Mort Zuckerman: "Massive" Intervention Needed To Create New Jobs

ft.com:

Today there is no evidence of job creation. Quite the opposite: unemployment is rising and millions of jobs have disappeared. In place of thrift we have become a nation of debtors, staggering beneath mortgages that exceed the value of our homes, and credit lines that exceed our ability to repay. But the "Great Recession" has also changed the nature of unemployment, making it harder for those out of work to find a job. Only by investing in infrastructure and innovation can we mend the system.

Read the whole story: ft.com

Comments

[condor101]

Welcome to the third world people. For nearly 2 centuries, Americans have looked down on supposed third world nations. Now, the tide has turned and every american is buying imported goods. hahahaha
300 million consumers.
A few million here will remain rich.
But the majority, 290 million will be trapped consumers.
Prosperity is now in the hands of people in so called former third world nations where the products are produced.
I am an american citizen and i live in such a country half the year and export and sell my products to the U.S. consumer.
Thank you for being good sheep to our masters in government and big corporate america and allowing Free trade agreements.
Manufacturing will never return to america. The only employment I give is for shipping and handling of our products.
The top 5% of americans will continue to do well; The rest will just have to get by with an illusion of a first world country. hahahahaha

[BabblingBrooks]

Mort fluctuates from conservative to big-gov liberal depending on the whim of the moment.

The question would be, if he's right, WHAT IS PROPER INTERVENTION?

I suggest cutting taxes, cutting government spending, allowing the productive to keep more of their money so they can keep producing, grow the economy, produce jobs.

Government does NOT CREATE JOBS other than government jobs. Government jobs earn no money. Government jobs take away money from the private sector that could be used to grow the economy and create BENEFICIAL jobs.

Government can't create a job without killing a job or two elsewhere.

That's what will be the downfall of the economy--liberal big government!

[jmpurser]

So, you're saying what we need now is man like Hoover?

Interesting call.

[Jazzcomedian]

Thirty years of bad national economic policy have come home to roost. Even if what Zuckerman advocates is feasible, it's politically impossible, given the huge federal deficits we have. We've painted ourselves into a corner with no exit. I've never seen America in such terrible a economic condition. We're wounded on every front, and all the economists are guessing as to solutions because they've never seen this drastic a situation before. I don't know what the answer is, and neither do they. Nobody does. Except Jim Cramer.

[BabblingBrooks]

There IS an exit, and it would be to REVERSE the big spending, cut taxes, allow the private sector to start growing again rather than trampling on it every chance we get with higher taxes and more regulation. But at least we would pull out of the current downturn.

The alternative is the Michigan approach, higher taxes and more government spending, which would be the equivalent of giving cyanide to a pneumonia patient.

[jmpurser]

The "big spending" of government is the only thing SUPPORTING the private sector and taxes are already so low we haven't covered expenses in 8 years.

[savroD]

Where are all the free traders and the wonders of globalization. Ohhhh boy... nobody figured out the environmental impact of shipping stuff all over the place. Geeze.... when these guys come back to their senses, the question is will the pendulem swing back to protecting the US from the international corporatism that rules now!

[BabblingBrooks]

Those are the problems: Not enoug hfree traders and globalization. Too much big government and government spending.

[blimie]

"Only be investing in infrastructure and innovation can we mend the system."

Someone needs to tell Obama that right away, like yesterday.

[seanseamour]

This article is a reality check of where America's job market is going. A parallel trend to what has happened in mature European countries which differs in the soft landing / progressive policies that have managed this process and could have been implemented at home had it not been for the disastrous Reaganomics / supply side policies of the last now thirty years.
Sadly the Republican ideology is still blind-sighted to this, notably in the close minded south.
Another sad point is that it is the UK media here to convey Zuckerman's enlightenment, then again the UK is the only country to suffer the depth of the current crisis largely due to PM Maggie's adulation for everything Ronnie did.
In passing a relevant infobit, PM Brown's query to PM Merkel "how did you manage to exit recession", reply, "in Germany we still make things" (I want to add other than derivatives) For those that have not read on please go the the Financial Time's article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b3565084-bc02-11de-9426-00144feab49a.html

[BabblingBrooks]

Oh yeah, Reaganomics was a disaster! Lots of job growth, the longest running stock market bull of all time, running from 1983 to 2000. Low unemployment. What a disaster.

