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U.S. Jobs Tank Big Time |
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Employers slashed 83,000 jobs in March, according to this morning’s monthly jobs report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, worsening the nation’s unemployment rate to 5.1 percent, up three-tenths of a percentage point since February. The job loss was far worse than even the most pessimistic of predictions, and was spread across industries, with the biggest losses in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
The unemployment figures follow yesterday’s Labor Department report showing the number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits increased last week to the highest level since just after Hurricane Katrina in September 2005. Initial jobless claims climbed by 38,000 in the week that ended March 29 to 407,000.
The jobs report is the latest in a seemingly endless release of new data confirming what many of us have known for many months: The economy is crumbling. And the Economist-in-Chief doesn’t get it. And neither does the probable Republican nominee for president.
The fundamentals of the economy are strong, say George Bush and John McCain.
Bush and McSame (or is that McBush and McCain?) refuse to face what’s hit the rest of us in the face. Some 81 percent of the American public say the country is on the wrong track, according to a poll released yesterday by The New York Times/CBS. And 78 percent of respondents say the country was worse off than five years ago—only 4 percent say it was better off.
Yet in recent months, McCain has asserted:
And by the way, I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession. I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong, and I believe they will remain strong.
Meanwhile, even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, long a recession-denier, said the United States could slip into a recession this year, according to The Wall Street Journal,
using a word that other government officials, including President Bush, have gone to great lengths to avoid.
McCain ought to take a look at this week’s newspapers, which in the past few days alone show a seriously troubling list of failing economic indicators:
- U.S. new home sales fell to a 13-year low, a seasonally adjusted, annualized pace of 590,000 in February 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
- Consumers fell behind on car, credit card and home-equity loans at the highest level in 15 years, according to the American Bankers Association’s quarterly survey. Payments at least 30 days past due increased across all eight categories of loans tracked during the fourth quarter.
- The number of Americans on food stamps is at a stunning high: The Congressional Budget Office this month projected a continued increase in the monthly number of recipients in the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1—to 28 million, up from 27.8 million in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2007. Already, 10 percent of residents in some states, like New York and Ohio, are on food stamps, and from December 2006 to December 2007, more than 40 states saw recipient numbers rise, and in several—Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island—the one-year growth was 10 percent or more.
- Consumer confidence plummeted to a five-year low in March. The Conference Board, a New York-based industry group, said its consumer confidence index dived to 64.5 in March, down dramatically from February’s 76.4.
And let’s not forget about the ongoing shame of poverty in this country, as too many policymakers have. One in eight Americans—approximately 37 million people—now live below the federal poverty line of $19,971 for a family of four. That’s 4.9 million more people than in 2000 and the poverty rate for children is the highest of all age groups. (As The Nation writes: The current poverty measure is “a woefully inadequate measure that is 42 years old and fails to account for basic necessities.”) Nearly 60 million people live just above the poverty line.
For nearly eight years, Bush administration policies have decayed the core of our economy. Bush is so out of touch with what’s going on around us, even President Reagan’s former chief of staff is stunned. From The New York Times:
For a man who came into office as the nation’s first MBA president, Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on voters’ minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Mr. Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.
“He’s over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what’s in their pocketbooks,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan in his second term. “He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas.”
Frighteningly, the Republicans likely will nominate a candidate who will continue the failed policies that led us to this quagmire. McCain’s policies look a lot like four more years.
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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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We all know that the official government unemployment statistics vastly undercount the number of people who have lost their jobs and can’t find work .
Wall Street and Government Officials use the official “undercounted” statistics to prop up their policy positions . This must be changed .
One way of changing the situation is for organized labor to do more to encourage people who are unemployed but uncounted to refile with the government employment assistance offices . This needs to be an organized effort . Call it get out the count . If you are not counted you don’t count .
Why should George Bush be able to leave office saying unemployment was low ? Lets not give him that lie - everybody needs to either refile or reregister for unemployment assistance whether they can still get benefits or not .
Stop the undercount -it’s to powerful a political tool and we need an honest count to effect policy change .
This brief article obviously cannot cover all of the devastation that is happening to working people. For example, workers with a “good job” are now seeing their “living wage” income being cut drastically and the few “benefits” (expensive health care insurance) being completely thrown out or to be largely paid for by the worker.
Last year, the highest paid workers (unorganized) at the electronics chain Circuit City, were all summarily fired but given the “opportunity” of being re-hired back at their old jobs at $7.50 an hour!
Union membership is no longer any guarentee of a “good” job or wage protection. This relentless destruction of living standards is happening today!
American Axle workers in Detroit determined to resist sellout
By a reporting team at WSWS 4 April 2008
“A WSWS reporting team visited the American Axle picket line in Detroit on April 4. Tensions were high due to the protracted character of the strike and mounting threats by management. A short while earlier American Axle had placed ads in local newspapers in a move seen as the first step to bringing in strikebreakers. This follows the well-publicized threat by American Axle CEO Richard Dauch to send jobs overseas if workers continue their resistance to concessions.”
The link to full story (with graphics) here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/ints-a04.shtml
Please note at the bottom of this article links to additional articles.
Note especially this important article which explains WHY these things are happening. The “philosophy” of U.S. corporations in justifying their destruction of working people in the U.S. and globally.
American Axle CEO Richard Dauch and the “right” of private property
By Jerry White and Joe Kay 29 March 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/comm-m29.shtml
“In his first public comments since the early days of a month-long strike, American Axle CEO Richard Dauch has threatened to permanently close his factories unless workers accept his demand for a two-thirds cut in wages and benefits.
