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The reality of today's economy is that there is now a clear split between the haves and the have nots. While the haves can slip into the "have not" category the "have nots" are all but excluded from moving up. This has created an economic situation where the "have nots" are an ever increasing majority.
One thing is for sure the economy will not recover, while everybody is waiting for going out of business sales, to make their major purchases. Somebody has to pay normal retail prices...
New forms of discrimination are creeping into the job market, women now have an advantage, because they get paid less and don't get raises. Some employers are just going for the bottom of the barrel, taking those who have not been working, mothers, retired and teenagers get preference in food service jobs. Walmart had a policy of only hiring unemployed people for years. So now people who have worked hard holding jobs for 20 or 30 years are now excluded from the work force. Most the jobs that are available are filled on a single merit, "can you pass a pre-employment drug test?"
So now data entry clerks type with two fingers, and cashiers can't make change.
Another one of the difficulties in the new job market is the advancement of computer applications.
Most would argue that the computerization of the hiring task gives the employer, greater choices and therefore better employees. This creates a great disadvantage for the many people who in fact are not the best at anything. Should they be excluded from the market just because someone else is "better" than them? In fact many if not most employers prefer to hire someone who already has a job doing the same thing somewhere else. They are pre-trained and haven't quit, why not exclude everybody who doesn't have a job at the moment? Then there are those who only hire new graduates because, they are mold-able and can be gotten for far less money. The sad truth is the person who gets the job is the one with the prettiest resume. Beyond that add in the advancement of the newest popular form of discrimination, "Computer generated discrimination" Many if not most companies now require that you apply for jobs online. Thousands of people apply for any given job and the computer selects the top ten to move on to the interview process. This obviously discriminates against the computer illiterate; those over 50 years of age, poor people, uneducated people and people who are unable to type. All of which already have a hard enough time finding work. So they can learn, and they can use computers at the public library right? Most public access computers limit you to an hour at most each day and most applications take an hour to fill out, if you can read quickly enough and type well enough. I filled out an application recently where the instructions said; if you took longer than five minutes on any page, you would be booted from the system and your application canceled...If you can struggle through the application, then they have you take a "Voluntary" assessment test, where they ask personal and trick questions, trying to find out if you are old, moody, depressed, tired, of a criminal mind, chronically unemployed, lazy, or suffer from low self esteem. When we add these exclusions to the corporately accepted, of smokers, alcoholics, felons, sex offenders, non English speaking, drug users, marijuana smokers. Then the interview process rules out the bald, ugly, overweight, bearded, tattooed, long hairs, those with speech impediments. In total some two dozen reasons to say that you are not qualified to work any job anywhere any time again. How much of the population can get past all these exclusions. One may value the day when jobs were posted in the front window and given to people who live in the neighborhood.
So the question becomes how does society support all these sub human beings? Are we ready for a new kind of economy? What would that economy look like and how would it work?
Well if we accept the fact that our newest capitalist economy, excludes 50%, 60% perhaps even %70 percent of the population unable to ever get a job again, and we accept the humanitarian moral position, That these persons have the right to exist, and prior to government sponsored discrimination were mostly employed. We have to set up a socialist economy on the side which provides all the essentials like food clothing shelter and medical assistance. After all it is already there... By separating the economy we allow Capitalism to continue.
Food
Food would be supplied by the same working systems we currently have using food pantries and the food stamp program.
Medical assistance
In order to control costs in the capitalist economy, Medical assistance would be separate from traditional medicine, a system of Doctors trained through programs in return for their services and or a requirement that all doctors give a percentage of their time to the new system.
It should be apparent to anyone who is paying attention that the number of homeless people is ever
increasing here in our country. Also equally apparent is that our neighborhoods are dotted with boarded up,
abandoned and foreclosed homes. Using comprehensive plan based on or in concert with Habitat for humanity,
the Country could use Eminent domain to take over these properties and use the homeless community to repair
and rebuild these houses with the houses being given to those who are willing to commit their time to the projects,
thereby creating long term low cost housing for those who need it the most. Creating small group homes would create
jobs and save these buildings from decaying away. Housing could be based solely on income 20% seems a good number to me.
What happened to the old economy?
Helping a new economy along...
Suggested viewing Capitalism A Love Story a film by Michael Moore
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Peace and Freedom and Tolerance
John Galt Jr.
