Open Left

Wonks (4.00 / 1)

Wonks get caught up in discussing means rather than ends. So a stimulus package gets framed as to whether it should be based upon tax breaks, loans or other techniques. This loses sight of the goal - putting people to work.

Similarly the health program gets bogged down in funding mechanisms and cost control instead of focusing on health care itself.

We should set the goals first:
1. Every person who wants to work is guaranteed a job
2. Every person has access to all necessary care

The goals are easy to state and easy for everyone to understand. In Europe the are much more sensitive to these aims. So Germany has instituted job cutbacks with the loss of income partially subsidized by the government, for example.

We need a WPA or CCC type of program. There are lots of things that need to be done, from increasing teachers in the classroom, to providing aid to the infirm to expanding social programs. This is in addition to the traditional hammer and shovel tasks that usually come to mind.

The problem is that this is seen as "socialism" and that business still likes the idea of surplus labor to hold down wages. They are so caught up in this ideology that they have lost sight of the fact that unemployed workers can't buy their products.

Unfortunately congress is just as ideologically blind (or bought) as business and the result is half-hearted, symbolic or ineffective programs.

It attitudes are going to change it is not going to come from either of these directions.

Policies not Politics

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by: robertdfeinman @ Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 15:31:04 PM CDT

The only way (0.00 / 0)

to effectively increase worker's real wages in a free market economy is through full employment.

Democrats used the say the words: "full employment".

It's been a decade since I heard a Democrat talk about the importance of that idea.

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by: fladem @ Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 15:55:06 PM CDT

[ Parent | ]

Full employment (0.00 / 0)

Is, speaking in economic theory terms, not the greatest idea because, per the Phillips curve, it will lead to high inflation. It is also hard to define as there will always be people who consider themselves underemployed and thus will report to the government when they do their surveys that they are so, and then unemployment is no longer 0%.

(I date a labor economist)

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by: Adam Bink @ Wed Jul 08, 2009 at 21:27:02 PM CDT

[ Parent | ]