NEW NORMAL

NEW NORMAL

As one knows, change is the constant. To an observer nearly everything appears to be in flux.

Years ago, Alvin Toffler introduced his own new word and it was called "IMPERMENENCE." You may return to an old haunt and find that it is now a parking lot. That a park has become a shopping center.

I would like to suggest that 6% unemployment rate is the old normal. At 6%, there is an employment that occurs due to social and economic changes. Further, during some very prosperous times the rate  is much lower.

However, 6% probably is a fictional rate. Those that are unemployed may really be 12%. However, the two major parties accept whatever is best for them. This means a low unemployment rate as possible.

To get to 6%, you need to delete those not actively looking. Females can be redefined as full time homemakers if they are married. A corporation can indicate numbers that are higher or lower depending on what they think of the president.

Further, one could argue that one is officially unemployed when they are working full time off the books. That means they are being paid in cash and it is not recorded. That is also called double dipping.  A full time job is any number of part time jobs that add up to 32 hours. All of this is been going on for years. There are many other tricks that I just don’t know about and some changes have been made that make some of the statements above moot.

At the moment the private sector is reported as being in good shape.  We have been out of the Great Recession for one year. And yet, the unemployment rate that is official is 9. something. The stock market in a matter of days in the fall of 2008 went from 14,000 to 6500. Policies put in by late Bush and early Obama administrations stopped the huge spiral by Keynesian  policies to unappreciative bankers.

The next year those same bankers who invented those phony financial instruments, gave themselves a raise after the tax payers bailed them out.  The real question is why the unemployment rate doesn’t go down.

Last year, roughly 2 to 2 and 1/2 million jobs were created. However, the USA can only claim 1 million.

Thus,  one of the answers to unemployment  is that many jobs created go overseas. Our trade policy with the enhancement of NAFTA rigs the system against the USA worker as opposed to owners and brokers of the  economy. This is  followed by fairly low paying taxes or one’s with loopholes in it. So we have a situation where most of the major employers really don’t need to hire more workers. The arrangement that we have now is just right for the rich. Further, Capital can move quickly and Labor can not. The leverage is on the side of Capital.

At the state and municipal level, there should be a tremendous rise of unemployed and the debt should remain high. For two years, Obama has kept them afloat. Now they must live on their own.

So austerity will create more unemployed. If Obama is not president in the next term, then a new Republican may announce that there is a "new normal" for the global information society. A panel of experts could be organized and they will give their blessing.

The new rate is 9% or 10%  official unemployment rate. In an instant, everything is okay. We all must adjust to the new reality except the wealthy who are doing just fine under the new system.

That is my view.

My time is up and thank you for yours.

Prof. Joel  Snell