Now people are dropping off the unemployment rolls, as the Democratic majority in Congress has agreed to let the Republican minority not extend unemployment assistance. (Because, you know, unemployment makes people dependent. Just like food. Why are people so dependent on eating?) And what's more? "Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose for the second time in three weeks last week, signaling that layoffs are rising." Why would this be happening? Because no one has an incentive to fix it.
Why did so few people see job creation and worker security as a fundamental goal or value.
The obvious answer is that 30 years of systematic effort to destroy public education have paid off.
Slightly-less cynical: we're busy coming up with a form of employment that's neither public sector nor more-of-same corporations. Who "we" is supposed to be and what this "coming up with" consists of, pfft, right ok.
There's an article in N + 1 about the resistance to full employment from the government and a business standpoint. To mangle their argument: the free market should not be expected to provide jobs for everyone who wants one because it can't (!). Forcing business to hire more people will cost businesses more money, which will in turn drive up prices as they attempt to maintain their level of profits. This will raise the cost of living for everyone and a greater number of people will see their money and paycheck worth less.
At least, that was my understanding of the 'we can't do this' argument.
Of course, the question becomes how close can we get.
I have been thinking lately that the future is going to basically be everyone is perma-lance.
Offhand, I can think of 535 people who maybe need to join the ranks of the unemployed.
Yeah, but unless we hear who EVERY "friends of" committee really is, and unless we suddenly magically both a) care and b) feel like we can do something, it'll be meet the 112th Congress, same as the 111th Congress.
@dontsqueeze: exactly! talk about having no incentives. the tea-party fools want to take control of this thing? at this point, I say let them, if they want to own it so bad. Let them, and Palin, and any of the other loudmouths that would like to take the wheel drive the entire thing into the ground- at least they won't be able to hide behind Obama or imaginary liberal boogeymen anymore. At least they'll have all their guns and ammo!
@ay: Didn't we try that letting them take control EVERY SINGLE ELECTION SINCE WE WERE BORN?
@dontsqueeze: hah, yeah- I suppose the "maybe this time will be the last time" question is an utter pipedream, isn't it. Maybe sodium valproate in the water supply is the answer!
The financial Darwinism espoused by the ubiquitous, insidious MBA culture that is EVERYWHERE is going to fucking ruin this country. (just a gut feeling)
"going to"??
touché!
I mean, we're just drowning in ruthless, spineless mediocrity.
Lucky for us there's no general threat to our way of life, no competitors chuckling as we bonus ourselves into the ground.
It's not Darwinism until all the poors are DEAD.
Maybe we should be looking at this from an alternate angle: is it sustainable for everyone in the US to need a job that supports the typical US lifestyle? Hell no. The American Dream… not the concepts of life/liberty/happiness, but the one in which every citizen is a wildly successful land speculator… is a corrupt concept. We squeezed every drop out of that rock. So now maybe we need to accept that many people cannot consistently find enough work to generate enough cash for abundance, and maybe we need a safe, healthy, accessible, humane solution for a 21st-Century blue collar economy. Globalism is unstoppable, and there's no turning back the clock on people in China who are working for $150 a week to crank out our sneakers, electronics, kitchen gadgets, etc. So let's make it workable to earn $200 a week here, and let's keep those jobs here. Such a solution would have to fight against the tide on inflation, high land and construction costs, energy costs, bad transportation habits, unsustainable agriculture/nutrition, our terrible public education system, and insufficient law enforcement in public/low-income housing. It's a tall order. But we're going to get absolutely nowhere hoping that some money fairy is going to sparkle some dust on the depressed masses and make them all rich again.
Agreed. It is a multi-dimensional problem with only a multi-dimensional solution. This country is going to have to establish some stronger restrictions on importing of goods, and exporting of services. We may not be able to stop what has moved oversees as far as manufacturing, but American's are still the most innovative (just look at the ideas coming from those who write for this blog,) and money hungry people out there. Government should facilitate the ability for those ideas to flow, and Americans to implement the end-product (tangible and intangible.) I believe that is were the solution lies. Keeping and nourishing that talent within THIS country.
200 a week?! the Poors will indeed be dead, on that ration. Unemployment is 300 a week, which, whether you own a home or rent, is completely unrealistic, unless you want to live in Flint, MI or someplace where rents/mortgages below 7-800/mo are actually possible.
Those Soylent Green jokes are gonna stop being funny pretty soon.
-I never thought they were funny to begin with!-
I've always taken the dystopian-future films of the 1970's quite seriously. The first DVD I ever purchased was Logan's Run, what does that say about me.
art, please report to the nearest sleepshop.
you're one of the cubs! that grew up! aren't you!
The idea that we could ever get to 200 a week in the US without some sort of Dark Angel style technopocalypse is hilarious. There are so, so, so many things that are considered part of modern life, even for The Poors, that we wouldn't be able to walk back.
