Saturday, July 11, 2015

Reading

"We have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows," Mr Bush told the editors of the New Hampshire Union Leader in an interview that was broadcast online. "It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in."
Jeb Bush: Americans 'need to work longer hours'
Yesterday, I received an e-mail, asking me: "Do you think forcing workers to put in more hours is the best way to grow the economy?"

This, for me, is the problem with politics. Sure, you can take Governor Bush's words and see them as calling out the American worker as a slacker who has too much leisure time on their hands. Or, you can rub a pair of spare brain cells together and suspect that he was referring to that percentage of people who are under-employed, and for whom the ability to actually get 40 hours a week of paid work would mean more income.

It's certainly possible to make the point that there number of unemployed and under-employed people in the country is low, and the wages that they would be able to command are insufficient to drive a higher level of production, and thus increase the demand for labor (which would, in turn, put upward pressure on wages). But that's a question of whether Jeb Bush's command of economics is correct. And simple questions of accuracy or inaccuracy in academic disciplines don't drive "outrage" - or political donations.

Casting the opposition as "out of touch," or simply evil, as they run for the White House apparently does.

No comments: