id love to gain experience, but its just going to be abused! no way would I expect to get full pay if they can get free labour

None of these schemes are anything but marginal in creating permanent new employment unless & until aggregate total spending in the economy increases – which none of these schemes achieve because they only involve spending pennies above existing aggregate benefits.

It’s that simple. Someone’s spending is someone else’s job.

Since households, in aggregate, are already up their necks in debt, which, being mortals, they +must+ repay, with interest, any increased spending that could arise from their borrowing (new money created by bank loans) is going to mean it’s absolutely glacially slow coming.

The private business sector, in aggregate, is +always+ ‘pro-cyclical’ – ie it always follows what the economy is doing. So they are not increasing spending much either, because they do not see any increase in Sales likely under ‘austerity’.

This only leaves one sector of the economy which has the capacity to increase its spending, in an economic downturn, to sufficiently stimulate the onward spending of consumers (first), then business, to create the upward growth spiral needed.

That sector is the public sector – which never needs to repay the ‘borrowing’ it uses for this purpose, because States are ‘perpetual’ and the resulting growth always diminishes the +real+ cost of Interest over time. (In reality, for sovereign ‘fiat’ currencies, state ‘borrowing’ is merely the free gratis ‘gift’ to financial elites of an interest bearing, fully guaranteed money deposit facility, rather like a household’s bank ‘Current Account’, but bigger.)

If we actually had ‘democracy’ that represented the majority of (Workers/Labour) citizens, we would not have had 7 years and counting of precisely the +opposite+ policies – austerity – and full state Socialism exclusively for the Capital owning elites and bankers, protected from every reckless gamble they made in the boom & bubble.

Macro economics is NOT LIKE HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS, despite all the idiot politicians, near all ‘media’ commentators and even many mainstream economists themselves falsely implying it is.

If, for example, we had had in place a universal (transition, strictly voluntary, non-competing, fixed minimum wage/full time) Job Guarantee, we would have easily recovered to (near) full employment (in real, none-JG jobs) by now & have a far larger economy, capable of properly supporting the health & wellbeing aspirations of all our citizens.

For the sole reason that the greedy elites perpetually never miss an opportunity to drive down wages & increase the percentage share of productive output for themselves, we have forgone the production of around €15 billion worth of real goods and services – EVERY YEAR – thru’ deliberately maintaining mass unemployment. Yes, by now, Ireland could have been around €75 billion better off – that is what 6 years of forced mass unemployment costs in lost output. Conveniently never mentioned in mainstream media, because they represent the interests of elites, not majority citizens.

Even if we pretend some ‘need’ for the state to ‘borrow’ a Fiat currency it creates from nothing, for some purpose, the real cost of providing stimulus/ automatic stabiliser programs, like a universal ‘income floor’ JG scheme, is absolutely minuscule compared to the lost wealth production of operating our economy with mass unemployment way below its full productive capacity. Or the social costs of damaging for decades the lives of half an entire generation of our young people, thru’ lack of job opportunity.

Enough is enough.

Ireland’s prominent public sector economists should resign en masse for their cuplability, including the many in academe who have equally cheer led this mess (that’s most of them).

ALL of the present ‘authorities’ – political leaders, senior civil servants, economics ‘advisers’ etc. should be FORCED OUT OF OFFICE right now for this act of social vandalism enacted on ordinary citizens, at the sole interest and behest of the top few percent wealthy elites.

9 months to learn how to work a till and press a button on the petrol pump panel.

9 months to learn how to put chicken and ham in a chicken and ham roll.

9 months to learn how to wash cars.

State sponsored slavery scam.

Some of them are up to 18 months now. It would seem that people are too thick to learn how to make sandwiches, pump petrol and wash cards in 9 months.

Oh, and those interested should go and see the economics forecasts and prospects for European & US economies that the OECD were putting out mere weeks before the whole financial mess broke out.

The OECD, along with all their fellow mainstream Economics institutions hadn’t got the vaguest gnat’s cock of a clue what was about to happen, or why it had been building for years. Despite any number of warnings from non-mainstream academics. Nor do they have a clue why the Euro zone has suffered ongoing chronic mass unemployment at more than twice the rate of non-Euro countries, when the whole ‘sub-prime’ mortgage fraud originated in the US, not Europe.

The reason is simple. The OECD and similar organisations are solely promoting fantasy right wing neo liberal economics dogma, forced for decades upon most academic institutions. Dogma which has little basis in reality, its sole purpose driven by the interests of the top few percent Capital owners, at the expense of the rest of us.

This is why University of Manchester economics students are demanding a radical change in the ‘monoculture’ curriculum for undergraduate studies that equally offered no explanation whatever for the global financial mess that resulted from the financial crash.

They have formed a group called the ‘Post Economic Crash Society’ and have written an extensive critique and treatise on the non-mainstream economics topics they would like to be taught which had far more insight into why the whole mess occurred. (eg the Post Keynesian schools which have over 80 years of academe behind them) Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England has written a supporting forward to the document, and their initiative is supported by numerous prominent academics, including from prestige universities like Cambridge (Ha Joon Chang).

As we might expect from Ireland (unfortunately) – such questioning of why mainstream economics was so clueless meets with deafening silence from Ireland’s own useless academics. Presumably content to just carry on as if nothing untoward had happened, collecting their very comfortable public salaries and even more comfortable guaranteed public sector pensions.

And while I’m at it, there’s a couple of other things the OECD (and Ireland’s mainstream economists) won’t tell you about their ‘thinking’ (loose term) on Unemployment.

