# Republicans: How would you reduce America's jobless rate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352 "2010-06-07T22:30:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/61 "2010-06-10T17:42:25Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > In a word, bullshit. The US is the largest manufacturer in the world. [Cite.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States) > > Regards, > Shodan But how much “U.S.” manufacturing is done in the U.S. by American workers? That same cite says one in six factory jobs has disappeared since the start of 2000. I’m sure the drop-off since the 1960s is far greater. That has happened partly because in the 1970s we started to see competition in the global manufactures market as European and Japanese manufacturing finally fully recovered from the devastation of WWII; but also because of outsourcing and offshoring. We can’t do anything about the first, so we need to focus on the second. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/62 "2010-06-10T17:47:06Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > The costs involved with providing the wages and benefits American workers are accustomed to would make the prices of those goods sky-high. I recall an anecdote from the 1960s: A Ford executive was showing a UAW executive around a new mostly-automated Ford plant, and, gesturing at the machines, smirked, “So, how are you going to organize them?” The labor leader responded, “How are you going to sell them Fords?” ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/63 "2010-06-10T17:48:40Z")
I think it’s fairly obvious what the conservative plan for ending joblessness is: end the jobless! They do this by opposing health care initiatives so unemployed old people will die (hence the interest many of them have in gutting health care and social security) and they do everything they can to dismantle the social safety net so young unemployed people will die. Once they are all dead, everyone will be employed! It’s so simple! ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/64 "2010-06-10T18:01:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _Post hoc ergo propter hoc?_ There might be other reasons [for NCR leaving Dayton], you know. Maybe, but taxes were a [big factor](http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/ncr-to-move-headquarters-to-georgia-143611.html). > [@](#): > > Georgia put up more than $60 million in tax breaks and other incentives to lure NCR. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/65 "2010-06-10T18:09:10Z")
God help me I agree with Pat Buchanan. No matter what you can not compete with thirld world labor. I don’t care anymore about the global economy, NAFTA & GATT have destroyed this nation. Near where I live in Erie PA was once a very large manufacturing center we made products shipped all over the world, perhaps you recognize some of the names: Zurn, Hammermill, American Sterilizer, Kaiser Aluminum, Bucyrus-Erie. All are gone, the last Sterilizer just moved to Mexico. The union tried to negotiate with the company, volunteering to accept salary cuts the response was: “you are not going to work for the $1.50 per hour we can get in Mexico”, plant closed. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/66 "2010-06-10T18:10:04Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I think it’s fairly obvious what the conservative plan for ending joblessness is: end the jobless! They do this by opposing health care initiatives so unemployed old people will die (hence the interest many of them have in gutting health care and social security) and they do everything they can to dismantle the social safety net so young unemployed people will die. Once they are all dead, everyone will be employed! It’s so simple! Well so say that there’s a curve in the road where people who drive too fast often go over the edge, fall off a cliff, and die. A sign has been put up telling people what the safe speed limit is, but some percent ignore it. We can either pay to station a police officer just before the bend or say the heck with it, they got their just rewards. So now why should I, as a tax payer who drives safely, feel any particular need to vote for employing a person to sit and watch people drive by just for the sake of saving people who couldn’t read a signpost? I know you’ll say that this isn’t applicable because the poor don’t make enough money to save up for emergencies nor for retirement, but the reason for that is because they don’t ask for enough money to be able to do so and what excess money they do ask for, they spend on getting their own place instead of sharing with roommates, in buying cigarettes or gambling, in getting their own car instead of taking the bus. If you compare states where there is and isn’t a mandated minimum wage, there’s no evidence that the mandated minimum wage is any different from the open market wage. People don’t and physically can’t choose to work at jobs less than what they need to survive, and subsequently, there’s no difference between mandated and open minimum wage. But that also indicates that the market naturally does raise the minimum wage to however much the public views as necessary for survival. If you remove the public programs and people don’t ask for enough to survive, including emergencies and retirement, that’s them seeing the curb up ahead, seeing the sign post saying what the safe speed limit is, and deciding against slowing down. In what way am I obligated to see to the protection of people acting against their own self-interest? Why is it the government’s obligation to tell you that you’re too stupid to run your own life? Now all that said, none of it has to do with the matter at hand. Letting people die is not something relevant to reducing joblessness in anyone’s mind. It might be a long-term policy stance, and it might even reduce joblessness for the reason you say, but that’s not why anyone would argue for it. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/67 "2010-06-10T18:13:58Z")
