This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Is the US Jobs Crisis Here to Stay?
John Talton of the Seatle Times reports, Why the US is in a jobs crisis:
The
situation is nicely encapsulated by economist Nouriel Roubini's tweet
this morning: "US economy now close to stall speed. From anemic
recovery to tipping point to stall speed and growth recession. Is a
double dip next?"
The economy only created 54,000 jobs last month. It
takes between 125,000 to 150,000 net new jobs a month just to keep up
with the organic numbers of people entering the labor force, much less
make up for the losses of the Great Recession.
Unemployment
"officially" stands at 9.1 percent, the real rate much higher. "To
remind us what a healthy unemployment rate looks like, four years ago,
in May 2007, the unemployment rate stood at 4.4 percent, and 11 years
ago, in May 2000, the unemployment rate was 4.0 percent," according to
economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
"The U.S. workforce needs the pace of job growth to accelerate
dramatically in order to re-establish full employment within any
reasonable timeframe, and instead, the recovery is on pause."
Put another way, by the blog Zero Hedge, the
U.S. would have to create 250,000 jobs a month for 66 months just to
return to where unemployment stood in December 2007 by the end of
President Obama's second term. But why is job creation broken?
It's an area where we need urgent research and sober debate. I can think of these reasons:
- The stimulus and the Federal Reserve's
QE2 failed. They arguably prevented worse unemployment and deflation,
but it's impossible to prove a negative. The stim was particularly
ill-suited for job creation — heavy on ineffective tax cuts, light on
infrastructure. Too much of the Fed's money was used to save the Wall
Street playerz, then let them make a new killing off it.
- Business models have changed. Many
companies have found ways to do as much or more with fewer workers.
Thus, record corporate profits and cash on hand haven't translated into
much hiring. Offshoring, technology, doubling-down on the existing workforce and continuing industry consolidation all play a role.
- The
negative feedback loop continues to discourage hiring: The housing
collapse (where so many jobs were created in the 2000s); millions
struggling with the consequences of losing their homes or being
underwater on mortgages; 10-year wage gains worse than
during the Great Depression, lowering buying power and hurting
business; many small businesses, a key engine of jobs, unable to get
loans; government fiscal crises hurting investment and education, as
well as causing layoffs in this sector and hurting small private
vendors.
- The jobs-skills disconnect. Millions
of jobs for the housing bubble required relatively few advanced
skills. But manufacturers now complain they can't find the workers who
have the training to handle the leading-edge jobs they have. This is
even more pronounced in advanced technology sectors.
- The dogma about tax cuts for the wealthy leading to job creation doesn't work. Indeed,
job creation during the George W. Bush administration was some of the
worst since the Hoover years, but it was cloaked by the housing bubble.
Meanwhile, the political climate won't allow for more aggressive
job-creating stimulus, such as infrastructure spending.
- The
capital markets have disconnected from their traditional role of
assembling funding for productive, job-creating enterprises. Much of the big profits come from trading or job-killing mergers. LinkedIn and Groupon
are clever and will siphon off billions of dollars in investment. They
will create relatively few jobs. Even seemingly traditional large
corporations spend time making profits trading on Wall Street rather
than using the money to hire. Meanwhile, the finance sector is among the most politically powerful and will protect the status quo.
- The hollowing out of much of the economy is real and it has happened in sectors that once created millions of jobs.
Tens of thousands of factories closed during the 2000s, and not just
in the auto industry. The textile and apparel sectors in the Carolinas
were devastated by NAFTA and China's entry into the WTO. Again, this
was cloaked by the housing bubble.
- The recovery has never been broad-based, and businesses have been faced with ongoing uncertainty. President
Obama did himself no favors here with the complex health revamp,
although it is a huge windfall for the insurance industry. But the
uncertainty also includes the price of oil and the future of energy
costs.
- The sectors once called "high tech" (but almost
everything involves high tech now) are not creating large numbers of
American jobs, as retired Intel Chief Executive Andy Grove has pointed out. As companies "scale up" they are no longer doing much hiring of Americans.
