Herman Cain: It's Your Fault if You're Unemployed

[Hermit]

I said there is a job available.

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So?

So, as long as there are 4.7 people for each job vacancy, it's a bit difficult to argue that the excess unemployed are not working because they have chosen not to work, or that they are not working because they are indolent.

Where do you get that number?

Since when are you interested in statistics? Anyway, here is one source.

If there are 11 million Americans unemployed, we need to send the 12 million Mexicans back to Mexico and give their jobs to Americans...except that Americans don't want and won't work at those jobs unless they are very, very hungry and the government stops giving them money to remain unemployed.

Irrelevance followed by unsubstantiated opinion, O boy, you're on a roll. Again.

[MrJonno]

Minimum wage laws eliminated the possibility of serving an apprenticeship in a trade or craft because, when there are skilled journeyman laborers available, and a master craftsman has to pay an unskilled apprentice the same as someone with demonstrable skills, he's going to hire the skilled employee over taking an apprentice

Except if someone had a job and isnt earning enough to survive the tax payer has to provide welfare to subsidise their wage . Without a minimum wage instead of personal welfare you have corporate welfare where people have to subsidise them for every person they employ. Don't tell me if you have a low payed job in the US the welfare system washed it hands of you

As for apprenticeships they get a far lower minimum wage in the UK, if you arent worth more to an employer after the first year then its a shit apprenticeship but these are rare anyway

£2.60 - the apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship

[Tyrannical]

Cheap foreign labor, through immigration, off-shore contracting, and out sourced manufacturing has caused US wages to fall. Especially among the lower skilled jobs.
The government through welfare benefits subsidizes companies that don't pay living wages to their employees.

Cutting immigration and import tariffs on goods from cheap labor countries would raise domestic wages as labor becomes more tight.

It's so easy to offshore those McDonald's fast food jobs, eh?

I'd certainly agree with enforcing existing immigration law. Import tariffs would raise prices, reducing the standard of living for everyone, though.

Even though McDonalds jobs can't be off-shored, plenty of other jobs are. That increases the demand and reduces the wage for the low skilled jobs that can't be off-shored.

Sure tariffs would raise prices, but prices are already artificially low due to the use of cheap foreign labor. The wages you can afford to pay workers is proportional to the value that their work produces.

[PsychoSerenity]

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So? A five percent unemployment rate is desirable for an economy because it keeps the competition in the labor market robust and encourages workers to strive to keep their jobs. When employment nears 100 percent, workers tend to slack off and service suffers, to the detriment of the employer's ability to sell products and make a profit.

So for the economy to work, a significant percentage of the population MUST be stamped down to the bottom of the pile. What a wonderfully fair system.

[Tyrannical]

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So? A five percent unemployment rate is desirable for an economy because it keeps the competition in the labor market robust and encourages workers to strive to keep their jobs. When employment nears 100 percent, workers tend to slack off and service suffers, to the detriment of the employer's ability to sell products and make a profit.

So for the economy to work, a significant percentage of the population MUST be stamped down to the bottom of the pile. What a wonderfully fair system.

That 5% (and I'm sure it is bigger) stamps themselves down to the bottom of the pile through such clever moves as dropping out of school or having a criminal record or simply being lazy and useless.

[MrJonno]

It's probably nearer 10% and they are born into such a shit environment you are going to have to be exceptional to climb out of it. You need to learn not to be lazy and useless from your parents and if you don't its extremely hard to learn that later.

However where I differ from the right wing nutters ( i despise the underclass as much as any libertarian I live with a lot of them) is I don't want these people rioting, starving on the streets , spreading the disease and generally making the environment unpleasant. So you give them relatively low levels of welfare to keep quiet

[Hermit]

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So? A five percent unemployment rate is desirable for an economy because it keeps the competition in the labor market robust and encourages workers to strive to keep their jobs. When employment nears 100 percent, workers tend to slack off and service suffers, to the detriment of the employer's ability to sell products and make a profit.

So for the economy to work, a significant percentage of the population MUST be stamped down to the bottom of the pile. What a wonderfully fair system.

That 5% (and I'm sure it is bigger) stamps themselves down to the bottom of the pile through such clever moves as dropping out of school or having a criminal record or simply being lazy and useless.

What an utterly perfect way of blaming the victims of our economic system: "Whoever finishes up unemployed must, ipso facto, be lazy, useless or criminal. That's why they are unemployed, FFS." Gotta admire the circularity.

Tyrannical, if it were at all possible, your posts would be the most likely to make Seth's appear as though they were reasonable.

[PsychoSerenity]

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So? A five percent unemployment rate is desirable for an economy because it keeps the competition in the labor market robust and encourages workers to strive to keep their jobs. When employment nears 100 percent, workers tend to slack off and service suffers, to the detriment of the employer's ability to sell products and make a profit.

So for the economy to work, a significant percentage of the population MUST be stamped down to the bottom of the pile. What a wonderfully fair system.

That 5% (and I'm sure it is bigger) stamps themselves down to the bottom of the pile through such clever moves as dropping out of school or having a criminal record or simply being lazy and useless.

