>>
>>>And it does face the problem that the unemployment rate now is
>>>lower than at any time from 1980 to 1993: how is Wal-Mart
>>>accomplishing so much extra speedup now when its analogues could
>>>not do so then?
>>
>>Kalecki's fear of the sack. The workers' psychological unemployment
>>rate is a lot higher than 6.1%.
>
>The *measured* unemployment rate was at 7.6% in 1992--and back then
>Bob Reich was talking about how the psychological unemployment rate
>was much higher then as well. Blue-collar and service-sector workers
>have not seen themselves as in an economy at full employment since
>the late 1970s, if then. So why has it taken 25 years?
The process has been going on for about 25 years, starting with the Volcker recession, followed by Patco, and so on. It's not like the speedup started yesterday, or with the NBER-designated recession in March 2001.
Doug