- Some
will point to immigration, and in the 2000s the U.S. saw its largest
wave of immigration in its history, even larger than 1890 to 1920, and
much of it illegal. The academic evidence points to immigrants being a
net plus in terms of economic output vs. their cost in social services.
But it's also true that easy
immigration helped drive down wages. Yet this took place as American
business as a whole adopted Wal-Mart's low-wage, part-time,
minimal-benefit model. "Consumers" got low prices, but unfortunately they also suffered as workers. Who to blame here?For all the political theater, America has a jobs crisis much more than a debt crisis. Until it fixes the former and creates broad-based growth, it can't meaningfully address the latter.
I
totally agree with many points expressed in this article, especially
the last point on America's jobs crisis being far more important to fix
than the debt crisis. Right-wing pundits have been busy spinning the
debt crisis but the reality is unless there is a meaningful and
sustained jobs recovery, the debt crisis will never be addressed. And
don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
How do I know
this? Just look at Greece. Austerity is a disaster, pushing their
economy to the brink. Greece doesn't have a manufacturing base
and relies almost exclusively on tourism and shipping as the pillars for
its economy. Young and smart Greeks are leaving the country not
because they want to, but because there are simply no opportunities in
the private sector. Greek policymakers are doing absolutely nothing to
address serious structural issues in their economy.
That brings me
to my next point. The real crisis behind the jobs crisis in the US and
pretty much the rest of the developed world is the leadership crisis.
Politicians and policymakers are spewing the same old ideas. Liberals
want to increase deficit spending while conservatives want to decrease
taxes and cut spending. Same old, same old. There is nothing new in
these policies based on ideology. Nobody has the courage to take on
interest groups and admit that there is a fundamental problem with the
current trajectory.
What really worries me from a social
perspective is that the disconnect between the financial system and the
real economy is widening income inequality. QE2 hasn't done much for the
real economy yet, but it's been a boon for traders and money managers.
The financial oligarchs couldn't care less about what's going on in the
real economy, and neither do America's corporate titans. All they care
about is their total compensation which continues to rise to record
levels while millions struggle with unemployment.
Unless something
is done to address structural issues in the labor force, including the
ever widening income gap between the haves and have-nots, a whole
generation of workers will suffer from chronic unemployment and along
with it, loss of job skills, loss of dignity, and most worrisome,
chronic mental and physical health problems that will put additional
pressure on public spending.
Now is the time for our political
leaders to step up to the plate and address the jobs crisis. If they
don't act quickly and forcefully with fresh and courageous ideas that
work, then capitalism as we know it is doomed. If this sounds too
"Marxist" for you, then you're ignorant of history and how human beings
always repeat the same mistakes. Somewhere down there, Marx is grinning
in his grave. I leave you with an interesting discussion from ABC's This
Week on the prospects for the class of 2011.
»
- advertisements -
When I look around at my office, I don't really see that many "skilled" workforce labor happening.
"The capital markets have disconnected from their traditional role of assembling funding for productive, job-creating enterprises."
The corollary is, "the capital markets will take the path of least resistance (i.e. effort) and where the most insiders control government policy."
**
The line " (fill in the blank) have had to work twice as hard as (fill in the blank)" is the lamest excuse du jour and merely serves as a crutch.
**
No mention of government mandated healthcare, regulations, lawsuits, etc. as obstacles to businesses hiring ... but then again I expect that from ABC (All Bullshit Commercial) News.
**
WTF, no honorable mention for all those union and government jobs across the globe ? Maybe this group should have studied; Community Organizing, Proxy by Intimidation, The Dichotomy of Politics and Telling the Truth.
**
One of the dumbest reasons I've heard from employers is they want to hire someone who already has a job, not someone who is unemployed (a stigma). And then there's that old standby "lack of experience" for which few opportunities exist to get the desired experience.
**
The jobs crisis is a worlwide problem that requires multiple solutions. Government, business and education need to work together now more than ever, rather than compete for short-term mediocrity.
