Latest news on European Youth Guarantee hardly inspiring

The European Commission released a new report yesterday (October 4, 2016) – The Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative three years on – which provides an updated evaluation of the progress of the policy framework designed to reduce youth unemployment. The results are as one would expect after taking into account the design limitations of the Youth Guarantee – pretty disappointing. We learn that for the 20 countries for which there is available data – “Of the 2.5 million young people that left YG schemes … during 2015, less than 0.9 million (35.5%) were known to be in employment, education or training 6 months after exit”. That is an appalling result really and signifies that the design of the program should be reappraised and changed to accord with characteristics of an ideal Job Guarantee program. These results are unsurprising, dismal though they are.

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When the term ‘progressive’ loses all meaning …

The UK Guardian newspaper began life as the Manchester Guardian in 1821 as an artifact of the cotton mill owners who were opposed to the reform movement (for parliamentary representation to alleviate the mass unemployment and poverty that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars). The suppression of the reformist agenda culminated in the Peterloo Massacre the cavalry charged into around 80,000 protesters killing and injuring many of them. The police closed the newspaper (Manchester Observer) which had been sympathetic to the reform movement. Step in one John Edward Taylor, a cotton merchant, who established the Manchester Guardian to advance the interests of the capitalists. After a period under the editorship of C.P. Scott, where the Manchester Guardian was significantly more progressive in outlook (for example, supporting the Republican government against Franco; supporting women’s suffrage), the paper has increasingly become a neo-liberal propaganda machine with respect to its economic coverage, irrespective of progressive positions that might take on other issues (for example, its criticism of Israeli government policy). It now rarely publishes anything on economics that passes muster.

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An optimistic view of worker power

I am close to finishing the manuscript for my next book (with co-author, Italian journalist Thomas Fazi) which traces the way the Left fell prey to what we call the globalisation myth and formed the view that the state has become powerless (or severely constrained) in the face of the transnational movements of goods and services and capital flows. Social democratic politicians frequently opine that national economic policy must be acceptable to the global financial markets and, as a result, champion right-wing policies that compromise the well-being of their citizens. In Part 3 of the book, which we are now completing, we aim to present a ‘Progressive Manifesto’ to guide policy design and policy choices for progressive governments. We also hope that the ‘Manifesto’ will empower community groups by demonstrating that the TINA mantra, where these alleged goals of the amorphous global financial markets are prioritised over real goals like full employment, renewable energy and revitalised manufacturing sectors is bereft and a range of policy options, now taboo in this neo-liberal world are available. In today’s blog I discuss trade unions and strategies available for workers.

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Is there a case for a basic income guarantee – Part 5

This is Part 5 in the mini-series discussing the relative merits of the basic income guarantee proposal and the Job Guarantee proposal. It finishes this part of our discussion. Today, I consider how society establishes a fair transition environment to cope with climate change and the impacts of computerisation etc. I outline a coherent adjustment framework to allow these transitions to occur equitably and where they are not possible (due to limits on worker capacity) alternative visions of productive work are developed? I argue that while work, in general, is coercive under capitalism, the provision of employment guarantees is a more equitable approach than relying as the basic income advocates envision on the exploitation of some to provide the freedom for others. Further, I argue that the Job Guarantee is a better vehicle for creating new forms of productive work. Adopting a basic income guarantee in this context just amounts to surrender. Our manuscript is nearly finished and we hope to complete the hard edits in the next month or so and have the book available for sale by the end of this year. More information on that later.

