Jobs and vulnerability

Progressives would have us believe that it is our duty to help the vulnerable. This is only half the story, as the vulnerable have a duty to help themselves to not be a burden on the rest of us.

Some say the vulnerable cannot help themselves because they have lost hope and blame this lost hope on unfairness.

DocBrain believes that loss of hope is most often tied to a practicality and not a principle. So, if you can't find a job, you will lose hope. But, if you are working and earning your way in the world and someone says something bad about you because of their prejudice, your emotional response will not be hopelessness.

So, DocBrain believes that the key to solving hopelessness is to find practical solutions by which people can help themselves.

For example, unemployment benefits solve hunger but actually increase hopelessness and helplessness. Much better is for a person to be easily able to find employment that allows for satisfaction of needs (not necessarily wants).

So, the problem comes down to having jobs available. What can we do to have more jobs available across the skill range? Surprisingly, there are few answers to this question, and none that have controlled trials to support the conclusions. Many of the answers are contradictory. For example, in one survey the #1 answer was for the government to work on infrastructure (roads, rail, etc) and the #2 answer was to cut government spending to allow more private sector job creation (37% vs 36%). So, we really don't scientifically have the answer.

Some ideas that make some sense

• Bring back tariffs for manufactured goods. This raises the price of goods but also keeps jobs here. In addition, the money spent is spent here and continues to recycle here.
• Cut government spending for unemployment and social programs
• Increase infrastructure spending
• Make it easier to hire people by removing barriers for employers (ie, minimum wage, health care coverage, unemployment taxes).
• Increase opportunity for private companies and individuals to do business in government held lands, with a share of the profits going back to the government.

I'm sure that there are many good ideas, but the idea of supporting the world from our economy and taxing a shrinking rich to fund an enlarging poor in the name of helping the vulnerable is not working.