In the US, monetary policy, in meeting its goals, defines the means by which the Federal Reserve uses to influence the availability and cost of money and credit. This is used as a means of helping to promote high employment, economic growth, price stability, and a sustainable pattern of international transactions that support US interests. The primary tools of monetary policy include open market operations, discount policy, and reserve requirements and demand.
The Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978, known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act, introduced the term: full employment, although the content of bill had been watered down before passage.
The Fed now considers 4% unemployment as structural and defines full employment at that level. Any level near or below that is economically inconsistent, due to its impact on inflation (causing wages to rise!), thus increasing unemployment down the road. One way to look at it, is that 4% of the working population is in condemned to permanent economic slavery by theoretical verity in economics. The American economy has yet to free its mothers and housewives from household and child care slavery. Like cotton picking, a whole category of lowly service jobs that continued to need to be done, regardless of the level technological progress. These jobs are mostly performed by slave labor and new nonwhite and illegal immigrants. Follow the minimum wage or illegal immigration rights to education, welfare, etc. and tell me what is extreme. A century ago, slavery was rationalized by economic efficiency, the same rationale is being used to justify the new slavery.
By the way, Moneybags, anyone who claims that wage earners are less bothersome than slaves is kidding himself. Why, house slaves even love their masters. And you can sleep with the pretty ones without fear of impeachment. If slavery were still legal, everyone would still have them, like refrigerators or air conditioners. One point I will give you, wage earners do not lock up purchase capital like slaves do.
JKSCHW at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 98-11-12 19:42:52 EST, you write:
>
> << deracy, but I can't let this pass
> twice. Just what does this mean? You'll get no argument from me that
> most Americans aren't racist. But "pro-slavery"? Aren't we being a bit
> extreme? >>
>
> I dunno. On the Court of Appeals, we spend all day quietly cursing the 13th
> Amendment and trying to figure oiut ways around it.
>
> Actually, slavery is a bother. You can't fire slaves. You have to feed them,
> and if you don't, they have this irriatting way of dying of starvation and
> cluttering up the veranda. Personally, I'll take wage workers any day.
>
> Yours truly
>
> Moneybags