The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants to Tell You

[kentuck]

Sooner or later, this Administration will adopt the ideas of Robert Reich.
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<snip>
Unemployment will almost certainly hit double-digits next year -- and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' household survey, you can bet there's another either too discouraged to look for work, or working part-time who'd rather have a full-time job or else taking home less pay than before (I'm in the last category, now that the University of California has instituted pay cuts). And there's yet another person who's more fearful that he or she will be next to lose a job.

In other words, ten percent unemployment really means twenty percent underemployment or anxious employment. All of which translates directly into late payments on mortgages, credit cards, auto and student loans, and loss of health insurance. It also means sleeplessness for tens of millions of Americans. And, of course, fewer purchases (more on this in a moment).

<snip>
Let me say this as clearly and forcefully as I can: The federal government should be spending even more than it already is on roads and bridges and schools and parks and everything else we need. It should make up for cutbacks at the state level, and then some. This is the only way to put Americans back to work. We did it during the Depression. It was called the WPA.

Yes, I know. Our government is already deep in debt. But let me tell you something: When one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, this is no time to worry about the debt.



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-truth-about-jobs-that_b_307642.html

[cliffordu]

1. Exactly.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Infrastructure spending is also preliminary to any hope of reinvigorating manufacturing...

And without manufacturing, we're doomed to a long (slow??) economic decline.

[valerief]

3. But we need WAR money for WEAPONS. That's all that matters in this

friggin' backwards country.

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Sickening, ain't it?

:puke:

[robinlynne]

15. I ahve an idea. Why not bring all the soldiers home and they can help with

firefighting, and paramedic help and so many other things we need but do not have here.

[valerief]

17. But how would that help the robber barons? That would only help us. nt

[Triana]

4. That's the ticket. Absolutely. n/t

[dkf]

5. Forget roads and bridges...we should have been redoing our

transmission lines nationally to accomodate renewable energy. It needs to be updated anyway. Renewable and efficient energy should have been priority number one. We're going to run out of oil and this absence of any effort to prepare will be seen as a huge mistake.

All we've gotten from Obama so far is a sideways effort to increase sales of fuel efficient cars, but which really was aimed at getting inventory off the failing auto makers hands.

Obama needs to step up.

[Cant trust em]

8. We've also gotten the stimulus from Obama.

Even the Wall Street Journal is saying that it's working.

"The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. On Tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in August for the first time in more than a year. "There's a method to the madness. We're getting out of this," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125185379218478087.html#printMode

[JDPriestly]

13. Right. We need energy independence and and end to "free trade."

And carbon fuels are not a long-term answer. We are running out of oil. Coal is dirty and ugly. We have to find alternatives.

Will this mean a completely new kind of economy, neither the socialism nor the capitalism that we have heretofore known? In my opinion, yes. I don't know what kind of new economy we will have, but it will be very different from what we have known.

Maybe the open source concept that sped the development of the internet will be some kind of model. It seems to me that the internet open sources a lot of knowledge. Knowledge itself has grown in importance in our lives, but at the same time become less valuable as a commodity in the marketplace.

The idea of universities as centers of learning and selling knowledge is morphing into one of universities as centers of research and sharing understanding. Universities are already doing research, but in time we may learn less and less through a lecture process and more and more through hands-on experience. I'm not suggesting that classroom learning will no longer be necessary, but it may become just one aspect of a creative process of learning.

Also, we have to get used to the idea that robots will be able to much more industrial labor at low cost and using fewer natural resources than human labor. So we will have to find a way to fulfill human needs including the need to be creative and work that is different from the ways we now think we are using. In other words, today corporations are employing people in India and China to do industrial work. Soon, even those people will be jobless. What then? How do we allocate resources? Will those who cannot get jobs due to the changes in the economy (possibly permanent changes) just be allowed to starve?

We in the U.S. are quickly losing all our material advantages. I am wondering how much longer the U.S. will be allowed to spend the world's resources on its military. And what happens to us, to the world, when the U.S. no longer has its huge military apparatus? That day could come more quickly than you might think possible. It is a frightening thought.

If you want it to come sooner rather than later, just keep buying the stuff we import from other countries. Because that is what is impoverishing us -- not the government's expenditures on infrastructure and jobs in the U.S.

[dkf]

16. I wonder how there was enough work to do on all those

sci fi shows where it looked like energy was in abundance, and there are robots doing everything. What happens to a society when there simply isn't enough work to do?

[Ezlivin]

18. Mad Max is the future, not the Jetsons

As a big, big science fiction fan (and unpublished author), I am completely with you. I saw so many films that showed us a pretty cool future.

Now I watch those films and wonder where in the hell is all the unlimited energy coming from. Even the modern science fiction novel often neglects to portray the source of the incredible amounts of energy the civilization is using.

[Cant trust em]

6. America's house is on fire and Republicans are griping about the cost of the water hose. nt

[Romulox]

9. All of our money is earmarked for war and corporate bailouts.

We "can't afford" to rebuild our infrastructure; there's schools in Pakistan that must be first bombed and then rebuilt!

[Warpy]

10. It's time to raise revenue to cover the costs

and the places to raise revenue are the sainted rich and the holy corporation.

It's also the time to trim things that have been out of control for a very long time, like the Pentagon. We don't need worldwide bases. Empire is a rich man's game and we can no longer afford it.

It needs to be a balancing act. Without raising taxes on those most able to pay while cutting the military down to size, the government will just continue to print money with nothing behind it. That is as sure a recipe for disaster as GOP supply side economics have been.

[paparush]

11. If we weren't spending a Trillion Dollars ANNUALLY on war....

We spend more on Defense/War EACH YEAR than the 10 year projection for the cost of healthcare reform.

I try to make this point to right wingers all the time. Deaf ears.

[HughBeaumont]

12. I'd like to believe Robert Reich . . .

. . . the problem is, he's kinda talking out of both sides of his mouth on this issue. There's a media clip that reveals him as a shameless globalization, job-offshoring shill:

http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/MediaClips.htm

Halfway down . . . dial-up is the faster load.

[leftstreet]

14. There's no profit in building roads, bridges and schools

See how this works?

[Quantess]

19. Sad but true.

[nightgaunt]

20. The point is to put us in line with the other low wage countries

An empire and aristocracy won't need too many people with the technical skills needed to build the devices they need to maintain power. The military will be very useful but also the kind of group psychology that has worked so well will keep the majority of the population in line. They will be the true believers and will police themselves mostly. So even though the military-police have no restraint on what they can do to you they won't be used that often within the Mason-Dixon border wall of that new country that will appear out of the ruins of the republic sometime very soon. Be ready to "stay in your homes" and "report suspicious people" on the national fink lines when that happens.

I have heard from others that IT is mostly dead in this country because what is the use of getting into debt if you either won't have a job or it pays about 50% less than it did before?

[Brickbat]

21. Spending on infrastructure is never, ever wasted, and is the key to recovery.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I see Reich also read Keynes

:-)