We could USE MORE OF THAT KIND OF DISASTER RIGHT NOW!

[seanseamour]

Have you ever wondered what would have happened without Reaganomics?
What would have happened without the phenomenal concentration of wealth amongst the few?
How the economy would be without the S&l /Enron/current crisis?
Without the hyper-inflated home values gone bust with the life savings of so many?
With a stronger versus poorer middle class?
I could go on with the legacy of corporate oligarchy that has perverted our institutions, finally the righteous hubris that led us to Iraq for oil..., and now California where the first step in the privatization of Medicare is being quietly attempted through the Republican establishment on favor of Hallibuton of all candidates!
Oh please, the disaster continues, only the blind deny it.

[Kache]

Gee, I wonder if GOP Senators will invite Mort to testify before Congress on this.

[roselaw]

An impressive and sensitive summary of the terrible situation facing our country.

Ironically, one reason we are in a precipitous decline is the huge diversion of assets into foreign wars that Zuckerman so ardently supported, and if he had his way, we'd be at war with Iran as well.

I'd suggest we also start cutting the $3 Billion plus we give to Israel each year, and the $2 Billion plus bribe we give to Egypt each year to keep the peace, and spend the money at home.

[NeoconGal]

Massive intervention = more taxpayers money.

[RJII]

I expected this and worst aftermaths due to eight years of bush administration.

[anticapitalist1983]

WE DON'T WANT MAKE-WORK JOBS.

WE WANT FREEDOM.

RELEASE US FROM DEBT BONDAGE TO CORPORATE AMERICA.

RELEASE THE WEALTH THEY STOLE BACK TO US!

join the resistance:
www.crimethinc.com

protest the ABA meeting in a few days:
www.showdowninchicago.org

[BabblingBrooks]

Your attack on corporate America is incompatible with--even antithetical to--your claim that you want freedom. You cannot attack others' freedom without diminishing yours.

Property rights--the right to keep what you earn--is central to, essential to, freedom.

You wish to take private wealth and then do what with it? Government creates only government jobs, and these suck money out of the private sector and hinder the economy.

[anticapitalist1983]

watch "the corporation" and then tell me that!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3203253804055041031&ei=shLeSvvaOYeOrALD04zrDw&q=the+corporation#

corporations are NOT people. they are entities that accumulate wealth but never DIE, and so never pass that wealth on. yet they have the same rights as people, and they can intervene in our political process by funding political campaigns.

look at the overhead of medicare vs. health insurance companies and tell me who is more effecient?
3% vs 30%.

i don't care HOW our society is improved, just that it happens by someone. and right now, capitalism is FAILING and only accumulating wealth into large corporations' bank accounts.

[Tim Janssen]

This is astounding coming from the the conservative Zuckerman. I'm glad there are a few people on "that side of the fence" who are finally getting it and realize this is a gargantuan crisis where only massive government intervention can cure the disease. He is sounding like a Keynesian, better late than never. Now if Obama, would can the idiots Summers and Geithner and replace them with professionals who get it like Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman, Eliot Spitzer or Nouriel Roubini maybe he could still pull the rabbit out of the hat.

[BabblingBrooks]

Morty is only conservative on occasion. He's oscillated rather wildly between conservative positions and liberal positions depending upon which way the political winds blow.

[HMDMSR]

"In an application of Schumpeter’s notion of creative destruction, the US lost 44m jobs in the last two decades of the 20th century, but simultaneously created 73m private sector jobs. A stunning 55 per cent of the total workforce was in new jobs by the turn of the century, two-thirds of them in industries that paid more than the average wage. "

Could somebody verify this claim? The last part of the last sentence could be deceptively worded. One hundred workers could get jobs "in industries that paid more than the average wage," but that doesn't mean all one hundred workers would end up making more than the average wage.

[Kache]

Exactly! That two thirds of those new hires in industries that on whole pay more than the average job could have all been making minimum wage.

[kidolympic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5XBc74O42Y&feature=channel

[kidolympic]

Call Me Mort ~ ~ CALL TED
THIS IS NO FLUKE.

There has to be a good global plan; or it's a race to see who can give out the first billion dollar loan.
What do you think???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8p5t4uPCZQ&feature=channel
LET'S DO IT MORT!

The Romans had concrete, right? They knew how to make it.

I mean if jobs are not the future, what is????

http://www.jff.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr0IAWO9lnk