Megan McArdle writes an article titled: "Did the Recession Make You Stupid?" In it, she writes:
Now is sort of an awkward time to bring this up, but being out of work for a long time is one of the worst things that can happen to you. Your work skills atrophy, and you’re more likely to be depressed. Your earning potential falls. Even very basic skills can decline -- one study found that people who lost their jobs did worse on tests of reading and basic math abilities.There are a bunch of things to address here.
That’s the bad news. Here’s the worse news: Those effects seem to be long-lasting. Income setbacks during a recession can stay with you throughout your career -- for example, studies of people who graduate into a recession show that even decades later, they’re not earning as much as people who graduated into sunnier environments.
First, general recessions are not inevitable. They are the result of a previous unsustainable boom. These booms, as all of us here know, are created by The Federal Reserve and the fractional-reserve banking system. Take away the booms, and you necessarily take away the busts. Advocates for sound money cannot say this enough times.
McArdle refers to the booms as "sunnier environments" when they're actually the crisis. Those are the times when resources are being misallocated. People are 'getting jobs' that will disappear when the inevitable bust occurs. The 'skills' that were learned for those jobs were learned in error. That's not a sunny environment. That's a waste of time, energy, and resources.
Next, "being out of work for a long time" is also not an inevitability. You see, when the bust occurs, the government and Fed do their very best to prop up the misallocated resources. They try to put band-aids on their previous mess. Not surprisingly, they only make matters worse.
The market seeks to reallocate resources into areas that are economical, and in line with consumer desires. But the government and Fed (under the guise of helping) stand in the way. They come up with every bad economical idea imaginable: (e.g., bailouts, raising the minimum wage).
Because the population has been educated in the government's very own "schools," a great many cheer on each successive mistake. By adulthood, just about everyone has been propagandized to believe in the politicians and their "plans" to shape the world according to their whims.
As the government keeps twisting the economy into a tighter and tighter Gordian Knot, more and more people find it harder to find a job.
Should this make people dumber? Should it atrophy their skills? Of course not!
We live in a world where people have unlimited wants. There are problems that need to be solved at all times of the day. There is always something that each of us could do to serve our fellow neighbors....always.
The major problem was outlined above. The government and Fed literally destroy economy. The allocation of resources to where they're most desired slows down to a crawl.
But the blame also lies in the lap of the propagandized public. The populous has been "schooled" into believing that government is the Mommy & Daddy, and everyone else is just a child who better behave him/herself and do what Mommy & Daddy says.
Such a population does not think: "Ok, I was fired. How can I serve my neighbor?"....No! The thought instead becomes "I was fired. Now how will government take care of me?"
Government does not (because it cannot) teach entrepreneurship in its schools. It doesn't teach you to bend over backwards to serve people, even if it means doing it for free at first. It doesn't teach you to go to the end of the Earth to serve others.
Government teaches the opposite. It tells you that government will save you from the very people who satisfy every imaginable consumer desire. It will save you with its Ponzi Social Security and Unemployment "Benefits". It will abolish supply and demand and dicatate a Minimum Wage. Some have travelled so far from reality to proclaim that it can dictate a "Living Wage".
The thoroughly brainwashed public falls for it every time. And so we end up with an economy twisted into knots, and dependent-minded citizens that make up the largest Welfare State in the history of the world.
That's quite a Matzo Ball.
The good news is that this horrific "system" is heading towards the end of the rope. There are also technological and communication advancements that will aid in "re-educating" the public. Actually, strike that...the public will be "educated" for the very first time.
It won't be rosey. Legions of dependants will face a shock equivalent to a toddler finding out that Santa Clause doesn't exist. But in such situations lie great opportunities for those who prepared themselves.
Unless humanity itself is about to perish (a view I do not share) we must operate under the belief that a turnaround is possible.
Hone your libertarian skills. The possibility for a deluge of demand lies somewhere in the future.
Follow @ChrisRossini on Twitter
Good comments. I lived this and it took a shift of worldview for me to eventually figure it out. No skills or prospects so I did small jobs for friends and family. Used skills I never thought I would to make some cash tutoring, walking dogs, giving music lessons. Started catering and waiting tables after that. In short, serving people. I learned Quickbooks along the way and got a job doing IT for a tiny firm. Still not great but I'm slowly gaining better skills and still learning what it means to serve other people. I'm not an "IT guy" either, I've just been a computer enthusiast since I was 12 y.o. In another life, I would never have thought of those as marketable "skills." Go figure. I'm still learning.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, good article. I have many friends that could benefit immensely from learning this.