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What Happens To Our Economy As Millions Of People Lose The Habits Of Hard Work?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
If we're going to dig our way out of what lies ahead, we need people who can work hard and start/operate new businesses.
Simply put, job growth is not keeping pace with population growth--specifically, the growth of the labor force which is generally defined as the population between the ages of 18 and 64.
So what happens to the economy as millions of people never acquire the habits of hard work or lose them due to chronic joblessness?
Yesterday I presented data on not in the labor force, which is defined as "persons aged 16 years and older in the civilian noninstitutional population who are neither employed nor unemployed."
The federal government reckons about 95 million people are not in the labor force. But this doesn't necessarily tell us whether these people could take a job or not.
To get some sense of what this means, let's look at the U.S. population in basic terms. The U.S. Census reckons there are about 322 million residents of the U.S.
About 74 million are under the age of 18, and about 42 million are retired (i.e. receiving Social Security benefits) and almost 11 million receive Social Security disability benefits.
About 2.4 million people are in prison.
Roughly 1.4 million are in active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces.
That totals about 130 million people who aren't in the civilian labor force, with some caveats: workers can draw Social Security benefits and still earn a wages, for example.
That leaves about 192 million people as a base labor force. Out of this total, we need to subtract mentally disabled people who are not institutionalized or drawing Social Security disability benefits (unfortunately, many are homeless or in prison.)
We also need to subtract those who are earning money in the cash economy but not reporting their income--i.e. those who are employed but not showing up as employed in the data.
Then there are people who are raising children, home-schooling their children, etc. as fulltime work.
Others are providing care to elderly parents or relatives without compensation.
It is difficult to estimate the people who are performing work but not counted as employed because they're not being paid. According to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), about 146 million people have some kind of paid job in the U.S. This could be anything from a $100 million hedge fund manager to someone with $100/year in self-employed eBay-sales income.
Roughly 24 million are part time jobs, and 122 million are full-time jobs. (The numbers vary depending on which agency assembles the data.)
Our focus should be on the millions who are not working at unpaid positions at home or at paid positions. Those who fall out of the work force (or never join it in the first place) may lose (or never develop) the habits of hard work and cooperating with others that are necessary to be productive.
As correspondent Kevin K. recently noted, the earlier one acquires the habits of hard work, the more likely it is that those habits will last a lifetime:
"Just like kids that start smoking when they are young tend to keep smoking until they die, people that start working hard when they are young tend to work hard until they die. On the flip side, kids today that don't do any work when they are young and are told what to do every minute of their days are not wired to work hard or think outside the box, which is an essential part of making the kind of decisions necessary to run a business.
I've noticed that the people that work the hardest grew up working hard because they HAD to. The kids that got up early EVERY DAY to feed and water the livestock so it would not die (my cousins in Oregon) are different than the kids who fed and got water for their dog knowing that Mom would feed the dog if they forgot. The guy up late because he needed to turn off the water to 20 units and change the angle stops before he can change a leaking faucet in an apartment where people are moving in the next day is a different person that the guy who spends a year deciding on the new faucet for the wet bar in his "man cave".
Most people know that kids who spend years taking golf, tennis or swimming lessons are not only better than most people at those sports but are FAR more likely to continue to participate in those sports as adults.
What most people don't know is that kids who spend years learning how to cook, maintaining their own cars and performing volunteer work are not only better than most people at those activities, but are FAR more likely to continue to participate in those activities as adults."
We encourage studying hard and playing hard, but how many programs in our educational system give young people an opportunity to learn how to work hard, especially for themselves as entrepreneurs/ self-employed? All too often it's assumed that studying hard and playing hard teach people to work hard. That is not necessarily the case, as work requires another set of attributes and habits. Some of these overlap with study and athletics, but not all.
Personally, I would make hands-on entrepreneurship a required course from intermediate school on, taught solely by people who have started and operated enterprises. Rather than a teaching credential, the qualification would be limited to the instructor has launched and operated enterprises in the real world.
If we're going to dig our way out of what lies ahead, we need people who can work hard and start/operate new businesses. The two go together. Entrepreneurship is not for slackers or those who give up as soon as the going gets difficult. It takes good work habits to persevere and keep learning from others and from one's own mistakes.
