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When Work Disappears: What do we do with people whose livelihoods are destroyed? (Left waking-up?)
The Daily Beast ^ | June 14, 2013 | Megan McArdle

Posted on 06/16/2013 1:38:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Paul Krugman has a column today on a topic you don't normally get much of from economists: sympathy for the Luddites. Back in 2001, when I sat in on my last formal economics class, this was about as daring a proposition as "Sympathy for the Devil" was as an album title.

---snip---

But I have started worrying about what's taking place at the bottom of the economy. In much of the industrial world, it seems to be increasingly difficult for people to earn a decent living without a fairly elite set of skills--or an elite set of credentials that mimic skills, like a BA in English Literature from an Ivy League institution. The ability to earn a decent living, either yourself or as part of a family, is one of the basic criteria for a decent life. (And yes, before you ask: I think trust funds can be just as toxic as lifetime welfare benefits.)

---snip---

For starters, it is politically difficult to imagine a really large class of people who simply permanently live off the state. The safety net is rooted in human instincts about reciprocal exchange. Of course, it isn't all that reciprocal--the majority of people who are net taxpayers are extremely unlikely to collect much in the way of food stamps, TANF, or even unemployment insurance. Nonetheless, the moral arguments are founded in the premise that these benefits are for emergencies, and anyone can have an emergency. They will lose political support if you have one group of people paying taxes, and a different group of people who can expect to live their entire life on the dole.

Such an arrangement would also be socially toxic....

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: college; economy; education; foodstamps; jobs; obama; unemployment; welfare
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1 posted on 06/16/2013 1:38:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And we are about to import another 30 million + of them.


2 posted on 06/16/2013 1:40:18 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (What would Scooby do?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

As of now, I personally know of 4 men in my small circle of friends, all aged between 55-60, who have lost their jobs, just a few years after loosing a sizable portion of their retirement savings a few years back. They are slowly beginning to realized they’re never going to find jobs again, even if the economy improves. Among the unemployed are huge numbers of people like these who have been forced into early unfunded retirements.


3 posted on 06/16/2013 1:42:27 PM PDT by keats5 (Not all of us are hypnotized.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Gee off shoring perfectly productive and profitable manufacturing off shore was such a good idea. /sarc


4 posted on 06/16/2013 1:42:58 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: central_va

The free traders will be here soon to yell at you.


5 posted on 06/16/2013 1:46:56 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: central_va

Lobbying Congress to offshore jobs and get more low wage Indians in America sure added to Bill Gates’ pocketbook and now he has the balls to suggest that Americans should shut up about Socialism and cough up more taxes.

To me, he LIED to Congress in stating that there were insufficient people in America to do the work. Lock him up and let him rot awhile.


6 posted on 06/16/2013 1:49:29 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: EEGator
The free traders will be here soon to yell at you.

They will tell us all those laid off line workers have had plenty of time to train as neurosurgeons and software engineers.

7 posted on 06/16/2013 1:50:02 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Luddite: a member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.

Our problem isn’t luddites. It’s a government that makes going into business for oneself almost impossible. Between the IRS, the EPA, OSHA & the rest of the alphabet soup of gov’t agencies, trying to start some kind of enterprise is just too formidable for most people. And since it’s so easy to get on the dole & stay there, why bother?


8 posted on 06/16/2013 1:50:26 PM PDT by Twotone (Marte Et Clypeo)
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To: EEGator

It isn’t free trade when billions of dollars of R&D are done abroad and the software is imported via the internet without paying import duty.


9 posted on 06/16/2013 1:50:39 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Make knick-knacks?


10 posted on 06/16/2013 1:51:12 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
This really is a huge problem and not enough people see it.

So far, the only solution anyone seems to have is: Tax the bejeezuz out of anyone who is productive, and give government charity to anyone who is unemployable.

That's a really rotten solution.

But if there is no work for a large percentage of the population, then I just don't know what you do. We can fiddle with tax policy, and we can stop off-shoring, etc. To some extent, that is re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In a world in which average and below-average tasks are performed by machines, and above-average people have real work -- it starts to look like a free ride for all the average and below-average people is the way to go.

And, as I say, that's a rotten solution.

11 posted on 06/16/2013 1:52:03 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: Twotone

Yeah, I was going to also say our problem isn’t the Luddites.

It’s the socialists.


12 posted on 06/16/2013 1:52:17 PM PDT by keats5 (Not all of us are hypnotized.)
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To: keats5
Among the unemployed are huge numbers of people like these who have been forced into early unfunded retirements.

The reality is that if you're in your fifties and aren't on the fast track to upper management, you're living on borrowed time. I found this out the hard way.

13 posted on 06/16/2013 1:53:35 PM PDT by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC))
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To: ClearCase_guy

A Civil War followed by a World War might whittle down the untermensch.


14 posted on 06/16/2013 1:54:35 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: a fool in paradise

I’m in agreement with you. America also doesn’t have slave labor.


15 posted on 06/16/2013 1:55:26 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: central_va

Yep, meanwhile we circle the drain.


16 posted on 06/16/2013 1:56:01 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: central_va

I hate to say it, but the Black Death killed more than a third of Europe off in the 14th century, and it sparked enormous economic and cultural growth.


17 posted on 06/16/2013 1:58:02 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Free traders and Liberals should occupy the same lower levels of a fiery and sulphurous Hell. Expedited delivery, of course.


18 posted on 06/16/2013 1:58:51 PM PDT by Thumper1960 (A modern so-called "Conservative" is a shadow of a wisp of a vertebrate human being.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And. . . when we DO have need to get some of the help we’ve paid in for for decades. . . strangely, we’re not eligible. . .


19 posted on 06/16/2013 1:59:07 PM PDT by Salgak (http://catalogoftehburningstoopid.blogspot.com 100% all-natural snark !)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“For starters, it is politically difficult to imagine a really large class of people who simply permanently live off the state”

She’s kidding, right?


20 posted on 06/16/2013 1:59:16 PM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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