Comments on: Unemployment Report Set to Reflect the Bitter Face of a Jobless Recovery

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:06:58 +0000

I'm sorry… but who is the 'we'?

By: Daddy Paul

Daddy Paul — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 16:03:50 +0000

It does not seem making the United States a better place to produce goods is a high priority. Until that time expect unemployment to be high. We cannot mine, forest, or produce manufactured goods. We do not even want to drill. We all cannot sit around in a government office or flip hamburgers for a living.

By: Archie McLachlan

Archie McLachlan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:57:30 +0000

We cannot spend our way out of this recession without creating a huge mountain of GDP that is no more than landfill. We are creating a monumental environmental disaster fueled by a US dollar that will soon be as valuable as ther Dmark at the end of WW2.
Perhaps it is time to realize that consumerism is dead and we have to look towards less consumption, a shorter work week, more quality and a society built by smaller, local banks and new small businesses supplying custom made products. The technology is available to create custom products at the same cost as mass production. Therefore, instead of producing a million units and sending 50,000 unsold items to the dump, we can produce 950k and sell them all.
In this way, we can provide everyone with a job and products will be better and cheaper, because we do not have to pay for the removal of excess goods, transportation, dumping and the cost of new landfill sites.
The natural resources will be cheaper, because we are not wasting them. Health-care costs will plummet because we will have major reductions in car related injuries due to higher safety standards. We already have cars that can hit a wall at high speed and the driver can walk away uninjured. Unfortunately they are only for the rich.
I always remember what the general manager said to me when I asked why our company paid 25% higher wages than every other company and still managed to be number 1 in the industry.
"People spend 50% of their time working productively, 25% making mistakes or taking unauthorized breaks and another 25% correcting their mistakes. If you pay someone $40 per hour, you are actually paying $80 for productive time.
We pay $50 per hour for people, who are always productive, so we are saving $30 per hour and our staff are happy. We also get 40 hours of production instead of 20 per week. Additionally, we have a low staff turnover and less training costs"
In essence, everyone can have more with a shorter work week, because we will not have to pay for the production and disposal of garbage, which the consumerists are proud to call GDP.

By: Hilary

Hilary — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:01:19 +0000

If we were smart we'd be protecting key US industries so that jobs could be replaced, we'd establish a voucher system (initially) for First-World goods that won't undermine our standards of living, we'd tax high-income earners and levy a transaction tax on derivatives trading (patriots pay their taxes in times like these), we'd pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and we'd pay China back. Keynesian economics has been unfairly discredited by neo-liberals and Americans have paid the price. We need to take drastic measures IMMEDIATELY in order to avoid slipping into second-world status.

By: George

George — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:55:34 +0000

What recovery?