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I find it interesting that this article seems to rather imply that something is 'wrong' with people who are not working. What if this is simply the new paradigm for people who are NILF? When the news is always bad, when you work like a dog and still can barely take care of your family, when going out to look for work these days is one of the most soul sucking experiences imaginable, where is the motivation? The concept of an eight hour workday is a (relatively) new idea that had its roots in the industrial revolution in Britain, and in the beginning it was probably a workable idea, until you added human nature and the insatiable greed of the 1% to the mix. If you do a search on the industrial revolution in this country and the evolution of various labor movements, you might conclude we are better off today than back then, which I think is laughable. Having so many people NILF is a crying fucking shame, and an incredible waste of resources, but what are the alternatives? Work like a dog, not really get anywhere, keep my head above water if I am lucky, and then if I am luckier yet die early so I do not have to stress out about retirement? Fuck that, pass the pork rinds and remote control, please. Let the 1% fix their own cars, drive their own tractor trailer rigs, i.e. all the stuff we used to do, back when we cared.
My frustration is now we have all these lazy strippers who won't actually strip, but continue to hound me for lap dances..
fuck i'm so tired. slept til noon. spent all night watching reruns of kardashions anal sex movie....could someone hand me some more cheese poofs i dont want to have to get up.....burrrrrp.
gotta love obama. gave me everything...
Remember folks: Arbeit Macht Frei
FUCK HARD WORK. Unless you are working off the books that is. The elites love "hard workers". They make them rich. Most of my friends {myself included} have worked ourselves to the point of having health problems {shot backs, heart arrhythmias, crippling arthritis,various cancers. And for what? Our reward is disability and/or an early grave. At least our children had it good growing up. I remember a meeting between myself, the Department head, and the owner. We were discussing promotions. When I mentioned our best man, the Department head said: "No way is he leaving his lathe for a desk. He is the most productive worker we have". I couldn't argue, he was. I'm sure his family {he had four children} could have used the extra pay though. Another man was selected for the promotion. He was less productive, and was rewarded for that virtue too.
Work is therapy we just do it for all kinds of fucked up reasons, when you do something you like... its not work, but it is. There are too many workaholics these days, but physical work is good for people in so many different ways. You just have to work hard for yourself and be true to yourself, don’t let someone else rule you. If your body doesn’t do work in some form you end up going to shit too, there is a balance that people need to find. It takes time, it gives us purpose and can be very rewarding. It keeps people focused, busy.
Fuck it. Walk away. Google: 8 forms of capital. Then turn your hard work into greater lives for your family, neighbors and friends. Stop turning 40% of your labor into corruption by paying taxes to the local, less local and far away sociopaths. Plan. Plan. Get the advice you need. Then walk!
There is not a single government worker whose wages should not be cut by 1/2 and that includes their benefits; look at what those who (for instance) work for the Veteran's Affairs make...outrageous money and benefits, even as the government workers spend most of their time running their ebay biz. Further, if we are gonna do quotas? Why is it the majority of California's university barely allow in whites, most are skimming 22% white in California? And as to white guys in high school? They are being derailed in junior high so that by the time they get to high school the school "counselors" can "give back" by letting the foreign and third world kids who suck the system dry take their places in college. When you hear about the "need" for high-tech visas to fill jobs? We'd have PLENTY of OUR KIDS to fill those jobs if they'd let OUR KIDS have the college places but the dam University/College presidents are lining their own paychecks and unbelievable beneifts with Foreign tuition payments/selling out Your Children.
These contracts for the presidents and deans of colleges/universities are usually public. Pull those in your state and them Complain Complain and Demand that white kids be educated Before foreign kids. If you think that's racist ask yourself why the numbers for white kids are barely 24% at our public universities in places like California, places that were settled and built by whites Before "Diversity" was shoved down our throats as good for us like caster oil.
Wait until the realization that all those hard fought gains in the minimum wage war is only spelling their demise in finding a foothold in the ladder to success..
.."Life is hard, even harder if you're stupid"".
While we are on the subject of hard work, tell it to the Teamsters retirees, who have just been informed that their pensions will be drastically cut {because the money was stolen}. Under a new law passed late last year, not a pension in the country is safe now:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18472/central_states_pension_fund_...
.."I am shocked, shocked I tell you to learn there has been"...
Exactly!