[Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: An Article About Globalization and the American Economy

[Tian Harter]

Received from a politically savvy friend (article follows):
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton made another one of those 
"some-people-see-less-than-others" moves when he pushed NAFTA through 
back in 1993. I remember standing in my kitchen when the NAFTA thing was 
signed, and thinking: Why is Clinton doing this? Surely he doesn't 
actually believe this horseshit! This (and other globalization enabling 
moves) cannot possibly work. Of course, a lot of people were saying that 
because it was common sense; Clinton and co. said they knew better.... 
Clinton's greatest character flaw may be his huge need to be accepted by 
the likes of the crowd who engineered his public humiliation and 
downfall (he's still at it, with the Bushes).
Jeff Faux, writing in _The Nation_, stated:
"There was no compelling economic or political reason for Bill Clinton 
the make NAFTA a priority in his first year as president. In economic 
terms, nothing was broken that needed fixing. Politically, NAFTA and the 
WTO that followed traded away the interests of the Democratic Party's 
blue-collar base while creating a bonanza for Republican constituencies 
on Wall Street and in red-state agribusiness.... A year later, in 
November 1994, enough angry Democratic voters stayed away from the polls 
to give the Republicans control of the House.... The Democrats still 
have not recovered." ["The Party of Davos," _The Nation_, Feb. 13, 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/faux.]
And they still have not learned anything. They keep swallowing the 
Repug-lite snake oil. They still have a neurotic need to seek the 
appreciation of their sworn enemies, whose mission is destroy them and 
democracy in the USA by any means fair or foul. Thirteen years and a war 
later, we're on Skid Row. The "sucking noise" is now the only sound to 
be heard in this economy... It's grown to a roar.... What to do now? 
None of our leaders (any Dems out there? Sucking noise, anyone?) seems 
to have any idea. Otherwise, they might actually be mentioning this 
problem out loud.
-----
*Forget Iran, Americans Should be Hysterical About This
*Nuking the Economy
by Paul Craig Roberts
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll 
jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information 
Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 
2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don't know what worry is.
Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US 
economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with 
population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. 
An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be 
boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.
Over the past five years, the US economy experienced a net job loss in 
goods-producing activities. The entire job growth was in 
service-providing activities -- primarily credit intermediation; health 
care and social assistance; waiters, waitresses, and bartenders; and 
state and local government.
US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing 
work force. The wipe-out is across the board. Not a single manufacturing 
payroll classification created a single new job.
The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a 
country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a 
super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment 
lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 
37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products 
declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its 
employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. 
Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel 
manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile 
mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. 
The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even 
manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% 
shrinkage in jobs.
The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost 
manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The 
information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications 
work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. 
Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, 
accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems 
design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer 
managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.
In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture 
and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering 
enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk 
about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several 
hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for 
years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup 
line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get 
Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.
Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with 
unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of 
unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has 
made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the 
past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and 
recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs.
Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in 
the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is 
permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor 
arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign 
ones.
Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US 
unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of 
thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their 
university education.
Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the 
opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most 
economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed 
globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.
They were wrong.
At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people 
as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush 
administration and its supporters, economists have discredited 
themselves. This is especially true for "free market economists" who 
foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of 
free trade that was benefiting Americans. Where is the benefit when 
employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is 
shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market 
economics is on the verge of another wipe-out.
No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of 
merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an 
indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs 
created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s 
legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for 
Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau’s March 2005 
Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7.9 
million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)
The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless 
number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times 
simply rewrite the Bush administration's press releases.
On February 10, the Commerce Department released a record US trade 
deficit in goods and services for 2005 -- $726 billion. The US deficit 
in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production 
for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent 
on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing 
the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might 
be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.
Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up 
fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising 
Americans decades-long war. Is death in battle Bush’s solution to the 
job depression? Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt 
country?
---
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan 
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is 
coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: 
paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com <mailto:paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com>.

-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Latest change: Added my pictures from Barry Hermanson's kickoff event.