@rbreich Some states really need to do something about unemployment. New Jersey especially. I was fired from my job in Nov. 6 week penalty (long story). They tell me call starting on 12/29 to reopen my claim. Impossible to get through. After several days of frustration, I got my hands on an email for someone a bit higher than call center. I send one nice email, someone calls me the next morning and sorts it out in 5 mins for me. The worst part? This is something they could’ve automated.

@rbreich I still don’t know how they’re reconciling this with overall hiring problems and ensuing supply chain issues. I’m not an economist by any means, but feels like they’re ignoring the effects of COVID killing a number of working age people, it making people retire early, and long Covid taking them out of the full time workforce on employment and instead applying old solutions/models to what is a novel problem.

@rbreich is it possible to have easy money and also no inflation? 100% employment would mean “raise prices until enough people can’t afford it.” Just by the nature of the market. Credit cards exacerbate that. Forcing caps on prices would lead to shortages. I think capitalism requires a certain percentage of prior to be out of work and desperate.

@rbreich the brain washing starts in early economics classes where textbooks say there is an ideal unemployment rate. Then people think they sound smart when they refer to it and accept it as a fact. Really it would be smart to figure out a way to have everyone thrive.

@rbreich it’s like saying that if you ruin the population financially, sellers are forced to lowball their prices. Why not let purchasing power for increased wages stimulate greater production? It’s all relative. Bank tellers used to make $1.50/hour in the 1970’s. Bread was less than $0.25 a loaf, considered high. We paid people more, sellers produced more bread to meet increased demand, bread went up to $1 a loaf, and everybody was happy.

@rbreich They're literally killing people. We know that layoffs and unemployment greatly increase the risk of suicide: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/the-link-between-unemployment-and-suicide/

@rbreich Full employment can increase supply of goods and services, keeping prices in check--right? The big driver of inflation was lack of supply. Not enough shipping containers, not enough truckers, shortage of microchips, shortage of workers who feared getting sick. If the Fed had taken their foot off the gas earlier and eased into higher rates 6 mos sooner, we might have avoided inflation spikes. Not sure how to deal with OPEC and Russia, but gas has eased in spite of those pressures.

@rbreich I agree.

@rbreich particularly when health insurance tied to employers for most workers

@rbreich
Obviously, nobody on the Fed's ‘Board of Governors’ realizes the truth in the late Paul Wellstone's remark: “We all do better when we all do better.”

@rbreich so you're saying... #EndTheFed?

@rbreich But why are you legitimizing the “inflation” fuckery in your second paragraph? There is no inflation to fight. There is corporate greed and monopolies galore… but this is not inflation.

@rbreich would you believe this comment to you on Twitter the other day got me suspended for a week? When I logged on this morning, it warned me that this comment violates Twitter’s rules of speech, forced me to delete it, then suspended me:

@rbreich they have a dual mandate.