Economic woes solving plan: Government hires everyone

[YogSothoth]

@MichaelEmouse

You still haven’t shown how people would have an incentive to allocate their labor/capital/land where its utility is above its opportunity cost.

To take the example of “green initiative worthwhile by staffing them and 100% funding them”, if you do that, you give an incentive to entrepreneurs to undertake economic activities even if their marginal gain is below their marginal cost.

Like real entrepreneurship, there will be hits and misses. Despite what Republicans have been saying for the last few decades, government can and do make good decisions. Government can decide which programs to fund that will generate money that may require being sustained in the beginning in a deficit. I’m not saying that all crackpot ideas will be given a sack of cash and a green light. I’m saying that worthwhile endeavors, such as the greening of our industries, preventing climate change, and developing alternative fuels will be types of programs that may need an initial startup deposit but over time, will pay for itself

@MichaelEmouse

The gov’t can create wealth in that it can create useful goods. The Soviet union’s economy could do that. The crucial question is whether economic actors have an incentive to allocate their labor/capital/land where its utility is greater than its opportunity cost.

There are plenty of useful goods. They are just too expensive to make, to buy, or to sell for private companies. The reason is because people have no money. Give people money, stability, jobs, and they will buy again.

@OneMissedPost

Yes, choosing people that aren’t qualified is a great way to solve economic troubles. :smack: You are assuming that every single person is going to somehow contribute to the economy rather than hurt the economy. Isn’t that how we got into trouble in the first place?

That is a nice fantasy but its not what I said.

@John_Mace

Did you miss the point where I said that if you need to hire people to do essential government jobs that’s an argument that can be made? But you start with the need, not the idea that you just hire someone.

In a normal economy, yes. But we’re trying to prevent a deeper recession and kickstart the economy. You cannot tell me that we have less need now than 4 years ago. What? Did millions of people just disappear? Did we suddenly need less food, less toys, less cars? No, in fact we have more people and demand is higher. However, people have less money because for most people, their worth isn’t in cash but in assets. If their stocks tank, if their house’s value goes down, so does their buying power. There is plenty of need, but products are too expensive to purchase or make comparatively

@John_Mace

As for the Post Office, the reason they continue to exist is because the are granted a certain government monopoly. If you don’t know even that basic detail about government vs private sector operations, you shouldn’t be making proposals about how to revamp our economy.

Private companies would have been able to do the same if there was a profit in it. Museums don’t make much money, neither does delivering a letter for 42 cents across the country. Yes, there is a government monopoly, but just like parcel delivery used to be the exclusive domain of the post office, companies like UPS were able to make a profit off of that by providing better service. In our corporate dominated economy, if a large corporation thought it could make money delivering letters, don’t you think there would be more of an effort to do that?

@Cheshire_Human

I just stumbled across this thread. The OP demonstrates a typical lefty’s understanding of economics. In other words, none. Unfortunately, it exactly matches the typical righty’s understanding of the subject. Conclusion? Our nation is doomed. IPU help us all!!!one!!!

It is a proposal to help our economic woes. If you see problems with it, kindly make them. I don’t pretend to understand everything about economics, but I do understand that some of the arguments against why my plan would work are invalid

@xtisme

Again, it comes back to what are you going to have these folks actually doing and what are you going to pay them? Are you going to give them standard federal employee benefits or not? Are they going to be exempt or non-exempt employees? Temporary or permanent? Is this going to be a one size fits all (i.e. ‘Here is the job <digging ditches>, take it or leave it!’) or are you going to allow these millions of unemployed to use their former skills and experience in order to get jobs doing something remotely like what they have experience doing?

And, again, where is the money going to come from? How are you going to pay for this? Just saying ‘well, we’ll just raise taxes on the rich’ or ‘well, we’ll just borrow the money as we always do’ isn’t good enough…you are talking about a permanent increase in the annual federal budget…and a really, really big one. And one that will increase over time, assuming you plan to give these folks raises and such down the road, and assuming you don’t plan to simply cut millions loose a year or two down the road when you figure out that ‘Hey! This stuff is really expensive!’.

These have already been addressed. The replies are:

1. We find needs where they exist, whether creating products or rebuilding infrastructure, and in other cases simply expanding existing government rosters.
2. We will pay them $50k a year on average
3. Yes, we will give them benefits and like I explained before, they are not as much as you think
4. Exemptions will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Some will be exempted, some will not. These will all be temporary and exist until the economy improves
5. There will be a standard deviation of the types of jobs available
6. The money will be borrowed because the US’s credit is untouchable. It will be paid. All recessions eventually end.

