Does America Really Need More Jobs?

[tuckerlee]

Touching on the first page of this thread, YES. We need more jobs.

Sure, the feds can't help in the FUTURE. This is not the future. This is the present, and more jobs are required to get us to that future.

[1714935798]

1714935798

[Fjordbit]

http://online.wsj.com/video/does-america-really-need-more-jobs/E49FDEC2-1596-4A1B-970D-486CBDF1FE5C.html

I strongly agree with the core view that the guest is putting forward in the video. People do not want jobs, they just want the aspects of life that will always give a base level of survival and then add a regular level of enjoyment. I do believe that modern machines make it so that we need only 10% of the population doing "a job" to give this to people. I kind of take this in a different direction than the guest though: my feeling is that this should push retirement age down, or possibly push the accepted date to enter the market up.

There is a large amount of arbitrage and other free stuff in our system. There are cases where you can buy games new at one store, return them legally through a used game program at another, and get gift cards for more money for the other store. I participate in the super-couponing thing and I will often get shelves of food for anywhere from cash back to $20. I know people who do the travel hacking and take a few trip a year first class for next to nothing. All of this represent inefficiencies in our economy, because it's clear that people can exploit out cheap stuff and yet everything still works as well as it does. Most people still buy pickles for $3 a jar even though I get mine for 18 cents.

This is showing up again in a new phenomenon: Early Extreme Retirement. It combines frugal living with financial savvy with opportunity seeking to allow people to save and retire comfortably in 10 years or so, or about 14% of an average life span.

It does seem to me that there is a layer of consumerism that exists that keeps people from breaking out. I'll admit, I have succumbed to this a few times in my life, but as each year goes by, I'm able to close out old expenses and instead of respending that money, just putting it towards savings. If I actually keep on this pace until a retirement age of 65, I'll have an extremely large amount saved, as well as pension and possibly social security.

And yet the politicians are arguing about how much to raise retirement age. That's the effect of the elite trying to hold on to the notion that everyone must work and produce to keep the world going. That everyone must slave to them even to age 67 or higher. Next they'll try to raise the contribution amounts because if they keep more of your retirement money, they can then mismanage waste into that and prevent people from retiring so early.

[johnyj]

No solution is going to be feasible for everyone.  But it's still a good idea to know how to tend a garden, even if you live in a high rise condo.  You might not always.  Some skills are life skills, that parents need to teach children as insurance against the worst possible futures that child might face.  An example is learning to swim, even if you live in a city many miles from any accessible body of water.  I was in the USMC, and in boot camp I encountered people from big cities that have never learned to swim.  I was shocked.  Really, you grew up and never event went to a pool?  And then the joined the US Marine Corps.  Common sense would say that boot camp isn't going to be the ideal enviroment to learn to swim.  I (actually mostly my wife) teach my homeschooled children to swim before they are 5 (currently my 2 year old, who is a natural born swimmer, and I mean that literally.  He has zero fear of deep water, and is such a strong swimmer he probably doesn't need to.) and continue to teach this as a 'life skill' for ten years.  Odds are against them ever turning pro, but if they are ever in a flood, or take a cruise on the Titanic II, their odds of survival are vastly higher knowing how to actually swim.  Likewise, knowing how to plan, plant and tend a simple garden might prove to be useful life skill someday.  Ever hear of urban gardening?

I agree that we should all learn some useful skills for life, but that does not solve the ownership problem

Gardening require a piece of land, and if that land is so good and the value of your harvested goods are much higher than the rent of the land, big capitalists have already claimed it and growing plants out of it, since that is an investment which brings profit. So the only lands available are those unprofitable lands, which means: You could grow enough vegetables out of the land to support your own life, but you won't have money to pay the rent of the land by selling those vegetables, so unless you invest big and bought this land (then tax is coming), your chance of utilizing the land to support your life is quite small

[johnyj]

And yet the politicians are arguing about how much to raise retirement age. That's the effect of the elite trying to hold on to the notion that everyone must work and produce to keep the world going. That everyone must slave to them even to age 67 or higher. Next they'll try to raise the contribution amounts because if they keep more of your retirement money, they can then mismanage waste into that and prevent people from retiring so early.

I think early retirement is also one of the solution to give more jobs to people who need them, this works exactly like reducing working hours, very scaleable

But currently the government goes the opposite direction: They extend the retirement age because they are in debt and can not pay the retirement money to people!

There must be something very wrong in the system, due to the concept of money. Again, those retirement money in the bank account do not corresponding to consumable goods, they are just a credit which can generate future purchasing power. Those credit has got lost due to the wrong investment of pensionfunds etc...

[FreeMoney]

I sure as hell don't need any more jobs.

[MoonShadow]

No solution is going to be feasible for everyone.  But it's still a good idea to know how to tend a garden, even if you live in a high rise condo.  You might not always.  Some skills are life skills, that parents need to teach children as insurance against the worst possible futures that child might face.  An example is learning to swim, even if you live in a city many miles from any accessible body of water.  I was in the USMC, and in boot camp I encountered people from big cities that have never learned to swim.  I was shocked.  Really, you grew up and never event went to a pool?  And then the joined the US Marine Corps.  Common sense would say that boot camp isn't going to be the ideal enviroment to learn to swim.  I (actually mostly my wife) teach my homeschooled children to swim before they are 5 (currently my 2 year old, who is a natural born swimmer, and I mean that literally.  He has zero fear of deep water, and is such a strong swimmer he probably doesn't need to.) and continue to teach this as a 'life skill' for ten years.  Odds are against them ever turning pro, but if they are ever in a flood, or take a cruise on the Titanic II, their odds of survival are vastly higher knowing how to actually swim.  Likewise, knowing how to plan, plant and tend a simple garden might prove to be useful life skill someday.  Ever hear of urban gardening?

I agree that we should all learn some useful skills for life, but that does not solve the ownership problem

Gardening require a piece of land, and if that land is so good and the value of your harvested goods are much higher than the rent of the land, big capitalists have already claimed it and growing plants out of it, since that is an investment which brings profit. So the only lands available are those unprofitable lands, which means: You could grow enough vegetables out of the land to support your own life, but you won't have money to pay the rent of the land by selling those vegetables, so unless you invest big and bought this land (then tax is coming), your chance of utilizing the land to support your life is quite small

I've gardened on land that I never owned, and never paid a cent to use.  And I did have permission.  City gardening can be done on vacant lots, simply by locating the owner and asking for written permission to do so.  Perhaps as a rep of a local urban gardening group, or with the backing of a food charity.  Most of the time, the owners don't care if a garden is started on their property, as long as they are not responsible for it and they can reserve the right to tear it up should the property be sold or developed.  Most such lots sit empty and idle for years before a development plan is funded, so that isn't much of a risk.  The only time that I ever tried this and was denied was when I was trying to do it on a lot next to an airport, that was legally owned by the FAA.  It was in a sound abatement zone, but it turned out that it was already slated to be leased to FedEx as an overflow parking lot for their extra trailer trucks.  It was no longer empty one year later.

[johnyj]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-calls-unemployment-a-national-crisis-2011-09-28-1911220

Obviously, even FED can produce lots of money, they can not force the banks to loan out them to create job, since banks are limited by "profitability" rule in market, and in a highly automated society, only small amount of people can be profitable

Actually "profitable" means income > spending, it has the same effect of saving, which will drag the economy. If they play the game in the other way around, e.g. "unprofitable", then the economy will back on track right away, although with lots of wasted resources

Like a fat man, the best the way to keep him health is not diet, but heavy motion to exhaust extra energy