Why did Henry Ford pay his empoyees more than the going rate, so they could afford to buy his cars. Today the opposite is occuring. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/68 "2010-06-10T18:18:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I recall an anecdote from the 1960s: A Ford executive was showing a UAW executive around a new mostly-automated Ford plant, and, gesturing at the machines, smirked, “So, how are you going to organize them?” The labor leader responded, “How are you going to sell them Fords?” Ford seems to be doing all right - weren’t they the only ones who didn’t take government money during the Auto Meltdown? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/69 "2010-06-10T18:37:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Sam,** the stated problem here is how to reduce the jobless rate **in the U.S.,** and that problem is fairly obviously tied to the decline of manufacturing within our borders. Can’t we have a healthy economy, domestically producing with domestic labor for domestic consumption, without being “competitive in the world market”? That’s how it was for most of our history. I understand that. And the answer is NO, you can’t just close off the world and employ all your people locally and be happy. Or rather, you can… if you’re willing to cut per-capita GDP in half and return the country to pre-globalization standards of living. So… cut off foreign trade, cut the minimum wage to $3.00, accept that the rest of the world will have better, cheaper goods than you do, and watch the American dollar collapse to half its value and have massive deflation that destroys wealth, and maybe you can get back to some previous era where a farm employs 10X the number of people per acre and factories have to hire people to do menial tasks like sewing shirts. In the meantime, your iPhone is going to cost $800 (no cheap Chinese labor for you!), and T-shirts will be $40 instead of $8.00. But hey, you might ‘restore American manufacturing’. Crappy, labor-intensive, unsatisfying, poor-paying manufacturing, but apparently that’s not really important to you. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: You know, economic historians are deeply divided on that point. Not that you couldn’t make a case for it; but you don’t get to state it as if it were an established fact. The economic damage done through trade protectionism is one of the most settled issues in Economics, and is about as close to an ‘established fact’ you’re going to find in that field outside the basic supply/demand curve. I’m sure you can dredge up some far-left, pro-labor economists who disagree, just like I can dredge up far-right economists who think there should be no regulation at all. But none of them would represent the mainstream of economic thought. > [@](#): > > And you **definitely** don’t get to state **that** as an established fact. Protectionism was a cornerstone of Whig and Republican trade policy throughout the 19th Century, and it doesn’t seem to have harmed the American economy, quite the reverse. Check out [_Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism,_](http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/B002VPE6ZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276184283&sr=8-1) by Ha-Joon Chang. Chang makes the case that protectionism, as opposed to free-trade neoliberalism, is often the best policy for a country with a **developing** economy – well, guess what? That’s what America is, now, once again, and will be until manufacturing is revived here. America is a \*developing economy? Why what possible goofy standard? The U.S. is still the most advanced, largest economy in the world. If it’s a ‘developing economy’, which ones aren’t? The author is talking about transitions from 3rd world economies to 1st world economies, like South Korea in the 1960’s or Vietnam today. But even so, his ideas are far outside the mainstream. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/70 "2010-06-10T18:38:55Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I think it’s fairly obvious what the conservative plan for ending joblessness is: end the jobless! They do this by opposing health care initiatives so unemployed old people will die (hence the interest many of them have in gutting health care and social security) and they do everything they can to dismantle the social safety net so young unemployed people will die. Once they are all dead, everyone will be employed! It’s so simple! Wimps! I would attack the unemployed, first by shelling their homes with artillery, and then, when they run out into the streets, mowing them down with machine-gun fire. And then, releasing the vultures. I realize these views are unpopular, but I have never courted popularity. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/71 "2010-06-10T19:00:24Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But hey, you might ‘restore American manufacturing’. Crappy, labor-intensive, unsatisfying, poor-paying manufacturing, but apparently that’s not really important to you. Well, as Robert Reich recounts in [_The Work of Nations,_](http://www.amazon.com/Work-Nations-Preparing-Ourselves-Capitalism/dp/0679736158/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276196328&sr=8-1) the beauty of the American economy from the '50s through the '70s was that the (unionized) manufacturing jobs were plentiful, low-skill, and **high-wage.** That was what blurred the boundaries between the American working class and middle class, and made it possible for laborers to have a middle-class outlook and something near a middle-class standard of living. Are you saying that it is completely impossible for that state of affairs ever to be restored? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/72 "2010-06-10T19:00:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Wimps! I would attack the unemployed, first by shelling their homes with artillery, and then, when they run out into the streets, mowing them down with machine-gun fire. And then, releasing the vultures. > > I realize these views are unpopular, but I have never courted popularity. I think the Tea Partiers and the militia types would go for it big time! You may get drafted to run for office. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/73 "2010-06-10T19:07:08Z")
