Jesus, I'm fairly left wing but this is insane. Simply print 500billion USD. Sure, everyone would then have a job, but good luck buying anything with your salary, inflation would skyrocket.

His idea that inflation would be controlled with full employment and businesses staying competitive with salaries is also wrong. The US is not a bubble. If there are not enough people to fill jobs, then companies will just hire immigrants (which is what happened during full employment post-WWII) rather than upping wages constantly. This also works both ways. If inflation gets too high, you'll see a brain drain as the best and brightest seek foreign jobs paid in a currency that's stronger (and more stable) than the dollar.

These sorts of programs have existed in the past, but they create huge inefficiencies because people end up working 'non-jobs', you'll have people digging ditches and another lot filling them back in. We've all been in a situation where several people are doing one job, you can see it saps efficiency.

The idea that America's several million people can be given a shovel and they'll create a green revolution or rebuild Detroit is idealistic but unfortunately naive. I welcome government schemes to teach people these jobs, but some of these skills require university level education , which again I encourage but it will be expensive and won't happen overnight.

The New Deal worked because many of the jobs created were fairly simplistic; it wouldn't take long to teach someone how to dig ditches or operate factory machinery, many already did these things before the Depression destroyed the private sector. Today, any New Deal would need to educate millions of people, you'd have to find the money to not only fund education, but also a salary, provide healthcare and a pension.

So there is no golden bullet to end unemployment. Schemes to train people would work, but simply creating jobs and money from thin air would wreck the economy.