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The Jobs Crunch
randall_burns writes "Neither major party is accurately describing or combatting the Jobs Crunch that Americans are facing. Bad immigration policy-and bad trade deals are combining to decimate the middle class in America."
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For the first time in my life, within 4 weeks of one another, my sister lost her job, my friend lost his job, and his wife lost her job.
These are NOT good times...although Bush would have us believe otherwise.
What about the state sponsored outsourcing? The US government is actively supporting outsourcing, examples here, here, and
got sig?
Since it's so fashionable to compare our policy to the European powers, let's look at some of the numbers. In France, unemployment was 9.3% as of last year. Germany's unemployment rate was 9.7% as of 2 years ago. We had a bubble during the 90s, and it's only expected to pay the price now. The economy moves in cycles and is an extremely complex nonlinear system. To conclusively blame immigration and trade policy as the cause for an increase in unemployment is easy, but unfortunately also meaningless.
Oh no neither party is helping? Gee.. wouldn't it be great if there were other parties besides the Dems and Reps? OH WAIT
Randall Burns ... recently helped create the Kucinich campaign's position paper on H-1b/L-1 visas.
I guess he hates both Kerry and Bush equally. Should we call him non-partisan?
The problem is that these men who represent our presidential canidates, are the best that the parties could come up with. Out of everyone in the whole country. These four pricks. Thats insane. If this is the best that the dems and republicans can come up with then we need some different parties invovled in politics.
Welcome to the wonderful world of free trade. Not only does free trade totally destroy 3rd world countries, it harms 1st world one's too.
I am one of the folks who is unemployed but not counted. I get sporadic work, so I forego even bothering with unemployment during the gaps. This whole situation sucks, there's no way out, and I'm depressed.
"The story itself is just a massive advertisement to vote against Bush too."
Why? According to Bush the economy is doing great. If Bush is good for jobs then this thread may be an advertisement for voting for bush. It's only anti bush if Bush is horrible for jobs in the country.
" I know I wont be trying to moderate anyone in this thread, because every second post will look like trolling or flamebait depending on the perspective of the reader."
I have to agree with you there. I have never seen our country divided so much. The people who relish driving wedges to set the country apart have been very successful. I don't know what it would take to get the country back together again. Maybe if we had a president that was a "uniter not a divider" things would be different.
evil is as evil does
It is difficult to be sure from a distance (I live in the UK), but what seems to be happening in the States is a move to what I can best call a neo-feudal society.
At the top end you have the rich and super-rich, with limited call on their wealth in terms of taxes.
At the bottom end you seem to have people who have to hold down more than one job to make ends meet, have limited access to medical care and whose children receive only a poor quality education.
This leaves your middle classes, who are being squeezed. If they don't work in a service that requires personal contact then they are in danger of being outsourced to cheaper locations elswhere on the globe.
Barons, serfs and guilds is the way it appears to be. It isn't quite as extreme here in Britain, but we are going the same way.
If you are good enough to do the job of Prez, you are also likely to be sane enough to not want the job.
His stated policies, among other things, are to enforce the tax laws already on the books. Something the Clinton administration was lax in, and something the Bush administration simply doesn't do, unless you're relatively poor. Close existing legal tax loopholes, and benefits for companies that outsource. As well as provide tax incentives for companies that don't. Which is of course just what he claims, but 180 degrees from what the current administration does, and admittedly plans to continue doing. He also planned to be more aggressive, and possibly heavy handed in dealing with trade organizations when it comes to protecting US interests. He also supports enforcement of current immigration laws, and proper funding for border patrols and NIS. (Which Bush won't do since a "let 'em run free" policy puts a downward pressure on what services cost.)
The trade deficit, and outsourcing aren't about cheaper labor, their about unequal access to capital. People are forced to pool and discount their capital which no longer is used to build infrastructure in their local communities or the larger community of the whole of the US. But rather it's hemoraged out to other locales where a quicker short term gain is percieved, rampant corruption is considered a cost of doing business, and it's hard to blame people in other legal jurisdictions. We in America have the most capital and have to pay a premium for access to it. Thanks to the 80's the 'B' in MBA stands for "Bullshit".
If Kerry followed his plan up with a pledge to subsidize lighting up a bunch of huge walk away nuclear reactors, I'd say his was the beginings of a perfect economic policy. Bush, yeah, that's not going to happen.
Data just came out showing that Cleveland, Ohio has the largest unemployment rate of any major city in the US. Cincinnati is on the brink of (and has fallen into) racial and class conflict. The whole state is an unbelieveable mess and it appears that even with an inept Republican govenor that Ohio will vote Republican and give the rich and corporations more and more tax cuts which they, in turn, will use to buy more foreign products and fund more outsourcing projects.
Distribution of wealth is an nasty necessity that is created by the greed in all of us (once I hit the million dollar threshold I will give to the less fortunate - then it's once I become one of the 331 billionaires in the US -- well you get the drift...). Anyway, the Republicans have never and will never talk about redistribution of wealth. Flat taxes and sales taxes are rigged against the poor, but people seem to think they are a great idea because of conservative thinktank spin.
The Democrats may have become as much of the problem as the Republicans, but at least they are still talking about these issues. I can't for the life of me undersand why a the population of a state on the brink of disaster would vote for a party that still talks about supply side economics and trickle down. I shake my head and then realize that to be a politician these days you have to be rich already -- it's no wonder that we are where we are.
There will never be another farmer from Illinois in the Whitehouse, and I just don't see any solutions on the horizon...
All the layoffs of recent times have flooded the teaching ranks with people getting alternative certification. Add to that a recent flood of people who spent years in other roles in education just now finishing their degrees, and the new teachers are getting pushed out. That whole ETS scoring fiasco didn't help either.
Read again to understand this: there are too many teachers. People in other countries may not understand the gravity of this, but for people who are used to teachers being the most pissed on of American professionals, this should be the ultimate sign of how bad things are right now.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Agreed. Twice today we've had whining that draws directly from the Kerry camp:
1. It's a bad economy, and things are getting worse.
2. Google's evil, because searching for John Kerry in the news section shows a lot of negative articles.
First off, the economy isn't doing badly - I'm right here in the valley, and things are picking up quite nicely. Is it at dotcom levels? No - and that's ok too. After all, the dotcom era was essentially a lot of people spending money while providing no real service or product. Sooner or later, the economy pays the price for that kind of crap.
Second, Kerry's getting more negative articles written about him because his campaign is virtually tripping over itself to incur more PR drubbings. The race was Kerry's to lose, and he's well on his way if they don't get it together.
One way or the other, it's a joke to try to disguise this as some sort of outsourcing article... try attaching an example to your editorial commentary.
Yeah, it's always the fault of those pesky foreigners...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Well, I never expected to see this story on the front page of slashdot. What next?
Mod parent up!
> I am not sure how it's measured in Europe but I would bet it's different. You may be comparing oranges and apples.
There is a common measure of unemployment across Europe, the Labour Force Survey. The survey seeks information on respondents' personal circumstances and their labour market status during a specific reference period, normally a period of one week or four weeks (depending on the topic) immediately prior to the interview.
The LFS is carried out under a European Union Directive and uses internationally agreed concepts and definitions. It is the source of the internationally comparable (International Labour Organisation) measure known as 'ILO unemployment'.
On this measure the UK jobless rate is just under 5%, with France, Germany and Italy all at around the 9% mark.
The unemployment numbers are political dynamite in any country, so they're pretty heavily doctored everywhere.
My native Sweden has fairly low official numbers, but they are achieved by having some 10% or 20% (*) of the working age population that is not working being classified in other categores. The big ones are long term sickness, early retirement and "education". Some of that education is no doubt useful in the way you describe, but most is little more than long term people storage, and everybody involved knows it.
In all these categories you are getting paid fairly well by the government, to a much larger extent than in the US, which you may or may not think is a good thing.
So where is the unemployment really highest? Who lies the most and the best? I don't have that information, though I'm sure there are plenty of studies someone can look up. But as a Swede living in California I have no doubt at all that there are far more Americans gainfully employed, and that it's much easier to get a job here.
(*) I haven't seen actual numbers in a long time, and these things are very hard to measure precisely anyway, but that's the range.
When the rantings on a xenophobic loonie site are presented as fact.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
The job market in this particular state (Delaware) is completely shot to hell and back. In February of 2002, the local DuPont plant laid off almost half of the entire work-force, including myself. I have been unemployed since then, and those unemployment benefits ran out back in November 2002... not fun. At first, I was a bit picky about my next job, I'll admit; having just lost a $15/hour job (with no college education, which is another rant for another time), I really didn't want to drop down to a McDonalds job due to the obvious decrease in the weekly check. After I realized that finding a similar-paying job wasn't going to happen, I went out to the usual teenie-employers to try my luck... Wal*Mart, Burger King, etc etc. I've been unsuccessful even with these places, and have been since I've started my job-hunting two and a half years ago. For the record, there's nothing about me that would lead someone to not hire me, such as criminal records, disability, race, any of that nonsense. (Obviously, those aren't supposed to matter, but speaking for this state, it does). Wrapping up my sob-story, moving to a new state is out of the question due to personal reasons involving my daughter, so we're stuck here. Always nice to hear Bush on TV saying that the economy is great, hah.
