8 Million Missing Jobs: Paul Craig Roberts

[teryang]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02152005.html

The Bush Shortfall: 8 Million Missing Jobs
The Great American Job Sell Out
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

<There are not too many Americans willing to accept the pay and working conditions of migrant farm workers. However, the US is bursting at the seams with unemployed computer engineers and well-educated professionals who are displaced by outsourcing and H-1B visas. During Bush's entire first term, there was a net loss of American private sector jobs. Today there are 760,000 fewer private sector jobs in the US economy than when Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001.

For years the hallmark of the European economy was its inability to create any jobs other than government jobs. America has caught up with Europe. During Bush's first term, state and local government created 879,000 new government jobs. Offsetting these government jobs against the net loss in private sector jobs gives Bush a four-year jobs growth of 119,000 government jobs. Comparing this pathetic result to normal performance produces a shortage of 8 million US jobs. What happened to these jobs? <snip>

Much more. Excellent antidote to recent mainstream media bullshit about the employment situation.

[UL_Approved]

1. Yes, growth below inflation is still loss

This is where the GOP will take our money:

They control growth so that savings earnings are below inflation. They get the money we have through not meeting obligations to pay it back.

And the same is true for job growth. The private sector job loss is the biggest skeleton in the closet for Bush. I have been wondering about private sector losses, and this sums it up pretty well. As far as I know, the private sector has never recovered those jobs that went away following September 11th. And the government job thing is really a problem. More people on the dole instead of paying into it. This isn't a criticism of government jobs, just a reference to the fact that government jobs ARE paid with tax dollars instead of making a net contribution to the tax revenue of this nation.

We will feel the effects of this as the holiday seasons roll by without any economic gains. Consumer spending will be in the tank, and we will have none other than the GOP to blame. The ARE the ones in power now, and this will show.

[necso]

2. Print this one out and put it on your refrigerator also.

And let me add that maquiladoras (defined broadly) have furnished a ready source of skilled illegal workers -- trained by US dollars in these maquiladoras.

We are on a rocket sled to ruin.

[mhr]

3. Comstock Funds - Bush's Missing 10.2 Million Jobs

Snip ......

"During this 36-month period total non-farm payroll employment increased only 0.9%, a number that pales in comparison to past cycles. Over the last seven economic expansions the average rise for a comparable period was 8.7%. If that were the case on the current cycle there would have been 10.2 million more jobs than the total number reported for November, and the average monthly increase for the 36-month period would have been 316,000 per month. Instead the average monthly rise was a paltry 33,000, and even over the past 12 months when employment picked up somewhat, the average monthly increase came to only 171,000, a far cry from the typical cyclical increase."

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1155