Well, that settles it. Anything the public want can’t be good for the country. No job programmes for you, kiddies.

heh… just like how the majority of the population wants pot to be legalized, too.

As Dick Cheney would say: SO????

Yes we do!

What does it say about this country that the corporations have reaped never before seen profits, yet can’t employ Americans?

But But the GOP spends so much money pushing the Government can’t do the job better than the Free Market Meme but despite all those advertising dollars spent 72% of voters want more government spending?
The GOP really needs to fire their PR firm.

It’s more won’t than can’t. Won’t share the obscene profits they’ve made since the 1970′s.

Agreed. Anything the people want is DOA in congress these days.

P.s. LOng time no see.

Agreed. All they do is layoff people and raise executive bonuses whichm BTW, WSJ reported went up some 13-17% last year for most corporate executives.

Wages went up 1.7%

The official unemployment rate in the United States is 7.7 percent. Only a few years ago that would have been seen as a massive crisis but now it has been accepted by Washington and much of the media as simply the new normal.

I have NEVER before been one to claim or endorse the notion that the government was systematically lying to us. But, I think they are now and have been during most of the Obama administration. If not outright lying, they know the figures are inaccrate beauses of the under-employed and tens of thousands that just left the workforce.

The People want it. We can like FDR did tax the rich to pay for it. The only people who don’t want it are Dem, GOPers and the Media.

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
15.6 15.4 14.9 15.0 14.5 14.4 14.4 14.4 14.3
NOTE: Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are availa

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

The U-6 unemployment number is never mentioned by the Press but its as close to the real unemployment number we will get.

But, I think they are now and have been during most of the Obama administration. If not outright lying, they know the figures are inaccrate beauses of the under-employed and tens of thousands that just left the workforce.

I seem to recall questions about Bush’s job creation numbers.

Nothing is more natural than that a nation, after making sure that a great enterprise will profit the community, should have such an enterprise carried out with funds collected from the citizenry. But I lose patience completely, I confess, when I hear alleged in support of such a resolution this economic fallacy: “Besides, it is a way of creating jobs for the workers.”

The state opens a road, builds a palace, repairs a street, digs a canal; with these projects it gives jobs to certain workers. That is what is seen. But it deprives certain other laborers of employment. That is what is not seen.

The state opens a road, builds a palace, repairs a street, digs a canal; with these projects it gives jobs to certain workers. That is what is seen. But it deprives certain other laborers of employment. That is what is not seen.

You are assuming that there are other jobs these workers could be working at this is a Depression so don’t worry about that.
Next a Street reduces traffic makes goods get transported faster and workers get to work faster or get to the mall, fast food joint etc to spend money faster. This helps the economy.
Money spent on palaces or banks so they can gamble on Credit Default Swaps does not help the economy.
But CDS can certainly destroy the economy just ask Bush not that he would admit it.
We need Government jobs that will benefit the economy. We need government regulation to ensure that banks don’t destroy the economy.
We need government regulation to prevent bad food bad drugs etc or haven’t you seen the news lately?

When a railroad or a bridge has real utility, it suffices to rely on this fact in arguing in its favor. But if one cannot do this, what does one do? One has recourse to this mumbo jumbo: “We must create jobs for the workers.”

When a railroad or a bridge has real utility, it suffices to rely on this fact in arguing in its favor. But if one cannot do this, what does one do? One has recourse to this mumbo jumbo: “We must create jobs for the workers.”

Yes that is another argument we are a consumer driven economy if our workers don’t have money then who will buy stuff.
Also

Despite billions of dollars in federal, state and local funds directed toward the maintenance of existing bridges, 69,223 bridges — 11.5 percent of total highway bridges in the U.S. — are classified as “structurally deficient,” requiring significant maintenance, rehabilitation or replacement.

http://t4america.org/resources/bridges/

We do need to fix billions of our infrastructure or our bridges will fall down, roads, water treatment plants etc will break down and every day we don’t the cost to repair them gets bigger. We have a lot of unemployed people now so fixing America now won’t constrain the private labor market’s supply of workers like it would if we tried to fix America when the economy is good.
Again we need workers to spend money so by creating jobs we help workers and help the general economy.

You should credit your sources instead of making us guess. Claude Frédéric Bastiat 1801-1850?

Gee…How reassuring. I suppose that since most americans (being the clearly intelligent, well informed people we collectively are and all) come to the conclusion that all is well except for just needing to like spend some moar ‘money’ then spending some moar ‘money’ must be the intelligent and well informed thingy to do?
Nice. Sure it’ll werk out real all good-:)

At least I managed to get he second one in quotes. I messed up the quote thingy the first time.

Yes, Government Spending on Job Programs has been popular, and dumb, for a very long time.

Letting our existing infrastructure crumble, not investing in new infrastructure, selling off the commons to private profiteers, is what’s dumb.

And, as when the majority wanted Medicare for All, the pols in DC just stick their fingers in their ears and go “La la la la la la, I can’t hear you.”

We don’t figure in how they figure what is important for them to do as pols. We just do not have enough do-re-mi, as Woody Guthrie would put it.

How else do we get the wealthy back to their rightful place at the top of the social pyramid?

Medieval, babeeee! Aristocrats rule! Well, make that really Big Money rules.

Claude Frédéric Bastiat would argue that if we taxed people their actual physical work rather then their money for “Government Spending” far fewer people would be interested. Picture this Government Jobs Program: Instead of paying taxes you have to take 2 days off work every month to fill in pot holes or do other infrastructure repairs. You don’t get paid for those two days and your company has to hire people to take your place. Jobs are created and infrastructure’s getting repaired. It’s what’s not seen.

I haven’t personally inspected all of the US infrastructure, but what I’ve seen hasn’t been crumbling.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-10-31/opinions/35277677_1_infrastructure-rankings-airports

Yes, I’d definitely base a national agenda on what a Washington Post columnist saw on his summer vacation, rather than what the American Society of Civil Engineers has to say. No, come to think of it, I wouldn’t.

And while that D from the American Society of Civil Engineers is undoubtedly sincere, the organization has a vested interest in greater infrastructure spending, which means more work for engineers. The engineers’ lobby has given America’s infrastructure a D in every one of its report cards going back to 1998, except for 2001, when the mark was D-plus.

Sounds like things have generally gotten worse or stayed the same since 1998, as a result of not being willing to make any big investment, and engineers not having as powerful a lobby as other “job creators.”

Full disclosure; I work in engineering. Don’t hold it against me.

:-)

It worked in the Real World for FDR during the Great Depression. The Bush/Obama bank bailout however has not led to more banks loaning money to spur the economy as was promised.

Yes but, again, what “Americans” at large want does not matter.