Dauch told the Detroit Free Press, “We will not be forced into bankruptcy in order to reach a market-competitive cost structure in the United States. If we cannot compete for new contracts in the US, there will be no work in the original plants,” he said, referring to factories in Detroit and Three Rivers, Michigan, and in the New York towns of Tonawanda and Cheektowaga.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/comm-m29.shtml
My final “rant”: The organized labor movement and working people generally must start to think in terms of economic self interest and economic surival.
Corporate capitalism is forever out to maximize profit. To do this capitalism has gone global to minimize costs of human labor (human resources).
To turn this around:
1. US labor leaders must realize this and stop supporting gangster capitalism.
2. Us labor and working people must stop supporting both the Republican and
Democratic parties, and work with millions of unorganized working people to create a People’s Peace Party to stop wars (for profit and oil) and militarism,
and use the funds to support the needs of the vast majority of people for Social Security, universal health insurance, quality public education. Re-instate taxes upon wealthy corporations and individuals.
3. US labor movement must create a national mass media (radio, tv, press, etc.) that is published in the interest of working people. (Current media only talk about Wall Street News, business and money, but NEVER anything about the economic needs of the working people.
There seems to be one bright side to the job losses. I hear a lot of our illegals are self deporting. Now if we could just keep them from coming back when things pick up what a wonderful world it would be!
To “No Amnesty” : You should be alarmed when conditions are getting so bad in this country that “illegals are self-deporting” back to Mexico, where the majority of people are living in poverty.
There is no reason at all to think that “when things pick up what a wonderful world it would be!”. There problems created by the decline and transfortmation of U.S. corporate capitalism are simply not “solveable” that will be to the benefit of working people. The banks and financial institutions are being given HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER MONEY. This is all in addition to the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS (projected TRILLIONS) of money going into the pockets of Exxon and Halliburton for the unending wars in the Middle East and around the world.
Working people, by definition - as they are not capitalists making money from interest or employing other people- must find a job that wil pay them money. That money must be minimally sufficient to pay for food, clothing shelter to survive. .
How much are working people getting to help survive these economic crises? $600 in May, if you’re lucky. Of course if you owe taxes for last year, who won’t see any of that. Or perhaps it might help a little on credit card debt, which is typically around $5,000-$10,000 for an individual, more for a family.
U.S. capitlsm has moved manufacturing jobs to China. U.S. capitalists are making their big money not by making things (that require labor)but by essential manipulating money (stock market, hedge funds,) in what is called the financialisation of capital.
(Here is a link to an article about this: The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis by John Bellamy Foster.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/080401foster.php)
[What this all means is that the traditional view of the labor movement
about what they should do in terms of organizing, growing, advocating, etc.
is almost TOTALLY OBSOLETE. It is impossible to organize in an economy that is on massive decline. Working people don’t need jobs as much as they desperately need the things that a good paying job would normally pay for: a UNIVERSAL PUBLIC HEALTH PLAN, MASSIVE INCREASE IN FOOD STAMPS, SUPPORT OF SOCIAL SECURITY, QUALITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
ETC. To fund these goals WE MUST END THE WARS FOR PROFIT,
CUT THE MILITARY BUDGET AT LEAST BY 50%, etc.
The big exception to end of manufacturing in the U.S.: waging war and militarism has become a major money-maker for capitalists today. The Exxons and Halliburtons are enjoying a booming economic health as far as they are concerned.
Here is one final link to indicate where we are headed. It does not seem that
“things will pickup” in the foreseable future.
US jobless figures: The specter of a new depression
By David Walsh 5 April 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/jobs-a05.shtml
“Millions of Americans face the prospect of a sharp decline in living standards and conditions of life. Because of their commitment to the profit system, no section of the US political establishment—neither the Bush administration and the McCain campaign nor the Clinton and Obama camps—is capable of proposing any measures that will materially assist those seeing their jobs, homes nor social benefits disappear or devastated by the present developments.”
…
“The decline of the position of American capitalism in the world, its decisive loss of global hegemony, has the most profound implications. For wide layers of the population it means, in the first place, a series of severe shocks. In the end, this process must have revolutionary political consequences.”
This is a sad post script, but is it any wonder that young, poor urbanites (and suburbanites, too) are resorting to more crime, drug dealing, theft - you name it. Young people cannot survive - no safety nets, no social structure to keep them out of trouble. If we older Americans are finding it very difficult to manage, what about our young people who cannot afford college, who are forced to work for minimum wage, who, for those who are luckiest, must rely on their parents indefinitely.
This should be a real wake-up call for our government, for businesses, for communities as a whole. If people cannot afford to live in this country, no matter what they do, then this country WILL fall apart. It is that simple. According to this article, about 100 million people are living (barely existing) right at the poverty line.
I want to know why businesses are given a carte blanc to take jobs away from Americans, pay pathetic wages and still be allowed to outsource their entire industry WITHOUT PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE IN TAXES. I want to know why our pathetic excuse for a government is hell-bent on destroying our nation. I want to know why our elected leaders are so STUPID.
RE: “I want to know why our elected leaders are so STUPID.”
Reason : because we allow them to be .
If you ain’t calling or writing them to complain , and working to unseat them - you are part of the problem .
In a newsletter the other day I found a quote: The Democrats spend, spend, spend, and raise taxes to cover it. The Republicans spend, spend, spend, and borrow money to cover it. So we are in trouble with both parties who cannot see the idea of fiscal responsibility like they expect us to live by. Just throwing more money at a problem doesn’t help anything, it just wastes more current and future dollars. Is there anyone out there who could volunteer to try and teach Congress and the House the basics of Economics 101? Or is it just that they don’t give a rat’s patootie because taxpayers have set up medical, retirement and enough perks for them to make a CEO ecstatic!