A Lost Decade For Jobs

BusinessWeek:

Private sector job growth was almost non-existent over the past ten years. Take a look at this horrifying chart:

Read the whole story: BusinessWeek

Comments

[Hdaryl01]

09:39 AM on 06/25/2009

Soldier on comrades, and don't spend all of your $387 weekly unemployment benefits in one place. Understand and take pride in the fact that your sacrifices of your jobs, your homes, your cars, your savings, your retirement, your childrens' college funds, and your future until now have made it possible for Goldman Sachs to have its best year ever! And, Citi to raise salaries by 50%! Both of which, among many other similar successes are true national prioirities. Take solace in the Reaganesque trickle down economics logic that the sacrifices your children and unborn grandchildren have also made by taking on and shouldering the massive debt required to achieve these feats may ultimately lead to even more pennies in your cups falling out of the pockets of our national heros, the malevolent bankers!

[Hdaryl01]

09:43 AM on 06/25/2009

PS, Comrades, I hear the oligarchs are initiating grass roots PR outreach efforts to bolster public support for their plight, and cause. T-shirts, refrigerator magnets, and Coozies for everyone!

[jmpurser]

09:01 AM on 06/25/2009

Maybe if we cut taxes on the rich again then the wealth will just come a tricklin down on us all! Saint Ronnie said so!

[therealredstateblues]

09:20 AM on 06/25/2009

maybe we should do away with taxes altogether and watch the money just come rolling in!!!

or so the supply side ideologues would have you believe

I am surpised the anti tax crowd isn't in favor of tariffs - we could kill two birds with one stone - right the unbalanced trade problem and relieve the tax burden on individuals and companies

[jmpurser]

10:27 AM on 06/25/2009

They call tariffs "VAT" now and coupled with the "fair tax" they will fix everything. The key is to just tax poor people until they can't afford the luxury of poverty then they'll pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become rich!

[DuganS1]

03:44 PM on 06/25/2009

Tariffs would mean increased prices for US consumers, which is an indirect tax. Tariffs would also result in retalliatory tariffs which would damage many US companies worse then they've been damaged already by this recession.

[noneIn2008]

11:00 PM on 06/24/2009

Why work, it will just mean more taxes to pay for others. Drop out.

[KillTheMessenger]

04:27 PM on 06/24/2009

So what's the big deal? We are losing young, well educated and technically interested people and gain old farts that need to be taken care off. We knew all of this since the 1970s. It's two trains on a slow motion collision course.

[themodernleader]

04:27 PM on 06/24/2009

This catastrophic decline was led by manufacturing and masked by deficit spending permitting government growth. If fraudulent lending for unqualified buyers had not been allowed, we would have been in recession in the earlier years of the decade. Much earlier it would have been clear to our policy makers that trade deficits, that is, predatory mercantelism was undermining our economy and future. Our failure to face up to our failing economy and inflating finance while our unemployed became permanently on the dole or lawlessness, is now forcing us to act.
Our actions under Obama have been more of the same of bubble and bust and currency destruction.

[KillTheMessenger]

06:01 PM on 06/24/2009

So what you are really trying to say is that "It's not the people's fault! I am putting my foot down, you hear me! It is not the people's fault!".

Sure. Have a cookie.

[nomorefed]

01:07 PM on 06/24/2009

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

~Thomas Jefferson

hat tip to http://www.short.ie/g264dk for the good articles

[FreedomCorpse]

12:50 PM on 06/24/2009

Reaon: NAFTA, CAFTA, Commodities Modernization Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, outsourcing, 'globalization', privatization (of critical infrastructure and other), deregulation, fiat currency based on 'faith and trust'.... will the US government ever wake up before its nation lays in ruins around it? So far, I see no hope even with the 'Hope' guy in office....dems/repubs...flip sides of the same debauched and corrupt coin.

[DuganS1]

03:44 PM on 06/24/2009

NAFTA and CAFTA had nothing to do with it, nor did the Gramm-Leach-Bailey Act which resulted in actually increasing jobs. Outsourcing has very little to do with it to, and deregulation nothing. Most deregulation began occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s BTW. Under George W we saw some increased regulation with Sarbines-Oxley. As for fiat currency, we've had that for a long time so it has nothing to do with it. The main reason for the flat-lining in jobs is clearly manufacturing, and most of that has to do with allowing China into the WTO and those companies putting US manufacturers out of business (like in textiles, apparel, furniture, toys etc. etc. etc.). Walmart, Home Depot, Target, and Lowes all buy a large percentage of their products from China. Most retailers do, in fact. US companies simply can't compete with the Chinese companies on price, so they go under.

[steelmill]

06:07 PM on 06/24/2009

What about the favor trade act with China

[faceplant]

08:15 PM on 06/24/2009

NAFTA and CAFTA do have something to do with it, then. They facilitated the outsourcing of manufacturing to places with lower wages or lower exchange rates or both. MFN for China was probably worse, but NAFTA and CAFTA clearly did not help.

