Simple solution for unemployment

There is lot of literature on the subject with many ifs and buts.  Most of it points to stimulus to revive the economy. Because I am not an economist, I don't have much say on their effectiveness.

But I do have a very simple solution to the problem.  Declare Friday as a holiday. 

How does this works? We first need to understand the reasons for unemployment.

• Companies decide to reduce production and hence need less labor.
• Companies don't need more people. So the students coming out of college don't get any jobs.
• New methods of productions increase efficiency and require less people. 

Now lets assume government  declares Friday as a  holiday.

Good things that can happen:

• Companies only have 4 days to produce whatever they were producing in five days. 
• They need to employ more people (about 20%) to meet their weekly targets. 
• They might need to invest more in infrastructure to ensure that they can have working space/ machines etc for 20% more people.
• They might even decide to pay less per person from existing salaries, but they do need to invest in infrastructure and hire more people. Less paying jobs is infinitely more better than no job.

Bad things that can happen:

• They might ask people to work more hours per day. But labor regulations and bonus for extra work might not have linear cost structure. 
• They might reduce production further and increase prices. 

I can't completely predict what will happen, but if unemployment is caused by "excess labor", then this could be simple and cost effective way for governments to artificially reduce "excess labor" from the market. BTW instead of Friday, Monday will work too. Or if possible to enforce, 20% less working hours per week per person would also yield the same result. Actually government doesn't even needs to implement it, just declare it. Assuming 40 working hours per person, government can just announce that every 2.5% increase in unemployment will result in 1 hour less working hours per week. I am sure companies will optimize everything to find out what gives them optimal results. Who knows within a decade or two we will all work couple of hours a week ;)

Capitalism - The missing piece

Capitalism always reminds me of Darwin's theory of natural selection. Companies that don't make profit, die. Nothing emotional about it, that is supposed to be good for the economy and people. What about labor, specifically unemployed labor? If we assume the capitalism's answer is "they die",  capitalism starts to make complete sense. Death of poor unemployed labor lowers the labor supply, results in better wages for those alive.  That could be the capitalistic way of creating equilibrium. In countries without any welfare policies, with no access to land to cultivate or forests to hunt, the only choice capitalism leaves for unemployed labor is death and for a good reason. It creates equilibrium and better wages.

I understand the horror of what I said above, but if you accept it for a moment, you will see the beauty of capitalistic equilibrium equation. Nothing else is required. It will be a well functioning system, killing or producing people in relation to demand is all that it asks for, to be in perpetual balance. The more people are rendered useless because they contribute negatively to the equation of maximization of profit, more people need to die to maintain the economic balance. I guess that is what Atlas Shrugged was all about. Using the term "division of labor"  somehow presumes that their exists labor opportunity for everyone. Unemployment is logically absurd if capitalism is about division of labor.

The problem then is not that government is doing less, the problem is government is meddling around too much in this laissez faire economy. Left to its own design, it would solve the unemployment, poverty and other stupid social problems faced by society.  The invisible hand does seem to believe in removal of poor as a way of removal of poverty. Except for the issues of the morality of killing people and the biological problem of 16-21 years of waiting period before those born can be made into labor, the capitalism indeed works as described.

Of course this is not at all true. It is just a commentary on a mental walk on the roads of capitalism with "poor die" goggles. The good part is, it makes sense. The bad part is it is horrible. The reality on the other hand doesn't makes sense and is horrible too.

 Here is an alternative way of achieving Economic Equilibrium which doesn't requires killing poor.       

Thoughts on traffic jams

One of my favorite joke of all times is carry bread while driving, you never know when you will find (traffic) jam. We have all crossed intersections. I am talking specifically about the no traffic lights, no traffic police kind. Sometimes they are so smooth that we don't even notice. But sometimes when everyone wants to go first, no one ends up moving. For a long time my take would oscillate between two point of views:

• People don't have driving sense (They don't know what they are doing) 
• People are mean (They are doing with intention)

Lately I have been thinking may be something else it as play here. And that something is "lack of information".  What I mean by that is that we only know what is "going on" for a distance of 20-30 meters in light traffic and may be next 3-5 meters in bumper to bumper traffic. That is all we know. That is all the information that we have at our disposal to judge "driving behavior" of other people. This is too less to be correct. 

Here is a simple hypothetical test case. Stand at any intersection and wait for other to stop before you cross the intersection. Ensure that it is always possible for the others to cross without bothering about you. My understanding is that you can wait for hours without getting to cross. And I guess the reason is the other drivers just get few seconds to "see" you waiting. They don't know how long you have been waiting. And if later you try to cross the intersection, I am sure you will still get honks, people trying to squeeze in, so that they can cross first. Hopefully you will cross without being cussed, but nevertheless being judged as not having driving sense and being mean. As social animals, we learn correct behavior by imitating what we see.  But if what we "see" is skewed, we will judge that skewed behavior to be correct. At least that is what I feel what I have been doing for most of my driving life.

If somehow it was possible to communicate and let everyone see the correct facts, may be the way we react and judge would change. One of things that comes to mind is a simple "wait counter" installed above the car which counts the time you have been waiting and displays it for others to see.  Not that this would magically cause deadlocks to go away, but at least everyone will know if what they and others are doing is fair or not.  At least instead of always learning people are mean or people don't have driving sense, we will possibly learn most people are not mean and most people have driving sense or vice-a-verse.

It gives people a fair chance to be fair.