"Job Creation"–Stupid Is as Stupid Does
No one can seriously doubt that the huge amounts of borrowed federal dollars poured into the economy since Barack Obama became president has prevented even more jobs from being lost than might otherwise have been the case in the current devastating recession. It’s impossible, however, to come up with a “real” number, because no economist has a good enough handle on matters to sort out all the variables at play, including readjustments due to the fall of housing prices, low interest rates, a slightly improved export environment, rebounding of depleted inventories, new highway construction resulting from stimulus spending, etc. Still, let’s look at some facts about the current so-called “recovery”:
- Un- and under-employment remains high–officially over 17 percent, not including people who have given up looking for work.
- The cost to create (or save) jobs has been ludicrously high. Estimates of what it has cost the federal government–meaning the taxpayer–to create a single job range from $70,000 to $500,000, depending on whether bailouts lavished on the failed banking system are included.
- While Wall Street rakes in record profits and the stock market creeps back with the DJIA now approaching 11,000, the rest of the economy is sputtering. Public service jobs at the state and local level, including teacher positions, are disappearing like shredded newspaper in a blast furnace. The best the Obama administration can come up with for the next phase is some extremely convoluted encouragement for more bank lending to small businesses, even though these businesses are operating in an environment of crippled consumer demand that may last for years to come.
- The two economic sectors that are reasonably “strong”–the military and health care–are essentially non-productive. The military uses Keynesian deficit-spending to support its gargantuan job base, while the health care industry feasts at the public trough through the ever-increasing cost of Medicare and other spending programs. But like the bailouts and stimulus, it’s being done by both sectors with borrowed or printed money through marketing of Treasury bonds whose value becomes more precarious by the day.
- What stimulus there is has been is coming to an end as the Federal Reserve reduces “quantitative easing” and the Obama administration launches its bipartisan deficit reduction commission.
Many commentators have said, as a joke, that it would have been cheaper if the government had just printed the money and given it away. But such an approach would not be a joke at all. It would be enlightened public policy.
The real joke is that in a technological age job-creation is a completely wrong approach to distributing consumer purchasing power, because the world does not need everyone to have a job in order to produce what is needed for the population to live a decent, comfortable life. This is the great fallacy of Keynesian economics, which aims at full employment and endless economic growth.
Not only does the fruitless quest for a full-employment economy put the entire population under the most brutal forms of financial and psychological stress, it also erodes the value of a constantly inflating currency and puts entirely too much money in the hands of the big banking and government institutions which spend it for their own aggrandizement on financial bubbles and wars.
America is the most wasteful, bloated, materialistic, and violent culture on the planet precisely because the economic treadmill we are racing along moves constantly faster all the time. This treadmill has been created on purpose by the only people who benefit from it–the ones at the very top of the heap.
The solution is simple though paradoxical: sufficient numbers of adult persons should be given enough money to purchase the necessities of life without having to work at all.
This is so because the benefits of technology have brought us to the point where distribution of purchasing power without reference to labor is the most efficient and least wasteful economic model available. The borrowed or printed federal dollars currently lavished on the banks, the armed forces, and the government bureaucracies that implement stimulus programs would be much more efficiently spent if simply given away.
Call it a basic income guarantee or a national dividend or whatever you like and pay for however much of it you want to through fair taxation of the obscenely wealthy–it really doesn’t matter. You could even establish an optional retirement age of 40 or 45. The important thing is that such a program would recognize that with productivity as high as it is today, too many workers get in each other’s way. Those who don’t have to work shouldn’t be required to do so. Instead, they can create, do volunteer service, or work at low-paying jobs that are still socially desirable such as teaching or the arts.
An adjunct to such a program would be to provide local producers’ cooperatives the legal authority to create credit on their own either by utilizing the national currency or by use of trading credits that not only would circulate locally but could also be used to pay taxes. Such legislation at the national level would free small business from bank usury much more effectively than current government proposals and create more jobs.
Today’s economic crisis is actually the mismanagement of nature’s bounty in an age where technology has solved the problem of scarcity if it is properly viewed as the heritage of all mankind, not the cartel of financiers, corporate oligarchs, military strongmen, and politicians who have the world at the throat in order to safeguard their own wealth and power. Instead they should relax their grip and realize that they too would benefit from a world where all could breathe freely in an economic environment of peace, dignity, and sharing.
Believe me, it could happen and someday probably will.
Richard C. Cook writes on public policy issues. His website is www.richardccook.com
In January 1986 Cook became the first NASA official to testify publicly on the space agency's prior knowledge of flaws in the solid rocket booster O-ring joints that destroyed Challenger and took the lives of its seven astronauts. He told his story in the book Challenger Revealed, published in 2007. Publisher's Weekly wrote of the book: "Easily the most informative and important book on the disaster."
