The Failure Begins!

Very briefly, let us look at Megan McArdle's excerpt of How To Fail Up If You're Just Like Me. I will return to her excerpt later when I have more time. Here is The Secret To Shortening Long-Term Unemployment:

McArdle attacks the unemployment problem by dividing the world into Democrat and Republican approaches to the problem, and then telling us that the Republicans are right. She tells us there are no villains; evidently unemployment just happens for structural reasons. Although she earlier said that the government shouldn't create jobs because they would just be make-work, she now says that the government should provide jobs that pay less than "normal" jobs temporarily, waive the payroll tax for new employees, or provide "grants" so people could move to a place where jobs are available. Or perhaps, like Denmark, the government could pay support and for retraining, but McArdle understands if her reader doesn't like the idea of helping his fellow man.

She does not tell us how a guy over 50 in middle management in Pennsylvania with a house he can't sell, a wife who managed to hold on to her job, and a couple of kids in school could sell his home and move to North Dakota to work in the oil industry, but she can't solve everyone's problems, can she? And while it was a tragedy when the rich were no longer able to afford prep school for their children, it's nothing for a middle class kid to leave school and end up in North Dakota.

Failure: Too many people on unemployment for too long (note that the problem is not the lack of jobs)

Point of Failure: The unemployed stop looking for jobs until benefits are about to run out. Then they look for jobs again. (Note that McArdle does not discuss what happens if they can't find a job. For Randians, there is always another job out there just for the taking, if you look hard enough.)

Cause of Failure: Looking for work is painful so people stop, according to a survey McArdle read.

Solution: Make it easier to look for a job.

Unemployment solved!