I also think that this sort of "full employment is a myth" attitude is what leads to Euro-style unemployment numbers, where 10% is considered a good year.
@deepomega: When I was in college 10 years ago (in the Northeast, near Philadelphia), I could find a room in a shared house for $200 a month. Which works out if your budget is roughly $200 a week. There wasn't a technopocalypse at the time.
The more convincing point is that there are a lot of people who only earn around $200/week in the US, including freelancers, service workers and artists; a lot of out-of-work people who would be happy to work at all; a lot more people who would work for that little money if they hadn't been saddled up with some sort of insane debt earlier in life; a lot of people outside the US working for that kind of money; and a lot of frail/disabled/invalid people who have no money at all and live on government money. All those people would benefit from a new model of living costs.
It's politically intractable because of the housing Ponzi scheme already in place. No one who owns a home wants to see it drop in value, or pay taxes into projects that directly cause that effect. It's not just about wealthy developers and landowners protecting their investments; it's about a majority of the population being deeply invested in their inflated-value properties.
But otherwise, what's stopping us? Are we too dumb to figure out what China, India and Taiwan have already setup?
I don't think it is just about housing values…Are you part of this underclass now? Or just in college?
yeah, as a 38-year old man? I'm not interested in living in a shared house with a bunch of roomates, sorry.
@brian As Mr. Yucko brings up, things you can do as a college student are not things a dude with a family can do.
As a recent college graduate who makes less than 200 dollars a week and still lives with his parents, I'd be willing to stay with any of you.
@keisertroll: do you over-stack dishes in the sink, have a bike obsession, or mind if everything in the fridge smells like kimchi? If your answers to these questions are all 'no,' welcome home, roomie! (FYI it is a studio)
I love it when comment-boards organically outCraigslist Craigslist! It's an Evolutionary Business Model!
Sweet, I'll put the air mattress in the bathroom!
Of course, if you cut taxes to the wealthy, they will immediately convert generous portions of that wealth into many new jobs.
Or they could huff and puff and blow your house down and put up condos.
Oh, I could go off on a furious rant about Ms. Y's former employers (an Architecture firm, HA HA!), for whom she worked her ass to exhaustion; and how the well-off geniuses at upper management thought they were really fucking smart and could buy themselves out from their corporate parent on the brink of the financial collapse, with no previous experience running a company independently; also, NO business plan! :D
But it's too early in the morning to stoke the blood-pressure fires, I suppose.
This country has to bring manufacturing jobs back here. In the past few decades (maybe more) management had the short sighted view that companies would save money by shipping the manufacturing capability oversees to save the quick buck. I hope that even college graduates would be happy to have a DECENT PAYING job in manufacturing than no job at all. And for those who think they are above that, then they deserve what they get.
Manufacturing what?
When wages finally start rising in Asia, those jobs will start coming back. In the meantime, expect to hear more about how it's the union pension plans' fault.
Newly innovated ideas and products.
It's not a question of bringing jobs back, it's a question of creating new types of manufacturing jobs. This is where the US has always kicked ass at capitalism: creating new industries, running them until other countries figure out how to do it cheaper, then moving on. In short, innovation. Is car manufacturing really something we need, or maybe can we move on to cranking out solar panels and nanotech?
See above re: Every Child Left Behind. The only newly innovated ideas and products we get are financial instruments. (Which products consist mainly of betting against our moms.)
Nonsense. See: private space industry, green power, hybrid electric vehicle engines, solid state hard drives, digital camera chips… all american inventions, which just got rolled out for mass production in other countries.
(Also, as much as I'd like to blame NCLB, it's less than a decade old. I don't think it's what's been driving our education culture down for 40 years.)
More hyperbole than nonsense — the tech innovations you list are not going to be produced here until wage pressures in Asia make it otherwise unavoidable, and the green innovations you list are not going to be produced here until big energy has shaken every last dollar out of our pockets, then dropped us on our heads.
RE: NCLB, I said 30 (Morning in America!) not 40 years. There was actually some bilateral support for education in the 70s.
This is an incredibly pie in the sky comment. "We need to bring back manufacturing jobs back here."
Thank you. Brilliant insight.
And you are wrong, Companies have not been short-sighted about shipping jobs abroad, rather, they have been incredibly fucking profitable.
Not until Chinese worker starts getting pissed off and demanding wage increases (and it is very slowly starting) will manufacturing on a large scale be possible in the US. Even if Chinese workers were to revolt, the US might not be a great beneficiary as there will be always be another developing world Govt that will be so very willing to exploit their worker for cents per hour.
Sorry for the typos. But you get my drift.
I'm returning to cottage industry and building sexual torture devices in my garage.
Yes we can!
@stc: COOL! Let's invite Sasha Grey over for some "test marketing".
