Posted on 01/07/2004 6:00:57 AM PST by 7thson
I was reading this post - Peter Drucker Sets Us Straight ( On jobs, debt, globalization, and recession) - and the responses and I had some ideas that I thought might fit into another thread.
First off, I want to make it clear that I know barely next to nothing about economies nor am I on the same level as Peter Drucker (I never heard of him until this post) or a lot of you guys and gals on Free Republic. I just have some thoughts I would like to share.
Answer: Nobody seems to realize that we have the highest proportion of our population in the workforce by far than any other country in the industrialized world. We have the lowest long-term unemployment rate in the West. Most of the unemployment we do have is not the long-term kind, but the short-term kind when people are between jobs for at most a few months. And we have easily the highest availability of good jobs for educated people who want to enter the labor force. We basically have no unemployment for college graduates, as they do in much of Europe. Now they all may not get the job they would like, and they may not get $70,000 a year the first year, but they get employed. And finally, when you think about it, in less than three decades we absorbed all the women who wanted to work into the workforce with no upheaval. It's quite remarkable.
Read the above answer from the original post and I had some thoughts on this. One – we have – what – 6% percent unemployment right now? What percentage of these unemployed have been unemployed for years or decades? No one ever mentions that? On The O’Reilly Factor last night, Bill was talking to Mike Savage about illegal immigrants. Is the unemployment numbers based on total population of workers in the U.S. – legal and illegal citizens – or is it based on just legal citizens eligible to work? The “experts” keep saying that the illegals do jobs that nobody wants to do. Is this because for the past thirty to fifty years we have paid a certain percentage of our population to not work? I remember some years ago Rush Limbaugh stating that before welfare, the U.S. rarely had areas in the country that were poverty stricken that lasted for decades. If an area did not have jobs, people packed their things up and went to where the jobs were. Now, we hand out welfare checks and people stay put, creating hell holes of poverty. Also, Tom Sowell stated in one of his articles years ago, that people for the most part do not stay poor. The vast majority of people who are living in poverty now, in ten years time will be out of poverty. He also mentioned in another article that today’s standard of poverty is completely different from other countries standards or our own country a hundred years ago.
I read an article in the ComPost a couple months back about a black guy in Arkansas – unskilled – who had to walk ten or so mile each day in hopes of finding work for that day. The article was written in such a tone that the reader should feel sympathy for this guy because of the hardship of his attempting to find work. As I read the article, I thought of the millions of people that legally or illegally come to this country from hundreds or thousands of miles away and not only find work but start their own business. On the illegal immigration issue, I am of two minds. I do not like that they are breaking the laws and coming into this country illegally. I have believed for a long time that the argument against illegal immigration has been the wrong one. Instead, we should be arguing why we should enforce legal immigration – to prevent criminals from entering the country, to stop diseases, to stop those bringing in unlawful plants or animals. That is why we have legal immigration. I also believe an emphasis should be placed that if you immigrate to this country you do so to become an American, not to bring your customs and rites over here. Isn’t that one of the reasons you left your country – because of traditions that kept you poor? On the other hand, I do believe that the vast majority of illegals come here to work. I see something incredibly wrong with a country that takes a truckload of individuals – who want to work – and ships them back to their country of origin while paying United States citizens born in this country not to work. That is like paying farmers not to grow crops or paying medical schools not to graduate doctors.
Concerning outsourcing, while working for a contractor in the Washington, D.C. area, I was sent to interview for a sub-contractor job. While interviewing, one of the interviewees informed me that they sub-contract – outsource – because it is cheaper for them to hire a specialist for a couple months then to keep one full time cooling his heals waiting for something to do. I can understand how that works. I think that one of the hurdles that businesses need to get over is telecommuting. I do not see it happening thought until what I call the dinosaurs retire and those being raised on PC’s today become the bosses of the future.
Anyway, this is just some of my musings. It would be interesting to see what others think.
Very little. I believe the 6% figure you quoted is sanitized. Long-term unemployed or the unemployable are not included in unemployment figures as they are not considered part of the employment base. Go figure.
They shouldn't be included. If you are "unemployable," why should you be included with those who are actively seeking work? I would imagine that among those "long-term unemployed" who are not included are women who once worked, but have dropped out to have children and take care of a family. They should not be included, either.
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