LOL, Out of everyone "these four pricks"? I don't think it is the party that picked them. It is special interest and money that picked them. The candidates that can be purchased get picked. Look at Cheney and Haliburton. Look at Edwards and the Trial Lawyers. It does not matter what party gets in the white house, they are pretty much the same. What we need is campaign finance reform.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
Yeah, but unless your former company is small, you can't compete with your former companies advertising budget. Co-ops. I wish I could convince everyone of this. This is the answer to taking back the industry from management to the geeks who know their stuff.
Anyone who can do PC Repair work and is interested in finding out about a tech co-op that is forming to provide such work, please email me at veridium@linuxmail.org. Geography not important, as long as you're in the States.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
Internet bubble bursting = no funding = no work.
Then your out your savings and 911 hits. worst your stuck in a area code recruiters ignore and don't find this out till two years later. Now I nolonger equate MBAs as idiots who can't do like Gym Teachers teach Gym. However I still don't like their choice of clothes.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
This article is not economics, not public policy, not even deserving opinion. Just the typical xenophobic, bigoted kind of rant that the nativist crowd likes to engage in. Anti-immigrant sentiment is the omnivorous reptile in the fauna of politics. A recession with falling wages? Cheap immigrant labor must be to blame. Terrorism? Without immigration there wouldn't be any. Traffic? Too many immigrants must have moved in. Whatever the issue at hand, the subterfuged racism of the nativist crowd always translates into an immigration problem.
The United States has millions of illegal Mexican immigrants who live in fear of getting caught and are regularly abused by employers who can get away with paying them slave wages. Both from the point of view of the immigrants and the citizens, we do have some sort of immigration problem. It isn't the key problem behind everything wrong in the United States, but at the very least, SOME sort of problem is there. There's no reason to jump between the extremes of "the immigration problem is the new apocalypse" and "there is no immigration problem, you bigot". There's a very wide area between those two ideas, and I believe that the United States is somewhere within it.
Yes, we've got a job crunch in this country, and we had a severe job crunch in the dot-bomb technology industry, with an estimated 49% of San Francisco's high-tech jobs disappearing, so my friends were affected much more strongly than the average American, and there's a non-trivial chance I'll get laid off next week.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Thank god for that article. I was beginning to wonder if *I* might be the one responsible for my unemployment due to my choice of remaining in a one factory town, with my limited skill-set, narrow education, zero-ambition and unwillingness to take any job that was far beneath my abilities that can apparently be replicated by someone who grew-up in a third world country without indoor plumbing while educated in a classroom with a dirt floor. I'm so glad I can blame them foreigners and people in Washington. I was almost thinking that I was some kind of loser slacker who spent all my time on message boards downloading music (cause it was meant to be free!) and not trying to make myself into someone with valuable assets. Not my responsibility. There's no way you can convince me otherwise now. Forget the "data", this economy sucks because all my loser friends are out of work too.
Does this study even take into account the greater number of retiring baby boomers?
With the huge numbers of people in their 50s and 60s hitting retirement age, we can't blame the decreased labor force on the recent recession or outsourcing. I do believe that may contribute to the issue, but I don't think it is the sole factor. On the other side, many baby boomers are working past retirement. The dot coms didn't end up to be the best place to stick retirement money.
The unemployment numbers are deceiving, as percentages can be swayed in many directions as to exactly who is unemployed. The labor force participation rate is the percentage of those who are willing and able to obtain a job. Willing and able aren't exactly purely quantitative variables.
Anyone here know someone who majored in CS and can't find a job? Guess what, the tech bubble didn't really burst, it just sunk to the other side of the planet. Of course US CS majors aren't employed, the demand for their profession has dropped severely. It may be harsh, but the simple truth is that the US needs to reorient its workforce in a new direction.
Hey, this is strange: the "lowest grade" people from east europe, asia etc. get new jobs in US sector, while the "middle grade" people loose them? Don't you see there is a problem with the americans on themselves?
I have to say that a lot of issues presented in that article are the same sort of crap that's been tossed around for decades.
For instance, mining and metallurgical refining are extremely high-risk cost-dependent ventures, and they always go wherever is cheapest. My dad's been designing mines for decades, works around the world, and sometimes you can't even get a gold mine going in a place with incredibly low labour costs like Costa Rica! So to point to a shift of refining work to Canada and Mexico as being a fault with NAFTA is just incorrect-- it's exactly what NAFTA was designed to do, in order to make it cheaper for Americans to buy products.
As for Visas, many people on HB-1s, J-1s, etc... leave the U.S. after a few years. They're here for training, and that's it-- and when you consider the legal hurdles that companies have to go through in order to get foreigners (like moi) into the country in the first place, you should realize it's not going to happen if companies could easily find adequately skilled people here in the U.S.
No, I'm afraid what's really wrong with the U.S. job situation is very simple-- there are extreme disincentives for companies to hire new employees if they can make current employees work overtime.
'Fess up. How many of you work overtime for little or NO pay? 50% of you? 75%? How many of your companies had massive layoffs in the past decade, then been very slow to rehire even as the bottom line improved?
I'm good at what I do, and I'm willing to work hard, but realistically, the company I work for should have hired half a dozen more people instead of just me.
Frankly it is tiring, Western Europe and what is today's EU has always respected free enterprise and private ownership, cornerstones of a capitalist economy.
People in the US have no idea what they are talking about when they say EU countries are socialist.
They may be more socially responsible than the US goverments perhaps, but private property and free enterprise has never been stopped.
If you want examples of Socialist countries look at Cuba or North Korea, where everything is Socialized by means of state control and ownership.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Bad immigration policy-and bad trade deals are combining to decimate the middle class in America.
In the country where I live now I'm an immigrant, having settled and got citizenship about 8 years ago. I have been through many arguings and blind quarrels over the years over "immigrants take our jobs" and the like.
What I've found is the people who complain the most are those who are just down in the dumps, not necessarily because they couldn't get a job, but because they didn't want to accept any job, or just politicians who are what they are, anyplace, or just bloody ignorant.
It's the most easy to blame increasing uneployment rates on others who have jobs, especially if they come from abroad.
Really no offence and forgive my ignorance, but I have to tell, U.S. people also have their history on intolerance, racism and xenophoby.
You also have to take into account that some effects of the late dotcom boom and blow are still showing today. I mean there was a continuing very large over-employment of IT "professionals" , very many of which are dismissed even today.
What I want to point out is that there are very many aspects that lead to the given rising unemployment rates in the U.S. (and just that you know, that is _not_ that high if you consider other countries as well, which americans tend not to do), and only one of them may be connected to immigration of qualified professionals (I intentionally don't mention seasonal uneducated workers, that's another area of the problem).
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
A very real change in Iraq policy would need to send some serious messages. It might even require some mass civilian casualties. Drop a BLU-82 or MOAB on Tikrit and Fallujah. Stop interrogating Iraqi detainees, but killing them and letting dogs and pigs eat at their rotting bodies. Let them know that these little kidnappings and chicken-shit roadside bombings will be punished 100-fold, 1000-fold.
Hello? This is 2004, not 1004. You're not on a crusade to get the Holy Grail from the infidels. It is apparent you have no respect for them if the human in question does not have an American passport --- a form of racism, I suppose.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
before that, your sister, your friend, and his wife were thinking ... hmmm... perhaps we can go to Europe for a nice vacation, and never realize that their own jobs were hanging by a rope.
Wake up, people.
Don't blame "bad immigration", or "globalization", blame YOURSELVES for being COMPLACENT !
This world we live in is increasingly interconnected. Whatever we'd seen playing in the halls of UN 20 or 30 years ago today is playing right at our doorsteps - and that is, we aren't compete against other Americans for our own survival, but against THE WORLD !
Yes, globalization goes both ways. While the third world countries are whinning about "Developing world conspire to re-colonize us", we, who live in FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES, must realize that while those sons-of-bitches are whinning, their cheaper labor is taking away our jobs.
Usually, we single-minded Americans will yell and shout and demand our "representatives" to "DO SOMETHING" - which, more than always, mean "closing our borders", "stop outsourcing" etc, which in itself WILL NOT WORK ANYMORE IN THIS WORLD WE ARE LIVING.
Instead of closing up, we SHOULD be OPENING UP EVEN MORE, and yes, that means, we should roll up our sleeves and COMPETE AGAINST THE CHEAPEST LABOR IN BANGLADESH, by using OUR BRAIN.
Our plush lifestyle is at threat. If we don't do something, our high cost of living ain't gonna last. We gotta figure out ways to be BOTH the CHEAPEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD TO DO SOMETHING, and THE COUNTRY WHERE WE CAN LIVE In WHATEVER LIFESTYLE WE WANT.
