People need livelihood, not make-work jobs

Posted by Guest Blogger on Sunday, 08 May 2011 22:43.

by Alexander Baron

According to a recent UK survey, four people out of five polled believe the long-term unemployed should be compelled to do (unpaid) community work to qualify for their benefits – an idea known to Americans as workfare, and one that has long been more than a belief on the other side of the Pond. Now that Nick Clegg’s alternative vote idea has been well and truly routed, and David Cameron’s hand has been strengthened, there is a real possibility of something like this happening. The concept of the undeserving poor is of course one that predates workfare by a fair few centuries, and was what resulted in a now thankfully long defunct institution known as the workhouse.

The idea that the majority or a large minority of the unemployed are “scroungers” is a mindset that is hard to dispel, but there are distinctly unpleasant consequences of endorsing it. If the unemployed are put to work for a pittance, then real wages are depressed and real jobs lost; the unions have long realised this, which is the major reason they have always opposed such schemes here.

David Cameron’s much vaunted “big society”, a concept which only he seems to understand, is based on the same philosophy. When he talks about people volunteering, what he really means is working for nothing. A graphic example of that has recently come to light with the revelation that many senior police officers who have been forcibly retired by West Midlands Police have been invited back. As unpaid special constables.

When Margaret Thatcher succeeded James Callaghan as Prime Minister in May 1979, one of her first acts was to award the police a massive pay rise, probably sensing she would need them on her side in the coming confrontation with the unions. It may be now that the police officers who were enthusiastically bashing heads on the anti-G20 protests have a change of heart.

All this is a matter of record and speculation, because what the unemployed need is not jobs but livelihood, indeed, we already have far too many jobs. One of the first things the new administration announced was the axing of 192 quangos. Which begs the question, if we don’t need them now, why did we need them before?

Many jobs in the financial sector are a positive drain on the economy; they consist primarily or even solely of shuffling money from A to B, from B to C, and from C back to A. The value of this money may increase – the operative word being may – but even if it does, the real wealth of the economy is not increased. Moving money around does not programme a computer, paint a fence, or grow an ear of corn. This maniacal shuffling of paper is the main reason for the recent worldwide financial collapse. The uselessness, the sheer stupidity of allowing it, was demonstrated graphically in South Korea two years ago in a bizarre experiment in which a parrot outperformed human investors. And last October, the BBC’s Panorama programme revealed that pension funds are in effect plundered by fund managers. One expert who appeared on the programme, Tom McPhail, made the point that most fund managers fail to beat the market, and that is before fund charges, commissions and other expenses, which begs the question, why do people invest in these funds, and more to the point, why does the government allow them to exist?

So what is the solution? The solution begins by recognising the real problem. What the unemployed need is not jobs but money in their pockets – spending power. Obviously printing money is one answer, but if simply printing money were all it takes, Zimbabwe would be one of the richest countries on Earth instead of one of the most desperate. The difference between Britain and Zimbabwe is that in Britain, the shops are full of goods while in Zimbabwe they are half-empty at best. But cheap money is the lifeblood of the economy, any economy. Not cheap money for the speculators and money changers so they can use it to create more debts, but for small businesses, students, pensioners, and the unemployed.

The proof of this pudding is in the eating; in war-time, the government provides a constant flow of cheap money to manufacture ordnance, to transport troops, and so on. At the moment the United States has its troops in numerous countries around the world, and there is never any question raised as to how it can afford this, yet at the the same time, tent cities have sprung up all over America because money can’t be found to house the homeless.

Britain is not in quite the same position as the US, in particular it has been subjugated to the Treaty of Maastricht which proscribes it from printing money to finance its deficit, although the Bank of England has no qualms or problems with creating credit by Quantitatative Easing – gilt edged securities - which are in effect given to the banks to sell to the money changers. If the government would simply create this credit debt-free, it would save billions in interest, something that was recommended by the Economic Research Council as long ago as 1981 in its publication Government Debt And Credit Creation, and even then, this was nothing new.

If the Government does not have the will to withdraw from the Maastricht Treaty, there are alternative methods of providing finance for public works, reducing public debt and distributing purchasing power to the unemployed such as vouchers, and local currencies. To date neither David Cameron nor anyone in the coalition has given any indication that they are even aware of such alternatives, which means the prospects for those at bottom will continue to look grim as technology continues to replace menial jobs, and create what the David Camerons of this world can only interpret as a vast pool of unemployed who can only be paid provided they are prepared to work, however counterproductive that work may be.

This article appeared first in Digital Journal.

Tags: Economics & Finance

Comments:

Posted by Rollory on Mon, 09 May 2011 01:34 | #

Good article.

This would seem to be part of the point of having a nation - arranging society, or allowing it to arrange itself, such that most people can find a place for themselves.

Posted by Bill on Mon, 09 May 2011 08:19 | #

So what is the solution? The solution begins by recognising the real problem

The real problem is there are too many people, soon, within the lifetime of most readers here, Britain will have increased its population to 70 million and beyond. I wonder what our real rate of annual population growth is? Immigration into Britain is running at a figure of something like half a million a year, add to this figure the home grown increased birth rate by foreign born parents and the total annual increase could be approaching best part of a million. Does anybody know?

World population is increasing at the rate of something like 70 million annually. The idea that every man and women in the world can be provided with a meaningful paid job of work - is a no brainer.

As an aside, Gordon Brown was going to embark on a housing project of building three million new homes to accommodate this immigration demand. Where are these house? I think the idea was scrapped.

Over at the website of Migration Watch there is a standing notice telling the reader that a new home needs to be built every six minutes for ever in order to keep pace.

I read where Britain cannot grow or provide sufficient food for its own people, so where is the money generated to purchase the necessary imports? Where is the future engine room for growth in order sustain an exponentially growing population?

