Job applicants reach for registration forms at a job fair at Columbia University in New York The unemployment rate declined to 7.3% last month because discouraged Americans gave up looking for work. (Bebeto Matthews, Associated Press/ September 7, 2013)
On September 7, 2013, Jim Puzzanghera writes in the Los Angeles Times:
It was two steps forward, one step back last month for the sluggish labor market.
A modest net gain of 169,000 jobs in August combined with a large downward revision for the previous two months to raise new doubts about whether the economy is strong enough for theFederal Reserve to start dialing back one of its key efforts to boost growth.
Although the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.3% last month — the lowest level since December 2008 — it fell largely for the wrong reason. More discouraged Americans gave up looking for work as the percentage of the population in the labor force dropped for the third consecutive month to its worst point in 35 years.
“The economy is still healing. It’s just not nearly as rapid a growth as we’d like to see,” said economist Daniel Seiver, a finance professor at San Diego State.
At first glance, the Labor Department’s August jobs report wasn’t bad. The top-line number was roughly in line with expectations of 175,000 net new jobs.
But economists digging into the data quickly found discouraging signs that could give Fed policymakers pause when they gather in 10 days to decide whether it’s time to reduce their bond-buying stimulus program.
“The dirt is in the details, and these are very dirty details,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “It’s going to muddy the debate about what the Fed does.”
The Labor Department sharply cut the growth figures for June and July by a total of 74,000 jobs. That included resetting July’s level at a paltry 104,000 net new jobs, the economy’s worst performance in more than a year.
The downward revisions meant the average monthly job creation from June through August was 148,000, well below the 184,000 pace over the last 12 months.
“Looking at the revisions was like getting punched in the gut,” Swonk said.
Unemployment is great, if you can afford it! The point is that unemployment would not be a problem if the estimated 90 million Americans unemployed and underemployed OWNED viable, diversified stock portfolios of major American companies who payed out to their stock holders their full earnings profits. But that is not the reality. The vast 99 percent of Americans are job serfs or welfare serfs, with constantly declining prospects for income earnings tied to a job due to tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, which are destroying jobs and devaluing the worth of labor. The jobs just are not there which will provide a level of income to support survival, or general affluence.
There is no solace in the statistics. Researchers at the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that a worker between the ages of 50 and 61 unemployed for over a year has only a 9 percent chance of finding a job in the next three months and only a 6 percent chance if he or she is 62 years or older. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are approximately 3.3 unemployed workers for every job seeker.
Because for the vast majority of Americans a JOB is their ONLY source of income, millions of families are one layoff or family emergency away from going into bankruptcy, and then what? Start over with nothing and extremely poor JOB prospects.
Unfortunately, our political leaders, academia, and the national media offer up ONLY the same old conventional won’t-work suggestions for the government to take the lead and arrange the marriage of private and public capital to regenerate real growth without the realization and requirement that the ownership of FUTURE productive capital wealth must be broad. No longer will we achieve growth the old-fashioned way, by investing in projects that enrich our productive capacity in the name of JOB CREATION, which is expected to have a multiplier effect, when in actual reality such investment continues to further CONCENTRATE OWNERSHIP of America’s future wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets among a tiny ownership class.
Of course, all this would be moot if 1) all people were capital owners and the price of labor could rise or sink to its “real” level, 2) all financing for new, non-speculative capital investment came out of future savings instead of past savings, and 3) government was prohibited from creating money (“emitting bills of credit”), living within its tax revenues, and borrowing out of existing savings to cover temporary shortfalls or meet emergencies.
That’s what “Capital Homesteading” would do.
Capital Homesteading is the ONLY viable solution to the economic decline of America. Its implementation requires that our leaders, academia and the national media recognize that all individuals to be adequately productive cannot do so when a tiny minority (capital owners) produce (via the productive assets they own) a major share and the vast majority (labor workers), a minor share of total output of the economy’s products and services. The system must be reformed to create a world in which the most productive factor of the FUTURE — physical capital — now owned by a handful of people — is owned by a majority — and ultimately 100 percent — of the consumers, while respecting all the constitutional and private property rights of present capital owners.
A balanced Just Third Way approach to building a FUTURE economy that supports general affluence for EVERY American is presently not in the national discussion. It appears that the President of the United States, the elected Congressional representatives and Senators, academia, and the media are oblivious to this principled solution that has the ingredients to power economic growth at double-digit GDP rates.
This goal requires investment in FUTURE wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets while simultaneously broadening private, individual ownership of the resulting expansion of existing large corporations and future corporations. Not only is employee ownership the norm to be sought wherever there are workers but beyond employee ownership the norm should be to create an OWNERSHIP CULTURE whereby EVERY American can benefit financially by owning a diversified SUPER IRA-TYPE Capital Homestead Account (CHA) portfolio of income-producing, full-voting, full-dividend payout securities in America’s expanding corporations and those newly created to produce the future products and services needed and wanted by society.
Those who read this and are in a position of influence should reach out to President Obama and the leadership of his Organizing for Action as well as to other political leaders, and call for them to convene a national discussion using the national media and social media, and our educational institutions, to open up a discussion on EVERY CITIZEN AN OWNER opportunity. We need fresh and inspired leaders who can educate on this issue at this time because academia, the media, and our so-called leaders are not addressing how people make money and the significance of OWNING wealth-creating, income-generating productive capital assets. We need to get people to understand that as with today, in the FUTURE we will continue to experience tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, which will destroy jobs and devalue the worth of labor. This is a crucial understanding because at present for the 99 percent of the nation a JOB is the ONLY source of income to support themselves and their families. We need political leaders who will commit to a government policy focus on OWNERSHIP CREATION, by which jobs will result and naturally follow as the economy revs up to double-digit GDP growth and fully applies technological innovation and invention to shift from unnecessary labor toil to human-intelligent machines, super-automation, robotics, and digital computerized operations.
Essentially, the pressing need is for everyone in a position of influence to encourage President Obama to raise the consciousness of the America people by making his NUMBER ONE focus the introduction of a National Right To Capital Ownership Bill that restores the American dream of responsible property ownership as a primary source of personal wealth.
This is the solution to America’s economic decline in wealth and income inequality, which will result in double-digit economic growth and simultaneously broaden private, individual ownership so that EVERY American’s income significantly grows, providing the means to support themselves and their families with an affluent lifestyle and to financially sustain them in their retirement.
The Just Third Way Master Plan for America’s future is published at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797.
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm
See “Financing Economic Growth With ‘FUTURE SAVINGS’: Solutions To Protect America From Economic Decline” at NationOfChange.org http://www.nationofchange.org/financing-future-economic-growth-future-savings-solutions-protect-america-economic-decline-137450624 and “The Income Solution To Slow Private Sector Job Growth” at http://www.nationofchange.org/income-solution-slow-private-sector-job-growth-1378041490.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-20130907,0,6530339.story
