As Brad says, long term unemployment is a problem not just because of the immediate pain, but also because of the fact that over time these people find that their skills become more and more mismatched with the needs of employers even if the economy turns around.Their whats? Their skills? What're those?
-Duncan Black, AKA Atrios
The single biggest lie about the post-industrial economy is this notion that, whereas once you could be a union slug pulling a widget-press lever for eight hours a day, now you gotsta have skillz, brah. From this conviction flows a never-ending stream of bullshit, from the ever-expanding, university-degree scam machine to "jobs training programs" to, well, see above. This fucking bullshit in turn justifies our post-labor, "at-will" culture of total employee dependence on employer largesse for livelihood, medical care, etc. The idea is that everyone must continually renovate their brain lest some kind of bullshit, office-derived Moore's Law cause some new patch pack for an Adobe product totally blow our fucking minds, man.
Being a machinist requires skills. Working in an office requires a glancing familiarity with OfficeSuite. I think we would do well not to confuse the two. The Service Product Coordinator Spend Process Analyst Specialist who's been looking for new work for the last twelve months ain't out a bullshit job because he failed to stay current with Macro-writing technology; he's out a bullshit job because his job was bullshit, extraneous even to the boomtime economy that created it, now, more than ever, unnecessary. Persistent unemployment is not a problem because employees and employers are "mismatched," one of those callous Management euphemisms that will one day take its rightful place alongside such Third-Reichisms as "transport." It's a problem because our economy is a castle made of bullshit built on a bullshit foundation foundering in a swamp of bullshit. It is not an absence of skills and abilities that curtails and limits the prospects of gainful labor; it is an absence of any industry requiring any labor. Yes, it was lovely that we had a decade or two in which fake jobs full of people pimping their fake skills abounded, but that wave crested and rolled back.
It's curious to me that Black, who was perceptive about the phony nature of the real estate and finance cons, doesn't see that near-full employment was likewise a shell game.
79 comments:
Right! Where's my dole, man?
How does one create something out of nothing?
your "revolution" is over. condolences. the bums lost!
I really like this blog.
@Enron
The total energy of the Universe is 0. That's some big shit made up of nothing, wouldn't you say?
Capt'n Obvious
Brad DeLong mouthing "bullshit"!?!?! There's a shocker! Christ, the man ought to subtitle his blog "Grasping My Own Sphincter With Both Earlobes".
-- sglover
"our economy is a castle made of bullshit built on a bullshit foundation foundering in a swamp of bullshit."
"Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp... So I built a third castle. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England!"
Grunting and swearing, one could in 12-18 months get the rudiments of a skill/craft in place.
The big f'ing problem is that in the boom-bust economy no one can reasonably predict what jobs would/will be available in 18 months.
Capt'n Obvious
creation ex nihilo.
Add machinist to IOZ's expertise. What a well rounded individual, almost every other day he adds another skill to his tool bag. Last week he played meteorologist, this week he's a machinist.
It must be nice to play dress up all day.
Good grief.
Lulz. I like the part where crediting others with a skill becomes synonymous with personally claiming that skill. "I think Sydney Crosby is the greatest natural talent since Crosby." "Oh, fuck you, IOZ, you can't even skate!" Booyeah!
I fancy goldbricking myself
Well sure, look at it! Young trophy wife, I mean, in the parlance of our times, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers--and that's cool, that's cool-- but I'm saying, she needs money, and of course they're gonna say they didn't get it 'cause she wants more, man, she's gotta feed the monkey, I mean--hasn't that ever occurred to you...? Sir?
What are you a fucking park ranger now?
Well, okay, you're not privy to all the new shit, so uh, you know, but that's what you pay me for. Speaking of which, would it be possible for me to get my twenty grand in cash? I gotta check this with my accountant of course, but my concern is that, you know, it could bump me into a higher tax--
Oh, you've already made out the check?
I think the "skills" are the bullshit cornerstone of the new economy. Skilled workers don't have to unionize. Their labor is differentiated by their skill!
You can see that crumbling in IT, where management has pushed for tools that allow for unskilled workers. Now those jobs are commodified and out-sourced. Best part is, so many computer nerds are Heinlein libertarians, so they don't wise-up to what is going on.
uh, mr. fundamental, maybe im just, ahem, a little slow today….. but im just not getting the big lebowski reference
what the fuck does that have to do with what the good sir IOZ is fulminating about?
