[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
') The American worker cannot compete against billions of people willing to work for pennies.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
') The American worker cannot compete against billions of people willing to work for pennies.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
') The American worker cannot compete against billions of people willing to work for pennies.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'N')O it is NOT time to "integrate" into the Mexican workforce -- this is still America, not Mexico.

[Livewire713]

The mining company in my town laid off 6,500 workers. The unemployment rate for this area is 13.4% and still going higher. When you do have a job opening you'll have hundreds of people apply. Just because your area of the country still has some minimum wage jobs available doesn’t mean it’s the same for the rest of the country. So just go back to school and learn a new trade. Sounds easy enough but good luck getting enrolled anytime soon. Some of the trade programs have a 2 year backlog and if theres that many people picking up the same new trade won’t that be the same problem. I don’t have a answer but I think cutting people off at this moment probably isn’t the best idea.

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', 'M')aybe it's time to aim lower instead of higher. Maybe it's time to actually take that farm job instead of leaving it to an illegal mexican?

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')conomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion.

[Tyler_JC]

Wait a second, we're paying the unemployment checks for people in the Virgin Islands?

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebra Rousey of Gainesville, Georgia, says that she received an unemployment check of $194 last week, half the usual amount she receives, along with a letter announcing that this check would be her last. She is now in a complete panic over what to do next.

"I'm desperate and devastated," she told HuffPost. "I didn't get any warning. I was barely making ends meet on $330 a week, trying to diaper my grandchild and put food on the table for the four people I support. What do I do now? How am I going to make rent next month? I keep thinking, 'If I end up in a cardboard box, can I find one big enough for everybody, or do I have to send my son to live with someone else?'"

Since Rousey, 45, was laid off from her job as a branch manager for Suntrust bank in November, she says she has been "frantically looking" for a job -- everything from entry-level marketing positions to a fry cook job at McDonalds -- but hasn't had an interview in months. As of tomorrow, she will be one of nearly 1.7 million people whose unemployment benefits have prematurely expired while Congress sits on legislation that would renew those benefits.

"I hate being on unemployment," Rousey said. "I haven't applied for food stamps or Medicaid for myself because I have a work ethic that says if I want to eat, I want to work to eat. I don't want a handout. But right now I'm at the breaking point. If I don't come up with cash quick, everything will be cut off within two weeks -- gas, electric, water. Five people will be displaced. How am I supposed to come up with the money?"

Rousey is currently pursuing a master's degree in adult education through an online program, and her son, 17, and her 25-year-old daughter are also full-time students. She said all three of them are desperate for work.

"I have put in at least 5 resumés a day since November," she said. "It's not like I'm not employable. I have a bachelor's degrees in business, an associate's degree in marketing, and 25 years of office management experience. But I can't even get McDonald's to call me back for an interview."

If her unemployment benefits are not renewed soon, Rousey says she will have no way to pay rent or put food on the table.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/01/expired-unemployment-bene_n_632778.html

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')We should just accept reality and enact a permanent unemployment dole

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '.') Who would you hire to work at your McDonalds, a former bank manager who's 50 and probably has bad knees or a 20 year old Latino immigrant who's healthier and will work for cheap?

[dissident]

Really now the US isn't pro-business enough? More like a utopia for corporations. If the US government was really serving the interests of the American people it would enact a simple law: all companies that want to sell to Americans should hire Americans. That would kill off the outsourcing scam overnight. No, cheap Chinese lead tainted plastic is not worthy of transporting US manufacturing to China. That the "captains" of industry can do this without a single worry is absurd. These idiots don't even realize that the Americans they are dumping into poverty are the consumers that buy the sh*t they are peddling.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dissident', 'R')eally now the US isn't pro-business enough? More like a utopia for corporations. If the US government was really serving the interests of the American people it would enact a simple law: all companies that want to sell to Americans should hire Americans. That would kill off the outsourcing scam overnight. No, cheap Chinese lead tainted plastic is not worthy of transporting US manufacturing to China. That the "captains" of industry can do this without a single worry is absurd. These idiots don't even realize that the Americans they are dumping into poverty are the consumers that buy the sh*t they are peddling.

[dissident]

Indeed, it is a race to the bottom for the American (and Canadian) worker who is "competing" with third world wages. I fail to see the brilliance of the globalists. They appear to be thinking in zero sum terms, if China is to develop then that means America must shrivel up. Why not develop both? China's consumers can look to China's production to meet their needs. How that involves stripping US production capacity is bizarre. But I guess it makes sense when the deciders are opportunists out to make a quick buck. Chinese sweatshops produce bigger profits than American unionized jobs.

I realize that there are resource constraints on world development, but that does not excuse the zero sum game being played here.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'W')hy not have pro-business policies that create jobs in the private sector instead?

[Rod_Cloutier]

I had a telephone interview for a job this week, where the interviewer told me they had fired the entire local management of the firm because they had not achieved their profit and growth goals set by senior management.

I wonder how long till this sort of thing becomes commonplace? That en masse, entire legions of salepeople and managers are fired because their companies have hit the limits to growth or profitibility and they can no longer grow or generate increased profitablity? Not to mention that their 'replacements' are unlikely to fare any better.

How long till the corporate masters who absolutely believe in the myth of unlimited growth wake up to the reality of limits? How many people will suffer until they do?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '
')The bottom line here is not lack of jobs, it's EXCESS PEOPLE. Anyone who's been on this site for any length of time knows that this is ultimately the real issue. The only way you can ever have 'full employment' with a constantly expanding population base is to have a constantly expanding economy, which everyone here also knows (or at least should know) is not physically possible...

