The corporate "margin" (the relationship of net to gross) is at 13.5%, the highest its been since at least 1950 when the statistic was first maintained. This is a direct result of an overall reduction in expenses, particularly labor costs, and it is a very meaningful statistic for those who live along Main Street.
Corporate America continues to eliminate and export jobs and, as discussed later in this article, the political establishment seems to be doing its best to hide the true nature of the problem. Typically, layoffs are scheduled over a period of time so the workers who remain on the job can take on the work of those let go. The insecurity that this creates is immense, and it is rarely, if ever, discussed in the mainstream media.
For example, the Connecticutt newspaper, TheDay, has reported that Phizer, the world's biggest drug company, is concluding a three-year program of job slashing involving a total of 60,000 positions with an estimated annual cost savings to the company of $6 billion. Yes, that's right - $6 billion per year from this year forward.
Also, on the same day that the GOP presidential candidates duked it out in Mesa, Arizona, discussing everything, it seemed, but jobs, Procter & Gamble announced it would jettison 5,700 jobs over the next year and a half. The company's announcement boldly admitted that while the U.S. workforce would be reduced, hiring would continue in China and the other emerging markets.
At one point, Congress had an opportunity to tackle the problem of jobs flowing out of the country. In September of 2010, a bill came before the Senate that would have penalized companies that exported jobs and rewarded companies that imported them. However, the legislation was killed by the Republicans.
Meanwhile, the folks along Main Street are suffering from the longest jobs crisis since the Great Depression and, unfortunately, much of the pain may be sliding out of public view in this election year. The information related to the monthly job gain-or-loss numbers rarely mentions the growth in the labor force which has generally exceeded the creation of new jobs.
It also appears that the Obama administration may be putting a little too much frosting on the other data as well. The reduction in the unemployment rate in January was not the result of more jobs. It was primarily caused by a surprising reduction in the size of the calculated workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped an astounding 1.2 million workers that month, presumably on the assumption that they had given up looking for work.
A more accurate indication of the jobs situation, and one less likely to be manipulated, is the ratio of the number of employees to the total population. According to this measure, there has been no improvement for more than a year. Another statistic tells us that one year ago, 99 million people were unemployed or otherwise not working. Currently, that number has swelled to over 100 million.
The desire to create an election-year mirage is understandable, but the downside is that it then becomes more difficult to address the reality of the crisis if it continues to face the middle class.
Furthermore, as time goes by it may become increasingly difficult to hide the true nature of the jobs problem, which may cause one to wonder if the Obama administration acted too soon in fudging the data. However, the thinking might be that the phony scenario could actually serve to kickstart the all-important consumer-confidence level.
In any event, an old Chinese saying states: "May you live in interesting times."
So, by that measure, this may be our lucky year.
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Comments: 67
The Geological Survey folks? So far as I know (quite limited knowledge) they provide good data.
Lots of info we don’t usually get from the major media. I was particularly struck by the ratio of the number employed v/s total population. That does seem to be a more accurate indicator.
I have only one nit to pick…
"In September of 2010, a bill came before the Senate that would have penalized companies that exported jobs and rewarded companies that imported them. However, the legislation was killed by the Republicans."
September 2010 was before the mid-term election. At that time, the Senate had 59 to 41 Democrat majority if you include the 2 independents that caucus with them. In the House the majority was 257 to 178. And of course, they also controlled the White House. So the bill could not have been killed solely by Republicans… they needed some help from their “Friends” on the other side of the aisle.
Thanks!
>> were unemployed or otherwise not working. Currently, that
>> number has swelled to over 100 million.
What statistic is that …. that is almost 1/3 unemployed … 33% … that is a lot.
The new book by Dylan Ratigan, "Dirty Bastards" (LOL) talks about the unemployment problem in the clearest way I have heard. Ratigan's comment is that there is no way to linearly grow … he says 30 million, but you are saying 100 million and that we have to attack the problem systemically. That just seems obvious to me but his phrasing is more effective to hilight the reality.
