4 ms·

> "Why should any of these people be considered 'unemployed'?" if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy, it's importan

> "Why should any of these people be considered 'unemployed'?" if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy, it's important to get a full picture of how many capable people are un-/under-employed. when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use, not arbitrarily just those who have recently become un-/under-employed (nominal unemployment).

pdonis 6y ago
> if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. > when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use That's not something the government should even be trying to do, because no central planning entity can do it. What the government should be doing is guaranteeing a level playing field, and letting freedom work. Historically, times when the government has done that have been the times when the US economy has created the most wealth.
- bushin 6y ago
  you sound like a religious fanatic
- clairity 6y ago
  that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee. the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. as a power apparatus, it cuts both ways, and we must remain vigilant as citizens on keeping it aligned with our goals and desires. wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal, and its singular pursuit expressly undermines the level playing field and much of our humanity. prosperity is a more holistic expression of our collective goal, with wealth creation not being the principal ingredient of prosperity. industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. it behooves us to look beyond simplistic ideologies (which only benefit the political, by collapsing our horizons insidiously) to perform our duties and responsibilities to each other as a society.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee But none of us have the power to run the entire country, and we couldn't do it properly even if we had the power. So saying that "we" should do things that are beyond our power is pointless. If you think not enough people have jobs, start a business and hire some. If everyone who complains about unemployment went and did that instead, if it didn't completely solve the problem, it would certainly make a huge dent. > the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. If "our common good" just means ensuring a level playing field and letting freedom work, sure. That's what the US government was originally intended to do. However, governments today have gone far beyond that to try to dictate to everybody what "our common good" should mean based on some particular interest group's ideas about social policy. That is a recipe for disaster, and we should stop doing it. > wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal I'm not sure what you mean by "as we measure it". If you mean that "we" measure it in money, then of course you are correct: money is not wealth. If you measure wealth as economists actually measure it, however, by the possibilities that are open to people--the range of things they can choose to do with the resources and options available to them--then people today are wealthier than pretty much every human being who ever lived. > industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. If you think these are valuable things, then go build them. If you think government should dictate to people that they need to build these things, whether they want to or not, IMO you are being inconsistent, since the whole point of all these good things is that people can only do them voluntarily; if they are forced to do them, you don't get them, you get sham imitations instead. So once again, government should not be used to impose these things on people; it should be used to ensure a level playing field so free people can build them as they see fit.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. Well, right now they are "macromanaging" it away from a system that could possibly work. Central bank policy heavily skews toward capital and thereby into deflation (or at least lack of inflation). Inflation is the treadmill that keeps the economy going and it has been broken for a long time. The more I get into economics the more I understand that the real world is not meaningfully different from a game in terms of policing. The details are different but general concepts like deflation or inflation are still the same. The fact that economies can only function if money is in the hands of those who are doing the work is still the same. In the most realistic economy games it is even possible to liquidate your company and start fresh after messing it up. So there is now the obvious problem that if you want a growing player base you can't just let the biggest players take over 90% of the market and force newcomers to compete with them and let almost all of them fail like in the real world. Unemployment can't exist in such a game, "unemployed" players aren't playing the game! Well, the obvious answer to solving unemployment is a job guarantee funded through "printing" money. If people are unemployed they will take the job guarantee which in turn creates new money. Suddenly there are lots of paying consumers but since the guaranteed job doesn't actually increase the supply of goods we get to see inflation among consumer goods. Now you may be thinking that this will cause runaway inflation except it can't. When demand for products increases, so does the demand for labor. New jobs are created which pay more than the job guarantee but they don't cause inflation. It's a self balancing system.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > right now they are "macromanaging" it away from a system that could possibly work Yes, but not the way you are claiming. > Inflation is the treadmill that keeps the economy going If by "inflation" you mean printing money, no, that is noise in the price signals that keep the economy regulated. And as central banks print more and more of it, they mask valid price signals more and more and thereby make the regulation of the economy worse and worse. And then they claim they need to print more money to "fix" the problem. If by "inflation" you mean "prices going up", if the money supply were fixed, the prices of everything going up would signal an unhealthy economy, not a healthy one. With a fixed money supply, in the short term, whenever the supply/demand situation changes (and it is always changing), some prices will go up and some will go down. In the long term, the general price level would be expected to go down as average productivity improves. If the general price level is going up, it means average productivity is getting worse, which, as noted, is a sign of an unhealthy economy. The main purpose of printing money is to allow governments to obfuscate the fact that they are making the economy worse by masking what would otherwise be obvious price signals showing it. Every ordinary person understands that if the prices of everything are going up, that's bad. So governments, politically, cannot allow sustained increases in the general price level, unless they are so small as to not be noticeable except over many years. But they can't micromanage their way to a healthy economy either, so their only choice is to print money to disguise what is going on. > the obvious answer to solving unemployment is a job guarantee funded through "printing" money This would be government micromanagement on an even more massive scale and would be a disaster. The obvious answer to solving unemployment is to make it easier for people to start businesses, since that is what creates new jobs. The way to do that is for the government to stop micromanaging the economy and let individual people figure things out.