@emacknight

You seemed to have missed the main gist of this thread. We aren’t talking about current federal employees, or about adding a few more federal employees. The proposal is to guarantee 12 million people (or more) a job doing something/anything with the federal government. It also seems to imply that the DMV is going to become federal.

The point is jobs. I used the feds as an easy way of creating 12.5 million jobs. These can be state, county, city, etc. and not exclusively federal. And yes, I forgot about the DMV and how not every state has it. I didn’t mean to imply that they would be federalize, but that government offices where people commonly complain of shortages will have enough people to serve everyone

@emacknight

But let’s pretend it plays out the way you suggest, and 11million people get fired

No, lets not pretend. That is such an insane assumption that it deserves no further consideration. 11 million people are not going to get fired. 11 million people are not suddenly going to stop doing their jobs just because these suddenly materialized. WTF is wrong with people who think that given a good job, people who are currently unemployed and looking for money to feed their families are going to kick back and piss it away just because the government provided it? IT. WILL. NOT. HAPPEN.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@smiling_bandit

YogSosoth, one of the important principles of economics is that, no, there’s no magic way to get infinite wealth except by working hard for it.

Did you make up that principle? It’s an odd one.

1. There is no way to get infinite wealth, even if you work for it. That’s because it’s, you know, infinite.

2. In an economy with vast unemployed resources, such as the US during the Great Depression, building a new road or dam has extremely low opportunity costs. Unlike your make-believe assertion, opportunity cost actually is a core economic principle.

There’s almost nothing the government can do (aside from legal support of business and rule of law) to reliably increase wealth.

Oh. Really. Infrastructure and education are prerequisites for having an economy functioning at a level higher than Somalia, that great paradise lacking in everything including intrusive guvment.

You proposed a perpetual-motion machine. The fact that it’s economic rather than physical sleight-of-hand doesn’t mean the result if any different. There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, end of story.

Wrong. See above.

Edit: This is why I generally ignore so-called Keynesians. First off, they’re not Keynesians, and ignore the fact that Keynes would have nothing to do with their proposals, along with ignoring several other critical factors he notes for trying to stimulate economies. Second, most of them seem to believe deep down that the government can manage the economy technocratically (a belief not unique to them). The scary fact is that the government does not have the information necessary, nor the wisdom to use it. Look at how so many brilliant people failed to note the massive asset-price bubble, which is what sparked our current malaise. Economics is a game where the rules and the players are always changing, because each new generation of players incorporates ever-more advanced strategies they learned frmo watching the last round…

Blah blah blah… for somebody who goes on about basic economics, you don’t know much about macro, do you? And plenty of people saw the asset bubble coming – it was the WSJ and your modern conservative friends who insisted this time is different.
Yog: You don’t need to have the government directly hire an army of laborers. You can just stimulate demand for goods and services and have the private sector do the job. In other words, the US could give block grants to the states so they don’t have to lay off firefighters and cops. Also, the US typically spends way less on infrastructure than Europe and it shows (2.5% vs. 5% of GDP IIRC). Combine that with looser monetary policy (stop paying interest on excess reserves) and we could beat this lesser depression. But we won’t. Health care reform is hard, addressing stagflation is hard. Ending a depression though just requires will, which we don’t have, tragically.

[glilly]

@Measure_for_Measure

…And plenty of people saw the asset bubble coming – it was the WSJ and your modern conservative friends who insisted this time is different.

Cite? I seem to recall the WSJ being concerned that prices had gotten out of wack. I don’t remember it or the associated debt being referred to in a positive way.

[XT]

[QUOTE=YogSosoth]

1. We find needs where they exist, whether creating products or rebuilding infrastructure, and in other cases simply expanding existing government rosters.
   [/QUOTE]

How would it work in practice? Ok, you hire 12.5 million people and then, what? Sort through the people to find out what they can do and where they live, then look at potential projects in their area, create the projects and move in the managers, build the logistics (if we are talking road/bridge/infrastructure repair or construction), build facilities, etc etc? Or would you create projects based on (what? need?), THEN hire your 12.5 million and figure out which projects they are best suited too?

