'Seven Problems A Recovery Won't Fix'

Harvard Business Review:

The Big Grinning Kahunas that run the world don't agree on much these days, except one thing: the urgent, vital need for "recovery." On both sides of an increasingly fractious political divide, there's a common belief underlying the debates: what we really need is more stimulus, spending, cutting, slashing, or [insert big idea here], and the economy will "recover" — hey, presto!! — and pop roaring back into life.

Read the whole story: Harvard Business Review

 

 

Comments

[planetjeffy]

02:52 AM on 06/15/2011

The unemployment rate if you have a high school diploma - 4.5%
The unemployment rate if you have some college education - 8%
The unemployment rate if you have a bachelor's degree or higher - 9.5%
no high school diploma...forget it

affordable higher education for everyone is the key

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

[rbchilds]

04:42 PM on 06/14/2011

My top five are:
1. Stupid people in the House
2. Stupid people in the Senate
3. Stupid people voting for the above
4. Stupid people running the banks
5. Stupid people running Wall Street
.

[Alex Croley]

03:06 PM on 06/14/2011

Our minds collectively in this country is set on 'instant gradification' and the mental/emotional exhaustion that we have become accustom to being the norm; we will never, in this generation, fix those problems.

[pepper1311]

05:53 PM on 06/14/2011

Correct, everyone looks at what they made today or this minute. This happened with 401K's and homes. Everything is an investment that needs to gain today.

[ChrisTT]

01:32 PM on 06/14/2011

Basic income guaratee would be the solution. Chinamart's wage slaves would just walk off and they wouldn't get a single application if people had their basic needs covered already.

We'd start getting back to real value because we'd see how comfortable we are if there is nobody willing to be a sewage plant diver because they don't have the pressure to feed their family. Then you'd see how much you have to pay to get somebody do these dirty jobs.

Hard jobs, dirty jobs and jobs that have a great benefit for all of us would be paid very well and that is the way it should be.

But that doesn't work with Americans. Universal health care is socialism after all. What do you call a society that pays each citizen a basic income?

[JScott]

10:53 AM on 06/14/2011

Truth hurts doesn't it.

[loki]

06:53 PM on 06/13/2011

"Dehumanization. As I've noted, GDP has long decoupled from more meaningful measures of welfare, like the ISEW or the GPI, that begin to measure what matter to humans, not just sociopaths in $7000 suits. Our economy's been dehumanized, and mere recovery in the arid, sterile terms of GDP just isn't good enough to rehumanize it."

The 7000 dollar suits would not be a problem if the employees could buy 2000 suits. There is a huge disparage between wages of those who make the money, and those who sit in the office and play golf. But most of it is the way that people of wealth perceive themselves to be so much better than those without it. They look down upon the poorer people.
EG: I have a friend who owns a company and his personal wealth is 135 million. Could be a lot more but the lowest wage he pays his employees is around $25 an hour with full benefits and good bonuses. He amassed wealth over 30 years, still gets on the floor filling in when someone is off , and he gives the employee the money for his work. He is a real capitalist , I think. Anyway, his wife talked him into joining a country club, where he discovered he was snubbed because he didnt had the wealth some of the others did. He quit the club. The rich being the Brat/ Bully Pack is the biggest cause.

[loki]

06:51 PM on 06/13/2011

"Dumbification." biggest cause of this is COST of education and designating certain schools to be more Worthy than others on social status and not educational value. Many ivy greed schools are good old boy social status and not educational status. Even though they want to believe they are more educated just because they went to Harvard or Yale. Thats called mentally justifying the cost, and making your ego boosting.