pdonis 6y ago

> if you want to know how well we're allocating our (labor) resources as an economy There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. > when we make national economic policy, it should be to make meaningful progress toward putting all of our capable and willing people (true unemployment) to highest and best use That's not something the government should even be trying to do, because no central planning entity can do it. What the government should be doing is guaranteeing a level playing field, and letting freedom work. Historically, times when the government has done that have been the times when the US economy has created the most wealth.

bushin 6y ago
you sound like a religious fanatic
clairity 6y ago
that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee. the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. as a power apparatus, it cuts both ways, and we must remain vigilant as citizens on keeping it aligned with our goals and desires. wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal, and its singular pursuit expressly undermines the level playing field and much of our humanity. prosperity is a more holistic expression of our collective goal, with wealth creation not being the principal ingredient of prosperity. industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. it behooves us to look beyond simplistic ideologies (which only benefit the political, by collapsing our horizons insidiously) to perform our duties and responsibilities to each other as a society.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > that "we" is the whole of the citizens and residents of the country, not a central planning committee But none of us have the power to run the entire country, and we couldn't do it properly even if we had the power. So saying that "we" should do things that are beyond our power is pointless. If you think not enough people have jobs, start a business and hire some. If everyone who complains about unemployment went and did that instead, if it didn't completely solve the problem, it would certainly make a huge dent. > the government is the power apparatus that is meant to express and realize our common good. If "our common good" just means ensuring a level playing field and letting freedom work, sure. That's what the US government was originally intended to do. However, governments today have gone far beyond that to try to dictate to everybody what "our common good" should mean based on some particular interest group's ideas about social policy. That is a recipe for disaster, and we should stop doing it. > wealth by itself, especially as we measure it, is hollow and a poor collective goal I'm not sure what you mean by "as we measure it". If you mean that "we" measure it in money, then of course you are correct: money is not wealth. If you measure wealth as economists actually measure it, however, by the possibilities that are open to people--the range of things they can choose to do with the resources and options available to them--then people today are wealthier than pretty much every human being who ever lived. > industry, purpose, solidarity, community, well-being, welfare, success, esteem, respect, free expression, etc. are all (much) higher on that list. If you think these are valuable things, then go build them. If you think government should dictate to people that they need to build these things, whether they want to or not, IMO you are being inconsistent, since the whole point of all these good things is that people can only do them voluntarily; if they are forced to do them, you don't get them, you get sham imitations instead. So once again, government should not be used to impose these things on people; it should be used to ensure a level playing field so free people can build them as they see fit.
imtringued 6y ago
>There is no single "we" who allocates those resources. That is a fundamental fallacy in this whole way of looking at things. We seem to have this belief that, if only our government experts could find the right aggregate measure and micromanage the economy based on it, everything would work just fine. That belief is false. Well, right now they are "macromanaging" it away from a system that could possibly work. Central bank policy heavily skews toward capital and thereby into deflation (or at least lack of inflation). Inflation is the treadmill that keeps the economy going and it has been broken for a long time. The more I get into economics the more I understand that the real world is not meaningfully different from a game in terms of policing. The details are different but general concepts like deflation or inflation are still the same. The fact that economies can only function if money is in the hands of those who are doing the work is still the same. In the most realistic economy games it is even possible to liquidate your company and start fresh after messing it up. So there is now the obvious problem that if you want a growing player base you can't just let the biggest players take over 90% of the market and force newcomers to compete with them and let almost all of them fail like in the real world. Unemployment can't exist in such a game, "unemployed" players aren't playing the game! Well, the obvious answer to solving unemployment is a job guarantee funded through "printing" money. If people are unemployed they will take the job guarantee which in turn creates new money. Suddenly there are lots of paying consumers but since the guaranteed job doesn't actually increase the supply of goods we get to see inflation among consumer goods. Now you may be thinking that this will cause runaway inflation except it can't. When demand for products increases, so does the demand for labor. New jobs are created which pay more than the job guarantee but they don't cause inflation. It's a self balancing system.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > right now they are "macromanaging" it away from a system that could possibly work Yes, but not the way you are claiming. > Inflation is the treadmill that keeps the economy going If by "inflation" you mean printing money, no, that is noise in the price signals that keep the economy regulated. And as central banks print more and more of it, they mask valid price signals more and more and thereby make the regulation of the economy worse and worse. And then they claim they need to print more money to "fix" the problem. If by "inflation" you mean "prices going up", if the money supply were fixed, the prices of everything going up would signal an unhealthy economy, not a healthy one. With a fixed money supply, in the short term, whenever the supply/demand situation changes (and it is always changing), some prices will go up and some will go down. In the long term, the general price level would be expected to go down as average productivity improves. If the general price level is going up, it means average productivity is getting worse, which, as noted, is a sign of an unhealthy economy. The main purpose of printing money is to allow governments to obfuscate the fact that they are making the economy worse by masking what would otherwise be obvious price signals showing it. Every ordinary person understands that if the prices of everything are going up, that's bad. So governments, politically, cannot allow sustained increases in the general price level, unless they are so small as to not be noticeable except over many years. But they can't micromanage their way to a healthy economy either, so their only choice is to print money to disguise what is going on. > the obvious answer to solving unemployment is a job guarantee funded through "printing" money This would be government micromanagement on an even more massive scale and would be a disaster. The obvious answer to solving unemployment is to make it easier for people to start businesses, since that is what creates new jobs. The way to do that is for the government to stop micromanaging the economy and let individual people figure things out.