Harry, thank you, by the way, for the gracious comment
you made this weekend about an earlier post.
In this post I am not arguing about trade, although I
certainly agree most protectionist policies are counterproductive. We are
lacking a decent, viable jobs plan because we are overly reliant on large
corporations and increasingly, the retail/service industries to supply a larger
pool of the labor force with income, which are not often living wages to
sustain families. We need more
diversity in our jobs base, not less.
Tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest will take time, if indeed they are ever
re-invested in jobs production, to succeed. I’ve made my opinion well known on that trickle down fairy
tale. All the talk about tax cuts
going to the low income workers that Bush made during Campaign 2000 were
lies. All the recent fluff about
tax cuts for middle income Americans is insignificant to real outcomes in
economic growth. More lies.
Due to a host of factors, there is a growing and
persistent employment problem. If
it hasn’t affected anyone close to you or you haven’t noticed it in your
neighborhood and community, it is now happening on a large scale to educated,
hard-working, career-oriented people, whose families are impacted directly and
indirectly. Insecurity and
uncertainty about where this country is headed is already impacting public
perceptions and political agendas.
As you, Arthur and Keith keep saying, economists don’t really know how
to solve this problem, but the politicians are the ones who take and pledge
responsibility for it.
Our values are at stake when we become immune to
larger portions of the population living in poverty with very little hope of
improving their lot. Are we
comfortable with poverty and hunger on our streets, in our neighborhoods? Have you noticed a rise in robberies
and domestic abuse in your area? Foreclosures
are on the rise, as are intact families that are homeless. Is it wise and/or cost effective to
ignore the impact of millions of Americans who do not have medical coverage,
even with jobs, who only see a doctor at the emergency and then the taxpayers
pay for it? Can we shrug off the
college educations deferred or aborted? Can we really afford to ignore these problems in public
policy? Except for lip service, the
Bush2 politburo seems to think so, if actions speak louder than words.
So far, the Bush2 jobs program is a misnomer, except
in the defense industry. As our
first CEO president, he presides over the greatest job loss in American history
since the Great Depression. Pres. Bush needs to address the complaint that he
is fostering class warfare, that he is not serious about improving the economic
health of this country. His speech on Sept 15th better be more than flag-waving
propaganda, because the voting public is paying attention to economic realities,
whether he is or not. It is take
that he “fish or cut bait”.
What kind of future are we hoping to create? – KWC
PS I absolutely love my cordless Logitech keyboard and
mouse.
Harry wrote: Karen,
It won't be much comfort to unemployed workers, but as the Economist noted,
advanced nations become more and more service oriented.
I use a cordless (wireless) keyboard and mouse by Logitech. I note the
keyboard was made in Thailand, while the mouse was made in China.Those
countries probably got a dollar or so for them.
The price for these in the stores is some $50-$60. (My #1 son intervened
with rebate offers and I paid about $30.)
Who gets the rest of this price? Obviously the shipping people get some,
but this a notoriously cheap way to move goods. Call it another 50 cents.
So, between (say) $2 and $50 is an amount that pays the wages of a lot of
people engaged in moving goods through the system.
If we stopped the import of keyboards and mice and made them here, they
would be a lot more expensive. Fewer people could afford them and those
that could would be paying perhaps $90-$100.
Worse, we would lose friends. The old Free Trade dictum said: "If goods
don't cross the frontiers, armies will."
I like the fact that a large part of the Chinese economy depends on exports
to the United States. It makes conflict less likely.
With trade, we build up a large group of Chinese with a vested interest in
peace. That's good.
He points out how high sugar prices have sent candy makers into Canada -
the last was LifeSavers. The Sugar Quota holds 270 million American
consumers in thralldom to fewer than 11,000 beet sugar farmers.
It is a typical instance of interference with trade.
