Homestead mailing list

["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

>Does this take into consideration the number of
>people who have *run out* of unemployment -
>because how can anybody tell *and add to the
>figure* except the people who aren't working ?

No.  It takes nothing into consideration but two things:  by the formula the
number of people that COULD be working at anything on any level and the
number of unemployment claims.   No determination of whether they are
actually employed, self employed,. partially employed, under employed, or
not employed at all. Only that they are available for the hypothetical
workforce.  For example I've been self employed for many years.  If I lost
all my work, I'm counted in the 'work pool' statistic but I could never be
part of the unemployed because I would never qualify for unemployment
benefits.

What this means is you can't compare 2004 with any previous year.

I'd take a real recluse, more reclusive even than I am, to look around and
not see that the 5% figure being bandied about now is measuring something
other than the number of people who are out of work.   But there's something
else here too.  The 'that's a city' aspect of this is a reflection of the
current economic reality as it runs contrary to our expectations.   "Jobs"
in the traditional sense may be a thing will play a minor role in our
economy as time goes on, a paradigm that is quickly becoming an anachronism.
The thing that should give us a collective pause is that our indoctrination
('education' if you must) is geared entirely toward the old, outdated
paradigm.  Gasping "Oh my God, look at how many jobs are gone!"  may soon be
as much of an anachronism as saying "look at how many apprenticeships are
gone, look at how many indentured servitude opportunities are gone, look at
how many sharecropping opportunities are gone".

Methinks we are feeling the first breeze wafting in from a major shift in
the economic paradigm that is afoot.

James