Tag Archives: The Economy

August 12, 2011 · 5:34 pm

Next low-wage haven: USA

Well, this sounds like a mixed blessing to me…

Wages are so low and people are so desperate that it will soon be cheaper to hire American workers than the Chinese workers.

Of course, only in non-union states…

These are jobs, which is great, but I question if they will provide a living wage…

Seems to me to be another example of the declining Middle Class…

Anyway, interesting article in “Facing South” from the Institute for Southern Studies…

Jokes about the U.S. becoming “Europe’s Mexico” are commonplace, but now high-priced consultants are pushing the notion in all seriousness.

They’re predicting that within five years certain Southern U.S. states will be among the cheapest manufacturing locations in the developed world — and competitive with China.

For years advisers like the Boston Consulting Group got paid big bucks to tell their clients to produce in China. Now, they say, rising wages there, fueled by worker unrest, and low wages in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina mean that soon it won’t be worth the hassle of locating overseas.

Wages for China’s factory workers certainly aren’t going to rise to U.S. levels soon. BCG estimates they will be 17 percent of the projected U.S. manufacturing average — $26 an hour for wages and benefits — by 2015.

But because American workers have higher productivity, and since rising fuel prices are making it even more expensive to ship goods half way around the world, costs in the two countries are converging fast.

Dan Luria, research director of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, says many of the big-name consultancies, which until a year ago were advising their clients to “Asiafy their footprints,” are now telling companies to think twice.

BCG bluntly praises Mississippi’s “flexible unions/workers, minimal wage growth, and high worker productivity,” estimating that in four years, workers in China’s fast-growing Yangtze River Delta will cost only 31 percent less than Mississippi workers.

That’s before you figure in shipping, duties, and possible quality issues. Add it all up, says BCG, and “China will no longer be the default low-cost manufacturing location.”

MORE:  ISS – Next low-wage haven: USA.

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August 11, 2011 · 7:15 pm

Mitt Romney Says Corporations ‘Are People, My Friend’

This is what’s wrong with the Republican Party- They not only think Corporations are people, they think they are VIP’s!

Much more important than Middle Class People….

How much longer are real people going to listen to this foolishness?

I encourage you to click the link to the full article and the video.  From The Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Speaking to an occasionally rowdy crowd two days before the Ames Straw poll, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made what seems likely to become a much-discussed flub, declaring to a group of Iowans that “corporations are people.”

Pressed by an attendee at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday as to why he was focusing on entitlement reforms as a means of deficit reduction over asking corporations to share part of the burden, the GOP frontrunner shot back:

“Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings my friend.”

The comment was immediately pounced on by Democrats, who saw it as another example of Romney being uncomfortable on the stump and inartful in his attempts to come off as an everyday pol.

“This is what Mitt Romney is going to run on? Corporations are people? Really?” said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “There’s a great message for people struggling to get by and trying to make ends meet. Don’t complain — corporations are people too!”

Speaking at the Des Moines Register soapbox, Romney was also interrupted by a heckler who asked if if he supported “scrapping the Social Security payroll cap so that rich people pay their fair share into the trust fund?”

Romney responded, “There was a time in this country where we didn’t celebrate attacking people based on their success. We didn’t go after people because they were successful. I’ve watched this president go across the country attacking people, and I… and I am… if you want to speak, you can speak. But right now it’s my turn, so let me continue.”

The presidential contender went on to underscore his bottom line. “If you don’t like my answer, you can vote for someone else,” he said.

via Mitt Romney Heckled, Says Corporations ‘Are People, My Friend’ (VIDEO).

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August 11, 2011 · 11:26 am

30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died

Michael Moore can be a little over-the-top for my tastes, but he does have some valid points, here, in this article.

What we are seeing today began with Reagan and has only gotten worse as the Rich and the Corporations have been emboldened because no one stood up to them when they cut their own taxes and cut benefits for everyone else…

And that is what is destroying the Middle Class…

Here is an excerpt from his column.  It’s worth clicking the link and reading it in its entirety.  Just to give you something to think about….

 

From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, “When did this all begin, America’s downward slide?” They say they’ve heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent’s income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how “lowly” your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.

Young people have heard of this mythical time — but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, “When did this all end?”, I say, “It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.”

Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to “go for it” — to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.

And they’ve succeeded.

On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who’d defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.

It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?

Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started — a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.

Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:

* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.

* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here’s your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.

* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help — or not.

* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can’t leave now, we’re not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.

* You want to go to college? No problem — just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!

