zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is. Systemically the 'interest rate targeting' approach starts to tighten up policy when unemployment gets below 5% - which they consider 'full employment' even though 1 in 20 haven't got jobs.

Interest rate targeting uses an unemployment buffer to keep wages and therefore prices under control. Poverty for those in work is entirely part of the plan. To fix the poverty problem you need to fix the structural viewpoint and return to the Beveridge condition - everybody must have an alternative living wage job offer available to them so that job competition works properly in favour of people. There must always be more jobs available than people that want them, not slightly fewer.

But that then runs into what Kalecki called "The Political Aspects of Full Employment" - a recommended read if you haven't already: https://mronline.org/2010/05/22/political-aspects-of-full-em...

Truly a 'wicked problem' - tied up with the concept of power

>>neilwi+1X
> If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is.

The example I've come across was of musical chairs. If there are 3 seats and 10 people, no matter what, some people will be out of luck.

I find it strange reading all the "get an education" or "don't have babies out of wedlock" attacks. If everyone in the country got PhDs, we still have the same level of poverty. If everyone married and then had babies, we'd still have the same level of poverty.

Lets say every american went to medical school and become doctors. You know what we'd have? A lot of doctors in poverty. If everyone became a software developer like me, we'd have hordes of poor developers.

The dominant economic system ( quasi mercantilistic capitalism with some social protections ) today pretty much guarantees poverty for a portion of the population. It's structurally systematic. The system is designed for income inequality and no matter what, we will have few extraordinary wealthy and lots of people in poverty. This is the dominant trend with a few blips ( the burgeoning of the middle class post ww2 US, but that was an anomally ).

>>liftbi+Zs1
The world is not zero sum.

If everyone had PhDs then those PhDs would be able to produce many more goods and services than exist now.

If everyone was doctors, then healthcare would be plentiful, and nobody would suffer from not having access to healthcare.

If the world was full of software engineers, then we would have a plentiful amount of software.

This is easier to consider by thinking about the opposite situation.

Imagine if we got rid of all of the doctors, software engineers, and farmers? What would happen?

We would quickly lose access to all of our healthcare, new software and then all of our food.