The Truth About Western (Un)Employment

“Structural unemployment” (i.e. permanent unemployment) is nothing new in Western societies. Indeed, it has been a constant fact-of-life in our economies ever since the Industrial Revolution. What is new is the choice by Western governments to ignore this problem – which is now a gigantic crisis.

The dynamics here are as simple as they are unequivocal. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; the normal “work week” was approximately 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, more than double the current work week.

What happened? Have Western workers simply gotten “lazier” and “lazier”? Hardly. Rather, they were the recipients of – and now victims of – the Dynamic of Technology. The principal is simple: technology always eliminates the need for labour faster than it creates new employment opportunities.

This has been a constant and unequivocal parameter of Western economies for more than two centuries. With less and less work available every year; the length of the work week must be steadily reduced – as the only possible means of maintaining full employment. Yet in the Age of Computerization (the most-rapid elimination of labour in history), our corrupt/sadistic government have chosen to ignore this dynamic, needlessly causing enormous structural/permanent unemployment in our societies.

Western structural unemployment has been allowed to grow to such an obscene size that it now ranks as the greatest economic plague in our modern history (i.e. since the Industrial Revolution). U.S. data will be used to illustrate the magnitude of this plague simply because it is most easily available; but the plague applies (more or less) equally to all Western economies.

“Total employment” in the U.S. is just over 144 million people, in a population of 317 million. This translates into 46% of the population of having jobs, and 54% not working. Yet we have the U.S. government claiming an “unemployment rate” of just over 7%. Obviously the government lies.

The familiar chart below shows how the U.S. economy has been losing jobs throughout this supposed Recovery; while fraudulent employment reports claim “new jobs created” every month.

As illustrated in my most-recent commentary; during this current Greater Depression, U.S. wages have fallen all the way back (in “real dollars”) to “Great Depression” levels. For the Working Poor; this means that two-wage earners are now required in most households just to stay above the Poverty Line.

In overall numbers; this translates into over 50 million unemployed Americans who want/need jobs today – if they were allowed to work. If we add those 50+ million unemployed Americans to the 144 million who have jobs; we get a “total workforce” which (for the sake of convenience) we will round-off to 200 million. With 56 million unemployed out of a total workforce of 200 million; this translates into an unemployment rate of 28% -- four times the fictional, “official” rate.

Of course even that number significantly understates the U.S. “unemployment problem” today. Out of the lucky(?) 144 million (being paid their Great Depression wages), somewhere in excess of 10 million of those people only have part-time work – when they need full-time employment. Millions more Americans toil at jobs far below their level of qualifications: WalMart “greeters”, with university degrees.

Meanwhile, as the Greater Depression destroys the standard of living of older Americans as well, the trend of retiring at younger-and-younger ages has abruptly reversed. Now (for economic reasons) Americans are forced to retire later and later, dramatically reducing the number of new job-openings in this already-anemic labour market.

Clearly the (un)employment problem affects well in excess of 30% of the U.S. population – today – and “7%” is simply a lie which the U.S. government uses to keep the Serfs from rioting in the streets. Much the same is being done across the Western world: lying to and oppressing their own populations, because these governments choose to do nothing about this massive, structural unemployment.

What should these governments do (or what should they have already done)? How did we get from 7 days a week/12 hours a day, to 5 days/week and 8 hours/day? Our governments used legislation to shorten the length of the official “work week”, which for over 200 years has been the only possible means of providing full employment to our societies.

So why have our corrupt/sadistic governments not moved to a four-day work week (decades ago), and allowed everyone to work? Because these governments are now owned by gigantic mega-corporations; oligopolies whose very existence is a violation of our most-fundamental laws on markets (and economies).

These mega-corporations don’t want “workers”. They want Slaves. How do you transform Workers into Slaves? You do two things.

First of all, you create massive unemployment. Thus instead of “two or three” job-applicants for each new position in an economy; there are now 20 or 30 (or a hundred). The Slave Masters not only always get a perfect candidate for each job, but also a Slave who will (happily) accept lower wages and worse working conditions than the previous Worker. The ultimate race-to-the-bottom.

Secondly (as reported in the NY Times), you destroy their labour unions: …

from 1973 to 2007, union membership [in the U.S.] dropped to 8 percent from 34 percent among men and to 6 percent from 16 percent among women. During that time, wage inequality in the private sector increased by more than 40 percent, the study found. [emphasis mine]

Of course this union-genocide is only directed at the workers. The Fat Cats at the top are allowed to keep their own unions. They simply call them “associations.” And while the workers-turned-Slaves (who have lost their unions) now get paid Great Depression wages; the Fat Cat union-members collect fatter and fatter salaries every year.

There can be no possible excuse for our governments claiming “ignorance” of more than two centuries of our own economic history. There can be no possible justification for the heinous lies they tell their own people – their “unemployment rates” -- simply to avoid dealing with the problem, in order to please their (real) Masters.

Very simply: no political party which stands behind these fictional, malevolent “unemployment rates” is fit to rule. They are clearly Traitor Governments; working against the interests of their own people, rather than for them. No political party which fails to advocate an immediate transition to a four-day work week is fit to be elected.

Even more simply; because no population anywhere in the Western world is being given the choice of a political party which will tell the truth rather than hide the truth about unemployment, we need new political parties.

Here is a humble suggestion: let’s call this new political party “the People’s Party”. And it will have a “radical agenda”: it will represent the interests of people, rather than exclusively serving the interests of mega-corporations (and Fat Cats).

Furthermore, it must be free of all of the idiot-ideologies which have plagued our species for as long as we have had political parties. Instead of having political policies today which are based on the dictates of long-dead ideologues; we would have governments which would (pragmatically) craft their own policies and strategies for the problems which actually exist today.

Allowing everyone who wants to work to have a job? Governments which make practical decisions to deal with problems, rather then knee-jerk ideological reactions? Political parties which actually serve the people who elect them?

The fact that such thinking sounds “totally insane” to the vast majority is perhaps the best reflection of how far our societies have descended back towards Feudalism, as well as reflecting how quickly Western citizens have embraced their new lives – as Serfs.

Jeff Nielson

www.bullionbullscanada.com