The Near Term Employment Situation in the U.S.
Employment and the health care situation in the U.S. are ticking time bombs for our society. Politicians, by nature, are seldom honest about the economic status of the poor. Employment figures have never matched the reality of nation-wide prosperity. They don’t even count those people who have given up trying to get a job. Common sense dictates they are unemployed.
I measure the success of any government based on how successful that government is to enable the maximum number of its citizens to achieve the maximum degree of contentment with their lives. The form of government is irrelevant, although I favor capitalism with adequate regulation and limits. The economic welfare of all citizens comes before the self serving interests of those for whom enough money is never enough. It would be hard to convince me that any form of government should actually permit 3 individuals to own as much of the nation’s wealth as the bottom half of all its citizens. That is irresponsible government.
If full employment is the proper measure of economic prosperity then the blacks in the south, before the Civil War, were drowning in the prosperity of full employment. The only employment figure that really counts is what percentage of people holding full time jobs are being paid a living wage. The purpose of inventing machines which can do the labor people used to do, is to reduce the number of hours people need work. Before the industrial revolution even kids often worked 60-70 hours of labor/wk. The industrial revolution worked well at first. It became illegal to work kids like that, and adults themselves found their work hours heading south. It was no longer necessary for citizens to work so many hours to get the needed work done. Machines of some sort were a blessed relief. So full time work hours kept getting reduced and the pay for less hours of work was a livable wage. When I was young even the poor, working a full time job, could earn a living wage. They didn’t need to work two jobs or go on welfare for the most part.
Today, unemployment figures are down and this is supposed to demonstrate a better economic status for the poor. It does no such thing. Unemployment figures tell us little about the economic situation of the 43% (and rising) of our adult population who don’t even make enough money to be eligible to pay any federal income tax. At the other end, even Amazon is not required to pay any income tax, nor apparently is our President. Here is how some states now deal with their poor: For them to collect any welfare they must often work full time at a job which does not pay a living wage. Then, the govt will give them limited welfare so they can survive, but of course still make so little they are not required to pay federal income taxes. Politicians can then boast that they have brought about prosperity for almost everybody via full employment. Few, if any, of these ‘prosperous’ workers, are remotely satisfied with their lives. It’s a scam.
The last election demonstrated just how dissatisfied with their lives so many Americans were with their lives. With all the things machines of various sorts can now do, why is the work week frozen at 40hrs a week for a full time job? Why do so many countries manage to provide all workers with living wages, sometimes guaranteed 6 weeks vacation for all, good health care for all (at least better than the health care for the poor in the U.S.), good schools. good teachers, and job opportunities for far more people than in the U.S.? These are the 26 countries whose ‘happiness index’ is better than the happiness index for United States citizens.
When most everyone can find work paying living wages, and these jobs are full-time at let’s say 30 hrs per week, then more jobs are available, practically everyone earns enough to pay federal income taxes, millions of workers can now spend money to buy more ‘things’, and with good health care, health care costs go down as people need less medical intervention, the existence of our rural, urban, and suburban ‘ghettoes’ will begin to shrink as more and people flee these ghettoes, while the happiness index in the United States would not be way down in 26th place.
The contentment level of our citizens is not measured accurately by current unemployment numbers. The average young person today is expected to have over 30 different jobs in their life time. This is due in no small part by the bottom line. A new employee might do a great job and get decent pay raises but after a few years it is cheaper to bring in a new person at an entry level salary. This economic insecurity is one reason marriage numbers are down. Many young people can afford right now to raise a family but they are nervous what their situation will be a few years from now. When most people have jobs which pay a living wage, welfare costs go down at an exponential rate while at the same time income tax collections go up at an exponential rate. That’s a good thing.
If just a portion of all this is true, why does the United States continue with its current economic policies? Right now all three parts of our political system are controlled by the 2-5% of citizens who own 90% of our wealth—Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. Where would members of Congress get the many millions of dollars to run a campaign for office without support from the wealthy? And the members of Congress decide who gets onto the Supreme Court. Both Presidential candidates get lot’s of money to run for office and on paper the 2-5% supporting one candidate would be opposed by the other 95-98% of the citizens. But at most, only 60% vote. Then the 2-5% prey on the prejudices of common citizens combined with agreeing to the right wing religious fundamentalists to support laws which would attempt to force everyone to follow certain religious beliefs of the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists could not be more firm in their own religious beliefs—to the extent they would actually vote for someone whose words, behaviors, and willingness to stiff others in order to amass great material wealth is actually tolerated as long as that person promises to support some of their religious beliefs becoming law of the land. No one ever mistakes the words, behavior, lifestyle, and values of our current President with Jesus Christ or any of the other prophets from that era.
