Watching the Economy Crumble

[whosinpower]

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08092005.html

REALLY good read - timely since Bush is touting how great the economy is.

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

snip - Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.

Here is the breakdown of the major categories:

• 30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
• 28,000 health care and social assistance:
• 12,000 real estate;
• 6,000 credit intermediation;
• 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
• 50,000 retail trade; and
• 8,000 wholesale trade.
(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.)

[FloridaPat]

1. It's summer and tourist time. Jobs for kids during the summer. These

jobs disappear in September. The real estate jobs will disappear with the crash - if it ever comes. And the credit intermediation is because of the new bankruptcy bill. Why are construction jobs filled by Mexicans? I thought those were high paying jobs.

[barb162]

12. I think

the construction companies want to break the unions and the hire illegals instead for a fraction of what a union worker would make. In the skilled trades I don't think this is happening but in the unskilled construction trades I think it is happening a lot.

[tsuki]

18. Yes, it is.

[jmowreader]

33. It's pure economics in the right-to-work states

I'm seeing a lot of minority presence in the rough trades--framing, roofing and siding especially--in my area. And of this presence, many times it's two or three black guys running a crew of Mexicans. Why not? You can hire Mexicans to work in the broiling sun for $12 per hour; white guys don't come that cheap, but to Mexicans that's good money. Hell of a lot better money than you can make in Mexico, anyway.

It's easy to tell these kinds of companies without even seeing the workers: look at their trucks. You'll see two things--sometimes together, sometimes separately. One is a statement of cheapness: "call for lowest bid," "we beat any estimate," something like that. The other is a shrine to Jesus painted on the side of the truck. I've seen rows of Jesus fish painted along the sides of the truck. I've seen Jesus fish used as part of the company logo. I've seen "Miracle Builders" and "Everlasting Grace Construction." I've seen the entire side of the vehicle covered in Scripture.

What I've never seen is anything about the great quality of the work these companies do. There's a reason for that: no one around here gives a shit and they haven't for quite some time. Back around Christmastime I told you about my favorite contractor--the woman with the Ph.D. in construction engineering who brings us homemade cookies on her once-weekly shopping trips. Well, yesterday she was in. (No cookies, unfortunately; this was an unscheduled trip.) She was looking for some damn thing for a house she bought to renovate and sell. "Yeah, it's a really well-built house. It lasted 35 years and now it's falling down." I must have had this really weird look on my face when she said that; she asked what was wrong.

"You didn't say what you just said, did you?"
'About what?'
"About a house that's falling down after being up 35 years being well-built."

She got what I was saying immediately. Houses should not fall down after standing only 35 years!

I have made my decision. If we win the lottery, we're going to move to Seattle, start a company called "The Most Expensive Contractor in Seattle," hire a bunch of high-quality American-born craftsmen to work there, and build homes that will outlast the 50-year warranty on the siding.

[Loge23]

2. crumble from the weight on top

The Chimp economy is a top heavy one with the most significant economic gains going to the top 2%. Of course Chimply is amused - he gets to pay back all of his benefactors with tax breaks and "energy incentives". The rest sweep up after them.
Turns out he didn't need them anyway - Uncle Dick figured out a neat way to rig the elections!
Trickle down! The rich eat hamburgers too!

[Al-CIAda]

6. Welcome to DU, Loge23. nt

:thumbsup:

[newyawker99]

10. Hi Loge23!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. This is the usual sour and barren reality behind all the claims

and promises. Even without the facts in front of you, you just know from intuition that employment is all headed to dead end slave wage jobs.

[whistle]

4. What will be left to drive the U.S. economy will be the ultra rich....

....representing 5% of the population, the bureaucrats, professionals, police protection and military who support the ultra rich and protect their wealth which is about 20% and the skilled and semi-skilled service workers who attend to and serve the needs of the ultra rich which could be about 50% of the population, while the remaining 25% will be the untrained, huddled, forgotten masses, much like the model of Charles Dickens Victorian England who will scrap by on whatever they can beg for, scrounge from the trash heaps or steal from one another and occasionally from the wealthier classes. It is not at all hard to visualize.

[On the Road]

5. Paul Craig Roberts Continues to Amaze Me

having read him back in the days when he was a dyed-in-the-wool Reaganite supply-sider. His editorials in Business Week always annoyed the hell out of me:



Short Bio
Defense of Reagonomics in National Review, 1992


To see his scathingly anti-Bush articles today (for example, The Brownshirting of America) gives me enormous hope that more traditional conservatives (if you can call him that) will increasingly swing against the Bush administration.

[TahitiNut]

7. Every one of those "jobs" is a statistical myth. They DON'T exist.

The figures cited are "seasonally adjusted." In fact, the number of people employed in the private sector in July was reported as 112,930,000, which is 88,000 fewer people employed than the reported 113,018,000 in June!

When total employment (including government) is considered, there were 1.2 million fewer people employed in July (133,531,000) than in June (134,732,000)!

[acmejack]

8. 50 plus year old engineers are virtually unemployable

Quite a few of us around. I couldn't even get hired at a newly opening grocery store. I'm getting a bit concerned...

[TahitiNut]

9. Guess what's the #1 reason for job refusal I've been given?

"Over-qualified"!! :puke: (Lying, bigoted scum!)

[barb162]

21. That should be as illegal as saying "you're black, a woman...."

[TahitiNut]

24. I agree. I've been told to "play dumb" too many times to count.

I've tried explaining that "overqualified" is code for "old" but some people are dedicated asshats. I've "dumbed it down" almost to the point of letting the drool come out of the side of my mouth and soak my tie -- and still get called "overqualified" by some (Harvard-style) MBA still in short pants with deep-seated parent issues and a vacuously neat desk.

