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I wasn't going to comment any further, but k k says a couple of things that
deserve to be rebutted:
<snip> Really? So according to you, the situation in Europe
> is not an alternative? </snip>
No, it certainly isn't. The unemployment rate in the EU is averages almostt
9%. In Germany, it's around 11%. And these numbers aren't entirely
comparable to the US figure (5.7%) because they measure in a way that
understates the rate (or we overstate it, depending on your perspective).
So the European "solution" (make it hard to cut jobs, provide a massive
welfare and unemployment system, make taxes high, and accept lower economic
growth as a consequence) has led to at least one and a half times as many
jobless as in the US.
<snip> So no one has ever come
> up with any alternative to dog-eat-dog competition
> other than Communism? You are dead wrong. When people
> in this country needed help with employment in the
> 30's, FDR was able to find alternatives that didn't
> involve Communism. </snip>
The FDR "alternative" is credited by many economists with greatly prolonging
and deepening the downturn, turning what should have been a recession into
the Great Depression.
<snip> We have an all-time record trade deficit. We have an
> all-time record Federal budget deficit. We have the
> worst hiring slump since the end of WWII. The
> "economy" can be seen as growing and propsering only
> if you define the economy as the amount of money in
> corporate bank accounts. If you include in your
> definition of the economy the real buying power of the
> average American, or the number of people who are
> unemployed, or other human factors, then the "economy"
> needs a lot of help. </snip>
This "doom and gloom" has no basis in reality. I'll resist a lengthy
response, but will point out a couple of things about employment:
(1) The current unemployment rate is below the average rate for each of the
preceding three decades (70s, 80s, and 90s) and is far below the rate in
Europe.
(2) The "worst hiring slump" refers to the oft-quoted 3 million net jobs
lost during the Bush administration. It turns out that almost half of those
(1.3 million) _never existed_. There was a strange discontinuity in the
employment and labor force numbers in 2000 (perhaps related to the census).
You can look at the graphs yourself at www.econopundit.com -- scroll down to
the April 5 entries or search for "current labor force."
Richard
------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Voyant, a division of Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
richardDOTcombs AT voyanttechDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT freeDASHmarketDOTnet
303-777-0436
------
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