Harry
------------------------------------------------
Karen wrote:
>This issue will not go away, nor should it. It seems that rising
health
>care costs will finally get serious attention as employees and the
>workforce deal with declining revenue and opportunities. The question
is
>how much worse must it get before the extremists are wrestled to the floor
>by moderates who want to get something positive done. No more lip
>service. - KWC
>
>
>
>
>Excerpts: Stemming Job Losses
>
>
>
>By David S. Broder, Sunday, August 31, 2003; Page B07
>
>The economy is getting better, so the experts say. But this is anything
>but a joyful Labor Day for the 9 million Americans without jobs or for the
>businesses that once employed many of them. As the union-backed Economic
>Policy Institute pointed out in a report last week, "in terms of
>employment growth, the current recovery is the worst on record since the
>Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking employment in 1939."
>
>Instead of the job picture improving as economic activity has accelerated,
>more than 1 million jobs have disappeared since the recession officially
>ended. The reason is clear: The manufacturing sector has hit the
>skids. The number of factory workers has declined every month for
three
>years. From July 2000 until last month, industrial jobs fell from
17.3
>million to 14.6 million -- a loss of almost one job in six. And these
>were, for the most part, good jobs, averaging $54,000 a year.
>
>It has taken a while for this problem to penetrate the consciousness of
>official Washington. Even now, despite the warnings from both labor
and
>management, many officials seem to think that the economic recovery
>underway will itself restore a healthy labor market and bring back the
>vanished jobs.
>
>Governors, who live closer to the everyday lives of their constituents,
>know better. The issue of industrial job loss was very much on the
minds
>of the state executives who met in Indianapolis earlier this
>month. Indiana's retiring Democratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon briefed his
>colleagues on his ambitious plan to stimulate four industrial sectors,
>with hopes of creating 200,000 new high-wage jobs. The plan was
whittled
>down in the Legislature -- and now the jobs issue dominates the campaign
>to choose his successor.
>
>&To many of them, the future appears bleak. "The
manufacturing jobs are
>gone, and they're not coming back," South Carolina Republican Gov.
Mark
>Sanford said with finality. "Just look at the cost of labor in
>India." Others think something can be salvaged. Mitt Romney,
the
>Republican governor of Massachusetts, said: "Manufacturing has been in
>decline in our state for over 10 years now. Most of what can be done
in
>China is already being done there. We're pursuing the kind of
>manufacturing that needs to be done in a high-tech state."
>
>But even high-end manufacturing jobs are facing increased competition, as
>foreign countries build up their work force skills. The National
>Association of Manufacturers (NAM), for example, noted last week that
>"more than a quarter (28 percent) of the U.S.-China trade deficit is
now
>in computers and electronics, the fastest growing manufacturing industry
>in the 1990s."
>
>&Even free-traders such as Jasinowski and Ehlers complain that the
Chinese
>enjoy a 40 percent competitive advantage because they won't let their
>currency "float" to a realistic level.
>
>But not all the problems originate abroad. Jasinowski says regulatory
and
>litigation costs and the ever-rising expense of health insurance are
>squeezing domestic producers who cannot raise their own prices. And
>government policies designed to help one set of producers can harm
>others. Sugar duties have driven candy manufacturers from the United
>States into Canada, and Ehlers says the administration's decision to
>impose steel tariffs has added to the woes of his industrial constituents,
>who are steel consumers.
>
>Secretary of Commerce Don Evans is scheduled to announce a Bush initiative
>for manufacturing at a Sept. 15 speech in Detroit. Meanwhile, the
>Democratic presidential candidates are zeroing in on the issue. Sen.
Joe
>Lieberman has been out front in proposing a mix of possible approaches,
>and Rep. Dick Gephardt has used the crisis to spotlight his record as a
>longtime opponent of the free-trade agreements with Mexico and China.
>
>The United States and its economy have a large stake in international
>trade -- one that could be lost if policy takes a turn toward the sort of
>short-term protectionism embodied in the steel tariffs. But the
wasting
>of the manufacturing sector is a large fact of life, far too important to
>be ignored in pursuit of some economic theory. It is a problem crying
out
>for a solution.
>
><http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2464-2003Aug29.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2464-2003Aug29.html
