Gallup CEO: There's a "potentially devastating global shortfall of about 1.8 billion good jobs"

[nebris]

http://www.americablog.com/2011/10/gallup-ceo-theres-potentially.html
By Gaius Publius on 10/04/2011 01:15:00 PM

Thanks to the always informative econ writer masaccio, we find this, from James Clifton, the chairman and CEO of Gallup (the polling

Comments

[badnewswade]

But... but the newspaper says the unemployed are all lazy and the government agrees. Surely they wouldn't lie to us? I mean I heard of a bloke wot doesn't work and he's really rich. Why oh why are they allowed to scam the system while us honest Joes work five hundred hours a week etc...

That's the kind of mentality you're dealing with. Revolution? Don't make me laugh. What we're gonna see is a Fascist takeover, or possibly a global war. Yeah, that would fix things... for good.

[nebris]

Hunger tends to be a game changer. Whom ever can feed the masses will win.

~M~

[badnewswade]

I see what you're saying, but I think a really big war is a lot more likely. Let me explain why. Economic stimulus, or even just unemployment relief requires either taxation or borrowing, right? But both of these are pretty unpopular with the Oligarchs. If politicians raised taxes on the wealthy they wouldn't get funded for re-election, and if by some miracle they did gain re-election there would be at the very least a bunch of right wing terrorism if not an outright putsch, while if they tried to borrow more they'd get bitch-slapped by Wall Street PDQ

[nebris]

Nuclear weapons have pretty much shitcanned the Big War paradigm. The 'War on Terror' is about as big a war as can be managed and that simply does not generate enough economic stimulus to be viable.

And Bu$hCo's wars [and tax cuts] didn't save us from anything. They totally buried us and without any good reason, even from the point of view of Capitalism, as they utterly ruined America's consumer base.

I'm not too worried about a Tea Party president. As I have said, whomever emerges from the GOP primaries is likely to be too batshit for the general electorate. And Obama has already started 'making Progressive noises' again - not that I expect any better from his second term - and that could 'fool some of the people all of the time', enough so that he gets said second term.

No, we're likely to stumble along at the present rate with a series of band-aids to keep us going, though sooner or later, things will fall apart. What happens then remains to be seen. But, today is the anniversary of The Women's March on Versailles and I

[badnewswade]

The women's march on versailles? These fuckers don't even remember the 1930s! (unless it's, you know, not in a good way)

Nuclear weapons have pretty much shitcanned the Big War paradigm.

Hah! I was waiting for you to say that!

We've got missile defence systems now, and politicians who are crazy enough to believe they work. They would hardly develop them if they didn't!

Also, the enemy (the Chinese, ultimately - I wouldn't worry about the Russians) just don't have that many nukes (a couple of hundred, of which a fraction will be usable following a US first strike. America has five thousand). The prevailing wisdom will be that only a few would get through, and they would probably land on poor people anyway. Seriously! That's the way they think! If this recession doesn't prove to you that our rulers live in a fantasy world where the only thing that matters is money, nothing will.

According to the economic analysis you quote and my analysis of their psychology, these Randian supermen believe that 1.8 billion people are utterly

[nebris]

Then I guess you might as well just kill yourself now. =)

~M~

[badnewswade]

I wouldn't go that far, although the belief that we're all going to get blown up has caused me to to feel a lot better about my lack of "suck-cess" in life, and generally allows me to enjoy the ice cream before it is rendered melty and radioactive.

But yeah, the stakes are probably higher than most people think.

Love the usericon!