Their ‘Models’ require the assumption that ALL unemployment arises as a result of people’s ‘utility’ choice of ‘leisure’ over ‘work’ (and earning an income).

Yes, you read that right, behind all the bogus mathematics and $billions spent on macro economics modelling is this gem of an assumption. Pure stupid doesn’t get close.

If that wasn’t bad enough, their ‘models’ require another concept – ‘NAIRU’ the Non Accelerating Rate of Unemployment, or ‘natural’ rate of unemployment in order to maintain inflation at their chosen ‘target’ rate (2% pa).

For these models to be consistent, a couple of years ago some economists at the Eiropean Commission back calculated what the ‘NAIRU’ needed to be assumed to be for Spain’s economic situation. They calculated a figure of 23%.

Yes, you read that right. To have any validity for Spain, their models required a functioning economy to have nearly 23% of Spain’s workforce without a job! Pure stupid again, but as typical, such absurdities are merely brushed aside.

This is the state of Ireland’s and other countries economics’ authorities competence (lack of) in macro economics.

Now you know why matters are as bad as they are, and not getting any better.

And why nothing will get better in any reasonable time scale unless citizens themselves take mass action to demand reform.

(Due to population growth, economic growth and recovery will eventually happen naturally, but decades and a whole generation’s prospects will be totally unnecessarily wasted in the meantime. Not that comfortable and unaffected ‘authorities’ could care less.)

I kind of agree with the people are thick theory. They were thick enough to vote in helen mcentee in a by election. There will be fig, ff and labour puppets elected. Micheal noonan could be reelected and the thickos of mayo who gave us 40 years of thick enda will do it again. We are stupid stupid stupid

People think about their pockets; that’s why they fall for pre-election spin, rhetoric and false promises. Wait until the General Election; I guarantee Fine Gael will promise tax cuts, tax relief, every incentive under the sun to secure a few votes. Every now and then, parties go overboard with promises they can’t keep; the non-existent Five Point Plan being a case in point. If people don’t learn from the last pack of lies and false promises I can only conclude that many just are stupid.

Nice posts Mike, very interesting to say the least.

Jill

Thanks for the kind words :)

Just so happens there’s a very good interview been posted up today regarding the global crisis in (macro) economics thinking (that bears great culpability in the whole mess) with (Professor, UMKC) Randall Wray who is a co-founder of the (Post Keynesian) MMT school of economics.

It’s quite comprehensive and pitched for a ‘lay’ audience. A highly recommended read imho.

http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2014/04/23/mmt-does-do-policy/

Interestingly for us in the Euro zone, Wray also mentions English economist Wynne Godley who back in 90s before the introduction of the Euro, was highly critical of the intended structure and predicted precisely the kind of ‘straighjacket’ stagnation that has ocurred in the entire Euro area at the first economic ‘shock’ downturn.

Just one of the stages of auto genocide. The slaves must not know the truth re the 9 stages .
http://www.whale.to/b/crow.html
A Modern Genocide Usually Consists of More Than One Kind of Genocide
THE NINE STAGES OF AUTOGENOCIDE
1. Decision.
2. Classification.
3. Symbolization.
4. Dehumanization.
5. Organization.
6. Polarization
7. Preparation.
8. Extermination.
9. Denial.
” attack and demonize/dehumanize the poor, until they lost all their perceived humanity. The lazy, tax-sucking, tax-dependent poor had to be morally “saved” by eliminating social safety nets so they would be “motivated to work” when in reality, there was little if any work for them and certainly no work that paid a living wage”
The victims are always blamed (“poor life choices” when they had no choices or only a choice of bad choices). They are blamed for their stress when the stressors are external and almost all are socially engineered, and socially engineered to kill.

When safety nets are gutted and politicians/economists/business leaders/sociologists/urban planners/scientists know it will result in the deaths of countless citizens, that is called socially engineering and “framing” social forces to target and kill the Untermenschen.

Forgot about the genocide.
My bad…..

Gavin, You fell right into the trap.
http://www.whale.to/b/crow.html
“Local, state, and national politicians begin demonizing the citizens to be culled. They write and pass legislation to start the Siege. They try to become blissfully ignorant of the suffering and death and even when they know the truth, they respond by doing nothing (premeditated non legislation). Politicians do this because this is not what the hidden elite want”

Save the nut job theories for your fellow nut jobs Catherine. This is the real world not Netflix!

Massimo personally i would never use slave labor, honest pay for honest work

“how can you gain experience after qualifying in your field?”

Entry level positions.

Job bridge eliminates the need for these. Get one skilled graduate for 9 months at no charge; have them to the all the work of a paid worker in their field; toss them away at the end of the internship; repeat.

It’s an employers dream.

I agree, it is an employers dream. There are very few entry level jobs available(most likely due to job bridge) but also because many people will take on an internship after graduating to gain experience.

Massimo, no one denies the value of getting experience. The problem is when that experience leads to nowhere.

You’ve said yourself there are very few entry level jobs because of job bridge. The point of entry level jobs is for new graduates to gain experience in their chosen field.

What is the point of working for nothing for 9 months just to be given a handshake and a “best of luck” at the end of it? Will you walk straight into a job? Most likely not, because they are being filled by more job bridge applicants.

John, I agree with what you are saying. But my point remains the same that with that gained experience you would have a better chance. Most people on job bridge will not get paid employment from the same position but at least they can gain skills and experience that give them a better chance when applying for another job..