Unemployment
When young people leave secondary school there are three options available to them.
1. Enter the workforce
2. Go on to higher education (normally University)
3. Join the unemployment queue
For many young people university is an attempt to avoid unemployment, it keeps large numbers distracted and helps keep their parents happy. It also helps the Government hide the fact that the jobs these people should have simply don't exist. For the unemployed the same issue exists, the jobs they should have also don't exist.
The Government and those high up in the economy treat unemployment as an individual failing, according to them only the lazy and/or stupid are unemployed. They ask how can Government or those running the economy be held responsible for such foolish people!
In fact they, through the goodness of their heart, support the unemployed, they would be destitute without their compassion. Once again we have those responsible for creating the system denying that they have anything to do with it.
It isn't just happenstance that allows free-trade to exist, it is their policy.
It isn't just happenstance that allows mass immigration to exist, it is their policy.
It isn't just happenstance that favours the financial economy over the real economy, it is their policy.
Each one of these is bad for the real economy, in combination these are all job killers. Full employment is seen as bad for the financial economy, so the unemployed are sacrificed upon the altar of Liberal economic theories. Theories designed to promote the financial economy and those who benefit from such an economy.
Apart from the financial economy there are no winners only losers. For the unemployed it is hard to do anything with little or no money, it stops the creation of families and the creation of skills and confidence as well as wealth. For the unemployed life stops.
It also costs those employed as they must support this dysfunctional system with higher taxes as well as having to live with the resultant social problems. The employed also have the constant fear that unemployment awaits them. Of course the unemployed also have to live with these social problems.
Finally the Government loses credibility and respect, it costs money better spent on other things (in the long term, not the short) and decreases tax revenue. A double blow to it's finances.
The problem isn't that unemployment exists, the problem is that it is so chronic, so constant. The problem is that it effects one portion of society to the benefit of another. The problem is that the unemployed can be without work for year after year. The problem is that it is treated as a temporary problem, 40 years after it became a chronic problem.
The Government needs to put the financial economy in it's correct position, not above the real economy but as a valued aid to the real economy. The financial economy needs to be the value added portion of the real economy.
Upon Hope Blog - A Conservative Future
Interesting!!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately in Australia we have a continuous "push and pull" of Left and Right, to the detriment of Australia as a whole. Add to this the unquestionable power and influence on the proper and ethical decisions which should avail for the good of the nation.
In my opinion, to emphasis this point of corporate power and capitalism (which today is to often confused with democracy), we have witnessed the incumbent Federal Labor Party/Gillard Government adopt the support and approval of the corporate world, at the expense of its own so-called ideologies and principles, so as to follow the all important, all driving money 'Yellow Brick Road'. But alas, it very quickly become apparent that Labor could not claim the mantel of being a "conservative government" Hence it's late and obvious crawl back to its grass roots - social and trade unions. with the impending Federal election in only a couple of months.
There can be little doubt that the political buckling to the powerful corporations 'demand' for casual workforce, and 457 Visas have not just contributed employment uncertainty in Australia. It has created an almost acceptable norm, which is now nearly impossible to change, without the corporate-world claiming 'that the sky would fall in' if the Government dared stop these employment terms and conditions! 'It would make Australia uncompetitive in the Free Trade scenario', 'it will drive up wages', oh and the big one that corporations have become so accustomed to bantering, so as to instil fear and panic in the general Australian community - 'we'll have to close up shop and take our employment off-shore' Wow this corporate scare mongering is so Chicken Little!
The fact of the matter is we in the Western World/ First World, are not and can not compete with Second or Third World labour and work conditions! How is it that an Australian company/corporation has to apply to Australian Industrial Relations laws and legislation, Safe Work Practices, OH&S, minimal wages and conditions, equality etc..... in Australia! But these moral and ethical consideration, which allows them to still make millions of dollars a year, are conveniently, no I should say deliberately scheme and seek out country's which they know all well and good will not and do not comply to the same demands!
I thinks it's ironic that Corporations always bang-on and hide behind Intellectual Property and Business in Confidence, and yet I'm somewhat embarrassed that Australia in a sense almost prostitutes itself and its resources for profit.
No Australia as a whole has no critical important bipartisan agreement or structure for training the current, let alone the future Australian workforce. Something that the likes of China (PRC), India, South Korea, Japan fully appreciate as being paramount to their future economy's and growth. And what about Australian Corporations contribution to developing and stimulating the future Australian workforce they always complain is dangerously lagging ("Skill shortages")? Do they contribute to the education and training of the Australian workforce? It's my personal experience that Australian corporations long ago made the executive decision to put this onus onto the individual employee's! After all this saves the corporation money, and makes the share holder happier and the CEO gain bonuses. For if employees are serious about their careers, want to pay for their own continues training and up-skilling? But then again, that same corporation probably more than likely runs the same training facility that conducts the out-sourced training needed and demanding of the corporation, under the pseudo of a subsidiarity by a different name, another tax file number and another CEO.
Wow we are really screwed aren't we!!
Regards
M.A.D Pioneer
Dear M.A.D.Pioneer
ReplyDeleteSome excellent points, I could not agree more with your critique of what should be free-enterprise but is instead simply crony capitalism. The business sector is as addicted to Government welfare as every other sector of the nation. The only saving grace is that so much of the world is even worse, not that that is much compensation.
Yours Sincerely
Mark Moncrieff