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On the other hand, the Danes have a system where the workforce is extremely mobile, precisely because every worker is guaranteed up to four years of unemploymen

• patio11 17y ago
  You have a curious definition of "all sides" in which the solution space appears to be "Impose European-style levels of benefits" XOR "Unemployed people starve in the snow." I am missing anybody here seriously proposing the second option. I suspect the downside to having employment-at-will, very modest unemployment benefits, and a liquid labor market exists. I also suspect that it can be measured in terms of objectively verifiable criteria, and compared with the alternatives. For example, I suspect that I can look in a US newspaper for a count of the number of cars burned last night by immigrants rioting over lack of economic opportunity. It will take me a whole lot of searching, because few newspapers publish articles titled "BREAKING! No riot today, either!" Then I could look at the same number in a French newspaper. (100 a day on quiet days, spiking to over a thousand on New Years or during periods of mass unrest. You might think I'm exaggerating. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869392,00.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869392,00.htm... ) Alternatively, if counting riots seems a little messy, I could look at unemployment statistics for those under twenty five. In the United States, for youths at large, it is about 11~12% right now. In France, it is over 20 -- down a bit from a few years ago when it hit 25%. For socially disadvantaged groups in America, for example black males without a high school degree, it is about 48%. For similarly situated folks in France (for example, uneducated immigrants), unemployment is close to total.] I can go on if you want me to.
  • irq11 17y ago
    I don't assume that the options are mutually exclusive. That said, I'm pragmatic enough to know that someone has to pay for a system like the Danes'. It comes at the expense of high taxes for all. But if we're talking about curious, all-or-nothing thinking, I have to wonder why you're so obsessively focused on the French? A quick Google search tells me that the unemployment rate in Denmark (horrible social welfare state and all), is only around 5%. Perhaps the problems in France are specific to France?
    • patio11 17y ago
      I generally assume Americans/Europeans are comparatively well-informed on the economies and present socio/political situations of America/Europe. I could have used Japan as the main example, but if I alluded to something like "90% of the foreign population from my town is either unemployed or has emigrated in response to a government policy which paid foreigners to leave" I'd probably have to give you the back story on why central Japan has lots of Peruvians/Brazilians and their social status, then give you a rundown on what the difference between a seishain and a hakkenshain is, then discuss the changing norms about lifetime employment, then explain why the Japanese benefit system makes it almost impossible to land a seishain job unless you look like the perfect applicant, and finally get to the actual numbers which demonstrate my point. Which would be difficult because I have about five minutes left on my lunch break and then it is back to the web programming salt mines.
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      • sailormoon 17y ago
        Do you see the discrepancy in your recognising that you need to give all sorts of specific details as to the background and circumstances leading to the immigrant employment problems in Japan, but you're willing to make broad generalisations about France? In truth the two situations are likely as mind-boggingly complicated as each other.
  • bballant 17y ago
    You have valid points, but you also must consider how different France is from the U.S. When their unions strike over compensation, for example, they close down roads and burn things. Our unions strike by marching in circles with signs. Most of the immigrants you speak of live in the equivalent to housing projects. America has housing projects, but much, much fewer. It's something the French have embraced, to the detriment of their society, because it keeps their immigrant population from integrating. America prides itself on it's diversity and France prides itself on it's "Frenchness." I think you need to consider all of these things when talking about the reasons the young, unemployed French riot. One more thing. I don't know about the ethnic or age breakdown, but right now French and American unemployment percentages are same. The difference is the French unemployed have healthcare and other social programs, so they're better off, in many instances, than Americans.
    • gaius 17y ago
      Well, yes and no. The farmers will do that, year. Metro workers often "strike" by running a normal service but refusing to collect fares. That keeps the public on-side. A friend of mine was at the last Santacon in Paris, they were mistaken for striking workers... Incidentally, the banlieus of Paris are worse than "the ghetto" of any American city. Except maybe Detroit.
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• gamble 17y ago
  Absolutely. The ideal system would combine high worker mobility (at will employment, no non-compete agreements, etc) with a generous safety net to minimize the cost of losing one's job. It seems like the issue here is the way unemployment is funded.
  • jamesbritt 17y ago
    Are there not also cultural issues? Some people see a safety net as just that, and use it as a stop-gap while planning on future employment. Others may see it as sweet free ride to milk as long and as much as possible.
    • gaius 17y ago
      That is the problem we have in the UK. There is a whole welfare based subculture, often referred to as "chavs". Personally I would like to see entitlement to the dole based on education... The taxpayer has paid to educate everyone up to the age of 18. If someone throws away that opportunity and leaves school without qualifications they're unemployable, why should the taxpayer support them in that case?
      • Robin_Message 17y ago
        Well, just maybe because when they are under 18 they are deemed a "child" and the thing about "children" is they don't always act in their long term best interests. They may have been raised badly. They may have done badly at primary school and been left behind by the education system. Yes, some people are feckless scroungers. But punishing them for that is leaving things too late. We need, as a society, to find ways to help people become productive members of our society, wherever they start from.
        • gaius 17y ago
          To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability. Two sides of the same coin, Comrade.
        • 17y ago
• mos1 17y ago
  what is the unintended consequence of a system that provides no assurances to workers during economic downturns? It exacerbates the business cycle for very obvious reasons, and it also slows economic growth as it results in more conservative investment, and lower spending on the parts of both businesses and consumers alike. The real world numbers seem to bear out that unemployment compensation of some sort is a good thing. The real world numbers also seem to bear out that if an undue portion of that compensation must come from the former employer specifically, that it creates some unfortunate disincentives towards hiring in the first place, which reduce (or in extreme cases eliminate) the benefits. In short, Patio1 is right in thinking that the French system has some drawbacks... but his claim that the French system is some sort of inevitable end result of worker rights is utter and complete rubbish. The problem is nothing to do with workers rights, and everything to do with the specific implementation.
  • yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Actually, a system that provides "assurances to workers" during a downturn might exacerbate the business cycle. (This is the recalculation theory of business cycles.) A recession is caused when resources are systematically devoted to suboptimal purposes. For instance, we built too many houses and we just discovered they aren't worth much. A laid off construction worker, auto worker or buggy whip maker may think he can still get his old job back. Generous unemployment insurance allows him to wait around for a long time, hoping to get back a job similar to his old job. However, absent unemployment insurance, he would be forced to take whatever he could get, thereby shortening the recession. (Note: this doesn't dispute your theory of more conservative investment/spending decisions, it's just another countervailing factor that must enter into the cost/benefit calculation.)
    • mos1 17y ago
      Generous unemployment insurance allows him to wait around for a long time, hoping to get back a job similar to his old job. However, absent unemployment insurance, he would be forced to take whatever he could get, thereby shortening the recession. This isn't a cut and dry argument either. That said, it's the reason that some unemployment compensation packages include or are dependent on job placement services and/or retraining efforts. If you simply provide people with moderate passive income, the likelihood that they'll use it to update their skill set and change the direction of their career depends on a whole host of variables (satisfaction at previous jobs, age, industry, amount and type of education, union membership, other cultural factors.) As such, I'd agree that for some people, income without retraining or mandatory placement services has a deleterious effect, but this is in no way a universal phenomena. The detroit auto worker is pretty much the poster child for the problem you cite. This is because they tend to be on the wrong side of every variable I mentioned (low satisfaction, high age, salaried employment, a contract industry, relatively low formal education, higher vocational education, union members, and likely to be part of a generation that feels they are "owed" jobs.) That said, their existence doesn't demonstrate that the programs are an overall drain, because they aren't representative of the average unemployed worker. They're skewed negatively in every dimension that matters. Their existence does, however, reinforce the value of retraining services and mandatory placement efforts as part of a maximally effective unemployment compensation program.