Welcome to a Has-Been Country- America

[sintax]

Welcome to a Has-Been Country

The US Labor Force: One Foot in the Third World

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In May the Bush economy eked out a paltry 73,000 private sector jobs: 20,000 jobs in construction (primarily for Mexican immigrants), 21,000 jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and 32,500 jobs in health care and social assistance. Local government added 5,000 for a grand total of 78,000.

Not a single one of these jobs produces an exportable good or service. With Americans increasingly divorced from the production of the goods and services that they consume, Americans have no way to pay for their consumption except by handing over to foreigners more of their accumulated stock of wealth. The country continues to eat its seed corn.

Only 10 million Americans are classified as "production workers" in the Bureau of Labor Statistics nonfarm payroll tables. Think about that.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts06032005.html

[Erika]

1. The world profits at the expense of American citizens

I read today where the majority of seasonal jobs for high school kids are unavailable now because the illegal migrants have filled the jobs.

Bush is the corporate world president, not ours.

[Karenina]

8. Excuse me,

those McJobs have also been filled by the elderly and under-employed.

[Sadie5]

2. Not only jobs

The US economy is really dragging. Gas prices are sky high, groceries are rising in price except for WallysWorld who wants to rule the world, jobs are low paying that are available. The paycheck no longer covers the bills and if you dare get sick, well...

[marmar]

3. Scary stuff...

I expected that the U.S., like Egypt, Greece, Rome and every other great civilization, would eventually begin its decline, but I'm a bit shocked at the speed at which Bush and his goons are making it happen. He's like Nero or Commodus, only worse.

:cry:

[FightingIrish]

4. It pains me to tell my kids what America has been and is no longer

The beacon of freedom and justice

The deterrent to totalitarianism

The leader in healing human suffering and disease

The model of tolerance

The leader in technology and productivity

The land of opportunity

The land of the free and the home of the brave

[sintax]

5. With all due respect

all of what you listed is part and parcel of the American mythology. The sooner we come to grips with the brutal reality of the dirty truth of America the sooner we can move on. It's time to give up the ghost of that which never was. America was founded on genocide, slavery, oppression of women and ecological destruction.

Everything the Bush admin is doing is consistent with Amer. history just a juiced up rendition.

I want you to remember that for Europe, fascism, colonization and conquest are not the exception, they are the rule. They only appear to be an exception to white America, just as the death camps appeared to be an exception to good Germans. It was not the way they lived. It only affected others.

<snip>

Read Stannard's American Holocaust. Hitler was a piker, a Johnny-Come-Lately, a zero. Spain and Britain slaughtered 120 million of my ancestors before Hitler ever hit the scene. He learned from them, from you. Lebensraum was a new way of saying Manifest Destiny, Concentration Camp was a new way of saying Reservation, the Final Solution was only a new way of saying the only good Indian

http://www.counterpunch.org/renteria02262005.html

“There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality... And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” – Abraham Lincoln

[shadowknows69]

7. Also not real proud of my American heritage

BTW. And to my recollection I never personally made a decision where I oppressed another human being intentionally. I hope in the grander scheme of things someday that I'll be judged as a beneficent member of the human race.

[shadowknows69]

6. do they ever print stats

of the average salary of these new jobs?

[applegrove]

9. Every country ends up with a family compact at times. You just have

to keep fighting. We were lucky in Canada - we almost had two revolutions in the late 1800s because of ridiculous wealth. Taught us well.

But we are reminded of how important it is to teach morals everywhere in every two generations at least.

Sorry for you pain.