Zero job creation since December 1999 .... Why?

[kentuck]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html?hpid=topnews

<snip>

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.

And the net worth of American households -- the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts -- has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.

"This was the first business cycle where a working-age household ended up worse at the end of it than the beginning, and this in spite of substantial growth in productivity, which should have been able to improve everyone's well-being," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.

........more

[spanone]

1. george w bu$h* and republican policies....8 years of non-governing...

[Fading Captain]

51. Baloney. Corporate friendly policy of Dems and Reps

eom

[debbierlus]

81. The myth of the two party system allows the corporate fascists to play the game

You think it would have become clear by now.

[spanone]

95. baloney...you can't create jobs in one year.

[fascisthunter]

94. it's not all Bush and GOP's fault anymore

they deserve much blame for it, but until the dems do something to counter it, they will inherit this legacy.

[abelenkpe]

2. outsourcing, offshoring, tax havens, financial deregualtion,

privatization of social programs, union busting, tax cuts and financing through debt.....all good for the top .1 percent and bad news for everyone else?

[yourout]

3. Some of the blame has to go back to Clinton and NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT.

While Bush policies inflated the bubble and hastened the wholesale ransacking of our manufacturing base Clinton signed on to the policies that set the conditions for the bubble and the death our manufacturing middle class.

[kentuck]

7. I think you are right..

When the Democratic Party, led by the DLC, became more like the Republican Party, we started a slide that no one was able to stop. If we are honest, we have to look at the part played by the Democratic Party and those that led the Party.

[AzDar]

37. This.

:thumbsup:

[wordpix]

78. ALL of the above + what are we producing? We used to produce computers but

our market share of computers and components are down, ditto cars, ditto almost everything.

We need to ratchet up the solar panels, wind generators, batteries with high storage capacity, insulation made from recycled materials...and start producing goods people need that are also good for the environment.

[debbierlus]

82. Indeed. Nafta has been devastating.

[Quantess]

88. yes.

NAFTA, CAFTA, and here's a link about GATT:
http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/gatt.html

[Fumesucker]

4. The jobs have been exported...

Thanks to "free" trade..

[Oregone]

5. The economic structure now emphasizes purchasing externally over manufacturing domestically

There is less wealth being created at home through this process, and more created abroad. While you can, for a short time, employ people at selling foreign products to the rest of the population, when credit and savings dry up, transferring these assets to third world nations will eventually become unsustainable.

Tariffs are not "evil". They are necessary when a laborer in a first world country must compete with a virtual slave in China. They are necessary when a community in a third world nation must compete for a factory against a country of people living in sheds.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Not a popular answer here, but...

There have been all sorts of policies one can implicate, but the central reason is that the largest economic bubble in history collapsed in early 2000.

By all sendible historical standards that should have crushed the US economy, but instead the bubble was redirected.

The fact that the collapse of the largest bubble in history did not take down the global economy on the spot was due to the diversion of the bubble money into real estate (it's all one big bubble with different asst classes heating up in sequence) and a series of highly stimulative but often morally suspect policies. (Tax cuts for the rich, Iraq War and exploding deficit spending.)

The housing bubble was merely the penultimate wave of a series of shifts of bubble-born funny money that started in the stock market in the late 1990s. (The ultimate pre-collapse wave was that abortive commodity bubble in 2007 -- oil, food, minerals, etc.)

It would have been something of a miracle if any jobs were created in the 1990s. What is striking is the many ways the Bush administration was able to keep the thing limping along. It was shitty stimulus, of the Republican variety, but not entirely without effect.

[Oregone]

9. "Bush administration was able to keep the thing limping along"

Its not really that striking at all. It was easy to do really. Once the bottom fell out in 2001, they just dropped interest rates and initiated home-ownership programs and propaganda. Hell, everyone I knew was buying a home, and half of them were involve in building em or selling mortgages on them. This made a bubble on the verge of bursting 10 times bigger and more dangerous. Had things ran their course in the early part of the decade, we would all be in a better place today.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

18. Agree and disagree

Had things run their course we would be in a better position. Agree.

"Easy to do, really" strongly disagree. Nobody like bubble collapses and folks always try to keep it limping along. And they fail.

The Bush administration had a lot of weird dumb-luck that wouldn't be easy to repeat. The broken record of tax-cuts for all circumstances happened to be sort of well timed for once.

And most of all, 9/11. Bush's equivalent of winning the Power Ball lotto.

Without 9/11 the explosion of deficit spending would not have been nearly as dramatic. I doubt that such a level of borrowing could have happened, as a political reality, if the extra were not going to war.

