Economic Growth Without Jobs - El Universal/Mexico

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Catch-22. Work hard, invest your money for retirement, and watch your job disappear because you invested your money.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/58776/economic-growth-without-jobs/

It was estimated that 540,000 jobs would materialize in the month of May, but only 431,000 were created. Of those 431,000 created, 411,000 were temporary jobs with the U.S. Census Bureau. Despite this misleading increase, the unemployment rate stands at 9.7 percent, equivalent to 15 million people of working age. Who is responsible for this situation?

The truth is that jobs are moving to the developing world, with China and India in the lead. The first case involves blue-collar jobs (manufacturing), while the second case pertains to white-collar jobs (service). For the United States, these are frightening predictions. According to the World Bank, in the year 2030, more than 65 percent of world manufacturing will come from developing countries ("Global Economic Prospects," Dec. 13, 2006). Alan Blinder, director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University, says that at the same time, the area of interpersonal services — those which can be provided at a distance by electronic means — is destined to disappear in the developed world, relocating to developing countries ("Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution," Foreign Affairs, New York, March/April, 2006).

The reason for this migration of jobs is clear. Under the impact of productive competition without borders or restraint, cost reduction has become a dogma for businesses. The pressure to respond to the demands of immediate profitability, represented by quarterly reports, is the key to this fierce competition. Large corporations face off to attract the favor of millions of anonymous shareholders, shedding anything that might be a weight on their bids for higher yields.

But who is the anonymous shareholder determining the dynamics in advance? This is none other than the actual worker or clerk who trembles at the prospect of being fired in the next group of jobs being moved to Asia. Through trading and seeking the best performance in pension funds or mutual funds, or through small investments in stock, the worker has become the central axis of the very economic process that threatens to exclude him. By way of a curious circular process, victim and assailant have thus become the same person.

[JDPriestly]

1. This is the vicious circle we Americans are caught in.

And what is at stake is not just the second car or the vacation on the lake. It's the things we take for granted like garbage collection and running water, a natural gas line that doesn't explode, a highway with safe bridges, schools for our children.

Now, people are talking about cutting back on Social Security. Tomorrow they will be talking about charging fees for fire department protection, police protection, the garbage collector, school enrollment. We are becoming a third world country and fast.

We have to curb cheap imports. We have to tax what comes into the country.

If you can think of some other way to stop the race to the bottom in our economy, I would be happy to hear what you have to say. But, I've thought about this a lot. I think we need a tax, a big tax on imports from third-world countries. If we don't bring that in, we will end up living like people do in India only we'll be stuck in ugly, dangerous, hostile big cities with no way to get out.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. I kind of like that old idea: "Workers of the WORLD unite".

Trade barriers have repercussions and create another Catch-22. In order to produce the stuff that we could only sell to ourselves, we would still have to import stuff from 3rd world countries. Raw materials like minerals and oil. Also, the underpaid workers here wouldn't be able to buy cheap imports which make their lives livable, including essentials like food and clothing....unless their wages are raised. Which, obviously, would cause an inflationary spiral.

Workers, around the world, are being oppressed by the corporations. And, being used by the corporations, and the corporations' middle-men the politicians, to compete with each other. Essentially saying to them, "If you don't do the job, at the wages we set, harder, faster, better, than the workers in country A, B, C, we'll go to country A, B, C, where the workers will do it for less, do it faster, better, etc.

As long as the workers fight each other internationally, the corporations have a free hand.

IMO, the only thing that would stop the dominance of corporations, the real bosses (as opposed to the governments), is for the workers to unite internationally.

[lib2DaBone]

2. Sadly.. it doesn't have to be this way... we don't HAVE to have a "race to the Bottom"...

..We have a "Race-to-the-Bottom" because this is what Goldman Sachs and the Elite Class want. Cheap obdient labor and big profits for themselves.

Mr. Obama should have implemented a massive public works job program and started planning a
High Tech/High Wage economy.

How about free college classes for students willing to take Math, Engineering and Chemistry?

Put people to work upgrading the Electric Grid, Electric Cars, high-speed rail and Wind Energy.

All it would take to transition to this type of economy is a leader with courage and a vision.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. kick

[leftstreet]

5. K&R

Interesting article!