h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Perhaps if society could be brought around to the point of view that nudity betokens commitment and sincerity, like the but-naked holy men in India, it would easier for job searches to look "respectable" in interviews, and still have a bit of pocket-change at the end of the fortnight.

But no pockets to keep it in?

mmmm... Good point.

Maybe if the unemployed were organized into a closed circuit, where each did something dependant on something produced by the last and received payment in exchange for their product from the next, there would be complete employment and no drain on natural resources.

Jack Dee pointed out one approach to this - you give one load of unemployed people a pile of wicker, and another load of unemployed people the resultant baskets, shoes, boxes, cars, trunks, monitor surrounds, speaker cones etc, and they un-pick them. Now I come to think about it, that might have been mad people.

Seriously though, full employement is theoretically impossible due to structural unemployment. (Pretty good - I haven't picked up an economics text book in all of two years - and that was just to put it down again somewhere else.) Put simply, the jobs will not always be in the same place as the people skilled, able, or willing to do the work.

Theoretically, this could generate a very large amount of unemployment.

Of course, in practise the government looks at the figures, says "they're all dossers" and tries to force them to clean toilets, sweep streets etc, whilst still expecting them to pay off the student loans they accumlated getting a first in Astrophysics, or something, from Oxford, or somewhere.

Mind you, you get to go to some very good parties, and meet some very interesting people, and completely fail to get off with any of them.

I should point out that none of this compares to be own experience.

Except for the sad bit at parties.

Ne' mind. You'll meet your Trillian.

That other stuff was interesting, too.

Ah but - I don't have two heads.

Having two heads is an asset; but on a planet where one's the norm, not having two is not much of a liability.

The worst bit is the tedium - I've been out of work for a year-and-a-half, and if it wasn't for the half dozen or so six-foot pink fluffy bunnies dancing round the living room solely for my entertainment, I think I would lose my mind.

in reply to John - there is something called Local Exchange + Trading System, where skills and stuff are advertized in a directory, paid for in a special currency (by special cheques), no money involved. You can get home grown veg, cars fixed, childcare, hand made jewellry, 2nd hand goods etc for example, most people have something to offer a scheme like this, + people always want more stuff. And the dole don't care (yet..) It's a good way of being busy, sociable + feeling worthwhile.

Thanks for the update lucan. That sounds like a good arrangement.

JTG