I was never a fan of Ratigan's histrionics and contradictory background, but I have to respect the way he explains some of the issues in ways that bring what has been happening in the financial markets in clear focus to those who are baffled by the confusing nonsense that is mostly passed off in the media along with not correcting false statements.
But I heard him in an interview on some talk show where he was trying to be upbeat and say we have the ideas to recover economically. As proof he used this huge LED lightbulb that was total nonsense. The damn thing had a heat sink about as big as a Frisbie, and it looked like UFO. He's looking for ideas, but I think there are damn few out there … there's just one, fix the country. To do that we must pry the clenched fingers of the non-meritorious, greedy bastards who are determined that they cannot compete in a free market and so have to get the fix in with the government for help - at all levels, as long as they have money.
One of the workers responded when asked if she minded that she'd never be able to afford what she was building that she was happy for the people who could buy them. It appears there was no envy, but who knows, since governnent supervisor was standing near enough to hear. :)
If we want more products made here, it will have to be not because companies are fined for going overseas, but because they are given incentives to stay.
What always amazes me is that liberals never seem to get angry at Big Pharma. Now there are companies that deserve our ire. One prescription I was given would cost $497 for 30 pills. That's over $16 per pill for about 20 cents worth of chemicals. Big Pharma attempts to get a bunch of their research and development costs paid for by each pill. And yet, much of their research costs are paid for by our taxes because of government grants. So we're paying via our taxes and gouged when we get our prescriptions. (And it's not the pharmacies making the big profits either.) Why aren't more people angry about these costs?
When my ex invented and developed a product, it cost us about $10,000 in R&D and $6,000 for his patent attorney. But he was not foolish enough to think that much, if any, of that cost would be included in the price of eath unit sold. Those were the costs of doing business. And so it should be with Big Pharma, but liberals give them a pass.
>> that she'd never be able to afford what she was building
>> that she was happy for the people who could buy them.
>> It appears there was no envy, but who knows, since
>> governnent supervisor was standing near enough to hear. :)
Oh 'my goodness' … since I don't want to curse too bad, that
is not really a smiley-type statement … that is more or less the
techniques of state totalitarianism in action - right in our
faces.
Bear with me for a moment, we have a huge what we are
told is private media, but when it really comes down to
things that are critical they will always support the state.
This particular moment is the touching of two totalitarians
states both brainwashing their people by using the ruse of
pretending to sample a population by pointing a camera
at them with the world looking on and offering the video as
some kind of evidence or something or could be evidence of
anything … this is so absurd.
We have Chiina and the US conspiring to lie to both their
people's, and this is just one example of what we all should
be assuming has been going on … well, for much long than
we could know - BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT BEEN LOOKING
FOR OUR OWN GOVERNMENT TO BETRAY US, but now we
know they have.
And the reason is what Dave is writing about, it is the
exercise of power for gain by removing resources from the
public and making sure they end up in the hands of people
who either hate the public or just want to exploit them.
>> But he was not foolish enough to think that much,
>> if any, of that cost would be included in the price
>> of each unit sold. Those were the costs of doing business.
Uh, if those costs were not recovered then why did you bother to spend the money? That is what the cost of doing business means … summing all these factors together and proceeding in a hopefully profitable direction.
If every company thought like Big Pharma, you couldn't buy products. None of us could.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm an equal-opportunity basher of the corrupt political system. Virtually no politician in either party can be considered "clean," although a couple come close, in my opinion. However, it was the Republican avalanche of negative votes that sunk the legislation in question, and - once sunk - it never went any further in the legislative process.
To be perfectly honest, it was probably little more than a Democratic attempt to embarass the Republicans just before the election, and it absolutely did reveal the degree to which the GOP represents the capitalists at the expense of the middle class. Unfortunately, however, it obviously didn't impact on the election results, revealing, once again, that many voters only know what FOX and Rush tell them...and in fact, it received little attention anywhere in the billionaire-controlled media...
