Ted Rall for December 02, 2013

Economics as practiced by government isn’t metaphysical, it is a stew of surreality, lies, and fantasy….

Yeah, because it’s so easy and reliable to start your own business with zero capital.

Abortion isn’t relevant to this cartoon or fudging economic numbers..Being pregnant is (mostly) preventable, the woman has all the power to exercise choice whether to engage is sex and how much to risk (level of protection)(rape being the exception), whereas losing your job rarely is.

First off economic measures WERE good, not before Obama but probably up until the 80’s, at which point under the fault of nobody the computer started to truly come to light.

It is now possible to effectively eliminate jobs without diminishing productivity.

As a result several things might be recommended with various pros and cons. As two examples

1. Shortened work week, a fairly logical conclusion, less labor same value = you give fewer hours with slightly greater pay, to make it easy you go from working 8 hours / day to 6 hours, and go from 10$ /h to 12.50/h, in Canada a few government agencies have done this

Pros - Easy to implement- Provides more free time to people- May open up window to more people , fewer hours

Cons

- pay not guarantied to scale- Comes across issues with debts - difficulties depending on sector

2. Open up development banks, As said earlier it is hard to start up businesses with 0 capital, the internet has done a wonderful job at allowing some very low capital ventures. The problem is that this is not enough, By federally funding development banks it would be possible to allow for more start ups (large amounts of jobs produced) with machinery that keeps these new companies on a competitive level

Pros- Boosts employment- Greater production- Social mobility ( money begets money, most people have none, but together it is a massive pool)- may be used to sponsor various initiatives through private – public compacts

Cons- Difficult to implement- risk of default- trying to set good criteria- how is liability defined

First off economic measures WERE good, not before Obama but probably up until the 80’s, at which point under the fault of nobody the computer started to truly come to light.

It is now possible to effectively eliminate jobs without diminishing productivity.

As a result several things might be recommended with various pros and cons. As two examples

1. Shortened work week, a fairly logical conclusion, less labor same value = you give fewer hours with slightly greater pay, to make it easy you go from working 8 hours / day to 6 hours, and go from 10$ /h to 12.50/h, in Canada a few government agencies have done this

Pros - Easy to implement- Provides more free time to people- May open up window to more people , fewer hours

Cons

- pay not guarantied to scale- Comes across issues with debts - difficulties depending on sector

2. Open up development banks, As said earlier it is hard to start up businesses with 0 capital, the internet has done a wonderful job at allowing some very low capital ventures. The problem is that this is not enough, By federally funding development banks it would be possible to allow for more start ups (large amounts of jobs produced) with machinery that keeps these new companies on a competitive level

Pros- Boosts employment- Greater production- Social mobility ( money begets money, most people have none, but together it is a massive pool)- may be used to sponsor various initiatives through private – public compacts

Cons- Difficult to implement- risk of default- trying to set good criteria- how is liability defined

You do realize that singlespeed is being sarcastic, right****I’m glad you pointed that out. There are so many right-wingers who make that argument, I was convinced singlespeed was one of them. (I haven’t followed this member, so I had no way of knowing.) :)

Gaunt, Michael is correct. The widely reported “U3” unemployment rate has been calculated pretty much the same way for decades. The BLS changed the label from U5 to U3 in 1994, but it has been calculated the same way. Any honest comparison uses U5 for pre-1994 & U3 from post-1994.U6 is a more comprehensive number, but disliked by some because it includes some subjectivity. It includes part timers & people not looking for a job, who say they’d like a full time job. It’s hard to know how many of them have a desire for a real full time job, & how many want a full time job that involves important duties like reading & commenting on the Internet Funny Pages.There is no direct comparison for the U6 number from before 1994. It’s probably a better measure than it’s predecessors.http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1995/10/art3full.pdfThose pointing to the U6 as a more accurate measure of “real” unemployment have a good case to make. Those who pretend that it hasn’t been reported & measured the same way since 1994 are wrong.

“What Ted Rall describes works especially well when the Obama administration deliberately fudges the unemployment figures.”According to you & a guy who was fired by the Census Bureau in 2010.

The economy was pretty good until Bush and his half black twin ruined it.

Clinton was a giant compared to these two.

BTW: I’m a conservative Republican.

Hey Ted: I see they don’t like the way you have been drawing the messiah (small m).

What – they just noticed ???

Your still my favorite commie..

If they are talent-less and have no job skills they can draw comics.-—-That’s rich….Since you suggest that drawing comics takes no talent, let’s see a sample of your work.

Too many ways to massage the numbers to hide the real deficit in good paying jobs. The Plutocrats by-and-large like this arrangement they caused.-——

Who needs talent when it’s capital-bashing and rich-murdering comics? Just look at minimum security if you want to see how a high-on-Che extremist draws comics.-—Can you enlighten the rest of us with just WTH you’re talking about?.What are “rich-murdering comics”?.What do you mean with “minimum security” as it relates to “high-on-Che extremist”? .Are you referring to Guevara? How might that connect with this discussion?.I suspect you’ve been indulging in those mind-altering activities again, that make you believe you’re making sense to others.

Thanks for this awesome one Ted. I especially like the last panel about Economics. I’ve wanted to have a T-shirt that says “I don’t believe in The Economy” or maybe something more obviously parallel to an atheism argument. You line about Metaphysical Religion is better.

Ever since James Carville this bizarre notion that economic thought is a liberal or leftist cause has prevailed. There was an organised radical objection to that in the Anti-Free Trade movements of the late 90s. But then 9/11 and patriotic stifling of dissent narrowed the parameters of the political discussion.

Occupy was a flash in the pan. One reason it may have failed, among others, was the theoretical incoherence of so many claiming to represent it… some in favour and some against our ideology of the economy.