For every one job that opens in America, there are five people waiting to fill it

[debbierlus]

This is from Bob Herbert's article in the NYT..
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html?th&emc=th

I am so sick of this pretending. I see NO evidence of a recovery where I live. The downtown storefronts are empty. There are no jobs being created here. Foreclosures are up. Mass glut of houses on the market.

It is so insulting that recovery is defined by Wall St numbers and not the reality of the people. Of course, Wall St numbers are improving. We just borrowed off the backs of our kids to keep the game rigged and in play.

It is so damn depressing.

The people are broke. We are in a depression, and without jobs, there is NO recovery unless you count the wealthy fascists dictators economic security as recovery.

[glowing]

1. At this point, the govt needs to make up jobs just to pay people. Otherwise,

the c.c. will go unpaid, homes foreclosed, young children even less educated, and social services completely gutted. If no one works, taxes go unpaid. Revenue for govt is down, and the debts increase higher and higher... What do you think the young people without a job will do, go to war... cannon fodder. Good thing we've got a few fronts to choose from.

[Jkid]

6. May I suggest expanding amtrak to European standards?

Electrify all railways, make all stations staffed, nationalize the freight rail companies so that there will be no more delays on passenger trains, make non-sleeper intercity trains free or low-fare for everyone, and get GM to make trains for America.

[glowing]

7. I thought, since we own two car companies, that we would make that mandate

Similar to how FDR changed them into a war machine.. we would change at least one of them into a high-speed train manufacturer... Creating mass transit would employ so many people.. from scientits, to engineers, to office workers... It would literally swoop up the unemployed to mass transit our nation.. High-speed transit, in city-lines/ subways.. all being able to access hubs to the airport. I just don't understand why a mandate cannot be given.. and make it happen.

[Jkid]

10. Even better, turn airports into transport centers

Airplanes would be only allowed to fly international and/or cross-continental routes, or any destination over 500 miles. Most of the gates in national airports can be transitioned from airplanes to trains.

[glowing]

11. Or made into a mega-hub port....

[Jkid]

12. What's a mega-hub port?

[glowing]

14. Something I just coined.. A place where planes, trains, and in-city transit

meet. This way a car is just not necessary to travel around our major cities.

[starroute]

17. Except most airports are too far out of town

Airports have to be on the outskirts because of noise, and people are willing to take the extra time to get there because they save it on the flight.

But there is little point to putting a major train station out in the boondocks somewhere that you can't even get to except by driving a car. Rail hubs need to be closely associated with major centers of population and commerce.

[joeybee12]

2. For a long time now, there has been a real disconnect between Wall Street

and the health of the US economy...the MSM still acts as if this isn't so.

[endless october]

3. "free" trade is a failure.

[Ohio Joe]

4. pfffffht... thats nothing, try being a mainframe programmer

I WISH I only had five competitors for each job I tried for.

[Vincardog]

15. I thought I was the last dinosaur where are the MF jobs?

[Ohio Joe]

19. India

I've been out of work just over a year now and there is nobody hiring in Ohio. I've been sending resumes all over the country and I'm not even getting nibbles. It sucks, there is very little I can't do on a mainframe but... nobody seems to be hiring.

[SoCalDem]

5. The 'throaway people" are front and center, where we can see them all

We have always had "them", but until recently, they managed to get "jobs". These people don't get "careers".

They are the day-to-day laborers, the ones who probably did not finish high school, or who may have had run ins with the law in their early years. They are the women who have several kids, no husband, no child support, and who wait tables, sweep up, or tend other people's kids & homes. They are the maintenance workers, the yard tenders, car washers, etc.

In good economy, things hum along, and enough of these people find work, to just barely get along, but those days are ending now, and there they are.. a whole bunch of people who cannot support themselves, and they re somehow supposed to support not only themselves, but their kids too.

They will launch a whole new generation of "throwaways" who have seen nothing of the world, except their own little sliver of poverty.

In past times, these people did manage, because there were jobs to be had that involved manual labor, but mechanization and computerization knocked out many levels that they used to have available to them for advancement. A woman could get a job as a phone operator,...a guy might get a job at a foundry, or at a garage, and work his way up to better jobs. Now we have phone robots, and we don't manufacture much of anything these days..

the only manual labor jobs we have now, are paying so little, that people literally can't afford to do them.

[HughBeaumont]

8. The private sector, in the past 10 years, has averaged less than 19 thousand jobs created per MONTH.

You need at least 150k per month to accommodate incoming/outgoing workers. We're now going on 15 and soon to be 16 straight MONTHS of job losses.

I mean, WHERE in business school did these anti-Keynesian idiots completely MISS that you sort of need to have, you know, gainfully employed people if you want a functioning, stable and sustainable economy???

Did it somehow slip their minds that sending your manufacturing base overseas and offshoring/inshoring all of your white collar work is going to amount to a whole lot of American workers with too few, if ANY, living wage jobs for them?

Was it actually a GOAL of the Larry Elisons, Al Dunlaps, Jack Welches, Bill Gates, Lee Raymonds and Carly Fiorinas of the world to create a North American peonage like its Southern counterparts did in the '50s-'70s? In all honesty, HOW did they think not paying and employing Americans so they could, you know, afford to buy your products was going to turn out?

Or maybe they did and flat out just did not care?

Because "hey, you can't eat or one of your family members is sick? WHO CARES??? I got mine, and that's ALL that fucking MATTERS to ME."

Nobody cares. They knew no revolt was going to happen. We're like docile mice people. Here's a nice shiny toy to play with. Here's your sugar bottle. Now don't mind us as we rob you of your livelihood and reduce what you do, all that you studied long and hard for, to a mere hobby or a flight of fancy!

And people wonder why WALL-E was one of my favorite movies: if we're not careful, we're going to end up just like this. Only there'll be no "Axiom" to take our rotund jumpsuited asses into space on our floating internet loungers, because there'll be no money left after the rich vacuum it all up.

[debbierlus]

9. It is indeed sad & sick..

[OhioChick]

13. I agree with you...

Cleveland has gotten to be such a depressed area. (Never recovered from NAFTA years ago)

Until we do something to stop all of the blue collar jobs being sent to China and the white collar to India....this will only worsen.

K&R

[moondust]

16. How many millions of jobs have been shipped offshore?

Compare that to the millions of Americans now unemployed or underemployed with fading hope of ever having just a decent middle class life without a lot of luxuries.

Does "national security" include protection from national economic devastation? Where have the forces of "national security" been for the past 25 years? Helping to facilitate the devastation?

[progressoid]

18. Oh, stop yer bitchin'.

All that bail-out money will trickle down to us real soon!!