My comments on MMT’s job guarantee idea

Over the holidays, a debate broke out in the blogosphere about the so-called job guarantee idea that the MMT folks have bandied about. I call this controversial idea “Unemployment Insurance for the 21st Century”, something I first addressed in 2009, based on a post by Randall Wray.

My view: a job guarantee will never happen in the US unless we have a deep Depression like the one that began in 1929. Politically, this idea is a non-starter on this side of the Atlantic

Nonlinear Thinking: The Robot Soldier

Great piece from our friends at Al Jazeera. Looks like the military is no longer going to be the “employer of last resort.” Future veterans are going to highly trained in the cutting edge technology that will shape the next hundred years. Gives new meaning to “boots bots on the ground.”

Unemployment Insurance for the 21st Century: The Job Guarantee as an Alternative to Enforced Idleness

A new universal direct job creation program would improve working conditions in the private sector as employees would have the option of moving into the JG program. Hence, private sector employers would have to offer a wage and benefit package and working conditions at least as good as those offered by the JG program. The informal sector would shrink as workers become integrated into formal employment, gaining access to protection provided by labor laws

Nonlinear Thinking: The Robot Farmer

In the ongoing series of posts on technology’s threat to existing labor roles, Global Macro Monitor highlights this video on robot farmers

Welcome to Amazon Town

The Wall Street Journal’s Stu Woo reports on how Amazon ramps up for the Christmas selling season in a much-read write-up for the paper with a focus on the thoughts of holiday season workers like 75-year old Ray Williams and his wife Sarann. Is this what retirement looks like in the

Nonlinear Thinking: Drone Flight-Assembled High Rise Construction

Imagine if/when this becomes scalable. Another potential example of the structural change taking place in the labor force

More Charts of the Day: Italy Works Over 20% More Hours Than Germany and France

The stereotype of lazy southern Europe and the hard working North is just not reflected in the data. We came across this BLS data set over the weekend which was very enlightening and, in part, smashes this widely held generalization

Nonlinear Thinking: Drone Valet Parking Attendents

If this doesn’t convince you we’re on the elbow of the technology exponential curve, nothing will. Stay tuned, it’s going to be interesting next 20 years!

Men Are from the Feds, Women from State and Local

Here’s some interesting data from the Atlantic that shouldn’t have surprised us, but was an eye opener, nonetheless. The U.S. Federal payrolls are dominated by men and state and local government by women

The Collapse of Construction Employment

Here’s a great chart from the BLS showing the collapse of construction employment from May 2006-10. No surprise the largest declines are in the four housing bubble states — Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and California. Stunning employment in this sector is down 40-55 percent and one reason why the traditional monetary transmission mechanism is broken — lower rates sparks construction spending and thus hiring of construction workers

Michael Hudson on the erosion of democracy

Michael Hudson was on RT’s Capital Account with Lauren Lyster, speaking about the loss of democracy that has accompanied the global financial crisis. The video is below, but recently Michael also wrote two articles for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he gives one a more in depth view of his perspective

Chart of the Day: U.S. Payroll Employment By Industry, November 2011

A breakdown of employment gains and losses by industry plus an excerpt of what the BLS had to say about this morning’s employment report