* What’s “a raise”? Get back to work and shut up!

And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:

The AFL-CIO.

The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that’s just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers — they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.

via 30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died | MichaelMoore.com.

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August 10, 2011 · 8:41 am

British Riots: Elites “Shocked” The Poor Are Rising Up Against Brutal Austerity Measures

I’m glad to see someone saying this….

I’m not sure it’s going to be too long before we start seeing the same situation here in the States.

God knows, there are similarities in that our own misguided “leadership” wants to solve the country’s perceived financial woes by taking more from the poor and letting the Rich continue to avoid paying their fair share.

This institutional, government driven inequality is bound to blow up at some point….

From Laurie Penny at Alternet.com:

No one expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.

MORE:  British Riots: Elites “Shocked” The Poor Are Rising Up Against Brutal Austerity Measures | | AlterNet.

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August 5, 2011 · 11:21 am

Finally a Little Good Economic News: July Jobs Report: Hiring Picks Up

Not great news, but much better than expected.  Still, we have to remember how many long-term unemployed are no longer counted in these stats.

And we have to remember no one is reporting if these are good jobs or low paying, non-benefit jobs-as has been the trend- while we see the continuing disappearance of more good, high paying jobs with benefits like Health Insurance…

From CNN:

The job market strengthened in July, a welcome piece of good news that sharply contrasted other recent readings pointing toward an economic slowdown.

Employers added 117,000 jobs last month, well above the 46,000 jobs added in June, and easily topping the 75,000 gain predicted by economists surveyed by CNNMoney.

Weak job reports for both May and June were revised higher, adding a combined 56,000 jobs for the year.

Businesses were busy hiring, adding 154,000 workers in the month, topping forecasts of 100,000 new jobs. But those gains were tempered by a loss of 37,000 government jobs, mostly from state and local governments, where budget shortfalls led to layoffs in July, especially in Minnesota where the government was briefly shut down.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 9.1%. The Labor Department said the improvement was mostly due to people leaving the labor force.

Still, 13.9 million Americans remain unemployed, 44% of which have been out of work for six months or longer.

After a shockingly weak jobs number from June and a spate of other negative economic readings that followed, many economists had been bracing for the worst from Friday’s report.

In just the last week, data on consumer spending, manufacturing, job cuts and gross domestic product have all raised concerns that the slowing economy could fall back into recession. Major stock indexes have lost 10% of their value in the last two weeks amid growing worries.

Stock futures turned significantly higher immediately following the report.

via July jobs report: Hiring picks up – Aug. 5, 2011.

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August 4, 2011 · 6:58 pm

Food Stamp Use Rises to Record 45.8 Million

And Congress fiddles with the made up deficit crisis while America burns- or almost starves….

This is truly shocking- almost 15% of the US population having to use Food Stamps.

And the Rich still have their Bush Tax Breaks….

And the Republicans still want to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security…

What about jobs?  Have they forgotten that’s what they were supposedly elected to do something about?

Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

The number of Americans using the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — more commonly referred to as food stamps — shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That’s up 12% from a year ago, and 34% higher than two years ago.

The program provides monthly benefits to low-income individuals and families, which they can use at stores that accept SNAP benefits.

To qualify for food stamps, an individual’s income can’t exceed $1,174 a month or $14,088 a year — an amount that is 130% of the national poverty level.

The average food stamp benefit was $133.80 per person and $283.65 per household in May.

The highest concentration of food stamp users were in California, Florida, New York and Texas — where more than 3 million residents in each state received food stamps in May.

via Food stamp use rises to record 45.8 million – Aug. 4, 2011.

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August 4, 2011 · 5:08 pm

U.S. Incomes Fall Sharply and Millionaires Don’t Pay Taxes

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Rich….

Where more and more Millionaires don’t pay any taxes while the average U.S. income plunges…

You can thank the GOP for this and, again, thank the Dems for letting them get away with it.

It’s becoming increasingly clear, neither Party is looking out for the Middle Class or the average American.  In Washington today, it’s all about how to help the Rich get more and keep more.

As my friend Phillip reminded me, it’s looking more and more like 1937 again.

President Obama could have been FDR, but I’m afraid he’s on the verge of becoming Herbert Hoover.

From Reuters (emphasis mine):

U.S. incomes plummeted again in 2009, with total income down 15.2 percent in real terms since 2007, new tax data showed on Wednesday.

The data showed an alarming drop in the number of taxpayers reporting any earnings from a job — down by nearly 4.2 million from 2007 — meaning every 33rd household that had work in 2007 had no work in 2009.

