I'd rather see the government become employer of last resort, than investor of last resort. With some kind of 30 hrs of work and 10 hrs of skills/education training. And a couple hours week of mental health/addiction services optionally. With some kind of medical and other benefits.
I believe the issue with the gov being the employer of last resort is that you end-up with a fat, inefficient government.
What politician will dare to fire all the redundant workers once that crisis is over? You can see this issue in ex-communist states.
Why fire people? wouldn't companies be able to lure workers away from the government with better pay and benefits? The government could offer some kind of incentive to companies where the government pays the person for some length of time and they work for a private company for free as long as the companies keeps that person on for 1 year or something like that.
That doesn't really happen in the real world. People are reluctant to change jobs. Especially if they need to support families. They would rather vote for the guy who promises them higher wages and fat pensions rather than to vote for the guy who promises incentives to work (again) in the private sector(and then risk the insecurity being fired<again>). Once you hire in the public sector is really hard to get rid of them.
