Posted on 07/27/2005 6:21:50 AM PDT by A. Pole
The June payroll jobs report did not receive much attention due to the July 4 holiday, but the depressing 21st century job performance of the U.S. economy continues unabated.
Only 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services.
Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services.
Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance.
Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses and bartenders.
Membership associations and organizations created 10,000 jobs, and repair and maintenance created 4,000 jobs.
Financial activities created 16,000 jobs.
This most certainly is not the labor market profile of a First World country, much less a superpower.
Where are the jobs for this year’s crop of engineering and science graduates?
U.S. manufacturing lost another 24,000 jobs in June. A country that doesn’t manufacture doesn’t need many engineers. And the few engineering jobs available go to foreigners.
Readers have sent me employment listings from U.S. software development firms. The listings are discriminatory against American citizens. One ad from a company in New Jersey that is a developer for many companies, including Oracle, specifies that the applicant must have a TN visa.
A TN or Trade NAFTA visa is what is given to Mexicans and Canadians who are willing to work in the United States at below prevailing wages.
Another ad from a software consulting company based in Omaha, Neb., specifies it wants software engineers who are H-1B transferees. What this means is that the firm is advertising for foreigners already in the United States who have H-1B work visas.
The reason the U.S. firms specify that they have employment opportunities only for foreigners who hold work visas is because the foreigners will work for less than the prevailing U.S. salary.
Gentle reader, when you read allegations that there is a shortage of engineers in America, necessitating the importation of foreigners to do the work, you are reading a bald-faced lie. If there were a shortage of American engineers, employers would not word their job listings to read that no American need apply and that they are offering jobs only to foreigners holding work visas.
What kind of country gives preference to foreigners over its own engineering graduates?
What kind of country destroys the job market for its own citizens?
How much longer will parents shell out $100,000 for a college education for a son or daughter who ends up employed as a bartender, waitress or temp?
And don't forget our philosophers, journalists, media pundents, lobbiests, athletes, actors, environmentalists and other "useful" trades that make a society trully a powerful economy.
I try not to speculate. I'm not a gambler by nature.
The kind who's philosophical horizons don't extend further then "self". There is self and screw everyone else.
Our elites live comfortable lives secluded from society in general. They make much of their money off of interest on investments and don't have to ever think of how they are going to keep roofs over their families' heads and food on the plates. It's easy to be philosophical about "some" people suffering and the greater good when you live apart from the rest of reality.
Lets not forget that most engineers in India and China get their degrees paid for by their governments. Much easier that way.
May I then suggest that you take a look at one of the 13,000 engineers that IBM fired here and in Europe or the 10,000 or so that HP is planning on laying off.
Time to stop crowing about slight statistical upticks that don't begin to actually represent the mass restoration that is needed, to prevent wholesale calamity. The industrial base damage has been absolutely phenomenal. If this was done by Chinese bombs, what they have instead done by their "peaceful rise" [ wherein the PRC pays next to nothing for any of the technology-transferred, but coerces it out of their "partners" or just steal it outright, and pirate intellectual property right and left, leaving the "owners" of those rights destitute]... we would have nuked Bejing by now 20 times over.
Meanwhile, our weakening economy is leading to further erosion of our ability even to maintain the ever shrinking defense cottage industry:
Navy officer warns of Chinese subs
BUILDUP: China is boosting its submarine force with the eventual aim of preventing the US from coming to the aid of Taiwan, a retired US military official said
By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Wednesday, Jul 27, 2005,Page 3
A former senior US naval officer warned Monday that within 20 years, China will have the ability to wreak havoc on US naval forces going to Taiwan's defense against a Chinese attack.
Such a defeat of the US navy by a Chinese force "will ruin America as we know it today," Vice Admiral Al Konetzni said. He was testifying before a hearing of a commission formed by the Pentagon earlier this year to probe plans for closing dozens of US military bases in a bid to save money.
Konetzni was testifying at a hearing in Boston on plans to close the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, one of 33 major bases slated for closure under the Defense Department's base closure initiative.
He made his comments less than a week after the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on China's military buildup, which warned of a grave threat to Taiwan stemming from China's military modernization and of its submarine force expansion.
A key role for Chinese submarines, the report and US military experts note, would be to prevent the US from coming close enough to aid Taiwan by essentially closing off the Taiwan Strait to US vessels and troops, allowing China to complete its attack on Taiwan without US interference.