Spotting part of the con but not seeing the bigger picture isn't exactly going to lead to spotting the other constituent cons by default.
I mean, the guy keeps saying more and better Democrats are the answer..
She kidnapped herself!
I assure you, these are the best Democrats. The very smartest. They can even get liberals to vote for them.
Oddly (or not), pretending to be a machinist is a big trend in Silly Con Valley right now. Hipsters and machine tools; a potent combination.
"I assure you, these are the best Democrats. The very smartest. They can even get liberals to vote for them."
Hope'n'Change is **still** very articulate. Clean, too. Literally.
--sglover
The real shell game is all the technocratic tapdancing around the inexorable realities of human nature in a welfare-state society. From each according to his motivation, to each according to his sense of entitlement.....
“Best part is, so many computer nerds are Heinlein libertarians, so they don't wise-up to what is going on.”
Very true.
A few weeks ago, we got to watch one of our young resident “Free Market Uber Alles” Randroids get escorted out the door in what I’m sure is the first wave of right-sizing.
I guess he thought his Mad Tech Skillz would make up for missing a day of work every other week.
I do not believe in full employment. I do, however, believe in full pay. For the unemployed.
Cuneyt---
Well, full pay for some of the Unemployed, right? Not for children, e.g., or pensioned retirees. How about career couch potatoes?
All of them, sugartits.
You don't have to be rich to do nothing. Hell my cousin dwayne is broke and he don't do shit.
Cuneyt---
I admire your generosity, but should it extend to taking subsistence funds for Couch Potatoes and Entitlement-Mentality leeches and calling it "full pay" ?? Maybe just a semantic problem......
Hey, Peter! Check out channel 9, man! It's the breast exam!!!
but consider the two-track English system before it was replaced as essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.
other than that, that post was top-shelf chez IOZ, which is saying' something.
IOz,
That was a brilliant, albeit a bit hysterical, orthogonal attack on a rather mundane point.
Shoes for industry, man.
"Hey, I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it"
I lerv how Inky is trying to correlate some sort of social obligation with what I show up and do here everyday as Productive, Contributing Member of Society^tm. lulz. but Inky, I'm a real hard worker! I swear!
For some reason, this reminded me of the time famed authoritarian shitbirdJohn "Hothouse Orchids" Aravosis was bitching and complaining about having to pay extra taxes on the +75K a year he makes as a fucking blogger.
IOZ, having actually seen some Ivy League grads, and seen what they do for a living, I can tell you, right off the bat, that the financial stuff they do requires high levels of intellectual skills and ability for critical analysis. There is serious kills involved in that. You can't just pick up any random guy off the street and say to him, "hey there, do a regression model for me, will ya?"
Mr. Fun---
The converse, actually, or maybe the inverse. In response to Cuneyt's heartwarming largesse with taxpayer money, I suggest there is no social obligation to provide open-ended support to the willfully indolent and unproductive among us. They are legion. Meanwhile, our public schools are still churning them out like plasticware from an assembly-line. They learn why they're cripplingly aggrieved, plus how to read their "Vote Democratic" stamps.
Lol@10:53. You must've been an English major, amahright? Any asshole who passed high-school chemistry can do a regression analysis. "High levels of intellectual skills and ability for critical analysis." Ahahahaha. Oh, boy.
@10:53 lulz - ask any of those grads how often they've had to do a regression analysis in their careers. likely they have spreadsheets that do it for them. or interns. or some shit.
but Inky, how ya gonna keep em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus? also: "Study: Most city youth deemed unacceptable for military service: Undereducated, unfit, have criminal records" which, ah, um, works for me.
Inkberrow,
as long as we're going to spend a trillion tax dollars a year on "defense," i couldn't care less about Joe Schmo down the street building a chimney while he's out on "disability" with a back injury, or whatever.
Any asshole who passed high-school chemistry can do a regression analysis.
but learning to machine parts...etc etc and so forth.
yeesh, man, lay off reading the times columnists for a while. i think they're unbalancing your humors.
the willfully indolent and unproductive among us.
And what is it, exactly, that you do, my good sir? Other than post boilerplate right wing rants into blog comment boxes during the workday? Could we train a monkey to do your job and machine gun your superfluous ass into a mass grave? I'm confident we could.
