As always, Brad is a worthy read, this time in “Hopeless Unemployment”. The money quote to me is this though:
At its nadir in the winter of 1933, the Great Depression was a form of collective insanity. Workers were idle because firms would not hire them; firms would not hire them because they saw no market for their output; and there was no market for output because workers had no incomes to spend.
That in a nutshell explains our problem today. It’s not debt, or regulatory uncertainty, or myriad of other “excuses” made up by the Koch-minded of the world. It is quite simply a “demand” problem.
Throwing money and incentives on the supply side is the completely bass-ackward way of getting this economy going, though it has the side benefit of further enriching those with power (aka “the 1%”). That of course is the point.
UPDATE:
I should not ignore the theme of the piece and miss pointing out its greater aim:
Yes, today stimulative efforts still have hope of rescuing us from this mire, but continued unemployment will become structural and potentially as intractable as the Great Depression. We need to act now.
A warning well worth heeding, though I doubt the “serious class” will do so. They simply do not see it to their benefit. May God have mercy on all of us, particularly the unemployed.
Leave a Reply