Mostly, these days, by Soros, who is Obama's biggest doner and money raiser.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Coffman/mike118.htm
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/know-your-enemy/george-soros-bringing-down-america
In politics and economics, Black Wednesday refers to the events of 16 September 1992 when the British Conservative government was forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) after they were unable to keep it above its agreed lower limit. George Soros, the most high profile of the currency market investors, made over US$1 billion profit by short selling sterling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday
In Soros book The Age of Fallibility, he says, "The main obstacle to a stable and just World Order is the United States."
Bruce, do your own research. He's out to destroy the US. And you know what? Before Obama decided for sure to run for president, he went to Soros for counseling (and money).
One of the biggest personal disappointments I've had with President Obama was the fact that, after vowing that there would be no lobbyists in the White House, he immediately met a half dozen times with the chief lobbyist for the Drug industry, an ex-member of Congress, of course, who was awarded his multi-million dollar job in return for spearheading through the Medicare Part D legislation that the industry had written for its own benefit. And, it is my opinion that, in meeting with the lobbyist, the presidet revealed that he is actually a rather poor negotiator - giving up much more to the drug industry than the government and the senior community received in return.
The Phizer situation, mentioned in the article, reveals another major problem involving the government that is kept quietly under wraps. The reason Phizer was able to conduct a virtual bloodpath in the workplace was because the government approved its takeover of another drug company. Mergers and acquisitions have been occurring at a record rate until very recently when we seem to have hit a temporary lull, and in every major case the government has been given the responsibility to approve the transaction. These approvals have become almost automatic and, in practically every case, the centerpiece of the merger or acquisition has been the wholesale slashing of jobs (again some 60,000 in the case of Phizer).
Bottom line, the government is very likely responsible for more permanent job losses, through mergers and acquisitions, than there were permanent job gains from the 3/4 of a trillion dollar stimulus package...
I don't think Obama made any effort to explain that to the country, because he absolutely never talks above the intelligence level of the American people - in other words he could not make his case.
It is a complex argument that basically was that he cannot do what was right because it would cause the system to fall apart even worse than it was - so he had to err in favor of the corporations and the status quo - and be silent about it.
The bottom line is that the American people are too stupid to handle the truth … to paraphrase Jack Nicholsen in "A Few Good Men" - "you can't handle the truth, son we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns … whose gonna do it … Obama's gonna do it! ;-)
Since the American people are too disengaged to factor these things together in a way that is acceptable to the people inside these walls they are scoffed at and marginalized and increasingly not treated like human beings, ie. human beings with rights. Americans have to be smart enough and tough enough to demand their rights, and in a way that maintains the system while we figure out a way to do that.
The claim was that Obamacare would take care of the all the uninsured. It didn't do that. And people who have been responsible and chosen to not have insurance, but savings accounts instead, are going to be forced to do what the government says all because others could not be that responsible.
Soros has written some on the subject that he has been successful with - investing, but he is not a factor in the media. He is a rare type of billionaire, supporting a political agenda that other billionaires greedily and selfishly oppose. He has also given away $8 billion of his fortune.
The right wing media that influences so many opinions can never forgive Soros for actively opposing the reelection of George W. Bush...
The mainstream media is owned and controlled by virtually a handful of billionaires, Soros not being one of them...
he has been known for decades as a market manipulator.
he funds places like media matters, that is the primary source of 'news' for msnbc, and many others.
and many many right wing people were not happy about bush being re-elected. me for one, and every right wing conservative i knew.
huffNtoot post will not explain that to you tho .....
and media matters is far from aq centralized think tank - they are a propoganda machine, and a shill for far left politics.
also, for decades, the media has been left wing controlled, and bombarded the public with keynesian based opinions.
other than those 3 points you are right - oh wait that was pretty much all the (talking) points you mentioned ...........
oh well.
