Waking up at 11 AM in pyjamas to collect food stamps is a fucking job. How can you count that as unemployment?
7.8% Unemployment - or Conspiracy?
- Thread starter WickedJoe
- Start date
I definitely wish you luck with this. It's the hardest thing anyone can be asked to do and people usually fail miserably at it. They can't stop having a severe bias towards the belief system that they emotionally prefer.. it influences their logic, reasoning, etc.
Off subject but I've been meaning to ask some of you strict free market capitalist libertarians about the impact of widespread future automation on that system. Lets say we can erase almost all labor jobs with robots and smart AI. Does extreme joblessness make that system bad for society or will people always find jobs doing something like entertainment, science? I think Marx argued this kind of thing is one reasons communism/socialism is almost inevitable. I've got no dog in this fight.. I just want to hear of a vision that's different from my Star Trek Next Generation vision which was very socialized automated society.
While I am mostly human and susceptible to emotions and bias, resolving contradictions is a mission for me. Once I think I have spotted a contradiction, I am very unhappy until I can resolve it, and logic is one of those things that either yields a true or false condition. You can't really feel "logic".
This is a question that is answered by Austrian economics, but not by any other school. Again, that's my attraction to it. The ability to have a complete methodology for discussing and understanding human action should underlie everything any of us do (or else we may be flying blind).
The future will be highly automated. Just as Americans today don't do the backbreaking agricultural labor of 150 years ago, in the future, there will be less manual labor and repetitive labor jobs.
This doesn't mean though that there will be a corresponding drop in productivity. In the old days, if you didn't work, you didn't eat. In the future, you will work less and eat more (make your own value judgments about that).
This frees up people to pursue intellectual, ideological, creative, spiritual, sexual, emotional etc pursuits.
Generally, government wants people on welfare or working, the former because then you're dependent, and the latter because you're too busy to complain. The future will be libertarian, rather than communist, simply because people will have more time for thoughtfulness.
Of course, there will always be lazy losers, who prefer entertainment and consumption to learning and self-improvement. But this species was long overdue for a fork anyways.
So the idea is that automation will make things so cheap (food/vehicles/etc) that they will be of much lower value than the value that people add to the economy themselves with their art, books, philosophy, poontang, etc. Sounds nice.
Lots of manipulation going on. Rember both sides have their trump cards. Look at gas prices going up all of a sudden (gas pumps running dry the media says in California, and all national average will be $4 by November) who in the end will be blamed for that, and who will benefit that on election day?
Remember California rolling blackouts during the Gray Davis recall efforts? His nickname was "Gray out Davis". He was blamed, and Arnold got in. and never had a problem since.
Each side is gonna do what it takes with their corporate backings pulling the strings. Vote Independent House and Senate at least, so there can be some real change we can believe in.
Remember California rolling blackouts during the Gray Davis recall efforts? His nickname was "Gray out Davis". He was blamed, and Arnold got in. and never had a problem since.
Each side is gonna do what it takes with their corporate backings pulling the strings. Vote Independent House and Senate at least, so there can be some real change we can believe in.
When I said the future was libertarian, that's the trend.
We still have to build that world. It's also possible that people continue to be lazy and stupid and authorize and consent to sociopaths in government to continue interfering in technological and social progress.
All it takes is one idiot to set off a nuke or something, and the world could change dramatically for the worse.
Unemployment numbers are always going to be skewed based on the current methods they use to calculate it.
Right now, if you haven't had a job in over 6 months, you are considered a "Discouraged Worker" and considered out of the labor force, doesn't matter if your looking.
So anyone out of work for over 6 months is not counted toward unemployment.
How much bullshit is that?
Looks great for statistics, but doesn't really make any sense, especially in tough economic times like right now.
Right now, if you haven't had a job in over 6 months, you are considered a "Discouraged Worker" and considered out of the labor force, doesn't matter if your looking.
So anyone out of work for over 6 months is not counted toward unemployment.
How much bullshit is that?
Looks great for statistics, but doesn't really make any sense, especially in tough economic times like right now.
Short answer: Insatiably curiosity.
Long answer: I have probably put in close to 2,000 hours teaching myself economics over the last 5 years. Likely 8,000 hours learning history, philosophy and law.
I just find sources and dig in. When other people are hanging out, chasing skirt, raising kids, sleeping, I am trying to learn something new. I can't help myself.
I consume books, articles, videos, presentations, lectures and of course, debate (helps sharpen ideas).
Everyone needs to understand economics. It is the understanding of causality. If you do A, you will receive B. Without that sort of understanding, people are prone to make all kinds of errors and then be very unhappy with how their lives turn out.
Fuck, we should have a presidential debate every week!
Within a few months, the unemployment rate would be 0%.
Within a few months, the unemployment rate would be 0%.
Do these unemployment numbers properly count people who are self employed? I've personally never been to an unemployment office, and never been officially employed. I've held "jobs" in the past which were independent contracts with businesses.
I believe that our unemployment problems are due to the piss poor education system in the US. Manual labor is going extinct here due to our millions of asian wage slaves, and in the near future will be almost entirely eradicated due to the rise of robot workers and AI.
The only solution I see is the development of our workforce into a workforce of creatives, programmers, scientists, engineers and entertainers who will primarily work to 1) entertain our society 2) advance our technology. If we don't do this, we will need to provide housing and food to citizens for free, otherwise the ranks of the impoverished will swell until it is an enormous problem.
I also suspect that the US's love for warfare is fueled by a fear of increasing unemployment via the reduction of the military (fewer personnel and cutbacks on contractors who rely on govt military spending).
The only logical solution that I can imagine is a vast increase and expansion of the education system to create the smartest society on the planet. Job creation needs to be a result of an increase in entrepreneurship (by providing the knowledge to get started) amongst citizens.
I believe that our unemployment problems are due to the piss poor education system in the US. Manual labor is going extinct here due to our millions of asian wage slaves, and in the near future will be almost entirely eradicated due to the rise of robot workers and AI.
The only solution I see is the development of our workforce into a workforce of creatives, programmers, scientists, engineers and entertainers who will primarily work to 1) entertain our society 2) advance our technology. If we don't do this, we will need to provide housing and food to citizens for free, otherwise the ranks of the impoverished will swell until it is an enormous problem.
I also suspect that the US's love for warfare is fueled by a fear of increasing unemployment via the reduction of the military (fewer personnel and cutbacks on contractors who rely on govt military spending).
The only logical solution that I can imagine is a vast increase and expansion of the education system to create the smartest society on the planet. Job creation needs to be a result of an increase in entrepreneurship (by providing the knowledge to get started) amongst citizens.