I am saying this base on my experience of a guy who have traveled and worked in all over the world. I am not that type of "Americans" who coccoon himself in the "protection of Uncle Sam". Rather, I go out into the WORLD and see what's going on, and btw, making money at it.
Yep, there are people in the third world countries who will accuse me of "exploitation", but I don't mind. If they won't let me exploit them, then they won't get jobs. It's that simple.
And then, there are Americans who accuse me of "exporting jobs to other countries". Again, I don't mind.
You see, if I can't make a toaster oven in America under U$ 2.25, then I won't make money selling them not only in America, but also all over the world. I gotta find the CHEAPEST PLACE IN THE WORLD to do what I need to do, and if that means doing it OUTSIDE AMERICA, I'll do it in a jiffy.
In the same token, the money I earned, I sent back to my good ol' U. S. of A. for safekeeping. No matter how I like the world outside America, America is still my country.
To to those who want to close our borders - please don't buy any clothing, any furniture, any electrical appliances, any thing, in fact, because 90% of them are MADE OUTSIDE America !
You can close the border to "immigrant, but you can't stop those things from coming in. It's us, the Americans, who demand CHEAP but QUALITY goods, so something gotta give.
Until the day you realize you can't live the way you did, you wouldn't understand which world we are living in, my friend.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
First off, if you read the /. FAQ, you will notice that /. is primarily an American website intended to entertain a mostly American audience. They acknowlege this, so that is not grounds for complaint.
/. audience right now, and not to give credit where none is due but articles that get more into depth about how to view the various available statistics are very interesting to thoughtful people who want to consider the issue in-depth, if not specifically "geek" oriented.
/. primary "columnists" can get a numerical feedback on the quality of their selection process.)
Secondly, the topic of jobs is on the mind of a very large number of people among the
The article is pretty iffy though. To start, while it is true that the unemployment rate does underestimate the severity of the problem in times like these when a lot of people give up aggressively looking for work tactically or out of desperation, it is not simply based on who draws unemployment checks, but rather on an ongoing survey process. Not getting this fact straight was one of the first indications that this article was not going to be completely accurate.
As you go through the article, and consider each of the points, you can see that the author is indeed excercising signifigant bias -- not as a partisan, just to support his own premise. It's like a badly researched college essay. Which is too bad because the case he was trying to make is correct -- he just stretches the facts too far.
It's also a pity because, given the way the campaign has been "anti-intellectualized" by the whole non-issue of flip-flopping the article is a letdown for those of us wanting a breath of fresh air.
As a fallback, if you want to look at the quality of the job market, ask yourself how your employers, or if jobless, your potential employers, are treating you... do you feel expendible or treasured? In a bad job market employers will try to get away with things that inconvenience or annoy their workforce. In a good job market, employers will be attentive to the needs of their employees, sometimes to the point of pampering, for fear that a competitor will steal them.
In my personal opinion, you really don't have to know the national rate to decide who to vote for. Factor your own *personal* satisfaction level in with the other issues that concern you. If everyone does so, justice is delivered at the ballot box. Unfortunately most people obsess on a single "sticking point" wedge issue and ignore their own welfare. While social conscience in voting is good, only you can vote for your own needs and you should allow your own self interests at least 75% of your vote.
(I'm finding it hard to moderate in political threads as well -- there are whole entire threads that go way off topic and with only five points it is impossible to cut them down. The only solution would be if everyone who cannot resist responding to an off topic comment would please try to follow their response up with some sort of comment that brings the topic back into the thread.)
(I do think main page articles should appear in the Meta Moderating section so
Someone had to do it.
Bad immigration?
Bad immigration are the social leeches, criminals and terrorists.
Anyone who comes and works is good. Being born in the US isn't a right to a nice high paying job, it is just a better opportunity then almost everyone else has. Since when is more people a bad thing? They can only 'steal jobs' if someone owned it to begin with. When I buy my gas from one gas station and switch to another you don't see the owner complaining the other guy stole his customer.
Bad trade deals? Walmart and your local car lot are full of the results. Cheap goods available to raise your standard of living.
The trade deficit is just a choice that people make. If you choose to buy a hard drive made in taiwan, or a chinese chair, the trade deficit will increase.
The only way to stop this is protectionism, which will cause a downward spiral in the economy.
Plus this is also self correcting, the US dollar will eventually drop relative to other currencies if the trade defecit doesn't change.
You "conservatives" must hate people like me: I want the government to stop helping AND stop hindering me. You just want the government to stop helping. I guess that makes you half smart.
By the way, your people who kicked Nazi ass did so after a large period of isolationalism and ignoring that particular problem until it blew up in their faces. We kicked Soviet ass by having a larger credit balance than they did. I'll give Reagan credit for figuring that out, but we're still paying it off and thanks W for making it worse. Also, the moon landing was possible in large part because we didn't have accountants and finance people pouring over every expenditure looking for ROI like we do these days. Further moon landings and other space projects were killed by budget officers, not by lack of vision. Please note I'm not trying to insult any of these accomplishments--I'm just pointing out that there's a bit of harsh reality to go along with the romantic nostalgia.
People are capable of some pretty amazing things when you leave them alone and let them do stuff. We have a system of artificially-created hoops that stifle creativity, innovation, and benefit no one except of course for government and multinational corporations.
Presidents don't create jobs, unless it's a massive make-work program like the Civil Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The real responsbility lies with the hundreds of CEOs who decide to lay off or add more workers. Period. And it's been far more of the former, than the latter - and that's been the case for about the last 30 years or so. Shedding workers is really a redistribution of wealth - from rank and file workers at the bottom, to the executive leadership at the top and the shareholders. But this is something that a sitting US President has little control over - each of these business leaders indivudually decides, "I want fewer workers and therefore more money for myself" which adds up to a grisly collective result. Since the early 90s I've read Business Week, Forbes and the Economist on a fairly regular basis, and I never once recalled reading about a specific economic policy of Clinton's that lead to the spectacular economic growth of that decade. In fact, his tax increases shortly after he took office probably had the effect of dampening growth. He was the lucky beneficiary of Greenspan's aggressive rate-lowering from 1990-1992, and a wave of IT investment and payoff. Am I writing this to defend Bush? Perhaps a bit. But I sincerely believe that it's easier for people to blame a President than an amorphous mass of private sector executives for their economic woes.
"He not only turned a routine recession into the great depression, he instituted the practice of the federal government taxing the wages of each and every worker in the country."
In 1933...
When FDR entered office the unemployment rate was 25%, with an underemployment rate of 50%. He had to close the banks to stop from them from failing. Germany that year would appoint an austrian named Adolf Hitler as their leader. Veterans the previous year had rioted in washington. If you want to make the argument that FDR had prolonged the depression through bad policies...you can make that argument but calling the economy of 1933 "a routine recession" is idiocy.
Second of all the relocation camps didnt happen until TEN YEARS LATER in the middle of a little conflict called "world war II".
Other than not knowing anything about history, economics, or politics the author of this comment seems relatively well informed.
--
Simon
In short, it is not the government's function to create jobs. It's the government's function to get out of the way and let businesses create jobs. Yes, government has a place in regulating businesses to ensure they are not endangering people or the environment unnecessarily. Every government regulation costs businesses money -- money that might otherwise go to hiring new employees to produce more product. These are especially hard on small businesses (who are responsible for over half of all US jobs). These regulations also affect the quality of your work life, so don't think they only affect the fat cats.
About three years ago, my employer was working out the details of a formal telecommuting program, which would make my work life easier and save them money (fewer people on site == lower expenses). This would have included picking up part of the tab for internet connections, new computers, etc. Unfortunately, the Labor Department announced that they had the power to regulate home offices used for telecommuting the same way they could regulate those office spaces provided by the emloyer. This extended to inspecting home offices just as they do employer-provided spaces, and the intention to fine employers for regulatory violations found in the home offices. Employers could also be held liable for injuries incurred in the home office.
Needless to say, the telecommuting project died before it began -- the potential liabilities were so great they posed a significant risk to the company's future.
This is but one example of the government often doing more harm than good. And there's not much any president can do to alter that -- the people who came up with this hare-brained idea are probably still there, waiting for a more favorable time to put this idea into action. They can't be fired because they're civil servants, so they don't change with the administration.
There really isn't much a president can do to create jobs (and it's not his responsibility anyway). The best thing he can do is push policies that give businesses the freedom to act.
Also, note that the Labor Department just declared they had this regulatory power -- no act of Congress granted it, they just assumed it -- such is the power-hungry nature of any bureaucracy. And any entity that has the power to find you a job has the power to have you removed from that job. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
The main reason we are in this mess is that our leaders, our elite, operate not in the best interests of the general welfare, as the Constitution requires them to, but in the best interests of the corporations and the investor class. Bush is the most extreme example of this, but Clinton did it, too, as did Reagan. Bush the Elder may have been the worst. Carter practically started it.