"one year ago, 99 million people were unemployed or otherwise not working. Currently, that number has swelled to over 100 million."
Note the words "or otherwise not working." Personally, I prefer the other statistic, which shows that the number of employed people has held at 58.5% of the population for over a year now.
At this point, very few of the 8 million jobs that were lost have actually been restored. Further it is highly probable that, because of the growth in the workforce, the ratio of jobs to the overall labor pool is lower than it was at the depth of the recession in late 2008.
well, you need to lok at who soros funds, and whop mimics everything meida matters promotes.
and yes, acorn, soros and every other promoter of communism and socialism does set peoples teeth on edge - if they believe in freedom.
soros does not care about those on the lower rung - hell 60 minutes (another left leaning organization) interviews with him alone would prove that too you - his only concern is to financially enslave everyone that is not him, or his friends (as long as they pay him).
the man said on 60 minutes, that as a jew, hiding out as a catholic, and joinng the nazi youth, helping to confiscate property from jews, and round them up, was some of the best years of his life!!!!!!!!!!!!
yea - he REALLY cares about hte downtrodden.
I wil never forget that interview ( i watched them every wqeek), and i will never forget the atrocities he and his billions did to destroy more than one country ..........
vanna? dave would like to buy a clue please?
Also, it's been of some interest to me, fielding comments here over the last six years, that there are certain names like Soros and - say - Acorn that seem to send certain followers of the right-wing belief-structure into orbit. There's apparently a lot of hostility out there directed at those who extend efforts to help those who are on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
or not - some feel that way because they were involved in the financial world for over 30 years, and have seen and heard all the articles and interviews he has done, and knows enough to recognize the control he has, and damage it causes.
how about when he said, that in order to improve the world, america must be destroyed? (paraphrase, not actual quote. - i think that was part of a 60 minutes interview - look it up).
A good rule of thumb is: Nothing is as it seems.
Another rule is that, these days, whatever we hear we hear for a reason, because someone paid to have it put in front of us. All we do anymore is bicker about the provocative nonsense that gets blasted out in the media.
Our schools are even afraid to teach people to think.
George Soros is the chairmen of the Open Society Institute:
The Open Society Institute (OSI), renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSF implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSF works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.
The open society is a concept originally developed by philosopher Henri Bergson and then by Austrian and British philosopher Karl Popper. In open societies, government is purported to be responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are said to be transparent and flexible.
In Karl Popper's definition, found in his two-volume book The Open Society and Its Enemies, he defines an "open society" as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need for bloodshed, as opposed to a "closed society," in which a bloody revolution or coup d'état is needed to change the leaders.
He further describes an open society as one "in which individuals are confronted with personal decisions" as opposed to a "magical or tribal or collectivist society."
Billionaire investor and political activist George Soros, a disciple of Karl Popper,[citation needed] has argued that the sophisticated use of powerful techniques of deception borrowed from modern advertising and cognitive science by political operatives such as Frank Luntz and Karl Rove casts doubt on Popper's original conception of open society.[9] Because the electorate's perception of reality can easily be manipulated, democratic political discourse does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of reality.[10] Soros argues that besides the requirements for the separation of powers, free speech, and free elections, we also need to make explicit a strong commitment to the pursuit of truth.[11] "Politicians will respect, rather than manipulate, reality only if the public cares about the truth and punishes politicians when it catches them in deliberate deception."[12]
In other words peaceful change and democracy. (above from Wikipedia)
Bruce K. Feb 26, 2012, 4:41am EST
Del, only the really clueless have to toss that word around with every posting
what the heck are you refering to?
apparantly not much, since your comment is not in the vacinity i made any comment.
and yea - that is how HE describes open society. look below the surface and you find proponents of new world order. and look up what democracy is (that they promote) - mob rule - and read what it leads to - socialism, communism, totaliterianism, dictatorship....
oh - hang on - i am sorry - just occured to me why i only found your comment to me by accident!
you didnt want me to see it, so it would look like i had no response - ok - tell ya what - go ahead and brag how you "really told del off, and showed HIM a thing or two!"
its ok - go ahead - i got big shoulders. really - brag away.
