I am quoting from two heartbreaking recent diary comments without revealing the identities of the commenters:
After two years of unemployment, I've been through depression, spats with my very patient wife, embarrassment, and a lot of fear. I also worry that I will lose the respect of my kids. Now, I'm just angry. I'm angry at the people who don't respond to my emails, I'm angry at Wall Street, I'm angry at George W. Bush, and most of all, I'm angry at myself.
And...
I have been through an awful lot this winter, dealing with health issues, but the worst blow was the sudden death of my beloved younger sister and best friend last week. She was only 51 years old, and I have been trying to support her husband of 22 years...
She touched so many lives and helped so many people in her life and career. I think getting laid off last month took the steam out of her at last.
(My emphasis)
Unemployment is a severe source of stress for individuals. Reuters reports that suicides rise and fall with the economy:
http://www.reuters.com/...
Suicides in the United States ebb and flow with the economy, rising in bad times and falling in good, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
Their study, published online in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first to look at suicide trends by age and business cycles, and it found that working Americans -- people aged 25 to 64 -- are significantly more prone to suicide in tough economic times. |
The woman who died at 51 lost potentially half of her lifespan. An accompanying video showed her as a beautiful, vibrant woman, enjoying life. Whatever the circumstances of her being laid off (they are not explained), a job usually defines a person's life and is an important component of his or her self-image. A job loss is a psychological trauma, in addition to creating many practical problems of income loss and disruption of relationships.
Even if a person is not beautiful or vibrant, each person is an individual person and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A person's consciousness, their perception of themselves and their environment for a given number of years is all they have. That is their life that nature has given them. When a life is clouded or disrupted by events that seem arbitrary or preventable, the situation is deplorable. It forces one to ask what can be done to remedy such situations.
It's quite easy to document the suffering of the unemployed and those in poverty and to make a case for needed help, but it's a lot harder to prod politicians and government officials into providing such help. However, there are numerous ways in which the federal government could provide help.
One way is simply to enlarge an unemployment insurance program.
Another way is to establish a Federal Job Guarantee, as explained by maddogg in an earlier diary:
One of the primary policy goals of most MMT economists is a Job Guarantee. Sometimes we'll refer to it as a Federal Job Guarantee(FJG), Employer of last resort(ELR), Labor Buffer Stock, etc... It's all basically talking about the same thing, a job guarantee. A job Guarantee would be a permanent job offer from the federal government to all citizens of a certain age for a basic wage to anyone who is ready, willing, and able to work.
Yet another way would be through a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) (see http://www.usbig.net/...).
Still another way would be for greatly enlarged government grants to charitable organizations.
This economic help is not forthcoming
In his recent speeches and radio addresses, President Obama has talked about building the future by investing in green energy, infrastructure building, and other programs to make the U.S. a stronger nation and provide jobs for the future.
What he does not talk about is providing economic relief for the present-day jobless. Those out of work need jobs now. Is the corporate CEO willing to postpone his multi-million dollar salary and bonuses to some future time when America is stronger? No. He wants his money now.
Are corporations willing to wait for a future stronger America to collect their profits? No. They need their profits now.
Are shareholders willing to forego their dividends until the future when America is stronger? No. They want their dividends now.
They will all collect their money now, while the jobless get by somehow without income and are forgotten, just collateral damage on the road to greater corporate largess.
Why is this economic help being withheld?
It's not happening because our dear economic leaders do not properly understand how economics works. They are afraid of government debt and deficit spending, worried that the U.S. could become insolvent. Therefore, they believe that the government not only cannot afford to spend more to help its people, but also that it must actually cut back existing programs that assist its citizens.
The fallacy of all this was explained by Letsgetitdone in an earlier Money & Public Purpose diary: <"http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/16/967420/-Tell-President-Obama-and-Everyone-Else:-Theres-No-Deficit-Problem?showAll=yes" />
The question is whether the level of deficit spending necessary to entirely end this recession and create a Federal Job Guarantee program all within 6 months will create demand-pull inflation? The answer is No, it will not.
A second question is will that kind of deficit spending cause the US to "run out of money?" The answer is No, it will not.
That's all we really need to know. That and also that our elected representatives won't do what is necessary because they've sold out to people with money who care only about hanging on to it and getting more at whatever cost to anybody else.
and...
So, the solvency issue needs to be taken off the table for discussion, and certainly as a basis for action, and austerity programs and long-term deficit reduction plans like those of Paul Ryan and the Administration. In addition, our erstwhile leaders need to all get off their high horses about fiscal responsibility, fiscal sustainability, "biting bullets," "having adult conversations," and other such nonsense, and face up to their real responsibility which is spending enough, in the right way, to give every American who wants to work a job at a living wage with decent fringe benefits. Until they do that, they are the ones who are being fiscally as well as morally irresponsible.
Our leaders are acting as if the nation were still on the gold standard. We’re off the gold standard; there is not enough gold in existence to back up everyone’s money needs. Money is a social contract, not a physical thing. Money has always been a social contract, even back in the mists of time when it was created, even though its creators did not realize it was a social contract. It must have always been so; there is no place in time when it suddenly changed. Therefore, the government is not limited by some physical store of gold in the ability to issue money. Of course, our leaders must exercise common sense and not issue a lot of money on frivolous things.
The well-being of our citizens is not frivolous. There is also a social contract between government and citizens. It states that citizens are all created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A misunderstanding of economics and its relation to the social contract between government and the people must not be allowed to stand in the way of government guardianship of the people’s welfare.
To learn more about the concepts of Modern Monetary Theory, please follow or join us at Money and Public Purpose, a dKos group promoting MMT.
Thank you for reading and reccing.
psyched