The Jobs Crisis and the GOP

WND.com ^

[Consort]

That's probably the silliest thing I've read on FR in quite some time.

Only if you're gullible or have no sense of humor. Chill out.

[rwfromkansas]

Certainly.

Outsourcing is a tiny portion of jobs in reality. America is not an industrial economy anymore, but an information economy. That is why I am not being stupid and going into manufacturing. Times change. That isn't bad (unless our military production goes elsewhere....) America will adapt and survive as it always does.

Some of these doom and gloomers need to read Reagan's hope for a brighter future.

AND THAT is what Bush needs to hammer in the general election campaign starting in a month or so. He also needs to point out and hammer it when jobs are created. He needs to point out that the Dems have no actual plans to do anything to fix the problem.

[lelio]

BoLS show 3 million jobs created.

How many of those are:

• Government jobs? (100% of the 21k growth last month was)
• Low paying retail jobs
• Temporary

[rwfromkansas]

Wake up and realize that this is not 1900; this is 2004.

[GailA]

The weather has been bad in much of the US the past couple of months, that depresses the job market I think. Weather is breaking, building will start up.

Our small town pop of 10,000 is in the process of getting a new Lowes, a new Wal-Greens, and another small business. It added a Perkins, a Lenny's sub shop, and a paint/flooring center last year. Just across the border in Miss they are adding 450 new jobs for a new FedX facility. Wal-mart is always very busy.

[TXBSAFH]

That may not be enough. Joe Lunchbucket does not have the attention span for that. The argument will be outsourcing bas, GWB does nothing about it, GWB bad.

[GingisK]

Can you prove that all the jobs lost were engineering jobs?

I'm an engineer. I am very lucky to have a job for the moment. If you merely go to the job search sites for engineering jobs, you would find that there are very few listings nationwide. Many of my friends have been without work for nearly two years. None of these jobs are "bubble computer", but rather hardcore embedded software engineering and circuit design. I have been in this field for over thirty years following five years in college. (Physics, math, electrical engineering, computer science. Computer science, not IT. I'm talking algorithms, operating systems internals, compiler design theory, queing theory, and so on.) The jobs are indeed evaporating.

The work done by myself and my friends is engineering in the full sense of the word. We use math, physics, chemistry, and other hardcore disciplines to accomplish our work. (I've never written a web page in my life.) I design hardware devices that contain microprocessors and write software for them as well. We are the guys that design and program cell phones, cable TV settop boxes, telephone switches, automobile systems controllers, PC Computers and related hardware, laboratory equipment, medical equipment, aircraft avionics, guided missle guts, air-traffic control systems, and so on.

If the bulk of America is making the same mistake you are in thinking that only "frivolous" computer jobs are affected, then I'm sure voters will simply not do the right thing. America's technological advantage will be squandered, surely enough. There just won't be any incintive to suffer though engineering school.

[Keen-Minded]

I suggest that everyone watch Lou Dobbs every night. He has a very informative show about outsourcing and fair trade issues regarding our economy (It's the only show I watch on CNN).

He has a great concern for where our economy is headed; the impact on workers and how cheap labor is the driving force.

[Keen-Minded]

You're right on!

[GingisK]

An Engineering Degree is no more a guarantee of life-long employment than any other credential. Reality: deal with it

I was there at the end of the Apollo Program. The number of engineering jobs rose from that point in time. Only recently have engineering jobs become difficult to find.

You in in a Nation that is failing. Do something about it, or deal with it.

[rwfromkansas]

They did a feature on my hometown of 13,000 on the local news a couple months ago because it was one of the few places with a growing economy at the time. Unemployment was like 1.5 percent or something when it was 6 for the rest or the state or something like that. We are getting a Super Wal-Mart that will be opening soon and is bringing in a few jobs probably (most will just transfer from the old regular Wal-Mart). We have too many manufacturing plants to count for a small town....they are everywhere.

Our economy is just fine.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

I have several friends who have been out of work and do not think highly of this administration.

What would your friends like the administrations to do? This is a serious question as I would like to here some of their ideas/suggestions.

[old-ager]

> this is the plan your leaders have for you

I totally agree with your analysis of why engineering is so important to the US, and have posted to this effect before. I also agree that the dreamers Clinton brought on did indeed want to work for a global power structure over the US (that they could then help run). But I am wondering if you are saying that G.W. Bush is in on this too -- can you prove it?

[rwfromkansas]

I am concerned about engineering jobs, but I am assuming this is a phase. If it continues, then it will be time to be worried. Dubya should have a plan to pound in the campaign anyway.

[KevinDavis]

Probaly just give dum dum make work projects.

[The Wizard]

bingo...you're right and I am amzed that the GOP isn't on this fact...I have worked for 2p0 years self employed....never been out of work,never been included in the "working" count

[The Wizard]

bingo...you're right and I am amzed that the GOP isn't on this fact...I have worked for 20 years self employed....never been out of work,never been included in the "working" count

[petercooper]

Unemployment rate is 5.6%. Hardly a crisis.

What is it in Germany, 11%?

[razorbak]

many "outsourced" jobs are going from the rust belt, not overseas, but to the South here in the good old U.S. Most of the South is experiencing an economic boom as a result.

A union friend of mine who works in an Illinois steel plant, once told me he clocked in at 8:00am, starts working at 8:30am, then after a series of one hour and ten minute work spurts broken up by two 1 hour breaks, a long lunch hour, and quitting work at 3:30 [but not clocking out til 4:00pm]---it all added up to three and a half hours of work on an eight hour shift. And this high school grad was getting paid more than I was with a masters degree from college with much better insurance and other benefits. I was stunned. I asked him if it wouldn't mean more job security if the men on each shift worked harder and he casually replied, "maybe, but it might put someone else out of a job."

How long do, or did, American unions expect the above gravy train to last?

[TXBSAFH]

The out of work do not know what they should do. But when they see GWB doing nothing or in their (and my) eye hurting us by signing more free trade treaties. It angers them to no end. Do you expect them to forget about being out of work when they vote in November?