``Today we are moving from manufacturing to a service economy. The decline in manufacturing jobs has been dramatic—from about a third of the workforce 60 years ago to less than a tenth of it today. The pace has quickened markedly during the past decade. There are two reasons for the decline. One is greater productivity—the same dynamic that revolutionized agriculture and forced a majority of American farmers to look for work elsewhere. The other is globalization, which has sent millions of jobs overseas, to low-wage countries or those that have been investing more in infrastructure or technology. (As Greenwald has pointed out, most of the job loss in the 1990s was related to productivity increases, not to globalization.) Whatever the specific cause, the inevitable result is precisely the same as it was 80 years ago: a decline in income and jobs... .
Nearly 700,000 state and local government jobs have disappeared during the past four years, mirroring what happened in the Depression.'' Joseph Stiglitz http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/01/stiglitz-depression-201201# I would argue that we need a heavy industrial base of our own, since virtually all the infrastructure that needs repair and replacement is built from steel, aluminum, glass, and petrochemicals. These are also the areas where research is most needed to figure out how to build in much better ways for the environment and society. The new East Bay bridge is an example. The steel and its fabrication were done in China. I assume the US no longer has the technology to build on such scales. The other industry I think should be re-built in the same environmentally sound way are shipyards and ship construction and of course the railroads to move heavy frieght around the country. None of the above, including Stiglitz' well thought out essay is going to happen because the political and social bodies are as broken as the economy. Hence the overwhelming fear and doubt that plaque me daily. And yet at the immediate moment, I am doing fine. Now that I have paid off the credit card, I can start saving for the long worst case scenerio. It is very disturbing to know there is no future. Way back in the 1980s I pared down my lifestyle to something I could afford on about 10.00/hr x 40hr. Now I can't afford that or anything near that, and yet nothing has changed in the sense that the blood still flows out of a gaping wound that no amount of stuffing 4 x 4's will stop. I don't know how to put this any other way. The United States and the broad mass of its people are bleeding out before us. We watch like accident bystanders as our fellows lay dying, grow pale, dizzy, and weak and we can do little or nothing. I feel, perhaps wrongly, none of us will have a future until we face the fact we are already dead so it no longer matters. This is a feeling that I have felt before, long ago, when prison or the battle fields of Vietnam were my only choices. Back then it was a liberation of sorts. Life could after all be lived moment to moment. Now there is no liberation because it is death soon or death later. The only distance between us and the Egyptians is they will face death today or tomorrow, and we will face it the day after. Ieri, oggi e domani! (It was a stupid Sophia Loren movie, but never mind because the expression has such a beautiful poetry.) So that is my slogan for the revolution. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