Either way, do you not see that your loaded costs are going to be much more than your labor costs? For instance, if you plan to do a ton of road construction, are you going to hire subcontractors who already know what they are doing and integrate your worker bees into that system, or at a minimum to train your new work force, most of who probably don’t know much or anything about building roads and bridges, especially if you don’t plan to move people with specific knowledge to where the jobs are, instead of making jobs where the people are? If you DO plan to move people around, well, there is going to be costs associated with that as well…are you just going to tell people that they are on their own and if they want a job they have to move half way across the country to get it? Or will you provide assistance?

Then there is the massive amount of overhead you are going to have to pay for to support all these folks. Cell phones, laptops, equipment they would need, HR costs, management costs, even expanded bathroom and office facilities. All of that costs money and doesn’t exist today, so would have to be built. I don’t know if the current payroll system is up to the task of bringing in such numbers, and even if it is I can guarantee you that you are going to have to expand your IT (NOCs, comm centers, telco, etc) by quite a bit to handle all these folks.

2. We will pay them $50k a year on average

Yes, I heard you…really, you need to tell some others in this thread that this is what you are proposing for debate, since there is a lot of confusion on this for some odd reason.

I don’t think that you could support this program of yours at even half that…heck, I think the over head alone would kill you, even if you tried to use these folks as slave labor and didn’t pay them a dime.

3. Yes, we will give them benefits and like I explained before, they are not as much as you think

Yes, and as I’ve attempted to explain, you are wrong. Benefits are only part of the loading costs for an employee, and those costs will definitely be at least equal to what you are paying each employee in salary. Not only that, but unless you are planning to implement your plan 10 years down the road, you are going to be hiring a bunch of people who will sit around drawing a salary and doing nothing until you figure out the criteria and staffing for each of your projects…something that’s going to take quite a bit of time. You are talking about 12 MILLION people and projects to be defined by some sort of need you are going to have to figure out after the fact (or you are going to have to have these folks on unemployment in the decade or so it’s going to take you to figure out what projects you want to do and to do project plans, set up logistics, set up HR and facilities, expand your IT and all the other stuff you’d have to do).

It’s going to cost a lot more than you think it is…not that even at $600 billion dollars (a year), considering in JUST salary and handwaving away all the other costs, that this would be feasible.

4. Exemptions will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Some will be exempted, some will not. These will all be temporary and exist until the economy improves

Case by case basis?? You realize what you are asking your HR staff to do??? How long will it take to process 12 MILLION people on a case by case basis and determine if they are exempt, non-exempt or temporary? Hell, how long will it take to decide the criteria you are going to use to make those determinations??

5. There will be a standard deviation of the types of jobs available

So, you will just make up jobs for people to do? Will you require people to move if their area doesn’t need any basket weavers but instead needs heavy construction specialists? Or will you just create some basket weaving jobs in the area where they have basket weavers and heavy construction work in the areas where you have heavy construction specialists? What happens if you need basket weavers in the place where you have heavy construction workers and heavy construction workers where you have basket weavers?

6. The money will be borrowed because the US’s credit is untouchable. It will be paid. All recessions eventually end.

You will be adding over one trillion dollars (probably closer to 2 trillion) to the deficit EVERY YEAR from when you implement your program. Who is going to loan us that kind of money? And that’s in addition to the deficits we are already running.

-XT

[YogSothoth]

@Measure_for_Measure

Yog: You don’t need to have the government directly hire an army of laborers. You can just stimulate demand for goods and services and have the private sector do the job. In other words, the US could give block grants to the states so they don’t have to lay off firefighters and cops. Also, the US typically spends way less on infrastructure than Europe and it shows (2.5% vs. 5% of GDP IIRC). Combine that with looser monetary policy (stop paying interest on excess reserves) and we could beat this lesser depression. But we won’t. Health care reform is hard, addressing stagflation is hard. Ending a depression though just requires will, which we don’t have, tragically.

Sure, I’m certain that there are lots of different ways of ending this recession. My plan wasn’t made to be the only or the best out there. Hell, given my liberal beliefs, the first thing I would do is to make universal health care, but that’s another topic. I simply think this jobs thing could work and so far I haven’t seen much convincing argument to the contrary

[aruvqan]

@xtisme

How would it work in practice? Ok, you hire 12.5 million people and then, what?

