{"id":395,"date":"2010-07-31T01:15:33","date_gmt":"2010-07-31T05:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/bob-herbert-maybe-next-time-youll-know-what-to-do-about-it\/"},"modified":"2010-07-31T01:15:33","modified_gmt":"2010-07-31T05:15:33","slug":"bob-herbert-maybe-next-time-youll-know-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/bob-herbert-maybe-next-time-youll-know-what-to-do-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Herbert: Maybe Next Time You’ll Know What To Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Herbert, in his column<\/a> on June 7th said:<\/p>\n

There is no plan that I can see to get us out of this fix. Drastic cuts in government spending would only compound the crisis. State and local governments, for example, are shedding workers as we speak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And by July 26th he still hadn’t come up with a solution and began his column with<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The pain coursing through American families is all too real and no one seems to know what to do about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nBob continued with a discussion of a study by the Rockefeller Foundation<\/a> using an economic security index to measure economic insecurity. the study headed by Jacob Hacker found:<\/p>\n

. . . that more than 20 percent of Americans experienced a 25 percent or greater loss of household income (without a financial cushion) over the prior year \u2014 the highest in at least a quarter of a century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After discussing this finding at some length and quoting Hacker, Bob concludes with:<\/p>\n

Policy makers have dropped the ball completely in terms of dealing with this devastating long-term trend of ever-increasing economic insecurity for American families. Long-term solutions that have to do with extensive job creation and a strengthening of the safety net are required. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be on anyone\u2019s agenda.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meaning, it seems that Bob Herbert may be someone who does know what to do how about it, who is playing the game of: “I’m no gonna say.” So, my question is: Why don’t you propose something Bob?<\/p>\n

In my reply to Bob’s June 7th post<\/a>, I pointed to Warren Mosler’s three-part solution<\/a> to the problem of unemployment including: a FICA Tax holiday; revenue sharing of $500 per person for the States; and a Federal Job Guarantee (FJG).<\/p>\n

More recently, L. Randall Wray discusses the Federal Job Guarantee<\/a> in a post explaining MMT to the Libertarian\/Austrian School of thought and making it clear that an FJG doesn’t have to be an enormous Government program.<\/p>\n

Also, Bill Mitchell has a recent post<\/a> on a Job Guarantee proposal in the Australian context discussing in part how a program like this can be regionalized to benefit areas that need it most. And here’s a multi-part program from Marshall Auerback<\/a> with a number of elements expanding Warren Mosler’s three-part program.<\/p>\n

In short, there’s a lot of good work out there, Bob. If you read it, you’ll be able to write columns proposing solutions, and not just grieving over our problems. And you won’t have to say things like:<\/p>\n

The pain coursing through American families is all too real and no one seems to know what to do about it . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

anymore. Because, you’ll know what to do about it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Herbert, in his column on June 7th said: There is no plan that I can see to get us out of this fix. Drastic cuts in government spending would only compound the crisis. State and local governments, for example, are shedding workers as we speak. And by July 26th he still hadn’t come up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[693],"tags":[2981,3137,3212,3071,3213,1976,2960,3214,2996,2742,3215,2399,2534],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bill-mitchell","tag-bob-herbert","tag-economic-security-index","tag-federal-job-guarantee","tag-fjg","tag-jacob-hacker","tag-l-randall-wray","tag-letsgetitdone","tag-marshall-auerback","tag-mmt","tag-rockefeller-study","tag-unemployment","tag-warren-mosler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}