Unemployment Conspicuously Absent in the SOTU

[jtown1123]

We don't have a deficit, innovation or education crisis in the U.S. We have a jobs crisis, and unemployment crisis, a foreclosure crisis. This is why I am bitterly disappointed this morning.

Until we stop harping on false problems, we will never, ever recover.



An excerpt from James Galbraith email to Dan Froomkin:

Other missing words: "unemployment," "unemployment insurance," "foreclosure crisis," "poverty," "financial fraud," "prosecutions." There's nothing about bank credit. The victims of the economic crisis have become invisible, it would seem.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/state-of-the-union-2011-s_n_813477.html#58_no-there-there

[jaxx]

1. Unemployment was loud and clear in everything he said.

All of those proposals spelled JOBS. None of the problems are false, they all tie together.

[dkf]

4. To some unemployment only means payments, not creating jobs.

[jaxx]

5. The whole speech was about creating jobs.

From education to retirement....all in between is jobs. Moving forward, keeping us competitive.

[jtown1123]

13. We have plenty of highly educated/skilled people out of work.

Take h1b visas http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters13e8

[blindpig]

26. And why should working people be dependent upon capitalists

for their subsistence?

Why should the whims and avarice of the ruling class be the condition of workers survival?

That the ruling class controls the means of production is not a natural law but a social convention, it can be overturned faster than you could believe.

[jtown1123]

9. What proposals are you referring to? I didn't see any that would

help lower and middle income people who have been out of work for years. All I heard was lowering corporate taxes.

[jaxx]

12. Looks like you missed the speech.

Energy, education, infrastructure. Watch it again, it's all there.

[jtown1123]

15. I've read it about 5 times. I wanted to hear about our structural unemployment

problem that is not going away any time soon. Energy is about the only thing he gaves specifics on, Education and infrastruture are good, but it doesn't solve how we are going to create jobs for millions who may never work again a day in their life. We need a massive jobs program or a massive stimulus to get us out of this mess.

[jaxx]

21. I thought this part was good.....

"What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can’t just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.” Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age."


I don't think anyone in this country is unaware of the unemployment situation. I know my family has been hit by it and is struggling. It will take effort from all sides of the business/mfg/money world to get us moving faster on jobs.

[zipplewrath]

25. I notice you left out government

You listed business/mfg/money, but you didn't really mention government. The case that people like Paul Friedman keep making is that the Obama administration is "leaving them out" too. Right now, government is a huge part of that, and they don't seem to be particularly stepping up to the plate. Especially when they are declaring that the "worst is over".

[daa]

17. Right so Jeff Immelt can send MORE GE jobs out

of the country.

[Lucky 13]

2. Move along. Nothing to see here...

[somone]

3. No truer words

We don't have a deficit, innovation or education crisis in the U.S.
We have a jobs crisis, and unemployment crisis, a foreclosure crisis.

[dkf]

6. If we didn't have an innovation crisis wouldn't more people be working?

[jtown1123]

10. No, we have innovation, but people are barred from getting loans

because corporations and big banks are sitting on trillions and not investing.

Our companies are hiring overseas, not here. I didn't hear how we can fix that.

[dkf]

29. I'm amazed more unemployed 99ers don't simply sell their services on craigslist or something.

With the average American so short on time who can do yardwork? Why aren't there more childcare services so that the prices start coming down? Or eldercare? Why no more shopping services?

[ProSense]

7. The FCIC just

issued it's report on the causes of the crisis.

The word unemployment isn't in the speech, but the emphasis on significant job losses and the need to create more jobs was mentioned.

<...>

Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck, good benefits, and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.

That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts of once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear – proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game.

They’re right. The rules have changed. In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business. Steel mills that once needed 1,000 workers can now do the same work with 100. Today, just about any company can set up shop, hire workers, and sell their products wherever there’s an internet connection.

link

Still, most people are likely aware of the unemployment situation. It's not like the President can hide it.

[jtown1123]

11. No where in those paragraphs does he mention that all our manufacturing has gone

overseas and what he wants to do to punish those companies that outsource. Yes, things have changed here. How do we fix that? We don't make anything in the U.S. and that is highly problematic. Instead of waiting for the next big jobs creator to magically appear out of thin air, the government has to pitch in and invest directly whether through a WPA or something similar. Our infrastructure is crumbling. It's not like we don't have millions of out of work construction workers who need jobs. Why not rebuild our country and creat jobs? That's what I wanted to hear.

