--- Dennis Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> some time now, and (2)
> two million US adults are locked up in jail,
That barely counts in the labor force participation rate. Labor force (i.e. employed and unemployed) in the US in 2004 is 154.7 million, so the two million in jail accounts for mere 1.3%. Besides, Europeans have jails too, no?
See also the ratio of total employment to working age population (15+) which I posted earlier. The bottom line is that regardless how one spins it - the US have a higher employement rate than Europe.
We can debate whether it is always a good thing (cf. retired people supplementing their meager pensions as "greeters" at Wal-mart) - but the bottom line is that the US has a higher employment rate than Europe - period. And that proves exatly what Brad tried to argue - namely that government regulations preventing employers from laying off people has a negative effect on employment.
As I said before, a better way to dealing with unemployment is to treat it as a "market failure" and have the government pick up the slack, as both neo-classicals and Keynesians hold it. That is to say, have the government hire all the unemployed - which will not only eliminate it, but drive the private sector wages up. That seems to me like a sensible position for the Left to argue - instead of wanting to force the private sector to produce public goods.
That btw holds for all public goods - including health care. Forcing Wal-Marts to cover health care cost of their employees is basically a "compassionate neo-liberalism" and retereat from keynesianism. Having the government producing all public goods and passing the cost in the form of (progressive) taxes seems to me like a truly social-democratic position.
Wojtek
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