More Jobs Is Bad News

[Hyman Blumenstock <hystock@xxxxxxxxx>]

John Gelles wrote:
>
>
>
>                GREENSPAN, (NOT PK OR ANTI-PK), BUT ARCHITECT
>                       OF THE NEW ECONOMIC ORDER (NEO):
>
>        Soft Landings after spurts of Rapid Growth; Assured Liquidity
>          In the Crunch when PE's Fall but Time is on Our Side; and
>                 Free Trade for as long as Our Multinationals
>                            Are Smarter than Theirs
>
>
>        Perhaps it was Lincoln who said -- You can employ some of the
>        people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but
>        you can't employ all the people all the time.  (Sorry, he said
>        "fool" the people, not "employ" them.)
>
>        Regardless -- here we have Greenspan thinking 95% of us are
>        working.  He cannot be expected to do more on that front.  (If
>        100%  is the goal, the law should ensure the goal is met -- a
>        legislative matter, not an element of monetary management -- or
>        so a central banker may reasonably believe.)   On all other
>        fronts, especially inflation, his stewardship scores high.

Does Greenspan really want us all to work?  The following suggests that:
>
MORE JOBS IS BAD NEWS

by Richard Reeves in Baltimore Sun Fri. 8/12/94, pg. 21A
New York -- Last Saturday the New York Times reported some bad economic
news under this headline:  "Employment Rises and Wages Grow, Rattling
Markets; some 259,000 Jobs Are Created; July Figures Renew Fears That
Federal Reserve Will Move Again to Increase Rates."

	Without any going into all the numbers, the story by Keith Bradsher
said that "traders and investors" did not much like the fact that a
quarter of a million Americans had new jobs and our average earnings had
increased 4 cents to $11.12 an hour.  The Dow Jones stock index dropped
18.77 points on this disturbing news.

 	What the hell is going on here?  Day after day, newspapers report the
"good" news that IBM, AT&T and other corporations are laying off 30,000
workers here and another 20,000 there.  Headline  writers, traders and
investors all cheer.  New jobs and higher wages are the "bad" news,
because if that should create more citizen spending power, there could
be some inflation -- and that would reduce the value of paper held by
traders, investors and loan sharks.  That would be a terrible thing for
the investing class.  Borrowers (most of us) could get a break paying
back our loans with dollars worth a penny or so less -- and lenders
would get a farthing less.

And all this while you thought the object of the exercise as more and
better jobs for American workers.  Silly you. The object, at least as
reported now by much of the press in adherence to the trading and
investing line, is to make the United States into a giant Taiwan with
big investments and small wages.

"Responsible" is a big word in all this Taiwanization of America. For
comment on the rattling new economic numbers, the Times turned to Eugene
J. Sherman, the director of research at M. A. Schapiro & Co., a New York
brokerage firm, who said? "It [raising interest rates] would be the
responsible thing to do ... to move and move promptly."

Really? "Responsible" for what or to whom?  Whom is Mr. Sherman
responsible to?  In fact, who is Mr. Sherman?  He is "a financial
analyst," which is the favored title now for the people newspapers and
television turn to, ever so briefly, to mumble about "market responses"
in markets that are both global and electronically instantaneous.
Governments and journalism can't keep up, but analysts can pretend to.
I'm not sure what "financial analyst" means -- it's as non-specific as,
say, "reporter" -- beyond the fact that Mr. Sherman supplies analysis
designed to make money for M.A.Schapiro, its traders and investors.

As far as a reader or viewer can tell, the analyst has no greater
motivation than digitally skimming those few bucks for the boss. The
work has purpose but no goal, dealing with value of the moment but not
values.  Market-speak (or  market worship) is quite different from the
slower dialogue of democracy, which has to do with such goals and values
as improving the life of most of the people most of the time.  The
Constitution of the United States does not begin, "We the traders...."

 In fact, I would argue, the future of American democracy itself depends
on a prosperous middle class, some of whom depend on such rattling
little things as those 259,000 jobs and salaries above the minimum wage
on Taiwan. To keep this place going, working Americans have to make
enough money to buy homes and send kids to college.

Believing that, in the good old days we, the people, were not depressed
by the prospect of more and better jobs.  The Times and a great number
of significant American Institutions seem to have switched sides on such
things.

 Markets of the world unite! Let the people eat statistics!.

Hyman