"I see one punch in the nose [from the Chinese], and it will ruin America as we know it today."-- Former US navy vice admiral Al Konetzni
China's submarine force is larger than the US', and "in the year 2025, they'll have three times [as many as the US] at the rate we're doing business," Konetzni told the base closing commission hearing.
"I see a problem with Taiwan," he added.
"I see us putting our white hats on and going across the world and getting there" in the case of hostile Chinese military action against Taiwan requiring a US response, he said.
"And I see one punch in the nose, and it will ruin America as we know it today," Konetzni told the commission.
Until his recent retirement, Konetzni was the deputy commander of the naval command that covered Europe, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Before that he spent three years as commander of submarines in the Pacific and before that, three years in Japan and South Korea.
He testified in opposition to the closure of the New London submarine base.
There are 400 submarines in the world today, he said. China now has a larger force than the US' and in 10 years China will have twice as many submarines as the US. By 2025, the gap will rise to three-to-one, he testified.
Konetzni said that the US has fewer submarines in the Pacific than it has needed, even with the stationing of additional subs in Guam at the end of the 20th century.
"Today, we can deploy nine -- we can stretch it to 10 -- submarines at a time. Our [combat commanders] ... have a requirement for critical requirements of up to 13," he said.
"The fact is, over 30 percent of critical peacetime missions are missed annually. That means we didn't know much about the Chinese [or their] Yuan-class being launched last year," he said.
Ironically, the New London facility is one of the shipbuilding sites that could be involved in building the diesel subs that the Bush administration has been pressing Taiwan to purchase since 2001.
The Electric Boat Division of the defense contracting giant General Dynamic Corp has a variety of docks reserved for ship building, refitting and repair, which builds submarines for the US navy and for sale abroad under US official foreign arms sales programs.
General Dynamics has been named as a potential supplier of the eight submarines that are part of the NT$410.8 billion (US$12.8 billion) arms-sales package that has been held up in the legislature by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its allies.
"The magic word is tariffs ..."
One problem with this "solution" is that most tariffs are enormously expensive (to consumers) per job saved. We'd be much better off using tax revenue to pay the affected workers to stay home. At least then, the consumers would enjoy the benefits of lower-priced goods and the (former) workers would enjoy their leisure time.
TOKYO (AP) -- Japan reportedly will introduce retaliatory steel tariffs on U.S. steel products in September. But the government's top spokesman says the duties won't harm relations between the two major trading partners.
Japanese media reports say the country plans to impose a 15 percent retaliatory tariff on about ten products in response to duties imposed by the United States on Japanese steel products under the Byrd amendment. That's an antidumping law ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization
You forget about loss of economic base. Such loss cannnot be calculated and can undo the nation. How would USA look if the protective tariffs were not in place in XIXc and American economy were like Argentina or Brasil?
No, it is better to suffer some "loss" and keep workers creating something.
Hey, that's the reason I left the stock market!
The stock market would seem a sucker's play for the small time guy these days. It doesn't seem to reflect the current economic reality. Massive amounts of money bouncing around through hedge fund and institutional guys. Even their pay is screwy -- 28 year old hedge fund guys making $5 million a year. What the heck is that about?
Interesting story, although I wonder why the CFO lied to you.
Obviously, any US-made product that could be sold at a "1000% markup" could also be profitably exported from the US.
"Off-shoring" just wouldn't make sense.
Interesting story, although I wonder why the CFO lied to you.
Obviously, any US-made product that could be sold at a "1000% markup" could also be profitably exported from the US.
"Off-shoring" just wouldn't make sense.
But if you have to present the bona fides for PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS it's a pretty sad commentary on the state of present day FReeperhood!
Interesting story, although I wonder why the CFO lied to you.
Obviously, any US-made product that could be sold at a "1000% markup" could also be profitably exported from the US.
"Off-shoring" just wouldn't make sense.
Interesting story, although I wonder why the CFO lied to you.
Obviously, any US-made product that could be sold at a "1000% markup" could also be profitably exported from the US.
"Off-shoring" just wouldn't make sense.
That's what I'm doing...takes longer, but let me tell ya, I'm earning my degree in more ways than one!
"That's what I'm doing...takes longer, but let me tell ya, I'm earning my degree in more ways than one!"
Well, good for you!
p.s. yes, your page is "on".
Many American kids don't work hard because they don't have to...
Oh, they have to -- they just don't realize it yet. Imagine their surprise. No doubt they will blame their parents in later years...
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