Don't be such a putz Del, if you want to know when there is a new comment on a post you are interested in click the link at the bottom to follow the conversation … then you won't be clueless … or you will be less clueless than you obviously are … and maybe less paranoid too.
I don't think there's a right and left within the Democratic and Republican political parties themselves. I think they want you to think there's a right and a left and they want you and me to argue issues that aren't important and avoid the issues that have critical importance. So they obfuscate those issues well.
The issue of critical importance here, if what Dave is saying is true, is that the Democrats and Republicans, together, in concert, with malice of forethought developed and implemented the policies we have today since todays problems are the result of generations of policy decisions during which time the Democrats and Republicans always shared power in a give-and-take political arena.
These two parties have shared total control of the US national and foreign policy objectives, goals and strategies for 100+ years. They are, together, responsible for everything we have today and voting for either party is voting against yourself and common sense.
Someone recently said that we all know that when they advertise something on TV it's not real, right? It's a TV commercial designed to sell a product. We forget that the Obama Campaign won the top award in the advertising industry for launching the Obama Brand.
We have video of Obama stating he'll bring the troops home immediately, GMO food will be labeled, transparency will be a theme, etc., etc. He said whatever he had to say to get elected and he lied. Because he was marketed to us. So was Bush.
The concept of 'Democrats and Republicans' is a carefully crafted illusion. They're code words for 'Thieves and Scoundrels'. They share the booty from election year to election year. Just like they did in Rome.
>> the Democratic and Republican political
>> parties themselves.
Of course there is, it is just overridden by the
necessities and priorities of keeping the wealthy
and powerful at the top.
It's just like most Americans at work, whatever they
believe they will not go out on a limb to argue with
co-workers about political things.
When Americans are so stupid as to be totally
herded by propaganda and marketing what else
do you think the country is going to be like?
The whole country is driven by advertisements and
advertisements are mostly just lies or false promises.
We see things in terms of lies and false promised,
what do you think most religion is?
Americans have been enculturated to be ignorant
and proud of it - does a people like that deserve to
be given control of their country?
If we look at another people, the Palestinians, they
are the same way, and they have no way out of it.
They are stuck in a pressure cooker … and in America
the lid is going on right now and the pressure is
building up.
actually - that is just over $9 an hour, since it is stated as before any overtime.
but whose counting lol
And Jeff, errr John, you have unmasked the devil....All of the trends that have brought us to the sorry state we're now in were cultivated by both parties. The purpose of the GOP is to flat out represent the interests of the capitalists. The purpose of the Democratic Party is to make us believe that the middle class has representation - which it actually doesn't.
The major shifts in wealth that hve occurred were created by such sea changes as the destruction of the labor movement and the obsession with globalization (sold as "free trade" but more accurately "free manufacture"). These two trends, by themselves, have destroyed the working conditions in America and they could not have taken place without the complete cooperation of politicians in the Democratic Party.
The whole situation is one colossol sham.
I'd have to modify that, it is not "capitalists" in the abstract, it is the small group of people that are militant capitalists, that is that take capital and use it as a political weapon.
Not all capitalists are bad or will get government support - the people who get government support are specific people, regardless that we call them capitalists or counter-reveolutionaries, or fascists, or whatever.
Capitalists take money and create wealth from it, that is not what is happening in the US, our capitalists take our capital and use it to oppress and remove power from the rest of us to make us dependent upon them and the system they created that is too big to "change".
It wasn't socialism that created the financial crisis...It wasn't socialism that created the jobs crisis and it isn't socialism that's doing nothing about replacing the 8 million jobs that have been lost.
