Employment Disaster

The Daily Reckoning ^ | September 24, 2003 | Kurt Richebächer

[ninenot]

How CAN you SAY that???

Why, our very own Department of Labor, Ellen Chao, Secretary thereof, published a list of the 10 fastest-growing jobs (now to 2010)--and right on that list is Programmer!!

You mean that the Gummint could be wrong? Say it isn't SO!!

[ninenot]

I would only quibble with your understanding of conservatism: and the quibble is that in my view, an understanding of Right Order is primary to a conservative--well-enough voiced by Edmund Burke and his American disciple, Russell Kirk.

Freedom (properly understood) follows from a correct grasp of Right Order.

[GOP_1900AD]

And this points out why so many here who label themsleves as "conservatives" are merely faux conservatives. FR is fraught with these types, who are essentially economic anarchists and their craven brethren, the confused Liberals (aka Libertarians). All of them are attracted to the Wrong Order (more correctly, a disorder in which they seek to become warlord-like kings of the heap). What they really seem to want is the disorderliness of the early Middle Ages. Sad thing is once they set it into motion, it will not be them who are the kings, but rather, foreign despots of an anti Western ilk.

[ninenot]

You got THAT right! I suspect WillieGreen gets it--there may be a few others.

[Willie Green]

And this points out why so many here who label themsleves as "conservatives" are merely faux conservatives.
You got THAT right! I suspect WillieGreen gets it--there may be a few others.

Yes, based on my experience it is my opinion that many of the "free" trade fanatics are not bushbot concervatives but are instead liberal imposters. There are likely a variety of explanations for their deceptive practices:

• Undermine GOP support by inflaming sentiments on issues where the GOP is performing poorly.
• Perhaps they're Earth First! anti-industrial envirowhacknuts who applaud the dismantling of our industrial infrastructure.
• Perhaps they're Big Government Social Welfare Bureaucrats who welcome the decay of our private sector because they know that will increase public demand for welfare social services.
• Perhaps they're foreign nationals who care little about America and see some kind of improvement in their own nation's stature if America falls into decline. (There's a small group of Canadians that do this, but at least they have the decency to fly the Canadian flag on their FReeper homepage. Just the same, there's no way I'm gonna take advice on American policies from a Canadian!)

Whatever the reason, the modus operendi is always the same: presentation of false and convoluted economic theory accompanied by bashing and smearing others as "marxist".

[jas3]

http://66.227.96.189/HarpsealTakeYourMeds/LiarHarpseal.gif

[Yup!!]

You have got to be kidding!!!!! My brother was an appraiser and then he got cancer. He spent the next 10 years battling cancer and getting a college degree. He wanted to become a.............programmer. During chemo, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, he got his well earned degree. Now he can't find a job and he is in the Wash. DC area. He is now back to appraising. Poor guy just can't get a break. I have no idea how they can say its one of the 10 fastest growing jobs. Maybe they me one of the 10 fastest going jobs-ya know, going to India?

[harpseal]

You are once again lying as explained previously duties collected as a portion of imports does not corres[pond to the level of tariffs. A tariff is only paid on an import when the trasaction has taken place. China's average 70% tariffs are not on all items as theey exempt capital goods and raw materials. Thus if they import $100 billion worth oif capital goods at 0% tariff and $1 million at 400% tariff then we are talking 4$ million duties collected on on $104 billion in imports my number as always is factual and it stands.

Since you seem able to get an excel file from teh WTO trranslated to a gif file at the WTO in less than 24 hours one must question do you work for teh WTO as a representative of the PRC?

I guess teh evidence suggests that.

I invite everyone to go to the WRO web site and look up the treatment of developing nations to see if I am right or wrong. Don't take my word for it or Jas3's word for it go to http://www.wto.org/ abd see for yourself look at the Doha agenda it is linked to from the start. I note they no longer maintain the original text of the ministers statement/communiqueconsluding the 1993 meeting that resulted in the charter of the WTO but look up article 19 of the WTO charter it is there on-line. It is referred to in teh Doha ministers statement. I simply say go to the source anbd see who is lying.

