🚀 go-pugleaf

Jim Blair wrote:
> 
> >> >> "Jim Blair" <jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote :
> >> >> >
> >> >> > ??? As ever fewer people have been able to make ever more (and better)
> >> >> > goods because of higher productuvity, the fraction of the population
> >> >> > employed has increased, and family incomes have increased to their highest
> >> >> > levels ever.
> >>
> >> >Mark Martin wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> That makes no sense at all.  "...fewer people making goods means more people
> >> >> are employed."
> >>
> >> Peter Lawrence <peterl@netlink.com.au> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >Actually, you've read in the "means more". While what he is driving at is not
> >> >actually what is happening (everywhere), it is consistent to have both more
> >> >employment and more productivity - IF there is vastly more output.
> >>
> Jim Blair:
> >>
> >> And I was not generalizing  about "everywhere", just about the USA.
> 
> Peter Lawrence <peterl@netlink.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >A couple of points here.
> >
> >The behaviour in question is flowing over national boundaries, so you only
> >get a full description by looking around.
> >
> >And when postings are going on a WORLD wide web (half the newsgroups getting
> >this are non-US), whatever your personal intentions, if you don't make that
> >explicit you are not getting your message across very well. By now I know
> >where you are coming from - but you should make your specifics less implicit
> >if you want to avoid confusion.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry if I was unclear.  Note that the thread title and the reference to
> BLS and Census data is clearly for the USA.

Note that you are wrong, possibly from applying your preconceptions again.

The thread title is "Re: MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT DROPS TO 1962 LOWS!!!!", 
which has no mention of the USA.

Nothing about BLS or census says "this is the USA" - EXCEPT to people who 
recognise it as such, who are likely to be American. For instance, I had not 
heard of BLS before, and Australia recently had a census.

Sorry to rub it in, but I do feel it is important to show you what you are 
doing without realising.

> 
> > And yes, there has been vastly more output... (in the USA bur also in the world as well.  Except maybe Africa :-(

I may have different ideas of "vastly", and of course when I use a subjective 
sort of word like that I am comparing it with requirements imposed on us by 
the economy and not simply on amounts produced in the past. For example, it 
is getting harder to attain marriage and a family, housing, etc.

.
.
.
> Jim Blair:
> 
> >>
> >> Talking about Australia again?
> 
> Peter Lawrence <peterl@netlink.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >No. If you DO look at that material, which was written for an Australian
> >audience, you will find Australian examples and illustrations. However the
> >whole thing has also been brought out in a British context by Professor Kim
> >Swales of the University of Strathclyde. In a model using the British
> >equivalent of GST, VAT, Professor Swales found that an NPT set at 5% of
> >average UK wages would lead to serious improvements in both employment and
> >GDP, under a number of varying assumptions. You can find his material within
> 
> >http://www.faxfn.org at
> >http://www.faxfn.org/feedback/right/issue_03/jobs_tax.htm#23feb98a
> 
> >.. I
> >analysed this using Game Theory (see the link in my signature below).
> >
> >As there is not currently a suitable carrying tax in the USA, that does not
> >give you a prescription, just food for thought. However other carrying taxes
> >are possible (and actually GST is a pretty bad one), and the analysis I did
> >NOT put up shows how the same things work out in developing countries, both
> >past and present. Oddly, the assistance the poor got from things like
> >commoners' privileges worked out like a "Universal Basic Income" set too low
> >to survive off in isolation. That is the key aspect; the Australian Greens
> >are advocating a "Guaranteed Adequate Income", when what would actually work
> >(long term) is a "Guaranteed INadequate Income". And Negative Income Tax
> >approaches, including your own EITC in the USA, also come in the same body of
> >policy.
> >
> >That only describes end results, not transitions. The NPT approach minimises
> >transitional problems and funding problems.
> 
> I agree that the USA may be unusual.

Not in how it stands up under this analysis, only in the material available 
to work with which could be used to apply the insights, e.g. the kind of 
carrying tax for an NPT available, not whether one would work.

  Europe (at least many of the EU
> countries) have had problems with unemployment for decades. I doubt that
> this is the result of automation and increased productivity, but that case
> could be claimed.

To the extent that the analysis is correct, there is an externality going on. 
That is, the analysis only goes to how production is distributed between 
labour and capital, not to the amount of production available to be done. 
However, that leaves a number of things out - in particular, just where 
things are being spilled over. So you cannot look at Europe's employment 
problems without looking at the global economy, once you have wider trade. It 
may well be that Europe's problems are flowing on from elsewhere as well as 
emerging internally - and vice versa, the USA's better outcomes may not 
relate to better policies there, except in the sense of clawing back more 
effectively.

I found a similar pattern recently when going over a comparative work about 
Australia's and Argentina's economic histories. It seems that Argentina's 
problems were compounded by transfer (pecuniary) externalities giving 
advantages to comparable countries that didn't pursue Argentinian policies - 
but that doesn't mean that if all those countries had stayed off those 
policies they would all have been as well off as Australia actually was. They 
would all have been concentrating on increasing productivity in agricultural 
exports, and that wouldn't have boosted their total incomes much since the 
total market would have remained about the same. As it was, Australia gained 
a larger amount of agricultural exports by gaining a larger share of them 
through lower prices etc., from a comparative advantage that flowed from 
improved productivity other comparable countries didn't have.

> 
> >
> >  Didn't "Women's Lib" reach down-under yet?
> >
> >Where did that come from? What has feminism got to do with these issues? Am I
> >missing something? PML.
> >
> 
> Most of the increase in the US "employment rate" during the last 40 years
> has been because of the increase in working wives.  I say this is mostly
> the result of the rise of the "Women's Lib" movement.  But at any rate,
> they would not be "working" (for pay outside the home) unless the jobs
> existed.
> 
> http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834/wwives.txt

Well, that's a circular sort of thing. As the jobs themselves mostly don't 
need particular sexes, this more reflects changes in the participation rate 
than in employment. But, to the extent that they are in households with some 
of the older behaviours, they are following the developing country pattern of 
only needing top up wages. However, since this does not apply across the 
board, rather than raising the competitivity of labour versus capital it 
makes some workers more competitive than others and does not increase 
employment much. With greater increase in participation, you have both 
increasing employment and increasing non-discretionary unemployment - and it 
is the last that is a problem, unlike the discretionary choice of 
non-participation (what we used to call leisure). PML.

-- 
GST+NPT=JOBS

I.e., a Goods and Services Tax (or almost any other broad based production 
tax), with a Negative Payroll Tax, promotes employment. 

See http://users.netlink.com.au/~peterl/publicns.html#AFRLET2 and the other 
items on that page for some reasons why.