[ProSense]

16. "Yes, things have changed here. How do we fix that?

"We don't make anything in the U.S. and that is highly problematic."

That was the point of the entire speech.

Still, feel free to nitpick about words that weren't mentioned.

One word that was mentioned most often was "jobs," and in the context of needing to create millions more.

[dixiegrrrrl]

28. A bill to tax outsourcing was shut down by the Republicans Sept. 2010.

"....a bill that would have kept an Obama campaign promise, a pledge to begin to end the tax code's incentives to outsource American jobs "failed" when Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes necessary to block debate on the awkwardly named "Create American Jobs and End Offshoring Act by a 53-45 vote.

The bill would have taken away some of the tax incentives multi-national corporations receive for relocating American jobs overseas and create a new tax credit for corporations who bring jobs now overseas back to the United States."

More from the Examiner article of Sept 2010.:
http://www.examiner.com/city-buzz-in-denver/multi-nationals-again-stop-anti-outsourcing-bill-media-is-complicit

[woo me with science]

8. Big K&R

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x276915

[Atman]

14. You're only hearing what you want to hear!

Oh wait...that's the response I keep getting in the thread I started. Never mind.

:hi:

.

[emulatorloo]

18. You may have watched the speech, but you didn't have your listening ears on.

[Still a Democrat]

20. Yep, I wonder what SOTU the OP watched

Maybe the silliest criticism of the day.

[asjr]

19. Could be if he had 24 hours straight to talk he

would have tackled every gripe we have.

[Urban Prairie]

22. EVERY existing and ANY potential future jobs created

ARE now and WILL continue to be extremely vulnerable to off-shoring, outsourcing, technological advances, automation, and the recession....EXCEPT those jobs that are nailed down here in the US by physical necessity, but some, if not many may be performed by illegals, and those possessing H1B1 visas.

Ideally, there would be an addition to the FLSA where a certain percentage of jobs needed/necessary for products and services to sold, leased, or subscribed to in the US by US-based businesses, would be required by law to be held by US workers, say approximately 75%.


But as we all know, that would upset the conservative apple cart called "free markets/trade" that they so fiercely defend. (and that exists in reality, mainly if not only here in the US).

Imposing/enforcing a law or laws requiring the hiring/employment of US labor/management/salesforces would be...GASP...

Socialism!!!

Tax-cuts, deficit-reduction, and spending-cuts are the ONLY means of creating jobs in the US, just dig up Saint Ronnnie Reagan's economic corpse of supply-side economics and trickle-down theory!!


:sarcasm:


Jobs/careers that are/would be created and that would/are nailed down here by physical necessity by following the Rethuglycan'ts model would DEFINITELY increase in the following fields: law enforcement, debt collectors, gun sellers/shops, bounty hunters, repo-men/women, grave diggers, payday loans, loan-sharks, morticians, judges, crematories, National Guard, lawyers, private detectives, and correctional officers.

[zipplewrath]

23. This line bothered me.

"But now that the worst of the recession is over, ..."

It is? I'm curious what he considers to be the "worst" part? I kinda figured it was the 9.+% unemployment. That, combined with the long term unemployment figures, kinda suggests we're still hovering some where near the bottom. Until these people, the ones who have been unemployed so long that the federal government won't extend their unemployment benefits, are put back to work, I'd kinda say we are a long way from the "worst being over". Quite the opposite, we can barely keep up with the ever expanding work force, much less putting the long term unemployed back to work.

And then we can talk about the under employed.

No, we are a long way from the worst being over, and it bothers me that he thinks we past it. Of course, all his Wall Street friends are probably feeling pretty good right now. DOW went over 12,000 and all.

[somone]

24. We're now in Obama's "new normal"

the rich get richer, the middle class continues a downward slide, and the poor die faster and younger.

[golddigger]

30. Yeah, for his banker buddies.

[bvar22]

27. After Campaign 2008, I now edit out empty rhetoric and vague promises.

Last night, I heard, Spending Freeze, and more Tax Cuts for Corporations.

Did I miss anything of substance?

[lonestarnot]

31. Meh. Yeah. Just ignore it; it will go away.