10/21/2024
[public finance][economic integration] I’ve previously written about the significance of economic integration - aka employment - to public health. We should all be invested in making the government the “employer of last resort,” guaranteeing employment to anyone who is not employed by the private sector. Why? And how?
Here’s Cory Doctorow: “the US government could hire every single unemployed person without creating inflationary pressure on wages, because inflation only happens when the US government tries to buy something that the private sector is also trying to buy, bidding up the price. To be “unemployed” is to have labor that the private sector isn’t trying to buy. They’re synonyms. By definition, the feds could put every unemployed person to work (say, training one another to be teachers, construction workers, etc — and then going out and taking care of the sick, addressing the housing crisis, etc etc) without buying any labor that the private sector is also trying to buy.”
Much more like this from me on unconventional views on finance.
Oh, you think that would push up the national debt - and that’s a bad thing? Comment if you want me to address that, and I will. Also, there’s a movie about it.