[JDPriestly]

19. Oregone, you are right.

Our government and financial institutions have been bought by foreign oil. They do anything to keep us feeding the oil beast. And as long as we have to keep that foreign oil flowing, we also have to keep American dollars flowing.

China is building fast rail. Germany is installing solar power units.

Meanwhile, chirp, chirp in the U.S.

It's a matter of getting multinational companies out of the business of governing our country. Unless we can do that, we will be impoverished.

[704wipes]

76. and if they had got SocSec funds into the stock market

like they wanted to do in 2005, they would have got out of Dodge smelling like a rose....

[JDPriestly]

16. We have been in bad economic shape since the Nixon era.

History will view 1973 as the year the American economy began a steep decline. The first oil crisis was a warning that we should become energy independent.

Thus far we have not had the self-discipline to do it. Will we finally do it this time?

Probably not. We need to stop the multi-nationals from running our government if we ever want to stop bleeding money for oil (and in the future other fuels).

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

21. 1973-1983

Event driven commodity price shocks add enough oomph to existing inflationary pressures that inflation becomes intolerable.

Wrung out of the system.

After early 1980s recession inflation never came back and job growth was never quite the same (except briefly under Clinton during a tech-driven expansion)

The two are connected. Anti-inflation policies are bad for working people.

The fact that working people have become convinced of the opposite is just another case of how effective our corporate brain-washing culture is.

Workers see the price of food go up every week but only get raises periodically so they see inflation as hurting them. But historically inflation and *real* wage growth go hand-in-hand.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. Clearly, the promises that economic well being comes only through investment...

that work is badly over rated, is incorrect.

But this was also the decade of peak oil, when the basis for our civilization fell over the high mark.

Fascinating article.

[endless october]

10. the jobs were outsourced

so corporate fat cats could make huge profits and so that Walmart could sell you cheap junk for low prices.

[Unvanguard]

11. Well, there were recessions right at the beginning and at the end.

So that's not necessarily a valid comparison: might just be a product of the manner of measurement.

[edhopper]

36. Pick any year in the decade.

Anemic job growth even in the best Bush year. Horrible for his whole Presidency.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

12. A number of years ago I read that there had to be a net gain of 250K

jobs a month just in order to keep up with new graduates, immigration, etc. Some of the newer portions of the workforce get absorbed due to retirement, etc. and in the olden days BEFORE Nafta and the corporate global outsourcing of American jobs, you could take for granted that the economy would actually expand on a regular basis almost automatically.

We've been down so long that we're finally about to hit some point of critical mass in terms of joblessness, homelessness, hopelessness, etc.

The Obama administration should stop giving money to banks who do nothing but hoard it and start a giant federal jobs program very similar to the WPA, the CCC, the old CETA program, etc.

I always maintained that single payer health would/could be a giant jobs stimulus - if everyone suddenly had access to unimpeded healthcare we would need more providers - hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, CNA's x-ray technicians, physical therapists, support services, etc. as well as employing the building trades who would build all the needed new facilities, plus schools to train all the new health workers who hopefully would earn decent living wages.

Since we have lost manufacturing , probably forever, we need to replace it with something. We have already become a serice economy - instead of fast food, why not make those services we provide for one another be based on one of themost meaningful servces of all - healthcare?

[Lost4words]

39. Great Post. Why cant our reps see its all connected!

That single payer health care would give the US worker a fighting chance!

just sayin

[tonysam]

48. Uh, you can't replace manufacturing with service jobs or healthcare

Heathcare jobs are notoriously crappy jobs with rotten hours and working conditions, unless, of course, they are paper-pusher jobs.

Manufacturing MUST be brought back. It's not only a matter of economic survival, it is a matter of national security.

[MadMaddie]

50. Absolutely Right!

One of the things that Clinton and * touted was that the U.S. neede to go into the new ages of service, healthcare and away from manufacturing.

And cudos to you because you are right manufacturing is a matter of national security (ha..ha.. I had to look who wrote this because I thought that I did).

A strong manufacturing base ensures this country is not dependent on any country for anything. That's why the U.S. is screwed with the Oil issue and why we are in the huge mess we are in today.

[wordpix]

79. my neighbor was telling me about a biochemist she knows who's cleaning houses

great use of a $100K education, right? :shrug:

[KittyWampus]

13. Outsourcing does NOT EFFECT Job Creation. You can send jobs sewing clothes overseas

and create new jobs making solar panels, for instance.

A big part of the problem is that corporations who did outsource and thereby saved money didn't invest money in the US. They just took money and pocketed it. So that, in turn, points to the tax system where corporations and shareholders are rewarded for destructive behavior without counterbalances to encourage constructive behavior.