I further state that china maintains an average 70% duty on American exports to that nation and this includes some items which are duty free. Their tariffs on non-capital goods and other than raw material goods are so high there are almost no imports of consumer goods from the USA. checj their actual duties in place. See who is the liar I am confident you will find it is Jas3

[jas3]

Since you seem able to get an excel file from teh WTO trranslated to a gif file at the WTO in less than 24 hours one must question do you work for teh WTO as a representative of the PRC?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA H AH AHHAHHAAHA HAAH

Actually, I was able to convert the Excel file in under 10 seconds all by my lonesome. The link I gave you isn't at the WTO, genius. Try a reverse IP lookup to see the hostname for yourself.

I used the "PRINT SCREEN" button on my keyboard. For someone who claims to have been using a computer for 5 years, you certainly haven't learned very much.

[jas3]

You are once again lying as explained previously duties collected as a portion of imports does not corres[pond to the level of tariffs. A tariff is only paid on an import when the trasaction has taken place. China's average 70% tariffs are not on all items as theey exempt capital goods and raw materials. Thus if they import $100 billion worth oif capital goods at 0% tariff and $1 million at 400% tariff then we are talking 4$ million duties collected on on $104 billion in imports my number as always is factual and it stands.

You claim an average tariff of 70%. But you have yet to provide a citation for your bogus statistics, other than the spot on your body where the sun don't shine.

...I note they no longer maintain the original text of the ministers statement/communiqueconsluding the 1993 meeting...

Translation: I was either wrong about this document ever existing, or I cited the wrong document; either way I apologize for my mistake - You were right jas3. My bad.

I further state that china maintains an average 70% duty on American exports to that nation and this includes some items which are duty free.

You can state whatever you want. My grandson states that the tooth fairy brought him a quarter last night. If you can't cite official statistics, than who cares what you state? You are so careless with your statements that they are meaningless.

How's that furniture manufacturer's website coming along, btw, speaking of ludicrous statement you've made, make, and will continute to make?

Their tariffs on non-capital goods and other than raw material goods are so high there are almost no imports of consumer goods from the USA. checj their actual duties in place.

MarxSeal, since you are incapable of either telling the truth or using Excel. I have placed 3 more image files (that I once again made with the uber-complex PRINT SCREEN technique that has you so mystified) on a site for your review. You'll note that all three disprove your crazy assertions.

Here's the link for the source from the WTO:

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres03_e/pr348_e.htm

Here's the link on that page for the Excel file from which the images came:

http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/anrep_e/wtr03_append_IIB1_7_e.xls

No doubt that as before you'll be unable to open the XLS, Marxseal, since you can't distinguish between a spreadsheet and a virus.

And here are the links from the Excel converted to GIFs for the technically disabled like you Harpo.

This one demonstrates your lies about the average tariff. It shows tariffs by sector:

http://66.227.96.189/HarpsealTakeYourMeds/MarxsealLiarBySector.gif

The next two show consolidated data:

http://66.227.96.189/HarpsealTakeYourMeds/MarxsealLiar1.gif

http://66.227.96.189/HarpsealTakeYourMeds/MarxsealLiar2.gif

See who is the liar I am confident you will find it is Jas3

Review the numbers, Marxseal: You've either been intentionally lying in this and your other posts on other threads, or you've been repeating statements you didn't understand, didn't check out for their veracity, and were too naive to think might be false. I think it's the later.

Since you've publicly humiliated yourself by demonstrating your inability to even open an Excel spreadsheet from the WTO's site, there's no possible way you've been able to conduct any analysis of trade statistics on your own. For God's sake man, you don't even know how to do a print screen!

The lesson that I pray you will learn here is that instead of repeating statements that you read somewhere which may or may not be true, you will in the future actually spend about 15 minutes looking up the source of that data.

That's why I repeatedly challenge you to post citations for your more outrageous claims; (I let the less outrageous one's slide).

