You Grow the Pie?
by Sandwichman
The New York Times recycles boilerplate nonsense:
YOUR MONEY: Disproving Beliefs About the Economy and Aging.
The notion that the job market is a zero sum game — more jobs for one group translates into fewer jobs for another group — is deeply ingrained. Economists call the belief that there are only so many jobs in an economy the “lump of labor fallacy.”
But the truth is that growth in the number of jobs for older people tends to run in parallel with gains for younger workers. “There isn’t a fixed number of jobs,” Ms. Carstensen said. “You grow the pie.”
When I see a pie growing, I toss it in the compost.
Where to begin? “The notion… is deeply ingrained.” Deeply ingrained in WHAT? WHOthinks this notion, aside from Ms. Carstensen, Christopher Farrell and other disciples of unidentified “economists” who call this believerless belief the “lump of labor fallacy”?
The old zero sum game gambit AGAIN? Oh come on. Haven’t the boilerplate recyclers heard of prisoner’s dilemma yet?
Commenter Thornton Hall adds: People talk about the “corporate” media, but that’s not the problem. The problem is objectivity and professionalism. Bullshit about lump of labor seems related to “the production of innocence” discussed here; “Political Coverage is Broken.”
crossposted with econospeak
It’s not a zero sum game; it’s a shrinking sum game.
I keep saying this; but, it is something most people and many economists do not seem to grasp. If I improve throughput and cut the amount of time it takes to manufacture, the result is fewer people or man hours are required in direct labor. The result should be productivity gains to people in fewer hours worked for the same salary or greater salary for fewer salary. Instead, Capital has acquired the productivity gains exclusively.
Thanks for another good post.
So what have we learned from all this is that we must look at the TCO or total cost of ownership of any business operating in the U.S. to stay competitive. The USITC has been shockingly off base in all our past major trade deals precisely because they use and make formulas that make to many false assumptions about our economy. We use the open market belief system while many others are actually practicing closed market beliefs economics. The national trend is clear that the middle class is no longer the majority in America. so we should not use the Peterson CGE economic model with many false assumptions mainly that we are at full employment all the time. We should use the Tufts University model. NAFTA failed to provide enforceable currency value protections so Sen. Levin provided 9 recommendations to the USITC methodology to address past economic failures. Joe Stiglitz says in the battle for entrenched power that it is also a battle for democracy it is a battle for efficiency and shared prosperity. Where today’s markets are characterized by the persistence of high monopoly profits in “Monopolies New Era”…In “Shaping The 4th Industrial Revolution” by Klaus Schwab says reliable economic stats are vital to the public good where we can measure the value of “free”.”As the economy evolves so must the frame of reference for the statistics we use to measure it”. Charles Bean. More to see at Syndicate.org.
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for the link to Jay Rosen’s speech and the commentary which follows.
I’m not sure who I should be thanking — you or sandwichman, but in any event the Rosen piece was terrific. I would be enlightening to hear Bernstein’s responses to Rosen’s piece in the current election year political environment though.
Parenthetically, Bernstein and any other journalist who consider themselves a serious journalist would do well to study the journalism in Germany during the rise of the National Socialists party. Journalist’s can either be an agent of propaganda — aiding and abetting it, or they can actively subvert it. There is no “grey area” for journalists in this.