The Dilemma of Unemployment Benefits

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

I think this pretty much sums up the entire mainstream attitude towards those who don’t support unemployment benefits – “Why are you such a misanthropic jerk who revels in other people’s suffering?”

Why can’t people consider, even for a brief second, that there might be some other motivation besides hate and selfishness that causes people to oppose the extension of these benefits? The only real defense the Republicans give is that it’ll add to the deficit. Almost no one mentions the potential impacts on those who decide not to take a (relatively) low-paying job in order to continue on unemployment benefits in the hope that a better job will open up.

2

From the comments on youtube: “Why aren’t more congressmen like John Lewis? Here’s a man who has seen it all, who truly understands what it means to suffer in this country. We can talk about the technical merits of progressive policies like wonks all we want, but, in the end, this is what it’s about. The emotion.”

This guy hasn’t seen Castro talk! Such emotion!

3

Feelings matter. And in the media hyped up culture, feelings now matter more. There is a tiny bit of hope here as you are seeing congress critters of all stripes begin to examine the logic of forever extending cash give aways to people for not working.

Understand that there are 2 economic arguments for these extensions of unemployment benefits that do have merit that the government at all levels will eventually have to address. They are:

  1. Government has a myriad of restrictions on people working, the most obvious is minimum wage but also there are licensing and other limitations on who can do what. For example lawyers are unemployeed in mass because restrictions on practicing law have lead to people over investing their educations in this field. Doctors are finding themselves in a similar situation.

  2. Government at all levels has hosed up the economy so bad that these folks are paying the price and should get some of the money they send to Washington and the state capitals back.

4

Is there a paper or article on trickle theory? I don’t just mean trickle-down… I mean all trickles.

If you tax the capital owners, they can simply pass the costs onto consumers. If you tax consumers, you reduce their purchasing power and lower returns for capital owners…

So what determines the final distribution of taxes? It looks complicated but I think it just depends on who the government crowds out with its spending. I.e. its useless to tax specific income groups; you should look at which consumer groups are being competed against by government.

5

If you tax the capital owners, they can simply pass the costs onto consumers

The incidence of taxation is always backwards, i.e, from consumers to wage earners. No costs are simply passed onto consumers. It may happen that the tax lowers productivity, thus, eventually raising prices of certain commodities, but that is an indirect consequence and not because the tax is simply shifted to consumers.

6

I am guessing that your reasoning is that the consumer is already paying all he is willing to.

Could you provide a link that explains this point in gerater detail, maybe with some evidence?

7

“Why can’t people consider, even for a brief second, that there might be some other motivation besides hate and selfishness that causes people to oppose the extension of these benefits?” - bobbyveech

Because they inherrently understand the explicit and not the implicit. Similar to what is seen and unseen. Personally unemployment benefits don’t bother me as much as the rest of the welfare state in as much as I’d repeal them last. I figure as long as the banksters and politicians are fucking with the labor market and devaluing labors’ savings and wages, I can’t be totally unsympathetic to the victims of those higher level shenanigans. As said by this poster:

"1. Government has a myriad of restrictions on people working, the most obvious is minimum wage but also there are licensing and other limitations on who can do what. For example lawyers are unemployeed in mass because restrictions on practicing law have lead to people over investing their educations in this field. Doctors are finding themselves in a similar situation.

  1. Government at all levels has hosed up the economy so bad that these folks are paying the price and should get some of the money they send to Washington and the state capitals back."

There are a lot of genuine victims out there. Also, while I’ve never seen this applied this way here, I have sympathy for those with no savings for the same reason I don’t blame entrepreneurs for the business cycle. All the easy money and credit doesn’t just affect higher order markets and their players, and when Joe Six Pack sees all his friends getting flat screen TVs and new furniture and cars, etc., we shouldn’t be surprised that consumer behavior changes and when the bust occurs to find that they’re in shakier financial shape than they figured.

In fact, there’s one bail out I wouldn’t have minded: cancel out all unsecured debt and fuck the creditors. It would be no more helpful, proper, ethical or moral than any other bail out. But somehow sending a few trillion to the banksters who then are going to turn around and charge Joe Six Pack 30% on his unsecured debt anyway strikes me, at least emotionally, as a shittier deal. I’d’ rather the government, if it had to do something!, wipe the consumer slate clean and then no voter would have any excuse for any financial troubles down the road related to debt.

I wonder how that would have played out politically. It would have been interesting had Obama come out one day and addressed the nation and said, “My fellow Americans, we’ve spent ourselves into a bind. We’re going to do one thing, and one thing only: all unsecured debt will be wiped off the books. Maybe we’ll sell some federal assets to pay some of the creditors something. But as of DATE, it’s a clean slate for all of us, come what may. If you screw up again, you’re on your own.”

8

yeah its the other way around rothbard writes on this in mespm… ctrl+f it..

9

I am guessing that your reasoning is that the consumer is already paying all he is willing to.

Could you provide a link that explains this point in gerater detail, maybe with some evidence?

If the producer was able to increase sales price and pocket the extra as profits he surely would have. having a 10% tax fall on him, doesnt give him sales price increasing powers, it causes him to wind down production or drop quality or some such since all that the government has changed is the cost (they increased production costs).. winding down production, as a consequence of rising costs, would put pressure on the sales price of a good to rise (supply is falling).

http://blog.mises.org/3437/who-bears-the-burden-of-the-tax/

10

THX.

11

I see nothing wrong with welfare or extending unemployment benefits. It’s all about sucking as much money from government right? Take back all the tax dollars they take from me?

Not to mention the unenployment benefits are a scam anyone. If I quit my job, I have to wait weeks to start getting covered, meanwhile the business finds a replacement and gets more money into the unemployment fund.

12

In Canada you can stub your toe and collect compensation for the day you missed.