Computerworld – As the automobile industry sheds jobs, it comes as good news that over the last decade or so the Internet has created 1.2 million jobs, many paying higher salaries than average, a new study finds.

Internet business contributes 2.1%, or $300 billion, to the total GDP (gross domestic product) of the U.S.

http://tinyurl.com/3cgvyep

Compare to the solar power loan guarantee program:
3,500 jobs created at a cost of $20 billion; several solar companies have folded

All of those ATM’s need people to maintain them, restock them, build them, design them, etc. etc. As a former bank-teller, it was my job at times to be the ATM teller, restocking it and making sure that it was functioning properly They do not run themselves and magically make money appear inside of themselves. If this president had ever had a real job, he might know about such things.

~Historian Mike

Gee, you liberals should get your act together.

Because Paul Krugman [heard of him?] has spent a whole year trying to refute the notion that any significant part of our currently high unemployment rate is due to structural problems. Krugman has stated flatly that high unemployment is entirely due to aggregate demand being too low to incentivize business to expand, not because millions and millions of Americans have suddenly found themselves obsolete by new technology.

So go argue with him.

I don’t agree with Krugman’s analysis as to *why* business is operating at less than full capacity. And I disagree with him even more as to what to do about it.

But he’s right about one thing: No technological revolution ever led to mass unemployment as long as the economy was otherwise prosperous. Not railroads, not electricity, not cars, not radio, not computers.

Paul Krugman and Robert Reich are lefties, but they don’t feel compelled to make excuses for Obama’s economic policies, the way you’re doing.

I think a bondholder with first claim on a company’s assets would properly qualify as a private property holder.

If you were a GM bondholder, your private property was taken and given to others = socialism.

Having spare labor in the market that is receiving the minimum to survive means (snip)

It means they have the ability to congregate and defecate in public spaces when they should be out doing anything that brings in income. Your endless social safety net promotes the equivalent of malingering.

Rather than coming out with the ‘hard truth’ – that there is no future for manufacturing labor in America…..

Politicians have come up with all sorts of schemes to ‘save’ or ‘bring back’ jobs that have no business being in the USA to begin with…

If we as a nation had faced up to this in the 80s or early 90s, Americans would have stopped seeing manufacturing as a viable career field, and would have developed other skills…

Every year that we pretend a $5/day job is worth $35-50k/yr, is another year that we encourage people to develop job skills the market WILL NOT bear without govt intervention.

Why do you think so?

What do you think the effect of government interference in a market is? Do you think it improves on the “market” solution? Can you cite any real world examples?

Thanks

James

Are you saying your job with the Obama campaign involves fundraising?

Obama’s not decrying technology. He is making the case that technological advances can cause structural employment shifts. While those are good in the long term, in the short term that can cause suffering and misery for targeted populations whose work is no longer needed.

Yes, over time the market reacts to surplus labor by creating new opportunities, but that doesn’t happen immediately.

Providing support and a short term bridge to those that are most negatively impacted by structural economic realignments doesn’t significantly future capital investments. Certainly no more than fear mongering by implying (or flat out saying) that our president is a socialist and will take private property scares new capital investment.

I work at a company where are constantly looking to improve productivity and efficiency to improve profit margins (of course, if not we wouldn’t survive). That is the core of my job for the company. When we find efficiency, it often means that we need less capacity and we lay people off. But I sleep better at night knowing that a small portion of our increased profit margins goes toward helping those that are displaced by it – at least until someone else who has had a new idea and needs labor to support that idea can employ those people.

But beyond just “sleeping better” knowing that human misery is reduced, having a social safety net helps ensure that the labor market doesn’t fluctuate too wildly when structural employment shifts occur. Having spare labor in the market that is receiving the minimum to survive means that when new ideas come along that require labor, that labor is immediately available so those new ideas can become products and services for us to consume.

Kyle

Nope. Gotta take that back. The voters who supported him in 2008, and his prospective ones in 2012 are all truly blind fools for buying this line of crap.

God have mercy on the United States.

“Then why don’t you give them spoons?”, Friedman replied.

“Then why don’t you give them spoons?”, Friedman replied.