Solving Unemployment in the U.S.: Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes

Currently in the US we face a large unemployment problem. According to The Huffington Post, 15 million people are out of jobs and nine million more are involuntarily working part time. We see the dissatisfaction in Washington with this issue as Democrats lost majority in the House just a few days ago. Voters don't understand why jobs are so scarce so they vote against those they believe are in power. They did this same thing to the first George Bush in 1992, Clinton and the Democrats in 1994, and also many Republicans who had supported George W. Bush in 2008. They want results, and they don't know how to get the, so they just keep jumping ship from one side to another.

 

So what do economists say would reduce unemployment? We can glean many helpful insights from Adam Smith, father of free market economics. He found that the real problem was not unemployment, but rather monopolies. He therefore aimed to liberate the energies of entrepreneurial people to create wealth. His goal was for British parliament to stand up to government-sponsored monopolies that in the 18th century kept competitors out of many areas and stifled growth. This can be found by reading his famous book The Wealth of Nations (which never mentions the problem of joblessness in any of its pages...).

John Maynard Keynes is the economist who suggested how unemployment could be attacked. Keynes believed in markets as much as Smith did. He recommended that the British government use market prices not rationing to allocate scarce resources as WWII approached. During the Depression, however, the millions of jobless were a crucial political problem. Keynes argued that waiting for private investors to create jobs as conservatives said Smith would have done could lead to the overthrow of Great Britain's free institutions.

Conservatives were arguing in the 1930s, as they still do in 2010, that cutting taxes and reducing government outlays would create jobs in the "long run." Keynes famously responded that "in the long run we are all dead."

The insights of Smith and Keynes are central to today's debate between the parties. Smith is still right that economic progress depends on liberating the energies of entrepreneurs so that they can create wealth. Government has to pump money into competitive markets to get investment going again. That is what stimulus is, and that is what will boost the economy and get people jobs.

Why Freud Was Wrong

So there is actually a book out there entitled Why Freud Was wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis (1995). It, obviously, is a critique of Freud and psychoanalysis. It argues that Freud became some kind of Messiah and that psychoanalysis is really a disguised continuation of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. What does that mean exactly? He basically asserts that Freud was a rather dirty and rejected child who, because of the deep need to repay his parents for being do undesirable, embarked upon a messianic mission to world fame with his own disciples and church to boot. His need for fame and recognition was so urgent that he not only deluded himself and deceived others; he also fell prey to the deceptions and delusion of his deranged seniors and special confidants through projecting onto others his own messianic urges.

Well we now know how Webster feels about the subject. What do you think? Is Freud valid in today's psychological society?

Microfinance

Today I selected to be in the group that is dealing with starting a microfinance group at BYU. To be perfectly honest, I knew little to nothing on the subject, so I thought I would do a little research an enlighten myself. Here's what I found:

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients including consumers and self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services. Such services will attempt to help poor people out of poverty.

It's object is "a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers."

The problem is most banks traditionally do not provide financial services (such as loans) to clients with little to no cash income. Therefore, microfinancing allows these people to receive financial help, whereas they would normally not be able to do so.

Due to slow progress in developing quality saving services for poor people, peer-to-peer platforms have developed to expand microlending through individual lenders in the developed world.


Kiva is such an organization, which facilitates about $5M in loans each month. Kiva "empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending."

For our project we will be looking to create a microfinance group at BYU, thus helping connect students to this realm. It seems like an exciting project. I can't wait to learn more!

The Hollow Men

This is a poem by T.S. Eliot and I don't really know why, but I really enjoyed reading it. I read some websites that analyzed the piece. Some said it had to do with post-war Europe and the effects the Treat of Versailles had on the country, others mentioned the difficulty of hope on mankind, and some even mentioned that it has to do with Eliot's own failed marriage. However, what I like about poetry is it is less about what others think and more about what you personally glean from reading the words. Poetry is just so free that you can take away whatever you want, what currently is going on in your own situation, in your own life.

I think it means that if we live our lives without loving, living, and laughing (if we really don't enjoy what we have), we slowly become distant from the world around us. I especially like the ending:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I think if we let our passions about life and our interactions with others die down, there will be nothing left to life. No real reason to live (or war for that matter). Then like it says the world won't end in a bang, but more like a pathetic wimper.

Below is the entire poem. Feel free to read and see what you think it means!

The Hollow Men
By: T.S. Eliot

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Jing Jing Jing

So I'm kind of slow on the uptake, but I just wanted to express how awesome I think Jing is. I just downloaded it not too long ago (as you can see from my last post), and I can't really remember how I lived without it. It is so easy to use (and that's saying something, because despite the two months I have spent in this class, I still feel technologically impaired). It's just the simplest thing: just capture, save, and insert the image!

It's a great way to share images with others (especially when blogging!). I think this has really increased the accessibility of sharing information. Sharing pictures has always been a problem in my family. My dad lives in Montana so to send pictures I would usually just have to upload them individually and email them or even print them out and send them in the mail. New technology has given us the opportunity to send and share pictures through the internet. It's absolutely amazing to see how technology progresses so rapidly. I'm excited to see what they come up with in years to come!

Sound Cloud

In my last post I uploaded an audio file to my blog. This turned out to be a lot more tricky than I had anticipated. I tried uploading it directly from iTunes, but it wouldn't work. I then found this site, Sound Cloud, which is completely awesome so I will explain how I uploaded it step by step:

1. I imported the CD into my iTunes

2. I then converted the track to an mp3 format. To do that, follow these instructions:

• 1. Edit > Preferences
  2. Under the general tab, select "import settings"
  3. Change type to MP3, and select (192 kbps) for decent quality audio.
  4. Find the song you want to upload in your iTunes library (it must already be in iTunes) and right click it.
  5. Select 'Create MP3 Version'
  6. Wait for it to finish (it will say incomplete next to the title until it was done).
  7. Drag the completed file out of iTunes onto the desktop for convenient use elsewhere.

3. I then went to soundcloud.com and I uploaded the audio file (filling out all necessary details about the clip).Wait for the upload bar to finish.

 4. It will send a confirmation email to your address and from there you can follow the link to the uploaded file.

5. Select share on the upper left corner of the soundcloud editing pane, and copy the embed code.

6. Go back to the blogger edit post screen, and place the cursor where you want to insert the audio clip.

7. Click "Edit HTML" on the upper right of the edit post box, and paste the embed code you copied in step five.

8. Publish Post!

Apostasy Talk

As I was reading M. Russell Ballard's talk, "Using New Media to Support the work of the Church," it discussed the importance that new techonolgy plays in helping the growth of the Church. He always mentioned that all the technology leading up to the life of Joseph Smith aided in the Restoration of the Church and the publication of the Book of Mormon.

While on my mission, I listened to a talk (known as the "Apostasy Talk") by a Hyrum Smith (not Hyrum Smith the brother of Joseph), he address this. He explains how all things from the Apostasy lead up to the Restoration of the Gospel. It is one of the most incredible talks I have ever listened to. I have uploaded the entire talk (which is about 35 minutes). It is totally worth your time. You can listen to it on Sunday after church if you want.

Apostasy Talk by leeannelowry