Why the rich love high unemployment

. . .

Obama's lopsided recovery also reflects lopsided government intervention. Apart from all the talk about jobs, the Obama administration never supported a concrete employment plan. The stimulus provided relief, but it was too small and did not focus on job creation.

The administration's problem is not a question of economics, but a matter of values and priorities. In the first Great Depression, President Roosevelt created an alphabet soup of institutions - the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - to directly relieve the unemployment problem, a crisis the private sector was unable and unwilling to solve. In the current crisis, banks were handed bottomless bowls of alphabet soup - the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) - while politicians dithered over extending inadequate unemployment benefits.

The unemployment crisis has its origins in the housing crash, but the prior deregulation of the labor market made the fallout more severe. Like other changes to economic policy in recent decades, the deregulation of the labor market tilts the balance of power in favor of business and against workers. Unlike financial system reform, the deregulation of the labor market is not on President Obama's agenda and has escaped much commentary.

Labor-market deregulation boils down to three things: weak unions, weak worker protection laws and weak overall employment. In addition to protecting wages and benefits, unions also protect jobs. Union contracts prevent management from indiscriminately firing workers and shifting the burden onto remaining employees. After decades of imposed decline, the United States currently has the fourth-lowest private sector union membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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http://truthout.org/why-rich-love-high-unemployment/1305061465

Serfs up!

is a necessary component of Capitalism. Depressing labor costs is obviously in the interests of the capitalists. We are nothing more than a cost of doing business, more like a pile of ore or a box of widgets than human beings.

will be the final nail in the coffin of the party and make ever going back to "the way things were" in terms of having any kind of middle class or any possibility of upward mobility is pretty much non existent.

wealth, and then I see a mass of humanity, the other 96% or so, serfs wandering aimlessly hoping to survive with minimal or completely non-existence class mobility under the thumb of the authoritarians. Frankly, I see a ship wrecked country akin to the countries we profess to be saving. There will be many upheavals and a rather unpleasant place to try to exist as the foundation rots.

talking about the high unemployment rate. Of course, he wants to cut off unemployment payments so that some will have to take the low-paying jobs that are available around here. I said that people are barely getting by as it is and those jobs won't pay as much as unemployment. He said that if any jobs are available, they should take them. I said that if these companies want people to work for them, maybe they should pay them more than unemployment insurance does. That's when he called me a Communist.

Can't feel rich unless they can crap on others. These jerks are kiss up and kick down asshats.

many highly successful CEOs and similar have a great number of sociopathic personality traits. No surprise to me. I've worked where they seemed to take a delight in layoffs.

Stock prices often rise after a layoff, "trimming the fat" don't you know.

Executive compensation is tied to stock prices very often, of course they are delighted to lay people off. It's a win-win for them, they get to mistreat other people and get handsomely paid for it.

take up in another company to do the same where their fellow psychopaths welcome and embrace them as the great savior, and then it repeats again, as these guys rake in zillions. It's quite a club.

I remember he laid off thousands and got millions...then he got fired. :)

I remember Adrian Monk, on one MONK episode, saying something to the effect that he
could always feel superior to Harold. (Those weren't the exact words, but that was the
gist of it.)

the last thing they wanted in the first place was a Black Man as President and they are going to do all they can to keep that from happening again.
Thats the truth of the matter not the shit you're saying. :hi:

changed your for you're

Now we could argue about whether or not he should have been more vocal about the obstruction.

With the political climate in Washington when he took office I wonder if time will prove him as taking the right approach. We'll see

K&R

how cheap can you get a desperate 68 YO to work? Pretty cheap.
Just that many more in the labor pool.

Even if it doesn't happen, government should be working toward it. Of course it won't happen, but I believe it is a worthwhile goal for our government, for the welfare of the people.