<story><title>Are jobs obsolete?</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jswinghammer</author><text>I&apos;m not sure the Post Office&apos;s problems are related to technology. Their union negotiated a &quot;no layoff&quot; provision in their contract just this year. Why would you agree to that as an employer? Then there is the problem of defined benefit pensions where you end up keeping people basically on staff long after they stop working for you. The Post Office needs to go bankrupt and clear these contracts out and move forward without a union ideally. They might need to wait for Obama to leave office before doing that.&lt;p&gt;As for jobs there&apos;s always work to be done. There&apos;s an infinite amount of work in fact. In a free market involuntary unemployment should be zero because someone would always be willing to pay something for a given amount of work. I have work I need done now that I just do not have time for. I also know finding someone to do that job for what I&apos;m willing to pay is very hard since people seem to get by without working via means I do not fully understand. I&apos;m at home today caring for my family who are basically all sick and I&apos;m seeing a lot of men just wandering around doing nothing. I&apos;m going to guess that the incentive to work is absent in their life for one reason or another.&lt;p&gt;Not sure libertarian means that you want people left out of the system and starving though. I am a libertarian and I&apos;ve spent 90% of my time post college life running or helping to run a food pantry in my spare time. Seems silly to suggest that libertarians don&apos;t care about such things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbooth</author><text>Every union &quot;no layoff&quot; provision I&apos;ve ever seen was a case of the union choosing to forego contracted CoL raises and some various health benefits in exchange for keeping jobs.  Typically it will be cost-neutral compared to layoffs and keeping benefits.&lt;p&gt;The employer wouldn&apos;t sign up to it if it was a pure money loser.  They&apos;re not crazy :)&lt;p&gt;Also, Obama already suspended Saturday delivery. So not too sure what he has to do with a perceived unwillingness to shut down the post office.  (He also cut taxes, stepped up immigration enforcement and didn&apos;t close gitmo).</text></comment>
<story><title>Are jobs obsolete?</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jswinghammer</author><text>I&apos;m not sure the Post Office&apos;s problems are related to technology. Their union negotiated a &quot;no layoff&quot; provision in their contract just this year. Why would you agree to that as an employer? Then there is the problem of defined benefit pensions where you end up keeping people basically on staff long after they stop working for you. The Post Office needs to go bankrupt and clear these contracts out and move forward without a union ideally. They might need to wait for Obama to leave office before doing that.&lt;p&gt;As for jobs there&apos;s always work to be done. There&apos;s an infinite amount of work in fact. In a free market involuntary unemployment should be zero because someone would always be willing to pay something for a given amount of work. I have work I need done now that I just do not have time for. I also know finding someone to do that job for what I&apos;m willing to pay is very hard since people seem to get by without working via means I do not fully understand. I&apos;m at home today caring for my family who are basically all sick and I&apos;m seeing a lot of men just wandering around doing nothing. I&apos;m going to guess that the incentive to work is absent in their life for one reason or another.&lt;p&gt;Not sure libertarian means that you want people left out of the system and starving though. I am a libertarian and I&apos;ve spent 90% of my time post college life running or helping to run a food pantry in my spare time. Seems silly to suggest that libertarians don&apos;t care about such things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>entangld</author><text>&amp;#62;&amp;#62;I have work I need done now that I just do not have time for. I also know finding someone to do that job for what I&apos;m willing to pay is very hard since people seem to get by without working via means I do not fully understand.&amp;#60;&amp;#60;&lt;p&gt;People don&apos;t just need any job they can get. They need a job that will pay bills for a reasonable amount of time in the future. They need to save money to live on during the next job search. Temporary low paid jobs just leave the employee stressed out and barely above water before they need to search again. I don&apos;t think many people enjoy looking for work.</text></comment>