**
Was it by design that "medicare" and "mediocre" differ only by one vowel ?
Low interest rate policies are the cause of pretty much all of our issues....
Low interest rates promotes people like Leo, Buffet, etc.. people who contribute little to no productive capacity to an economy. The best they can hope to do is to latch onto productive capacity and try to make money off of it. High interest rates promotes people like Thomas Edison, Ford, etc...
Same with the gold standard, when capital / savings actually meant something, not something that could be diluted whenever need for a politician pet projects, bank bailouts, or random wars around the world.
The whole concept of economic "growth" has turned into a numbers game, not one that actually has basis in inventions or improving life.
Now hiring: Must suck cock, kiss ass, be a super hard worker, willing to work 80hrs on salary, must be able to juggle 75 tasks at once,always have a smile on your face, dont mind scrubbing toilets. Benefits: free parking and 25% off meals. Please call Ronald McDonald.
QE I and II were all about rescuing shadow or unregulated banking system and therefore did not create jobs. In fact financiers became even more wealthy, brazen and won because derivatives for instance are still largely unregulated. Bottom line is global economic model is not creating jobs replacing those lost to outsourcing with government jobs are already bloated.
Debt situation in US and developed economies are particularly vulnerable to default, inflation and asset deterioration in coming months and years with many families and elderly experiencing wealth decline . Social programs will also be under stress. So growth is only way out but is extremely elusive as long as we are in a global economic model where there are a lot more workers available than jobs at just about every level and capability. Even wars are not creating jobs in large enough numbers with multinationals not operating with national interest as a priority. All this is harbours deep feelings of insecurity which sooner or later will spill over into more than a Tea party. Consider the stock market as the last vestage of greed and manipulated optimism----when it turns south, the game is over!
Skill gap? Yeah, according to monster.com there's enough "Experianced" Oracle Enterprise DBAs... but you can't be one unless you've been working as an Oracle Ent. DBA for several years. Catch-22. Noone wants to hire an "apprentice" to DBA, b/c they knwo that in 12 months he'll put in "DBA w/2years of experience" and leave the company!
Solution?
#1 - Flat tax on every penny earned about powerty level. No capital gains tax, no SocSec tax, no medicare and so on. Whatever it takes - 22%, or 25%, or 30%. And, like in Norway, 1% tax on WEALTH for the ultra-wealthy. They've not paid their share of taxes since early 1980s.
#2 - Tax on frequesnt trading, derivatives, other "instruments" and super-tax on earnings from carried-interest, bonuses, and stock compensation - a little "payback" for under-taxing these sources of income for last 3 decades
#3 - HealthCare cost caps. The Institute of orthodontistry still insists on certifying such small number of orthodontists that prices are inflated? $4000-5000 average while in the rest of the world it cost around $500-1000? Well, we'll bring doctors from other countries! Our orthodontists make $290k/year on average for 5 hour a day of work? I wonder if some from Costa Rica and Colombia will do the same work for half or less? COMPETITION is key.
#4 - 35/hour work week and mandatory 5 week vacation for every business with 25+ employees or certain amount in revenue. That will result in 10% pay cut, but on the other hand individual taxes can be cut since the tax base will be broadened.
Had no idea on how the orthodontist racket worked until 2 weeks ago. You file for acceptance at 3 schools, the ortho board chooses for you (if you're accepted), keeping supply low.
Same goes for sleep dentists. They can make as much in 6 hours as a normal dentist can make in their 'tough' 4-day work week.
If you refer to those that use Nitrous as mine does, then you just have the possibility of a corspe in that chair at the end of the cleaning.
I would not want to be a dentist. I am perfectly content to let the dentist clean me out while insurance fights over the billing. It's essentially cheaper to pay the dental insurance and a minor bill for the nitrous than it is to approach a dentist with none. Your 100 dollar cleaning might turn into a 1200 dollar 4-visit gum planing monster for that gingavitis you managed to accumulate.
