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Author Topic: U.S. Military and unemployment figures
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 01:23 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hopefully our American friends can address this one and lobby the pols and government to change this if it is still the (misleading) case.

From 'The Jobless Future' by Stanley Aronowitz & William DiFazio (1994), p. 2, I came across this:

"When February payrolls grew by 365,000, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich noted that unemployment was still two percentage points higher than before the recession. Moreover, most employment gains had been part-time jobs, he said. In fact, if part-time employment was calculated as partial unemployment, if the military was excluded from the employed (as it had been until the Reagan Bureau of Labor Statistics revised the basis for computing the number of jobholders), and if discouraged workers... were factored in... the numbers would be much higher..."

Is this the case today? The U.S. can reduce employment, wages etc. in the conventional labour market, and recruit into the army and offset unemployment figures in this way.


From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 20 June 2007 01:42 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Another two million poor Americans are being warehoused in public and state-funded for-profit SuperGulags. They're not included in Orwellian U statistics either.

[ 20 June 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 02:59 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Only a couple of wars away from full employment.
From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 03:12 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Makes me think none of those prison guards in the "public and state-funded for-profit SuperGulags", or the construction and maintenance labour involved in building these should count either as 'employed'. Otherwise, more crime, more degradation = more employment (prisons, police, forensics, gravediggers...).

While we're at it, should Walmart, McJobs, non-union Starbucks baristas and so many other temp, shit, no-benefits, precarious jobs even count?

The U.S. should have the highest unemployment rate by far in the West by these standards, with its economic colony Canada a close second behind.


From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 03:36 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If a job can't support a family and doesn't have some basic benefits it shouldn't count as 'employment'. Call it something else.
From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 20 June 2007 03:55 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by huberman:
While we're at it, should Walmart, McJobs, non-union Starbucks baristas and so many other temp, shit, no-benefits, precarious jobs even count?

It's been a kind of pauperization of Canada by stealth since Mulroney. Mulroney promised Canadians, "Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!". They have to report something positive in terms of numbers of jobs created while Canadians lose good paying full-time jobs.

Since FTA and NAFTA, Canada is obligated to send more of our natural wealth south of the border at a frenzied pace, and all Canadians have to do is sit back and buy the plastic widgets, Euro furniture, toilet paper and value added stuff they ship back to us. When we look at the Made in ___" labels and stickers, we don't have to wonder why youth unemployment is so high in Newfoundland, or why the UN still chides Ottawa for our unnecessarily high child poverty rates.

Canada has no economic plan other than to be a large Puerto Rico, a repository of raw materials and fossil fuels for corporate America to raid at will. Canada is a ship without a captain, or a rudder. And we're being towed out to sea by the Flying Dutchman.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
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posted 20 June 2007 04:39 PM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think it's fair to include the military in unemployment data. If those 750 billion (or whatever the number is), was not going into the military, it would be going into other things or into lower deficits. These things would create jobs elsewhere.
This, regardless what you think of the morality of this economic activity, it's still economic activity.

From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 05:47 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

Canada has no economic plan other than to be a large Puerto Rico


Even Puerto Rico has some better labour standards than Canada. Most Canadians are subject to a 44 or 48 hour work week under various provincial laws, and don't get double time for overtime (actually a tonne of unpaid overtime is being worked everyday). Compare with Puerto Rico:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm#2


From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
huberman
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posted 20 June 2007 05:51 PM      Profile for huberman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by 500_Apples:
I think it's fair to include the military in unemployment data.

Only a couple of wars away from full employment.

Why didn't they think it was fair to include military prior to Reagan? Was he enlightened?


From: NAFTA | Registered: Apr 2007  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
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posted 20 June 2007 08:09 PM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by huberman:

Only a couple of wars away from full employment.

Why didn't they think it was fair to include military prior to Reagan? Was he enlightened?


Do we include full-time students in unemployment calculations? I don't believe so.

I think it might be because military service used to be a common rite of passage rather than a career choice.


From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 20 June 2007 10:09 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by 500_Apples:
I think it's fair to include the military in unemployment data. If those 750 billion (or whatever the number is), was not going into the military, it would be going into other things or into lower deficits. These things would create jobs elsewhere.
This, regardless what you think of the morality of this economic activity, it's still economic activity.

Well if you agree with that, then you may want to read what James Galbraith said a couple of years ago about the real American economic model. Galbraith agrees with you that the U.S. military supplies a lot of jobs. And it should, because that military is a self-contained economy and reliant on public spending for everything from leading edge research and development of new technologies, weapons contractors, to private companies supplying pots and pans and food services.

It seems the U.S. economy is unique among all others in that public spending in certain key sectors of the economy have little or nothing to do with market capitalism. When the socialist economies appeared to break down in the 1980's, it was expected that the soft budget constraint phenomenon of spending in the social sectors would disappear as well. Instead, this paradox of socialist economies has cropped up where lay people to the subject would least expect to find it: in that nation claiming to be the most capitalist in the world.

[ 21 June 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged

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