SEARCH
Speaking of Jobs…
Here are a few good nuggets about jobs to chew on this cold winter day.
• The reactionary noise machine is trying to bad-mouth the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to make it look like it’s not creating jobs. Wrong. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis this week announced the release of nearly $100 million in renewable energy training grants that will create thousands of jobs and help move our nation to energy self-sufficiency. The Electrical Workers (IBEW) is among the unions receiving the green jobs training grants. In Austin, Texas, alone, the $4.8 million granted to the union’s Joint Apprenticeship and Training Council will enable it to train more than 1,000 workers—both experienced journeymen and workers new to the trade—by next year.
• Airbus has asked for an additional $7.6 billion toward its transport plane project—this just after the World Trade Organization ruled that billions of dollars in European subsidies to Airbus violated trade rules. This move by Airbus should be considered by the U.S. government as it weighs whether to grant a $35 billion Air Force aerial tanker contract to either Northrop-EADS (Airbus) or Boeing. Some European nations won’t even allow their neighbors in the European Union to come into their defense markets to compete let alone the United States having a shot to compete overseas. Granting Boeing the contract would create 44,000 jobs in the United States. Today’s jobless data shows the nation needs every one of them.
• In the Wall Street Journal today, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard reiterates how China’s currency manipulation and illegal subsidies give it an unfair advantage against U.S. manufacturers, while its labor, intellectual property and environmental protections are grossly inadequate. America’s overall trade deficit this year with China alone will exceed $250 billion, Gerard writes, in large part because: “China flat-out cheats in its trade practices.”
• The United Streetcar LLC is a prime example of a quality U.S. company that promotes good jobs and a stable community, as the Alliance for American Manufacturing points out. The United Streetcar, “an innovative and experienced American manufacturer,” makes high-quality street cars that are in full compliance with the Buy America Act, as the video above makes clear.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
1 Comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
U.S. corporate capitalism has made immense profit through “globalization” that moves labor-intensive production to China. There millions are employed for “slave-wages” under abysmal conditions.
Today more millions of U.S. jobs additionally have been lost by U.S. workers, due to the collapse of the U.S. capitalist economy. The bankrupt globalized capitalist economic system, that profits the a few by exploiting the vast majority, must be ended if humanity is to survive.
This article, from the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) sheds some light on U.S.-China economic rivalry.
US-China rivalry intensifies
9 January 2010
John Chan
Last year, it was fashionable to talk of an emerging “G2”. The US, the world’s largest economy, and China, its rising rival, would come together to resolve global problems—in particular, the international economic crisis wracking capitalism.
Those illusions have rapidly evaporated this year, as the Obama administration signals a far harder line toward China with a series of provocative moves, including the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan and a planned meeting with the Dalai Lama. These significant symbolic steps follow the imposition of hefty US tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, from steel pipes and steel-grate to tyres.
…
Washington is no doubt driven by a growing sense that its economic and strategic interests are being increasingly blocked by Beijing. Obama’s much-vaunted trip to China last November was widely regarded as a failure: his call for an appreciation of the yuan against the dollar was ignored and in return he received a lecture on the need for financial rectitude to ensure China’s continued purchase of US bonds. At the Copenhagen climate summit, the US was opposed by a bloc led by China that pointedly snubbed Obama when he arrived to pull together a deal.
These tensions are rooted in the rapidly changing relations between the major economic powers, driven by the globalisation of production. The US remains the world’s no. 1 economy but is confronted by a dynamic rival. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the US GDP was eight times that of China; a decade later the figure was down to four times. This year China is likely to overtake Japan to become the world’s second largest economy. In 2009 China passed the US as the world’s largest auto market and producer. Two decades ago, a car industry barely existed in China.
…
Today’s tensions are compounded by the fact that no country is in a position to play the role that the US did in creating a new equilibrium after World War II. China is an economic giant with feet of clay, riven by economic and social contradictions. Its economy is dependent on Western investment, technology and markets. China’s great economic “strength”—its vast pool of cheap labour—inevitably produces deep-seated social tensions.
…
(Read the full article here:)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j09.shtml