Well, that's a bit of hyperbole, but, lest the eyes glaze over, "economy" always needs a little jazzing up. And, even though gjohnsit's diary has got good traction, a bit of elaboration on the theme can't hurt.
Moreover, while this post might look like a contradiction of gjohnsit's conclusion
Thus all the drop in unemployment since December is due entirely to people leaving the workforce that still want a job.
I'd call it an elaboration in that other explanations might also apply. Not to mention that even people holding down a job don't necessarily want it. Many people prefer to be self-directed or self-employed but the custodians of our currency make that hard. Only the aged and/or physically/mentally handicapped can count on a routine stipend that lets them do their own thing. People of sound mind and body need to be kept on a tight leash.
However, increasing numbers are finding another avenue of escape in the underground and California, always at the forefront of new trends, is keeping track of enterprise that, as far as one can tell from reports, has doubled in the last few years. That is, the underground economy, which was calculated to amount to a trillion dollars in 2009
economics professor Friedrich Schneider estimated that it was nearly 8 percent of the US GDP, somewhere around $1 trillion. (That makes the shadow GDP bigger than the entire GDP of Turkey or Austria.) Schneider doesn’t include illegal activities in his count-- he studies legal production of goods and services that are outside of tax and labor laws. And that shadow economy is growing as regular jobs continue to be hard to come by—Schneider estimated 5 percent in '09 alone.
was reported to have swollen to two trillion by 2013, according to the
Washington Post.
Of course, if one is really committed to individual enterprise and initiative, then the boom in the underground economy has to be seen as a boon, even as what economists count is seen as increasingly unreal. (When banks started referring to bank accounts and certificates of deposit as products, we should have realized they were entering an age of confusion).
California has now given official recognition to the underground economy via its Employment Development Department, explaining that the use of force as in
Employment Enforcement Task Force
Labor Enforcement Task Force
Construction Enforcement Project
Joint Enforcement Task Force
is intended to "protect workers and create a level playing field for business competition" as if the two were somehow related.
The Department does, however, provide a telling definition of the underground economy:
"Underground economy" is a term that refers to those individuals and businesses that deal in cash and/or use other schemes to conceal their activities and their true tax liability from government licensing, regulatory, and taxing agencies. Underground economy is also referred to as tax evasion, tax fraud, cash pay, tax gap, payments under-the-table, and off-the-books.
In other words, the economy is what bureaucrats can easily investigate and tax and the utilization of official U.S. currency is now defined as a scheme. I think in the olden days that was referred to as "form over function." How something is done is considered more important than what is done. That's what people resent. And with good reason. How much credibility can one give to a bureaucracy that's referring to nine year old data to justify its intervention in people's business?
A February 2005 report, California’s Tax Gap, prepared by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, estimates California’s income tax gap to be $6.5 billion. Reports on the underground economy indicate it imposes significant burdens on: (1) the State of California, (2) businesses that comply with the law, and (3) workers who lose benefits and other protections provided by state law when the businesses they work for operate in the underground economy.
Might as well sollicit sympathy for the devil. And, as I've often opined in posts and comments, "protection is a racket." Self-reliance does work when society is minimally compliant and applies the appropriate restraints on the ex-men among us. The ex-men are those who:
explore
exploit
export
exact
extort
execute
extradite
explode
exhaust
exterminate
And, in that context, "enforce" is simply a "kinder and gentler" variant. The Democrats in the California legislature might want to re-think the Employment Development Department and its mission since there's a fine line between people being used (employed) and abused (exploited). Force would seem to be key.
How do we put people to work? By letting them starve unless they do.