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The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You (The former Clinton Labor Sec. is pessimistic)
Wall Street Pit ^ | 10/3/2009 | Robert Reich

Posted on 10/03/2009 8:51:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Unemployment will almost certainly in double-digits next year — and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, you can bet there’s another either too discouraged to look for work or working part time who’d rather have a full-time job or else taking home less pay than before (I’m in the last category, now that the University of California has instituted pay cuts). And there’s yet another person who’s more fearful that he or she will be next to lose a job.

In other words, ten percent unemployment really means twenty percent underemployment or anxious employment. All of which translates directly into late payments on mortgages, credit cards, auto and student loans, and loss of health insurance. It also means sleeplessness for tens of millions of Americans. And, of course, fewer purchases (more on this in a moment).

Unemployment of this magnitude and duration also translates into ugly politics, because fear and anxiety are fertile grounds for demagogues weilding the politics of resentment against immigrants, blacks, the poor, government leaders, business leaders, Jews, and other easy targets. It’s already started. Next year is a mid-term election. Be prepared for worse.

So why is unemployment and underemployment so high, and why is it likely to remain high for some time? Because, as noted, people who are worried about their jobs or have no jobs, and who are also trying to get out from under a pile of debt, are not going do a lot of shopping. And businesses that don’t have customers aren’t going do a lot of new investing. And foreign nations also suffering high unemployment aren’t going to buy a lot of our goods and services.

And without customers, companies won’t hire. They’ll cut payrolls instead.

Which brings us to the obvious question: Who’s going to buy the stuff we make or the services we provide, and therefore bring jobs back? There’s only one buyer left: The government.

Let me say this as clearly and forcefully as I can: The federal government should be spending even more than it already is on roads and bridges and schools and parks and everything else we need. It should make up for cutbacks at the state level, and then some. This is the only way to put Americans back to work. We did it during the Depression. It was called the WPA.

Yes, I know. Our government is already deep in debt. But let me tell you something: When one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, this is no time to worry about the debt.

When I was a small boy my father told me that I and my kids and my grand-kids would be paying down the debt created by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression and World War II. I didn’t even know what a debt was, but it kept me up at night.

My father was right about a lot of things, but he was wrong about this. America paid down FDR’s debt in the 1950s, when Americans went back to work, when the economy was growing again, and when our incomes grew, too. We paid taxes, and in a few years that FDR debt had shrunk to almost nothing.

You see? The most important thing right now is getting the jobs back, and getting the economy growing again.

People who now obsess about government debt have it backwards. The problem isn’t the debt. The problem is just the opposite. It’s that at a time like this, when consumers and businesses and exports can’t do it, government has to spend more to get Americans back to work and recharge the economy. Then – after people are working and the economy is growing – we can pay down that debt.

But if government doesn’t spend more right now and get Americans back to work, we could be out of work for years. And the debt will be with us even longer. And politics could get much uglier.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; clintonistas; jobless; jobs; recession; reich; unemployment
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To: Shady

The WPA and the CC did nothing to generate wealth or create new jobs. They might as well handed out money for doing nothing as to have made those make work projects. The real solution is to cut taxes, eliminate corporate income taxes and capital gain taxes, abolish the EPA and keep just a few common sense enviro laws. Spending more money is what kept the depression going until WWII started and after. Real recovery didn’t start until 1946. FDR was after the same thing Bozo is after now, collapsing the economy and shifting it to government control, fortunately for the US, WWII came along and then the communist SOB died.


41 posted on 10/03/2009 10:29:06 AM PDT by calex59 (FUBO, we want our constitution back and we intend to get it!)
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To: SeekAndFind

That this fraud can call himself an economist amazes me.


42 posted on 10/03/2009 10:35:04 AM PDT by dr_who
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To: troy McClure

Robert Reich endorsed Obama.


43 posted on 10/03/2009 10:35:59 AM PDT by dr_who
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To: cydcharisse

Right now, its the only option. Average Americans have little earnings to stimulate demand. And less credit, apparently.

parsy, who is not optimistic at all


44 posted on 10/03/2009 10:59:51 AM PDT by parsifal (Abatis: Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside)
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To: SeekAndFind
Was this originally an Onion article?

This guy is living in a dream world of somesort. He's telling us that only heavy construction jobs outdoors can bring us out of the current unemployment situation.

I get the distinct article this guy has no idea how roads are built, bridge repaired, major earthmoving projects are handled.

Nope, we don't use a bunch of guys with shovels earning 50 cents a day digging holes!

45 posted on 10/03/2009 11:25:41 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
And that was largely true because the productive capacity of Europe and Asia was totally destroyed

Wrong - Bzzzzt

Check the US WWII post war bombing survey. Germany still had 80% of their industrial/war making capacity.

Britain had increased their industrial output, and the National Socialist occupied territories: hardly touched.

46 posted on 10/03/2009 11:28:28 AM PDT by investigateworld (Abortion stops a beating heart)
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To: investigateworld

80%?? Where did you get that stat?


