Where did all the jobs go?

As some Americans are saying:

Ten years ago we had Bob Hope, Johny Cash and Steve Jobs. Now we have no hope, no cash and no jobs.

What happened?

In part, what happened was corporate executives like the mean-spirited, foul-mouthed, intolerant Steve Jobs of Apple Corporation and the awesomely clueless Jeff Immelt of GE chose to hire people in China and other places where wages are minimal and environmental protection and workplace safety standards are weak or non-existent, rather than hire their fellow countrymen.

What those sons of bitches have done and continue to do -- with the backing of the political sons (and daughters) of bitches who seek their party's nomination for President -- is export the economy of their country.

The result?

Imports from China and American manufacturing employment 1997-2006 (Source)

Between 1997 and 2006, the number of jobs in America fell, as population increased due to a flood of illegal immigrants and as imports from China zoomed and America's foreign indebtedness soared.

And since 2006, another four million US manufacturing jobs went West East:

Image source

But the corporate pyschopaths who own the US government don't even like Chinese workers, dirt cheap though they may be.

For one thing, the bastards embarrassed Steve Jobs by jumping off the roof of Apple's Chinese i-Pad factory.

To stop that, Apple forced workers to sign an agreement not to commit suicide. But the miserable ingrates kept jumping anyhow.

What to do?

Replace the whole goddam workforce with millions of robots.

Cool, hey? Screw your Chinese slaves and the working stiffs back home out of a livelihood at the same time.

But that's not it all, either.

There are three other important factors.

(1) It's the debt, stupid

Home buyers, urged on by the FED Maestro, Alan Greenspan, who couldn't spot a bubble even if it were inflated with dynamite, drove US private sector debt to an all-time high of 300% of GDP in 2010.

Now the debt is beginning to unwind, which means that demand for everything from cars and other consumer goods, to vacations, new houses, education and healthcare has slumped.

The more demand slumps, the higher unemployment rises, the greater the downward pressure on real wages and hence the greater the urge to reduce debt.

It's called positive feedback.

The corporate elite love it: wages are falling, the stinking masses will have to stay home instead of lousing up the beaches in Florida and Hawaii.

At least they love it now.

Maybe if the Occupy Wall Streeters string up a few stock brokers and bankers, they'll view things differently.

Meantime, the US Government makes feeble gestures to provide "stimulus," which means new wasteful and stupid government spending, which only exacerbates the the plight of the people by increasing the burden of unproductive government.

(2) Time for those death panels?

When the elite kick the shit out the mass of their fellow countrymen, the population begins to sicken and die. One manifestation is collapse of the family, soon followed by a collapse in the birth rate.

The result?

Far too many old people, trying to eke out their savings, spending less and less, but demanding more and more from the taxpayer for drugs, hospitals, and many other forms of welfare.

So, yes, old folks provide jobs alright. But they are jobs that are funded very largely by their children and their children's children, thus adding to the difficulty of working-age adults struggling through the second great depression.

No, we don't advocate euthanasia.

What we do believe is that folks have a right to a job at a living wage so that the Western nations can replace themselves, not be replaced by people from elsewhere who differ in race, culture and creed, however willing they may be to clean toilets or work in the underground economy at below minimum wage.

(3) How do you think Steve Jobs got to be worth $8 billion?

Average income in 2006 was up $60,000 for the top 1 percent of American households (yes that's right, in a single year incomes of the top 1 percent increased by more than the average wage), but up only $430 for the bottom 90 percent of households, resulting in the most inequitable distribution of income since 1928 (Source).

But rich people can only consume so much. So when income becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, demand for a lot of things slumps, which has become apparent in the US since the Fed-engineered property bubble collapsed, destroying the value of the principle asset of millions of families.

The negative wealth effect impinging on ordinary folks, combined with growing income inequality ensures weak demand and hence slow or negative employment growth.

You might think the politicians would talk about some of these things.

But they never do.

Time for a revolution?

Or are we seeing the emergence of global neo-feudalism, under which the nations of the World will be trashed, and replaced by a single mongrel population, without diversity of race, beauty, culture or faith?

No need to ask what the ruling elite want. But what do ordinary folks want?

Or do ordinary folks no longer believe they have a right to determine their own destiny?

See also:
Canspeccy: Ending Unemployment. Part 1: The Negative Income Tax
Canspeccy: Ending Unemployment. Part 2: Wage Subsidies

Michael Moore's interview with Tony Benn:

"What people said was, 'In the 1930's we had mass unemployment, but we didn't have unemployment during the war. If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can't you have full employment by building hospitals, building schools ...'"



Patrick Buchanan: Is the New World Order Unravelling?