Job, jobs, jobs.

After listening to Sunday morning talking heads, I heard little deviation from the script. Key words were small business, regulation and tax cuts. Nobody seemed to have any specific facts or examples. Just shallow spin.

I cannot resist commenting on the Barbie and Ken clones travel network to network who travel talk show to talk show with the same recording. Someone rewinds them and send them on with a new blouse or new tie.

My own experience says we have a new economic model, or to say it different, we are in a reset economy and the "noise" of old economic models aren't valid.

Since the 1980, we have two economic models emerge. They are the service jobs and Dot.com jobs. Neither of which added value to something tangible.

In April of this year Joan and I were attending a sales convention at Rochester Minnesota. When we arrived at our Hotel we were greeted by a two valets, one to park our car, the other to take our bags. Another valet was needed because the first did not know how to drive my 2010 Prius. We now have three non productive workers employed doing nothing of value.

Now reset the economy! Reduce the amount of valet types needed at this hotel. Where do these people find jobs? Their skill sets are obviously limited.

Recently on the online Wall Street Journal there was two front page articles, one about the increasing joblessness, the other about the inability to find skilled workers to hire. The Wall Street Journal could have reconciled these two stories into useful information but they too lack skill sets to do any meaningful analysis.

When there is a reset economy, there is worker displacement. This is very common in a dot.com industry where boom and bust is spaced by months not decades. Upon bust (bankruptcy) workers are displaced. If the only job they can find is one hundred miles away from their present residence they could have a problem. This would be compounded by having a home that loses its value. In this case we have a displaced worker must not only move their family for a new job, they may have to abandon a home. In this case the displaced worker has marketable skills but moving is a major endeavor. What is the solution?

Economic theory says labor is mobile. In fact government policy of promoting home ownership and its tax structure has promoted immobility. Eventually labor will move toward jobs by the young new workers.

But these young workers must have skill sets that are needed. The problem with the job market suffering on lack of skills and immobility will not be solved immediately. There are three solutions; attrition, education and retraining, and mobility. I don't believe these job issues have been fully addressed. We need good short term solutions. And we must realize that many low skill service jobs are gone forever.