America Needs a Job

[WilliamPitt]

America Needs a Job
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 27 January 2009

The hardest work in the world is being out of work.

- Whitney Young Jr.

The news to begin the week could not have been any more jarring.

Due to a stark downturn in demand for glass used in flat-screen televisions and computers, Corning Inc. announced it would be cutting 3,500 jobs, or 13 percent of its payroll. Sprint Nextel Corp. announced it would be cutting 8,000 jobs. General Motors announced it would be cutting 2,000 workers, with the announcement coming on the heels of prior GM announcements that they had slashed output across the board by 20 percent, and that they will idle 14 of their 24 North American assembly plants for undetermined periods in the upcoming third and fourth quarters.

Pfizer Inc. announced it will be cutting 8,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its workforce; upon the completion of Pfizer's purchase of ailing Wyeth, Pfizer is expected to have cut 20,000 jobs in total. Home Depot announced it was cutting 7,000 jobs and abandoning its Expo business. Caterpillar, the heavy equipment company, announced it would cut 20,000 jobs from its payroll.

The Dallas Morning News reported on Monday that, "The US economy has dropped 2.59 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, and unemployment rose to 7.2 percent last month. Some analysts worry that the economy could now be losing as many as 600,000 jobs a month, and they said Monday's layoff announcements served to underline the stricken state of the labor market."

"The latest job cuts - and the additional announcements likely to come in a cascading pattern as job losses through the economy cause demand to shrink further and thus lead to more layoffs -mean more pain for states, as unemployment insurance claims rise and deplete state coffers," continued the report.

The current political fight over President Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan, if conducted by responsible officials whose concerns lie only with the plight of the American worker, would be focused almost exclusively on the incredible national peril represented by these newest unemployment reports.

That is not the case.

Instead, congressional Republicans have decided to obstruct every aspect of the proposed stimulus plan, simply to prove to Obama and the nation they still exist. They want more tax cuts, and further want no part in the wide variety of jobs programs the president wants funded and activated immediately.

(snip)

A friend of mine, a restaurant manager, just got laid off. So did another friend who was a recruiter for a large financial institution. Another friend, a paralegal, was laid off and has not been able to find work for months. A friend's girlfriend was in marketing and got laid off. Another friend's wife was also in marketing and also got laid off. Three other friends of mine besides these have likewise lost their jobs in recent weeks, and none have been able to find anything since.

Those are just some of the people I know. There are millions more like them. The Republican Party will be more than satisfied to see them idle for as long as it takes to make sure the Democrats can't help us out of this mess. It is a disgusting, despicable display.

America needs a job. The Republicans who have jobs and are thwarting this stimulus package should be ashamed. More to the point, they should be dismissed with cause. They do not deserve to be laid off, but should be fired outright.

The rest: http://www.truthout.org/012709R

[Jack Bone]

1. here's a song for the soundtrack...

Gary U.S. Bonds - Out Of Work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKxfxixwdXE

If memory serves me..members of The E Street Band played on this cult classic from the 80's

Maybe Bruce can add it to his setlist for this tour?

[infidel dog]

2. America needs a job. So does this American. Mr. Obama, beware the disloyal opposition

who gather under the Symbol of the Elephant and please don't allow them to brutalize our people and nation worse than they already have. The times are very hard, Sir.

[rocktots]

3. Yup

We have outsources alot of our important jobs. There is a Republican from Ohio who wants only AMERICANS hired, and to cut HB-1B Visa holders FIRST. Lost the article, but I don't see any movement to bring back American jobs.

A Government 'infrastructure' stimulus package as proposed will not be selling stuff to other countries, and will only be a short term benefit, because we have to borrow the money to pay for it from foreigners. (thanks to Bushy's Neo-con criminals.)

We have to take some of those EXPORTED jobs BACK, and for gods sake, we need to stop supporting the world, it does not work! I don't see that happening, and the Commercial Real-estate bubble is going to pop around April-May.

As they have been harping on us for some time now, America will have LOWER LIVING STANDARDS. They are reducing us slowly to third world status, as talked about gleefully on Charlie Rose. No one seems to care.

[WilliamPitt]

5. Two thoughts.

If your argument is advocating trade tarriffs, I'm not sure that's the best option. Consider the example of Caterpillar, one of the companies highlighted in my essay, which is cutting 20,000 jobs. Caterpillar, along with many other American heavy-equipment companies, sells a lot of stuff to international buyers; China, for one, has been building like crazy, and has bought a load of stuff from Caterpillar. If we throw up trade barriers, companies like Caterpillar will get annihilated.

As for "supporting the world," I'd argue America is at it's best when we do just that. We pay farmers in Columbia to grow crops besides cocoa, which (in theory) damages the cocaine business. We build schools in Pakistan and kids there have access to real knowledge, sparing them a Koran-and-Hate education in a madrassa. Foreign aid is a matter of national defense...we don't help that farmer, and he's making coke for FARC. We don't build that school in Pakistan, and kids become fanatics for lack of other opportunities.

Thoughts?

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Just that cocoa is a source of chocolate

and we pay folks not to grow 'coca' from which comes cocaine

cocoa makes chocolate, not as yet a controlled item.

[WilliamPitt]

8. Duh.

Thanks. Sharp as a sack of wet mice, I am.

[anonymous171]

11. And if those countries don't want to provide for us, we invade them.

See the problem now?

[bigtree]

4. we legislated around them at the start of the Clinton administration

I expect we will again, with republicans left traversing the same broken ground that Newt stumbled and fell on.

Remember how they said the increase in the minimum wage would bankrupt small businesses? We ended up with a revolution in the growth of small businesses in his term.

[antimatter98]

6. Yes, and America needs a business plan---that puts workers in the equation, not banks. n/t

[northofdenali]

9. You're becoming a legend, my friend -

in the "Letters - Unfiltered" section of our red state, with good reviews (Anchorage Daily News):

http://community.adn.com/adn/node/137335

Ah, Will, and I knew you "when"........... sigh (giggle). :hi:

[shintao]

10. Incentives to hire

America needs a job. The Republicans who have jobs and are thwarting this stimulus package should be ashamed. More to the point, they should be dismissed with cause. They do not deserve to be laid off, but should be fired outright.

I think there would have to be proof established to show any company or executive intentionally laid off workers to hurt the American economy. Hard thing to be able to prove.

I do recall some talk floating across the inetrnet about companies laying off people with Obama bumper stickers in their parking lots. That may also just be hype.

Perhaps there should be a tax penalty for every worker laid off, and tax break for everyone hired.

I do hope that this marks the end of foreign aid, and freebies to corporations.

If there is a conspiracy theory to follow it would be Big Oils gouging that sparked the slow down of the economy, business losses, transporation, layoffs, bankruptcys, homes foreclosures, etc. This threatened National Security, as does any company intentionally laying off to hurt America. IMO

[Richd506]

12. I myself need a job

I live in Royal Oak Michigan (that's in the Detroit metro area) and it's killing me up here...