Damn good dentists are few and far in between. The rest are nothing more than tired worn out over-indebted students attemtping to have a go at your teeth while eyeballs the TV set in the top corner watching Ellen instead of you as you succumb to the Nitrous.
We need a focus national industrial policy like the one Japan or China has, not a monetary policy which does nothing but encourages specaulation on housing and commodity. If one billion dollar gave to AMD, it will out-perform Intel for many years.
Corporation near me, CEO REFUSED to take his company public. He didn't want the hassle. Company today is sitting on a billion dollars of cash.
Across the street, in a large park, live homeless people. Two in particular panhandle, so they have cash under the table. Zero income tax paid to IRS. One collects social security disability, banks that, and, by choice, lives homeless. No mortgage, no credit card debt, sure as heck no student loan debt. It's summer about 9 months out of the year, so their cash goes to making winter as comfortable as possible, not impossible and on a par with what trekkers need who climb Mount Everest. They have no intention of changing their homeless lifestyle
So the oligarch minions give massive tax payer funded incentives to corporations for the purpose of sending American jobs abroad, and now it's being asked if if those jobs are really gone for good???...and if those same minions will undo all of it??....Really????
Like the article suggests, it all really boils down to tax policy. As long as corporations are encuraged via tax policy to export the jobs and tax base, it will continue perforce.
If congress and POTUS ever truely focus on jobs it will have to start with a revision of tax policy to discourage export of jobs thru tax penalties for exporting jobs and possibly tax breaks for bringing jobs back home.
Since the corporatist oligarchs and Wall Street crowd are more concerned with their enrichment than the interests of the country, these needed changes are very unlikely to occur until there is mass unrest from the bottom demanding such change.
The monetary problems are at the root.
The only thing that kept our monetary issues at bay, so far was technology induced productivity. PC's and the internet, for example. Ditto for the oil and gas explorers. The dotcom boom marked the top. Look at the productivity value of the recent tech IPO's. Linked In? Facebook? Groupon? It is nothing like the changes which the PC or networking those PC's enabled. Hence, no job creation.
I can tell you out of personal experience that the VC's would much rather invest in a company that can create an IPO, regardless of its longterm value, than invest in a real productivity technology, that might take 5-10 years to develop. Those are the rules of the casino.
When manufacturing left the Carolinas (or Ohio, for that matter), it gutted much of the upper middle class that owned the chemical companies, supply houses, oil jobbers, etc. that were the pillars of each community.
Actually, in the 1970s the major business sector in Charlotte was manufacturing and support for the textile industry, including trucking.
The 'wise' leaders, called locally as "The Uptown Crowd" prostrated themselves at whatever First Union/Wachovia and NCNB/BoA wanted for the last 25-30 years. Look where that got them. 12-13% unemployment (official, actually more like 20%), bank owned properties on every other block. Whenever some firm announces thay are "creating" 15 jobs, the local media goes nuts and says "this is great news and shows that, yadayadyada, we're back, ad nauseum." 15 jobs, whoopee shit.
Until banks become banks again and not insurance/HF trading conglomerates, there is no end in sight. Main Street hurts for capital. Nationwide banking, which was to create more jobs through effencies, has been a disaster, period.
Saturday Night Live, last night, had a good spoof on U.S. debt to China. Seattle runs an article that says we have unemployment problems. Neither are “right wing media”.
What is lacking is the exposure of the criminal actions of the financial industry and the demand for “heads on pikes”. I am not sure that America needs to be told that the reason it does not go to work Monday morning is because there is no job to go to. I am sure that America does not need to be told that is that joblessness is the fault of the individual for not having enough education and loss of faith by not going to church on Sunday.
We do have something to fear besides fear itself. America is going to hell in a handbag and all the Kings men do not seem able to avert it. California decided some years ago to go tech, green and clean. Take a look at the results. Manufacturing is scarce, tech leaked out to the rest of the world, the housing building and wealth boom is over, and the cupboard is bare. A great many of the “dirty backbreaking jobs” are taken by Mexicans. And pardon me for being prejudiced, but they do work harder than Americans.