I think what Inky is trying to say is that all brown people are stupid and lazy, because, The Bell Curve. And, it is unfair to force the pink people with the mad skillz to spend a pittance to support them...
inky dares to question that having a central state taking people's labor value (under threat of force) to dole out to others, indiscriminately and inefficiently, is maybe, possibly, not completely kosher, and suddenly he's advocating racial cleansing?
jesus you people are insufferable.
IS THERE A RALPHS AROUND HERE?
Nony 1:17, read the history... He advocates racial cleansing on a daily basis, hence the running joke.
He treats objects like women, man.
Money = labor value?
Them fascists truly are are disguised marxists! SHouldn't be a surprise considering the A in Nazi and Benito's own political ex-traction.
Capt'n Obvious
"Money = labor value?"
Uh yeah, dumbshit - the money you are able to acquire from the product of your labor can also be considered your labor value. So like, when the enlightened rulers take some to give to the great unwashed (of all colors, race-card hustlers), they are stealing your labor value. This in turn reduces your freedom from toil. It is a wrong, even if you are stupid enough to think the theft warranted. I thought you people understood the criminal racket that is the State? Or is it ok when it might help brown people somehow?
This in turn reduces your freedom from toil.
Shit, if we just gutted the defense department no one would have to toil, ever again...
"Shit, if we just gutted the defense department no one would have to toil, ever again..."
Holy fuckity fuck. If I stop stabbing you in the face you'll feel better but it doesn't mean you'll live forever. Let me guess, public school?
Naw - I'm an elitist.
If I stop stabbing you in the face you'll feel better.
btw - very good metaphor for your 'argument'.
@2:32 Anon
Ach, ze joy of being randomly insulted by anonymous Livyatan worshippers on the interwebs.
Capt'n Obvious
Anon @ 12:54---
A telling brace of insults, but I couldn't tell whether you're denying there are "willfully indolent and unproductive among us", whether you're acknowledging there are and I'm among them, or whether it only matters when People Like Me are willfully indolent unproductive. Methinks coherency matters even for non-boilerplate posts.
Lucid---
That's a pretty heavy accusation, "he advocates racial cleansing on a daily basis". If it's not too much to ask, start with a single example and then we can proceed from there. If lampooning the likes of Al Sharpton and his mod-prog enablers qualifies in your book, never mind responding. Just try to avoid positions of authority.
The fuck is a mod prog? A liberal on a scooter?
Socialist* Douche spracht:
"the money you are able to acquire from the product of your labor can also be considered your labor value."
Please, feel free to consider my money whatever you please.
I shall take extraordinary pains to not care.
Capt'n O
__________________________________
* precise classification irrelevant to matter at hand
Now, now, lucid. Just cuz Inky is obsessed with black IQ scores and the precise number of black Nobel prize holders, why do you have to make it all about race?
Oh, Inkberrow. You talk about my "generosity," my "heartwarming largesse..." You, like most rightists, want to conjure up that my position is based in some type of bleedy hearty liberaly thingie, but let me stop you right there.
I don't want to work on widgets or filling up holes that my man working next to me just dug. I am tired, tired, tired, of jumping through hoops, and my hoops aren't nearly as bad as the shit some of us have to squeeze through.
In short, I think there is so much that a person should have. And "taxpayer money" is such a cute expression. It's as if there was no system that allocated the funds in the first place.
Come back when you're willing to talk like a grown-up who fully appreciates the pipe dream that is being described.
Oh, and also: them public institushuns make nuthin but lazy nigras (sorry--had to) who vote for good-for-nothin Democrats!
They can't be madressas, Guevara-style guerrilla training camps, and factories to make little cubicle place-holders, 'kay? When's the last time you were in a school? I've seen more burgeoning political consciousness at Red Lobster than in most of those teen daycare centers.
Name-checking Al Sharpton is like dancing the Charleston, a million years out-of-date, but I'm glad a few enthusiasts are keeping it alive.
Nony 8:25... you can add slaughtering all varieties of Arabs, North Africans and Central Asians to the list of his obsessions...
Rowan---
"Mod-prog" is short for "modern progressive".
Anon @ 8:25---
I don't think "obsessed" means what you think it means.
Cuneyt---
"Taxpayer money" is produced by today's grown-ups, howsoever it was instituted, before our time. At least criticize arrested adolescence and self-infantilization on an equal-opportunity basis.
