Re: More Bad News On The Jobs Front

From: Strider (strider_at_NOSPAMusit.net)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:02:01 -0500

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:29:27 GMT, Moderate Mammal
<BunnERabbit@verizon.hutch.net> wrote:

>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:15:56 -0500, Strider <strider@NOSPAMusit.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:03:58 GMT, "Packrat®" <pack@rodentia.invalîd>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>Moderate Mammal <BunnERabbit@verizon.hutch.net> wrote in
>>>news:lqoi01lvq9q5eg16ej1go0clffstusisgc@4ax.com:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050207_dollar.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> February 07, 2005
>>>>
>>>> More Bad News On The Jobs Front
>>>> By Paul Craig Roberts
>>>>
>>>> The January jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics continues
>>>> the bad news of the past four years. During President Bush’s first
>>>> term, the US economy had a net loss of three-quarters of a million
>>>> private sector jobs. Despite three years of economic recovery, fewer
>>>> Americans are employed in the private sector today than when Bush was
>>>> first inaugurated four years ago.
>>>>
>>>> The slight decline in the unemployment rate reported for January is
>>>> not the result of new jobs; it is the result of large numbers of
>>>> discouraged people, many with university degrees, dropping out of the
>>>> work force. They cannot find employment and have given up looking.
>>>>
>>>> During Bush’s first term, the once fabled US economy has been unable
>>>> to create jobs in export sectors or in import-competitive sectors.
>>>> January’s 134,000 new private sector jobs are in domestic services
>>>> that cannot be outsourced: couriers and messengers, food services and
>>>> drinking places, health care and social assistance, educational
>>>> services, temporary help, retail, and credit intermediation.
>>>>
>>>> US imports are now 50 percent greater than US exports, putting
>>>> tremendous pressure on the US dollar. US dependence on imported
>>>> manufactured goods has resulted in exploding trade deficits, which are
>>>> growing more than five times faster than the US economy. The explosive
>>>> growth of the US trade deficit since 1990 has turned $3.3 trillion of
>>>> US assets over to foreigners.
>>>>
>>>> Flooded with US dollars, foreigners perceive their dollar holdings to
>>>> be rapidly depreciating. The dollar has fallen dramatically against
>>>> the Euro, gold, and the British pound.
>>>>
>>>> At an international economic meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January
>>>> 26, the director of a Chinese National Economic Research Institute
>>>> announced that China has lost faith in the stability of the US dollar.
>>>> "Now people understand the US dollar will not stop devaluating," said
>>>> Fan Gang.
>>>>
>>>> One likely result of this realization is that foreigners will cease to
>>>> use their trade surpluses to mop up American red ink. It makes no
>>>> sense to purchase dollar assets such as Treasury bonds when they are
>>>> falling in value. As foreigners continue to move out of dollars, US
>>>> interest rates will rise, terminating the housing boom and wrecking
>>>> family finances.
>>>>
>>>> America’s growing dependence on imports reflects the outsourcing of
>>>> manufacturing jobs and knowledge services. Every time a US firm
>>>> outsources goods or services, it turns domestic production into
>>>> imports. Half of the US trade deficit with China represents US
>>>> offshore production for US markets.
>>>>
>>>> Interest groups that benefit from outsourcing and their spokespersons
>>>> who cloak themselves in free-trade rhetoric maintain that there is
>>>> nothing to worry about. Outsourcing, they claim, strengthens the US
>>>> economy and creates jobs. If that were true, wouldn’t economic
>>>> strength translate into dollar strength? If outsourcing creates US
>>>> jobs, wouldn’t some of those jobs be in the export sector?
>>>>
>>>> Average weekly pay in the US is declining in real terms. Obviously, if
>>>> outsourcing is creating jobs, they are less good jobs than the ones
>>>> being outsourced. Trading better jobs for worse ones is the road to
>>>> poverty, not the road to wealth.
>>>>
>>>> The dismal US performance in job and pay growth is despite the most
>>>> stimulative monetary and fiscal policy in my lifetime. If the lowest
>>>> US interest rates in memory, tax cuts and the biggest budget deficits
>>>> in US history cannot create jobs and boost pay, what can?
>>>>
>>>> Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services notes that normally a
>>>> 38-month old economic recovery would have raised hours paid by 11% to
>>>> 14%. The 38-month old Bush recovery has raised hours paid by less than
>>>> one percent!
>>>>
>>>> The clowns in Washington DC imagine that they sit astride a
>>>> Superpower. Absorbed in fantasies of invading countries and remaking
>>>> the world in America’s image, little do our deluded leaders realize
>>>> that America is in the hands of our Chinese and Japanese creditors.
>>>> Should either of these Asian powerhouses decide to stop mopping up
>>>> America’s red ink, the dollar would collapse to such an extent that it
>>>> would lose its reserve currency status.
>>>>
>>>> When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, America will cease
>>>> to be a superpower.
>>>>
>>>> COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Yes sir.
>>>At the risk of repeating myself, our currency will be our downfall.
>>>
>>>"Central banks shift reserves away from U.S.
>>>Moves seen undermining the dollar"
>>>
>>>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6860923/
>>
>>This only make US good sell cheaper that European.
>>
>>That's why the uproar, we must appease the scum sucking, Socialist
>>Eurotrash, you know.
>>
>>Strider
>
>We don't produce anything anymore. China and Japan own nearly 15% of
>America. People now have to work two jobs to make ends meet.
>
>If we import 3x as much goods as we export; you tell me how long that
>is going to last.

http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/transnewsrelease.htm

"U.S. International Transactions: Third Quarter 2004

                               Current Account

        The U.S. current-account deficit--the combined balances on
trade in goods and services, income, and net unilateral current
transfers--increased slightly to $164.7 billion in the third quarter
of 2004 (preliminary) from $164.4 billion (revised) in the second
quarter."

http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm

"Current-dollar GDP

    Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of
goods and services -- increased 5.3 percent, or $152.1 billion, in the
fourth quarter to a level of $11,967.0 billion. In the third quarter,
current-dollar GDP increased 5.5 percent, or $157.4 billion."

In case you aren't good in math, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product, the
output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States) was at about eleven trillion, nine
hundred sixty seven billion dollars ($11,967.0 billion).

Whipping out my little calculator, the trade deficit amounts to 1.4%
of GDP.

In addition, the deficit grew at a paltry rate of .18 % in the fourth
quarter of last year (that's eighteen hundredths of one percent).

Yup. the trade deficit is up a little, but in the greater scheme of
things, it's just a gnat on a hog's ass. It does make good fodder for
consumption of the denizens a web blog bent on soliciting donations.

https://www.cfau.org/asp/donate.asp

VISA, Master Card, Pay Pal, or US Mail accepted.

I'm sure that if you people keep at it you will eventually find
SOMETHING legitimate to bash the Bush Administration over. After all,
Bush is a politician and there is bound to be something. Going on
about this piddling crap gets old and is beneath anyone with more than
two brain cells.

Strider

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