Do people actually understand how welfare in America works?

[richardhutnik]

SamuelRSmith said:

I would never make the claim that there are IT jobs available, or if it's going to explode. To pretend to know what the jobs of tomorrow are is the pretense of knowledge. I don't know whether IT is a more valuable use of labour, or whether it's cutting hair, manufacturing, or flipping burgers (actually, I believe the Feds count the last two as the same thing...). Nobody does, and anybody who claims that they do, and denying the price mechanism in the process, is lying. Isn't it something like half of the top 10 most demanded jobs of today, didn't exist 10 years ago? Some shit like that. But, it seems we (and, from what I can tell, the author of your book) have very different views on what a job is. You guys seem to think of jobs as the ends in and of themselves, I do not. I believe that work is a means to an end. We've gone from a point of people working from childhood to their graves, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, dawn 'til dusk to a point where the average worker works 5 days a week, has a couple of weeks vacation a year (plus public holidays), 8 hours a day with a lunch break, doesn't really have to enter the workforce until their mid-20s, and can leave with a couple of decades before the end of their life. All the while, they can now afford a standard of living lightyears ahead of what they could before. This trend will continue. It seems to me that people above a certain income value leisure far greater than they measure work. This is why you often see white-collar workers moaning about overtime, while blue-collar workers pray for it. What this means that (this is my prediction, here), as prices "fall" (in this inflationary world, I mean, relative to incomes), and people get wealthier, they will opt to work fewer hours, for fewer years. Essentially creating more jobs in that the demand for labour would fall relative to the supply.

 

I do suggest you read up on "The End of Work" if not read it itself.  It looks at the shift in what people do.

As for what you also said there, in no way, shape or form, do I argue that work is an end in itself.  I do believe it is important people do SOMETHING constructive with their time, because not having this erodes people's being and is not good at all.  Work is what one is to do, in what they are competent at, in order to acquire what they need to live and have a better life for themselves.

Issues that can be debated here is whether or not markets, and markets alone, are sufficient to end up insuring that people can be able to support themselves.  Some individuals, ideologically driven by the belief in free markets as their main frame of reference, believe that markets can do everything, and no one even has to think about issues, because markets magically sort out issues regarding poverty and externality issues (negative and positive) so that everything gets properly priced, and every form of negative externality will fail.  Anarcho-capitalists would say markets do that, Libertarians would argue you also needs courts, and conservatives would argue also for more government intervention, particularly ones with a bent for nationalism.  Others would argue markets alone aren't sufficient to insure this, and either require some things, or if you get into anarcho-communists, believe markets will permanently fail at this (and I guess people will eventually see this, and join a Venus Project Commune, where a master computer know it all properly allocates resources).

A problem we have now with prices falling to adjust things, is that the currency we use is based on debt.  The natural assumption is that the money supply MUST keep increasing, to service the debt by which it entered, because all currency is now lent into existence, even if it isn't printed.  So, prices can't drop and make everyone richer.   End result now is we have annoying cycles where the debt exceeds ability to service it, and it call comes crashing down, as it had around 2008, and still hasn't recovered.  I would say, if you could get currency backed by real goods and services, then there wouldn't be things as inflation or deflation, there would be just proper evaluation.  That being said though, it still doesn't mean everything will get out, because there is the case of "the rich getting richer".  Rich getting richer is natural in economies given to allowing for scaling and improving.  There ends up a compounding effect that happens.  With this happening, you get wealth accumulation following.

Hmm.. I think it may be time for another thread on this.