Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[brightness]

Economics stagnation/deterioration is just another way of saying transactions are taking place less frequently; i.e division of labor / specialization / efficiency is cut back in the reduced volume of exchanges. Our existing tax and regulatory structure is a huge factor in preventing the buyers and sellers from meeting each others' terms; e.g. if the buyer of labor is not willing to pay 15% (payroll tax) more than what the seller of labor wants, no transaction; if buyer and seller both agree to a job for $7/hr, no legal job can take place because it's banned by minimum wage law. With the graduating 2010 class facing nearly 50% unemployment rate, perhaps all of them should be declared "illegals" so that our normal tax and regulatory rules do not apply to them, so they can at least find some kind of jobs. LOL.

Keep in mind, our living standards is not so much a function of employment rate (North Koreans have 100% employment rate, doing make-belief jobs for their communist government and getting paid exactly how much their output is worth, minus the cost of maintaining the jackboots) . . . but dependent on the amount of actual goods and services produced. Lower cost labor source is not just a cure during economic expansion, but plays a far more important role during economic contraction: keep the economy going while people used to high wages adjust slowly to the new reality.

As previously explained, jobs belong to the buyer of labor, not the seller of labor (http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=50950178); therefore, someone willing to do the same work but demand twice the pay the employer offers is talking (or dreaming) about an altogether different job. A UAW worker's $70/hr job is not the same job as the replacement worker doing the same work for $17/hr. Any attempt to pretend the two are the same, and the former should be maintained just means the rest of the country has to subsidize that old job. The economic pay scale (i.e. the cost of doing things) is very much part of the job description . . . otherwise, I'd very much like give myself a job picking up your trash for $10million per day. No, Americans are not willing to take many of the jobs on the offer, for a variety of reasons.