[Harrier]

12:10 PM on 06/24/2009

I did not know it was that bad. What has happened is the top 1% that used to have 9% of the wealth, not have 29%. There is not enough money in the middle class to grow the economy. For years manufacturing was the number #1 driver of jobs. Greenspan openly admitted he was no concerned despite the fact it hired more college educated and blue collar jobs than any other industry. When on top of this you give companies to offshore jobs and allow so many H1SB Visas, they system needs fundamental overhaul. There are no jobs left, except the low paying jobs and even that will be sent overseas. I don't know how people can fee comfortable with companies send your credit information overseas in this identity theft era. I'm worried about my job and see no hope in site if I'm layed-off

[sueinmn]

02:59 PM on 06/24/2009

Be thank ful you can still say IF LAID OFF". Many of us are not so fortunate with NO future in sight. The skilled trades have taken a beating and I have yet to hear any long term plans out of Obama on jobs. Green will certainly not provide enough!

[DuganS1]

03:46 PM on 06/24/2009

Manufacturing hasn't bee the #1 driver of jobs since the 1950s and maybe 1960s. H1B visas have nothing to do with anything. These are very small numbers, the US needs all the talented engineers and computer folks it can get, plus these are US jobs - not foreign jobs.

[4TJefferson]

12:00 PM on 06/24/2009

Folks this is not rocket science. Big Banks want to lower our standard of living. India and China are not raising theirs (Caste system and Dicatorship), so they have to lower ours. It is simple. Get rid of Unions. Get rid of child labor laws. Get rid of pollutions controls. Get rid of sewage treatment. Get rid of Government. Then, the overpaid CEOs and Bankers can put the screws (or water) to us. What they did not expect was Obama taking over their domain. Now they are crying like little spoiled brats. Obama needs to just go out there and start putting these CEOs in jail. That will create jobs for fresh blood. It just makes me laugh when I read CEOs giving big bonuses and salaries to keep "talent." This is the same talent that sold us this mess. FIRE the CEOs and HIRE new people!

[KillTheMessenger]

04:40 PM on 06/24/2009

China is not raising their standard of living? Really?

http://benmuse.typepad.com/ben_muse/images/2007/09/27/chinese_per_capita_income.jpg

India has long abandoned its cast system and is greatly increasing the funding of education

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/3e5792e16fd8de2e743e3d4dd16a5206.png

The overall success rate of India is much less than that of China, of course and a much larger fraction of the Indian population remains bound to poverty. The ones that do not, however, are doing very well on the educational stage. They are responsible, among other things, for a large number of businesses in Silicon Valley.

[4TJefferson]

05:48 PM on 06/24/2009

You call living on $250 a month a living? Great. China is a dictatorship! Get a clue.

[sonoffestus]

10:44 AM on 06/24/2009

I guess tax cuts didn't create investment or job creation after all. Geez, who would have thought.

[NotYouAgain]

10:44 AM on 06/24/2009

But, But, But, But I know this isn't what the Republicans and President Bush have been telling us the last eight years. So who was hiring? It couldn't have been the government, because the Republicans are so anti-big government. Or are the levels of the unemployed so much higher than anyone really wants to admit?

[DuganS1]

03:48 PM on 06/24/2009

The job growth numbers were good in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007. The numbers the author is showing above compares current numbers from the middle of a nasty recession to the job numbers at the peak of the tech boom - it's a bad comparison.

[therealredstateblues]

09:14 AM on 06/25/2009

Job growht has been anemic throught the current decade

we need 125-140k jobs added per month to keep up with attrition, population growth etc. the job growth per motn throughout most of the Bush years averaged a paltry 50-60 k accrding to the BLS

so where was the investment in new jobs that all these tax cuts were supposed to bring?

[WorkingClass]

09:57 AM on 06/24/2009

The thirty year old war on American jobs and wages is a class war. When American workers finally understand this they will begin to fight back. Its not about D's and R's y'all. Its about corporate rule.

[texastrixie]

09:50 AM on 06/24/2009

Since the 1980's, American business has systematically depleted the economy of middle-class jobs, destroyed unions, and endeavored to drive the percentage of wage costs down, down, down.

This is not news. Evidently the business model is to cut the price of saleable goods as sharply as possible, meanwhile, paying as little as possible, in the hopes your product will be the cheapest.

Today durable goods sales were up. Whoopeee! Don't be fooled. American workers are watching the last of their prosperity dwindle away. There may be people still buying things, but as unemployment rises, and wages fall, this is going to be a contracting economy for years to come.

The truth that American business forgot: You can't buy anything if you don't have any money. Not even if its only $5 and comes from China.

The rich think they have it made now. They can hire endless numbers of people to work at minimum wages in their offices, the few businesses that are left, and in their homes. But all business has to sell something, and for that you need customers. Good luck in the future.

[therealredstateblues]

04:47 AM on 06/24/2009

the greatest story never told, feh!

can we now finally put supply side aka voodoo economics and its evil cousin globalization on the trash heap of history with the other failed ideologies where it belongs?

[KCFreedom]

12:25 PM on 06/24/2009

Are you kidding? I think they succeeded well for those whom it was intended to.

There just wasn't a plan for a future. Welcome to the future.

[DuganS1]

03:49 PM on 06/24/2009

This has nothing to do with supply side economics. And globalization has been ongoing since WW2 by the way.

[therealredstateblues]

10:06 PM on 06/24/2009

it has everything to do with it - didn't you read the article