The case for economic turbulence

Is a volatile economy good for American workers? To judge by the news accounts of layoffs and downsizing and families grimly adjusting to straitened circumstances, the answer would seem to be no. Three in five jobs for 22- to 55-year-old workers last three years or less. In a typical quarter of the year, about one in 13 jobs ends. For certain obvious reasons, labor-market turbulence has a reputation as a wrecker of lives, families and pocketbooks.

But is it really? Economists Clair Brown, John Haltiwanger and Julia Lane have their doubts. On closer inspection, they note, job turnover and firm disappearance have positive effects, in the aggregate. A clerk's job at a retail warehouse is replaced by a computer, but the warehouse firm can use the savings to hire a better and better-paid office manager. As workers lose jobs in one niche or sector, they gain in another, moving on to better jobs and higher pay. In the software sector, new businesses are more productive, over a five-year period, than the firms they replace. This new-business productivity gain, the authors show, is true generally across sectors--generating efficiency, products and, most important, jobs. And new businesses tend to pay more.

In short, America is not becoming a nation of part-time Wal-Mart cashiers or burger flippers. In four of the five sectors studied by the authors--semiconductors, software, financial services, retail food and trucking--the growth rate for full-time jobs exceeds the growth rate for jobs in general. (Retail food is the exception.) Separate research, conducted by Ann Huff Stevens at the University of California, Davis, shows that the average tenure for employed U.S. male laborers has been broadly stable over the past 35 years....

The data in the book, based on a new U.S. Census program, is impeccable. Yet only in the final chapter do the authors move into the broader territory of public policy. They conclude that America's competition, deregulation and economic turbulence are largely desirable. By contrast, French labor policy, which tries to prevent firings and guarantee lifetime jobs, is counterproductive. Indeed job creation has largely stalled in Western Europe as older jobs are protected at the expense of the young and at the expense of women who wish to move into the work force more than their counterparts in earlier generations once did....

Arguably "volatility in the aggregate" was never the main concern in the first place but rather a shorthand for other worries, like comparative standard of living. In my view, the contemporary critics of labor markets are still more wrong than right. As Virginia Postrel has noted, Best Buy is full of people--few of them rich--buying flat-screen TVs. The obsession with measuring median wages misses a broader story about growing wealth, higher asset values, growing flexibility, growing buffers against risk, and growing opportunities for consumption.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

POLICE TO PROTECT MOSQUE AGAINST BIKINIS: "Police have been asked to protect Australia's largest mosque next weekend because of concerns that a bikini march staged to coincide with the anniversary of the Cronulla riots may get out of control. The caretaker of Lakemba Mosque, the Lebanese Muslim Association, says it is taking no risks, requesting at least 32 police officers to protect the place of worship on Saturday and Sunday. Association president Tom Zreik said he met police on several occasions to ensure there would be adequate numbers of officers present to defuse problems and arrest troublemakers. "We are treating this as something that is funny and hilarious but also taking precautions," Mr Zreika said of the bikini march. "Some people may see this as provocation and the last thing that we want is to see anyone being attacked." The organiser, Melbourne grandmother Christine Hawkins, has asked women nationally to dress in bikinis and colourful beachwear and rally outside large mosques to show their disgust at comments by leading Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, who likened women to "uncovered meat".

Illegal aliens kill more than the Iraq terrorists: "While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens - men, women and children - were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began. Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research. Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001. Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863"

Pro-Communist Swedish government TV: "Yet here in Sweden, the government television channel (who has the nerve to -in true Orwellian fashion- characterize itself as "free television") have a 4 hour special theme night to celebrate ( they themselves use the Swedish word "fira", which means celebrate) Fidel Castro and his long rule as dictator of Cuba. First they are going to have a re-run of an uncritical interview with Castro, more than an hour long, produced by Swedish government television 30 years ago. Then they will have a panel discussion about him from 3 well-known admirers of Castro. Then they will have a Oliver Stone "documentary" where Castro will again be able to present his views. Then they will finish with an interview of Castro's former mistress".

Muslims still killing Christians when they can: "The US-based human rights group International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned a mob of 300 Muslims killed six Christians in early October while 15 others were left seriously wounded by the attack during a midnight worship service in Beshasha, a town located in the Agaro province in Ethiopia. On 14 October, a group of three hundred Muslims, carrying guns and knives approached the church where the Orthodox Christians were holding a midnight worship service. When the locked doors prevented the mob from entering the church they forced the congregation out of the church by pouring gasoline around the building."

Taleban still barbaric: "The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy. The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over. He was partly disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes. The remains were put on display as a warning to others against defying Taleban orders to stop educating girls."

Another media lie: "One of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch received global coverage. The front cover of the Philadelphia Daily News blasted: "WORSHIPPERS BURNED ALIVE: Capping deadliest week of war, 6 Sunnis doused with kerosene, set afire as Iraqi soldiers reportedly stand idle." The Chicago Sun-Times blared: "Sunnis burned alive in revenge." The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia headlined: "Shiite militia burn Sunnis alive in revenge attacks." The Calcutta Telegraph in India echoed: "Shias burn Sunnis alive." .... Just a few small problems with the massively publicized story: "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" is an unreliable, unauthorized spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about before. The incident cannot be verified. Readers of newspapers around the world that carried the story have not been informed of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the story over the past week at lightning pace"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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