A sharing of wealth by the rich corporations and fat cat individuals may help. Payment of a fair share of taxes is necessary(I am not sure how this is done) by companies such as GE. The capitulation by the wealthy that what is good for their wallet in not good for America.
Industry and Washington have both failed America. That is not new or startling news. What we don’t have known is a plan or a solution. If there is one, it is tightly guarded.
Leo;
You are VERY VERY good but you've got this backwards!!!!!!!!
The US sits atop an historic debt bubble in all economic sectors. This debt is siphoning off our potential for economic growth. People, businesses and gov cant invest in growth oriented programs and create jobs until their balance sheets are offloaded of debt.
READ THIS:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/47609543/The-Crash-of-the-US-Empire
The US is the richest country in the world by far. Ask the top 1% to pay their fair share of taxes and you'll easily deal with the debt crisis. Right now, we should all be worried about one thing, job creation, particularly high quality permanent jobs in the private sector, not the debt crisis
First post. Hello ZH!
I was hoping to start on a positive note, but I'm bothered.
How exactly do you figure that to be the case Leo?
Debt = Money? I know you think it should work that way, but I beg to differ.
Think about the fact that Americans don't produce as much as they consume. And then explain to me just exactly why this should continue to be the case. Promises are only good for so long as they are kept. Understand then that economics depends on several important factors to work, one of the biggest being that commitments are honored (otherwise default - we all know this is bad right?). Here in lies our problem. Many promises will not be kept. Why? Because they can't be kept. Endless spending and declining revenues guarantees it.
In short, we are not rich. We are simply 'owed' or 'owe' unsustainable and unmanagable debt. Just my opinion mind you, but I like to think that simple observation would lead most any reasonable individual, armed with known and readily available facts, to the same conclusion.
Ask the top 1% to pay their "fair share" and the laffer curve clearly shows your tax revenues will fall off a cliff...
The top 1% pay nearly half of central government income taxes and the top 10% pay the great majority of central government income taxes, and the bottom half either pay nothing or actually receive transfer payments, all while getting to vote more taxes on those who do pay. This is the situation warned against at the time of the federalist papers where the people figure out they can vote themselves money from the federal treasury. We are well down that path Leo. As to how much taxation of the economy is sustainable, BHO and the Pelosi-Reid Congress have brought central government spending to a historically unprecedented percentage of GDP, and these same demagogues project to keep it up that way. Raising taxes to fill the gap will crush private incentives and actually reduce central government tax revenues. Austerity will happen at the end of every trajectory the government takes. The question is how bad will it be and how much damage will have been done to our republic and the rule of law along the way. Only two saving possibilities exist. One would be some new transformative technology or technologies that cut costs of goods and services massively. The other would be we get into some existential conflict so grave that everyone will be happy to work their tails off at 100% taxation of profits, with frozen wages and WWII type rationing. People did it then because they were motivated to. Today, with these asshole statists hell bent to expand government on the back of unprecedented(in peace time) deficit spending, the private sector will sit on its hand. Capital and talent will go on strike. Underground economics will rise and the rule of law will be shattered.
"This is the situation warned against at the time of the federalist papers where the people figure out they can vote themselves money from the federal treasury."
Preach it my brother.
Taxes are for running the government...period...not for handing out candy.
1) Obviously, the correct solution is to tax these people and their employers more.
sarc
2) Lauren should get speech therapy. The 90's called and they want their Valley Girl, hang on the last syllable speech impediment back. It subtracts 40 IQ points immediately.
3) All these kid probably voted for the current President. Maybe they should do some political introspection. Alas, had they voted for the "other guy" it may have been worse. Who knows. Hopefully, they look further than those two loser choices and reach an understanding of the massive, systemic problems we have, and that our current system is a failure. It ain't even close to capitalism....so ditch the Michael Moore argument, too....
4) Funny that the girl with the expensive interdisciplinary degree says that she has acquired skills during college. Some, but not much. I got an engineering degree, and though I could crunch numbers, I didn't develop a lot of work related skills. I never thought I had, though, and I think her assumption speaks volumes.
