Re: Re: The Bill of Gates fallacy

[Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx>]

Brad De Long wrote:

>
>
> Well, we haven't, have we? The physiocrats in 1770 were really
> worried about mass urban unemployment that would follow should the
> agricultural share of the French labor force drop below 70%. Today 2%
> (IIRC) of our labor force is engaged in agriculture as farmers or
> farm laborers. And there are more gardeners, groundskeepers, and
> growers of ornamental plants than there are members of the
> agricultural labor force.
>
> Getting people the skills to take new jobs as old kinds of jobs
> vanish is, of course, a problem we are doing a bad job of dealing
> with...
>
> Brad DeLong

    Well, here we are with 4% unemployment, which even people on this list
call "low unemployment."  I don't.

But what about the recent thirty years during which the unemployment rate
(official) averaged much higher and which neo-liberal economists called
natural?

    And what about two million in prison -- do they outnumber the gardeners?

The last time, in the USA, at which unemployment could be called "low" was
during the Korean War.  So that's fifty years and counting.

    All we need is a little training in skills?

    Why do most economists see only the marvelous success of the US economy
and deny the problems?

Gene Coyle