[yourout]

17. Keep dreaming.......of the 100 or so companies that my company did business....

with over the last 15 years at least 1/2 of them have moved their manufacturing to either Mexico or China.

[KittyWampus]

34. And that has nothing to do with the lack of NEW jobs being created. Job CREATION.

That means NEW jobs.

Being CREATED.

Not OLD jobs.

Being OUTSOURCED.

[yourout]

35. In the manufacturing world new jobs are created largely at existing production facilitys....

[Double T]

26. 'Outsourcing does NOT EFFECT Job Creation.' ???

Think about what YOU are saying. It absolutely DOES AFFECT job creation. Clothes, solar panels and wind turbines will ALL be outsourced to slave wage markets. An economy WITHOUT manufacturing is an economy that is NOT sustainable.

[KittyWampus]

30. Hello? Outsourcing Job A does not mean you cannot create Job B. I'm not the one who needs to think

[yourout]

33. Here is the part you are missing....once the manufacturing facilitys and equipment are....

moved overseas they only place they can create Job B is were the facility is.

[Kansas Wyatt]

49. If you outsource more jobs than you create...

Then you are still in the hole. What sense does it make if you outsource 100 jobs, but create only 10 jobs? You will still lose jobs if you outsource more than you create.

How do you get out of the hole? Stop digging.

[DireStrike]

72. Sure, create job B and outsource it.

repeat through job Z.

[W_HAMILTON]

74. Theoretically you are right, but in practice, you are wrong.

The entire reason that companies outsource jobs is to cut expenses. If they wanted to employ people here in America, they wouldn't outsource to begin with. The only jobs that won't be outsourced are the ones that can't be, and companies are finding more and more ways to get around the traditional barriers that would prevent some types of jobs from being outsourced.

Of course, business told us the lie that as manufacturing jobs were outsourced, we would make up for it in service jobs here in America. Then, call centers were completely outsourced, stores have automated check-out lines, etc. It was all bullshit.

End free trade ASAP. We are still the biggest economy in the world, and our politicians are colluding with business to exploit the positives of the American market without any of the penalties. They want our money to buy their goods, but they don't want to provide us the jobs to earn money to buy their goods.

End private funding of our politicians, then end free trade. As long as business can buy our politicians, no necessary changes will be made.

[Double T]

84. A job needs to be created BEFORE it can be outsourced.

Don't give me this chicken and egg argument cause it is pure BS. YOU sound like someone from corporate human resources.

[OnionPatch]

28. Tell that to all my laid off friends.

I watched two of my own careers disappear overseas in the last twenty years and nothing came around to replace them.

Sure, it could have been different if the corporations didn't pocket the profits of outsourcing and reinvested in our own country, but that's not what happened. So in our case, outsourcing certainly did affect job creation.

[KittyWampus]

31. Why should I tell the obvious to your friends? That they lost Job A doesn't necessarily mean

that Job B could not have been created.

[OnionPatch]

54. A lot of things that *could* have happened would have helped job creation.

Maybe in some theory, outsourcing doesn't lower job creation, but in reality, it's already happened. And that wasn't just a mistake. I don't believe there was ever an intention to create job B. I'm not the only one who believes that "Job B" part was a bunch of wool pulled over our eyes so corporations could increase their profits and lower wages here in America.

[Hippo_Tron]

107. The problem is that it absolutely devastates places that rely on manufacturing

If a town relies on a factory and the factory closes due to outsourcing, the entire town goes under (multiplier effect).

[Double T]

14. Recent Recession 'recoveries' have been jobless and will continue to be jobless.

The current ACTUAL unemployment rate is 17.8%; our government can't even be truthful and honest about that. Our current depression is only in its early stages with more and more jobs being outsourced and eliminated in the USA. Sad to see corporations and government self destructing our nation into ruin. We can blame Carter, Reagan, H. W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush and BO along with their congresses on both sides of the aisle for allowing wall street and the corporations to destroy the employment and economy of our country.

[mkultra]

41. this isnt true

the current UE rate is 10%. The household survey is not based on UEI claims but on actual surveys. Its number is the true UE number.

The chart shown in the op article demonstrate that the theory of zero net job growth isn't true. Do you even know what the term jobless recovery means?

[Double T]

44. And inflation is calculated taking out volatile energy and food.

Manipulating numbers to low-ball horrible reality may be 'believable' to some but not the rest of US. I will refer YOU to backup to reality.

http://chartingtheeconomy.com/?p=1013

http://www.wallstreetgreek.blogspot.com/2009/11/102-unemployment-rate.html

[mkultra]

85. that seems reasonable to me.

volatility does not help discern steady increase in cost. They are underlying drivers anyway. Sorry, but these points you are selling are pretty old and not true. Find something real to be outraged about.

