A strange thing has happened to policy discussion: on both sides of the Atlantic, a consensus has emerged among movers and shakers that nothing can or should be done about jobs. Instead of a determination to do something about the ongoing suffering and economic waste, one sees a proliferation of excuses for inaction, garbed in the language of wisdom and responsibility. ...Paul Krugman
We're talking international-scale unemployment. Well, some of us say they know what's what. If a guy can't get a job, there's something wrong with him, not with our economic system.
In any event, "The room for macroeconomic policies to address these complex challenges is largely exhausted," according to the intergovernmental think thank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation, quoted by Krugman in the Times today. Krugman points out that the OECD has decided to write off unemployment,as high as 21% in some countries. They don't even try for a solution. In this country, neither the Republican party nor the Obama administration are even trying for (even interested in?) a solution.
In a country where there is something we could be doing about unemployment, we're falling back on "learned helplessness," a good description of what's happening to able-bodied people looking for jobs. But it goes beyond that. The people who are able to do something won't.
As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle.
The new poor -- the jobless -- are desperate while the rest of us behave as though we'd rather turn our eyes away than make our elected officials do something about it. That has to change. There are plenty of remedies, but we're up against the Party Of No. Still, the new poor -- and the poor in general -- still have votes, don't they?
Well, at least for now they do... But Republicans have mounted a successful effort to take the vote away from them. State by state they are creating "new logistical and financial barriers for many people attempting to vote."