When Teddy Roosevelt put a 90% tax rate on the wealthy along with a hefty inheritance tax with few loopholes, the rich didn’t disappear at all, just their absurd wealth was reduced to more sane levels. And what followed was an extended period of time in which all economic levels in American society improved. The rich still had their millions, and all other people had more prosperous lives with more money to spend. I don’t know what the happiness index was back then but I would bet we were probably in first place.
We have managed to turn a good thing (machines doing a lot of the work humans once had to do)—which enabled shorter work weeks, longer vacation periods, and maximized the number of citizens who were obtaining more contentment in their lives than ever before—into a bad thing by letting the full time work week stay frozen at 40 hrs/wk. Americans still can’t accept that capitalism only works if there are required regulations and limits. There is no reason to do away with capitalism but every reason for any government, regardless of form, to prevent too much of a nation’s wealth to accumulate at the very top, and ensure all citizens have good health care, good schools, good teachers, a safe environment is which to spend their formative years, good job opportunities for all citizens, including teenagers.
If any country wants to measure just how contented their citizens, as a whole, are—that country simply needs to pay attention to heroin addiction levels. People only use heroin when they suffer from a lot of physical, emotional, or mental pain. When their lives improve their heroin habit disappears. Science knows this, but improving people’s lives is a tough task, so we still blame the heroin addicts for their need to take heroin. Our drugs wars, carried out by politicians and police have still got us all seeing the problem in the wrong light. It is outrageous that lab synthesized drugs which are chemically different than heroin, are included as heroin drugs even though they are medically dangerous and have different chemical make-ups. The only way to kill ourselves with legitimate heroin is to combine heroin in the body at the same time as alcohol or other depressants. The government politicians and police still delight in calling such a death an heroin overdose death. Nothing could be more disingenuous. At any rate, if any country wants to reduce heroin use they will need find ways to make the lives of their citizens more economically contented. Otherwise ‘heroin deaths’ and use will continue. Just telling people to stop using a drug which makes their lives less stressful, or lying as to what causes overdose deaths (lab synthetic drugs which are not heroin and not referring to these actual heroin drug deaths as heroin/alcohol combination deaths—is no solution at all.
No nation can long survive when the distribution of its wealth gets so far out of whack.
So many things right now just seem hopeless. And just to complete the circuit of citizen idiocy, the older population refuses to change policies and priorities, yet at the same time acknowledge that things are getting real bad by shrugging their shoulder’s and in a clear self serving way point out that “I will be dead soon so why should I really care?”
To top it all off, all economic and environmental issues are now global. No country can solve any of these global issues by themselves and yet patriotic national pride blocks any hope of global solutions. Perhaps America citizens should face reality. All our insane expenditures on military matters (including over 800 military bases scattered all over the world, which far exceed the sum total of such expenditures of the other major industrialized nations put together. Yet with all this military strength the United Sates, after World War II, has not won any of the endless (Like over 50) invasions, support for rebels to overthrow their own government, etc since we lost in Vietnam. Unless we are willing to use weapons of mass destruction including atomic bombs, we cannot win battles where the enemy is not in uniforms, and cannot sustain territory captured temporarily by our superior weaponry. Over time with the invading countryside stripped of all it’s infrastructure, local communities become controlled by local thugs, massive unemployment becomes reality, along with disease, and starvation—we then declare victory and repeat the same sequence of events at another place, another time. A high percentage of the 2-4% are deeply invested in our huge military/industrial complex and these endless military adventures are needed to please their endless need for more and more wealth regardless of what this does to the rest of our population or how many of our soldiers or citizens of another nation die.
Worse, we are creating the same sort of conditions in our own country that we have helped create in those countries we have militarily attacked or provided military support for rebels in various nations. It is likely, sooner than later, that the next Vietnamese War will be conducted right within our own country. If we could not beat the Vietnamese poor in their own country how do we really expect to beat the vast majority of our own citizens who own less wealth as a group than 2-5% of the people who own 90% of our wealth? At no time in history have the ‘have-nots’ lost when they rioted against the ‘haves’ when the ‘haves’ have garnered that much of a nation’s national wealth. “I see” said the blind public as they picked up their hammer and saw.”
We cannot afford to provide good care for all our citizens only because we fail to stop the 2-5% of our citizens from owning 90% of our nation’s wealth. Pitiful is not a strong enough word.