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Is there a case for a basic income guarantee – Part 4 – robot edition

This is Part 4 in the mini-series discussing the relative merits of the basic income guarantee proposal and the Job Guarantee proposal. It is the ‘robot edition’. The march of the robots is the latest pretext that basic income proponents (including the IMF now) use to justify their policy advocacy. There is some truth in the claims that the so-called ‘second machine age’, marked by the arrival of robots, is not only gathering speed, but is different from the first period of machine development with respect to its capacity to wipe out human involvement in production. But the claims are somewhat over the top. Further the claims that these trends are inevitable are in denial of the basic capacities of the state to legislate in the common interest. While the innovations in technology will free labour from repetitive and boring work and improve productivity in those tasks, there is no inevitability that robots will develop outside the legislative framework administered by the state and overrun humanity (even if the predictions of robot autonomy are at all realistic). We will surely need to develop a coherent adjustment framework to allow these transitions to occur equitably and where they are not possible (due to limits on worker capacity) alternative visions of productive work are developed?
Further, the Job Guarantee is a better vehicle for handling these type of transitions and creating new forms of productive work. Adopting a basic income guarantee in this context just amounts to surrender.

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Is there a case for a basic income guarantee – Part 1

This is Part 1 in my mini-series on my version of the debate between employment guarantees and income guarantees. An earlier post rightfully belongs in the series as Part 0 – Work is important for human well-being. This discussion will form part of the Part 3 of my next book (with co-author, Italian journalist Thomas Fazi) which traces the way the Left fell prey to what we call the globalisation myth and started to believe that the state had withered and was powerless in the face of the transnational movements of goods and services and capital flows. Accordingly, social democratic politicians frequently opine that national economic policy must be acceptable to the global financial markets and compromise the well-being of their citizens as a result. In Part 3 of the book, which we are now completing, we aim to present a ‘Progressive Manifesto’ to guide policy design and policy choices for progressive governments. We also hope that the ‘Manifesto’ will empower community groups by demonstrating that the TINA mantra, where these alleged goals of the amorphous global financial markets are prioritised over real goals like full employment, renewable energy and revitalised manufacturing sectors is bereft and a range of policy options, now taboo in this neo-liberal world, are available. Wherever one turns these days, a so-called progressive pops up with a megaphone (conceptual) shouting that a basic income guarantee is the panacea for all manner of evil – starting back some years ago with unemployment and moving more recently, as that rationale was exposed, to the need to counter the expected ravages of the second machine age. As regular readers will know I am a leading advocate for employment guarantees. I consider basic income proposals to represent a surrender to the neo-liberal forces – an acceptance of the inevitability of mass unemployment. Further, the robot argument doesn’t cut it. Anyway, in Part 1 – Work is important for human well-being – I considered the need to broaden the definition of productive work. I also emphasised the importance of an on-going availability of work for human well-being. In Part 2, we sketch the arguments that have been advanced to justify the basic income proposal and find them inconsistent, illogical and deficient.

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Australian labour market – part-time trend intensifies as total employment declines

The last few months Australian Bureau of Statistics data has shown that Austrlia is becoming a nation of part-time employment – in the 12 months to July 2016, 84 per cent of net employment created has been part-time and underemployment (workers desiring more hours but unable to find them) has risen. The latest labour force data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – Labour Force data – for August 2016 shows that trend to be intensifying with negative employment growth and sharply a declining participation rate. With more than 82.3 per cent of total net jobs created over the last 12 months being part-time, it is clear that Australia maintains its status as the nation of part-time employment growth with all the attendant negative consequences. Further, the only reason that the unemployment level and rate fell is because the labour force shrank faster than total employment. This was due to the 0.2 percentage point decline in participation. The teenage labour market remains in a poor state and requires urgent policy intervention. Overall, with weak private investment now on-going, the Australian labour market is looking in pretty dismal shape and the recently elected Federal government should have introduced a rather sizeable fiscal stimulus immediately upon re-election to provide some fiscal leadership to the nation. This should have included a large-scale public sector job creation program which would ensure teenagers regained the jobs that have been lost due to the fiscal drag over the last several years. There are no signs that our polity understands any of that.

