Show Laws that accent unemployment Like a needle on a broken record the national debate for several months has been stuck on the subject of creating jobs to help solve our unemployment problems There is nothing wrong with this It is the positive approach But while accenting the positive has its virtues it has tended to make us forget the negative Some basic untreated untreated un un- treated causes of unemployment The new Congress can do something something some some- thing about these root causes of unemployment unemployment un un- un employment since they stem from federal federal fed fed- eral laws that legislate or mandate wages higher than the market will bear In an excellent little book Dr William H H. Peterson who teaches business business busi busi- ness philosophy at Campbell College Buies Creek N N. C C. discusses these laws as well as the overall necessity to free up funds for capital investment as asa asa asa a means of creating jobs His book Who is the Real Employer Employ Employ- er The True Source of Jobs has just been published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States It underscores the fact that consumers are the ultimate source of f jobs because they decide what goods or services produced by working Americans that they will buy In today's job market says Dr Peterson we suffer from WAGE Some labor is overpriced Wage inflexibility means workers and business cant can't get together on terms satisfactory to the consumer Dr Peterson writes in his book He cites an impressive list of federal laws that attempt to legislate wages for forthe forthe forthe the private sector These include Minimum illum wage laws that price unskilled unskilled un un- un- un skilled labory labor particularly teen-agers teen and blacks out of the market Labor relations laws th that t grant ex ex- ex- ex powers to unions encouraging strikes Thirty-one Thirty states for example pay unemployment compensation benefits benefits ben ben- to strikers Certain featherbedding practices protected by federal laws which reduce productivity and inflate wages Welfare laws that deter many from taking jobs Food stamps Medicaid and housing subsidies all make welfare more attractive Payments running as high as a week in unemployment compensation Full employment laws that force government government government gov gov- into financing deficit-financing thereby helping to fuel inflation Dr Petersons Peterson's analysis is more than borne put out by the actual experience of the British people in recent years Besieged Besieged Besieged Be Be- by the host of economic problems which has become a fixture in British life Britain's Labor Prime Minister James Callaghan told his Labor party colleagues in a speech last year t We must ask ourselves unflinchingly what is the cause of high unemployment ment Quite simply and it is caused by paying ourselves more than the value of what we produce This is an absolute fact of life which no government be it left or right can alter We used to think you could just spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spend spend- ing I tell you in all candor that tha t that tha t option no longer exists and that insofar as it ever did exist it worked by injecting injecting injecting in in- inflation into the economy And each time that happened the average level of unemployment has risen Higher High High- er inflation followed by higher That is the history of the last 20 years |