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Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Where are the Jobs?

I was reading Mother Jones. There was an article with the above title, followed by an expletive. I did not read the article. Why should I? I had a post awhile back about an ex-CEO of General Electric - his name escapes me at the moment (I have "Jack" in my head and it's coming up as "Jack Black"... which is wonderful but very much impossible... Jack Welch, maybe???) - and this ex-CEO was working with and investing in companies.
There was one company he had in mind that went into the Financial Crisis period with 28,000 employees, and they were restructuring and automating with a goal of being at 15,000 employees when things picked up again!

Almost 50% permanent loss of jobs. It is small wonder profits have been up for many companies.

That's where the jobs went.

We used to think 4% was sort of built into the system for a Maximum amount of unemployment we could live with. But we never took into account in a serious way the effects of automation and computers, outsourcing overseas, and permanent job loss. We always believed in the Magic of the Market which would miraculously produce more jobs... in time. In fact, it does so in its own sweet time.

We may have a new Maximum, and it may last for awhile. We never really considered what our lives would be like in the Interim Period as we waited for the Markets to work their Magic! I shall refer to this "golden" ... "golden"...  "golden something age" as the Market Magic Interval to avoid any reference to unpleasant experiences of actual human beings who live in such times.

Furthermore, in the past, we had large, open spaces to which the "surplus" population could either (1) migrate to in the hope of better lives, and/or (2) be forcefully exiled to to clear out the crowds of the unemployed and criminal.
This does not seem possible now. We have to live with each other. Scarey. It is as scarey as the Slavery Dilemma when our ancestors sought to free slaves, but not keep them in the USA. Instead we would deport them to Liberia, whose capitol was Monrovia, named after James Monroe.
The approach of "Our Own Private Liberia" did not work out.

Nothing works out, except loving one another.

And the early Christian martyrs died for that very revolutionary act, and they continued to die for it up until the time when the Christian Church found itself in the Basilicas of Power:   the persecutions of all and sundry Christians ceased, and the persecution of Christians that "are not our type" began.

Nothing works out, except loving one another.
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