The reason our leaders have been able to do all of this is because some ultra-rich people and the multinational corporations spent billions of dollars over the last 30 years or so to convince all of America that liberalized trade and immigration policies would benefit Americans. In a way, they obtained our consent to do this, but they actually "manufactured" our consent.
For a more detailed explanation of this 30-year propaganda blitz, See this September 2004 article in Harpers magazine about these "Tentacles of Rage."
The massive propaganda machine was built around think tanks and foundations that literally from the ground up built a vocabulary and worldview favoring free trade (and liberal immigration, which just one part of "free trade"), all designed to drive down wages and taxes for corporations and the rich, and increase corporate profits and increase unemployment and underemployment, and in general disempower the average worker.
It worked! Corporate profits are way up, and they pay less in taxes, while the average worker is scrambling.
What do you call politicians and bureaucrats who willingly go along with such a scheme?
I call them traitors, guilty of treason. I think our leaders, including our Presidents, present and past, should be held accountable in a court of law for this treason.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Gawd I hope your joking! Personally, I think Teddy Roosevelt was the best president.. and as for income taxation, I'd prefer the http://www.fairtax.org/ plan to anything else I have seen proposed.
All he did was state data, interpret, and generalize. He indicts rebuplicans and the current administration for corporate decisions; democrats for their failure to understand their constituents. He is assuming the Kerry-Edwards campaign will succeed in November by advising them in what they should be doing, manage the trade defecit and immigration. By doing so will magically grow the middle class and their disposable income.
For being an economist, why doesn't he understand that and unemployment rate of 5.4% is very good and one of the lowest in the world. Its certainly better than the double-digit numbers in most of the world and certainly this overall number from India.
As for the shifting of capital and the growing divide of the classes, name one successful society, where the controlling power had a monetary policy will divide the currency exactly among its citizens. Just one... Nope? I didn't think so. The closest example I can think of is the USSR, and they still had the rich elite controlling the working class; and it only lasted 70 years.
Last time I checked, my blue-collar, low-wage friends and I all have the same opportunity of wealth as the rich kids we tend to resent. Notice, I did NOT say that it would be easier because often capital is more difficult to obtain, but we have the same basic opportunity to start a business as the next person. We have the greatest entrepreneurial environment in the world and its ours to take advantage of. People from other countries see this and other advantages our country offers and immigrate. Is the global playing field level? No, it never has been and it never will be. Life is not fair. Life is hard. Get over the idea of being employeed in one place for your entire life in a job that a trained monkey or robots can do.
Will the election in November help? No. Its just a corporate sponsored figurehead with a puppet administration. Either one. What about a third party? Well, we effectively shut them out a generation ago and now, they're just a talking point.--Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I live here in Germany in the economy and one thing for sure, I'm in no way better off here than I would be in the US. The ruling socialist party has decided to stop unemployment benefits altogether after the year of unemployment insurance is up and have decided to switch those unemployed over to the welfare system where they all get a monthly EUR 345 ($360) and even less in the eastern part of Germany. In addition to the $360 they get another modest housing allowance which is capped at around $250. Personally, if I were out of luck I wouldn't even qualify for their welfare because I would have to report all of my and my wife's property and income which is not allowed to exceed $7000 for people our age.
You lose your bet: If a person here stops going through the unemployment or welfare system then they are dropped from the statistics. The labor department actually works hard to bring unemployment statistics down by actively expelling people from the system whenever and by whatever means they can.
The newest development over here is workfare where they plan on putting millions of qualified people to work in menial jobs for welfare money.
Looks like we're comparing oranges and oranges here.
Finally you don't care how much worse Europe is. Think of it this way.. Europe is another place you can not escape US unemployment. Wouldn't it be great to be able to say, fuck you, Bush I am taking my business elsewhere? I would sure as hell love to say Fick Dich, Schroeder you fucken sierra club commie!
People over here are comparing their situation to four years ago before the socialist party took over. They voted for the fascist party in the state elections.
So you are saying that because America is majority white, then white Americans are not allowed to say that America should stop or slow down immigration? Are their any other policies that should be tied to skin color?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
We Americans have a right to protect our jobs. And we have the means to do so.
This economic treason by the elites all started decades ago when they shipped out our advanced manufacturing jobs to Japan. Advanced manufacturing jobs are not assembly jobs, but more like fabrication jobs. See this article for more info.
Now they are doing the same thing to office work (like software, financial etc) that they did to advanced manufacturing. But we office workers are more able to stop them this time, mainly because we have some access to the media via the internet and boards like Slashdot.
Tariffs do make things worse, but only for the upper income group. For the average working person, tariffs are good.
Let me ask you something: if free trade is so good for lowering prices, then why is an average car costing more of the average salary now than it did 25 years ago? For more details on this check out Marshall Brain's Concentration of Wealth blog.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Labor costs are the PROFITS of the worker. You don't hear business owners complaining when their profits get too high, do you?
Look, the highest standards of living in the world are in the social demcracies of Europe, and they have HIGH labor costs--they have minimum wages levels of like $12/hour. High lahor costs are a GOOD THING...IF, and ONLY if you are a WORKER. Now, if you are an investor or business owner, that is a Bad Thing.
Fortunately, over 90% of Americans are WORKERS. Your problem is that you have been tricked by investor/corporate propaganda into thinking that YOU are an INVESTOR. Well, you AIN'T an investor. YOu are a WORKER. Deal with it. Accept it, and then help organize your country to HELP THE WORKER, like they do in Scandanavia.
The reason the 3rd world IS the 3rd world is that they have LOW LABOR COSTS. That is the DEFINTION of being 3rd world.
The reason many of the countries in NW Europe have the highest quality of life is because they have the HIGHEST COST OF LABOR. And it aint no accident. The two concepts are DIRECTLY RELATED.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
FDR tried to alleviate the suffering caused by
the depression's very high unemployment rate by
instituting SS, and work programs like CCC and WPA
that provided a public benefit. He did not make
lies, half-truths, and political doublespeak
an Executive Branch SOP. He did not slash
corporate taxes, and the tax rate of the very
wealthiest Americans, and then shift the tax
burdeon onto the backs of the shrinking
middle class. FDR did not encourage the flight
of American jobs overseas because "what's good
for General Motors is good for America". FDR
did not open the floodgates of illegal
immigration into this country to force wages
lower.
George W. Bush has done all these things, and
more. It is pretty sad when the only decent
paying jobs available to unemployed Americans
is to drive a truck through Iraqi free fire
zones. The high point of Bush's "job creation"
record was 135,000 new jobs in a month -- which
unfortunately doesn't even cover students from
high school or college entering the job market,
let alone those unemployed. Bush has embraced
"corporate national socialism", and abandoned
the working class. From all reliable accounts,
one of the Bush administration's top policy
goals was the invasion of Iraq, from before his
inauguration. All the lies and doublespeak that
was employed (WMD, terror links, and "imminent
threat" were cobbled together and used after
9/11/2001 as cover for this war. Each have
proved to be false. The Bush "war plank" was
an agenda hidden from the voters in 2000 by
such promises as "no foreign wars", "no nation-
building", etcetera, all while planning for
Saddam's ouster. Bush mismanagement of the
war in Iraq, and of domestic policy decisions,
have been equally disasterous to this country,
with the sole exception of the GOP-aligned
multinational corporations. George W. Bush
spoke the truth (finally) at a Washington,DC
fundraiser when he said "the HAVE's and the
HAVE MORE's are my base (constituency)".
If this country should be cursed with yet another
George W. Bush term of office, do not expect that
there will be any improvements in job growth,
health care, international relations, or the
war in Iraq. Do expect more tax cuts for the
corporations and wealthiest 2% of taxpayers.
Do expect SS and Medicare to be gutted, as Bush
finds new ways to drive the country deeper into
debt. Do expect greater loss of personal freedom
in this country, as "Patriot Act" extensions
are subverted to crush political opposition.
Do expect Bush to continue promoting religious
organizations as the only source of welfare
and social assistance. Do expect America's
open borders to continue to encourage illegal
immigration, because America's businesses
want ever cheaper labor.
... you're willing to give up all those cheap imports (including practically all your PC and electronic hardware) and live in economic isolation from the rest of the world. THERE IS NO ECONOMIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OUTSOURCING A JOB AND IMPORTING A GOOD. Here's a short argument to convince you. If you're still not convinced, ask your favorite Econ professor, or even anyone who paid attention in their International Trade class.
I'm always amused when presidents take credit for good economic times, and receive blame for bad times. Fact of the matter is, despite what the campaigns would like you to think, the Fed chairman probably has more influence on the economy than the president, and even the Fed chairman probably doesn't have that much influence. I say, by all means, go ahead and vote Bush out of office for the mess he created in the world and the assault on civil liberties at home, but don't think protectionism is good for the country, or that Kerry will solve the unemployment problem.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
I disagree... Outsourcing means taking money out of the American economy (wages that would be paid to someone getting taxed and buying stuff over here), and sends it overseas where that money (generated with the assistence of US-taxpayer funded US infrastructure, and taxpayer funder corporate tax breaks) now instead helps a competitor to America. That's not a good thing.
