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An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

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Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#191

Post by majewsky »

luckylion wrote: post #150
majewsky wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If full employment is a pipe dream, why are we routinely treating unemployment as a personal failure?

We don't, but we do consider prolonged unemployment as a personal failure. Having Short-term unemployment is fine and a sign of a working economy where people move between companies. Long-term unemployment is something else entirely: it's a sign of people quitting the labor market and deciding not to contribute to society. People here love Marx, yet they keep forgetting what he had to say on that issue: "From each ac…

> Long-term unemployment means you're not giving according to your ability (and thus shouldn't receive according to your needs).

Or there are literally not enough jobs because of failed economic policy. We have this situation in Germany right now. There are about 2 million job openings, and official statistics report about 2 million unemployed. That makes it sound like it's only a matching problem (i.e. if we just enticed the unemployed to retrain or relocate, everything would sort itself out). But the statistics are "optimized" to look nicer than they actually are: Unemployed over the age of 58 are just taken out entirely, as is everyone currently undergoing retraining. (It's a meme in Germany that the unemployment office will send people to Microsoft Word courses for the 10th time because being in the course means they don't show up in the statistic.)

And then there's also the issue of people working part-time who actually want a full-time job. When you add all that up, we have around 4 million unused FTEs in Germany competing for 2 million open positions. That cannot possibly add up. If the politicians were serious about getting everyone into a job (which they sure say a lot into microphones), economic policy would need to be changed to incentivize job creation a whole lot more (e.g. by cutting down on NIMBYism in the construction and renewable energy sectors).

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#192

Post by supertrope »

majewsky wrote: post #129
blue039 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full employment never works. Famous example is the soviets. Neither can UBI be penciled into an actual economy. UBI would bankrupt the nation, so would a large scale job guarantee program as described. I am never surprised. When asked to put a dollar value on a program the overeducated go on bleeting about higher order non-sense. It's hard to take any of these academic exercises seriously. Especially when they spawn…

If full employment is a pipe dream, why are we routinely treating unemployment as a personal failure?

Please stay where you are. Officers have been dispatched to your location to assist you.

In all seriousness it’s because employers hold nearly all of the bargaining power and mindshare. The recent focus on central banks raising interest rates to decrease economic activity with inflation as a primary target and restraining wage growth as a secondary target shows that decreasing workers’ average bargaining position is official government policy. In the US they sugarcoat it by saying they’re trying to control inflation and only have unemployment go up marginally. In New Zealand they’re more explicit and say tens of thousands of people need to become unemployed to stabilize inflation.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#193

Post by kmonsen »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #163
kmonsen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly there is no evidence for any of what your are saying. I would think all super powerful people in history have contributed to someone's define without their own becoming inevitable. It sounds like how you wish he world to be, not how it is.

> someone's define without their own becoming inevitable. Is there a typo in there? I'm not getting it.

Someone's decline. Sorry autocorrect. I'm just saying there is no karma in the real world.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#194

Post by Nimitz14 »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #190
Nimitz14 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the USSR life expectancy went from 30 years in 1925 to 69 years in 1990[0]. On the other hand, in the US it started declining in 2015 without having recovered yet[1]. What a nonsensical comparison. Lol. > I have yo ask you, what you do mean by "conditions of the people"? Probably talking about the fact that the situation got so bad Gorbachev initiated such major reforms that the USSR collapsed. No biggie. Lol.

> Probably talking about the fact that the situation got so bad Gorbachev initiated such major reforms that the USSR collapsed. No biggie. Lol. Not really answering my question here, just making some pointless humor. Curious how all primary metrics for the population fell after the USSR got dissolved by Gorbachev. It's not a mistery that 70% of Russians approve Stalin anyway, guess they're still brainwashed after so…

You're talking to a russian. Your bullshit doesnt work on me.

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#195

Post by TheHappyOddish »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #11

One idea I've toyed with is that unemployment is actually a societal refusal to help eachother. Yes we all need sustenance, but consider something like this If I'm laid off I can choose to still program. If I don't my time might simply be wasted (eg on videogames, netflix, or even job applications). But I can also choose to continue to program. Maybe by helping local businesses, contributing to FOSS etc. While I unde…

> If I don't my time might simply be wasted (eg on videogames, netflix, or even job applications).

So how many hours per week do you believe we should be allowed to waste whilst still being a valid member of society?

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#196

Post by soco »

luckylion wrote: post #86
zozbot234 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nurses are highly skilled and highly paid workers, they do however have nursing aides for the grunt work.

That may be the case in the US, but not in Germany and Austria. Nurses are paid pretty bad, and, surprise surprise, they're having problems finding people to choose that career.

Yeah there's this huge demand, for which they blame blame the nurses "ungrateful snobs" or get upset that immigrants are hired "taking away our jobs" or...

Re: An experimental program in Austria that creates work for the unemployed

#198

Post by marcusverus »

wbazant wrote: post #186
marcusverus wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if somebody asks an overinflated way-over productivity wage for cleaning toilets because of a supply shortage, this is considered being unethical and "unwilling to do the dirty work, while receiving benefits", but asking a way way overinflated price for housing because of a supply shortage is considered good and healthy for the market and drives investment without shaming the investors for receiving undue housing b…

The person who's getting the welfare typically paid taxes too. Having good public services like an unemployment benefit - essentially a form of state-provided insurance - is in the interest of almost everyone, and especially those working class families you are so concerned with.

I think you're missing some context. When the parent comment said:

> if somebody asks an overinflated way-over productivity wage for cleaning toilets because of a supply shortage, this is considered being unethical and "unwilling to do the dirty work, while receiving benefits"...

they were alluding to a particular passage in the article:

> One program participant in his thirties told me that, while on unemployment benefits, he’d been offered a job cleaning toilets at a gas station; he’d decided that he didn’t want “that sort of job,” and had instead found work in the carpentry workshop.

So, I wasn't arguing against unemployment benefits in general. You're right, we pay unemployment benefits, and when we're out of work, we shouldn't feel bad for taking them, so long as we're using them in good faith--as temporary support, intended to tide us over until we can find gainful employment. The guy in the article was not using these services in good faith--he turned down honest work in order to keep his make-work gig (funded by taxpayers).

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