"Nuking the Economy" - by Paul Craig Roberts (!)

[Yollam]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02112006.html

Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This

Nuking the Economy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.

Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.

Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities--primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.

US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.



(note the part about credit intermediation - IE more and more people drowning in debt)





Frank Freeper: "B-b-b-but, as long as people keep borrowing from the equity on their grossly speculation-inflated homes to finance beyond-their-means lifestyles, the "expansion" will go on forever, right? I mean the money that's pumping up the housing market via shaky negative-amortization/balloon-payment loans will just keep flowing in forever, right? And then there's the stimulus from those tax cuts gonna kick in any day now, right?"

Where does all that money come from, anyway? Hmm....

[Roland99]

1. Isn't lack of internal growth the problem with Germany's economy?

Or part of it, anyway? More and more of the growth in population is from immigration?

[applegrove]

2. Also too - by going with the Euro - Germany lost any power over monetary

policy. So they have more immigrants, Eastern Germany to integrate after 50 years of communism and they are on the front lines of immigration from middle east and all of the former Soviet Block. Those are huge shocks to the system and they cannot lower their dollar to increase production at home. They don't have the policy tools that China, USA, Canada, Japan, and other nations have.

There is no reason why Germany should be doing well. They have more serious employment problem that other parts of Europe and the Euro does not reflect their particular need.

Germany is just used again and again by neocons as an example of how "liberal policies make economies falter". Well the policy is actually the European Economic Market. And Free trade. So technically when they call it "Liberal" or "Progressive" they are not lying. But they mislead.

Just another GOP/Neocon myth.

IMHO

[Ezlivin]

3. Mastercard - It's everywhere you need to be

Foreclosures in NE Tarrant county, Texas, reached an all-time high last year. While surrounded by tony "villages" like Southlake and Colleyville, the area has seen a big increase in foreclosures as people's bad financial habits catch up to them. Utilizing interest-only loans and often purchasing without a down payment, any movement in the interest rate can spell instant catastrophe.

Many of the firms that are shedding employees relocate their corporate headquarters in this area, particularly to Plano, north of Dallas and east of Tarrant County (Fort Worth).

A lot of the lifestyles we are seeing survive only because of revolving credit. One day the revolution will stop, however, and we'll see that the economy was nothing more than a castle built of sand.

[justabob]

7. I think Plano (Collin Co.) has the highest rates

in the country... near the top of the list anyway for foreclosures and bankruptcies. Things are not good around the DFW area. Jobs are very hard to come by too... even crappy jobs.

[Yollam]

4. Giving this one a kick.

Coming from a former Reagan Administration official, this is sobering stuff.

[Yollam]

5. kick.

nt

[earth mom]

6. K & R!

People need to read this! :kick:

[teryang]

8. Recommended!

Thanks for posting this.

[autorank]

9. Great, we've ruined the environment, now there are no jobs.

:sarcasm:

But wait, I thought ruining the environment was excused by jobs.

But then again, I thought that the decadent super wealthy folks in the Middle East represented a national security threat but now Dubai is running six of our largest ports.

I wish these guys would be a bit more consistent. I'm trying to believe what they say but I'm still conscious so it's hard to keep believing.

[Yollam]

10. Well, that's one good thing (for us, anyway) about outsourcing...

by sending all the manufacturing overseas, we've also outsourced the pollution.

The laws being different in China, whole regions have become choked with smog and filthy effluent. It's truly, truly sad for the Chinese. This is one reason that I have always felt that the legality of outsourcing should be contingent on obeying all US environmental and labor regulations, even at overseas facilities, and that includes paying the local workers a U.S. minimum wage.

[Festivito]

11. But, making hamburgers is now "Manufacturing." Oh, he knew this a ruse!

Oh, well.
So much for that much touted rise in manufacturing we heard a bunch of months ago.

RepubliCONs are SOOOOOOOOOOOO sick.