Monday, August 5, 2013

How Businesses Can Benefit from Low Employment or High Unemployment

From the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/obama-jobs-republicans_b_3703612.html

Some business owners want unemployment to remain high and job-growth to sputter. Why? Three reasons:

First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get -- which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives' corporate sponsors happy.

Second, high unemployment fuels the bull market on Wall Street. That's because the Fed is committed to buying long-term bonds as long as unemployment remains high. This keeps bond yields low and pushes investors into equities -- which helps boosts executive pay and Wall Street commissions, thereby keeping regressives' financial sponsors happy.

Third, high unemployment keeps most Americans economically fearful and financially insecure. This sets them up to believe regressive lies -- that their biggest worry should be that "big government" will tax away the little they have and give it to "undeserving" minorities; that they should support low taxes on corporations and wealthy "job creators;" and that new immigrants threaten their jobs.

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