>... 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. ...
But that's not what Brad is asking for -- he wants the government to continue to provide the minimal level of support, to essentially go through the motions of assisting the unemployed as it does now. Brad doesn't want private employers to be responsible for the unemployed, and he doesn't think government should be responsible either. Screw-the-jobless is the message I take away from the conclusion of Brad's review, viz.: "Uchitelle wants the government to help. But the government's powers and competence are limited: it can do much more at cleaning up the mess afterward — in the form of unemployment compensation, education support and job search assistance — than it can at getting managers, directors and shareholders to 'play nice' when the financial stakes are high."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/books/review/02delong.html?pagewanted=print>
Carl