Richard,
Comment by Donna Gaddis on April 6, 2010Bravo! A Basic Income Guarantee and a National Dividend to bring people’s cash up to the point of break even where they could purchase what they had produced. I don’t believe a woman with children should work outside the home. And I also think it would be much easier for a lot of people for whom work is hard to work only a few days a week-say 2 or 3 at 4 to 6 hours each day to 5 days per week at 8 hours per day. If this type of system took hold worldwide, then that would be the end of the drug trade because who wants to raise drug crops when you are getting your just dues anyway. You would be better at raising food crops and sharing them with the rest of the people of your country. Why would anyone want to sell one of their organs for a pittance when they are getting their fair share of the world’s bounty. But the management of the medium of exchange must be taken away from those people, mainly the Phariseeac Jews, who are using it to rule the world. I see signs of people all over the world seeing the truth of this and it is taking shape rapidly. When the current international financial system falls, I hope that you and others like you will step in there and take charge. I do hope that you are forming an international association to do just that.
Thanks Richard
Great article. How do we “…provide local producers’ cooperatives the legal authority to create credit on their own…”?
Here is my perspective: The Tribe of Judah has been engaged in an all-out war against mankind for at least 2,500 years. The goal of total world domination is well within their grasp. The principal weapon of this war is the fraudulent system of debt slavery under which national sovereignty is destroyed and we the people are made compliant participants in our own demise.
As such, we accept the fraudulent “legal authority” of their Federal Reserve/IMF/World Bank/BIS to monopolize all currencies and issue credit on terms they deem most effective in accomplishing their brutal and bloody agenda. As you point out in your book, “We Hold These Truths”, it has not always been so.
America is and has always been the last hope in Western Civilization’s quest to guarantee fundamental liberties and thwart the seemingly relentless march of tyranny. We of good conscience who truly understand and support this proud history of struggle must continue to work and study and fight to keep this last hope alive.
I have read hundreds of articles written to address the crisis we face and have yet to find any researcher or journalist who seems to be so well informed as Richard Cook on the fundamental importance of monetary policy in this battle. Further, I fully support your leadership in forming “local producers cooperatives” with the goal of eliminating artificial restrictions on the productive capacity and prosperity of the people.
Based on your article, I am now especially interested in the “legal authority” you reference. Perhaps we could cite the “Declaration of Independence” and simply move forward. After all, we are in a war.
Best Regards,
Comment by Bob Walton on April 6, 2010Bob Walton
Portal, Arizona
[...] Richard C. Cook Featured Writer Dandelion Salad richardccook.com April 6, 2010 tweetmeme_url = [...]
Pingback by “Job Creation”–Stupid Is as Stupid Does by Richard C. Cook « Dandelion Salad on April 6, 2010Yet another fantastic article by you, Richard. Just brilliant!
I’m up here in Vancouver, BC and was at the liquor store today. This woman who must have been in her mid to late 60′s was asking the cashier if there were any job openings. She was quick to explain it was not for her, but for her son! The answer was that there might be at another store, but not at that one.
I’ve struggled with employment off and on since my graduation in ’92, during a soft job market. As I look back since then, I realize many of the biggest opportunities were defense related.
Even before I graduated, I worked at an HIV research center that worked closely with the Navy.
First job out of college I was working on a mainframe for a firm that had a contract with the Navy.
Another opportunity presented itself soon after that with Texas Instruments. I was excited until I learned if hired I would be working on the software to guide missiles to blow up tanks. I naively asked if there would be people in the tanks, thinking maybe, just maybe the tanks were drones. I guess that’s not what they wanted to hear.
Other opportunities were at SAIC, also defense related.
One course ware development firm I worked at also had contracts with the DOD.
Anyway, I appreciate this latest article because it pulls from some of what you have described in the ‘Cook Plan’ and yet it is an easy read for anyone I choose to share it with.
Blessings Richard!
Comment by Roark on April 6, 2010Another fine article by Richard C. Cook, making the case for a new system of rewards–a new economic system, a new system of distributing the wealth and productivity of the planet, based on the undeniable fact that we are all the inheritors of the benefits of the labor of the billions of people who have preceded us, not to mention the billions laboring now.
We have to put the “Great Man” theory of history behind us once and for all and realize that we have all created this contemporary world, though it is mostly the most avaricious and pernicious who have reaped the benefits. The “Great Man” theory is a hoax that modern historians like Howard Zinn have eloquently rebutted with “people’s histories.” Now Cook is proposing a “people’s economics”–not based on the centralized theories of Marx, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (so perverted by Stalin and others), but based on models of cooperation and fairness within and between communities.
