> Little Paul wrote:
> "One way to solve it would be to simply put everyone who is unemployed to work on government infrastructure projects, new bridges, more roads, passenger train-lines, etc.."
It would be ineffective. When you take into account that a large part of those unemployed are not motivated or cunning enough to the jobs you force them to do.
* How do you know about the level of motivation or how cunning they are? You are simply biased in your stereotypical false assumption about unemployed people. The unemployed are fully motivated, fully capable of doing a variety of jobs. Most jobs out there that require so called 'specialized' qualifications, a monkey could be trained to do. Honestly, how many years of job-specific training does it take to be able to read a tele-prompter.
You need a very large bureaucracy doing only bureaucracy.
* Where do you get this from? All you would need is a small portion of the current bureaucracy. Instead of offices whose sole function it has been to pucker up to the corporate elite, those same offices would now be dishing out the mandates of the government upon heads of corporations, informing those corporations how they have been bestowed the privilege or are no longer bestowed the privilege of being permitted to continue their business in this country.
Those people otherwise do valuable things in other jobs. Add to this every bureaucracy has its own corruption to face and people will hide not to work.
*Again, this is just your stereotypical false assumptions and errant bias against workers and their motivation. not even going to respond to this.
You will use more resources to build those things, increasing the prices of those resources.
* And those companies who are permitted the privilege of doing business in this country will be required to purchase those resources.
"Include for the worker all benefits imaginable: health, dental, housing, food subsidies."
So those workers will use a lot of resources an money.
*You bet they will, using DOMESTICALLY produced resources and SPENDING domestically produced income or DOMESTICALLY produced products.
"Raise taxes on everyone,"
That has always been proven impossible. Mostly the "heavy taxes on the rich" only affect some or mediocre players in this game.
*When the shift comes, it will be such: no longer will it be the notion that our society must cater to the business elite, but, rather, that the business elite, if they wish to profit at all by the efforts of our nation, will have to cater to the dictates of the Nation, who are supposedly to derive its direction from the will of the people, not of the business elite.
If the corporation wants to derive its profit in this nation, it should do so according to the rules, laws, regulations set for by the will of the people, else that corporation can @#%-off; there are plenty of other corporations to choose from to SERVE the needs and wants of the people.
After protectionist measures by government have allowed for many DOMESTIC corporations to be able to produce domestically-manufactured products from domestically-extracted natural resources, there will be plenty of corporations for the nation to choose to bestow the privilege of serving our nation. A nation is a people who by their lifestyle and day-to-day functions are capable of doing work in exchange for wages, AND THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BE GOING ANYWHERE. If the corporation wants to serve that population, it must come to the population and serve the nation on the nation's terms, not the corporation's terms.
It is not the nation - the people - who have to suffer indignities and injustices so as to make their economy a desirable place for a corporation to do business. No. This is not necessary. Instead, the nation can set the laws and regulations so as to create a society in which dignity and justice is afforded to all people. Corporations, if they wish to do business within said society, are REQUIRED to comply with the said stipulated laws and regulations set for by the will of the people, OR ELSE THOSE CORPORATIONS CAN $#% OFF to some other country. Do their business there. But this nation's government and elected representatives certainly wouldn't be stupid or corrupt enough to allow those corporations, after they've f@#ed-off to sell their off-shore produced products in our economy, or would they? Unfortunately, our government representatives have been that stupid and corrupt. For the past 30 years they have continued to allow such corporations, who have @#%-ed off to other countries and taken our jobs with them for the simple reason that those corporations wished to seek more business- friendly economic environments - that is economies in which the vast majority of workers are paid virtual slave-wages, where they can pay no taxes, and where they are permitted to extract all the profits from those countries in which they do business. Yet, the nation continues to allow products from those corporations to be sold within our borders. Despicable.
Their privilege to sell their products within the borders of a nation is to be disqualified, that is canceled, once that corporation opts not to adhere to the rules and regulations by which that business is permitted to do business within the nation as set forth by the will of the people.
Protectionism is necessary to reinstate the values of dignity and justice in our country and to prevent the further siphoning of our nation's wealth from future generations.
"Use funds to pay back the debt ASAP. We could do so in a matter of years rather than decades."
But you are going to make new debt for those workers, so how then? If you raise taxes so high, people will starve.
Debt for new workers? How could they incur debt when they are all employed? Taxes raised pay off the debt immediately, thereby increasing the value of the dollar once again, and increasing the purchasing power per capita of everyone in the nation right from the start. There is no risk of starvation. Heck the increased taxes pay for food stamps, universal health care, - essentials to keep the worker health and happy over the period of 5 years of intensive debt-repayment.
"And let free-market capitalists have another go at it; this time police them better."
They are already policed
*The corporation is more powerful than the state, and subverts the will of the people at every turn. There are countless of examples. They lobby and bribe government to continue allowing them to do so. They are not policed at all.
a lot in a criminal way that is the cause of many problems we face today: artificial Monopolies inflicted by the state, Incompetent managers that remain in power with tax money, companies that have advantages they shouldn't have and ruin better more healthy companies...etc
*I agree that the government-run monopolies and incompetent managers that remain in power and waste tax dollars and the inability for more healthy companies to emerge in the economy is a real and pressing danger to our society. I totally agree. But this is a result not of the failure of government, but the failure of those in government who have been corrupted by corrupt system of governance. And this has got to change, first, before anything else can be done. governments and corporations need to do house-cleaning in many respects, starting with those who hold the notion that society should cater to the corporation, for this so FALSE.
It is the corporation who should cater to the populace, the nation, and the nation has the right and the power to enforce this. In my opinion, it is long past due that government enforce this, for the good of our society, for dignity and justice of our citizenry.
