Here is the next section of the book. Is this the material Daniel is asking about?
For example, during the late 1990s, while the dot-com boom was in full swing, Alan Greenspan, then the all-powerful Chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoke to his colleagues at the Fed about the "traumatized worker." Greenspan was not referring to the traumatization of the unemployed workers, but rather that of the employed workers facing the possibility of unemployment. Greenspan had no intention of trying to elicit sympathy for these workers. On the contrary, workers' intimidation created a welcome opportunity for business. As Robert Woodward reported, Greenspan saw the traumatized worker as "someone who felt job insecurity in the changing economy and so was resigned to accepting smaller wage increases. He had talked with business leaders who said their workers were not agitating and were fearful that their skills might not be marketable if they were forced to change jobs" (Woodward 2000, p. 163). Greenspan was always careful to choose his words carefully. Traumatization refers to a condition that causes people to suffer serious disorders -- the kind that often can create grave health consequences. The association of posttraumatic stress disorder and the threat of unemployment might seem far-fetched, if the source were someone less eminent than Alan Greenspan. I do not believe that Greenspan ever used the expression, "traumatized worker" in his public pronouncements. After all, Greenspan used a language that was legendary for its obscurity, but his less inflammatory words still conveyed the same message. For example, the Chairman testified before Congress: "... the rate of pay increase still was markedly less than historical relationships with labor market conditions would have predicted. Atypical restraint on compensation increases has been evident for a few years now and appears to be mainly the consequence of greater worker insecurity" (Greenspan 1997, p. 254). The lack of clarity in this statement may make his words seem less harsh, but the meaning remains the same. Greenspan had numbers to back him up. He reported: As recently as 1981, in the depths of a recession, International Survey Research found twelve percent of workers fearful of losing their jobs. In today's tightest labor market in two generations, the same organization has recently found thirty seven percent concerned about job loss. [Greenspan 1999] Greenspan was not the only person taken by surprise by the impact of traumatization. Paul Samuelson, Noble Prize-winning economist told a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston shortly before Greenspan's comments: "America's labor force surprised us with a new flexibility and a new tolerance for accepting mediocre jobs" (Samuelson 1998, p. 36). Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com
