Dude, Where's My Job

[girl gone mad]

Dude, Where's My Job
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-dude-wheres-my-job

The storyline being sold to the American public by the White House and the corporate mainstream media is that the economy is growing, jobs are being created, corporations are generating record profits, consumers are spending and all will be well in 2011. The 2% payroll tax cut, stolen from future generations to be spent in 2011, will jumpstart a sound economic recovery. Joseph Goebbels would be proud.

The economy is growing due to unprecedented deficit spending by the government, fraudulent accounting by the Wall Street banks, the Federal Reserve buying $1.5 trillion of toxic mortgage “assets” from their Wall Street owners, various home buyer and auto tax credits and gimmick programs, and Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA accumulating taxpayer loses so morons can continue to purchase houses. Jobs are being created. According to the BLS, we’ve added 951,000 jobs since December 2009, an average of 79,000 per month. Of course, the population of the US is growing at 175,000 per month. It seems that there are millions of jobs being created, just not here as shown on http://www.zerohedge.com/article/obama-must-create-230000-jobs-month-until-end-his-second-term-return-breakeven-charting-new-">these graphs from the NYT.

The storyline of corporate profits is true. As a percentage of national income, corporate profits are 9.5%. They have only topped 9% twice in history – in 2006 and 1929. When you see the paid Wall Street shills parade on CNBC every day proclaiming the huge corporate profit growth ahead, keep these data points in mind. Do profits generally rise dramatically from all time peaks?

You might ask yourself, if corporations are doing so well how come real unemployment exceeds 20%? The answer lies in who is generating the profits and how they are doing it. It seems that the fantastic profits are not being generated by domestic non-financial companies employing middle class Americans producing goods. Pre-tax domestic nonfinancial corporate profits are not close to record levels as a share of national income. They exceeded 15% of national income once in the late 1940s, and repeatedly topped 12% in the 1950s and 1960s; in the third quarter of this year, they were 7.03% of national income. I wonder who is making the profits.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-dude-wheres-my-job">more...

[econoclast]

1. An important question about US manufacturing jobs

I ask this question from time to time and have yet to receive a serious answer .....

Let's suppose I am a venture capitalist and have my finger on The Next Big Thing.     It is a can't miss!     Millions of unit sales worldwide.    Thousands of manufacturing jobs created.     

Give me three good reasons to produce The Next Big Thing in America.  

[girl gone mad]

2. Why should a nation of minimum wage earning Wal-Mart greeters and sandwich artists..

take on more debt to buy your frivolous "Next Big Thing"? They're still paying off the credit card balance for the "Last Big Thing" they splurged on. They have no job security, little savings and a lot of inflation eating away any discretionary income.

If you think you can make a profit selling your junk to the low wage foreign factory workers you want to hire, go for it. I think foreign governments have other plans for what to do with your proprietary information, though.

[Crazy Dave]

4. 99% of banks and investors...

Will not even consider investing with an entrepreneur who plans on manufacturing his widgets here in America. Not enough profit margins for a quick return on their investment.

Now if you are an American or Chinese entrepreneur who wants to manufacture your widgets in China or another cheap labor country the money is all yours.

It was the same way with outsourcing ten years ago. If your corporation didn't have an outsourcing plan to become more profitable faster, you didn't get any money for capital.

[jtuck004]

6. 1) You want your country to succeed

2) There are developing countries out there, but how do kids making 15 cents a day bringing in coffee for us to swill buy your next big thing? Is there enough of a market outside of here? And since this place is very likely in a Depression (take away all the support money, which can't last forever, and we would be on our face) you might not have the market you think.

3)There is much unused talent here, and an infrastructure to draw on that doesn't exist in a lot of places. And a lot of people who could use a job.

4) You thought Frank Capra nailed how good life could be here, and you want to re-create it in real life.

It's really hard to answer that without specifics. There are too many factors such as cost, environment, how educated your workforce needs to be and in what, etc...

It would have to be something to make a significant impact on 40 million unemployed, underemployed, and dis-heartened workers, however.

On the other hand, if the model is another selfish CEO willing to play the misery of people off of each other just to make a fortune maybe we would be better off insisting that it leave the country. There are a few reasons it might be just a short-term solution, leaving us in the same hole we are in for the long run. No good.

[jody]

3. Dude, Where's My Job? Dude start your own business. n/t

[girl gone mad]

5. That's your proposed solution to the unemployment crisis?

Gee.. why didn't everyone think of it sooner?

:eyes:

[jody]

7. Is it easier to demand someone else do the really hard work like starting a business so she/he can

then give you a job?

Entrepreneurs are starting small businesses every day and many people, myself included, believe they are the key to REAL economic recovery.