The free trade of high paying AMerican jobs for cheap overseas labor also would not naturally end until some natural balance in global salary levels has been achieved... Now, when you realize that the US *currently* has one of the highest salary levels in the worls, but only represents ~5% of the global population, you'll begin to realize where that eventual equilibrium may be achieved... it wont be the midway point between current US and Indian/Chinese/Russian salaries, but rather it'll be much closer to what those Indian etc salaries are right now, since their population sizes swamp our own.
Now, if you actually give a crap about quality of life over here, and your ability to earn a wage that'll pay an American mortage rather than paying for a Chinese apartment (not much use unless you live in China), then you'd be concerned about this, but don't go looking for enlightened CEO's to stop gunning for expense-cutting bonuses in this way, especially since there duty to shareholders is to maximize profits for them, regardless of anythign else (such as whether by doing so they're screwing the American economy, and screwing the job prospects of their shareholders and everyone else).
The only thing that will stop the quality of life in America being dragged down to what'll be supported on an Indian salary is indeed, as Kerry says, to have the government provide disincentives to do so... What I'd support is tax penalties that are proportional to the difference in cost of living between the US and where a company outsources to, since that levels the playing field. I'll happily compete with anyone in the US for a programming job, since I'm good at what I do, and my competitors have pretty much the same cost of living as myself... but trying to compete with someone on the same skill level who's cost of living is 20% of mine is going to be a losing proposition since they can work for 20% of the salary that I need. That's not competition, it's slaughter, and it may be good for globally reducing labor rates to a minimum (if that for some reason is your goal), but it's sure not good for the Americal lifestyle that we enjoy, even if you want to roll out the old excuse that I'll be able to buy a VCR at Walmart for $28.99 instead of $32, because of the Chinese labor.
I'd be voting for Kerry anyway based on the danger to America that Bush represents, but I certainly also support him on this issue - his policy will be good for working Americans, while Bush's outsourcing-happy policy is only good for the independently wealthy and business owners to which lower US labor costs are a plus rather than a negative.
Someone wondered why Slashdot is right wing and this story proves it. How could Slashdot quote from a fascist site like vdare.com? What's next? An article from the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? Or maybe Aryan Nation?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The illegal Mexican immigrants are NOT squeezing the middle class in any way. There is nobody in the middle class that would their jobs.
Several researchers have actually said the illegal immigration is good for the country, from the job market perspective, that is. Sure, illegal immigration brings other problems, but they sure as hell aren't taking any jobs away from the us middle class.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Your comments are premised on the notion that there is a distinct difference in the fundamental worldviews of the Demopublican and Republocratic parties; that's a big mistake.
Those two factions of our single party are both funded by the wealthy and corporations, and are both beholden to their funders. They employ different rhetoric to try to rally the populace, but there is no significant difference in their worldviews.
Compared to the range of parties and political choice that a citizen of most any European country has, there is no political freedom in the US -- we're a one-party state.
I can guarantee you if a Democrat gets in again you'll be sliding deeper and deeper.
Almost four years later you're still trying to blame Clinton? And what are we sliding deeper into? When Clinton was president the economy was booming, people had jobs, we had a budget surplus. America was a lot stronger under Clinton than it is under Bush. If Clinton was running against Bush then dubya wouldn't have a chance.
I will say this, though. This time around we can blame the supreme court. But if Americans actually elect that idiot, then we deserve what we get the next four years.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
They don't count people who're no longer collecting unemployment and have simply given up.
That's not correct
You are misinterpreting the point. Though the "collecting unemployment" part may be incorrect and not a factor in determining unemployment rate (as per the snopes article you cited), it is correct that people who have "simply given up" are not counted.
Unemployment rate:
The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.
Labor force (Current Population Survey):
The labor force includes all persons classified as employed or unemployed in accordance with the definitions contained in this glossary
Unemployed persons:
Persons 16 years and over who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.
http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm
also look up "Discouraged Workers".
I see that you have bought into the idea that the media have been trying to plant into our collective consciousness - that the "Dollars going out is unattainable" crap.
Stop thinking of the flow of money in the Zero Sum term. You have to understand, whatever that's flowing out of America is in US dollars, and whatever flowed out of America will flow into some other people's hands, and when they accumulate enough, they will use that money to BUY something !
After all, what else is money for, right ?
So, we shouldn't concentrate in how much our money has flowed out, we should instead, think of ways to get those money back - by earning it !
When those people want to buy something - and they ain't buying toaster oven, for sure - we better be prepared to provide them with whatever they want to buy, and charge accordingly for it.
The market isn't a static one, it's dynamic. So, don't worry.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It's easy to blame immigration and say, "Look at all the foreigners coming into our country and stealing all our jobs."
Let me ask you this? Why must we have immigration?
The answer is that you want you society to resemble a pyramid with the youngest at the base of the pyramid, the middle aged in the middle, and the eldest at the top of the pyramid. If your society is not shaped like a pyramid, social programs and the system of collecting taxes completely fall apart.
In order for society to maintain a balance, every woman needs to have on average about three kids. How many kids did your parents have?
How many kids are you going to have?
Because citizens don't have enough kids to fill in the bottom of the pyramid we must have immigration or, we have to re-engineer our social systems and methods of tax collection. Take your pick.
This is why France has the largest muslim population in Europe. Native France citizens didn't have enough kids to support the country. SOo to supplement they had to allow immigration.
This is why Japan is doomed without immigration. Women there are now refusing to marry and having kids later and later (post 35). Pretty soon the population pyramid of Japan will be inverted with the oldest at the top. I predict they will allow immigration soon.
Africa's population has no middle. Only the very young and very old. The middle was wiped out by AIDS.
So that's the long and short of immigration. If you want something different, you have three choices:
1. Have more kids.
2. Change your system of collecting taxes (shift the tax burden higher up the pyramid).
3. Change your system of social programs. Maybe public education is no longer free. Maybe social security vanishes. Lot's of cuts will have to be made since there are fewer older people to pay taxes and usually they pay less.
The sad thing is that our politicians don't explain the social engineering of our country and let everyone jump to their own conclusions. The Repulicans know that if they do not capture the Hispanic/Latino/Mexican vote that they will NEVER win an election again. That is why Bush speaks spanish and was going to open the immigration flood gates to Mexio prior to 9-11. Right now, it's a giant mess and we really need some good social planners to figure out how best to manage our society in the direction that we want it to go.
did anybody read the article or is this just about comiserating about unemployment?
American trade policy has been pro-"free trade" without requiring that the trading partner have equivalent environmental or employee protections. These blind spots have, for example, caused the export of almost all American non-ferrous metals processing jobs to Mexico and Canada.
while "made in china" might mean this, i can't believe how this article tries to take a shot at the NAFTA countries. Mexico might not live up to US standards (but i want to see the American consumers pay the prices for "made in USA" DVD players etc.
immigrants are an important economic factor in the western world.
-look at Europe: europe is struggeling because of its aging population which causes health and old age pension costs to skyrocket; not so the US. the birth rates are no higher in the US but immigration keeps the average age at bay because young people enter the country.
-immigrants are not only workers; they are also consumers. so they don't take jobs away from americans, they simply increase the population.
-legal immigration should be simpler because legal immigration is much better than illegal immigration - legal immigrants work under the same labour and health standards as Americans and they pay taxes. none of this can be said of illegal immigrants. they are at high danger of abuse in many ways by their "employers" (or slave drivers) and they have no way of defending themselves because any legal action would cause them to be kicked out.
in my opinion, this article is full of xenophobia and uses the current anxiety about jobs to try to convince people that immigration and immigrants (clearly one of the weakest groups of society who have little or no political voice) are the root of all evil. this is simply disgusting.
OK, look at it like this:
x .shtml
1) You propose economic treason for a guy that wants to buy a $2 toaster from overseas.
2) You buy foreign goods, even though you say the gov'ment 'made you do it.'
Statement 1 + Statement 2 = Do as I say, not as I do.
Tariffs lead to this:
http://www.bethsteel.com/BethSteelEstate.com/inde
The US steel industry, with tariffs so restrictive and protective that he Europeans brought out the WTO, is shit.
Bethlehem and USSteel had no need to innovate, no need to get better, no need to control the labor costs. Look where it got them.
I think I need a new sig here.
Well, there's the whole "all men are created equal" bit that suggests that citizenship to those that truly desire it should not be denied to anybody by basis of accident of birth (or are you suggesting a "divine right of natural-born citizens?"), and our constitution only says Congress can set naturalization policy (how people can become citizens) and doesn't say anything about them being able to set immigration quotas and who gets to go through said naturalization process.
