In the Unites States workers tend to move from state to state in search of jobs. In Europe, this apparently isn't happening; so Spain continues to suffer high unemployment and rising interest rates on its sovereign debt, even though theoretically its unemployed could find work in Germany. American work force mobility provides for a more robust economy because local conditions in North Dakota, for example, provide high levels of employment that can sop up unemployed workers from other parts of the country. However, I believe that the housing crisis uniquely harmed the U.S. economy because it interfered with this key corrective. Under more normal circumstances, people are able to sell their homes at only slight losses to move to other locales to take jobs. With the collapse of the housing bubble, many people are holding out, perhaps irrationally for a recovery of their home prices, before they make a move.
The administration's policies have contributed to the prolonged recession in two ways. First, by intervening in the housing market, and propping it up, the administration prevented the market from hitting bottom and perhaps recovering. I believe, though with only anecdotal evidence, that people are clinging to their homes, not wanting to sell. This is inhibiting labor mobility as people stay put. Second, by prolonging unemployment benefits, people are encouraged to try to hang on longer in their perhaps underwater homes; waiting for a recovery.
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Language barriers, multicultural barriers, and class identification are all European issues that America has worked to overcome for the last 235 years.
ReplyDeleteRemember this graph the next time someone mentions multiculturalism.
Much of the problem comes from a feeling of self-satisfaction, while having the unawareness of danger. American people need to resist complacency and remember the staunch determination that provides for a better future. We come from a tradition of folks who feared the struggle of the chain of oppression an sought a better life even though the consequence and outcome was death. These were men and women settlers, explorers, warriors, and heroes that paved the way for our us. In a single generation, we have significantly dampened their flame.
ReplyDeleteI pray for America, that we do not become complacent. Government growth not only threatens our liberty and prosperity, but provides for complacency that is a cancer.
ReplyDeleteRemember this graph the next time someone mentions multiculturalism.
Fittingly enough, I was thinking of a second generation legal immigrant that worked on the ranch when I was growing up-- he was plenty smart, but could only speak Mexican Pidgin English. Not sophisticated enough in language to deal with either the US or Mexico. Pissed off product of a "Bi-lingual education."
Do I need to point out how pissed he was that his English was WORSE than that of his parents, who spent the years he was in school holding down jobs?