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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Unemployment shifting
Message-ID: <1248@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 11:43:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1248
Posted: Mon Sep 15 11:43:33 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Sep-86 01:38:18 EDT
References: <1291@drutx.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
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> []
> 
> >    From me (tim sevener): 
> >> >This is patent nonsense.
> >> 
> >> >[some stuff about government jobs]
> >> 
> >> >But to say the government provides no jobs is absolutely ridiculous!
> >> >             tim sevener  whuxn!orb
> >> 
> >> I never said it doesn't provide jobs; just that they must come at the
> >> expense of other jobs.  Do you think they are free?  Dammit Tim, where
> >> the hell do you think wealth/jobs come from?  Do you think they fall out
> >> of the sky?
> >> 
> >> David Olson
> 
> >So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the
> >Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the
> >Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*???
> >What jobs?
> >If Pres. Roosevelt and the Congress had not provided money to put
> 
> Provided???  Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source*
> of this wealth?   Where did they get it?  Did they generate it themselves?
> 
> Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes
> from the private sector via taxes.
> 
> David Olson

Again, David, I think you should read Keynes or some books which explain
Keynesian theory.  The problem is with the savings and investment rate.
During Depressions savings is stuck in a trap.  There is no point in
the private sector making investments because there is already overproduction
which cannot be bought because 33% of the people are unemployed and
have no money to buy the goods which might be produced with more
investment.  In fact not only is there no demand for *new* investment,
those investments already made are notoriously underutilized.
As I mentioned previously, the rate at which potential industrial capacity
was utilized during the Great Depression was between 50 and 70%.

The government by providing employment in some ways is *forcing*
investments in such things as dams, roads, schools, conservation projects
and so on.  But in so doing that 33% of the people previously
doing *nothing* are now actually working *productively* creating
power plants, roads and so forth.  Meanwhile they now have money
in their pockets with which to buy goods, which they could not do
while unemployed. Their purchase of goods then means greater utilization
of factories previously idle.  Which in turn means more people work
to make money to buy more goods.

The fundamental point is that unemployment is *unproductive*!
                   tim sevener whuxn!orb