America’s Descent Into the Third World

Chronicles Magazine ^ | Monday, July 25, 2005 | Paul Craig Roberts

[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?

[iconoclast]

or fall lower than the U.S.

That's pure crap.

But it could very well be in our future.

[durasell]

I have no loyalties to multi-culturalism. I was simply stating a fact. Now you can accept that fact or not. But in America in the 21st century nobody gets a "free ride." The cost of admission is ambition, creativity and education.

[iconoclast]

Where in the Constitution does it say that every American has a good paying job?

It isn't.

It's in our recent history.

What is about that fact that you find so irritating?

[A. Pole]

I'd hire the foreign one over the American every time.

Is it legal? Do you hire younger over the older ones? Do you hire whites over blacks? Do you hire Catholics?

[KevinDavis]

Simple, I'm a Constitutionalist.. Translation, if there is nothing about good paying job, then there is no right of a good paying job. Look it up..

[iconoclast]

Germany is in a funck. Japan is not doing to well either..

And everything's comin up roses in Baghdad!

Don't knock your koolaid over on your keyboard.

[KevinDavis]

A company has a right to hire anyone.. Small or big..

[durasell]

A company has a right to hire anyone.. Small or big


If I owned a company I'd only hire extremely small people, four feet and under. Just for the entertainment value.

[Dat Mon]

YOUR TAGLINE..."the space/future belongs to the eagles, the earth/past to the groundhogs"

YOUR COMMENT..."Where in the Constitution does it say that every American has a good paying job?"

This thread is talking about TECHNICAL JOBS.

These are jobs that PAY WELL (traditionally)

These are jobs that those 'geeky' guys do...the ones that design all those gizmos THAT PUT STUFF INTO OUTER SPACE.

I thought you liked those guys...you sure like what they do....you just don't want them to be well paid to do it....or perhaps care if they are in the US.

Let me revise your tagline...a nation of low paying low skilled service jobs is a nation of GROUNDHOGS.

[iconoclast]

I have no loyalties to multi-culturalism. I was simply stating a fact. Now you can accept that fact or not. But in America in the 21st century nobody gets a "free ride." The cost of admission is ambition, creativity and education.

What on earth has made you and some others here so bitterly against the children of your fellow Americans?

[simon says what]

Simple, I'm a Constitutionalist.. Translation, if there is nothing about good paying job, then there is no right of a good paying job. Look it up..

How do you feel about this part of the Constitution ?

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

[KevinDavis]

Sorry no one has a right to good paying job no matter what his or her field is.. No one is entitled to a job..

[KevinDavis]

Fine by me, but it does not say someone has to have a good paying job..

[iconoclast]

Translation, if there is nothing about good paying job, then there is no right of a good paying job. Look it up..

Well, sleep well tonight "Constitutionalist". We're eliminating those good paying jobs for our fellow citizens as fast as we can.

Sheesh!

[jpsb]

I am 3 or 4 generatins American, I invented the techolongy, designed the producted and started the company. you can take your anti-(native) americanism and GTH. Both iconoclast and I are old enough not to care about ourselves any more. We worried about jobs for the next generation. A generation of drug dealers, law mowers and wait staff is not what we want to see.

[durasell]

BECAUSE I WANT PEOPLE TO WAKE UP. THE CHILDREN OF MY FELLOW AMERICANS ARE NO LONGER COMPETING AGAINST THE KID IN THE NEXT ROW. THEY ARE COMPETING AGAINST A KID HALFWAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY OR HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD.

Their parents have told them lies that "everything will always more or less be okay and remain the same." And nothing could be more remote from the truth. They have somehow forgotten the American Dream of "work your butt off and you can make it." This has been replaced by "it's a free ride because you're an American."

[KevinDavis]

Whatever socialist..

[A. Pole]

This may be far afield of our topic, but while we are on it...If American colleges and universities would not devote so many resources to "fun days," all Greek housing developments, goofy [...]

I know people who graduated from the leading universities ABROAD, moved to USA, had good jobs and were good at them, became citizens and now they CANNOT find a decent job. Maybe they should go back to their countries of origin where American corporations "export" the jobs?

[cyborg]

I agree with you but I notice many people are missing the obvious point. Having gone through higher education, I think it's all crap. Highger education is right up there with the slip-n-fall lawyers for shoving a stick up the collective butts of America.

[cyborg]

exactly