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Work is important for human well-being

I am now in Kansas City for the next several days, so blogs might come at odd times. I am getting close to finalising the manuscript for my next book (this one with co-author, Italian journalist Thomas Fazi) which traces the way the Left fell prey to what we call the globalisation myth and started to believe that the state had withered and was powerless in the face of the transnational movements of goods and services and capital flows. Accordingly, social democratic politicians frequently opine that national economic policy must be acceptable to the global financial markets and compromise the well-being of their citizens as a result. In Part 3 of the book, which we are now completing, we aim to present a ‘Progressive Manifesto’ to guide policy design and policy choices for progressive governments. We also hope that the ‘Manifesto’ will empower community groups by demonstrating that the TINA mantra, where these alleged goals of the amorphous global financial markets are prioritised over real goals like full employment, renewable energy and revitalised manufacturing sectors is bereft and a range of policy options, now taboo in this neo-liberal world, are available. One proposal that seems to have captivated so-called progressive political forces is that of the need for a basic income guarantee. As regular readers will know I am a leading advocate for employment guarantees. I consider basic income proposals to represent a surrender to the neo-liberal forces – an acceptance of the inevitability of mass unemployment. In that sense, the proponents have been beguiled by the notion that the state can do nothing about the unemployment. It is curious that they think the state is thus powerful enough to redistribute income. I also consider basic income proposals demonstrate a lack of imagination of what work could become and a very narrow conception of the role of work in human well-being. This blog will be the first in several (probably about four) where I sketch the arguments that will be developed (but more tightly edited) in the final manuscript.

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OECD youth report – not a job in sight – Groupthink reigns supreme

Last week, the Australian National Accounts data showed that Australia had achieved 25 years without a recession. I commented on that data release in this blog – Australian national accounts – public spending saves nation from negative growth. I did several media interviews last week on this topic and, in general, the approach of the interviewer was to build this up into something almost mythical. The Government also rose beyond their usual smugness and claimed Australia was leading the world in economic policy given this track record. They don’t admit that the growth was spawned by a credit binge that has left households with record levels of debt and a housing market that is unaffordable for low income earners and young homebuyers. They also do not admit that more recently, a major fiscal intervention that continues has saved Australia from recession. Below the headlines though is a very murky situation and none more than the teenage labour market, a topic I have been trying to bring to the forefront in the public debate for many years now. The Brotherhood of St Laurence did eventually start agitating on this topic which gave it a higher visibility in the debate. But, in general, the Federal government is doing nothing constructive to solve the youth labour market crisis. And today’s release of the major OECD report – Investing in Youth: Australia – is so full of neo-liberal Groupthink language that it is clear the mainstream hasn’t grasped the problem yet – we need at least a hundred thousand new full-time jobs in the 15-19 segment alone!

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The Weekend Quiz – September 10-11, 2016 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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The neo-liberal race to the bottom is destroying communities and killing workers

I have been reading an interesting book – The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America – by US journalist – George Packer – which traces the evolution of America over the period from 1978 to 2012. It is about how Americans have been dudded by the system they economic and political system that they hold dear to their hearts and how the core institutions that condition those beliefs have declined (changed) in the face of the rising dominance of the investment banksters. I am not so much interested in American history as I am the metamorphosis of Capitalism and the impact it has had on the working class. The book created a number of thought strands, which ultimately, led me to an interesting article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (published December 8, 2015) – Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century – by Princeton University academics Anne Case and Angus Deaton. What we learn is that the neo-liberal race to the bottom in advanced nations is destroying communities and killing workers.