47 posted on 10/03/2009 11:47:13 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: SeekAndFind
Absurd drivel from one of the authors of this current mess.

Need jobs? Create an incentive to hire people.

1. Renew the Bush tax cuts to encourage businesses to expand include the tax reform package an elimination of the capital gains tax. “Pay for it” by a 2 year freeze on Government spending and a re-imposition on the 1995 “Pay as you go” Congressional budget rules with none of the current loopholes

2. Offer a $1500 per new employee tax credit to business to cover the hiring and training costs.

3. Kill cap and trade, health care reform and all the other boodgoggle anti capitalism bills currently being considered in the Congress. Have 0 vow to veto any legislation that will cost real current US jobs with vague promises about imaginary “Green” job in the future.

4. Pass the Developing America’s Resources act to remove all bottlenecks and obstacles in Government regulation that is blocking development all US energy resources and commit the US Government to exploiting any and all US energy sources to end our dependency on imported energy.

What all this current govt intervention in the Economy is doing is causing business, and capital, to hunker down in a bunker mentality wondering what new Govt boondoggle they are going to be told to pay for.

The problem is lack of jobs, the solution is to incentives the 10s of thousands of businesses around the country to hire a few people and create new jobs by eliminating Govt regulations that prevent us from doing things to develop our own energy resources.

These are long term solution that also provides immediate short term gains.

48 posted on 10/03/2009 11:55:29 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (The 0 years, Too bad a requirement for adult supervision was not put into the Constitution)
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To: CommieCutter

He IS high on Obama’s policies. He’s saying the only thing that can provide jobs is the government.


49 posted on 10/03/2009 11:58:13 AM PDT by livius
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To: headstamp 2

Democrat must be the Greek word for delusional. They all point to FDR as the role model for economic recovery, and they might be right if you are willing to wait ten years and fight a world war to get there.


50 posted on 10/03/2009 12:00:14 PM PDT by csmusaret (Joe Wilson--Speaking truth to power)
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To: ex-snook
Of course, that was the era when our factories were humming and the industrial engine was pulling the economy. Now we are importing what we are consuming. We are relying on shopping centers for consumers and the 'information economy' to pull the economic engine.

Factually incorrect. The US is still the world's largest manufacturer as well as, by far, the worlds largest market and economy.

51 posted on 10/03/2009 12:02:40 PM PDT by MNJohnnie (The 0 years, Too bad a requirement for adult supervision was not put into the Constitution)
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To: SeekAndFind
Kennedy Reagan and Bush 2 followed Supply Side economics and produced record breaking economic booms.

FDR, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and now 0 have followed this National Socialist Keynesian model and produced stagnant economies and record unemployment.

The facts are there. That people like Reich do not see them is because they are so welded to the political views their father taught them they cannot be bothered with simple, basic facts.

52 posted on 10/03/2009 12:07:03 PM PDT by MNJohnnie (The 0 years, Too bad a requirement for adult supervision was not put into the Constitution)
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To: Former War Criminal
WPA = We Putter Around

mmmm mmmmmm mmmm

I think there's a song in there somewhere.

53 posted on 10/03/2009 12:16:05 PM PDT by Focault's Pendulum (This country elected an empty suit, an absolute economic illiterate!!!)
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To: Kartographer
And is also very stupid about economics and what it takes to start this Nation back to health. It is not spending more money. If that was the answer why are we in such a mess today? Answer; too much government, a very greedy and spendthrift government, and a group of self serving politicians that rate re-election above the health of the Nation. And a government that loves power and control and the welfare of it's citizens has low priority.
54 posted on 10/03/2009 12:33:06 PM PDT by mulligan
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To: calex59

And all I’ll say is you are far more favorable towards Roosevelt than I am.


55 posted on 10/03/2009 12:57:25 PM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: Richard Kimball

Really? I think he was a communist a**hat that should have been kicked out of office after his first term:)


56 posted on 10/03/2009 12:58:47 PM PDT by calex59 (FUBO, we want our constitution back and we intend to get it!)
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To: calex59
Really? I think he was a communist a**hat that should have been kicked out of office after his first term:)

Yeppir, and I don't think THAT much of him.

57 posted on 10/03/2009 1:15:10 PM PDT by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I disagree with Reich on... well, most everything, but he’s always struck me as a decent human, and he ranks high on my list of folks I’d like to have a beer with.

His reasoning here is bass-ackwards, but the offer of a nice foamy ale stands.


58 posted on 10/03/2009 1:47:46 PM PDT by RightOnTheLeftCoast (Cheney/Palin 2012!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Is this another Eloy liberal calling for Morlocks to work harder or what?


59 posted on 10/03/2009 2:56:41 PM PDT by x_plus_one (In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell)
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To: CommieCutter
Robert Reich? Wow, I thought this man was high on Obama’s policies. This is big IMO.
I don't think you read the whole piece. He attacks Obama from the left.

60 posted on 10/03/2009 3:17:36 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (SPENDING without representation is tyranny. To represent us you have to READ THE BILLS.)
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