[barb162]

26. I remember being told that

this one time (by the way, many times for me too) by some snot who thought he was Mr. Supercool as he was snapping his suspenders. He kept running his hands up and down those suspenders to make sure I noticed he had them on. I should have brained him right there.

[barb162]

13. Yes, I know

as the tech companies around here have been laying off like crazy the last few years. But 50 year olds in general are virtually unemployable. I often think those resumes go straight ot the garbage

[etherealtruth]

14. That's delusional ...

make it 40+ year olds in science and engineering and I'll agree...

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[barb162]

22. Oh I will agree with that as I know a tech guy(MS in software eng)

who got nailed after being at the same place for about 15 yrs and it took him almost a yr. to find something. His job was outsourced to India along with his whole group as soon as they completed their latest project. He got VERY lucky as he is getting paid the same amount as his previous job. I have read 400,000 tech jobs have gone in the last few years.

[FloridaPat]

16. I've been doing sales. First was mobile homes sales. Just got

fired last week. Now selling advertising in a monthly paper. Things get any worse I may start punching repubs that tell me how great things are going.

[12345]

35. just curious...where do you get your figures, and what's up

with the figures that you hear all the time (200,000 new jobs this month)?

[TahitiNut]

39. I get "my figures" from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) ...

... which is the same source as the "Seasonally Adjusted" figures. It's no secret that the figures touted in the press are statisically-derived. It's also no secret that the figures for employment are derived from a monthly household survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census. :shrug:

[wli]

11. any comparisons of this to the Great Depression?

[FloridaPat]

17. Not even close. Should we ever have another depression we would

be in very bad shape. In the Great Depression, 80% of the people worked on farms. They knew how to feed themselves. They could handle hard work. Had the large familes so they all could work. Most of use in this country don't product anything now. Or even know how to produce anything. From making clothing to growing food. What happens when the plastic shoes give out? What happens when you can't pay for cable? It will not be pretty.

[wli]

19. I'm looking for numbers, actually

Unemployment, poverty, and so on.

[barb162]

20. Unemployment reached 25% in 1933 and there was a lot of

underemployment back then too but just as today, the government really doesn't track that.

[wli]

25. it's not a hopeful situation; getting real numbers now is impossible

Finding real numbers for 72 years ago is going to be a lot harder.

[barb162]

28. Since Bush has been in office I don't trust the unemployment

and many other numbers. Probably if you double whatever they say unemployment is, you'd be correct. So many people I know who made a lot of money ten yrs. ago are now unemployed and they have been unemployed a long time. Some are living off their money or took really crappy jobs. The very lucky ones got good pensions that they took early.

[wli]

30. they've been fake for a long time, but now they're utter fantasy

[barb162]

32. Yes, plus they keep revising downward the actual employment

numbers and revise up the unemployment numbers. Revisions are done mostly for the Friday night/ Saturday papers when no one sees them.

[12345]

36. June 18 The Economist had a disturbing article about the housing bubble.

"Not only does this dwarfany previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990's (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920's (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.

[DemonFighterLives]

15. I can't see where the dubby gang digs up their information

In reality, things are looking rough. 6,000 more in credit mediation-there's your sign.
HIS deficit is going to be halved sooner. Why in the hell is their a deficit to begin with? And I won't blame it all on dubby missing his memo on vacation which caused 911.
5 years of these lies afte the initial lie that he inherited a recession. Clinton had this place rolling and dubby has stifled almost anything positive in America.

I'm no economics expert, but the ones who pass for experts in his administration make me feel like one.
:rant:

[OxiLimbaugh]

23. Once the Bush real estate bubble bursts

Once the Bush real estate bubble bursts, after the raising interest rates and ARMS kick in, we are looking at another great depression. Keep your cash in the bank.

[DemonFighterLives]

29. Welcome to DU Oxilimbaugh

I think so too.
:-)

[entanglement]

27. Is there any data on the average pay ($$ per hr) for these jobs?

n/t

[Cornjob]

31. So few jobs that create additional wealth!

I am stunned at how few of the new jobs in the Bush Economy create added value. For example, building a tractor creates an item that continues to add value. The same can be said of music, film, chemicals, etc.

The Bush economy is based on service jobs, many of which are simply transactional - credit cadets, selling houses, renting movies, etc.

Even Bush's manufacturing economy - defense manufacturing, is a dead-end pursuit. Tanks and bombers create jobs, but do not add value.

What a messed-up state of affairs!

[Spike from MN]

34. But the economy is growing faster than any other

major industrialised country and job growth is strong. Bush said so yesterday. Why do you hate 'Murika?

[ProfessorGAC]

37. Hey! I've Got A Bridge In New York To Sell You

Wanna buy it? That's how gullible we'd have to be to accept what he said yesterday.
The Professor

[Spike from MN]

38. Hey, sounds like a good deal to me.

Will you take a check? ;)

Yeah, it's amazing that people still believe ANYTHING the Chimp says. All most people have to do is take a look at their own financial situation to figure out that the economy isn't doing so hot. Less income + greater expenses != thriving economy.

A friend of mine owns a high-end audio shop and when I stopped by last week to drop off my turntable for repairs, the conversation turned to Dubya as it always does -- he hates Dubya as much as I do. He said he keeps hearing about how well the economy is doing but funny thing, he's just not seeing it in his business. Gee, isn't that odd? They wouldn't be lying to us about the economy now, would they? Keep in mind that even though his shop is high-end, most of his customers aren't rich. Most of them are just average Joes with average incomes. People are holding on to what little money they have and not spending like they used to and his shop is feeling the affects. Yeah, the whole media spin on the economy is a complete crock but apparently lots of people are oblivious to that fact. Ignorance is bliss I guess.