Yep we should follow the crops across the country. Perhaps we could live in campers and move with every business move.
The unemployment rate in North DAkota is of no relevance in terms of national unemployment.
Yes, the unemployment rate in tiny states like ND is low. The problem is that the entire population of North Dakota is 670,000, which by way of comparison is about a quarter of Brooklyn.
A high end estimate of available and chronically unfilled jobs in North Dakota- that is, jobs that will not be imminently filled by local job-seekers - would be ten thousand. The number of unemployed people in the State of New York alone is about eight hundred thousand; there are, in other words, more unemployed people in New York than there are PEOPLE in South Dakota. If New York’s unemployed began going to North Dakota on January 1, 2012, to fill available jobs, the jobs would be filled sometime between January 5 and January 10.
It is, in other words, a positively ludicrous complaint. The unemployed cannot look to places like North Dakota as places to find jobs because, in any practical statistical sense, there aren’t any more jobs there than there are at home.
Well, sure. But the obvious flaw in the logic of the OP notwithstanding, I still say that forced relocation to Nebraska after 6 months of unemployment would get this economy moving again.
Probably.
As to enough people with that cushion - I highly doubt there are all that many out there with any sort of cushion (other than the rich folks), and even before the economy went into the crapper there probably weren’t that many if reactions here are any indication. People seem to think it’s a good idea to, at the very least, live right up to their means if not beyond.
As for further growth, you’d need to be more specific. Growth of GNP? Population? Return to inflation?
Just for comparisonI’ll tell you something that happens here in Peru.
Driving a taxi in Peru requires basically next to nothing (save a TAXI sign on the inside of your windshield). Many of these taxies are driven by people with college degrees who cannot find jobs in Lima and there’s always the complaint that we have the est educated cabbies in the world. The thing is that many could find jobs with better salaries and lower costs in other parts of Peru and choose not to. They will never find a job, for the chosen carrer, in Lima, never, 0% chance. Still, they’d rather be a badly-paid cabby in the capital than a repsected lawyer/teacher/doctor/engineer in a third-rate city.
When I was unemployed some years back my mom suggested I move out by her, across the Sound from Seattle. A quick Google showed that, only in the Chicago area in which I live, the job market was larger than all of the Seattle-Tacoma market. As I am willing to drive further than ten miles for my next job, my possibilities increased considerably staying here. Without needing to bail on my house, which, unlike the beliefs of some, would still leave me responsible for a helluva lot of money. The Real World has moved on beyond the Welcome Wagon lady casually asking why you left your last home.
And Mom thought I should work for Boeing, which has since moved to the office building in Chicago where Dad used to work.
The OP knows nothing about The Real World.
Mom doesn’t either, but she has her sons to protect her.
Mom hasn’t noticed that Boeing hires and fires almost on schedule? Or has that changed since I left WA?
No, I’ve noticed (some 25 years ago) but she hasn’t. She lives in a world of cotton candy and lollipops and, as she’s 87, my brothers and I find it easier to feed her delusions.
I’ma just gonna leave this here*:
Craigslist North Dakota Software Jobs:
Craigslist SF Bay Area Software Jobs:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sof/
- Somebody’s going to point out that maybe they don’t use Craigslist in North Dakota as much as they do in the bay area. OF COURSE THEY DON’T! The internet hasn’t reached North Dakota yet. It made it as far as Brainerd, but then someone put a backhoe through the cable. All the job postings for North Dakota are on Slick McGee’s “Badlands BBS” (“Four lines, no waiting!”) but I can’t find my 2400 bps US Robotics Sportster to log in there to see how many jobs are really available.
There are Americans who live so far from a Thai restaurant that they have to drive to get there?!? Things are worse than I thought. Perhaps you should relocate to Europe, where the free market ensures that anyone living in anything bigger than a hamlet will have a choice of ethnic eating places within easy walking distance.
Seriously, I remember being two years into my first job and friends were incredulous that I had saved up six months’ net wages. We were all numerate, but the concept of spending only 75% of your net income was apparently an inscrutable mystery to them.
Well I moved to a part of the country I had never been to before in my life for my job, but I don’t have a car and there’s a thai restaurant in my building - also, it doesn’t snow here. Just because you’re willing to relocate, doesn’t mean you have to go someplace that sucks.
My old company is still trying desperately to relocate from suburban NJ (where there is a REALLY high number of trained telecommunications engineers and related professionals) to Kansas City. They’ve done about 6 rounds of layoffs. They’re hired back about 20-30% of those laid off. Why? Nobody in Kansas City is either qualified or willing to do the work.
I can’t help but think of the company’s immediate past president at times like these, “You’re not my ideal work force. My ideal workers do it for about $6 a day. But, I’ve had problems trying to get the same level of service from the Bangladeshis, so we’re stuck with each other until I can figure out another way.”
Teh motivation. It was staggeringly hard to describe.
This is a very common phenonemon throughout the world, and has been ever since the start of the industrial revolution: people would rather flock to the cities and live as slum dwellers than stay in the countryside; to the point where communist countries had to forbid people to travel without permit and actively deported people to rural labor. In the US, rural areas have trouble keeping doctors available.
Perhaps “growth” was a poor choice of concepts. Basically, I’m wondering if, given every American household without the cushion, immediately cutting back their lifestyle/spending to say, 75% of net income, would our economy survive?
I really don’t know, but I don’t think it’s an issue since some fairly large percent of people who have no cushion would not be able to cut back to 75%. And I have to believe that it would be only a very small percent who could do it immediately. For example, I know quite a few people whose mortgage is near or over 50% of their net income.
How many businesses would suffer if it happened? Restaurants/fast food is obvious, entertainment like movies, vacation industries - what else?
Cable, satellite, cool cell-phone toys…
I have trouble believing that people would give those up - look at the number of Dopers who have been unemployed but still have ISP accounts. Maybe some folks would give up satellite and go back to basic cable…
Having an internet account at home enabled me to look for work (in theory) 24/7 instead of being limited to just two hours a day five days a week at the local library due to their internet access rules. Have you tried to apply for a job lately? Oh, right - you’re on disability. Well, for your information, just about everything is on line these days. Want to apply to McDonald’s or Wl-Mart? You have to do it on line these days.
Meanwhile - I ditched the satellite TV entirely and I’m strictly getting free broadcast these days.
:rolleyes:
If you are so sensitive that you think one comment in the middle of a post must be aimed at you, perhaps you should rethink your position. If you had been following the discussion at all, you would see that kaylasdad99 and I have been talking about employed people - the bit about unemployed Dopers who are still paying an ISP was an exaggeration of a point.
As for just about everything is on line these days - none of the interviews that Mr Coat went on came from the internet. Perhaps McD’s and Wal-Mart type jobs are online, but they are certainly not the only types of jobs out there.
Yeah, nobody’s going to get any of these sweet gigs in cattle ranching or missile silo calibration sitting on their cans surfing the internet!
You have to get out there to Nebraska and take it from there. Just be sure to save up two years or so of living expenses real fast before you go.