[mdmc]

15. free trade baby!

[lunatica]

20. Trickle down economics

And trickle up government hand-out socialist programs for the haves and have mores.

Who says the Aughts were a failure? Bush administration policies were wonderful for the upper 1%. And they're still paying great dividends.

[treestar]

22. Reading the entire article, it is more positive, however

It is about the lessons learned from the housing bubble, pointing out that the Depression and prior recessions also taught lessons about handling the economy. There is already a handle on what happened, and the last paragraph indicates that things are looking up.

[invictus]

23. That's "free trade" at work. America's biggest export is American jobs.

[DJ13]

24. Its no coincedence that as the MSM promoted the stock market things went bad

The major corporations in the US began tying executive compensation to stock performance, and the result was they no longer want to work at improving their company by making better products, making deals to buy smaller companies was like a meth high to Wall street, creating instant improvements in their stock price.

(Outsourcing ..."reducing costs" as they term it, is basically an example of the same focus on stock valuations to the detriment of everyone else.)

Suddenly every lower paid CEO in every pissant little company in America saw that the fastest means to wealth was to only build up your business until it was big enough to attract attention from a few Fortune 500 companies, let a bidding war commence, then sell out at the first chance.

The side effect was that most often the majority of employees at those smaller companies soon found themselves back in the labor market, most often finding themselves forced to settle for less pay so their new CEO could further pad the balance sheets.

Its a vicious cycle, one that I see the Obama administration seems determined to perpetuate at all costs to the workers here in the US.

[tjwash]

25. Um....hello? Since the 1940's? You sort of answered your own question there.

Remember WWII? Completely bombed out cities and factories in Germany, England, Japan, Italy? Hell, pretty much ALL of Europe's manufacturing bases had been destroyed, and we nuked 2 Japanese cities back to the stone age.

The U.S. infrastructure pretty much emerged from the rubble of WWII unscathed, and was poised to become the manufacturer of the entire world, and boy did we ever take advantage of it...to the point that we just thought that it would last forever. Now the U.S. needs to earn an honest living, competing with the rest of the globe for resources and jobs.

We are not failing...reality has is setting in. There is a whole rest of the world out there, and no matter how much we stamp our feet and hold our breath until we turn blue, they have every right to compete, and every right to kick our asses in labor costs, and proximity to resources.

[kentuck]

32. I disagree.

"...they have every right to compete, and every right to kick our asses in labor costs, and proximity to resources."

It was the American worker that built up this country and built up the middle class and built up the wages to a livable standard and no corporation or politician has a right to destroy that by saying that we must now compete with Third World countries that have been living on a dollar a day. That is not right.

[anigbrowl]

60. Disagree all you like, it's still a fact

you can go on about praising the American worker, but the basic fact is that at the end of WW2 the continental United States had suffered no real war damage while Europe and Japan were in ruins. Not only was the majority of their industrial capacity destroyed, so a whole lot of civilian infrastructure which had to be rebuilt, from London to Moscow in addition to Japan. Then Russia annexed most of Eastern Europe and closed off the Soviet bloc economy to most trade.

Certainly American people worked hard on their own behalf, but to deny that the US had a near-ideal economic environment after WW2 is just silly. As for international compteition, politicians and corporations are telling you what you don't want to hear, but it's the people in those 3rd world countries that have been demanding jobs o their own. The only reason we weren't competing with China years earlier was because they had temporarily gone down the path of Maoism in the misguided belief that a closed economy would best meet their development needs.

You are deeply mistaken if you think we have some automatic right to be at the top of the economic heap. Look back at economic history and you'll see that industrial leadership has always been a movable feast. That's how Europe came to be awash in American goods to begin with - the US was able to out-compete Europe in a variety of ways for the kind of products most people want to buy.

[kentuck]

96. Right!

The jobs we sent to Mexico, by NAFTA, left there and went to Vietnam, Indonesia, and other cheap labor, or slave labor, markets. That is a fact. That doesn't make it right.

[JHB]

101. I've heard that argument before, from Ronald Reagan...

...among others. Our outdated industrial infrastructure was the primary selling point for Reaganomics: cutting taxes (especially upper-bracket personal and corporate income taxes) and deregualtion would solve it.