They may have been profitable, but if you have no-one to manage, then you lose too. The pool of those who reap the benefits of profitablility dwindles. So now you have a bunch of "managers" without a job standing along side their subordinates in the unemployment line (which won't last forever.) This country needs to start looking at what we have that other countries don't; innovative people who will do whatever it takes to get what they want.
The problem is, with the Euro dropping (execpt for today), your products will be very expensive for your biggest demo.
Besides, the Germans cornered the market in sexual devices long ago.
> innovative people who will do whatever it takes to get what they want
You're describing the model citizen of the global economy, not a national attribute — not to revert to baseball analogies but this is like saying the team that wins must want it more.
There have to be limits on "whatever it takes" or there will be no drinking water or fresh air ANYWHERE.
SPEAKING OF PEOPLE LOSING JOBS… Party Down got canceled. Please break it to Balk gently. Like the kid whose turtle dies while he's away on vacation.
I think Lizzie Caplan and Adam Scott got better ones, is the problem. Kudos to them!
Standard of living is going down in the United States but that doesn't mean quality of life has to go with it.
Time to get back to the basics.
Ye-ees. Eat meat once a week and wear your Christmas jumpers for the entire season, all layered at once! Don't buy books, go to the library (or, at least the ones that haven't yet shuttered). And switch to 40 watt bulbs, they are more romantic anyway!
you can still get candles pretty cheap, right? That'll keep the firefighters in good shape!
Any evidence that standard of living is going down?
> Any evidence
WOW! Now we're talking. Which indicator would you say has been left ungamed long enough for us to take it seriously?
That's sorta my point! CPI is a joke, unemployment enrollment is a joke, etc. etc. etc.
I spent a good long weekend a while back looking for some sort of reliable metric of how purchasing power has changed over the last half century and came up dry. But I'm not an economist.
let's turn this dump into a special economic zone so we can get those damn kids off my lawn and in the sweatshop making me a new pair of shoes.
Won't the Mafia Wars based economy save us?
Wait. You mean every newly-minted liberal arts major with a 2.4 GPA and an iPhone full of Vampire Weekend DOESN'T deserve a six-figure job straight out of Oberlin?
Anything less would be underemployment.
I had a 2.5.
THANKYOUVERRRRRYMUCH!
Wait, now Oberlin kids want i-bank jobs too?? I think we found the problem! THE BALANCE OF HIPPIES BROKE
The horror that awaits:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11579/SummaryforWeb_LTBO.pdf
@STC: You forgot the "-".
Real talk, Clarence.
\FUCK YOU. TO THIS DAY.
Jobs always kind of sucked anyway.
BTW, the answer is monkeys.
The future is monkeys.
I hear the Capuchins of Brazil make a mean Cachaça.
Damn dirty apes, Yucko. The lot of them.
Keep in mind that unemployment stats fail to recognize the cash-based, under-the-table, black market "underground economy" fueled by gangsters, hookers, live-in nannies/indentured servants etc.
It swells with every economic downturn as people are forced to drop out of society: they don't pay taxes, are less likely to vote and present an increased challenge to police. Officials can try to ignore their existence, but their presence impacts how society functions, nonetheless.
But you agree with the monkey assessment, no?
Monkey gangsters, hookers and live-in nannies are the future, yes.
But this leaves unemployed people with so much time to think of new websites, which will surely be lucrative and employ lots of freelancers! Everyone knows that the internet will give jobs to everybody with an artist's heart and a smartphone, and then we can form a union and everything will be fine, just fine!
Oh, boy. I'm going to go work on these ideas. I wonder why nobody thought of this before??
It's all covered here:
http://philalawyer.net/2010/06/the-great-sucking-sound-why-the-fattened-middle-deserves-no-quarter/
The basic problem was that years ago tax codes changed.
We used to tax the rich at a much higher rate. There were incentives to lower your tax rate via things like job creation.
At the end of his term Bush started behaving in a way that Obama has amped up 1,000%. Obama's goals and the inevitably of things he's already done have given businesses every reason in the world to cut back.
Incentives move companies in one direction or another. Change them. Modify the tax code. Make it impossible to make a shitload of profit if you aren't creating jobs…AND not stimulus jobs where somehow $8,000 creates 35 "jobs".
You're telling me companies and rich folks wouldn't figure out more ways to hire workers if they were punished for not doing it via high taxes and HEAVILY rewarded for creating jobs via lower taxes?
Psychologically speaking punitive damage works better if by avoiding that you can score a reward. You also have to pay for lowering taxes with appropriate cuts or non-new spending. Taxes can't just be lowered, as Bush did, without corresponding actions with regard to spending AND creating incentives for people to still behave how you want them to behave.
Neither party gets this.
And in my state, there are no alternatives that get it either. So we are just extremely fucked at the state and local level as well.