What we have a fraudulent debt problem caused by the activies that resulted from first the weakening and then repealing of Glass-Steagall.
Reenact it, wipe out the fraud.
Switch to the American Credit System (Hamiltonian....what we fucking had in this country...so a return to it)
Then we have the ability to create dollars, and we don't have the debt holding us back.
Because of this we can engage in REAL projects that can get the american people working, with good wages, doing tangible and needed jobs.
The platforms of; Water, Power, infrastructure (as a platform mind you...not busy work), space, radiation, nawapa, mag lev, dikes and leevees, fusion, fusion arc, and so much, much more.
None of these will happen under our current imported foreign monetary system. If these don't happen, we're fucked. Let alone if we continue pretending fraudulent debt is legitimate, and destroy the REAL economy to pay said fraud off. (or to tread water without paying it off...see Greece and US, etc)
It really isn't that hard. Cancel the fraud. Switch the way we create money (i.e. not with debt...via no federal reserve), and build the shit we need that has tangible benefits and really for once...adds to the wealth of our nation.
Glass-Steagall
Excellent post! Everyone needs to google: 'American System'.
Many good points, you are seeing many things clearly. I wouldn't however place all my bets on a single solution subject to political fraud, like Glass-Steagall. I do agree it was the thumb in the dike that kept the waters of collapse from our doors, however the dam has been breached and it will likely take several plans of action to resolve the problems.
Lack of true regulatory oversight and enforcement for example would make Glass-Steagall moot, even after its removal, there were laws against fraud and malfeasance which were not enforced. It will do no good to have Glass-Steagall without a functioning regulatory structure in place.
We need criminal prosecution of the politicans, the banks and the trading houses amongst a host of others including the very regulatory bodies that failed us all.
The real problem is finding an honest man in power who can begin cleaning up the mess and imprisoning the crooks. How to get the corrupt to investigate and jail themselves is a conundrum.
Aye,
there's the rub!!
Why would our political leaders do something to change what has happened? They have been executing the playbook of the financial oligarchs to the letter. They have the people and the economy exectly where they want it. With the pupulance being impovrished, the hand that gives is higher than the hand that takes. High taxation, austerity, people willing to do any job for little money keeps the oligarghs in power and foster the neofuedalsim that is in our future.
The only meaningful way to change the balance is to take away the only power the oligarghs have over the people: the money system. Money is created out of thin air on a computer. Anyone can do it so if we ever wise up to that and take back the power to create and regulate the value of money (as clearly stated in the Constitution), then we can restore America to its greatness. Until we decide to that, the whole blue versus red (Democrat versus Republican) contrived debate is just a bunch of noise to distract us for the ongoing theft and enslavement.
Thanks to our educational systems insistence of "everyone is equal", and the resulting "dumbing down"...we're now too lazy and stupid to compete with the world. The Civil Rights movement destroyed us. When we begin to REALLY compete again...no more quotas, no more affirmative action, that's when we'll prosper again. "The Great Reset" just may allow us to dump the dead weight and start anew without the drag we've shouldered before. First this we need to do is stop ALL the welfare...and begin the cull in earnest.
We are not too stupid to compete, we are too expensive. We still cherish and believe in quaint notions like clean water and air, safe work places and retirement benefits, pollution remediation. Things that don't exist in the 3rd world.
We have allowed our laws, once meant to protect us, to be turned against us, to destroy us. Most are too stupid to realize what is going on. There is a reason 5 corporations own 99% of the U.S. media, and it ain't to keep us informed on whats really going on.
We still cherish and believe in quaint notions like clean water and air, safe work places and retirement benefits, pollution remediation. Things that don't exist in the 3rd world.
Wow, I usually look for your posts to find some common sense and truth but this one threw me for a loop. What? We should become more like the third world - live in squalor akin to what is found on the outskirts of places like Bombay and Mexico City?
