Your Thoughts: "No Jobs, No Recovery"

NAFTA and the sweetheart deal given to China and India must be canceled, otherwise the American worker and the financial stability of this nation will never recover. China's population is about six times the population of the United States, as is India's. The wage scale in both China and India is almost that of a shoe shine boy. The different wage scales in past history has required tariffs so as not to destroy the economies of all nations. Tariff is not a dirty word. It has been used to correct disparities in wages for thousands of years.

Outsourcing to the point of where we produce nothing is outrageous. America must re-build its industrial base, heavy industry and all, from the ground up. To agree to re-build our infrastructure and not our industrial base is sheer folly. This re-building must be done only with American products, not foreign.

Our industrial base allowed America to win World War II. We have no industrial base today. The American worker must demand this new administration cancel the trade deal with China and India and cancel NAFTA as its first order of business.

Bailouts cannot solve what our leadership has done to the American worker, starting with the ending of World War II. Lopsided trade deals appeased the greed of the few and have turned the financial world upside down. This problem is not only America's problem but is worldwide. The European Common Market and the creation of global industries, pitting workers worldwide against each other, have opened up a Pandora's Box. It can and is creating social unrest worldwide.

Our ports nationwide are busting at the seams with the products from all over the world, entering our nation duty free from nations whose wage scale is much lower than ours. This is why you have no job or if you are lucky enough to have a job, it does not keep you in your home.

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2008/dec/14/no-jobs-no-recovery/

In my opinion, this country can do bailouts until they're blue in the face.....nothing will change until people have "jobs." With unemployment so high.....until people have jobs, there will be no "recovery."

I'm increasingly pessimistic that not only will we not have a fundamental overhaul of our trade policies, but that we won't even have ANY substantive changes.

I sincerely hope that I'm proven wrong.

with our nearest neighbors - Canada and Mexico. The world seems to be developing regional economies and this is our region. Both of those countries are too close to ignore. I am not sure what would be fair and helpful to all our economies but surely there must be some common traits we share.

LACK of democracy in THEIR country.

When you have uber-wealthy families in Mexico city becoming even wealthier on the backs of their own people, who live in poverty? Uh uhhh -- they need to address THEIR problems THEMSELVES. When they show the same sort of care for their citizens that Canada does for their people -- THEN and ONLY then should they be considered for any sort of regional programs.

if they are not part of the region then they are going to be our nearest enemy. Oh, well ungoing wars seems to be the norm for the times.

The general in Iraq who said they will be coming home to go into Mexico may have been right. Years ago RFK sr. wrote a book that talked about Mexico's economy and discussed the fact that some 14% of Mexican citizens own all of the land and that they do not USE it - farm it. It just sets there when it could be used to help the other 86% survive. He was right but he did not suggest how we were going to make that happen.

Our corporations create an investor class there, just like they do here - and just like they do in China. The only reason you don't see the same kind of poverty here is due to food stamps, medicaid, ssd, housing and power assistance.

And it is a worldwide problem. :(

We will return to positive economic growth before the labor market stops contracting, and will go through a period of "jobless recovery"

They are talking layoffs at the town's biggest employer, and folks are running scared. People aren't buying except for necessities. Jobs mean people spend money, which supports business.

Just what in the world did the companies who outsourced all our jobs think would happen? Or are they planning to only market to India and China now?

fix anything in the long-term, if there are no jobs bringing in tax revenue to pay the accumulated debt, back.

that was the stimulus package. I don't know what projects you have going in your state, or how your state government is choosing to spend the stimulus but it's easy to find out.

you want to put on the pig. When unemployment goes up, companies continue to lay off and/or outsource... the tax base is decreased and the debt cannot be recovered.

comment? Of course if companies continue to outsource, and cut jobs, unemployment goes up. That's where we are now, and where we've been headed for a couple of decades. Hence the need for the stimulus and the plans in the budget. What does that have to do with the banks..unless you're talking about letting them fail?

and paying for it with US tax dollars; just as IBM, GM, Microsoft, Ford, Hershey, etc... Stimulus money stimulates foreign economies. There is no over sight, and there are no plans for it.

with the stimulus money? Do you care?

with the stimulus money? Did you call your representatives to push for the larger stimulus package? Do you expect any of those jobs to return? How is it you think we will get jobs in this country? Especially if the banks fail, and what little industry we have left goes down.

What's the matter you can't answer questions..you can only ask them? Where do you think the 'jobs' are, from the stimulus?

I know it's hard and sometimes I fall into the trap myself.

But if memory and or a quick google search reveals that a particular individual is known to make obnoxious/insulting comments (hypothetically speaking of course), don't humor them with too much back and forth.

Why I decided to leave this comment I'm not sure, it's pretty random. Sorry for going off topic.

:)

;-)

new jobs to come to Ohio. They are looking to fix roads, fund the EPAs agenda and dump money into public transportation. All of this is useless waste when there are no new long term jobs created.

And what is up with your line of questioning if I know how to read my Governor's website or not? I've seen you ask that question over and over on a number of threads... what gives? Do you know what your state is doing? Mine is wasting it...good enough answer for you?

perhaps you should have just said that?

I cannot help you.