The money corporations and rich people would no longer be paying in taxes would go towards updating our industrial plant to make us competitive again, the discarding of pesky regulations would unleash our entrepreneurial spirit, yadayadayada. I'm sure you recognize the tune, one variant or another has been playing for 30 years. Including demonizing unions and anything else that might interfere with shoveling as many bucks into one's pocket as possible.

What actually happened? Instead of reinvesting in domestic industries the money largely went into the stock market and "Mergermaina". Mangement-worker "cooperation" programs, supposely implemented to find "bottom-up" ways to improve efficiency, were instead used to create procedure manuals for factories in Mexico or elsewhere out of the country.
And since plauing financial games was more lucrative thanks to the lower top tax rates, it became more worthwhile to ransack entire companies, using debt imposed on them by a leveraged buy-out to bleed assets into the hands of managment and a small group of investors rather than actually running it and making money off of whatever good or service it produced.

So don't point to an outdated infrastructure for a reason for the current economic woes. That was addressed -- by the very forces pushing free trade, deregulation, and low taxes -- and it has never worked as advertised. Instead it has pushed more and more burdens onto the middle and working classes, and while at the same time stagnating or reducing their income.

[comtec]

27. * wasnt [p]Resident in 2000, not everythign is his fault, im sorry to say

The economy didn't crash, really crash until the end of 2000/start of 2001 when it was clear the SC was going to place jr on the high throne because they didn't like Gore (as shows in teh new O'conner bio of that time).

Also sine the world didn't end in 2000 and all the techs did their jobs, they were all rewarded with unemployment in the tech sector to equal the rampant rise in that field in the 90's.

But yeah... the 8 year-long loss of jobs in this country is unforgivable, no matter who is in charge... it just happened to be the rethuglicans.

[yourout]

29. Here is how we create jobs......double the tax rate on anything over $1 mill a year and....

offer tax credits for each job created for the year up to say the living wage plus 10 percent.

[comtec]

42. easier than that, just start enforcing Tariffs and the existing tax laws again

that would being in so much fucking revenue from the rich and force manufacturing back that we'd be able to leap out of this recession (it may be JUST over here in holland, but I am not so optimistic about the US)

[mkultra]

38. uh,.. The GIANT recession maybe

this seems like an odd question. No its not Nafta, NAFTA took effect in 94 and if you look at chart you will see that the 90's had great growth. The tech bubble shows a minor dip at the start of the 00's and then job growth begins until the housing bubble crushes the credit market.

[yourout]

40. I would like to see a chart of manufacturing job creation/growth during the 90s.

[mkultra]

43. well, by all means, go find one.

If your point is that we don't manufacture anything anymore, ill slap you across the face with a chart that shows we are the #1 manufacturer in the World. No, that does not include burgers and fries. That's cold hard manufacturing. We are also the #3 exporter in the world. population growth is usually around 15% per decade and the chart above demonstrates that the bullshit idea of a true "jobless recovery" is false. It is an emotionally charged oversimplification.

[yourout]

45. Ok....how about this.

www.econ.umd.edu/~haltiwan/download/gflows_112906.pdf

Look at the job destruction rate from 1994 to 2003.

I wonder what triggered the rise in the manufacturing job destruction rate and the drop in the manufacturing job creation rate.

I will give you a hint.....it signed it into law on December 8, 1993

[yourout]

46. More here....

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement>

U.S. deindustrialization
For more details on this topic, see NAFTA's Impact on US Employment.

An increase in domestic manufacturing output and a proportionally greater domestic investment in manufacturing does not necessarily mean an increase in domestic manufacturing jobs; this increase may simply reflect greater automation and higher productivity. Although the U.S. total civilian employment may have grown by almost 15 million in between 1993 and 2001, manufacturing jobs only increased by 476,000 in the same time period.<35> Furthermore from 1994 to 2007, net manufacturing employment has declined by 3,654,000, and during this period several other free trade agreements have been concluded or expanded.<35>........

I emphasize this point...."from 1994 to 2007, net manufacturing employment has declined by 3,654,000"

Those jobs were largely middle class and were replaced with service sector jobs and in most cases a drop in income and benefits.

In summation....NAFTA had been a disaster for the manufacturing workers of America.

[pampango]

56. As you point out manufacturing jobs actually increased under Clinton (and NAFTA) 1994-2001.

Manufacturing jobs then decreased greatly under Bush (and NAFTA) from 2001 to 2007. Also, China's rise as a manufacturing powerhouse really started to affect us after Clinton's term. The combination of Bush's horrible policies (tax cuts for the rich, dismantling corporate regulation, shredding the safety net, and attacking unions and workers' rights) and the rise of China, neither connected to NAFTA, had much more to do with our economic, wage and employment problems than did NAFTA.

