Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

It's not enough to subsidize employees; to keep as many people working as possible, government needs to subsidize jobs too, much like it did during the Great Depression. Programs were created by Executive Order by President Roosevelt in 1933 in times very similar to these: Emergency Conservation Work, Civilian Conservation Corps, Works Progress Administration, National Youth Administration, Development of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the quaint, Camps for Unemployed Women. At that time, as now, young people had lost confidence in their government, and more worrisome, they had lost their faith in liberty because liberty requires both freedom & opportunity, but opportunity was lacking. The problem back then was a lackluster economy, while today the problem is the people’s lack of personal focus, and sense of having no control over their life. Public works give people a feeling of accomplishment & personal value, not to mention patriotism.

Jobs are way more valuable to society than a means of transferring money from The Rich to everyone else; jobs instill Work Ethic. Everyone should be expected to work in some fashion, and that requires closely-managed, low-end jobs that don't make sense unless all of the benefits to society are added together. Also, if you work, even if your salary is subsidized by government, nobody's going to tell you what to do, but if you don’t work, just sitting around collecting free money, then you can be sure other folks will be telling you how to spend it.