In all fairness, all you questioned was what my state was doing, and if I knew what my state was doing, and have I ever looked up what my state was doing...etc...etc...etc... and the record skipped to a different post with the exact same track.

following. I didn't realize you were against the things I appreciate being done in my state..the 'shovel-ready' projects..fixing infrastructure, extending unemployment insurance, maintaining police, fire, teachers etc., and providing other social needs for people who need help. The planning for the longer term projects, like energy..we do have a lot of wind turbines going up...and fixing the schools, etc., have not been completed. I guess I am just surprised that you would be against these things, but now that I understand I will no longer respond to your posts. I apologize.

solar panels, collectors, delivery methods etc, and wind devices. This would reduce the price enough so that every home and business could afford the price of solar panel installation. What do you think?

And as you well know, we should have had major solar investment decades ago, but for the fact that our state is run by a bunch of frackin idiots.

government oversight jobs that would be created for implementation, oversight and making sure every house/business gets one. :D That would be a bunch of jobs!

Industialize!

good economic times, much less horrible economic times where the government is already trying to create demand in the economy (at a heavy cost). Industries that have been shipped out can be redeveloped only if the price of production is less than the foreign competitors advantage + the tariffs enacted (and in addition, we must not forget the investment money required to create such businesses again). If we cannot produce cheaper than a disadvantaged competitor, our people would just pay more in the meantime (goods can skyrocket). The government would be required to inject a massive amount of capital to create these industries (on top of what else they are injecting), as well as additional cash to make up for more GDP decline from trade. Yet in this country, I guarantee you the government would be allowed to take no such stake in the enterprise, and yet, they are the only answer since the investor class is out taking a nap at the moment. The best of plan to address the GDP decline, as well as to stimulate the rebuilding of the manufacturing sector, would have a price tag that would make it politically unviable in the best of times. Now the worst of plans would just outright fuck the country back to the stone age.

Phasing tariffs back in slowly and trying to address the redevelopment of the manufacturing base in tandem with the private sector would probably be a more sound approach than immediately withdrawing, but it would take years (if not a decade) to completely re-organize without tanking the country from shock. Between you and me, I would hope this current economic recovery takes less than a decade.

No, I'm not a fan of the shit bailouts, and they wont solve the problem. But stimulating production can (and perhaps even manufacturing of green tech is a major key). But to try to restructure the entire economy with a new trade system, such that we rebuild the country's ability to produce everything from consumer goods to toiletries, well, may be such a cumbersome task that it is impossible in the current climate. If the current climate gets infinitely worse, I would then argue that you have nothing to lose, so what the hell.

....manufacture things, you're a colony....throwing bail-out money around or shipping jobs/profits and future tax dollars abroad to shore-up our failed version of capitalism has brought us to where we are today....it will only end when hungry people take to the streets and demand jobs and systemic change....

....a strong manufacturing base creates and sustains the wealth of a nation and our manufacturing base has been emasculated by short-term profiteering thugs....and the much relied upon service industry will disappear when there's nothing left to service....

....high-debt consumerism is dead and the green technologies are tomorrow....where are the livable-wage jobs going to come from today, if not from protectionism?....not until we once again produce the goods and services we consume will jobs be plentiful and the middle class prosper....

just yet. JMHO here... I didn't and don't expect that thing is going to be turned around in the space of two, three, or four months. Not even in twelve months. It would be nice if we could magically wave a wand and erase the things that (since Reagan) have been weaving their way deeply through our economy, our infrastructure, our institutions, and our collective soul (for want of a better term). But, the reality is...we can't do it all magically in one fell swoop. It would be a disaster on every level.

It's going to take doing several things at once...like education, healthcare, an common sense energy plan, a lighter thumb on the scale for employers, and a fundamental change in the way we as a country "work" together.

IMO, the theocrats need to be neutered, the plutocrats need to prohibited from access, and the aristocrats need to be put in the trenches at minimum wage. Big banks need to be broken up, big media needs to be busted up, and mega-corporations that are "too big to fail" (which sounds like something just below monopoly to me :shrug: ) should have their "executives" mandated for volunteer service in disaster areas.

Personally, I think we're too quick to throw OUR guys under the bus and give the over wheel to the opposition. We need to work with our guys and pressure them when we see they're on a completely different path than what we elected them to do, then cut them loose if they still refuse. At the same time, we're going to have to keep fighting the opposition day in and day out. They never give up and are keen to take advantage making craters into our cracks.

This is the very reason we are in this mess and it all revolves around this globalized world . We can't just make up new jobs and build things that don't exist we can only improve upon products and bring out jobs back to a living wage and if we can't and are forced to compete in this global market then. we lose.

we cannot have a market based on marking money off of money which is like gambling and rolling dice.

I don;t see how we can ever go back now , it seems we have reached the point of no return now that we've been sold out and they did this in such a undercover why many of us never saw it coming.

Yes people who still have a job are lucky but for how long. WE don;t make anything here now not even the products to build our infrastructure or homes or cars we just assemble crap.

I made this long but I really don;t share the faith in government fixing this.

I don't see a new job for me these days and am stuck with the struggle to make what i have do and buy nothing and see were I end up . At 60 I am at the point of who cares now.

They talk about re-training and I ask what the hell for at this age.

This country needs JOBS. Good paying JOBS.

We need a MASSIVE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH from the top,
to the middle and down.

The only way to get that redistribution of wealth is to tax the rich,
and invest it in the poor and middle class.

Trying to save what caused the problem in the first place is

INSANE.

Thank you for this.

Nominated.