What would be the best way to create jobs in this economy?

[kentuck]

About the only thing we have left that the world needs is food. But that is a very important commodity. I think we could start a Farm Program where young people could be paid a good wage to grow food for the government. No more corporate farmers. The farmers would be reimbursed for their land and their knowledge but no big corporations. This is one idea.

Another idea would be to start a program similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps and hire people to fix our infrastructure, to build and repair schools, and to keep our parks and rivers clean. This is another option if the private sector is incapable of hiring people to work.

We may be coming to this point? And we will need to provide people with meaningful employment. These ideas should be studied now, not later. What do you think?

[galileoreloaded]

1. Cost plus infrastructure spending and make-work projects would best replicate 1930's WPA in 2010..

because frankly, we are merely polishing the turd, and equipment has come so far we don't really need all these extra people. Cost plus gets away from low bid, and doesn't penalize firms from hiring people, but encourages them to do it. Easy to administrate, paychecks hit the street in two weeks.

Done.

[Warpy]

4. Exactly, especially the type of infratstructure

that would use cheap renewable energy that the next wave of industry could utilize, leaving all the exported factories using the fossil fuel based technology that will only get more expensive as time goes on.

The increasing expense of shipping around the planet will be on our side, too, as cost efficient factories at the point of consumption start to look a lot more attractive than inefficient overseas factories with quality control problems.

Remember, the last boom, the IT boom, was created because the government spent on the infrastructure that created the internet.

In the meantime, jobs that create that infrastructure will help create demand for goods and services to restart the consumer economy.

All this has to be paid for, both by raising taxes on the plutocrats (call it STEAL IT BACK) and by cutting military expenditures by reducing Empire.

[notesdev]

9. You ever see a cost plus contract in action?

I got on a contract a number of years back that had changed from cost-plus to fixed price.

Originally boasting a staff of 24, one year later four people were doing all the work needed for the contract... and were still not working particularly hard.

Cost plus guarantees waste.

[galileoreloaded]

17. It ABSOLUTELY guarantees waste, waste we desperately need....

because at about 25% unemployment, people start to burn things. Not my rules cat, just history.

[notesdev]

18. That is a fatal logic error

Waste helps NO ONE except the beneficiary of the waste (desiring this for one's own benefit is called corruption, by the way.) In order to waste something to give to one person, that must be taken away from (or be made a debt obligation of) someone else. If that someone else would have invested or saved any portion of that money at all in the absence of it having been taken from him, the overall result is that there is LESS to go around for everyone.

Money has to go into actually creating real, tangible things that improve the overall standard of living. Reducing one person's standard of living to raise another's is a cynical game and a destructive one.

If we're going to spend money, the first thing to spend it on is producing more food (not simply buying it, which would raise prices for everyone, but actually making more food than there would be otherwise). One very simple way to do this is simply institute a no-tax policy on non-luxury foodstuffs, this will immediately bring prices down and enable people to eat better than they can now... or enable them to spend that money in the rest of the economy.

If we're going to spend money, make clothing. (Not hand the money to a factory in Indonesia to make clothing with virtual slave labor.)

I'd add "make shelter" but we're already have far more than we need thanks to the housing bubble.

Or we can build factories and produce goods, that is also helpful. Or incent companies to do so, as governments have awful records as producers.

A successful economic program raises the standard of living. No other test is worth the breath it takes to put voice to it. If money spent by the government on an economic program does not translate directly into a higher overall standard of living then it is destructive, not helpful.

[galileoreloaded]

19. HAHAHA, you still think the money is real, don't you??

its merely a shared delusion, friend.

I love this site! The conversations can be so precious!

[MichiganVote]

2. You have to look at what the banks won't do--loans to small, mid size business

Whatever the banks won't do nowadays is what should be happening.

[glinda]

3. I agree with the small farm/food production with US hired workers. I also totally

agree with the idea of a CCC Program. Particularly in regards to the environment.
Another way is if Companies would step up to the plate and give back to the people that they make so much money from. They could (probably won't) take less profit and hire people. Less outsourced jobs would really help.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. Listen to economists such as Mark Zandi and Laura D'Andrea Tyson

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4529457 .

IMO, now that many corporations are sitting on piles of cash, and GDP is growing again, though too slowly, it's time for

(1) more loan guarantees for small business, to get small banks lending to them again;

(2) Social Security tax credits for small businesses that expand their payrolls above what they were 8 quarters ago (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4529457&mesg_id=4529529 );

(3) additional expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit to alleviate poverty for those who can get jobs--they'll spend ALL of any extra money they get and multiply jobs available in their economically depressed neighborhoods.

[antigone382]

6. We need to revitalize independent local economies.

Start adjusting to increasing energy costs by drastically refocusing our infrastructure with the goal of making public transportation economically viable by discouraging suburban sprawl and increasing mixed use zoning. Focus on preserving potential agricultural land and encouraging sustainable small-scale farming that promotes genetic diversity and doesn't heavily rely on chemical inputs. Invest in viable energy alternatives to partially offset the decreasing availability of cheap fossil fuel energy. Provide reskilling workshops to teach people how to produce their own food, mend their own clothing, and generally be more self-reliant and less dependent on a fossil-fuel driven consumer economy. Institute universal healthcare.

Acknowledge that every major economist from Adam Smith onward predicted the end of the growth economy, and the eventual shift towards a steady-state economy; that this is likely what we are experiencing in America now, and will continue to experience; and that we must shift out of the debt based financial system entirely.

Tall order, but at least some of it can be done on a local level while we're waiting for the big guys to catch up.

[kentuck]

7. Some really great ideas!

Thanks for your input.

[JVS]

8. Set a goal of 10 years for energy independence, start building massive numbers...

of wind, nuclear, solar, hydro-electric, and geothermal plants. Hire massive numbers of engineers for R&D, offer free education to anyone willing to major in the technical fields needed to develop better technology. Retain ownership of the plants as a government monopoly to raise revenue from energy consumption, use money to shift tax burden away from lower incomes and to fund social programs such as healthcare, social security, etc.

[jwirr]

10. This will not happen but we should be rebuilding cities and other

communities so that they are sustainable. Instead everyone is ignoring the coming oil depletion and trying to keep the status quo.

[L0oniX]

11. Demand US made products and purchase them.

[Kievan Rus]

12. Public works program to rebuild aging infrastructure and build new stuff...it worked for FDR

[Donnachaidh]

13. hire inspectors for ALL the junk coming in from China

and turn away ANYTHING that is crap.

Bury Walmart in red tape.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. Infrastructure

Put the people who swing hammers back to work asap. This creates a need for everything from accountants, to inventory, to warehouse, to HR, etc. etc.

[Skittles]

15. stop pimping them off to the cheapest offshore bidders

[kentuck]

16. Sounds like high-speed rail ?

:-)

[applegrove]

20. Make Unemployment Insurance something totally paid for by the richest 2% of the population.

That way they wouldn't love bubbles the way they do now.