lifeisshort said:
If you have no job and no money you demand nothing. If you have a job created by business you have money and you demand goods and services your attempt to put the cart ahead of the horse is nuts
This is obviously false. Whether you have a job or not, you still have demands for at least the basic necessities--food, water, shelter, medicine, etc. People are typically willing to give up anything of value which they possess, including (importantly) time and labor, to secure those. That's how economies get started. People work the land to create food and other raw materials. In extreme cases, people are willing to risk their lives to secure them. That's how economies crash and revolutions happen, incidentally.
The point, then, is that unless those with jobs are paid a wage which takes care of necessities and then provides enough room to spend more, the economy begins a downward spiral. Less demand, fewer positions maintained and overall fewer businesses keep their doors open. Which leads to even less demand, rinse and repeat.
The problem of economics is the problem of navigating between Scilla and Charibdis. On the one hand, pure competition leads to all the money in the hands of a very few, and pretty soon there is no economy because there are only so many cars, televisions, and yachts those few can use. On the other hand, pure cooperation leads to complacency and stagnation. Wealth is diminished because people aren't working as hard to produce resources.
There's an easy way to tell which is happening. If real unemployment is rising, and thus demand is destroyed because fewer people have money, then we've steered too close to Charibdis, the downward spiral created by going too far on the competition end of the scale. If, instead, demand is destroyed because, though everyone has a job, overall wealth in the society is diminished due to fewer resources being produced, then we've sailed too close to Scilla, the monster of complacency created by going too far to the cooperation end of the scale.
It seems pretty clear to me which is the case in contemporary America, and hence what we should do about it.