[loki]

06:41 PM on 06/13/2011

"Here's a statistic that ought to set your hair on fire: somewhere between 50 and 75% of "employees" are "disengaged" (depending on whose numbers you want to buy): they don't care much, if at all, about the work they do. But can you blame them? Perhaps they don't care not just because the work they do feels pointless, but because, in human terms, it mostly is. "

OK, first of all, in my opinion at least. most employees dont care about the work they do because they dont think the company cares about them as employees or as human beings. While their benefits and wages get cut, and their hours lengthened, the CEOs and upper management get bonuses and raises at an rapidly increasing rate. Employers dont care if your child is sick , your parents are dying, or anything, even if your an employee who has been dedicated a loyal for decades. All they care about is how much "THEY" can personally make off your sweat and blood, and will replace you in a heart beat. I think because most employees know this, or at least perceive this, is more a reason for employee dissatisfaction than the kid of work they do.

[J T K]

08:22 PM on 06/13/2011

You and I would disagree on it being a bad thing that companies treat employees as just a means to the end, making a profit. Corporations aren't meant to be sensitive, they exist solely to make a profit for their shareholders and in many cases are legally required to do everything legally possible to do so.

It's always been that your coworkers or even your direct boss might care but the corporation and by extension the board don't have that luxury. If you want everyone up the chain to care you have to start your own business and hire people or you have to work for a smaller company that follows that ethos.

[Arts4u]

12:09 PM on 06/14/2011

A while ago I read an article written by a corporate insider which stated the unofficial (not publicly stated) goals of the largest corporations. Shareholder profit was far down the list... the top was domination of the sector and perpetuation of the company.

You perpetuate a myth, as well as the problem, by making this kind of comment.

[mulegino]

06:02 PM on 06/13/2011

A very good summation of our problems. These symptoms point to the economics of mass destruction:
Free trade: The importation of cheap junk manufactured by subsistence wage slaves. Destructive for domestic manufacturing and domestic labor whose interests should be harmonized with one another, not diverge.

Antidote: Protection of the national manufacturing base and the American wage via a protective tarrif, punitive tax penalties on outsourcing and offshoring, coupled with generous incentives to businesses which establish domestic industry, and pay a living wage based on a market basket of essential goods and services.

Globalization:

The favoring of fluid and parasitical elites at the expense of the middle and working classes, contributing to the downward spiral of wages, international debt servitude and the loss of sovereignty.

Antidote:

Economic nationalism, including sovereignty over the nation's trade, fiscal and financial policy through the issue of debt-free currency directly by the government; massive collaboration rebuilding the nation's infrastructure and strengthening the social safety net. Limit foreign investment in all businesses to less than controlling interest.

Downward spiral of wages:

Gradually ban the importation of all goods made by subsistence wage slaves; establish a policy favoring smaller retailers marketing American made goods, as well as smaller, domestic agriculture. Marginalize big box retailers via tarrifs, environmental and community footprint taxes, etc.

Privatization:

Ensure public control of all vital and naturally monopolistic resource such as water, power plants, communications, etc., via local, state, and federal utility commissions, which would include both environmental and consumer watchdogs.

[J T K]

08:15 PM on 06/13/2011

I take it then that you'd have no problem with every other country doing the same thing until our exports ground to a halt and we can't get certain rarer supplies like rare earth minerals because nobody will export them to us.

Nationalism and protectionism won't solve anything, it'll just cripple us further. The low wages of China and these other countries won't last long and they're already rising steadily.

[mulegino]

08:33 PM on 06/13/2011

I have absolutely no problem with any country acting in their own best interests. What exports? Our huge trade imbalance is the main reason for our foreign debt. The slave wages of China will be supplemented by the slave wages of Bangladesh, or some other third-world dump, ad infinitum, until a general concensus is reached among the SOVEREIGN nations of the world that free-trade and globalization are horrible, morally repuslive notions and that they must be replaced by protection of domestic industry and labour. This nation has already fought one civil war to abolish slavery. Why should it acquiesce to wage slavery? Adam Smith, Friedman and Ayn Rand should be consigned to the garbage dump of history.

[mulegino]

08:38 PM on 06/13/2011

So slavery is a good thing, eh?