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Post by jeffolie on Dec 24, 2008 14:58:19 GMT -6
Each job Obama creates will cost $250,000 The Obama administration’s goal of creating 3 million new jobs by January 2011 will run smack into “the natural demographic flow, which will add 3.2 million people to the workforce” in the same time period, O’Neill said. In effect, “we are going to spend $750 billion, the number of unemployed will rise and the (unemployment) rate will go down slightly.” O’Neill did the math so you don’t have to. Each job “will cost $250,000, which doesn’t suggest much labor intensity for the dollars spent,” he said. “It makes me wonder if any of the planners or commentators are good at arithmetic.” They’re not good at arithmetic. And one wonders about their facility with economics. If putting people to work is the goal, we could get rid of all the heavy earth-moving equipment and go back to digging ditches with shovels. Why stop there? If it takes one man two days to dig a trench three feet deep and 30 feet long with a shovel, how long would it take 100 men using spoons? Just think how many jobs could be created if they used tiny spoons? themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2008/12/enduring-appeal-of-government-job.html
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Post by graybeard on Dec 24, 2008 15:22:37 GMT -6
I saw this on Bloomberg.
You have to weigh the cost of spoons vs. shovels vs. heavy equipment. The city paid a contractor thousands to dig a ditch 60' long and 4' deep on our street recently. You should have seen all the different machines they hauled in on large trucks, and in the end it wasn't any quicker than a couple of guys with picks and shovels. An air hammer would have been the only useful power tool for this, and you can tow the compressor behind a pickup.
Sure there aren't many shovel-ready projects right now, but some could spool up quickly. My favorite, of course, would be 100% inspection of imports. It can be spooled up at a controlled rate, and would employ a wide variety of skills, including clerical, transportation, chemistry, veterinary, etc.
GB
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Post by redwolf on Dec 24, 2008 17:03:46 GMT -6
The funny thing is that when I told my parents I didn't want to go to college, they said, "What are you going to be ... a ditch digger?" It turns out ditch digging pays pretty well!
And a few years of working in a paper mill convinced me that college wouldn't be so bad either.
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Post by redwolf on Dec 24, 2008 17:48:49 GMT -6
I just want something to show for deficit spending ... like infrastructure. We have nothing to show for the deficit spending of the last 8 years. I bet we will have a modernized electrical grid within the next 4 years.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Dec 24, 2008 18:04:05 GMT -6
Average weekly wages are $613/week, which comes out to almost $32,000/year. Why does it cost $250,000 to create 1 job that pays $32,000/year? Do they have to buy each worker an airplane?
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Post by db on Dec 24, 2008 18:36:36 GMT -6
ULC, it always amazes me, how these guys come up with their figures; and oh yeah, they will do the math.
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Post by agito on Dec 24, 2008 19:24:25 GMT -6
very kind of o'neill but it turns out i got a TI-85 for christmas (IN 1994!) i can do the math myself thank you very much sitthefuckdownandshutup.
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Post by jeffolie on Dec 24, 2008 19:49:09 GMT -6
Actually the math is quite simple. Divide $750 Billion by 3 million jobs and the result is $250,000 per job. I am willing to come out of retirement for a couple of years for that money.
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Post by agito on Dec 24, 2008 19:59:31 GMT -6
i'm not a fan of this idea. Technically you are correct- just look at how much of an keynesian example the TSA is. What i don't like is how much it slows society down. Hell- paying people to sit on the side of the freeway and giving a "push" to people driving by would beat this anyday. other alternatives.
1) force people to work half weeks, and on their off days they would shadow their "citizen partner" watching them for terrorist activities. when they are working themselves- they would be shadowed by their respective partner
2)pay people to eat.
3) extend the farm subsidy program to encourage people not to plow their apartments- think of the money that apartment owners would save in unexploited top-carpet
4)this one is my fav: pay people to power mass transit by exercycle! this would not only solve our keynesian issues, but would also get us off of foreign oil!
5)pay people to walk around with fewer articles of clothing. save on our ever shrinking linen supplies! unaccounted multiplier effect for related romantic and not-so-romantic expenditures!
6) pay people to not make money- so the rich will be easier able to (this one actually works)
7)buy peoples CO2- save said CO2 for a massive "oxygen national park"- use said CO2 for the growth of massive horticulture. feed said horticulture entities that choose to eat them, but you may have to pay them....
8) pay people to stand around with guns. I know i know... it sounds really stupid- but apparently other countries do it.
9) pay people to write laws. .. personally i'd feel safer if they were just holding guns!
