Posted on 01/06/2010 3:16:48 AM PST by Scanian
Think working folks are happy to have a job -- ANY job -- in this miserable economy? Think again.
The number of Americans who reported being happy with their careers dropped to an all-time low -- 45 percent -- in a new survey that found people are more miserable than ever in nearly every aspect of their work lives.
Job satisfaction in 2009 was down from 61 percent in 1987, the first year of the Conference Board survey, and it's a 4-point drop from 2008.
Only 51 percent now find their jobs interesting -- another low in the survey's 22 years. In 1987, nearly 70 percent said they were interested in their work.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Looks like not evreybody is hungry yet.
Here’s betting their jobs will look a lot better after they’re lost.
Well gosh.
What a surprize. “Free trade” is eliminating most every good job in America, leaving nothing eventually but Walmart greeting and hamburger flipping.
And American workers are starting to think work sucks?
Who would have thunk it. Another clue for the “free trade” contingent:
EVERY ONE of the workers who are laid off to outsourcing, or manufacturing shipped overseas.
Becomes a permanent p*ssed off democrat.
Now explain again how “free trade” is a good thing?
When you come out of school in the tenth grade, and the only way to make a living with your hands is to cut other people’s lawns, you’re not a professional rapper like you thought you’d be (damn white suburban parents) and you won’t make enough to live large; you might be unhappy with your job.
Free trade is good for Wall Street.
1) Banks earn financing letters of credit used in purchasing goods.
2) Banks earn fees on transactions involved in closing factories and selling off the equipment.
3) Banks earn interest on deposits from cash received by selling off company assets.
4) Banks earn fees when company buys back stock from cash realized in selling off assets.
5) Banks are involved in numerous transactions involved in setting up new supply lines and financing new factories offshore.
6) Banks earn fees on foreign exchange transactions involved in imports.
Big government benefits from free trade:
1) Shutdown of US factories increases demand for government services - unemployment compensation, retraining, food stamps, welfare
2) Shutdown of US factories creates political pressure for government to “do something”.
3) Shutdown of US factories creates public anger toward private sector employees.
4) Foreign governments, agents and companies represent new sources of funding for political campaign due to loopholes in campaign finance rules. Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Obama in 2008 benefited from offshore laundered contributions.
5) Foreign trade agreements and participation in international trade organizations (WTO) create more work for the State Department and other agencies of the bureaucracy.
Bump!!
Because people are able to buy products and services based on whether those products and services are cheaper, better or faster. They are not forced to buy goods and services to prop up a internal producer that makes crap, but that is politically well-connected.
See for instance: General Motors.
You seem to think that American manufacturers can't compete with foreigners. To the extent that that's true, have a guess which of the following factors are to blame.
* Unions who can rely on Democrats to bail them out of their own folly.
* Excessive corporate taxation
* Excessive environmental regulation
* Government mandated set-asides and affirmative action
* Poorly educated workforce.
* A mindset that blames competition for all ills, rather than trying to, you know, compete.
If American industries are hamstrung, then de-hamstring them. Don't blame the rest of the world for doing a good job - try doing one yourself.
Free Trade is not free when we must abide by regulations other countries do not.
Wall Street and Congress (and Republicans) needs to wake the eff up to this fact!
I know a plumber who quit his job to cut grass and shovel snow because the money was better..
Only 51 percent now find their jobs interesting
Well .. we told little Johnny but he just wouldn't listen.
That BA in Assyrian Literature ain't gonna pay the rent.
So now he works at Pizza Hut and moans.
But hey, if you ever have a question on Assyrian Literature he is the go to guy.
Mark Perry is an Economics Professor and is a strong advocate of Free Markets/Free Trade. Perry's website Carpe Diem is http://mjperry.blogspot.com/ where this article, “Nations Don't Trade With Each Other;Individuals Do’ delves into the benefits of trade...there’s always more to the story than the anti-free market types want to believe. Don't be misled.
...We've replaced thinking and autonomy with procedures and documentation.
We've instituted a scheme where people are promoted for their race and gender rather than their ability.
We've made it fashionable to demean those in jobs where something useful is built, while simultaneously glorifying useless paper-pushing bureaucratic positions.
We've moved to centralized control, ignoring individuality and innovation.
A job is no longer a goal - it's merely a means to an end.
The only thing worse than a job that sucks is no job at all.
In the article “Nations Don’t Trade With Each Other;Individuals Do”, Mark Perry writes:
“Bottom Line: Starting with the fallacy that countries, not individuals, engage in international trade, it’s then much harder to realize that it’s individual American companies and consumers who are penalized, taxed and disadvantaged by trade protection. “
Mark Perry conveniently sidesteps the onerous levels of taxation, environmental regulation, political correctness imposed upon American workers and companies which make it impossible for them to compete with workers and companies in countries such as China and India are lack what we would consider even bare bones humane working conditions, environmental regulations and any semblance of political correctness.
I wonder how Mark Perry would feel about living downstream from a Chinese factory, or in a country where there is a word for ‘over-work death’ (guolaosi), or in a country where as a child of a lower caste he might have been ‘indentured’ to pay off a family loan.
All those ‘free trade’ agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA, etc were instituted between governments (not individuals) without removing impediments to the competitiveness of American workers or companies.
V. Lenin, I mean algernonj you seem to be on the wrong board here @ FR! WTH is it about your strawman argument about unFree Trade and Chinese factories? You do realize that US Mfrs are reacting and prospering even though they have been put at a disadvantage by bad policies from a corrupted bigazz government supporting a Social Welfare aka Socialistic society....just think how much better mfrs would be doing w/o the crap that the Leftist/PC/Environazis have done to the Economy here. There would be a lot more mfg jobs & general wealth also.
I think it unlikely, but don't know for sure..
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