Doug questions whether a 4 per cent US unemployment rate would not do anything other than strengthen labour's hand agin capital. in usual times it would be horrific to capital to have a low ur. but these days with the cappos fractionalising more and more work into smaller unskilled type segments, a 4 per cent ur may just mean lots of casual/part-time jobs in dislocated service centres taken by people who may have only an instrumental attachment to the labour force (in OZ school kids taking bic mac jobs). the unions have always found it hard to organise women in the service sector. the trends now indicate their task is that much harder. the amount of large (one-plant) firms is declining around the world. so it all depends Doug, but 4 per cent now is different to 4 per cent in the 1960s. kind regards bill ******************************************************************************* William F. Mitchell Telephone: +61-49-215027 .-_|\ Department of Economics +61-49-705133 / \ about The University of Newcastle Fax: +61-49-216919 \.--._/*<-- here Callaghan NSW 2308 v Australia Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] World Wide Web Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/~bill/billyhp.html *******************************************************************************