So it's not so much that you're white, it's that you don't have a moral leg to stand on in light of what this country is supposed to be based on. If you're worried about maintaining any sort of social demographic by way of law (be that immigration law or otherwise), you're in the wrong country.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics itself keeps track of those who have given up looking for work. It measures these in a statistic called "U-6", but it's "U-3" that is called the "official unemployment rate" that is reported by the mainstream media. The mainstream media -- and it seems also snopes.com -- never mention U-6. See my blog article Real U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5%.
Does this take the self-employed into account? I read tha article and saw nothing about the self-employed mentioned anywhere in there.
From what I have read from the federal government's figures, once you take the self-employed into account, Bush is creating jobs, not losing them. Since the self-employed are not being taken into account by the "left", I can not trust anything they have to say about avarage salary since they are not taking millions of workers into account.
Now don't take this to mean that I support Bush either. The whole Homeland Security continues to rub me the wrong way. And the federalizing of the airport screeners?!?
As far as outsourcing goes, every company I have personally been involved with that has outsourced to India (5 in the IT arena) have all seen it as a huge failure and pulled it back in-house. 2 where development and 3 were tech support.
I do agree with their take on worker visas. If you want to work and live in America, become a citizen.
The lowering "disposible income" figure is very misleading. This has been torn apart by the "Right" because you look at what is considered "essential" today as compared to 30 years ago. Who doesn't have a washer, a dryer, a television, and a telephone today? Today they count as essential. Decades ago they didn't. Thus, the "cost of living" goes up and the "disposible income" goes down.
Economics is the easiest thing to understand at a systemic level and the hardest thing to actually implement at the individual level. "Economies" do not change, the earning, spending and investing of individuals changes.
But when you get right down to it, you need the American people to keep more of their own money and for them to spend that money buying products from American companies that employ American workers. Those workers need to invest in those American companies and thus increase their personal wealth while giving the companies more capital to expand.
Oh, and those of you blaming the President for the economy need to remember that it is CONGRESS, not the President, who rules the country's taxes and spending. While the President provides the leadership, CONGRESS is to blame. Vote accordingly.
In my opinion (and, since I am not an economist, it is just my opinion), we need to:
- reduce federal spending (make Congress personally responsible for any deficit?).
- lower taxes for those who pay taxes (the lower 50% of the earners in America pay no taxes!).
- streamline the tax system with the Fair Tax. Once you get rid of most of the IRS, you lower federal costs, you lower the costs of businesses and individuals doing their taxes, you make your tax burden directly linked to your spending, you remove ALL tax burden from those living in poverty, and you lower the cost of American goods, thus making them more competitive in the world economy.
- as individuals, buy products from American companies (preferrably made entirely in America if you can still find one).
- phase out social security (the third rail of politics!). This will never happen, but it should. Over 12% of every worker's paycheck goes to retired people. Imagine if half that money went into your personal IRA account that would actually be worth something when you retired! (Also, as a side note, black men have the lowest life expectancy in America. White women have the highest. Statistically, social security takes money from young black men and gives it to old white women!)
- get the government out of the charity business. Let groups like the Red Cross, the United Way, religious charities, etc. do this work and treat people as individuals instead of numbers.
- put the government back on focus to what it MUST do, not what people WANT it to do. The government should not be a wealth redistribution plan. Government should provide the Common Good Required For Existence.
- Without breathable air, drinkable water, and land that can support farming and ranching,
I'm No economist, and I don't pretend to know how to fix whats wrong (other than shooting the rich, then re-distributing thier estates evenly to the remaining population). But here's an example of the gap I see every day...
I work in Stowe, Vermont, which has one the highest concentrations of "truely rich" residents in the US, with perhaps the exception of Beverly Hills.
Stowe has about 5000 full-time residents, and housing that will support about 10,000. about 50% of the homes in Stowe are occupied by thier owners less than THREE WEEKS A YEAR (though they are often rented for a large portion of the year). The inflated property values caused by the vaction homes owned by the (super) rich make it not mearly difficult but IMPOSSIBLE for the service industry workers who keep Stowe alive to live IN the town.
Just for laughs, how about this number: the AVERAGE cost of a new construction home in Stowe (not including land value) is now in excess of $1.6 million. Thats the SIMPLE AVERAGE mind you, so we're looking at homes that cost more than I'll probably make in my entire working life. How many of these (new homes)are owned by full time residents, read: workers? Arround 2%.
I realize that being a "resort town" Stowe is an extreme example, but the gap isn't simply big, it's FRIGHTENINGLY HUGE. My boss is a reasonably succeful small business owner, does he live in Stowe? No, he can't afford to compete for realestate with the super-rich vaction home builders. We're talking somone who has been running a profitable business, employing 7-14 people for more than 20 years. My boss seems rich to me, but the people who are really rich are even richer than him in comparison to me. I live safely above the poverty line, but I'm definately not "upper middle class"...
The problem as I see it that "upper middle class", though it may be "comfortable" is no where NEAR the level of the rich.
The gap is growing, and It's not just a question of the rich paying more taxes than me, it's a question of the rich skewing property values and consumer goods prices to the point that somone who used to be "doing ok" can't afford to live or shop in the city in which he/she works.
In this part of my state theres a dagerous trend to slums surrounding the rich towns and we aren't talking inner city here, we're talking a rural state that rates smack in the middle of the US standard of living by state.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
I just want to put this URL out there, because I want to know more about this group, should anyone have any info on its leaders and stuff.
I generally agree with their policies, as an american programmer and worker.
http://www.fairus.org
I've seen you on night-time cable!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Corporations and Investors want a Race to the Bottom, which increases profits by decreasing wages and benefits. The end result will be a large amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.
Workers want a Race to the Top by increasing wages and benefits. THe end result here will be a large amount of wealth dispersed into the hands of many.
As we can see here on Slashdot, the real problem we have is that the wealthy and the corporations have funded a network of think tanks and foundations that have spent the last 30 years spewing propaganda to make everyone think that a Race to the Bottom is good and that a Race to the Top is Bad. And most Americans (and most Slashdotters!) are buying into the corporate propaganda!
It just goes to show you the power of propaganda over a long period of time--if you spend billions of dollars saying that black is white and white is black, that after 30 years, you will have a bunch of people walking around telling you black is white and that high labor costs and protective trade laws are bad....
THe details of the this RightWing/Corporate propaganda machine are starting to be made public. You can get more info about these "Tentacles of Rage" in the lastest edition of Harpers Magazine here.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Dear Poster,
Your "Bad Immigration Policy" is the reason I hightailed myself and my business back to Canada.
It's much, much easier to get skilled people here (citizen or immigrant) and we can afford pay our staff a wage which provides a significantly higher standard of living than would be possible in your imaginary land of milk-and-honey.
I guess our tax dollars weren't 'merican enough for you. Good enough -- we'll give those dollars to another government and the jobs to another nation's citizens.
You have an immigration problem all right: You're driving away the skilled and resourceful people which previously MADE your nation. Take a close look at your schools to see what you're getting instead.
blah blah blah the left is wrong bush is right... self-employed people are God. the left is bad, the right is right. We go to war so you don't have to. we loose record numbers of jobs, we have the first president to loose jobs. You're right George W. Bush is creating a ton of self -employment opportunities out there, and no doubt a bazillion of those no longer able to be considered for unemployment are firing up their awesome pc's to make an amazing living, as Dick Cheney states, off of E-Bay. As John Edwards stated "This economy would be cooking if we considered Bake Sales as part of the economy"
The numbers "No Doubt Cooked up by the Liberal Media" are stating we're losing jobs, and the jobs that we do manage to create don't provide a livable wage. How long before the nation realizes that with a Republican President, a Republican Appointed Supreme Court, a Republican Congress that there is no other place for the blame to fall than on the republican party.
As John Stewart wisely stated on the daily show, if I may paraphrase it poorly: The Republicans are sick and tired of being in control.
The left isn't a group of skeptical quitters, unfortunately they have the thankless job of promoting things that are ruthlessly attacked which with the hindsight of many years become taken for granted: Unemployment Insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, FDIC, SEC. The list goes on.
Read something by someone other than Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the world is different. Might I suggest a book by another decorated Veteran Liberal such as George McGovern, a shameless and proud liberal -- who I happen to agree with.
The only people quitting are the right wing nut jobs who don't think and proceed to blame the left for everything bad in the world, or proceed to say the left is distorting everything. My eyes tell me the trust of the reality. I know a lot more unemployed people now than in the 90's under a democratic president and the strongest economy in the world. How we could reach record deficits in the span of four years comes as no surprise when you start a war and reduce taxes -- BTW: A fiscal conservative probably wouldn't recommend tax breaks as you begin a war. What happened to the concept of a nation that sacrifices in a time of war for the betterment of the country. i.e. fuel conservation in fuel effecient vehicles (not SUV's and increased reliance on terrorist country's -- Saudi Arabian -- oil), increased taxation to pay for a stronger country, better care for veteran's who bear the burden of fighting,
Neocon's suck, because they are ignorant. Neocons are ignorant, because they buy the line that the left wing controls the media. Wake up!