What’s still missing is how we get from here to there. Cook predicts we’ll get THERE, but … one does wonder how we overcome the miasma, the dullness in our brains, the anomie in our spirits. I for one am looking forward to Cook’s future explorations in these realms.
Comment by Gary Corseri on April 6, 2010Actually, the supposed benefits of technological advancement and automation touted back in the 50s and early 60s were allegedly going to be pretty much what you are suggesting now: leisure and abundance for all. But like nuclear power and the promise of “electricity too cheap to meter”, some thing unfortunate happened along the way. Our culture went off the rails, and the current system is a fundamental perversion of values. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Comment by mczilla on April 6, 2010I like this article.I CLAMOROUSLY SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN OF RIC COOK IN THE USA. WE HAVE SIMILAR CAMPAIGNS HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES.
This debt money system is at the core of all the trouble!
The money system is founded on debt and interest, where democratic Governments like USA and Philippines, which should be the nation’s arbiter, and dispenser, of both social and economic and monetary justice, has traditionally financed itself through extensive and irredeemable borrowings from the private, foreign and international bankers to the point of selling nation’s assets to pay the debts.
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution, or Confederation, not from want of honour or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.” – US President John Adams.
THE ONLY SOLUTION: DEBT FREE MONEY CREATION AND PROVIDE EXTRA BASIC INCOME OR SUPPLEMENTARY BASIC INCOME TO EVERY American citizen CITIZEN TO ENSURE ECONOMIC SECURITY FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.
If the government(s) can bail-out the banks and financial institutions in trouble, LIKEWISE, the government(s) must also “bail-out” the citizens, the constituents , the people suffering hunger because of poverty, unemployment, lack or absence of money and victims of calamities. THE GOVERNMENT EXISTS FOR THE PEOPLE, AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!
Federal Reserve bail-out is MORE THAN $14 TRILLION! – see . A 2009 bail-out stack of $14.4 trillion one-dollar bills would reach to the Moon almost 4 times, or there-and-back TWICE.]
A (US)$20,000 (equivalent) solution for every Russian – man, woman and child – annually
-
A $10, 000 equivalent (in the form of 500,000 Filipino pesos, written
“P500,000″) solution for every Flipino – man, woman and child – annually
Etc., etc.
IN OTHER WORDS:
A
GUARANTEED, NON-MEANS TESTED, SUPPLEMENTARY BASIC ANNUAL INCOME for
every man, woman and child on Earth, regardless of nationality, from
cradle to grave.
This MUST be done in the 21st Century, before the next major economic shock hits humanity!
We
must put an end to the current debt-based and debt-related poverty
which is a savage cruelty imposed on many, intolerably bearing down,
stifling, shameful, suffocating and murderous. Enough! It must END in
the 21st Century, by our demanding DEBT-FREE MONEY CREATION and by SUPPLEMENTARY ANNUAL BASIC INCOME for every human being – man, woman and child – on Earth.
The solution is, therefore, summed up in the slogan:
“Bail-out for the people, YES! Bail-out for the bankers, NO!”
Let
us cease all unnecessary complex, redundant and endless debates about
what to do. Let us cease with our dissensions and ambiguities. We need
to be wholeheartedly COMMITTED to achieving this result, for the good
of all humanity!
Let us help one another to
pressure our governments to give us what is due to us – NOT to the
bankers! And this is due to us, NOT as a charity, but for the sake of
economic and monetary justice for all humanity.
Let us stop our hypocrisy, egoism and bureaucracy, and insist on the implementation of this solution.
BAIL-OUT FOR THE PEOPLE: a national annual dividend, which is to say a supplementary basic annual income, arising from debt free money creation, and a Monetary Reform Act
is the simple, straightforward, ultimate, right, just and fair solution to the present economic and financial problems of the world.
