Labor

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

According to Dallas Fed's Kaplan, America has an over abundance of jobs and needs to attract wanton amount of migrants in order to fill the insatiable demand for cheap labor, aka 'skills gap.'

While on one hand, Kaplan ceded to the notion that globalization was a primary reason for price deflation and stagnant growth, he also blamed America's aging demographics for lackluster growth.

As if defined benefit pensions funds weren't fun enough for corporate shareholders, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the federal entity that backstops pension obligations when companies default, has enacted massive increases in insurance premiums for operating such plans over the past 5 years. 

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

Politicians are always generous with other people’s money… until it runs out.

Near the peak of the late-’90s tech bubble, California’s legislature passed the largest pension increase in its history.

Today, with as much as $750 billion in unfunded public pension debt, California has one of the worst pension situations in the country. But it’s far from alone.

Cue the latest economic (and Phillips curve) paradox.

On one hand, the US unemployment rate is at a 16 year low of 4.4%, suggesting little if any slack in the US economy, and according to anecdotes from both the Fed's Beige Book and industry sources, labor shortages are so acute that - if one believes the recently discussed report from the NAHB - up to 75% of builders are unable to find construction workers.

As we reported last month, a Wisconsin company called Three Square Market has become the first company in the US to offer microchip implants to its employees. The firm, which designs software for breakroom markets, wants employees to use microchips to help facilitate vending-machine payments. The firm wanted to use its employees as test subjects for their product. And though the program was strictly voluntary, it marks an uncomfortable beginning of a trend that could someday result in all humans being involuntarily microchipped.