Employment and the health care situation in the U.S. are ticking time bombs for our society. Politicians, by nature, are seldom honest about the economic status of the poor. Employment figures have never matched the reality of nation-wide prosperity. They don’t even count those people who have given up trying to get a job. Common sense dictates they are unemployed.
I measure the success of any government based on how successful that government is to enable the maximum number of its citizens to achieve the maximum degree of contentment with their lives. The form of government is irrelevant, although I favor capitalism with adequate regulation and limits. The economic welfare of all citizens comes before the self serving interests of those for whom enough money is never enough. It would be hard to convince me that any form of government should actually permit 3 individuals to own as much of the nation’s wealth as the bottom half of all its citizens. That is irresponsible government.
If full employment is the proper measure of economic prosperity then the blacks in the south, before the Civil War, were drowning in the prosperity of full employment. The only employment figure that really counts is what percentage of people holding full time jobs are being paid a living wage. The purpose of inventing machines which can do the labor people used to do, is to reduce the number of hours people need work. Before the industrial revolution even kids often worked 60-70 hours of labor/wk. The industrial revolution worked well at first. It became illegal to work kids like that, and adults themselves found their work hours heading south. It was no longer necessary for citizens to work so many hours to get the needed work done. Machines of some sort were a blessed relief. So full time work hours kept getting reduced and the pay for less hours of work was a livable wage. When I was young even the poor, working a full time job, could earn a living wage. They didn’t need to work two jobs or go on welfare for the most part.
Today, unemployment figures are down and this is supposed to demonstrate a better economic status for the poor. It does no such thing. Unemployment figures tell us little about the economic situation of the 43% (and rising) of our adult population who don’t even make enough money to be eligible to pay any federal income tax. At the other end, even Amazon is not required to pay any income tax, nor apparently is our President. Here is how some states now deal with their poor: For them to collect any welfare they must often work full time at a job which does not pay a living wage. Then, the govt will give them limited welfare so they can survive, but of course still make so little they are not required to pay federal income taxes. Politicians can then boast that they have brought about prosperity for almost everybody via full employment. Few, if any, of these ‘prosperous’ workers, are remotely satisfied with their lives. It’s a scam.
The last election demonstrated just how dissatisfied with their lives so many Americans were with their lives. With all the things machines of various sorts can now do, why is the work week frozen at 40hrs a week for a full time job? Why do so many countries manage to provide all workers with living wages, sometimes guaranteed 6 weeks vacation for all, good health care for all (at least better than the health care for the poor in the U.S.), good schools. good teachers, and job opportunities for far more people than in the U.S.? These are the 26 countries whose ‘happiness index’ is better than the happiness index for United States citizens.
When most everyone can find work paying living wages, and these jobs are full-time at let’s say 30 hrs per week, then more jobs are available, practically everyone earns enough to pay federal income taxes, millions of workers can now spend money to buy more ‘things’, and with good health care, health care costs go down as people need less medical intervention, the existence of our rural, urban, and suburban ‘ghettoes’ will begin to shrink as more and people flee these ghettoes, while the happiness index in the United States would not be way down in 26th place.
The contentment level of our citizens is not measured accurately by current unemployment numbers. The average young person today is expected to have over 30 different jobs in their life time. This is due in no small part by the bottom line. A new employee might do a great job and get decent pay raises but after a few years it is cheaper to bring in a new person at an entry level salary. This economic insecurity is one reason marriage numbers are down. Many young people can afford right now to raise a family but they are nervous what their situation will be a few years from now. When most people have jobs which pay a living wage, welfare costs go down at an exponential rate while at the same time income tax collections go up at an exponential rate. That’s a good thing.
If just a portion of all this is true, why does the United States continue with its current economic policies? Right now all three parts of our political system are controlled by the 2-5% of citizens who own 90% of our wealth—Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court. Where would members of Congress get the many millions of dollars to run a campaign for office without support from the wealthy? And the members of Congress decide who gets onto the Supreme Court. Both Presidential candidates get lot’s of money to run for office and on paper the 2-5% supporting one candidate would be opposed by the other 95-98% of the citizens. But at most, only 60% vote. Then the 2-5% prey on the prejudices of common citizens combined with agreeing to the right wing religious fundamentalists to support laws which would attempt to force everyone to follow certain religious beliefs of the fundamentalists. The fundamentalists could not be more firm in their own religious beliefs—to the extent they would actually vote for someone whose words, behaviors, and willingness to stiff others in order to amass great material wealth is actually tolerated as long as that person promises to support some of their religious beliefs becoming law of the land. No one ever mistakes the words, behavior, lifestyle, and values of our current President with Jesus Christ or any of the other prophets from that era.