Brian Seppanen
Minister of Information and Propaganda
Area 54 The Secret Government Disco Labs Provo
September 21, 2004
BY MARISOL BELLO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A majority of the Detroit City Council wants to implement an economic development plan it commissioned for $112,000 that preaches racial isolation and rails against immigration in its bid to gain economic success for poor blacks.
The crux of the plan is the creation of a business district -- dubbed African Town -- that would be funded in part with city money and made up of black-owned businesses catering to a black clientele.
The report also complains that immigrants from Mexico, Asia and the Middle East are stealing resources, jobs and other opportunities from blacks and calls on city leaders to stop the economic shift.
...
Seastead this.
- Extremely compressed salary distribution. Raising your yearly pay with just a few thousand dollars will take you from the lowest to the highest tenth of earners. High minimum wages also mean that a lot of service jobs never get done, or get done but not taxed. There's a reason you see so many Swedish brain surgeons paint their own fence instead of hiring someone to do it.
- Progressive tax rates and communal service fees, severely limiting any incentive to better yourself wage-wise.
- Extremely rigid firing rules, which leads to employers being very reluctant to hire, and workers to change jobs, since that'd put them first in the firing line.
- Oodles of red tape and confiscatory taxation rules for small companies, thus disicentivizing anyone wanting to start their own business.
In summary then, you have a textbook recipe for economic stagnation. If you lack all ambition, then by all means you'd thrive in this system. If not, I'd stay well away.I will say that one thing that still puzzles me is why US executives still need golden parachutes. In Sweden, it makes sense since they're the only ones that typically can be fired at will, but in the states, "fair" isn't the first word I'd use to describe that practise. And yes, I'm a "worker"...
Thanks for trying to break the spell on these blockheads.
If you like what you're getting and where things are going, you must be rich and a corporate owner.
If you don't, and want to have a future with a decent retirement, and fight for the middle class, vote Kerry. Work to turn the tide.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
They did find a few old warheads, some filled with sarin that was from their war with Iran. They also found a bunch of pesticide or herbicide, which for whatever reason was believed to be WMD related.
Certainly not the "stockpile" or hundreds of tons worth that we were promised.
Over 1967 to 2003 period, the percentage of families making less than $35,000 (in 2003 dollars) also fell from 52.8 percent of households to just 40.9 percent. In short, the ranks of the middle class could not have fallen because they became poor, because the ranks of the poor also fell.
The truth is that poor and middle class households alike became better off, which increased the ranks of the "rich" (those making over $49,999 in 2003 dollars in the (as some media records it)) as a share of the population. In 1967, those with such an income constituted 24.9 percent of households. By 2003 this had increased to 44.1 percent. The inescapable conclusion is that the declining ranks of the middle class result from one thing only-more of them are now "rich."
Census Data
The authour writes that 195,000 H-1Bs are available, and this was true for three years (FY 2001-2003). The current number has dropped back to the original amount, 65,000 annually according to the DHS:CIS (what replaced the INS).
Confused with the TLAs? Me too!
In other news, Microsoft Windows users are now covered under the Americans with Disabilties Act...
"Neither do the political candiates whom I trust and believe in. This is your opinion, not a factual argument. Learn to keep the two separate."
Hmmm, and who are those "political candidates" that you "trust and believe in"? Why do you not just name them instead of typing all of that?
"Ahem. Did you not receive a tax cut? Thank you."
Yep, from the Federal government. But it wasn't much of a tax cut and I have paid MORE in total taxes because Bush is running of the deficit and dumping the problems onto the states who then have to find ways to pay.
Sorry, I'm paying higher taxes.
"And what's more, your argument here is predicated on the "given" that the Government owns all of everything, and that tax cuts "cost" the Government in lost revenue. I don't know about you, but I want to keep *more* of the money I make. I want to "allow" the government to take only that which is necessary to provide what the Constitution says it should--and not a penny more."
You need to look at the deficit then. Or don't you understand that BORROWED money needs to be paid back.
Bush is just shifting the FEDERAL tax burden.
"As far as the health of the economy goes, from what I can tell, the left is using historical figures and the right is using current trends."
Current trends are based upon historical figures.
The only difference is WHEN you start the chart.
Republicans want to start the chart when the situation was WORSE so any improvement, no matter how slight, APPEARS to be an OVERALL improvement.
Democrats want to start the chart when things were much BETTER so any improvement APPEARS to be an OVERALL loss.
Personally, I'll take the Democrat's approach.
"Bush is doing a "decent" job helping the economy to recover in a tough time, that's how I read it. The current trends are good, and that is well...good. Sorry, you can't disagree with this, it's an actual fact."
Ummm, "good" is not a term usually associated with the word "fact". The term "good" is a judgement call.
So it is NOT "an actual fact".
"Whoah Nelly! Now you're going a bit off the deep end. I think you have stepped from debate into the realm of fiction. When you get back to earth, let me know and we can continue."
You seem to be more than a bit mis-informed on that. It has been on his agenda. Even his own people admit that he was asking about it.
"Sorry, they did find WMD's...hate to break it to ya."
No they did not. Not in the respect that Bush was talking about. All they found were the remains from before the PREVIOUS war. You seem to be a bit out of touch with current events.
Job Crunch and Economics Inequality URLs - sorry if it is a little ragged, I'm just doing cut and paste...
/wasow_secure_ret.pdf
Reality Check: Going Nowhere: Workers' Wages Since the Mid-1970s http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/wasow_nowhere.pdf
Economic Injustice for Most http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/cwlmorris813.pdf
Bush's War on the Middle Class: A Special Report http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=7635
American Families at Risk http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=7625
Middle Class and Going Broke http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/warren_prospect.pdf
Schools of Hard Knocks http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=7637
Why Governors Are Seeing Red: A New Reality Check http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/hall_redstate.pdf
Reality Check- The New American Economy - A Rising Tide that Lifts Only Yachts http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/wasow_yachtrc.pdf
Reality Check: Life and Debt - Why American Families are Borrowing to the Hilt http://www.tcf.org/Publications/EconomicsInequalit y/baker_debt.pdf
Hidden Agenda- The convention trumpets compassion, but the real Bush agenda is clear: Use tax policy to starve the government even more.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewWeb&articleId=8449
The Great Tax Shift-The Bush administration claims that the guiding principle for its fiscal policy has been "lower income taxes for all, with the greatest help for those most in need," as the White House Web site puts it. The reality is starkly different. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=7641
RetirementSecurity http://www.tcf.org/Publications/RetirementSecurity
Diverting the Social Security Debate
Over the 75-year period for which the Social Security system's trustees are required to plan, Social Security in its present form will fall out of balance. We can restore balance with moderate changes to the program's revenues, its benefits, or the returns on its accumulated assets. But the longer the decision to do so is postponed, the greater the required adjustments.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&n ame=ViewPrint&articleId=7642
Setting the Record Straight: Social Security Works for Latinos-
Some sugge
Yes, Then Tell John Kerry to bring back some of the jobs that Heinz has exported. Let's see. Almost all of their factories are located outside of the United States. Thank you John Kerry. I'm sure you'll lead by example.
What the f*ck is John Kerry supposed to do about a company that he does not own, that his wife does not own, and that she has no control over? Teresa Heinz Kerry does not own the H.J. Heinz Company and she has no involvement whatsoever with the management or operations of it. She owns less than 4% of the company's stock, which she acquired through her inheritance of the Heinz family trust. The trust sold most of its shares of Heinz stock back in 1995.
Asshole.
You are the asshole -- and an ignorant one at that, as you have just proven.
Ok and what has SS turned into? A pyramid scheme that is looted by Congress. It's dying and needs to be replaced. Support Bush's plan [whitehouse.gov] for SS reform.
As anybody with a calculator can figure out, Bush's plan has a huge hole. The cost of switching from pay-as-you-go to individual-investment plans is dumbfoundingly large (some estimate it as $1 trillion), and I've seen no coherent explanation from Bush's administration as to where the money will come from.
I think pension plans with up-front contributions and more individual control are a great idea, and I'm glad that people have at least started to talk about reforming Social Security. But Bush, et al, have only given us fairy tales and titanic defecits, so it's hard to believe that they're serious.
Self-serving lawyers are having a field day inventing class action suits against manufacturers, and it isn't just about the things that they manufacture. Distributors are on the list, also. Any company that makes or sells or promotes a product is in the line of fire for class action suits based upon the flimsiest of data. The litigators don't even have a need to make a good case; the majority of these cases are settled out of court because of the incredible costs of any possible defense.
In the absense of statutory protection, no manufacturer in their right mind would establish a new plant in the United States. Doing so is just posting a target at which überrich law firms can take aim. Most of my consulting work in the last decade has been with companies from Mexico and Brazil, because their principals - U.S. Citizens - told me they could not take a chance on building soda machines in the US, because they might well be involved in a class action suit claiming that their machines facilitated obesity among their many clients.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
It does work. It keeps wage costs down. But the real culprit is automation and I.T. It's enabled companies to dramatically cut their costs by automating an increasing number of jobs. In 20 or 30 years, only a very few people will be needed to sustain the same size economic output we have now. And those jobs will probably be in low wage countries. So we will have achieved a major goal of technology.
