Does putting people back to work have anything to do with fixing the economy?

[C......N......C]

Is it the main thing or just one of the things? I still can't understand how liquidity helps if it does not start new jobs right now ? I get the impression that liquidity is the solution in itself.

[Deja Q]

1. Only if the jobs allow people to make an income to save, enjoy, AND invest.

That's the point of our middle-class-based economy, and why we are being told to spend.

The flow of money.

It has to start somewhere.

It starts with the workers.

[lunatica]

2. Can you expound?

Do you mean that the consumer is ground zero as the worst victim of the failed economy as well as the necessary creator of any financial stability and growth? It's Catch 22 isn't it? Oh! The irony! We're both the mortally wounded victims as well as the Messiahs keeping it all on life support.

[C......N......C]

4. I think the solution is to put people to work and let them spend money.

Getting the ball rolling with money spent by people that have the security of jobs.

[Heidi]

3. If people have money to spend, it's bound to help, even if only a little right now.

I'm not sure how much the "once bitten, twice shy" principle works with consumers just now, but in my experience, even those with some liquidity are being extremely careful.

[Oregone]

5. "I get the impression that liquidity is the solution in itself"

Its not a solution at all, because even the most liquid investors will not risk it now when negative ROI is predicted on many investments. Ensuring that there is a healthy consumer/working class is the only way to ensure that investments are more profitable in the first place. The solution starts at the bottom.

[sutz12]

6. IMO, it's the key item overall

We can't force prices low enough with crazy supply side philosophies to sustain an economy with 10-15% unemployment.

[notadmblnd]

7. the way I see it, the more people that are working,the more people paying taxes

I've been out of the taxpaying game for 5 years now. When I was working, I contributed approximately 6 grand a year for the operation of government offices. I was also able to buy cloths, take vacations, and provide my children with some of the expensive toys that they wanted. Now a days it just bills and necessities. It just makes sense to me that the higher number of people with jobs, more money is circulated. :shrug:

[acmavm]

8. It's just one of the things. But bigger than that is reclaiming back

manufacturing, having something to sell. A 'service' economy is a joke. You have to have something to sell. Look at China. And then look at India. The Chinese have plenty to sell, a lot of it crap. But their economy is going gangbusters.

India has a 'service' economy (IT). Of course they got it from us but now they're seeing the same shit as American citizens did. Corporations are pulling out going for even cheaper countries to operate in. The fools must have missed the fact that corporate Amurika has no loyalites, are concerned with only what it good for themselves. They are not good citizens of this country, of India, or of any country.

[lunatica]

9. It's a combination of things that feed each other

Liquidity which is attached to jobs which pays a living wage, attached to regulated banking industry with limits on usury practices and the breaking up of corporate monopolies and offshoring jobs, attached to products that are kept in economic reality (affordable without having to resort to credit cards, but which may entail having to save). It's about having student loans that are not so outrageous that they'll be in debt for the rest of their lives. It's about being able to pay your taxes and get some real benefits from it in health care and social programs.

It's about using taxes to pay the way and not speculators. And if we can afford the largest damn monster military machine in the history of the world we can spend less on that and take care of the economy this year and still be the biggest military maw on the planet.

[Kansas Wyatt]

10. I second that.

We didn't just get here overnight. Everyone knows that things were getting bad for eight years, and that no real improvement was ever implemented. Everything was turned upside down and inside out, and the cannibalization just cannot be turned back overnight. The foundation itself was destroyed, and everything has to be re-built to get where we once were.

[alfredo]

11. Consumer spending drive our economy.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. depends on what you think is broken.

I think what is broken is high unemployment, low savings, deteriorating living standards, crumbling physical infrastructure, a failed health care system, a failed higher education system, a stupid and venal war on drugs big pharma can't patent, an absurdly, bankruptingly bloated military, and endless war. But that is just me. I really don't care what happens to citibank or BoA or the other billionaire boys clubs. Fuck 'em.

[lunatica]

13. look at how our government allocated our taxes and you'll see the problem

I posted a couple of pie graphs. A fraction of our military spending alone would save the economy right now


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5347680

[SoCalDem]

14. Sort of, but not entirely..

When a society lives paycheck-to-paycheck, like many do here, ANY break in income creates a tsunami of debt. This is debt that cannot be "undone" by starting a new job. Even after finding a new job, the available money to REPAY that debt will be hard to come by for a very long time, and the new job may not be paying as much as the one lost..and it may go away too:(

For people who mansged to not use credit cards to live on while unemployed, they may be planning to replenish their spent savings, or to create a savings account for the future.

So, in either scenario, these people are not likely to beat a path to Best Buy or to the mall or any other "spend-money-venue", and that makes the people who work IN those places, as vulnerable to layoffs as ever..

Service economies suck, because they rely on the spending power of their "customers", who are people just like them..paycheck to paycheck people

[TWiley]

15. Jobs have a major impact ....

If you had one million unemployeed people who could not pay your bills, or buy anything to drive jobs, would you rather:

A) Pay them welfare for no work
B) Pay them to build infrastructure, gain work skills, and pay taxes

At the end of the day, you have physical infrastructure in exchange for your tax dollars. The republican plan simply creates more prison inmates.

Another problem is the "angle of inclination" where so many people loose their jobs that govt can do nothing and it spirals downward and gets really really bad. This dynamic turns a recession into a depression

[Laelth]

16. People need jobs. Period.

Who cares whether giving people jobs will "fix" the economy? Personally, I believe it will help. Most of us have to make money in order to be able to spend money. Jobs are how most of us get money to spend. Spending money fires up the economy.

But I could care less whether creating jobs will "fix" the economy. I believe that every person who can work and wants to work ought to have a job that pays a living wage, and if the private sector can't provide such jobs, the government ought to. Why? Not to fix the economy, but because it's the right thing to do. Government is for solving problems the private sector can't solve. Right now, unemployment and underemployment are major problems.

:dem:

-Laelth