The * economy

[triguy46]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03102005.html

Snip

The Bush administration cheered the creation of 229,000 private sector jobs (which still leaves Bush with a net private sector job loss during his reign). However, once we look at the details, the joy vanishes: 174,000 of the jobs, or 76% of the total, are in nontradable services.

Administrative and waste services (largely temporary help and employment services) account for 61,000 or 35% of the new service jobs. The remainder are accounted for by construction (30,000), retail trade (30,000), healthcare and social assistance (27,000), and waitresses and bar tenders (27,000).

snip
Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, declared recently: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company."

Cisco is establishing a new R&D center in Shanghai. The US corporation manufactures $5 billion of products in China where it employes 10,000 people.

That is just one company, and there are many doing the same thing. The result is abandonment of the American work force by American corporations. Little wonder the Bush administration is the first administration in 70 years to have a net loss of private sector jobs.

[mhr]

1. Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working

THE NATION
Long-Term Jobless Find a Degree Just Isn't Working
By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
March 11, 2005

Dan Gillespie never thought he'd have to look so hard for work.

When the Seattle-area resident left the Air Force in 1980, he earned a computer science degree and enjoyed 20 years of steady work. He saved enough money to buy his wife's childhood home last year.

Three months later, he was laid off.

Gillespie, 53, hasn't found a job since. Even the corner store won't hire him. He and his wife sold the house last month.

"The computer jobs are gone," he said. "So what's next? We can't all move into gene splicing."

Long-term unemployment, defined as joblessness for six months or more, is at record rates. But there's an additional twist: An unusually large share of those chronically out of work are, like Gillespie, college graduates.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless11mar11.story

[ClintonTyree]

6. I know people holding Master's Degrees.................

serving coffee in bistros. Most of these wonderful jobs bush's economy is providing are minimum wage or slightly better. How is someone with College loans to pay off ever going to get ahead?
The unemployment numbers don't count the number of people who's unemployment benefits have expired or those who have simply stopped looking for work.
Someone called it a, "wage-less recovery", and that is the truth. The minimum wage hasn't changed since 1997, and all other employers are loathe to increase wages.......because they don't have to. Our entire economy is based on credit buying, and with the bankruptcy law about to be signed, people are going to start thinking twice about living beyond their means.
I think the credit card companies have just shot themselves in the foot by pressing the bankruptcy law. There will be fewer charges, people will start buying used, instead of new, and what money they will collect from this law will not make up for the loss of credit transaction. At least I hope this happens. These scum sucking pigs need something to slap them back to reality.
I'm getting to hate these capitalist swine. Sometimes I wish the entire capitalistic system would just fall apart. It's the only way regular people are ever going to get ahead. Redistribution of wealth is long over due. Eat the rich!

[mhr]

11. Hi Clinton - I Understand - Unemployed 59 Months

I hold a bachelors and masters degree - can't find a job.

[stevebreeze]

12. redistribution of wealth is what has been happening

there is no logical reason to think that the wealthy have been the only reason for the growth in the economy for the past 30 years. Did CEO's contribute to society as much as 40 workers 30 years ago? Do they contribute as much as 500 worker do now? There is no natural distribution of wealth. Politics is how we decide how to distribute wealth and power.

Bill Moyers said the wealthy do not have right to more democracy. He is correct. They get more then their share now by buying it. We must have real campaign finance reform. While the big money does not guarantee political victory, lack of money guarantees obscurity.

[mhr]

2. Employment Numbers Without the Spin (Bush's Missing 11.3 Million Jobs)

Comstock Partners, Inc.

Employment Numbers Without the Spin
March 10, 2005

Last Friday the report that February payroll employment increased by a monthly 262,000 was greeted with great enthusiasm by the stock market and most economists. This was the 39th month since the official recession bottom in November 2001. The following is an attempt to put this number into perspective without the spin.

In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs.

If we did add 13.2 million jobs on the current cycle, the average monthly increase would have amounted to 338,000. Instead the monthly average increase has been only 50,000, and we have exceeded 300,000 in only three separate months out of the 39.

Snip ......

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

Graph From TahitiNut

[liberal N proud]

3. The problem is they do nothing to curb the tide

bu$h regime sits in their little white house and watch through the windows at all the homeless. Hell they don't even bother looking.

[denverbill]

4. It's worse than that.

Several administration spokesmen have actually extolled the virtues of outsourcing. They see it as a good thing, because in their utopian libertarian dreamland, it's simply capitalistic, free-market competitition.

[Selteri]

5. History repeats itself

when fools hold the riegns.

[liberal N proud]

7. Agreed, they have boldly supported outsourcing.

[Warpy]

8. The stupid, greedy, shortsigted fucks at the top

don't realize that abandoning the American people and then turning around and expecting these same people to remain their main (or ONLY) market for goods and services produced by the Chinese is just not going to work.

They haven't figured out where all that money to buy consumer junk is going to come from. I guess they figure McDonald's will pay enough for us to buy those plasma TVs and living room sets.

We're about to learn all over again that DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS is the only theory that WORKS.

[JDPriestly]

9. Isn't China still an intolerant dictatorship

I have the impression that China is still a Communist dictatorship. It gives the nod to free enterprise but has never cast off its Communist system of government -- one party, and political decisions made from the top down. No real choices, and, ultimately, a government run economy.

Why is international big business investing in China? Because, since it is basically a Communist dictatorship, big business can find the closest thing to slave labor available on the planet today. What hypocrisy. After all those years of fighting Communism, the big capitalists are playing its game. The worst is, they think they are winning. In fact the Chinese are outstrategizing them all the time.

[JDPriestly]

10. Another comment

Age discrimination is a huge factor in this lousy job market. Employers want young workers. Unless the employer applies seniority rules, older people are the first to be laid off. In any event, they are the last to be hired. Many of the long term unemployed are over 50.

Younger workers have an advantage in the job market because investment in their training, whether their own or that of their employers makes economic sense. I learned the hard way that it is foolish to borrow money to return to school once you are over 50. You end up with a huge debt and no job opportunities. I did it, and I do not recommend that anyone else make my mistake.

As of the 2000 census report, during the economic boom, only 57.2% of men and 41.4% of women over 60 were still working. 75.2% of men and 62.8% of women between 55 and 59 were still working. I'd like to know what those figures are now. I'll bet they are considerably lower. This is why the idea of raising the Social Security eligibility age is such a cruel joke. It will not work unless older people can get jobs.

I'm over 60 and have been looking for a job for some months. I am extremely well educated, easy to get along with and willing to work long hours. My boss simply told me he wanted to give my job to younger workers.

I send my resume, but employers just ignore it. I consider myself to be a "discouraged" worker. And that is bad. I suspect that the gloom cloud over my head is visible to potential employers.

It is hard, even impossible, to fight the depression that comes with longterm joblessness. I volunteer as much as I can, and I am active in politics. I have also looked into nonprofit jobs, since I have a background in fundraising. Here in California, the nonprofits "prefer" Spanish. I speak several languages, by my Spanish is not good enough to compete with all the native speakers.