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Australia’s race to the bottom to part-time jobs with low-pay

To coincide with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics release of the May 2016 Employment Situation I updated my analysis on the pay characteristics of the net job creation in the US labour market – see Bias toward low-wage job creation in the US continues. The overwhelming finding was that the jobs lost in low-pay sectors in the downturn have more than been offset by jobs added in these sectors in the upturn. However, the massive number of jobs lost in above-average paying sectors have not yet been recovered in the upturn and do not look like being so, given the labour market is slowing again. In other words there is a bias in employment generation towards sectors that on average pay below average weekly earnings. In the last 12 months, 86 per cent of the net jobs added in the Australian labour market have been part-time and underemployment has risen, suggesting a rise in casual work as well. Further analysis in this blog reveals that this accelerated trend towards part-time employment creation has been accompanied by a disproportionate shift towards low-pay employment (and below-average employment in general). The shifts over the last 6 months, in particular, towards below-average employment has been alarming. So come on down to Australia as our politicians take us on a race to the bottom in the part-time nation with low-pay, that barely grows at all. We are a very stupid nation supporting the policy structures that deliver this poverty of outcomes.

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Mayday! Mayday! The skies were meant to fall in … what happened?

The British Office for National Statistics, which although recently revamped continues to have the most user-unfriendly homepage and dissemination service of all the national statistical agencies, published the latest – Retail Sales in Great Britain: July 2016 – data last week (August 18, 2016). It looked good to me. In the past week or so there has been a stream of data coming out of Britain or about Britain, which also looks good to me. What the hell is going on? The skies over Britain were meant to have fallen in by now. Unemployment was meant to be going through the roof or was the roof meant to collapse first. All manner of despair was meant to be visiting the shores of Britain after the June 23 vote to get out of the dysfunctional European Union. The reality is that things are looking okay there. Skies are intact and quite blue I believe which has boosted the confidence of British consumers. Tourism is booming. Unemployment is falling or at least those claiming unemployment benefits. One investment bank put out a briefing last month with a Mayday! Mayday! warning that unemployment was about to rise dramatically. Who has been sacked for that piece of public misinformation. George Osborne, remember him, said in mid-June that British public finances were about to collapse and an immediate, emergency fiscal response would be needed. Days have passed – things are looking ok. Eurozone nations should take note! Ignore the neo-liberal scare mongering. Follow Britain’s lead in abandoning the ridiculous notion that there is something special about ‘Europe’. Eurozone nations should get out of the currency union as soon as possible.

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The Weekend Quiz – August 20-21, 2016 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Australian labour market – the part-time employment nation

Last month’s Australian labour force data showed what a part-time employment nation we were becoming. The latest labour force data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – Labour Force data – for July 2016 shows that trend to be intensifying with modest employment growth and collapsing full-time employment growth. With more than 86 per cent of total net jobs created over the last 12 months being part-time, it is clear that Australia is becoming a nation of part-time employment growth with all the attendant negative consequences. The teenage labour market remains in a poor state and requires urgent policy intervention. Overall, with weak private investment now on-going, the Australian labour market is looking in pretty dismal shape and the recently elected Federal government should have introduced a rather sizeable fiscal stimulus immediately upon re-election to provide some fiscal leadership to the nation. This should have included a large-scale public sector job creation program which would ensure teenagers regained the jobs that have been lost due to the fiscal drag over the last several years. There are no signs that our polity understands any of that.

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Australia – stagnant wages growth continues

The Australian Bureau of Statistics published the latest – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the June-quarter 2016 today. Annual private sector wages growth remained steady at 2.0 per cent (0.5 per cent for the quarter), which is the third consecutive month that the annual growth in wages has recorded its lowest level since the data series began in the December-quarter 1997. In the 2015-16 fiscal statement (aka ‘The Budget’), the Government assumed wages growth for 2015-16 would be 2.5 per cent rising to 2.75 over 2016-17. On current trends, that is highly unlikely to occur, which means the forward estimates for taxation revenue are already falling short and the fiscal deficit will be larger than assumed. Depending on how we measure inflation, the annual wages growth translates into only a modest real wage rise since January 2016 for Australian workers. More importantly, real wages are growing well below trend productivity growth and Real Unit Labour Costs (RULC) continue to fall. This means that the gap between real wages growth and productivity growth continues to widen as the wage share in national income falls (and the profit share rises). The flat wages trend is intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. The lessons have not been learned.