You do realize that the WPA managed to do this without lots of whinging about it .. and why in hell hire subcontractors, they already have construction jobs…

I could see it set up LIKE [but NOT] the military, boot camps where you process people in - they show up, fill out an application, get processed in with a health exam, issue of some basic general clothing, we have surplus military stuff that could be used, wears like iron. Proceed with running them through some aptitude testing - ASVABs work fine for deciding if someone is clerical based or other. Basic barracks and chow hall while getting the people sorted out. Secondary camp for those needing training in heavy machinery and trades [since I don’t build roads and bridges, no idea what all are needed so get off my back for being a bit vague. I do know that the Navy can run seebees through A school in 6 months and turn out people running heavy machinery. Deal with it.] We already know what infrastructure needs doing, there was that survey that happened a couple years ago. Now stay with me here.

We know that a section of work needs to be done in Arkansas, pick a damned county.

Step 1 - build a camp with admin buildings, chow hall, barracks and warehouses, and a parking lot for task oriented vehicles, and one for personal vehicles. Use WPA/CCC personnel for the task.

Step 2 - Move in the population - clerical workers/admin workers, jobsite personnel, and camp workers [chowhall, warehouse, motor pool] People go to the camps as assigned after they finish the job related training program. They do all the infrastructure work in the county, then the camp gets moved to the next county.

Use mobile structures as much as possible, or structures that can easily be disassembled. They exist - they are sort of like mobile home cargotainers. You close them up and winch them onto trucks and move the damned things. Military have been playing with them for a few years. It isn’t rocket science.

People get basic minimum wage, medical care, uniforms and room/board. The infrastructure gets repaired, people get trained and have a new skill when the job market finally manages to repair itself. It would be providing basic jobs for people - nothing fancy, and you sign on for a specific amount of time sort of like joining the military, just instead of “going and killing people in the desert” you actually work to improve your own country. Just like I also envisioned if it was for universal service, the kids get sorted into jobs, trained, and do their 2 years of service working on infrastructure or other federal and state projects.

You seem fixated on the whole “average $50000” - do you not understand that the poster means that some people get minimum wage for minimum wage type jobs, and more if they are management so it AVERAGES 50K? There are actually a lot of jobs when working on infrastructure that can be done with 6 months or less of training. Do you not consider it worthwhile to actually pay people to train and increase the skilled labor pool of the country? Wouldn’t it be more productive to train people to actually do something instead of paying them to sit on their asses [welfare] and whine about lack of jobs? It would be kicking actual money to the POPULATION of the US, not to the already rich who are not spending the money they get but sitting on it in the bank where it isn’t doing the country any good.

[XT]

[QUOTE=aruvqan]
You do realize that the WPA managed to do this without lots of whinging about it .. and why in hell hire subcontractors, they already have construction jobs…
[/QUOTE]

You do realize that the WPA did it at a time when pick and shovel labor for things like infrastructure was still the norm, right? And that, well, things have changed a tiny bit since the 30’s…right?

Why subcontractors? Well, because building roads and bridges involves specialty labor these days, not just some guys out in the sun with a shovel in hand. There is training involved in things like safety that the WPA didn’t bother with back in the 30’s. There is specialized equipment that is used now that wasn’t used in the 30’s, when the most advanced equipment was probably a truck or maybe a bulldozer or crane.

I could see it set up LIKE [but NOT] the military, boot camps where you process people in - they show up, fill out an application, get processed in with a health exam, issue of some basic general clothing, we have surplus military stuff that could be used, wears like iron. Proceed with running them through some aptitude testing - ASVABs work fine for deciding if someone is clerical based or other. Basic barracks and chow hall while getting the people sorted out. Secondary camp for those needing training in heavy machinery and trades [since I don’t build roads and bridges, no idea what all are needed so get off my back for being a bit vague. I do know that the Navy can run seebees through A school in 6 months and turn out people running heavy machinery. Deal with it.] We already know what infrastructure needs doing, there was that survey that happened a couple years ago. Now stay with me here.

All of that takes time, effort and lots of funding. The Navy ALREADY has facilities and a training program, along with cadre and everything else in order to train up their people. That’s why you’d need subcontractors, to handle processing your new recruits into people who could actually do the jobs being discussed here. All of that costs additional money…i.e., it’s part of the cost loading for the employees. You are talking about MILLIONS of people you have to train here, not a few hundred or even a few thousand that the Navy is training. Do you not see a bit of a difference in scale here??

You seem fixated on the whole “average $50000” - do you not understand that the poster means that some people get minimum wage for minimum wage type jobs, and more if they are management so it AVERAGES 50K?

Again, take it up with the OP. Seriously…I get the impression that some of you aren’t reading through all of the posts here. I’m not fixated on ANY salary…the OP has stated that this will be the average, so I’m going with that. It seems reasonable to me, considering what the average is today, but if you want to use some other arbitrary figure, feel free.

