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LadyEllen -> RE: The Terrible Teens? Unemployment to remain high for MOST of the decade? (12/28/2009 9:54:55 AM)
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As a business, if no one (or not enough people) want or can afford your service or product, you are doomed to fail. There is so much that creative marketing can do, but ultimately it cannot make up for a service or product that is too expensive or not as good as another.
As a worker the same things apply. If your salary need is too expensive or your work not as good as that of another you are not going to get the job.
Where one competes for business or a job against roughly equal competitors on the cost/benefit analysis in a small pool of competitors, supply and demand means that even the poorest competitor will enjoy some success at gaining business or employment; the availability of resource in the market will oblige some to buy from the poorest competitor or employ him.
Where one competes in a world wide market of competitors however, who will take a smaller salary or charge a lower price and provide more work or a product or service of acceptable quality, the same supply and demand influences mean that the poorest competitors may not receive any business or gain any employment, since the availability of resource in the market is so large that all buyers can buy from the more competitive and need not pay more or accept less simply in order to meet their need.
In short, unless we are prepared to accept one bowl of rice for an 18 hour shift, 7 days a week, give up our central heating, cars and the remainder of our western lifestyle, we must accept high unemployment. Global trade is here to stay, unfortunately for most; our personal choices amount to the above dismal prospect, finding something that simply cannot be outsourced (difficult) or catch a ride on the race to the bottom, dismissing any concern or interest for the plight of those whom you must thereby exploit.
This is the fulfilment of the free market that was rolled back slightly over the 20th century by the march of socialist and liberal ideas that held that the riches ought to be shared more fairly and the law ought to act to improve the lives of the poor and exploited by limiting their exploitation. It is no good now to complain that the game is rigged, when it is a game which most of us were winning until quite recently and held up as the ideal framework for any economy, and which some to this day - though they too must ultimately fall victim, stubbornly protest to be such.
E
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