Unemployment

[opebo]

1.) Find a way to help people deleverage.

Inflation is the way to do this.   And by the way, yours in the only really spot-on point in this thread so far.

What is needed is not any lowering - lowering of costs, etc., but massive increases.  Increases in government expenditure, increases in economic activity, increases in wages, increases in fiat money being created and spent.

Here's the program:

1) Start printing money.  Massively.
 a) use it to buy up mortgages and forgive them
 b) buy up all credit card debt and student loan debt and forgive it
 c) buy housing and take it off the market.  buy whole neighborhoods and tear    them down.
 c) buy the Euro and the Renmenbi like a mother.
 d) buy long term Treasuries till the rate on the 10 year is zero.

2) Institute massive government works projects - the 1.5 trillion mentioned above isn't bad, but it should be quite a bit larger than that.  I envision replacing all the nation's bridges (requiring union wages at at least $35/hour minimum, and american made 100% on any products, machinery, or supplies used), new subways and rail, power plants, etc.

3) Set up a generous dole of around $1,200/month per US citizen, regardless of location.

4) Full national health care with private health care made illegal

5) increase taxes on the rich to approximately double their current levels (this has no effect on growth obviously)

6) Lower the legally mandated working week to 32 hours initially, with double time required after that.

7) Institute a $15/hour minimum wage.

[opebo]

Is this thread some sort of early April Fool's Joke? I did not get the memo that we have burnt the Constitution and should now turn into the Union of Soviet Socialist States of America

I would like to burn the Constitution.

If the nation were a person, then we broke our leg after playing a risky game (the game being the housing bubble with the broken leg being the bursting of the bubble). It will take time, but the broken leg will heal. Poisonous prescriptions that kill the patient or make him even more ill are not going to speed up the process. Indeed, such actions may actually kill the patient or throw him into a coma. Think about it.

That's a poor analogy, Politico.  The game is capitalism, and you propose to just continue playing it.  What we're proposing is switching from lawn darts to croquette.

[opebo]

That's a poor analogy, Politico.  The game is capitalism, and you propose to just continue playing it.  What we're proposing is switching from lawn darts to croquette.

What you're really proposing is switching from America to North Korea. Everybody who loves freedom will oppose you every step of the way.

No, everything I proposed was thoroughly Keynesian, and had nothing to do with a state economy. 

Besides, your idea of 'freedom' is laughable.  Capitalism is slavery.

[opebo]

Also, talking about the capitalist economy's goal makes no sense. What happens in a free market is the result of agents in that market trying to satisfy their preferences. Apparently, peoples' preferences seem to be for a 40-hour work week, given the various constraints that exist.

What utter nonsense.  The goal of the capitalist economic or 'free market' is to serve a small upper class which has power (that power is expressed as capital).

The preferences of people who do not have capital are completely irrelevant in a capitalist society, Gustaf.  You might as well talk about the preferences of the pigs and cattle being slaughtered.

The capitalist economy that you so despise has led to people being more satisfied now than they have ever been anywhere in human history.

Talk about a baseless unproven assertion!  Gustaf, surely you realize that 'satisfaction' is not only subjective, but in point of fact not even knowable by the 'individual himself.  The system brainwashes the slave into accepting his role (or his evolved social instinct makes him adapt in order to survive, it comes to the same thing).

PS: I'd also like to note for the record that I think Opebo overdid it this time. No one can be so stupid as to believe what he posted...

Yes, yes, I find you to be an idiot, you find me to be 'stupid'.. where does that get us, Gustaf?  Your posting is pathetically lazy nowadays.  You might as well not bother.  Instead perhaps you could post something of interest - such as policy recommendations of your own.

[opebo]

Sounds like pseudohistory.

No more so than the idea that people (whoever that means in particular) were 'better off' or 'more satisfied' after the advent of agriculture.

[opebo]

H**k complimenting h**k.  Regurgitation is not really worthy of applause, Policot, but it is funny enough I suppose.

[opebo]

The other thing that happened though, this goes to the point you were just making, is there are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers - Obama

This just means we have to create 'inefficiency' - large-scale 'state industries' or direct government employment in the form of sinecures (little work, absolute security, good pay and benefits).

You see, this worship of 'efficiency' is what has doomed us.

[opebo]

One of the golden rules of economics: We cannot legislate away the laws of supply and demand.

Of course we can.
And we do in several areas of society. For example, firehouses and schools are not built and kept on the base of supply and demand.
And although you Americans seem to be afraid of that idea, in many countries the same is true for railway lines and hospitals.

It is just a political decision. The market is man-made, it is not a supernatural power.

How are they not built on supply-and-demand?

Obviously a generous dole reduced supply of labor.  Duh.

[opebo]

One of the golden rules of economics: We cannot legislate away the laws of supply and demand.

Of course we can.
And we do in several areas of society. For example, firehouses and schools are not built and kept on the base of supply and demand.
And although you Americans seem to be afraid of that idea, in many countries the same is true for railway lines and hospitals.

It is just a political decision. The market is man-made, it is not a supernatural power.

That is not really relevant to the issue here. It is not as if we have done away with supply and demand merely because we have some public financing of certain services.

Actually demand is always created/regulated by the State, Gustaf, because 'demand' means 'money demand', not just someone wanting it.  In other words demand reflects power, not just desire.

[opebo]

I'm going to vote for you and move to China, just to see what happens.

That's the spirit. 

[opebo]

I lol'd. Are you some sort of Antichrist trying to destroy the economy of your country?

No buddy, the economy was already destroyed by neoliberal capitalism. I'm just prescribing the cure.