No, I'll keep my clean air and clean water, please. This is, at the very minimum, what laws should be protecting in our society. The atmosphere we live in, the air we breathe, the water we drink and clean ourselves in, is as important as the condition of our lungs or our brains.
We cannot escape our environment and while I'm not a greenie or a carbon tax freak, there is just plain common sense that says you don't crap in the place where you live, eat, and raise your young.
We are an intelligent society. I don't believe we are "stupid" as you say. There are ways to produce goods, reduce waste, and keep the jobs at home without descending into third world country status.
Disobey.
I think you misread my post. I didn't say we are stupid, I said we are not stupid. I tried to say that it is a false argument to say that american workers are passed over and jobs shipped overseas because we are too stupid.
One of the main reasons jobs are shipped overseas are because of a lack of regulatory and environmental laws. We in America still believe in quaint concepts like justice, clean air, clean water, job safety, child labor laws, 40 hour work weeks etc. - these concepts are nonstarters in China where essentially slave labor, commits suicide to escape the tedious and horrendous working conditions to the point where foxconn had to put nets around their buildings to keep workers from comitting suicide by jumping off the roofs.
apple doesn't care as long as they can maintain the largest profit margin in the industry. iphones could be built in America, but then Apple might have to drop its profit by about 25$ a phone. One example, obviously the ghost towns of Detroit hold thousands more stories.
The Chinese work a lot for US citizens and the reality is that the US usually accomplish things by shifting the burden onto other people.
The safe labour conditions, the lower pollution and the rest are accomplished in the US not because of some achievement by the US but simply because the US has moved the sack onto others.
If the US keeps its corner of the Earth clean, it is only because they are polluting largely elsewhere.
It's been the same method since beginning: white people got better and increased freedom by throwing black people under the train in the US.
The US will not descend in third world status. It is nearly impossible as the US has captured so much of the world wealth to better the US general environment.
Which does not mean part of the US society (most the middle class) will not have to adopt third world living standard by going to live in third world countries.
US citizens have strived to build a society where people live among peers.
The natural consequence is that US citizens whose job output is no longer enough valued to allow them to live an uppity place as the US will have to move elsewhere.
The continuation of the US local (on national scale) trend at a worldwide level.
If you want a job in the car production, move to countries where the car production is done.
Mandatory 30 hour work weeks. It worked in France!
http://www.worklessparty.org/
Deregistered now. There are lots of parties up here...
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&dir=par&document=index&...
The communist parties are of particular note IMHO
Job crisis is the last of their problems. They are drowning in their own debt creation. They have NO solution. So when action is futile reaction is virulent in its sterility. How do you bring back jobs to USA when their Oligarchy buys in lock, stock and barrel into outsourcing; to produce cheap and make big margins off shore through multinational corporates? Margins that would vanish if they reversed the international labor arbitrage!
Only the MIC makes products in USA as they have as sole client their own Pentagon mob. The day USA cuts down on defense spending to reign in the government deficits this cushion will also disappear...
Hi tech USA has to step up to the plate and try and create a job base in innovative technology that can sustain job creation by productivity gains that suffice to drive local investment. But this will never happen unless US government takes measures to protect this by 'carbon tax' or similar qualitative measures. Also, by stopping the "casino royal" play in derivatives that is sinking the Oligarchs deeper and deeper into short term profit seeking and long term harakiri.
" But this will never happen unless US government takes measures to protect this by 'carbon tax' or similar qualitative measures."
Then you can stand on the shoreline waving goodbye to even more businesses going offshore.....
well do you have a solution to job dilution and loss via the current international labor arbitrage? If not, your comment is invalid or it implies you, your kind, and your progeny will emigrate to China or brazil!...Or wait till US wages match those of China!
These top financiers will not rest until the rest of us are serfs. They have abandoned the christian God and worship greed instead.
Such inequality can only end in three ways, war,revolution or depression.
Thanks for the great choices bitchez!
But until then, an interlude.... the last gasp of the American Dream (TM).
