2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

Full employment was historically a communist rallying cry, wasn't it?

I mean it seems like the only way it could ever happen when all employment is state-mandated and state-provided.

well there is the economics term full employment which means i think roughly whats the minimum % of unemployed people at any one time thats possible all things considered, its around 4% iirc

Full employment was historically a communist rallying cry, wasn't it?

Yes

The United States is, as a statutory matter, committed to full employment (defined as 3% unemployment for persons 20 and older, 4% for person aged 16 and over), the government is empowered to effect this goal, and a job is a right.[4] The relevant legislation is the Employment Act (1946), initially "Full Employment Act", later amended in the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (1978). The 1946 act was passed in the aftermath of World War II, when it was fear that demobilization would result in a depression, as it had following World War I in the Depression of 1920–21, while the 1978 act was passed in following the 1973–75 recession and in the midst of continuing high inflation.

The law states that full employment is one of four economic goals, in concert with growth in production, price stability, and balance of trade and budget, and that the US shall rely primarily on private enterprise to achieve these goals. Specifically, the act is committed to an unemployment rate of no more than 3% for persons aged 20 or over and not more than 4% for persons aged 16 or over (from 1983 onwards), and the Act expressly allows (but does not require) the government to create a "reservoir of public employment" to effect this level of employment. These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of skill and pay so as to not draw the workforce away from the private sector.

However, since the passage of this act in 1978, the US has, as of 2011 never achieved this level of employment, nor has such a reservoir of public employment been created.

(so sez wikipedia)

It was Nixon who wanted a living wage.

I think the smart pro-free-market people realize that the safety net, regulations, and so on are there to protect the free market. Keynes was trying to save capitalism, though you wouldn't believe that from listening to conservatives these days.

xps

See, I am not against the market but I think it has some inherent glitches and contradictions (as Marx pointed out, it tends towards monopoly and w/o regulation, it tends not to reflect spillover costs) that govmt should rightfully oversee. I would love to see a dull center-right politics in an economy where the safety and welfare net for everyone was assured and where we could argue passionately over half percent tax or interest rate moves.

well there's no universal definition of what that safety or welfare net would be

Haven't we gotten really close to full employment at certain historical moments? I mean the postwar boom years and so on, obviously lots of people were seriously left out of the loop but certainly regulated market capitalism - - - under extremely specific, not-likely-to-be-repeated circumstances that do not necessarily produce social justice - - - CAN approach full employment...

no such thing at a free market, it just means regulated in the way i like

well it depends on your definition of full employment but countries can certainly have v low unemployment. context usually favors them.

Wouldn't a US economy booming along on nearly full employment, and a big thriving global economy, be dependent on a level of mass consumption that would put us at the beginning of Wall-E within, like, a generation?

you can invent a magical world where we're inventing things and have

er, hit submit on accident

you can invent a magical world where we're inventing things that require american-based labor and have forms of consumption that aren't as bleak as wall-e, but in any case I don't think 'full employment' is something we'll ever be worrying about, even w/ a booming us economy

usa had v near full employment v recently

also worth remembering that the way we define unemployment is on some level arbitrary and can affect the % pretty substantially

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/US_Unemployment_measures.svg

well we have lots diff definitions is what that charts saying

each one beautiful in its own way

don't privilege one definition over the other

usa had v near full employment v recently

ya I mean I don't think we'll ever have it again, I think robots are gonna take all our jobs tho

At the risk of sounding like a scold, can we keep things on topic? Not that I want to return to Romney oh-my-god-did-he-really-say-that, but the Rolling Economy thread needs you guys.

this is basically the politics thread + the economy thread, have you seen the politics thread? it's dead

it was outsourced to other threads, which could do the same work cheaper and more efficiently

yah i cant deal w/too many of these type treads tbqh

this is basically the politics thread + the economy thread, have you seen the politics thread? it's dead

― dayo, Thursday, February 2, 2012 12:22 PM

okay why are you baiting Morbs like this

So Romney is likely to win in Nevada. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

it was outsourced to other threads, which could do the same work cheaper and more efficiently

A++

nevada is vegas and then a vast wasteland of mormons and libertarians, gingrich wouldn't have had a shot even if he was coming off a florida win

this is basically the politics thread + the economy thread, have you seen the politics thread? it's dead

no question why this is

You know if you read books from the early years of personal computing they are all very optimistic that in the future (now, basically) machines will do the work for us, leaving us with so much free time to create and play and stuff. It's so optimistic they forgot about the arbitrary need to earn the paycheck.

eh the economy for as long as theres been such a thing has grown via efficiencies, the people who lost work due to those efficiencies didnt just stop working, they did something else, 150 years ago the economy was almost entirely agrarian, in the usa today like 4% of people work in that sector, but its not like we have 96% unemployment, the idea that automation will lead to a long term collapse in employment seems p silly to me, particularly since weve been automating things for a v long time now

but should automation free up a few extra hours a week i support spreading the profits around via paying for healthcare education transpo etc

reading that in conjunction with the life coach thread is kind of making me sick tho. back to the farms!

lol the logical progression

i used to be into all that self actualization crap but then i realized what i really needed was just to dig my hands into the dirt you know smell the manure

do you have a memoir i could purchase

you can't be afraid to get wet in the lagoon

full employment is unattainable bcz there are always ppl smart enough to get by w/out jobs, and i wish i was one of them

my story of overcoming internet addiction will move u to tears

Full employment was historically a communist rallying cry, wasn't it?

also an anarchist rallying cry, though so was "abolish wage labor," so

oh i forgot i came here to post this

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/291000/20120201/anonymous-ron-paul-neo-nazi-bnp-a3p.htm

mainly for the lolzy gems of excerpts from supremacists

He was reportedly attracted to Paul because he believed the Republican's followers would be receptive to his white supremacist views. He described Paul as "implicitly white" and started to actively organise Paul's events.

they say this ron paul is implicitly white--SHUT YO MOUTH

B___________, a former member of the neo-N__i group the N_____ S_____ M____, became disillusioned with Paul after a spokesman for the Republican candidate called white supremacy "a small ideology".

Following the incident, he wrote on a popular white supremacist website: "Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays," he said. "I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy."

"Paul is a white nationalist of the 5t0rm4r0nt type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position," he added.

woops i missed a s-front sorry

woah if true

he might even be explicitly white ill have to think abt that

You know if you read books from the early years of personal computing they are all very optimistic that in the future (now, basically) machines will do the work for us, leaving us with so much free time to create and play and stuff. It's so optimistic they forgot about the arbitrary need to earn the paycheck.

Well yeah, but the arbitrary need for the paycheck is just that - arbitrary, based on scarcity.

it's like that george carlin sketch. he's openly white. xp

guilty of being (implicitly) white

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0tzZ__Z5Qw

arbitrary, based on scarcity.

― Andrew Farrell, Friday, February 3, 2012 12:06 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^