Europe makes continental free trade work, so there is no reason that advanced economies cannot make make "free trade" with their neighbors work successfully. (The EU has a 27-country free trade zone with 500 million people. We have 3-country free trade zone with 450 million people.) Could it be that it "free trade" works in a progressive environment like the EU and doesn't work so well in the US? (You'll also notice that a progressive country like Canada is not trying to get out of NAFTA.) Perhaps if we had effective national health insurance (or national health care), progressive taxation, solid social safety net, strong union and workers' rights protections, and effective regulation of markets and the financial industry (as Europe does), continental "free trade" would become a central tenet of progressive thought as it is in Europe.

[yourout]

57. While I agree that Bush accelerated the free fall the drop in

manufacturing job creation and upward trend in manufacturing job destruction started almost immediately after signing NAFTA.

[mkultra]

59. like i said, NAFTA took effect in 94

this chart shows no real deviation from past cycles.

The simple fact is that we are transitioning from an industrial society to a technical society. As long as people in other countries use our high end commercial goods and technical services then the money we outlay will always return.

[anigbrowl]

61. Nonsensical

That graph shows a long-term downward trend in manufacturing going back to 1959, trend lines don't get much more obvious than that. We can also see that there were plenty of recessions (along with big swings in manufacturing employment) prior to NAFTA. Your assertion that this trade agreement changed everything is delusional.

[yourout]

62. Yes it was trending slightly downward but NAFTA obviously accelerated the fall.

Starting around 1994 there is a clear acceleration in the job destruction and fall off in the job creation.

[anigbrowl]

64. This is simply not true.

You can see the main downward lurch is leading up and following the 2000 recession, and the failure of employment to recover as it normally did. If you doubt this, put the numbers into a spreadsheet and look at the moving average, standard deviation etc. Sorry to be so blunt, but the data you provided simply do not support the claim you make.

On the broader question, I ask you the same question I ask every opponent of free trade: would the US be better off if we abolished the interstate commerce clause and allowed every state to set tariffs on goods imported from other states? Logically, if you believe that we'd be better off without NAFTA and the free trade it allows between here, Canada, and Mexico, the same should be true of interstate commerce, and we should immediately seek to limit and impose tariffs upon economic traffic between different states.

[mkultra]

73. you seem to be trying to revise history

do you hate the clintons or something?

[yourout]

83. No I dont hate the Clintons....they were the best Republicans in the White House in over 100 years.

[mkultra]

86. so who do you consider a democrat?

DK?

[HughBeaumont]

89. One who isn't under the massive delusion . . ..

. . . that when you offshore someone's function and means of earning, the displaced worker will more often than not find a better paying position elsewhere. In other words, someone who doesn't buy into pro-corporate snake oil and realizes that once offshoring jobs and mass fire-a-thons became vogue during the Bewsh error, American workers have been getting the shaft by the millions in the form of stagnant wages vs ridiculously rising costs of living and piss-poor job creation.

[mkultra]

91. and that would be who in your opinion?

[HughBeaumont]

92. Sherrod Brown. Bernie Sanders. Byron Dorgan. They do exist.

[mkultra]

97. so your saying anyone to the right of them is not a democrat?

[HughBeaumont]

99. Anyone who supports the destruction of one person's livelihood to advance another's isn't.

Whether it's through war, wage stagnation, cutting much needed social programs, being against Universal Health Care, supporting job offshoring, supporting torture, etc.

[mkultra]

100. to bad the democratic party doesnt agree with you

perhaps you should read the party platform. Your not a democrat, your a leftist. There is nothing wrong with that but don't try to take possession of the party name just because we are in power. No, your not the base, and no, most democrats are not like you.

[yourout]

102. Thank you....now you see why I gave up arguing with this free market freak.

[HughBeaumont]

103. The "Big Tent" accommodates too many and doesn't want me, apparently.

Is a "Free Market/Bootstrapperz Democrat" really a Democrat?

I think not.

[mkultra]

104. you dont get to steal the tent and call it your own

your a minority. Clinton and every centrist democrat is a democrat. If anyone isn't, its you.

[HughBeaumont]

105. Ha ha ha, Oh my God, now we're being exclusive . . . like high school. That's what was missing.

Yeah, you go ahead and eat each other alive with the rest of the Demo-tarian party. We'll be under here with the REAL Democrats. You know, the ones who aren't ashamed of the words "liberal", "progressive" or "socialism". :eyes: :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

I'll set up any goddamned tent I please. Guarantee my tent will be a lot more accommodating and fun than yours will.