And that's why you respond to demands for source citations by replying with:

a). I'm not telling; do you own research.

b). You are a communist unamerican liar.

c). It's already been posted here somewhere (but I won't say).

d). Ask someone else, he might know.

Unfortunatley, pray as I might, my guess is that your fear of foreign competition has as much to do with your fear of foreigners and your inability to compete as it does with anything else.

I have some good news for you though, Marxseal. Through 2008 per China's agreement with the WTO, duties on imports to China and trade restrictions will continue their precipitous decline. So you can expect US-China trade to expand by a multiple of at least 3 over the next five years.

That's good news for both America and China.

[TexasKamaAina]

Add Texas to your list.

[The Coopster]

Oh, yes. The economy is horrible.

That must be why houses are flying up around here, and the tower cranes are hard at work downtown.

[The Coopster]

IT is also suffering because a lot of people realized that the emporer really wasn't wearing any clothes after all, and buttloads of companies folded.

Plus, for at least 5 years you couldn't walk down the street without having to elbow the MCSE, etc schools out of the way. Can you say flooded market, class?

Finally - 30 years ago a calculator was HUGE and cost 500 dollars. Now it's the size of a credit card, and you get them free with a fill-up. You used to take the TV in for repairs; now they're long enough lasting that they are, in effect, disposable. Crass as it may seem, many IT guys are simply today's TV repairmen - unneeded, and almost extinct. As tech advances, and becomes cheaper, OF COURSE a company will outsource. It's no different from Nike, and where were all the sky-is-falling people then?

[YankeeReb]

We've got unemployment of about 6.4%, and that's really not a whole lot more than the 4 to 5% that prevailed during most of the nineties. In the mid-70's, we had chronic unemployment in the 10%-11% range.

One thing you may be overlooking, how many "employed" people are actually former engineers now working at radio shack? When someone who was making 60K is now making 25K he's not counted as unemployed but the economy still feels his loss. IMO a better guage of the health of the job market is tax revenues. Numbers don't lie, if the states aren't collecting as much sales taxes and income taxes then personal spending and income are down.

[JohnSmithee]

"Crass as it may seem, many IT guys are simply today's TV repairmen - unneeded, and almost extinct."

I would disagree with this sentiment. High paying jobs in traditional areas of IT are still out there, but they are not as common and each posting gets hundreds of resumes. It's more like musical chairs -- if you are in you are golden, otherwise you are nothing. The real problem is the relative instability of the job market.

[The Coopster]

I agree with the point about the traditional jobs. My point was more directed to the glut caused my "the magic of the internet".

[JohnSmithee]

"My brother was an appraiser and then he got cancer. He spent the next 10 years battling cancer and getting a college degree. He wanted to become a.............programmer. During chemo, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, he got his well earned degree. Now he can't find a job and he is in the Wash. DC area."

Prior to the bubble collapse the DC area was a refuge for IT workers. No matter what your situation you could probably pick up some contract or job doing something with computers until the market picked up. This was the case until about 2 years ago. Now you can barely find recruiters anymore.

[cp124]

"Looking solely at the manufacturing sector is misleading. Manufacturing is only a small part of our modern economy,"

and that is the problem. Manufacturing and value added creates wealth and job spin off. It employs workers, engineers and managers. The people that make the widgit buy machinery, tooling, and materials. The people that build the machinery buy.....and on and on and on. We now buy the widgit and someone takes the order and calls China to place the order. The new consumer and service economy does not produce anything and there is not the same trickle down effect on the economy.

[harpseal]

Your stats do not include the 17% Value Added Tax on imports and are not generally reflected in the overall tariff schedule per China Strategic Information. You will pay particular attention to the section on normal goods which with the minimum 50% tariff and the value added tax we have an effective minimum of 67% which rounds to approx 70% Of course if one only wishes to measure the ad valorem tariffs on the bound items one gets a much lower rate. I note that that is what you were posting. One may only presume you were intentionally trying to mislead. Of course what I posted is from a company which specializes in actually helping