[Tami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TWilliam', '
')The bottom line here is not lack of jobs, it's EXCESS PEOPLE. Anyone who's been on this site for any length of time knows that this is ultimately the real issue.

[cephalotus]

When hungry and desperate Europeans arrived in America some hundred years ago they found a world that was unbelievable rich in resources. After killing those, that used some of the land all of these resources belonged to only few people and whoever worked hard could live a life in prosperity.

Two world wars passed and Europe was covered in dust and ashes with millions of people dead, the US and the UdSSR emerged as the two military superpowers, but the US was the only economy superpower after world war II. The US had by a far, far margin the best universities, the best scientific workers and the most powerful industry. They could use plenty of resources and the US military dominated the world and could do whatever the US liked to do.
The US $ was used to gain power of the financial world, WTO & Co have been used to get resources from 3rd world countries for very, very cheap money.
Americans could live the American dream for many decades. A typical medium skilled worker could send his children to university, could buy a new car every few years, could build a huge house. Energy was cheap and plenty and the US politicians promised the American people that a life based on unlimited consumerism and wastage is the right way to go.
Those who couldn't afford all the stuff should buy it on credit, the typical American is not poor but "pre rich". That's why so many vote for those, who make politics for 5% of the richest.

To care for those that couldn't or wouldn't go that route was "anti-American" and "socialism" and after the fall of the UdSSR capitalism seemed to have "won" and proved to be the best solution.

The world has changed. Many hard working people now can't easily feed a large familiy, send the children to university and buy large houses and cars from the money they get from one working person. So people bought on credit, woman started to work, others had a 2nd or even 3rd job to earn enough money.

"Americans" never learnt to deal careful with what they have. The American way of life is not negotiable, "Americans" don't want to save the ozon layer, they don't want to save on consumption of resources, they don't want to reduce CO2 emissions. That's un-American for those that lived in a country that never experienced a modern war "at home", that never experienced a lack of resources and that never experienced the need to share something with others. "Americans" could always take what they wanted.


The US has still much more resources compared to Europe or Japan, but they now have to experience for the first time ever, that even those resources are not infinite.
The military superiority is still there but it's much more difficult to get some "use" out of it. Military is very costly and the benefit is not as high as expected.
The economic superiority of the US is shrinking. The worth of the US$ now depends on the good will of the Chinese government, US stock market and US rating agencies still rule the financial world but they are not longer seen as those gods they have been just 3 years ago.
In many economic sectors Europe, Japan and China are now more efficient than the US, Germany with almost no resources, 80 million people is selling more products to the world than 280 million people in the US which had a industry maybe 100 times as large and powerful 60 years ago.

Germany faces faces similar problems compared to the US. Even with producing all that stuff for the world market, jobs are not available for all possible workers. Especially for those that have no or little skills. 40 years ago, those people had been needed in plenty of low skill jobs, but those have gone to other countries with cheap labour cost or have been eliminated completely by computers.

So what's the difference?

Europeans never expected a world full of infinite resources, they didn't live in such a world for 1.000 years. People usually don't believe that they will be "rich" soon and can consume on credit for now. Europeans are used to make compromises, they are used to reduce their consumption (some of that experience was lost in the generation from the booming years of 1960 to 2000) and Europeans believed in a system, where the poor and weak should be supported buy the stronger and richer people.
This system is far from perfect and there are many depates on it (from those that get money and those that have to pay or at last believe that they have to pay), but at least such a system has been established in the years of prosperity.

I'm very interested what the majority of US poeple will do in the next years. The US has lost the huge superiority it had for many decades and which the US believed was to be a given thing by "god".
China now has huge influence on your currency, countries that hate the US way of life are selling you oil at high prices, the still superior military has no real use for a standard war, because the new "resource wars" are fought with other methods.
The US has lost competitiveness and leadership in many industries and the rest of the world starts thinking if all your "pre rich" consumers buried in dept will ever be able to pay back the dollars.

What will you do?

Will you think about negotiating the American way of life (accepting that you don't own the world anymore)?

Will you accept, that the old dogma "whoever want's to work can make his way ig he only tries hard enough" simply doesn't work anymore"?

Will you give those a chance to have a life that are poor?

Or are you trieing to blame the situation on "others", on "socialism", the cheap Chinese workers, the always debating and unwilling Europeans and "the immigrants" which take your jobs.

Why should a US worker earn 50.000 US$ or 100.000 US$ a year for building a car? There are many other nations on the world which now build better cars with cheaper and more efficient workers that earn less. Why should those high payed industry jobs come ever back to the US. Your industrial superiority was built on highly educated people which are now also available in other countries and it was based on cheap resources and a superior US$ in combination with the US military which could "regulate" the world market to the will of the Americans.
Those days are gone now.

US Americans will have to live "normal" lifes, they will have to accept, that neither ressources nor available jobs are umlimited and they will have to accept, that they are not longer the only single superior power that dominates the world.

It doesn't matter if you stop immigration or not (many people believe, that young and hard working people are beneficial for the economy of a country and the US is still the most attractive country for very high skilled and educated young people), many US Americans will not get jobs that will provide enough money to life the "American way of life".

[Kristen]

How we managed to make it to 2010, without this occurring is beyond me. This may be the start of another downward spiral, perhaps lowering oil consumption. People will live with family friends, and live with a lot less. The populace will begin eating in more often, more businesses will close. I think we could be facing a negative feedback loop.