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Thursday, October 13, 2011

What Is The Real Unemployment Rate?

I already wrote a post with this title, but I have another point to make.

Suppose that the "official" unemployment rate is 10%, but 50% of people work for the government.

Then, the real unemployment rate isn't 10%; it's 20%. The people who work for the government should be excluded. Most government workers perform negative work, useless work, or heavily overpriced work. When State thugs raid a raw milk farm, that's negative work. Most bureaucracy is useless work, and not directly harmful, except for the threat of violence if your papers aren't in order. When the State repairs a road or prevents real crime, that's necessary, but the State overcharges for that service.

There's another important point. Which people are unemployed.

Official State propaganda is "It's the 10% most useless workers, that are unemployed."

What if that's false? This is a corruption-based economy, and not a merit-based economy. What if the 10% unemployed are the 10% most skilled workers? That would be a tremendous disaster. The unionized telephone or cable worker has a cushy guaranteed job, while people who are good at repairing things are unemployed, because they can't get into the cartel.

Those are two important points regarding unemployment. First, people who work for the government shouldn't be counted in the "official unemployment number". Second, which workers are unemployed, the least skilled workers or the most skilled workers?

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This Blog Has Moved!

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