[mkultra]

106. good luck, maybe you can call it the "Green" tent

you will win for sure. clearly it will be more inclusive allowing only the most liberal in.

[mkultra]

58. ill give you an accurate hint. Automation.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SfRnBcxE0OI/AAAAAAAAJ2M/M57wLGupbgw/s1600/mfg1.bmp

[yourout]

63. Here is a hint for you..

Manufacturing output goes up because what used to be direct employment is now considered a purchase part.

If you can not look at your own chart and come to the conclusion that something drastic happened around 1994 then you are beyond reach.

[mkultra]

71. purchasing parts does not tally as a manufactured good

further assembly does minus the cost of the original part. The chart shows standard cyclical behavior that results from productivity increases.

[girl gone mad]

66. We're only the number 1 manufacturer by way of manipulations..

such as counting sales of military equipment where 95% of the parts are manufactured overseas, but the sum total still gets put on our side of the ledger.

Does anyone without a vested interest really fall for these games anymore?

[mkultra]

70. well, since that is only abotu 10% true, i guess so

back it up and maybe more people will. If you subtract military manufacturing from the final number we would STILL produce more than china and they have twice the people.

[tonysam]

47. The problem is easy to fix. Repeal the last 30 years of neoliberal

economic policies and the country will be back on track.

The real problem is political will and the fact our politicians are bought off by economic elites who PROFIT from ruinous neoliberal economic policies.

[KG]

52. outsourcing and computers/automation

for instance, with AutoCAD, i am much more productive drafting (by a factor i have no way to measure) than a guy drawing on a board.

unfortunately, that improved productivity is not reflected in my pay.

[Hidden Stillness]

53. Simple--Govt. Policy Only for Things that Don't Help, Nothing for What Would Help

I think, simply put, all of the activity of the Federal Government--ALL of it--since the late 1970s certainly, has been directed toward consolidating money and assets for the richest financial intersts, and the richest families personally. Many charts (in Kevin Phillips's book "The Politics of Rich and Poor," etc., etc.) have shown the long-term consolidation of wealth, increasing numbers of millionaires and billionaires even as poverty increased sharply, flat wages, tax shifts from rich (excess-profits and all other corporate taxes, luxury and estate taxes, capital gains, income tax, etc.--all cut) to the middle class and poor (property, sales and payroll tax--all up). During the 1980s, downsizing and mergers, cutting hundreds of thousands, millions of workers at a time--a practice that was once a last resort--now became not only common, but celebrated, with the new kind of bonus-paid headhunter and destroyer of anything considered a "loss to profits" of stockholders and corporate management. (This change has been very well described by the NY Times economic reporter and columnist Louis Uchitelle.) This was the first time I ever heard of the employees themselves referred to not as partners or those who did the work, but as "liabilities" (as opposed to "profit") and as "losses"--much the way the "health" insurance industry now calls paid medical claims "losses."

The kinds of savings that middle class people can do--in bank savings accounts--had all interest rates slashed, personal deductions at the levels the middle class can make for giving to charity were cut during that bastard Reagan's term (this hurt my parents), the tips of watresses were taxed (!!), and stock market trading was beginning to be deregulated. The savings and loan (speculated) crash happened, and tax money bailed them out, union participation fell, factories started to be located elsewhere, and during Clinton, they moved wholesale away from whole regions--such as devastated Michigan--and we were told to "re-train" for unrelated jobs that they moved next.

An increasing part of the economy and its money flow has turned to huge cartels of bundled investment, and tax scams, (such as Sen. Byron Dorgan has explained: U.S. corporations buying sewers and tunnels in Germany, leasing it back to German municpal authorities, and everybody scamming the tax code on the supposed "loss," setting up fake corporate addresses in the tax shelter of the Cayman Islands when they are really American corporations based here, etc., etc.)--profit makers for individual corporations and stockholders only; of totally worthless activity. All of the "great economy" (exactly as during the 1920s) has been for the stock and commodities trading markets, investment consultants, etc., that ilk. The rest of the country has been suffering increasing unemployment for many years, this is not even slightly new. All policy has gone toward further deregulating the financial-investment and tax-evasion activity if these corporate interests and donors. Nothing is directed to jobs programs, helping the poor and middle class, helping those in debt, etc.--nothing, since the Johnson Admin. of the 1960s. We are cut out of the picture. ALL Government activity has gone toward the most useless, unprofitable, destructive, consolidating, and Depression-causing group and type of policy. They couldn't have charted a more direct path if they had tried.

[Vidar]

55. K&R.

[WT Fuheck]

65. republicans.

and gutless democrat sell-outs.