In fact, the problem is neither capitalism nor socialism. It's the money-based political system that has allowed the government to be taken over by the special interests. This problem has converted our form of government into a plutocracy, and it is taking us down into a very negative spiral that is far from over, at this point...
Socialism is not financial fraud, it is not environmental destruction, it is not exploitation of workers, it is not lack of investment in education and health of people.
But as much as our problems are not based around socialism, I am not really sure they are totally based around money in the political system either, although that is a better approximation and certainly closer to the problems. Our system and most other system have been based around an elite doing whatever the hell it wanted to. It could be that as the world has been going global more of the corrupt powers have been intermixing and interfering with our system and have corrupted it.
The idea that we are doing enough major business with totalitarian anti-human-rights, anti-environment, anti-free-trade, anti-capitalist China so that it has hollowed out our own system to the bone and changed America in ways no one has any control over or voted for would have been nothing that I think most Americans would have ever guess would happen, and so fast.
We better start concentrating on special problems, and how to fix them for good, whatever it takes and stop tossing these idiotic terms around that just get people pointlessly arguing and fighting.
sold by their party favorites. There was a trade group here who worked for about 5 years to create a China trade hub in this area. It got down to the end to set it in motion and suddenly out of the shadows appeared opposition to it all which said that by issuing investment credits it would create undo competition for those already in business who might one day wish to have investment credits for their growth of business. The first plane load of goods sit in a temporary wherehouse waiting for distribution but their were no contracts let to store goods or to receive goods from China. Then many of those became irate when China pulled out. I heard not one complaint from the republican followers who would have benefited from the jobs created by such an endevor. Life just went on as ususal and they continued their talking points and blaming Obama for their failures. To me the situation presents more of a sickness than real thought processes. How is it that so many people are willing to suffer just to continue with their idiological thought process. Missouri has failed numerous times to take the steps necessary to better the condition of its economic base because of extreme political shenanigans. To balance the budget they so easily reach for cuts in school budgets, medical delivery systems, public transporation and other such items which reduce the standard of living for its citizens. Than I hear a childish like comment that Missouri's citizens are not keeping up with neighboring states. Hmmm, we dive bomb as many progressive potential business transactions as possible, we refuse to include road and bridge repair in our budgets and seem to have a disinterest in maintaining jobs yet I hear this collective sigh of why aren't we making progress.
> manipulated, is the ratio of the number of employees to the total population.
This is a very good point … every April the country should publish the number of tax returns divided by the total population.
This is a number that I think could be traced back in the same form for decades if not all the way back to the beginning of the income tax.
What really troubles me is that a whole historic part of the US society is forgotten here. When the US started to become and industrial country it was clear that people needed jobs to stay alive. They could not go farm on free land anymore, so there were two pieces of legislation that came about.
1. Full Employment Act of 19446
2. Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978
There is zero discussion of these issues, and if the companies of the US are not going to provide jobs for Americans anymore, then we have become a completely different country, and are violating our responsiblity to our people, though the logic and history are a bit cloudy and convoluted.
We either make the best of it and education, train and put people to work getting things we need done, or we will have to pay them welfare and put them on the dole.
For all the wonderful BS we hear from Republicans about how great they are as nog creators and how the private sector solves problem - why do they not solve this one.
Seems to me they could stop hiring people to work so much overtime and do some job sharing, cut the workweek to 3-4 day work weeks 10-12 hours a day, and each worker would be more productive … but in many cases they have people working that much anyway without really paying them for it.
The national discussion on this is so overdue like the solution to every other problem … that the private sector is supposed to be handling, and instead is just externalizing and putting off, that it is a massive complicated almost impossible task to put this in some kind of perspective.
The country is broken and so broken because we have ridden the horse into the ground.
The Republicans answer is to simply demonize the poor, like Herman Cain did, and we expect to stay the country called America while we are happily watching poor people die in the streets and their children grow up crippled and stunted while the rich people sit secure knowing they have the pass key into the economy.
What happend to fair play and a level playing field and all that?