http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5751/will_bolder_obama_be_willing_to_lash_out_on_job_relocations/Friday March 26 2:35 pm
By Roger Bybee
President Barack Obama seems to have regained his footing and fighting spirit in his last-minute drive for healthcare reform.
But will he bring this feistiness to the crucial fight for jobs? Will he be willing to target job-exporting corporations in the same fashion that he made insurance corporations the rhetorical enemy (although they're ultimately the biggest winners in the final bill signed into law this week) during the last stages of the healthcare battle?
For President Obama, the moral imperative is clear. Given the desperation evident in so many factory towns across the Midwest and elsewhere, Obama needs to stand with working Americans who are fighting to save their communities and preserve our productive base.
America is in the midst of an extraordinary, unprecedented jobs crisis. The most revealing statistic to remember is not the latest national unemployment rate, but the fact that the United States had virtually zero net job growth in the past decade. Zilch. Nada.
During every decade since WWII, the United States gained 22 percent to 38 percent in employment. But in the last decade, the gain was zero. We lost 5.6 million manufacturing jobs during that time, which were offset by employment gains in primarily low-wage service jobs.
'YOU DONT WANT WORKERS'
'Why is this happening? Look at the basic philosophy of U.S. corporations, in the words of leading corporate research economist Allen Sinai: "American business is about maximizing shareholder value, you basically don’t want workers."
FULL story at link.