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Seattle workers better off after significant minimum wage rise

I recently wrote about minimum wage principles in relation to a progressive manifesto and the desire to reduce income inequality, which has risen sharply in the neo-liberal era where mainstream ‘free market’ economics has been the dominant narrative. Please see – Reducing income inequality – for that discussion. That blog considered some evidence that refutes the mainstream economics mantra that implementing minimum wages undermines the employment opportunities for low-wage workers. The standard lie that is rammed down the throats of economics students is that whenever governments impose minimum wages the market retaliates and minimum wage workers are worse off as a result. There are layers of erroneous concepts embedded in that orthodoxy, which I have dealt with many times before. But a significant point is that the real world is doing a good job to expose the lies of the ‘competitive’ model without recourse to any deep theoretical debates about whether ‘marginal productivity’ can be identified (it cannot), or whether the labour demand curve is downward sloping (it isn’t), which also includes a debate about whether productivity declines with extra employment (it doesn’t!). An interesting research paper released July 2016 by researchers at the The Seattle Minimum Wage Study Team based at the University of Washington in Seattle – Report on the Impact of Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance on Wages, Workers, Jobs, and Establishments Through 2015 – provides further evidence to contest the veracity of the mainstream economics myths.

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The struggle to establish a coherent progressive position continues

There was an interesting article from Spanish political scientist (and economist) Vicente Navarro (August 4, 2016) – Is The Nation-State And Its Welfare State Dead? A Critique Of Varoufakis – which contested the former Greek finance mininster’s claims that the “nation state is dead” and so pan-international movements are required to restore democracy and provide a bulwark against global capitalism. I have a lot of sympathy for Navarro’s argument given that the topic is closely related to current book manuscript I am working on with Italian journalist Thomas Fazi on the reasons that the Left have vacated the progressive space and adopted neo-liberal economic positions that guarantee its steady demise as a political force. So in that context, the work of the former finance minister in trying to revive a Left narrative is admirable but, as Navarro notes, is misguided. DiEM25 is not likely to form a basic of a progressive manifesto for the future.

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Reducing income inequality

The recent political ructions such as the Brexit outcome in the UK, the popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the US, the growing extremist popularist movements in Europe and elsewhere, and the scrape-in victory of the incumbent conservative government in Australia at the recent federal elections, have been attributed in no small part to a growing resentment against rising income (and wealth) inequality. A ‘progressive manifesto’ has to address this issue and work out ways that the gap between real wages and productivity growth is eliminated so that workers can rely more on wages growth to fund their consumption growth rather than credit. This blog continues to discuss the elements of such a Manifesto and today we focus on the question of income inequality and ways in which productivity growth can be better shared.

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Reforming the international institutional framework – Part 1

This blog continues the unedited excerpts that will appear in my new book (with Italian journalist Thomas Fazi) which is nearing completion. This material will be in Part 3 where we present what we are calling a ‘Progressive Manifesto’, which we hope to provide a coherent Left philosophy to guide policy design and policy choices for governments that are struggling to see a way beyond the neo-liberal macroeconomics. In this blog I examine how the international institutional framework has to be reformed to serve a progressive agenda where rich countries (and the elites within them) do not plunder then pillary poor countries. Central to this new framework is the abolition of the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD, all of which have become so sullied by neo-liberal Groupthink that they are not only dysfunctional in terms of their original charter but downright dangerous to the prosperity and freedoms of people. Former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz told journalist Greg Palast in an interview in 2001 that the IMF “has condemned people to death” (Source). I will propose a new international institution designed to protect vulnerable nations from damaging exchange rate fluctuations and to provide investment funds for education, health and public infrastructure. We will explore how new institutions protect themselves from developing the sort of dysfunctional Groupthink that has crippled the existing institutions. We will disabuse ourselves of notions that are popular among some progressive voices that a fixed exchange rate, international currency system is required. This will be a two part blog and will also have context for other blogs where I discuss reforms to the global financial system.

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