Recession's job losses may take years to recoup

[OhioChick]

Source: MSNBC.com

2 hours, 23 minutes ago

Economy may be stuck with high unemployment, weak growth for years

There’s growing optimism about signs of life in the economy — expected to be capped with Friday’s report showing continued slowing in the pace of job losses. But this recovery, when it comes, won’t feel like any in memory.

The reason is that consumers — the mainspring of the economy — remain hunkered down. Growth is still coming from cost-cutting and federal spending, not from a pickup in real demand. And with 7 million workers sidelined by this recession, that headwind likely will be blowing for several years.

“We're not going to go back to where we've come from," said Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of PIMCO, a global investment management firm. "There's still an assumption out there in the marketplace that somehow this was a very nasty cyclical fall, and we're going to go back to where we've come from. That's not what’s going to happen.”

To be sure, there are a number of positive clues that the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is easing. Last week, a series of reports offered hopeful signs that the housing market may be nearing the end of its economy-stopping collapse. A report by the Federal Reserve found that most of its 12 regional banks concluded that either the recession was easing or that economic activity had "begun to stabilize, albeit at a low level."



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32314827/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy

[DJ13]

1. Unless the administration & Congress clamps down

... on outsourcing we never WILL recover.

[texastoast]

2. Bingo

Outsourcing started in the Raygun years. He deregulated everything.

I wonder how many of those fucks who voted for him in 1984 still think Reaganomics was a good thing. We are reaping the "benefits" still.

[madrchsod]

3. out sourcing started in the mid 70`s and raygun made it permanent..

[texastoast]

5. Can you tell me when and give me some examples

I started working in the 70s and worked in a very diverse field representing corporations. The first I heard of the word outsourcing was in the 1980s after Ronnie did the dereg. Corporations came to my firm and told the goldhats, "Set me up!"

[madrchsod]

7. i worked in the metal forming industry from 73-80

steel fasteners were one of the first to go around 1976. my trade was hot steel forgings and we started losing business to asia around 77-78. steel started in the late 70`s when the big sisters did`t reinvest in the mills. the companies that made the machines that made the machines closed and moved to asia.by 1980 thousands of machines were sold to taiwan and south korea.we were told to retrain because our jobs were no longer needed.
in 1988 i finally found a good job at the local steel mill for 4 years then the chinese started under cutting the price per ton..took the chinese about 5 years to close the plant by under cutting the price.the mill has restarted but it went from 3600 employees in 1980 to 400 today.

[Igel]

21. Bingo.

"Outsourcing" goes by many names. Buying Japanese and European steel instead of making it domestically, then buying Chinese steel ... outsourcing. Instead of having a company send money overseas to pay employees and then reap profits, it's just sending money overseas to pay for product (which pays the foreign company's employees and hands them the profits).

My parents retired from Beth Steel's Sparrows Point plant, with it's belated "L" blast furnace, just before it was mothballed due to lack of demand and profitability.

[Deja Q]

25. Japan was introducing cheaper equipment before 1972...

Except in all these other incidents, new fields came up to replace the offshored ones.

In the case of IT, that hasn't happened yet. (and despite a decade of IT going bye-bye the claim that it's done better for less is a proven, unfettered lie.)

[MellowOne]

31. Use stimulus money to bring jobs back to America from other countries

Is the only answer. Put people back to work instead of supporting other countries with jobs that belong in America.

[Romulox]

12. They just passed $2B more in subsidies to buy a car made anywhere in the world...

That's not "clamping down" on outsourcing--it's propping up outsourcers and their foreign supply chain.

[Deja Q]

27. Don't blame me. I bought a Ford.

Not a Cry-sler or Generic Mishmash either... :D

I love the America bumper stickers slapped over Kia cars... I really do.

(not to cite one brand, it happens everywhere.)

[Romulox]

29. Not "blaming". Just point out the fact that Obama's economic gang are all avowed Neo-Liberals

The C4C reflects their neo-liberal (read: a distorted version of "free trade" in which taxpayer money is funneled to multinational corporations) world-view.

[Deja Q]

30. I was defensive in my wording, and when re-reading you weren't blaming anybody

I apologize if I offended you...

And you're right about the distorted version of 'free trade'...

[OHdem10]

4. These job lossses are not all due to recession. Globalization and

Trade Policies have come home to roost.

