what's really propping up the us economy

[razors edge]

If you really want to understand what makes the U.S. economy tick these days, don't go to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Washington. Just take a short trip to your local hospital. Park where you don't block the ambulances, and watch the unending flow of doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personnel. You'll have a front-But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago.

snip:

Sure, housing has been a bonanza for homebuilders, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers. Together they have added more than 900,000 jobs since 2001. But the pressures of globalization and new technology have wreaked havoc on the rest of the labor market: Factories are still closing, retailers are shrinking, and the finance and insurance sector, outside of real estate lending and health insurers, has generated few additional jobs.

Perhaps most surprising, information technology, the great electronic promise of the 1990s, has turned into one of the biggest job-growth disappointments of all time. Despite the splashy success of companies such as Google (GOOG ) and Yahoo! (YHOO ), businesses at the core of the information economy -- software, semiconductors, telecom, and the whole gamut of Web companies -- have lost more than 1.1 million jobs in the past five years. Those businesses employ fewer Americans today than they did in 1998, when the Internet frenzy kicked into high gear.
row seat at the health-care economy.



Get sick and die in need be, but keep the rest of us afloat.:sarcasm:





oops try to edit for link http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002001.htm

[pretzel4gore]

1. bush is keeping everything nice

the biggest mystery on earth: how can a fraudulent huckster, a tapeworm with hyena ethos, get to be hero of so many powerful/influencial?
how how how how how how how? etc?
why do the lying liars lie to promote, protect and provide for the aforementioned?
why why why why etc...?
and most importantly, recalling the double digit inflation back in the early 70's when keynsian economics ran up against the common folk getting too large a share of the pie, necessitating price increases on everything far in advance of incomes (if anyone remembers, in the 70's and earlier a person could easily down payment a new house with only 3 years wage savings, jobs were everywhere and the $ was basically middle class; remember 'wage and price controls'?) ....the system then went outta its way to correct these 'expectations' of common people, and lowering them until today it's all just about survival - if you lose, you're homeless etc ie a worthless pos!
who elected ronald regan?
who who who who who who who? etc?
and bush!
wtf? wtf? wtf? wtf? wtf? etc?

[razors edge]

5. The revolutions that succeed and held tyrants accountable

come from the middle class, hence the easiest protection is to do away with said middle class.

Nixon defaulted on gold to the french in 1971 who were cashing in 35 dollars to the ounce by our own laws. Carter got stuck with the legacy of a backrupt US and had to proceed with the implementation of petro-dollars set up by Nixon. Rough going and no faith in the dollar led to high inflation and Jimmy got the blame.

Sort of like the fall of th soviets except the us pretended it never happened. they will try it again this time but I don't think it will work.

[skids]

2. Except even in health care...

...they are laying off the highly qualified and instead hiring McJob style medical technicians with Associates Degrees. Not that medical techs are not needed, it's the laying off carreer nurses that is bad, and the fact that the salaries are lowballed.

[razors edge]

3. it's still a one to one

warm body ratio with less cost, guess that means an increase in productivity.

[patricia92243]

4. Oh Yes!! My sister is a RN. They paid a bunch of them a bonus to "retire"

early. She debated whether to take the money and run or to stay on and work to her real retirement age. I told her she could leave with the money or stay and leave when they fired her - either way she would be out the door. She took the money and went home. Then, sure enough the hospital where she had worked had a MaSSIVE lay-off.

They then turned around and hired a bunch of nurses who were just out of school and LPNs instead of RN's.

The hospital is the biggest employer in this area - not just my city. How much longer this can last, I don't know.

[Kolesar]

6. Doctors offices look like art museums where I live

You should see the furnishings and paintings and prints they put in there. You can tell those physicians and labs are raking in the cash.

My hunch is that most Americans' savings get sucked away in their weak years. It ends up as yachts and portfolios.