Billy, have you been able to find anything specific on this from the McCain camp? I can't find anything on his website. I, too, was struck by its initial appeal, but the devil is in the details. Traditional unemployment kicks in after you are laid off. I thought I heard him saying that rather than be laid off, the worker would receive subsidized wages while being retrained and that their job would "be protected," which seems to be your take as well.It sounds like there is a lot of room for mischief and fraud. And, it assumes that the jobs will not be sent overseas.

This seems like a completely DOA plan. It would cost serious money and Republicans in Congress would surely block it after the elections.

Congress can't even pass a lousy unemployment extension, much less a comprehensive retraining subsidy.

And surely, it would have lots of unintended consequences, many of them bad. One of them would be a direct government involvement in selection of type of labor markets for retraining subsidies - worked very badly in the USSR - there was always a glut of engineers and shortage of economists (and I am an engineer who generally doesn't like economists).

The interesting thing for me, being from the old Soviet Union and all, is how Republicans, supposedly a party of small government, turn completely Socialist during elections.

And the funniest thing is that everyone in the media discusses it with rapt attention - like they have full amnesia. Maybe they do.

dimitry: "This seems like a completely DOA plan. It would cost serious money and Republicans in Congress would surely block it after the elections."

You know, I suspect this could be said of most of the 'plans' put forward by Republicans during an election ... or even during an administration. They want to have something so they can say "my opponent doesn't have as good a plan" but it doesn't really matter what *their* plan is since they won't follow through with it anyway. Dear heaven, it must be SO much easier being a Rep.: no thinking required!!

I can't say that I'm familiar with Sen. McCain's proposal, but after reading your post and following the link, I thought back to a Clinton initiative from '99 which I believe passed in its entirety, though the Republicans may have reduced the dollar amount.

A quick Google produced this AP story about a stop President Clinton did to promote his proposal and a guided keyword search took me to this page from an old HUD Handbook.

Again, I'm not familiar enough with McCain's proposal to speak intelligently on the subject, but my initial read says that McCain wants to make it part of unemployment insurance and possibly not in addition to the current benefits and instead of having the feds underwrite the program, he wants to redirect a portion of the insurance premiums to a fund, so that workers would really be paying for it, themselves.

Oh, and the Clinton proposal had a component aimed at disadvantaged youth, while it looks like McCain wants to help disadvantaged old folks.

Perhaps I'll do a little more reading after I've wasted some time watching fluff, but the above is what I got from my first read.

Thanks for raising this issue Billy and I appreciate your analysis. As one who as recently as yesterday was tied up in negotiations over "restructuring" a company with a unionized workforce in one of those tired old industries, I have become all too familiar with the peril our entire workforce is in, but in particular older workers who are not yet eligible for Medicaire. In this context, Senator McCain's retraining promises ring incredibly hollow and, candidly, to this guy, as hollow as some of the things I have read coming from progressive heroes like Tom Friedman.

This is an issue that plagues me. How do you globalize and maintain the American dream at the same time? As far as Senator McCain is concerned, it's convenient to speak in vague terms about retraining and undefined wage subsidies, and then sweep the problem under the rug. Been there, seen that, and the beat goes on.

Now, instead of making fun of Governor Palin's mothering skills, how about some of you Obamanauts (said lovingly :)) spending some time telling us why Senator Obama's approach to globalization knocks the Republican's socks off. Now that would be an interesting post to bookend with Billy's. Don't look at me. I'm gone fishin' (biking actually but I'm trying to sound more like a regular guy for the election).

Ciao (I mean seeya)

Bruce

Since wages are being cut (see Romney, Mitt, and his corp that bought out a company, fired everyone earning $13 an hour and rehired at $10 an hour), will McCain's plan require individuals to pay the government the difference between the wages they had earned and the new, lower wages they will be earning after retraining? After all, Wal-Mart greeters don't make as much as factory workers.

Corporations will certainly abuse this to their benefit, much like Wal-Mart abuses governmental health systems to avoid providing health coverage to their employees.

A) If taken in a "Strong" version, this stuff walks over toward a Guaranteed Income etc. - which some on both Left & Right have supported. So no way the GOP goes there. B) To do it in a smart, targeted, "Middle" way, you'd need an array of "European" programs wrapped around it. Not on either (though for Clinton or Obama, it should be.) C) Which leaves any likely "GOP" version as a scam to shift money to their buddies. Imagine trying to seriously do this in Mich, at state level. We're gonna pay former autoworkers for 2-4 years at new, lower-paying jobs. You'd need health, pension, education/retraining, information & tracking, tax policies wrapped around it or else it would become a disaster.

But thanks for the Polanyi mentions. When I started, I adored that guy. He lived in Canada, shaped thought a lot there. (My 1st essay was on his daughter's stuff, Kari Levitt actually.) Once I'd read him, his "disembedding" idea just shaped how I thought - but I haven't gone back to it in years. And after that sort of thought, "modern economics" as a statistical "science" became real thin gruel.