You are correct. Our economy is changed forever. When we finally
come out of this, people at many levels in society will be working
for lower wages. Our country will not be "rich" country .
It is going to take a long time. Globalization has as one of it
purposes to "even out" circumstances around the world. In a Free
Trade World, the US could not continue to have wages in some cases
umpteen times what people make in other parts of the world.

There was a point at which you could try to bring the other countries
wages up. The US wages must come down.

We are in a Globalization crisis more than recession where jobs are
concerned.

[ChromeFoundry]

6. And the cost of goods and services in the US...

have to come down to meet the wage drop percentages. Basic math dictates this, but the cost of living is on the rise in the US as wages plummet.

Corporate greed and short-term profits are what drives globalization. Globalization is what drives this recession.

[OhioChick]

11. No shit. n/t

[Deja Q]

26. Precisely. +1,000

Other countries are building up - plenty of media articles are in unison. H1Bs and others are not being forced to come here; $10/hr is manna from heaven to them and that's building up their countries.

Until we are genuinely global (one wage, one cost of living, one everything) it's just a lie on their part. And more and more people see the truth every day.


Also ironic, if globalization were about expansion, then we wouldn't have lost one job AT ALL. It's migration. And the whiny venture capitalists need to open their eyes - you know, the ones they superglued shut...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=673

[moondust]

9. Agree. Decades of offshoring finally catch up.

It was no big deal back when 5 companies were sending their jobs to Mexico and then to China. No real concern when 10 companies were sending their jobs to India. Years later when hundreds of companies have sent their jobs to cheap labor markets abroad the U.S. is screwed. Wages stagnant or falling for years. Tax revenues are way down. I'm not sure the U.S. economy will ever recover as the offshoring continues full speed ahead. It's the systematic destruction of the U.S. economy and the mostly Republican government of the past quarter century has watched and/or helped it happen.

[Deja Q]

24. It all started with Nixon, unless anybody can support a case where it happened before him...

[lovelyrita]

10. I agree our trade policies are very problematic. We need to

start actually manufacturing goods in the US. Off-shoring, free trade, and the the difficulty of unionization has nearly killed the American worker. This needs to be addressed and ASAP but I wonder if it is too late.

[Romulox]

13. Absolutely. A lot of white collars workers made a deal with the devil, and now he wants his due...

In other words, white collar workers, who have gleefully purchased outsourced goods while admonishing blue collar workers to "retrain!" and "compete!" can't expected to be shielded from the effects of globalization forever.

If nothing else, their potential consumer base has been made a great deal poorer via their "free trade" ideology, and the promise of open markets around the world has never materialized.

[OhioChick]

14. Dude, You Have to Stop Stereotyping so Much...

Not all white-collar workers are evil. I have supported blue-collar workers for many moons.

:hi:

[Romulox]

15. Umm, *I* am a white collar worker.

This isn't about "good" and "evil", at any rate. It's about cause and effect.

[ihavenobias]

16. Not buying it.

White collar *politicians* along with corporate execs (they have Gold Collars) coming up with horrible trade policies put us here.

The End

[Romulox]

17. Put your head in the ostrich hole if you like. The consequences of our choices are self-evident.

:shrug:

[ihavenobias]

18. Classic blaming the victim.

Informed people didn't "choose" NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, or outsourcing of jobs for that matter. Those things were put upon us.

[Romulox]

19. No, but they have voted for Presidents (including Obama) who support these policies

In the last 5 elections. Moreover, when given the choice, the majority of these voters choose to buy outsourced, non-union products in their day-to-day lives (e.g. automobiles.) At any rate, the "victim" meme doesn't really fit here; people are gladly doing this to one another. I'm sorry if that stings, but it's the self-evident truth.

[ihavenobias]

20. What are the alternatives?

Most people aren't informed enough thanks in part to the corporate MSM and in part because of poor job security and health concerns. People who are secure financially and in health can more than afford to spend the time to get informed and get active, that's party of why the right tries to keep people in unstable situations which ironically keeps the status quo more stable.

[Deja Q]

23. People are unwittingly doing it...

A year ago, in the doctor's office, two old women (they build stonehenge, that's how old they were) were whining about the personal hair stylist they absconded, in favor of cost cutters because their ex-stylist wanted more money. Uh, where did these bats fly out of?

Our system is rigged against SMBs, because of the larger ones.

[Romulox]

28. People know buying a Kia is putting single moms out of work in Detroit. nt

[Deja Q]

22. *ding* *ding* *ding* we have a winner

Oh, read this gem too:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=673

[swaroop]

8. jobless recover n/t