Posted on 04/23/2006 2:44:37 PM PDT by Dialup Llama
PCR doesnt understand that the economic policies he pushed in 1981-82 are primarily responsible for the trade deficit.
1. lower tax rates increased US GDP growth relative to the rest of the world
2. lower taxes on capital created a huge influx of foreign capital which stregthened the dollar
i am earning more than ive ever earned in my life.
That's great. Hope it lasts.
The biggest cause of lack of quality American jobs is greedy liberal-leaning unions, which constantly demand absurd benefits for their workers. Why should an employer deal with that crap, when they can hire a worker abroad who won't demand such benefits, and comes at a much cheaper cost?
Worse yet, our government makes it harder for employers to hire domestically by forcing them to pay all sorts of payroll taxes (which also is the reason workers demand benefits, because these taxes make it more difficult for them to afford health insurance, etc, on their own).
Kind of like with gas prices, Americans have screwed themselves when it comes to quality job growth in the US.
Why the disconnect between Americans' anxiety about jobs and all the positive news about the economy?
PCR answers this puzzle:
1. Good jobs are being lost but the new jobs are low pay ones with no benefits.
2. The monthly happy talk about employment is NOT backed up by actual counts of jobs from the BLS. The jobs aren't there.
3. Even in a moderately recovering field like IT, the total employment count has not recovered completely. Its just the IT employment has stopped falling like a rock. But those soft number actually include H1Bs! So that the picture for a US resident seeking IT employment is not a bright as the stats would have you think.
Here's a fun fact about labor stats. When a foreign programmer takes a job from a legal US resident under the H1B program, that job is actually added to the total of US IT employment measured in the gov't stats!
Funny, I just got a better paying job in IT few weeks ago..
The biggest cause of lack of quality American jobs is greedy liberal-leaning unions, which constantly demand absurd benefits for their workers
Yep, that explains the loss of the textile industry in the South. /sarcasm/
The head of Lockheed Martin just wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal indicating that LM needs 14,000 engineers a year for the next 10 years just to replace those who are retiring -- and that is 22% of the total graduating class for engineers in this country.
A LOT of homeland security-type jobs cannot be outsourced because of security issues. Virginia has a lot of these jobs, our NoVa unemployment is like 0.8%, and you can't find american hi-tech workers available without paying thousands of dollars (My employer offers I think $3,000 for each person I find who takes a job).
1. Rubbish (this has been the economic populists cry since the 1980s, garbage them garbage now). It also makes no sense that only low wages jobs, the vasry jobs that foreigners can so easily do, are being created
2. Rubbish (the monthly job counts COMES from the BLS)
3. And it wont. IT was in a bubble, why should it recover if it was unrealistic to begin with?
""It is the job profile of a third world economy.""
He makes this claim yet contradicts himself when he says all the manufacturing jobs are going to third world countries...well which is it?? Do third world countries only produce low wage service jobs or are third world countries taking all the manufacturing jobs..you cant have it both ways
By changing jobs several times, I've been able to remain near the highest level of compensation I've ever made also. I do not think that is the predominant situation these days.
I personally know people who haven't had a raise in five to ten years. I also know others whose raises have been once every two or three years for a total of 2%.
Inflation is stripping these people of purchasing power.
We have set up several layers of competition for wage earners in the United States. We have sent production off shore. We are flooding the nation with tens of millions of foreign nationals. We are moving clearical positions off shore.
Let's be honest here. Capitalists seem to understand every supply and demand scenario there is, until it comes to setting up tens of millions of short-circuits to salary support in the U.S. We have oversaturated the workforce through the methods I've mentioned, but I'm am constantly told this has had no negative impact whatsoever on U.S. employees. That just does not compute.
I don't like what I see and the caption that I copied at the top of this response should cause any honest person some sobering thoughts on this subject.
freud made the same mistake, you know. oh, well. you may be wrong, but at least you're in good company.
""I personally know people who haven't had a raise in five to ten years""
then they need to get a new job in a new field.
"We have sent production off shore"
that isnt true. Industrial production in the US is higher now than it has ever been. and Guess what, next month it will be higher still. Of course all the foreign plants here dont count to the PRC/Buchanan brigade....Hyundai setting up a plant in Georgia is seen as weakness by the populists.
Just this morning I was saying that I failed to understand why the President thought todays kids would pursue engineering degrees when they'll have to compete with Chinese and Indian wage scales. These figures make it pretty clear that isn't going to happen. Just what will it take to indicate to some people that we have a problem, when we've lost 75 to 80% of our engineering positions?
Let me know if you need any more help.
And the price of high-tech products has tumbled.
Pick your poison.
I often hear the mantra that "only low-paying service jobs" are being created. But the dramatic growth in these sectors infer that there are a whole bunch of people who are buying things, going out to restaurants and on top of that, having additional money to go bar-hopping.
Where are those people coming from?
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