Unemployment or Disemployment

I enjoy reading Krugman even though I more often than not disagree with him. His statement today should cause a great deal of controversy and discussion."Learned helplessness" may be an important new term.

Krugman says: "As I see it, policy makers are sinking into a condition of learned helplessness on the jobs issue: the more they fail to do anything about the problem, the more they convince themselves that there’s nothing they could do. And those of us who know better should be doing all we can to break that vicious circle."

A criticism of Krugman might be that there is bi-partisan support for not dealing with the jobs issue. Our society is going through some fundamental change. We are no longer in a products economy or a services economy.

There is going to be much more unemployment. Economics is forcing it. Government is going to take what they can. 

This morning I had a discussion with some folks about how communities will be working out ways to deal with increasing unemployment. As one example the grocery stores will agree to cut shopping hours. Sunday and night hours may well be eliminated. There also could be alternating week day closures due to supply shortages that will occur. Pay frequencies will be changing and shopping patterns will change. I remember working as a bag boy at a military commissary. GIs were paid once a month and shoppers would crowd the stores and leave with several carts of groceries to last for a month. We bag boys were paid just with tips for bagging, carrying to cars and unloading.

Many of us new economy strategists  are developing individual plans for cutbacks and productivity improvements. We are changing forms of organization, whole business models, and developing new strategies for survival. In some if not many cases the goal is not growth but survival with planned lower revenue. In one case this was done by "firing" some regular customers. Smaller numbers of employees will be earning more. Many products will go away and new product development will not be to continue creating new shampoos. Rather than state planning it will be market planning.