I learn that money is conjured from thin air and lent out at interest, jeese what a scam, better still, at the click of a mouse gazillions can be generated. The creation and issuance of money by private banks is the ultimate tool of control and since funny money (electronic) came into being with the emergence of the computer, control is even more complete. What next? the implanted chip?

Why do governments borrow money at interest when they could print their own?

This post above touches on a whole raft of issues that do not not make sense and contribute to our woes, maybe thoughts for a future essay.

Posted by Dirty Bull on Mon, 09 May 2011 08:45 | #

FACT:
If all post 1945 immigrants and their spawn were kicked out, there would be absolutely no ‘shortage of jobs’ in the UK.

Bill, I am pretty certain that the actual numbers of indigenous Britons has declined since the mid-1970s at least.All population increase since then - together with a considerable amount of actual replacement has been down to immigration.I have no doubr that there were substantially more real Brits kicking about in 1951 than there are now.What we are seeing is Salterian replacement - nothing more, nothingless.
A little thought experiment.Have a wonder around such an are as London’s Newham, particular on a busy Saturday afternoon.Walk the streets, the High Streets, Stratford shopping centre etc, Green Lane, Upton Road, Roman Road and all the rest of it.Walk down the back streets - every single semi or terrace is occupied by a sub con family.Just think, in 1951, all those houses were occupied by Englishmen.What happened to all those Englishmen? - Why, with the magic of 60 years, they simply disappeared - they simply ceased to exist, they fell off the face of the Earth - it is direct, man-for-man replacement.
As for food supplies and trade balances etc, Britain is antion that exists on bullshit.Most food is imported as are most manufactures, we make fuck-all anymore.That’s why we’ve got so many useless louts kicking about.So how do we pay for all those imported goodies? Why, by importing vast sums of capital from the far-east to blow up a housing bubble (caused by immigration).Now Brit interest rates are zero, and the Japs have repatriated all their cash, there is fuck-all money in this country - hence depression and mass unemployment.
You see it was the ‘wog-pump’ (importing millions upon millions of low paid, low wage pliant wog labour as domestic servants, whores. security guards etc for the city rich-list) that kept the Oriental capital flowing in to pump up property prices by shortage.Now that money is gone and we are fucked.We make nothing, consume shit-loads, have got millions of mumbling non-Englissh speaking useless wogs to support, let alone our own workless.
That really was the extent of the Cowdenbeast’s economic genius - priming the wog pump.
On the brightside, London is flooded by Brazilian whores, all scrabbling to make a few bob in the unforgivig ant-hill.Never has the price of a ‘good rogering’ been cheaper.

Posted by Stephen on Mon, 09 May 2011 08:51 | #

The real problem is immigrants soaking up jobs or coming here to scrounge of benefits. Deport all the Darkies, Muslims, and Jews and the majority of our social and financial problems will evaporate overnight.

Posted by no on Tue, 10 May 2011 05:08 | #

Well GW you wanted to know why more people don’t support the BNP, its leftist trash like this post thats why.

“David Cameron’s hand has been strengthened, there is a real possibility of something like this happening.”

I guess you don’t know Britain very well because ‘workfare’ is already happening and has been for a long time. 5 million + people are employed in the public sector vastly more than any other times in our history (and many more indirectly).
Ofcourse there are many very valuable jobs done in the public sector, but very many that are not, and worse many actually cause damage to the rest of the economy, for starters anything related to ‘climate change’, or ‘equality’ legislation.

“If the unemployed are put to work for a pittance, then real wages are depressed and real jobs lost; the unions have long realised this, which is the major reason they have always opposed such schemes here.”

If the unions think that their ‘highly skilled’ members who they argue deserve ever increasing wages are going to have their position threatened by a bunch of unskilled scroungers working for a pittance then that ruins their own arguement about the high value of their own members.

“One of the first things the new administration announced was the axing of 192 quangos. Which begs the question, if we don’t need them now, why did we need them before?”

The purpose of many of these ‘quangos’ is to allow the government to shift policy away from parliament and enable them to install their friends at the top of these quangos, who then implement the will of the executive without the full scrutiny of parliament. Its a ruse by the establishment. If something goes wrong then the goverment blames it on the quango and escapes blame. Something the labour party was particularly keen on in the last 13 years, and something I doubt the coalition will do much to address.

“Many jobs in the financial sector are a positive drain on the economy;”

Agreed, but many are not. We do need an efficent allocation of capital, some kind of financial sector is needed. It is the government who has allowed mergers of several huge financial institutions/banks in recent years and protected them from loss that has contributed to creating the bloated system we have now.

“Obviously printing money is one answer, but”

There is no ‘but’ printing money is not a solution it is infact an insane idea, perhaps you work for the Federal reserve?
When you print money you devalue that money and in doing so you steal the value out of peoples pockets.
There is a reason all fiat currenies have failed in the long run, they are based on faith that the money will retain its value, if you continually counterfeit that money as you are proposing the curreny in the end collapses, and who is hurt most? not the counterfeiting elites, banks and such who get to spend the fake money first, no, ordinary working men and women who find wealth they thought they had turns to dust.

“The proof of this pudding is in the eating; in war-time, the government provides a constant flow of cheap money to manufacture ordnance, to transport troops, and so on.”

Dude…. you don’t know what you are talking about.
Britain had an empire before WW2, we bankrupted ourselves fighting WW1 and WW2, we exited those wars with huge debts that we have only recently finished paying off.

Productivity is the root of economic success, being able to produce more with less inputs, either labour, materials or both. Not government printed funny money
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Economy-Grows-Why-Crashes/dp/047052670X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305000332&sr=1-1