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?
Idiot said: This is silly: the fact that hiring is done elsewhere proves the opposite. The reason they are hiring elsewheres is for cheap labor.
I gave you a polite way to think about what makes workers "smarter" than others. How many people with a Ph.D. work at assembly lines anywhere in the world? None. Why? Because people are not paid for their intelligence, athletic abilities, unrelated musical talent, etc --- they are paid in proportion to usefulness of what they produce.
To be more specific. If you, an American worker, are ten times more productive (as you put it) than a Chinese one, you should produce ten time more and get a ten times greater salary. But if you are ten times "smarter" and get eleven time more money, you are not worth it. Think about this.
You should learn how to measure usefulness of labor --- then you will know what "cheap" and "expensive" labor is.
You owe me an apology for your unprovoked rudeness.
A related question is, why so many among the self-proclaimed conservatives have no clue about the role of business in American society?
That amendment was made when people hardly knew any economics.
Our understanding of tariffs has improved then. The best economic outcome is efficient allocation of resources, and tariffs, taxes --- any intererence -- creates distortions and makes outcomes suboptimal. Most importantly, there has never existed any government that could deduce the true cost of tariffs.
Most professors that teach in American business schools have never seen a differential equation. Check how many of them are Indian.
Your communication skills must be particularly developed if you are in fields like organizational behavior, strateegy or psychology.
Most professors that teach in American business schools have never seen a differential equation. Check how many of them are Indian.
Your communication skills must be particularly developed if you are in fields like organizational behavior, strategy or psychology.
The latter is actually a part of the former.
Programmers and analysts had inflated salaries ever since invention of computers --- precisely because of their shortage. Things are not bad now, they are normal (no shortage due to increased supply).
An average Electrical Engineer with a Ph.D. and 20 years of experience had a salary of $96,000 per annum in 2000. A rooky programmer that knew the laterst version of Java and a few other quirks was making over $100,000. That puts things in perspective.
And please, people, spare us the routine FR bromides about "it's their own fault for choosing the wrong field", or "start your own business, you lazy bum". For a student looking to start an academic program, that kind of crap is not the kind of thing that will encourage them.
How about do the Conservative thing and take responsiblity for yourself instead of screaming for the Govt to step in and protect you from your own economic irrelevence?
You know what is really appalling is the Economic Hysterics like Roberts have been pushing this same line since the 1980s. Year after year the Economic Hysterics are proved wrong in their doom and gloom hyperbole and year after year after year, the Doom and Gloom Freepers continue to push their nonsense as the received wisdom of God. How often must the utter nonsense of Economic Isolationism be pointed out to you people before you wake up to the fact that your personal situation does NOT translate into a nation wide reality.
We were in good shape on ASW until the early 90s. Since then, we've been in an ASW gap. I saw a navy report that essentially projected that we will not be back to snuff ASW-wise until at least 2010 - assuming the plan of record does not get cut in order to give Baby Boomers increased government handouts.
Sure. That is why Founding Fathers and Constitution made USA one of the poorest countries in the world. But now since the all-wise economists from Harvard and Chicago Univ. took the lead, America will get as rich as Russia and Argentina got after following their advice.
BTW, my uncle from Nigeria has some excellent free trade deals for you.
Sure. That is why Founding Fathers and Constitution made USA one of the poorest countries in the world. But now since the all-wise economists from Harvard and Chicago Univ. took the lead, America will get as rich as Russia and Argentina got after following their advice.
BTW, my uncle from Nigeria has some excellent free trade deals for you.
Very, very good point.
We have Chavez and Lula now because of the wreckage caused by IMF shock therapy and liberalization. And Putin's increasing authoritarianism is backed up by a Russian people who saw their country becoming a failed state under IMF advice.
I guess, ignorance is bliss for some people on this board.
America did not become prosperous because of what Founding Fathers said about economics: it became prosperous because of what they did NOT say. By keeping the government largely out of economic matters, they allowed American people to reach economic prosperity.
Incidentally, when was the last time you read a paper by a Harvard economist or attended his/her seminar? Perhaps, you should request a copy from your Nigerian uncle.
And, the relationship to what is being discussed --- what, exactly?
We now have warm weather as well. Why don't you write about that?
haha. Excellent post!
Free Traitors consider our Founding Fathers to be uneducated boobs who had no clue about the ways of the world. This is telling.
There are a lot of Rush Limbaugh-trained "conservatives" here who are members of the "I've got mine" school. Its likely these people have never dealt with any kind of adversity whatsoever. Their thinking will change when either their own job is outsourced or some Chinese company undercuts their business.
Yes, they graduated from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies! They are much smarter than the XVIII century hillbillies.
Good grief.
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