Average income in 2009 fell to $54,283, down $3,516, or 6.1 percent in real terms compared with 2008, the first Internal Revenue Service analysis of 2009 tax returns showed. Compared with 2007, average income was down $8,588 or 13.7 percent.

Average income in 2009 was at its lowest level since 1997 when it was $54,265 in 2009 dollars, just $18 less than in 2009. The data come from annual Statistics of Income tables that were updated Wednesday.

The average tax rate was 11.4 percent, up from 10.5 percent in 2007, the Internal Revenue Service data showed.

No income tax was paid by 1,470 of the 235,413 taxpayers earning $1 million or more in 2009, compared with the 959 taxpayers with million-dollar-plus incomes who paid no income taxes in 2007.

via U.S. incomes fell sharply in 2009 | Reuters.

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August 4, 2011 · 2:44 pm

Stock Market Plunges…

I hate to say it, but “I told you so”.

Congress is hurting the recovery, not helping it….

I’m afraid, it’s only going to get worse…

I’ll blame the GOP for creating this false Budget Deficit crisis which drove behavior in DC that only made things worse….

And I’ll blame the Dems for not having the guts to stand up to the GOP/Tea Party to force them to address the real issue:  Jobs.

From CNN:

Poof! There goes any progress stocks made in 2011.

Stocks plunged Thursday, with the Dow tumbling 400 points to hit its lowest level since December, as global economic fears gripped the market.

U.S. markets were already sharply lower on widespread worries, including the weak job market. But the selling gained momentum as Japanese and European policymakers stepped in with dramatic measures to shore up their financial markets.

There’s “total fear” in the market, said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at the world’s largest money manager, BlackRock.

All three major indexes tumbled more than 3% Thursday and erased all their gains for the year. The indexes have also pushed into ‘correction’ territory – defined as a 10% drop from their highs earlier this year. Over the past 10 days alone, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq have dropped more than 8%.

“In the last two weeks, we’ve been through the ringer,” said Rich Ilczyszyn, market strategist with futures broker Lind-Waldock. “When we start looking at the recovery, there’s nothing to hang our hats on anymore.”

via Market Report – Aug. 4, 2011 – CNNMoney.

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August 1, 2011 · 10:30 pm

Robert Reich is none too happy with the President or Dems in Congress

Great article from Robert Reich.

He pretty much nails it…

I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in the President and the Democrats for not standing up for our core values and fighting to do the right thing to restore the economy.  They are being bullied by the Tea Party minority and don’t seem to have the nerve to stand up to them….

Here is an excerpt and a link to the full article:

Many months ago, when Republicans first demanded spending cuts and no tax increases as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, the President could have blown their cover. He could have shown the American people why this demand had nothing to do with deficit reduction but everything to do with the GOP’s ideological fixation on shrinking the size of the government — thereby imperiling Medicare, Social Security, education, infrastructure, and everything else Americans depend on. But he did not.

And through it all the President could have explained to Americans that the biggest economic challenge we face is restoring jobs and wages and economic growth, that spending cuts in the next few years will slow the economy even further, and therefore that the Republicans’ demands threaten us all. Again, he did not.

The radical right has now won a huge tactical and strategic victory. Democrats and the White House have proven they have little by way of tactics or strategy.

By putting Medicare and Social Security on the block, they have made it more difficult for Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election cycle to blame Republicans for doing so.

By embracing deficit reduction as their apparent goal – claiming only that they’d seek to do it differently than the GOP – Democrats and the White House now seemingly agree with the GOP that the budget deficit is the biggest obstacle to the nation’s future prosperity.

The budget deficit is not the biggest obstacle to our prosperity. Lack of jobs and growth is. And the largest threat to our democracy is the emergence of a radical right capable of getting most of the ransom it demands.

Robert Reich is none too happy with the President or Dems in Congress.

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August 1, 2011 · 7:42 pm

Athlete’s Naked Ambition for 2012 Olympics

Following along with Today’s Theme….

An Olympic hopeful is working as a naked butler so he can continue to fund his decathlon training.

Champion athlete Roger Skedd, 28, from Uxbridge, said the job – which takes in everything from hen nights to gay parties – helps make ends meet. Skedd has signed up to three agencies.

He said: “It’s a bit of a crazy job and it’s not the sort of thing I would choose to do, but it pays decent money and allows me to keep training.”

via Athlete’s naked ambition for 2012 Games | Olympics.

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