10) just pay me to solve your problems- i'll take care of you! (if you pay me enough)
OK- IN ALL SERIOUSNESS. there is nothing wrong with paying people to dig a ditch with spoons. the only thing "wrong" with it is if there is something better for them to do with their time. OF COURSE- if there isn't- then that is merely a failure of the free-market system and we will ignore pursuing that system for a system that meets our needs (getting people to eat by letting them dig ditches with spoons)
THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET of economists is this- "economies" are a completely artificial system. These systems reflect the distribution of resources just like any ecological system, but they involve the human abstraction of "money" (or any other system of tracking debt that isn't immediately reinforced by existence). It goes without saying that abstractions can be manipulated- but i'll go ahead and tell you they are. Our resources are manipulated by the fed (in the case of the value of our money)- by the fractional banking system (in the case of expectations of economic return) - and by ourselves (ignorance really is bliss).
anyway- pay people to dig trenches with spoons- if that makes it easier for our future generations to be able to have robots do said labor and live a life of leisure- so be it- then that is the course we are set upon.
(MEANING: yes- putting people to work and to be able to "earn" their share of resources IS the goal. what goal did caroline baum have in mind instead?)
.... reading more of this article- there is so much stupidity here i can't even continue to a finish- obama's goal of 2.5 million jobs is rediculously conservative- given the failure of the economy over the past 8 years to add even 1million jobs , 3 millions jobs would jsut be playing catch up. add on the 3.2 millon new jobs- and i would say that Obama could deliver on 6 million new jobs at least. get smart about it and the number could be ridiculously higher.
sorry about the unfocussed ranting- it is christmas eve...... (yeay- more wine still in the bottle!)
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Post by agito on Dec 24, 2008 20:03:19 GMT -6
another thought:
what is the cost of a job created by the free market?
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Post by graybeard on Dec 25, 2008 7:55:49 GMT -6
100% inspection of imports can be made revenue neutral, by charging the importers. Want priority handling for that container of fresh veggies? Pay priority rate. Sure, this will raise the price of imports, to the encouragement of domestic production.
TSA is incompetent because its leadership are incompetent Bu$h appointees. The CONservatives don't like government, so they kill it by putting incompetents at the top.
GB
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Post by blueneck on Dec 25, 2008 19:43:48 GMT -6
another thought: what is the cost of a job created by the free market? the free market kills jobs not creates them
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Post by bariffsterrier on Dec 25, 2008 23:22:59 GMT -6
Average weekly wages are $613/week, which comes out to almost $32,000/year. Why does it cost $250,000 to create 1 job that pays $32,000/year? When Al Gore was debating Ross Perot on NAFTA back in 1993 he stated that each billion dollars in exports creates 20,000 jobs, or 50,000 dollars in exports creates one job. Adjusting for inflation 50,000 dollars in 1993 would be 70,907.11 dollars today. So our 700 billion dollars in negative net exports represents the loss of ten million jobs.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Dec 27, 2008 15:03:51 GMT -6
When Al Gore was debating Ross Perot on NAFTA back in 1993 he stated that each billion dollars in exports creates 20,000 jobs, or 50,000 dollars in exports creates one job. Adjusting for inflation 50,000 dollars in 1993 would be 70,907.11 dollars today. So our 700 billion dollars in negative net exports represents the loss of ten million jobs. bariffsterrier, Thanks for running the numbers, and also for providing the source for the $1 billion Trade Deficit: 20,000 jobs ratio. I've seen that ratio before from Public Citizen and used it elsewhere. They even provided a graphic that shows the ratio. Below is my own modified copy of the graphic: The original graphic can be found at www.citizenstrade.org/images/fast-track-trade-balance.jpg The inflation-adjusted ratio you provided fits perfectly with the latest figures from the Economic Policy Institute, which imply a roughly $70,000 Trade Deficit: Job Ratio. So if we take just our non-oil trade deficit of ~$400 billion, and divide by $70,000, it comes out to about 5.7 million jobs. Our -$260 billion deficit with China alone, costs us 3.7 million jobs, based on this formula. Our -$138 billion NAFTA deficit costs us almost 2 million jobs, based on this formula. Our -$120 billion European deficit costs us 1.7 million jobs. Our -$83 billion Japanese deficit cost us 1.2 million jobs. Though our official trade deficit with China is -$260 billion, the functional deficit is almost -$320 billion, since most of their imports from the US raw materials they use in exports to us. If we used -$320 billion, our China job loss would be -4.6 million. --------------- The Trade Deficit Numbers used above can be found at the Census Bureau link below:
www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2007pr/12/exh14.pdf
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Post by lasher on Dec 29, 2008 8:46:51 GMT -6
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Post by agito on Dec 29, 2008 12:54:55 GMT -6
thanks for the link to the 2005 article lasher- time has a great way of providing perspective.
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Post by fredorbob on Nov 1, 2009 1:37:08 GMT -6
Average weekly wages are $613/week, which comes out to almost $32,000/year. Why does it cost $250,000 to create 1 job that pays $32,000/year? Do they have to buy each worker an airplane? It's the new math. I agree with you, the amount of job losses have been in the tens of millions, perhaps 50 million.
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