Posted on 12/31/2011 7:43:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Unemployment has become a lot like the weather. Everyone talks about it but no one really does anything about it.
One group of heterodox economists would like to change that. The Modern Monetary Theory school of economists would like to see the government act as an employment backstop. When people cannot find employment elsewhere, they would be able to turn to the government for a job.
The federal government, in other words, would act on employment much like the Federal Reserve does for bank liquidity. It would be the employer of last resort.
The MMT crowd tends to call this the "Jobs Guarantee." It's a good slogan. And after years of persistent unemployment, I bet a lot of Americans might think it is not too bad of an idea.
Regular readers will have noticed that I've been writing a lot about MMT recently. I was introduced to MMT by Cullen Roche at the blog Pragmatic Capitalism after someone mentioned that my writings on the debt ceiling sounded a lot like MMT.
I had been explaining that the federal government could never run out of money, even if it refused to borrow because it had hit the debt ceiling. A government that pays for things with currency it creates can always just create more currency, regardless of what the bond markets say. What I hadn't realized until I was directed to the MMT crowd was that an entire school of economics had been built around this core insight.
But the MMTers do not limit themselves to explaining that the government is not revenue constrained. Many of them also subscribe to the idea that the government should guarantee everyone a job. In fact, one of the key proponents of MMT recently argued that the Jobs Guarantee is a "central aspect" of the school.
If this were true, it would mean that MMT is wrong. Fortunately, I don't think it is true. It's entirely possible to do MMT without the jobs guarantee. In fact, it's necessary because the Jobs Guarantee is unworkable.
There are at least three reasons the Jobs Guarantee cannot work.
1. It's massively inflationary. Australian economist and MMT proponent Bill Mitchell insists that no inflationary pressure arises from having the government buy labor that no one else wants. But he's just wrong.
While employing the unemployed may not create upward pressure on wages, it dramatically increases demand. The national income is increased by the amount the government pays those laboring in JG jobs.
That income is entirely from newly created money, so the money supply is expanding.
That additional demand is not matched by additional supply, however.
The people working in JG jobs are not producing goods that the market needs. Their work product is largely waste. Which means that demand increases without the supply of desired goods increasing. The result: inflation.
2. It's a bureaucratic nightmare. There are currently over 13.5 million people unemployed in the United States. Creating worthwhile jobs for every single one of them is impossible. Even if we had 13.5 million shovel ready jobs today, we would very quickly run out of them next year or the year after that.
Here's how Cullen Roche describes the program:
There are 13.5MM people unemployed today. The Federal govt employs 2MM people currently. WalMart employs 1.8MM people today and is the largest pvt sector employer. You’re not simply talking about a public works program. You’re talking about swallowing Wal-Mart by more than FIVE FOLD. A JG would involve the largest govt program ever instituted in the history of the world.
The JG is a creature of happier times and smaller economies. Bill Mitchell explains that he thought up the idea while he was a student at the University of Melbourne. The total employed population of Australia is only about 11.5 milllion. Australia currently has an unemployment rate of around 5.3 percent, which translates into 635,800 jobless people. In other words, a jobs guarantee in Australia might be workable. But it doesn't scale to fit the United States.
3. It's economically stagnating. Economic booms are often characterized by malinvestment--people dedicating capital to projects that turn out not to be economically sustainable. This is true not just of financial capital—it is true of human capital as well. People learn trades and develop career networks that turn out to be worth far less than they expected.
Unemployment encourages those who went into trades that turn out to lack adequate demand to give up those trades and seek another. This is economically productive because it brings stagnate resources—people who can do things no one will pay for—out of stagnation.
The Jobs Guarantee would eliminate this process. The government would buy the labor of people who hold skills not demanded by the market, preventing those people from seeking out new skills. Stagnant human capital would just continue to stagnate.
In short, the Jobs Guarantee is a nice sounding project that might work out well on paper. But it doesn't work in the real world.
Sure. They can guarantee it. They just can’t honor the guaranty.
Nobody can guarantee you a job.
Sure it can.
For a while.
Till the economy collapses.
Obama’s ultimate goal for America.
A government that is licensed to give anything, can also take away anything.
Breaking rocks in the hot sun is always available.. but I do that anyway so I guess the government is again useless.
Would anyone WANT a job whose very existence was a matter of government diktat? Well, any person whose opinion matters....
It worked pretty well over there.
Tens of millions starve, tens of millions sent to salve labor camps, no private property, limited food and consumer goods and finally total collapse.
Why not try it in the good ol' USA, after all, our liberals are smarter than their liberals.
We can change human nature and make it work.
RE: Would anyone WANT a job whose very existence was a matter of government diktat?
People who are desperate to work and can’t find work.
Just go to most big city government agencies where you have to deal with government and you’ll know what I mean.
What “job” can anyone guarantee for everyone?
I’m sure if you ask the fools that believe in such a thing, they all picture themselves as management, or CEO, or movie star, or NBA player.
Many of thee people scoff at a job washing dishes or cleaning septic systems and picking fruit.
And if a job is guaranteed, then why do a good job at it once you get it?
Lol. This assumes that everyone who is on unemployment wants to work.
There are millions who would be satisfied as long as the da guvamint guaranteed their EBT card was refilled every month and that they got those nice new section eight condos springing up all over the nation.
A few years ago during the Welfare Reform push, the suggestion was made that all able bodied recipients needed to perform some sort of public service (picking up trash, cutting weeds, etc) for their continued benefit. The howls from the left about “returning to slavery” and “forced labor” were deafening. The success of liberalism is defined by how many people they are “helping”, instead of by how many people no longer need help.
Can the Government Guarantee Everyone a Job?
Does cleaning toilets in a FEMA camp in exchange for a meal count as a job?
It depends what you call ‘a job’.
The success of liberalism is defined by how many people they are “helping”
“The people working in JG jobs are not producing goods that the market needs. Their work product is largely waste. Which means that demand increases without the supply of desired goods increasing. The result: inflation. “
That pretty much sums it up: government jobs take resources out of the producing sector. You can get by with some non-production if your economy is good and strong. There is some limit to the amount of non-producing jobs that you can load up and pay for from the producing sector.
(And, not that all government jobs are bad or parasitic - some of them are necessary. But there’s a limit, and we have greatly exceeded it already.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