Oh no no no! This is completely leaving aside those that may be considered "lazy and useless" by arrogant fuckers who think some people deserve to be poor. - Seth is talking specifically about those who are trying their best to find work, and who therefore provide the "desirable competition" in the labour market.

[Hermit]

Seth is talking specifically about those who are trying their best to find work, and who therefore provide the "desirable competition" in the labour market.

I was thinking of the many times Seth opined that the unemployed have chosen to be out of work because they are lazy, incompetent or stupid.

[Coito ergo sum]

Enforcing immigration law wouldn't work. Not only are most US citizens not WILLING to work at the jobs illegal immigrants do, let alone for the wages they do it for (unless you want $10 a head lettuce you couldn't afford US wages) - most US citizens aren't anywhere close to being in good enough shape to be ABLE to do those jobs.

That is a myth.

Americans ARE willing to work at the jobs illegal immigrants do, and many of them do. In every industry, including industries like "lawn care maintenance" and "landscaping" and "trash collecting" and "cleaning services," -- traditionally viewed as the work of illegal immigrants - the vast majority of that work is done by US Citizens and the second largest group performing such services are legal immigrants.

The idea that the yard care worker must be an illegal immigrant is a scurrilous slander against the vast majority of such workers who are US Citizens and those who are legal immigrants. Keep your bigotry to yourself, please.

[Coito ergo sum]

U.S. law provides for legal temporary agricultural workers. The only reason people don't use that program is because the laws against the illegal workers are not adequately enforced.

Actually, those programs are used, and most workers are not illegal.

[Coito ergo sum]

Enforcing immigration law wouldn't work. Not only are most US citizens not WILLING to work at the jobs illegal immigrants do, let alone for the wages they do it for (unless you want $10 a head lettuce you couldn't afford US wages) - most US citizens aren't anywhere close to being in good enough shape to be ABLE to do those jobs.

Yup. Fair point.

Which is why I have little sympathy for the obese unemployed Americans who COULD work but choose not to. The best way to solve obesity is to quit eating more calories than you expend each day, and stoop labor in the fields and cleaning toilets is a great way to get in shape.

I'll go tell the group white, American men and one woman who do the lawn maintenance in my office park. They'll be surprised to know that they're illegal aliens.

[MrJonno]

Americans ARE willing to work at the jobs illegal immigrants do, and many of them do. In every industry, including industries like "lawn care maintenance" and "landscaping" and "trash collecting" and "cleaning services," -- traditionally viewed as the work of illegal immigrants - the vast majority of that work is done by US Citizens and the second largest group performing such services are legal immigrants.

Maybe its different in the US but the first threw jobs on that list are generally well paid and extremely hard to get into. Not quite sure what you mean by landscaping but don't they tend the some of money lawyers and doctors can earn. One of the common complains about trash(rubbish collecting) which I've seen in the US as well as in the US is that to get that sort of job you need to know the right people

[Toontown]

The boom times hurt the U.S. bad. Millions of Americans literally ate themselves out of house and home, becoming fat, useless, and ultimately, unemployed. Which in turn drove hordes of them into the arms of the preacher-man.

but don't kid yourselves, foreigners. We'll be bakk. We are the mutherfuckin ninja turtles.

Please, Lard, don't give us no more boom times. We cain't handle it, Lard. You made us, Lard. You know how we are. You know we always think the way things are at the moment is the way things will always be. And now we done got fat and soft and weak and broke, Lard. And now things ain't the way they used to be no more. Please, Lard, give us some moderately difficult times, and infuse us with the will to diet, exercise, and educate our ignorant selves. Infuse us, O Lard, with the will to kick foreign ass in the workplace once again, like we used to before we got fat, soft, weak, and broke.

But whatever. Your will be done, O Lard. We are your humble servants. Amen.

[Tyrannical]

...and for every available job in the US there are 4.7 unemployed. It's fine and dandy to say you need to apply for jobs, but if all available jobs were filled, you'd still have 11 million people out of work.

So? A five percent unemployment rate is desirable for an economy because it keeps the competition in the labor market robust and encourages workers to strive to keep their jobs. When employment nears 100 percent, workers tend to slack off and service suffers, to the detriment of the employer's ability to sell products and make a profit.

So for the economy to work, a significant percentage of the population MUST be stamped down to the bottom of the pile. What a wonderfully fair system.

That 5% (and I'm sure it is bigger) stamps themselves down to the bottom of the pile through such clever moves as dropping out of school or having a criminal record or simply being lazy and useless.

What an utterly perfect way of blaming the victims of our economic system: "Whoever finishes up unemployed must, ipso facto, be lazy, useless or criminal. That's why they are unemployed, FFS." Gotta admire the circularity.

Tyrannical, if it were at all possible, your posts would be the most likely to make Seth's appear as though they were reasonable.

No, I meant around 5% of the population falls into the lazy/stupid/criminal category. It is the current economic situation that is responsible for much of the hardship.
You can't have 100% employment because there are certain people no sane person would ever hire.