Re: The Working Consumer/was PKT and ecology

["Canova, Timothy" <CANOVA@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>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.

BUT:  if you're unemployed for more than 26 weeks, you're no longer counted
as unemployed.  if you work even one hour per week in part-time work, you're
not counted as unemployed.  those who end up in the prison system because
they turn to the black-market drug trade are not counted as unemployed.  and
then there's the entire issue of underemployment which includes the working
poor, those working without health insurance, etc.  Full-employment is a
fiction.