"Tonight I'll sit around pushing my shit down the drain,
using a plunger and a clothespin while I wrangle with the chain.
Tonight I'll have potato chips and watch my favorite shows
then watch some infomercials, then watch some tv snow.
Tonight I'll have 9 or 10 beers.
Tonight I'll talk on the telephone mindlessly until my ear
burns from the feeling, from the strain of active nothing.
Tonight I'll avoid my hopes and fears.
Tonight I'll play shitloads of video games.
Tonight I'll decide too late to go get on the train
and play out my stupid, misguided version of fun.
Tonight I'll get stupid fucking drunk
and maybe get ashamed of what I've done.
Tonight I'll bang out another shitty song thats unsatisfying.
Its been so fucking long since it really felt any other way.
Tonight I'll crumple up these lyrics and throw them away.
Tonight I'll make promises I know I'll never keep.
Tonight I'll talk on the telephone, wishing I had the energy to sleep.
Tonight I'll sit around and bitch.
Tonight I'll get hungry staring at the mustard in my empty fridge.
Maybe tomorrow I won't smoke no cigarettes.
Maybe tomorrow I won't look back on tonight with vomit soaked regrets.
Maybe tomorrow I won't drown myself in spite.
Maybe tomorrow I could try
and tomorrow could be better than tonight.
Sleep well and dream.
Plastic pillows that give way to someplace green.
Sleep well and dream."
-The Lawrence Arms, An evening of extraordinary circumstance
Music for the apocalypse, bitchez.
Demographics will make sure things are bad through at least 2023 not to even speak of the huge debt problems. The only way unemployment truly goes down from here is for more people to say they have given up looking for work.
As long as there are people who need things, there is demand. As long as there is demand, there will be jobs to create the things in demand.
The problem is not demographics, as people age they need different things, creating different demands. The problem is a deeply flawed, nearly psychotic economic model that makes it cheaper to buy things made an entire hemisphere away, than the price of a product produced across the street.
Localization of production must reoccur. Tarriffs must be implemented. Trade between the states must become more important than international trade. Multinational corporatism is suicide for nations.
The entire problem is solvable if there is political will, most political will is controlled by corporate money. Until that situation is resolved we can only do our best to perserve at the local level. Every economicly self sustaining local economy is a cancer cell within the beast of globalism and the state/corporation duoply.
The problem is not demographics, it is a failed economic system.
"The problem is not demographics, it is a failed economic system".
Amen!
Merry,
I tend to have strong bursts of strong feeling against marketing people. They're eager to follow " "trends" the lazy way. Result: they don't find out the true needs of all people, they just prove that "everyone needs a smart video radio phone". Consequence: massive overbuilding of telephone & tech infrastructure. Sucks needed resources away from the eternal battle against erosion, and clean water systems, and bridges that don't fall down.
Oh, and radio tags on all grizzly bears. Remember Planet of the Apes? Beware planet of the Bears, for it is coming soon!!
Cheers, XOE
Tarriffs will only intesify the costs of living in America. People will be poor because of no jobs, and starving because of tarriffs increasing the cost of their imports.
Reduce government regulations on the privite sector and people will be able to profitably be able to operate a business once again.
You simply fail to understand that the true innovation and entreprenural spirit of America comes from community based organizations and labor unions. We should set up ACORN chapters to run all of our greedy corporations. Then everthing will be solved.
And of course we should have high tariffs. What right do Chinese workers have to aspire to a middle class lifestyle? They were far better off when they were making rickshaws and rice balls.
And it goes without saying that our greedy American corporations had a community responsibility to keep those 50,000 unprofitable factories here in
America. Think of the jobs we could have kept around until they had to close down because of the lower cost imports from the Japanese and European factories that moved to China. And try not to worry about their stock prices and corporate bond ratings that make up the bulk of the investments in our retirement funds, college endowments and life insurance policies.
That's right, and Atlas wouldn't shrug if we gave him a pat on the back once in a while, with an "atta boy" thrown in for good measure. He'll carry any load we put on him, any load at all.