Since we’re instituting a public option for health insurance anyway, perhaps on a short-term basis, the govt could pay some or all health insurance costs for the first year of any newly hired, permanent, full-time employee, with a need-based option for continuing coverage or a plan for cost-sharing, etc. That would take care of some folks. But really, jobs depend on a market for the goods/services; the govt can stimulate these things at times, but ultimately, there has to be a market for all these folks’ goods/services; there has to be demand sufficient to justify the price of labor here. We’re not going to compete worldwide at basic labor, but we’re innovators and popularizers - new products and services will still come about and create some jobs. OK, there’s some more folks. Other than that, though, I’m not so sure that America’s jobless rate is actually anything more than an adjustment towards reality. We’ve got a pretty bad national case of the [Dunning-Kruger Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect), which we need to get over, pronto. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/74 "2010-06-10T19:15:40Z")
I’m not a Republican; nevermind. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/75 "2010-06-10T19:17:31Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I think the Tea Partiers and the militia types would go for it big time! You may get drafted to run for office. I’m sure some of those **are** unemployed. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/76 "2010-06-10T19:19:49Z")
> [@drpepper](#): > > Quite frankly, that’s part of the point. If you think it’s critical that putting government employees out of work is a negative that should be avoided while angling for a healthy economy, then I don’t know what to say. Someone schooled in the basics of economics can articulate it better, I’m sure, but preserving government jobs does not translate to a robust economy. Sorry to post and run- I’m not opposed to minimizing the number of government employees in principle and in the long run. However, putting them out of work en masse in the middle of a recession will make things worse by adding to the jobless rate. The ideal time to minimize government is when the economy is doing well- that way, these people will be able to find jobs. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/77 "2010-06-10T20:03:17Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > You’re ignoring the fallacy of the broken window. Government or other uses of money might not diminish the total quantity of money in the economy, but that doesn’t mean that government or whoever will use that money in a way that _grows_ the economy. Not growing the money base is, essentially, the same as removing money out of the economy when the baseline standard is growth, not status quo. It’s in the derivatives: _Government spending can decrease economic growth._ Same old ideas. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/78 "2010-06-10T20:23:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That was what blurred the boundaries between the American working class and middle class, and made it possible for laborers to have a middle-class outlook and something near a middle-class standard of living. Are you saying that it is completely impossible for that state of affairs ever to be restored? Yes. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/79 "2010-06-10T20:41:47Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Because I looked at my states tax rates over my lifetime. We use to be a place that businesses flocked to. Companies like NCR, that were founded in my city and had their world headquarters in my city have left the state. I think this points to a problematic issue. As has been noted upthread small, entrepreneurial businesses need help. Problem is we see the big companies tending to swamp out the little guys. Is a WalMart in your town putting all the local businesses out of business an improvement to the local economy? Been awhile but I seem to recall Hughes Aircraft looking for a new place to plop a factory (or relocate) a decade or two ago. They were able to shop state governments and those governments, in an effort to get jobs, would promise tax breaks and other goodies. IIRC Arizona passed a bill that benefited only Hughes aircraft with tax breaks and such (been awhile so my memory of it is hazy). This is an advantage a small business cannot hope to get. Not sure how you fix that but it is a race to the bottom as states compete for business. Something has to give eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352/80 "2010-06-10T21:36:21Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I think this points to a problematic issue. > > As has been noted upthread small, entrepreneurial businesses need help. Problem is we see the big companies tending to swamp out the little guys. \*\* Is a WalMart in your town putting all the local businesses out of business an improvement to the local economy?\*\* > > Been awhile but I seem to recall Hughes Aircraft looking for a new place to plop a factory (or relocate) a decade or two ago. They were able to shop state governments and those governments, in an effort to get jobs, would promise tax breaks and other goodies. IIRC Arizona passed a bill that benefited only Hughes aircraft with tax breaks and such (been awhile so my memory of it is hazy). This is an advantage a small business cannot hope to get. > > Not sure how you fix that but it is a race to the bottom as states compete for business. Something has to give eventually. Bolding mine. Yes, I feel it is. First of all, Wal-Mart only “puts out of business” stores which offer a lower value for your money. So, if I have to spend $25 on a nice shirt at the local Threads store, I’m out $25 for one shirt. At WM, I can buy a nice shirt for $14.99 and have almost $10 left to spend elsewhere. That’s a clear economic benefit, isn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-how-would-you-reduce-americas-jobless-rate/542352.md?page=5)