The Germans have beaten the rise in unemployment. Why aren't we doing anything about increasing the number of jobs available -- as Germany has? Why have Democrats, like the Republicans, elected Rush Limbaugh as the "decider"? Or, worse, Glenn Beck.
Paul Krugman points out that if the government were to do anything about employment, Glenn Beck would decry it "as a plan to recruit pro-Obama brownshirts — but we should note, for the record, that at their peak, the W.P.A. and the Civilian Conservation Corps employed millions of Americans, at relatively low cost to the budget."
Alternatively, or in addition, we could have policies that support private-sector employment. Such policies could range from labor rules that discourage firing to financial incentives for companies that either add workers or reduce hours to avoid layoffs.
And that’s what the Germans have done. Germany came into the Great Recession with strong employment protection legislation. This has been supplemented with a “short-time work scheme,” which provides subsidies to employers who reduce workers’ hours rather than laying them off. These measures didn’t prevent a nasty recession, but Germany got through the recession with remarkably few job losses.
Should America be trying anything along these lines? In a recent interview, Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s highest-ranking economist, was dismissive: “It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” True. But we are not, in fact, expanding the total amount of work — and Congress doesn’t seem willing to spend enough on stimulus to change that unfortunate fact.
Here's another question: why should we run our country based on paranoid theories developed by the greediest and most ignorant among us, theories that are lethal for the least fortunate among us? Why should the government rush in to save only those who are most culpable in our economic crash?