The loaded costs are STILL going to be high, no matter what arbitrary salary you propose to give these people. You will have to massively expand your HR department just to in-process all of these folks, let alone manage them. Your financial and personnel software is going to have to be enhanced and upgraded to handle a 12 fold increase in federal employees. Your IT infrastructure will have to be enhanced or even rebuilt to handle the loads. Your HR department is going to have to figure out how to squeeze their current benefits section to encompass a 12 fold increase. And on and on and on.

It’s not the 30’s anymore. And the WPA didn’t hire 12 MILLION people to become federal employees.

-XT

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@glilly

What percent of the current unemployed came from a construction background?

I don’t know but the number is not zero and the number of other unemployed who can help build roads and bridges in short order also a non-zero number.

[gonzomax]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t know but the number is not zero and the number of other unemployed who can help build roads and bridges in short order also a non-zero number.

http://www.realestatenewsutah.com/news/nearly-one-four-construction-workers-unemployed-industry-loses-another-53000-jobs-dec-17772 Merely 2 million.

[emacknight]

@YogSosoth

No, lets not pretend. That is such an insane assumption that it deserves no further consideration. 11 million people are not going to get fired. 11 million people are not suddenly going to stop doing their jobs just because these suddenly materialized. WTF is wrong with people who think that given a good job, people who are currently unemployed and looking for money to feed their families are going to kick back and piss it away just because the government provided it? IT. WILL. NOT. HAPPEN.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I personally think that because I’ve hired a lot of people (many of those unemployed) and some of them ended up being fired because the “kicked back and pissed it away.”

You still didn’t address the issue: what happens to these new people if they do a shitty job working at the DMV? Can they be fired? Will they then get re-hired?

[XT]

@gonzomax

http://www.realestatenewsutah.com/news/nearly-one-four-construction-workers-unemployed-industry-loses-another-53000-jobs-dec-17772 Merely 2 million.

You do realize that construction worker does not equal someone who can build a road or a bridge…right? They may seem similar to someone who knows nothing about the various facets of construction (and I’m by no means an expert…I haven’t worked like that since I was in college), but being able to build a house is a bit different than the skill set needed to build a large building…and both are different than the skill set needed to build a road or a bridge.

ETA: Oh…and that still leaves you with 10 million additional people that you are going to need to find jobs for, even if you can retrain all 2 million construction workers to do road and infrastructure work.

-XT

[gonzomax]

@xtisme

You do realize that construction worker does not equal someone who can build a road or a bridge…right? They may seem similar to someone who knows nothing about the various facets of construction (and I’m by no means an expert…I haven’t worked like that since I was in college), but being able to build a house is a bit different than the skill set needed to build a large building…and both are different than the skill set needed to build a road or a bridge.

-XT

Of course they can. Do you think building bridges requires some arcane or esoteric knowledge that is special to few. Even you could help build a bridge.

[XT]

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Of course they can. Do you think building bridges requires some arcane or esoteric knowledge that is special to few.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah…like welding and steel work, as well as concrete and asphalt. As opposed to the more carpentry oriented skills needed to build a house, which is what most of the folks who have been laid off in the construction industry are trained to do. So yes…I DO think that they are different skill sets, and that doing one job doesn’t give you magic insight into doing another. Not without retraining.

Even you could help build a bridge.

No…probably not. I’m old and fat and wouldn’t be much help. I also can’t operate heavy machinery. I could, perhaps, be a flunky, or maybe one of the folks who waves the flag to redirect traffic…but I’m guessing that if you hire 12 million new federal workers without the specialized skill sets you need to do things today that you are going to have an over abundance of fat, balding and old flunky types…and a dearth of folks who can actually do the work.

-XT

[Measure_for_Measure]

@glilly

Cite? I seem to recall the WSJ being concerned that prices had gotten out of wack. I don’t remember it or the associated debt being referred to in a positive way.

WSJ: What Housing Bubble?

Bad housing policy proposals never die ...

Even today they continue to blame Fannie and Freddie, despite copious evidence that they trailed such captains of industry such as Mozilo of Countrywide and the fact neither Fannie nor Freddie operated in bubblicious regions abroad. Never mind liar loans, never mind laddered derivatives rated AAA and defaulting in a couple of years – it’s all the gubment’s fault. Things Everyone In Chicago Knows - The New York Times