IOZ---
Don't forget that goofy world below the ivory tower. "Civil rights" activists Sharpton and Jackson are still routinely trotted out by the establishment media as The Voices of Black And Otherwise Aggrieved America.
Oh, and Lucid---
Just as I expected---nada.
Are you in advertising, maybe, or run a used car lot?
Inkberrow,
How do people produce money? Who produces it?
Don't forget that goofy world below the ivory tower. "Civil rights" activists Sharpton and Jackson are still routinely trotted out by the establishment media as The Voices of Black And Otherwise Aggrieved America.
Why, yes. It's almost as if they know full well that the mere sight of Al & Jesse will provoke the usual suspects into their usual griping about race hustling, Tawana Brawley and Hymietown, thus ensuring that nothing ever gets discussed in an intelligent manner.
Inky sees this as hard evidence that the mainstream media absolutely lurves Al & Jesse and treats them as oracles of urban wisdom, whereas the rest of us see laziness and the usual circus sideshow mentality at work. It's understood that they will provide "balance" against whatever insane reactionary racist is representing the other side, without the fear of them going off-script and saying something truly interesting.
Cuneyt---
Let's settle the business within the box first, shall we? Our gainfully unemployed don't have visions of Fanon dancing in their heads.
Anon @ 2:13---
Bear down and concentrate, keeping your feet on the ground. It's hard evidence that the mainstream media wants the hoi polloi to consider Al and Jesse as "oracles" (read: spokesmodels) of perpetual underclass aggrievement. The public schools do the same with MLK Jr. and Rosa Parks. A whole bunch of these viewers and these students never read IOZ's blog.
Why on earth do you need to say, let alone shorten, "modern progressive?" It's not like we think you're talking about Teddy Roosevelt here. Jargon really doesn't help your arguments.
Rowan---
Are these trick questions? "Modern" and "progressive" should be self-explanatory. There have been developments since Teddy Roosevelt. Abbreviations or contractions aren't necessarily "jargon", and regardless they are to streamline argument, not substantively contribute to it.
Bear down and concentrate, keeping your feet on the ground. It's hard evidence that the mainstream media wants the hoi polloi to consider Al and Jesse as "oracles" (read: spokesmodels) of perpetual underclass aggrievement.
Just to be pedantic: "Hoi" actually means "the". So either refer to "the polloi", or, as in your sentence above, "the mainstream media wants hoi polloi...". Yr welcome.
Once again, not everyone is as ideologically fanatical as you are. "The media", insofar as we can speak of such an entity as having one voice, one goal, etc. care about the bottom line, viewer eyeballs, all that good stuff. Putting circus clowns on their news segments with a proven track record of stirring up the same old arguments is an easy way to do that. Jackson and Sharpton aren't going to say anything different, and the issue will soon devolve into white noise as we hear from their counterparts on the right. Same as it ever was.
Really, people like you pay far more attention to Sharpton and Jackson's every word than all these supposedly subpar-IQ black voters you're so worried about. I'm genuinely sorry you feel that all the institutions that matter are staffed from top to bottom with dedicated Democratic party foot soldiers who exist purely to garner votes for their party. It must be a very tiring way to live, being that paranoid.
This thread is full of wonderful farmland goodness and wholesome peaness.
I wonder if you read what I said, Inky. I implied that we're quite aware that there have been developments since Teddy, so adding "mod" to "prog" doesn't really mean anything.
What it does do is infantilize what you're trying to describe, which is bad if you want to be taken seriously, but good if you're aiming for mockery, as our gracious host here does with some ungracious regularity.
Rowan---
Since the signifier worked as written, what's the rumpus in the first place?
Touched as I am by your solicitude, I'll continue to write what I actually think and believe, for better or worse, whether or not I'm Mocked or Not Taken Seriously, especially by those like you who have a habit of applying such labels rather chauvinistically.
Anon @ 7:28---
I don't think "ideologically fanatical" means what you think it means. Hint: it's not synonymous with "ideological opposite of Anon @ 7:28".
Your room's the small one on the second floor right below IOZ's suite, right?
"Just to be pedantic: "Hoi" actually means "the". So either refer to "the polloi", or, as in your sentence above, "the mainstream media wants hoi polloi...". Yr welcome."
No. See here.
Nony 8:27
Ah, no. Go back to ancient Greek school. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.
- from one with a graduate degree in classics...
A little hard work and IOZ could rise to the level of the eminent economic theorist Benjamin Kunkel.
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