We Are Witnessing The Slow, Tortuous Death Of The American Worker

We Are Witnessing The Slow, Tortuous Death Of The American WorkerOnce upon a time, the U.S. economy produced a seemingly unending supply of good paying jobs that enabled American workers to buy homes, raise families and live the American Dream.  But now all of that has changed.  Over the past several decades, there have been some fundamental shifts in our economy that have steadily eroded the value of the American worker.  Thanks to incredible advances in robotics, computers and other fields of technology, many economic activities that once required a tremendous amount of manpower now require very little.  Nothing is going to reverse those technological advances, so the jobs that have been lost as a result are now gone forever.  But there are millions of other good jobs that we have lost that we could have done something about.  Over the past couple of decades, millions upon millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas.  Thanks to a whole host of “free trade” agreements that our politicians promised would be very good for our economy, U.S. workers have now been merged into a global labor pool with hundreds of millions of workers on the other side of the globe that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  In such a situation, it is only natural for big corporations to shift production from high wage areas to low wage areas.  Unemployment in America has skyrocketed and so have corporate profits.  Today, corporate profits as a percentage of U.S. GDP are at an all-time high, but wages as a percentage of U.S. GDP are near an all-time low.  The lack of decent jobs in the United States is one of the primary reasons why we are in an economic crisis that never seems to end, and things are not going to turn around any time soon.  We truly are witnessing the slow, tortuous death of the American worker, and politicians from both political parties are just standing aside and letting it happen. (Read More...)

Only 24.6 Percent Of All Jobs In The United States Are Good Jobs

Do you want to know why it seems like good jobs are very rare in the United States today?  It is because good jobs are very rare in the United States today.  According to a paper that was just released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all American jobs qualified as “good jobs” in 2010.  Over the past several decades, there has been increasing pressure on corporations to reduce expenses and increase corporate profits.  One of the biggest expenses that any corporation faces is labor.  Large corporations all over the globe are in an endless race to gain a competitive advantage by pushing labor costs as low as possible.  Sometimes this is done by using technology.  Computers, automation, robotics and other forms of technology have eliminated millions of jobs in the United States and those jobs are never coming back.  Millions of other jobs have been eliminated by offshoring.  In our globalized economy, American workers have been merged into one giant labor pool with everyone else.  That makes it very tempting for big corporations to move jobs from areas where workers are very expensive (such as the United States) to areas of the world where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  When big corporations do this, corporate profits go up, but the number of good jobs in the United States goes down.  As a result, there is increased competition for the jobs that remain in the United States and this drives down wages.  Meanwhile, the cost of living just keeps going up.  So millions of American families have fallen into poverty in recent years, and millions of others have gone deep into debt in an attempt to survive.  This dynamic is absolutely shredding the middle class in the United States. (Read More...)

Don’t Worry, Be Happy: Unemployment Is Down, The Stock Market Is Up And The Economy Is Going To Be Just Fine

Haven’t you heard?  The coming economic collapse has officially been canceled.  The U.S. economy is in full recovery mode.  It has just been announced that the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.9% in February.  That was the third monthly decline in a row.  192,000 new jobs were created in the U.S. during February.  That was the fifth month in a row in which the U.S. economy has gained jobs.  Corporate profits are way up.  For the most recent month that numbers are available, sales of GM vehicles were up 49%, sales of Chrysler vehicles were up 13%, and sales of Ford vehicles were up 10%.  Can’t you see?  The great American economic machine has roared back to life.  The stock market is way up this year.  The recession is over.  Our financial system is more stable than ever.  Pretty soon all Americans that want jobs are going to be able to get jobs and all of our government debts are going to be paid off.  The greatest days for the U.S. economy are just around the corner.  So don’t worry, be happy. (Read More...)