The Working Consumer/was PKT and ecology

["Harry Veeder" <eo200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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>From: "Canova, Timothy" <CANOVA@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: "'pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: new thread: PKT and ecology
>Date: Thu, Mar 22, 2001, 8:00 pm
>

>it would be nice to see PKT adopt a more expansive view of ecology.  the
>environment should include more than the physical environment, also the
>social environment.  doesn't Keynesian economics have anything at all to say
>about the fact that 2 million Americans are now behind bars, many because of
>a lack of decent job opportunities and the utter fiction of a 4 percent
>unemployment rate.  instead there are PKTers who have accepted the fiction
>that the US has been at full employment for the past few years.  that's a
>stretch -- only when compared to the basket cases of the world, like Japan.

It is not really a fiction. Those who register as unemployed have
identified themselves as unemployed. Of course, there are many other
people who don't feel unemployed even though they don't have
a paying job. What these people lack is not employment,
but income, recognition and validation.

Since having a job is so important to being a full citizen,
then the government should create a new job category called PUBLIC
SERVICE CONSUMER. The public service consumer is paid by the government
to consume. Although the consumer is employed by the state, she is self
directed like the entrepeneur. As long as they follow the laws of the land
the government should leave them alone. They may even pay income tax
like everyone else. If they take on a traditional wage job, then
loose their job as CONSUMER.

Harry Veeder