When Teddy Roosevelt put a 90% tax rate on the wealthy along with a hefty inheritance tax with few loopholes, the rich didn’t disappear at all, just their absurd wealth was reduced to more sane levels. And what followed was an extended period of time in which all economic levels in American society improved. The rich still had their millions, and all other people had more prosperous lives with more money to spend. I don’t know what the happiness index was back then but I would bet we were probably in first place.
We have managed to turn a good thing (machines doing a lot of the work humans once had to do)—which enabled shorter work weeks, longer vacation periods, and maximized the number of citizens who were obtaining more contentment in their lives than ever before—into a bad thing by letting the full time work week stay frozen at 40 hrs/wk. Americans still can’t accept that capitalism only works if there are required regulations and limits. There is no reason to do away with capitalism but every reason for any government, regardless of form, to prevent too much of a nation’s wealth to accumulate at the very top, and ensure all citizens have good health care, good schools, good teachers, a safe environment is which to spend their formative years, good job opportunities for all citizens, including teenagers.
If any country wants to measure just how contented their citizens, as a whole, are—that country simply needs to pay attention to heroin addiction levels. People only use heroin when they suffer from a lot of physical, emotional, or mental pain. When their lives improve their heroin habit disappears. Science knows this, but improving people’s lives is a tough task, so we still blame the heroin addicts for their need to take heroin. Our drugs wars, carried out by politicians and police have still got us all seeing the problem in the wrong light. It is outrageous that lab synthesized drugs which are chemically different than heroin, are included as heroin drugs even though they are medically dangerous and have different chemical make-ups. The only way to kill ourselves with legitimate heroin is to combine heroin in the body at the same time as alcohol or other depressants. The government politicians and police still delight in calling such a death an heroin overdose death. Nothing could be more disingenuous. At any rate, if any country wants to reduce heroin use they will need find ways to make the lives of their citizens more economically contented. Otherwise ‘heroin deaths’ and use will continue. Just telling people to stop using a drug which makes their lives less stressful, or lying as to what causes overdose deaths (lab synthetic drugs which are not heroin and not referring to these actual heroin drug deaths as heroin/alcohol combination deaths—is no solution at all.
No nation can long survive when the distribution of its wealth gets so far out of whack.
So many things right now just seem hopeless. And just to complete the circuit of citizen idiocy, the older population refuses to change policies and priorities, yet at the same time acknowledge that things are getting real bad by shrugging their shoulder’s and in a clear self serving way point out that “I will be dead soon so why should I really care?”
To top it all off, all economic and environmental issues are now global. No country can solve any of these global issues by themselves and yet patriotic national pride blocks any hope of global solutions. Perhaps America citizens should face reality. All our insane expenditures on military matters (including over 800 military bases scattered all over the world, which far exceed the sum total of such expenditures of the other major industrialized nations put together. Yet with all this military strength the United Sates, after World War II, has not won any of the endless (Like over 50) invasions, support for rebels to overthrow their own government, etc since we lost in Vietnam. Unless we are willing to use weapons of mass destruction including atomic bombs, we cannot win battles where the enemy is not in uniforms, and cannot sustain territory captured temporarily by our superior weaponry. Over time with the invading countryside stripped of all it’s infrastructure, local communities become controlled by local thugs, massive unemployment becomes reality, along with disease, and starvation—we then declare victory and repeat the same sequence of events at another place, another time. A high percentage of the 2-4% are deeply invested in our huge military/industrial complex and these endless military adventures are needed to please their endless need for more and more wealth regardless of what this does to the rest of our population or how many of our soldiers or citizens of another nation die.
Worse, we are creating the same sort of conditions in our own country that we have helped create in those countries we have militarily attacked or provided military support for rebels in various nations. It is likely, sooner than later, that the next Vietnamese War will be conducted right within our own country. If we could not beat the Vietnamese poor in their own country how do we really expect to beat the vast majority of our own citizens who own less wealth as a group than 2-5% of the people who own 90% of our wealth? At no time in history have the ‘have-nots’ lost when they rioted against the ‘haves’ when the ‘haves’ have garnered that much of a nation’s national wealth. “I see” said the blind public as they picked up their hammer and saw.”
We cannot afford to provide good care for all our citizens only because we fail to stop the 2-5% of our citizens from owning 90% of our nation’s wealth. Pitiful is not a strong enough word.