If we follow it through, a number of tremendous benefits will help humanity at large in the following ways:
1. No more unnecessary material – and, *ipso facto*, monetary – poverty
2. No more homelessness
3. No more hunger, malnutrition and starvation
4. No more unemployment, as everyone can be potentially self-employed at his/her productive initiative
5. No more inflation, since there would be sufficient purchasing power in the hands of every man, woman and child
6. Far less crime, or no more
poverty-related or money-related crimes
7. Little, or possibly no more, discrimination on the basis or race or sex
8. Fewer threats of war
9. Fewer threats of rebellion and insurrection
10. Fewer rallies and insurrections
11. Less environmental degradation
12. Less beggary and unnecessary mendicancy
13. Happy communities and happy nations
14. Happy working conditions and work-force
15. Fewer bankruptcies, or possibly, no more bankruptcies at all
16. Fewer illegal activities, or possibly no more illegal activities at all
17. Less killing of – or, possibly, no more killing of – innocent born and unborn
children
18. Less suicide – or possibly no more suicide – because of poverty, unemployment and money problems
19. Fewer cases of divorce – or possibly no more divorce and family breakdowns – caused by money problems.
20. Less overseas aid or foreign aid necessary, or possibly no more necessity of massive foreign aid from foreign taxpayers
21. Less brain drain – or possibly no more brain – from each nation on Earth, except by choice
22.
Less sending out of overseas workers, or possibly no need of sending
our people overseas for overseas employment, who oftentimes suffer
exploitation and abuses.
Pragmatically, this extra basic income can be of help to every man, woman and child:
1. For “rainy days” or in times of calamity
2. For their old age, as pension is almost always not enough
3. For their hospital stay and additional medical costs
4. For educational, cultural and religious travel, etc.
5. For primary, secondary university and post-university education, to liberate people from tuition-fee debt-bondage
6. For house or shelter / home security.
There
are other great benefits – probably hundreds and maybe even thousands
- if supplementary basic income for every person is given as a matter
of economic BIRTHRIGHT: not as a matter of welfare or dole-out, nor as
a charity, but as a birthright.
FAILURE TO DO THIS – WHICH IS THE ONLY THING REQUIRED IN THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES – WILL CAUSE US TO REGRET NOT HAVING DONE IT.
Eric V. Encina
Comment by Eric V. Encina on April 7, 2010Filipino Social Crediter/Monetary Reformer
Filipino Alternative Solutions For Sustainable Survival Movement
c/o Lito Alhambra Old House, Homesite, Km2,
Brgy. Lawa-an, PO Box 8 , 5800 Roxas City ,
Capiz Province, Philippines
ericencina@yahoo.com
Mobile Phone Number 09083283387
Richard
You have beautifully articulated what I have been thinking for years!
Comment by PHI on April 7, 2010This would be a much saner world if put into practice.
Richard,
What if you or a collaboration of your readers created a board game based on your principles. Similar to that other board game, commerce would be the medium of play. It could have many dimensions beyond just real estate or could be focused on a chosen market. Playing the game would illustrate your princilpes and be instructional to the masses on the functionality of your principles. Could be a money maker too. Better yet, it could awaken peoples minds all over the world. I would hope that any profits be forwarded to support your efforts.
Richard W.
Comment by Richard W. on April 7, 2010To Richard W
This is such a GREAT idea. Couldn’t you perchance talk to someone with game experience to get the ball rolling?
Comment by Donna Gaddis on April 8, 2010[...] Creation”–Stupid Is as Stupid Does by Richard C. Cook Global Research, April 9, 2010 Richard C. Cook – [...]
Pingback by The Survivalist Forum » Blog Archive » “Job Creation”–Stupid Is as Stupid Does on April 9, 2010Richard Cook for President !
Comment by Sir Burton on April 30, 2010Mr Cook,
Whilst I’m in agreement that the present usurious financial system us detrimental to society and needs radical reform, I’m concerned about the utopianism of your alternative.
What would happen to the family structure under a scheme of “dividends for all”? Western civilisation was built on a strong family unit with clearly defined gender roles: man as provider, woman as nurturer. Other cultures have been based on different family models, with results that I don’t think we should emulate.
Already womens’ economic independence has resulted in high divorce rates and below replacement fertility rates in Western societies.
Contrary to social credit theory, the primary purpose of wealth-production is not consumption, but accumulation for the benefit of future generations. This is the only non-selfish AND psychologically realistic motivator for economic activity.
In short I’m concerned about your scheme for the same reason I’m opposed to single parent payments and paid maternity-leave; namely, it implies that men’s traditional, biologically-based role in the family be made obsolete, and tends to social fragmentation.
Comment by clarence caddell on June 16, 2010I like the idea of basic income guarantee. I believe basic income would solve a lot of (individual, social and economic) problems, not just in the U.S. but also here in Europe and worldwide. But first of all – it would give everybody the most possible freedom to create and live their life as they want. It’s ridiculous to say we are free individuals, most people are not, the system now is much more like slavery.
Maybe you heard, in some European countries, at least what I know for sure in Austria, Germany, France and Switzerland, there are citizens’ initiatives for a basic income guarantee.
Comment by Jada on June 27, 2010