Historically the US has had the smallest wedge and the lowest unemployment. But with Obamacare passing and mandates going out to businesses to provide health insurance to their workers and with the price of that insurance set to grow at double digit rates per year due to no preexisting conditions, the "Wedge" for American workers is set to grow dramatically. The 'Wedge' is biggest for low wage, low skill workers - mandatory benefits constitute a much large percentage of their pay. As a result of our movement to social democracy, the expanded wedge is going to lead to a multi point rise in the 'full employment' unemployment rate. The people who will be left without a chair when the music stops will be the most vulnerable, least skilled workers from the poorest parts of America.
You can see this in Europe - there are many personal service businesses in the US that hardly exist in Europe, the cost to employ lots of low skill workers is just too high.
So these vulnerable, working class workers are going to lose their job or just not get one when businesses that would have been formed decide not to or not to grow. And almost all of these people voted for hope 'n change.
So. Who's gonna tell these millions of unemployed rubes that the 'Change' they got isn't the one that they "Hoped" for? BHO won't.
Terrific insight and descriptions.
ReplyDeleteOne add: the major occupation for the under-skilled and under-30 crowd in much of Old Europe (notably France) are coffee drinking and complaining about benefits getting cut. Their politicians have built a social system that assumes no employment growth, and that entering the workforce basically requires someone to die.
Unfortunately, to make their system palatable to the over-30 skilled worker, they have also made their retirement programs more generous and allowed workers to retire earlier than here (except for government workers), so a collapse is inevitable as these same workers don't have enough children to pay the promises they have made themselves.
Current US policy is firmly headed in that direction. Good news is that Rasmussen reports that by a 49-37 margin, Americans want AG's to sue the Feds over the health bill - and most folks still oppose it.
It will be a big fight - but there is a window to renounce and repeal this bill that (as John Dingell said) will 'control the people'. But the window of opportunity is short - if we don't see a mass revolt at the polls in 2010 and 2012, then we're doomed to a social justice-inspired collapse.
Then we'll wash this nonsense away, and see that the bones of our system were getting brittle while we were consuming our fat and muscle.