During the same period, the wealth of the top 1% has skyrocketed.

It is theft, pure and simple.

[mmonk]

67. Places like India are too long of a commute for some.

[RainDog]

68. NAFTA thanks Clinton!

it's not just republican policies that have screwed people in this country.

we see the same thing now with Obama and the wall street bail out and the current insurance and pharma rape of Americans.

thanks so much, democrats for the hope and change!

[FLAprogressive]

69. Reagan-Bush-Clinton capitalism.

[New Dawn]

75. The DLC/GOP's NAFTA is to blame.

They sent (and continue to send) all of our decent paying jobs overseas. Now, increasingly, all we have left are Wal-Mart/McDonalds type jobs (in terms of the wages/benefits that they pay).

[pampango]

80. Canada and Mexico are not the problem. China is.

Canada is our #2 export market (20.1%). Mexico is #3 (11.7%). (The EU is our #1 export market <21.2%>.)
We get 15.7% of our imports from Canada, 10.1% from Mexico, and 17.4% from the EU.

China, on the other hand, is the source of 16.5% of our imports (#2 behind the EU), but only 5.5% of our exports go to China. That where our trade deficit problems are centered, not with Canada and Mexico.

http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=E&Country=E27,CN,US,DE

[Subdivisions]

77. One word: Oil.

Since U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 and we became an oil importer we've been in one long decline. Now that world oil production has peaked and is in decline, this oil-based empire will decline with it, as will the entire world.

[Nikki Stone1]

87. "Free Trade" agreements that moved jobs to the cheapest labor pools.

We'll be there soon. Somewhere I see them waiting for us to beg for minimum wage jobs with no retirement or benefits.

[lib2DaBone]

90. We have no leadership.. other than what the Bankers want...

America should be going full speed ahead to wards a high-tech, high wage economy with health care for all.

We should be working on high speed rail and re-newable fuel, rebuilding the electric grid, offering free advanced education for those interested in Mathematics and engineering.

We should dump the Federal Reserve, get control of our money supply and offer "INTEREST FREE" LOANS To companies (big and small) who want to rebuild. Reinstate Glass-Steegal and invoke a Tobin Tax on Wall street if they insist on trading with derivatives.

Get rid of NAFTA, CAFTA and all the rest of the nonsense. And Oh ya.. bring the troops home.

This country could prosper and pay off the budget deficit within 5 years.. just from the money saved on the WOT and the WOD.

But none of this will happen. Because the BANKERS and WALL STREET run the country... they have since 1913. (and well before) The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."

Obama is just a puppet. He is doing what he is told to do.. just like all of Congress and Senate are bought and paid for by the Bankers. Just like Bush Junior and Clinton did what they were told to do. We have no leadership and there is no mandate for change.. the American people are too dumb to care and THAT'S not about to change with all the Ditto heads running around.

[workinclasszero]

93. Millions and millions of jobs were created...

In Mexico, India and China. But zero here, hmm.

You dont supposed the two are related in some way?

NAW! Free trade globalism is aces with me!:puke:

[court jester]

98. Some jobs lost:: Bay Bridge steel set to be shipped from China

I wanted to post this in General D but I can't yet-low count

hopefully someone that has enough posts could make it a stand alone article.
Jobs Jobs Jobs and stuff...

"Bay Bridge steel set to be shipped from China"



With much fanfare and celebration - by Chinese steelworkers and Caltrans officials alike - the first steel pieces of the new Bay Bridge suspension span were prepared to ship out of Shanghai on Tuesday - more than a year late but in time to meet a Dec. 31 deadline that officials hope will keep construction on schedule for a 2013 opening.

"It's momentous," said Ken Terpstra, Caltrans' project manager for the Bay Bridge, from Shanghai where workers staged a ceremony complete with daytime fireworks. "It was a hard, challenging road, but they're ready to go."

The first shipment, delayed by welding problems, includes eight huge wing-shaped deck pieces that will hang over Yerba Buena Island. They're expected to arrive in the Bay Area in about four weeks, depending on weather and sea conditions. After clearing customs inspections and being unbolted from the ship transporting them, they'll be lifted atop the temporary trestle north of the existing bridge and rolled into place

"This is really big," said Bart Ney, a Caltrans spokesman, who was also in China. "We're literally kicking off the new year with the start of construction of the suspension span."

edit: add->http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/30/BA481BB5CF.DTL
----------------------------/----------------------------

It's "Big" and "Momentous" all right

Maybe we owe them so much for funding our killing spree that they've required
the US to buy the steel from them.

Who has the gold makes the rules or something


"Faulty Welding"
In an Earthquake zone??