Freeing people from drudge work!
Note that I don't think that mass unemployment is a good thing. But corporations are in the business to make money, not spend it unnecessarily.
They are not welfare programs...
I think what you are missing here is quite how massive a population shift this would mean. We'd be looking at 20-30% of the population of Mexico in the US(something similar to what we saw from Puerto Rico before social programs were expanded to allow folks to stay in PR).
Part of the problem is that there are all kinds of "invisible" transfer programs. That large a movement of population would involve need to substantially expand US infrastructure-and it isn't obvious the businesses that employ these people really pay enough taxes to create that infrastructure.
Even if you could adjust the tax rates accordingly, there would _still_ be the effect of using immigration rights as partial compensation of private employees.
The Heinz company is Republican-linked, has endorsed George W. Bush, and opposes John Kerry.
If you recall, Senator Kerry's wife was originally married to Senator John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania, but then he died in a plane crash and subsequently married John Kerry.
Neither John nor Teresa have any real control over where Heinz' factories are. But, it is not uncommon to blame the Senator for all sorts of things that are not his fault or doing.
you'd be surprised how little time it takes to manufacture amphetamines....
And of course, once you've got a load made, you're going to have to employ a few people to help you shift it..
But that doesn't make it OK to blame foreingers for all your country's problems.
The Labour force participation is dropping because baby boomers are retiring. This means that the generation younger will be paying a hefty bill for their retirement. Social Security will not withstand this problem--people do not have as many kids and the only way to "pay" for it is to have immigration. Grampa is not going to have the retirement he hopes for.
Much of Europe has the same issue. Many of those countries have declining populations. How will the old be able to have a secure retirement? They won't without immigration.
If you want to blame something for the unemployment rate, it is not sufficient to assume that every immigrant entering the US == one job lost to an American. It is simply a too simplistic view.
To blame trade agreements for lost jobs is unfair. Every time a government negotiates a trade agreement they claim that they will train people with new skills for those who have lost their jobs. They should do it. This is the right policy, but how many governments have actually followed through with the promise? Not many.
With free trade, those that have 3rd world skills will be offered 3rd world wages. Ask what your government has done to lower tuition lately?
There is a classic economic discussion about economies: "Guns and butter" Essentially, the argument is that some societies place more emphasis on the Guns than Butter (or vice versa). These are just two products, but they have symbolic value: You folks spend more than the rest of the world combined on the military. Could it be better spent? Do you really want to be an empire, knowing the costs to your own society? One stealth bomber can pay for an awful lot of teachers. North Korea has made it's choices. They blame the evil south and the evil US oppresssors--bla bla bla. They have a militaristic outlook. Their people must eat bark and roots and possibly each other. Don't walk down their shoes, alright?
To single out some arbitrary group, and then blame them for your ills, is a classic approach seen many times throughout history. It has never solved anything before, so why do they think it'll work this time? Sure it'll get one politician over another elected, but that doesn't really solve anything does it?
For those that agree with the page's ideas: Instead of thinking about how to worsen someone else's situation, at least try to think about improving your own first.
-b
You're talking about Bush, right? I've never seen somebody who could so completely change their position & pretend like they've always thought that way. I'm not sure what you mean about his "vision" - about the only thing I think he's been consistent on is the "us" vs "them" mentality - all of his other messages seem to change depending on whatever his political handlers are telling him to say at any given moment.
Kerry's not a simple person (maybe unlike Bush). Based on what I've read about him, he seems like the type of guy who analyzes all sides of an issue before making a decision about what to do - and what he decides to do may not be the obvious thing that someone else who hasn't thought about the problem as much would have picked.
You can probably guess who I think is better suited to be a world leader. :-) I have no idea why so many people in the American public think Bush is a good leader. I keep having flashbacks to the popularity-contests called student government in high school. Bush is portrayed on TV as a personable-if-somewhat-slow guy, while Kerry seems to be portrayed as some kind of unlikable ivory-tower "Lurch" character. It depresses me to know that many of my fellow Americans don't pick their leaders based on demonstrated merit (or reject them based on demonstrated incompetence).
Even by usual Slashdot standards, it's stunning that the above crap actually got modded up.
His argument, explicitly spelled out, is that he buys foreign goods because they are cheaper than American goods and that if he bought American goods he would have less money for the rent and therefore, he argues, the government should FORCE him (and you and me and everyone else) to pay higher prices for all goods, bringing the foreign ones at least up to the price of the American ones he's unwilling to pay for, and thus to have less money to pay the rent. And someone somewhere bought into this?
Leaving asside the morality of forcing foreigners into poverty, leaving aside the practicalities of the negative effects on markets that we depend on, leaving aside the effects of retaliatory measures, you actually want the government to FORCE you to pay higher prices because it's not a choice you'd make on your own? This is insanity.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Greens: Organize your neighbors and start sustainable cooperatives, especially around "life necessities" (food, shelter, health care, education). Undercut the corporate monopolies.
These are both viable alternatives. However, they both require determination, optimism, personal responsibility and hard work; therefore, they won't be popular with people who were brought up in an educational system that encouraged them to be passive workers, rather than active owners.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
I love how in TFA, they say (under " Professional "Guest Workers.""):
"Since the employer pays a token fee for a guest worker visa, the employer is essentially using the public resource of immigration rights as a partial compensation--a practice even pro-business economists like Milton Friedman admit is a de facto corporate "subsidy"."
Friedman is *not* a "pro-business" economist. He is a pro-free-market economist -- and there is a difference. Pro-business economists prefer policy that explicitly favors businesses. Pro-free-market economists favor policy (or more-often, a deliberate lack of policy) that favors a freer, more-open marketplace, or the elimination of policies which oppose the goal of a free-market -- even if that more-open marketplace comes at the expense of the desires of some businesses.
Friedman would support fewer regulations on the financial industry, for instance. Yet, having worked in a big financial firm myself (which shall remain nameless), some of these companies actually support increased regulation -- because they know it benefits their cause of making a profit. In this way, Friedman could be alternately described as anti-business -- or, more-correctly, a neutral onlooker who prefers a free-market to outright pro-business policies.
Not that I would expect the illiterates of free-market economics (i.e. "progressives" or "socialists" or "Greens" or whatever they're calling themselves this week) to actually understand the difference between "markets" and "business"...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
The underlying issue here is that a country should care for its people who are indigent, poverty-stricken, ill, weak, and downtrodden. Its a matter of humanity. Period. Forget everything else.
I can't believe I'm reading posts about flat taxes and people saying that they are fair. Does $6,000 mean more to a person making $30,000 a year versus $60,000 for someone making $300,000? OF COURSE. There's nothing "FAIR" (whatever that means) about a rich guy paying the same percentage as a poor guy. Whoever said that FAIR means that everything is equal all the time? That is totally moronic. Being humane and caring for the downtrodden isn't some magic EQUATION. It is a state of mind. An attitude. A principle.
I simply can't believe that people in the USA, my own country, are still fighting to see how we can take care of these issues without sacrificing anything out of our own lives.
I don't care how it gets done. Taxes. Charity. Donations. Faith-based organizations.
Get over your pocketbook and your ego and take care of your country for once.
Please don't drink that Kool-Aid. Fair Tax is just a Consumption Tax (aka Flat Tax) under another name. Calling it "Fair" doesn't make it so. Why? Because it taxes poor and middle classes while allowing rich to get richer at a much faster rate. Yes, this is why this topic is so dear to Republicans.
A poor person may need to spend 100% of salary on consumption just to cover basic needs. A middle class person -- 80%. As you get richer, your propensity to save increases and consumption expenses do not grow as fast (in percentage of income terms), so you may spend 50%. After all, there is so much shit you really *need*.
Enable consumption tax of 10%. The poor pays 10% of salary on taxes. Middle class guy -- 8%. Rich -- 5%. This is worse that flat tax, this is *regressive* taxation.
Repeat after me -- keeping progressive income tax and taxing capital gains is the only way to give poor a chance, middle-class protection from getting squeezed, rich from "take over the world" schemes all while turning budget surplus. And yes, a strong middle class is the #1 reason why US enjoyed economic prosperity and democratic society in 20th century.
The models works. Please stop f*cking it up, please! Wish I could make Economics 101 a mandatory course in high school. Maybe then people would vote with their heads instead of emotions.
Ever read Wealth of Nations? Do you think that we have a ballance of power today between supplysiders and consumers? We no longer have villages of skilled craftsman competing, who weren't able to service more than a county. In order to have a free-market today it is necessary to ballance the power wielded by the large multi-nationals, or reduce them to the small businesses from whence they came. Government intervention is one way. View it as the power of the people of a country taken together as a whole. Regulation is necessary as elimination of corporations just isn't politically feasible.