The Real News: Paul Jay & Robert Pollin: 'The Full Employment Debate'

Source:The Real News Network- talking about full employment.

"Bob Pollin, author of Back to Full Employment, begins a series examining whether full employment is possible and how to get there." 

From The Real News Network

To jump into this discussion with Paul Jay and Robert Pollin: my definition of full employment, is 0% unemployment. Which means that every adult and juvenile in America who wants or needs a job, any job, has a job. 

But to achieve full employment, you might as well wipe out poverty and cancer, and perhaps get started on wiping out racism and sexism, while you are at it. Hopefully Santa Clause is having a slow year and can help you out with that, because that's what it would take to eliminate all of these negative conditions in society.

But what I think Robert Pollin is actually talking about, is acceptable unemployment. When unemployment and poverty are down, (and he pointed to the 1990s) the economy is much better, because a lot of people are not just working, but earning a good living as well. 

At risk at sounding conservative: when the national debt and deficit is low, at least compared with the size of the economy, the economy is much better as well, because the government is borrowing less or perhaps not borrowing at all, like in the late 1990s, which means real interest rates and inflation are also low, which makes everything that we consume in society, as well as borrowing in the private sector, a lot cheaper. 

But again, I think the real discussion is here, is low unemployment, versus high unemployment. As well as good jobs, versus jobs that people only take, when that's the best available job for them and perhaps they have to take another job as well, just to survive financially.