The low hanging fruit for American industry are all gone.

[KlatooBNikto]

Our corporate titans, used to a life of monoploy capitalism, are totally lost when they have to confront myriad competitors far hungrier than us.These countries, like China, India and Brazil have learnt their lesson well. They know that an educated, technically savvy workforce is a great asset especially when it lives within its means and is not addicted to consumption at all costs. This is why our IT industry is now practically fleeing this country because they can find a smart well educated work force in India at a fraction of our costs. That is being followed by banking, legal professionals and anyone who can transact business over the internet.I do not think the medical profession will be far behind as many Europeans and Japanese now fly to India to get many sophisticated procedures done there.

All this says is that while we are rightly concerned about manufacturing, especially the immediate question of whether GM and Ford will survive the next five years, many of what we have considered our assets are being dealt a hammer blow by the emergence of these three giants ( India, China and Brazil) on the international scene.The prospects look grim and the big fools are pushing a war, further sinking us into debt and bankruptcy.Cannot think of a better term for it than what Barbara Tuchman has called The March of Folly.

[mhr]

1. Unemployed 60 Months - I Understand This All To Well

Two College Degrees Are Worthless!

Over 3,000 Resumes Out The Door!

And the experts agree:

"Overall, this level of (job) creation represents the worst job performance since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting monthly jobs data in 1939 (at the end of the Great Depression)."

http://www.jobwatch.org/

"In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs."

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

My Conclusion: The American middle class is fast approaching demise and will need life support to survive!

[KlatooBNikto]

2. I am very sorry to hear that. How are you surviving, may I ask?

[mhr]

9. No Debt - Mortgage, Auto, CC, Or Otherwise - No Wife, Kids, Or Girlfriend

Sold most of my valuable possessions. Now in the process of selling the rest for pennies on the dollar. Other than the above, I don't do much and rely on plenty of "forced" clean living i.e. cheap.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. Even the 1.5% increase is in low wage jobs with no benefits, I bet.

[punpirate]

4. Medical transfer is already happening...

... medical transcription and x-ray reading are being done overnight in India. Heard someone in India today on the radio talking about how they might stimulate "medical tourism."

Well, the monetarists and the financialization folks have had thirty years to thoroughly screw things up; the next few years are going to be rather dramatic, I think.... *sigh*

[izzie]

5. My son tells me this---

Where he works and other men had work stations, now sits boxes of finished work from China. What we all need is retirement and a sure job like the men in Congress.

[KlatooBNikto]

6. Paul Craig Roberts, an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the

Reagan Administration call ours the HAS BEEN economy. When we gut our own economy and put people out of work as deliberate policy, one has to assume we have gone insane.

[Mairead]

7. When people point to China, India, and (still) Brasil

they should think twice, and remember that those societies are highly stratified, with a gigantic underclass that props up the tiny group that has education, language skills, etc., while they themselves work for less than it takes to live. They are in the position that the US was 50 years ago, where White men had a monopoly on the good jobs, women did all the clerical and low-status (i.e., badly-paid) professional work, and Black people had to live on the lowest-status and poorest-paid jobs, such as maid, cleaner, janitor, porter, etc.

The Indians, Chinese, and Brasilians that US industry contract out to today are the equivalent of our White men of 50 years ago, or in the case of factory work, of our women of 50 years ago. We don't recognise it because they don't base their class stratification on sex and skin color, but that's the reality. Those high-status people can live there on what would be a pittance here because the people at the bottom of their pyramid don't even get a half-pittance. But Media Inc hardly ever shows their slums, and when they do it's in a trivialising way.

[KlatooBNikto]

8. You are right.But the high status Indians and Chinese outnumber our

entire population.For example, I have read somewhere that people who live a good middle class life in India number more than 300 million people. That kind of a mind boggling population resource is what attracts our corporations which see an undending supply of labor.In addition, there are no laws in India that say that the corporations have to provide health care or pensions.If the corporation qualifies for a 10-15 year tax holiday, they can double or even triple their profits. Good racket if you can swing it.