I laugh when I heard CAPITALISTS talk about a government spending program to promote jobs. CAPITALISM — is suppose to be the great economic system where GREED trumps EVERYTHING ELSE and MOTIVATES people to start and expand BUSINESS.
However … this is NOT how it works …
CAPITALISM regularly gets all MESSED UP and requires the GOVERNMENT to spend LOTS OF MONEY to get it going again. Of course, this DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK and there might have to be MANY such STIMULUS programs to get the world of CAPITALISM going. Capitalism is one fucked up system — a religious mythology — and like other religions you just have to keep believing because getting off the treadmill is very painful — there’s reality out there.
Early in 2009, nearly $1 TRILLION was spent to get the economy moving again — about the best you can say is it SLOWED the rate of decline, a little. Overall, it cost nearly $300,000 for each job created and many of the jobs were just short term. For example, some 200,000 jobs are going to expire in September.
When will America get rid of the stupid idea that CAPITALISM creates jobs? If it did create jobs then we could just wait around and let Capitalism do its magic and everything would be great. But wait as long as you want, Capitalism doesn’t create jobs — even though there is a GIGANTIC capital market where companies can go and raise gobs of capital — there is no great job creation going on.
The truth is government is the only thing that creates jobs. Unfortunately, the history is that government loves to incentivize for-profit companies to create jobs. Usually, these for-profit companies are given direct subsidies, literally corporate welfare, to create jobs. These jobs are not necessarily in the US — they might be in China or Thailand. Or some other place that pays worked below living-wages with dismal working conditions. Makes no difference to a greedy capitalist who is ONLY thinking about their PROFITS. Plus, the definition of recovery doesn’t include putting people to work in America.
Meanwhile, Republicans criticize the government to giving money to the UNEMPLOYED. Many Republicans have come right out and said that the only people who are unemployed want to be. Of course this is in direct conflict with the job that was available in my area where 200 people showed up for it. I guess the one person who got the job wanted it and the other 199 just wanted to piss away their day. Could it be that all 200 people wanted to work? I would say, “Yes” — but that doesn’t computer in the Republican world.
In Depression I, Roosevelt had the government just create jobs, like the Tennessee Valley Authority. I knew a man who relocated from New York City to Tennessee to wok on this project. Eventually, he returned to New York City. He told me this job got him and his family through the Depression. Eventually, the work ended and eventually the government turned it all over to for-profit companies — they always do in America. Because for-profit companies love socializing the risk and privatizing the profits. And our government is always just one small step away from giving money away to for-profit companies.
Right now, the government needs to create jobs — there are literally millions of people who need them. There is large amonts of work that needs to be done in America. For example, you could put back millions just working on the infrastructure and getting the country off of fossil fuel. No matter how one feels about climate change — one thing is irrefutable: the world is running out of oil and alternatives will be required. Of course, climate change is true and the urgency is exceedingly important. It is much cheaper for the government to just create non-profit jobs than try to get greedy for-profit companies to do it.
The banking crisis has taught America (again) that when private for-profit companies get into trouble they just knock on the door of government for a bailout. There are bailouts at regular intervals in this country because capitalism doesn’t work.
But since the country has already embraced the corporatlist political system where people have little influence over corporatist interest, there is little chance that government will create jobs as they did in Depression I. In Depression II, America judges recovery not when people are put back to work but when the stock market rallies. And, of course, a new financial crisis is just around the corner because NOTHING has been done since the last one.
Well, eventually the unemployment rate will decline — not because people go back to work — rather, the way the rate is politically calculated. Few will actually notice that the number of employed continues to decline even though the population increases.
America is Doomed.
