W signs CAFTA into Law

[Nbadan]

American companies have long faced trade barriers in Central America, while that region exported freely to America.

The agreement, with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, removes trade barriers and opens up the region to U.S. goods and services.

What U.S. good and services are we exporting? Jobs, Technology and military hardware. What are we likely to import? Everything else.

So while CAFTA is a boon for multinational corporations and the weapons crowd, out-sourcing and the dropping of trade barriers almost always leads to a net job loss for American workers, but at least they'll have Walmart and cheap cigars, right?

[Nbadan]

One can argue about the reasons or long term health of the economy, but one cannot deny the fact it has been growing at a solid pace for the last couple of years. Not while keeping a straight face anyway.

Trading high-paying manufacturing jobs for low-paying and no-benefit service jobs is hard a sign of a healthy economy or of a improving unemployment rate when you figure in all the displaced workers who fall through the no-longer-counted-as-unemployed-cracks.

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Laid off from an auto factory assembly line two weeks before Christmas, Gary Asnell is still jobless and doesn't care to hear about the virtues of retraining as he struggles to keep a roof over his family's head.

"They say it's a great opportunity to go back to school. But I've got to juggle to find a job to pay the bills, make the house payments and feed the children," said Asnell, a 44-year-old father of three.

In the face of rabid global compe ion and outsourcing of work to cheap-labor countries like China, nearly three million American manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000.

Those at the sharp end of this process now often face serious pay cuts or retraining to qualify for jobs in industries that have vacancies which may still not pay as much as they were making before.

<snip>

But among people dealing directly with the fallout of this upheaval in the U.S. industrial base, the truth for older workers is that their standards of living may never recover.

<snip>

Still for those who see little prospect of making such a transition, there is a powerful sense of abandonment and anger at a culture that has chewed them up and spat them out.

more:REUTERS

The Feds figure the unemployment rate like they figure the yearly projected budget deficits - nevermind reality, lets go with what looks good.

[Nbadan]

US jobs growth at five-month high

Despite the growth in jobs, US factories are shedding workers

The US economy created 207,000 new jobs in July, the biggest gain in five months, according to official figures.

At the same time, US unemployment remained steady at 5% for the second month in a row, continuing at a four-year low.

New positions were created in retailing, education, health services, finance and construction, the US Labor Department said.

By contrast, factories shed jobs for the second straight month.
(snip)

Similarly, the length of time people remain unemployed is at a level last seen in the early 1990s.

BBC News

[gtownspur]

what's your point Dan? in any economy if your on the recieving end of the unemployment figure the economy will suck for you. Even in the Clinton Boom there were massive layoffs and job losses due to merges and job exportation. Clinton himself admitted there was nothing he could do.

The whole point is is that this economy is doing fine and we are recovering well and prospering as a society. Consumer spending is still defying all the scare of oil prices and terrorism.

[Nbadan]

When all the marginal workers are figured in and all the other unemployed who slip through the Fed numbers are counted, the Labor department figures that the U.S. unemployment rate is really closer to 8.9%.

If other countries figured out their unemployment rates the way the U.S. does Japan would have a unemployment rate of 2.1%, Sweden would have a rate of 1.8%, Germany would have a unemployment rate of 5% according to this Dept of Labor study published by Cornell University.

[gtownspur]

Plus your acting as if layoffs and job exportations were never seen before until the bush administration. Me thinks you either no the truth on the good economy of today and you dont care because Bush is in charge or you choose to deny the truth because your spin would be layed off on this forum.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

50 bucks for jeans you'd buy at wal mart... target would be like 70 or 80... sheeyat.. i wouldn't pay that for rustlers..

well like that one person said, are you talking designer jeans or what

i get mine at like dillards or something, every once in a blue moon

they're like 50 bucks, if you get them on sale, which they have like every other weekend

[Nbadan]

Plus your acting as if layoffs and job exportations were never seen before until the bush administration. Me thinks you either no the truth on the good economy of today and you dont care because Bush is in charge or you choose to deny the truth because your spin would be layed off on this forum.

Jobs come and go, but what we ought to be concerned about are the types of jobs that are being lost as opposed to the jobs that are being created by the U.S. economy. As we shift from a economy that used to produce something to an economy of workers that produce very little for the world market more workers become dangerously vulnerable to the consequences of a up and down economy and the trickle-down effect of income.

Even if the U.S. economy goes bad it's still not impossible to find a job if you still have a demand for your manufactured product from the world market, but if you have a service job your completely vulnerable to the effects of the U.S. economy. Much worse, a snowball effect could send the U.S. into a serious recession.

[gtownspur]

Actually Germany's unemployment is at 12.9% according to BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4307303.stm

"More than 5.2 million Germans were out of work in February, new figures show.
The figure of 5.216 million people, or 12.6% of the working-age population, is the highest jobless rate in Europe's biggest economy since the 1930s."

"And the most internationally-accepted methodology, designed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), says Germany had 3.97 million people out of work in January. "

Now the total hard figures of unemployment in the us ar 7.9 million for the U.S. to Germany's 3.97.

US Population is at: 295,734,134

Germany at:82,431,390

the US is 3.7 times larger than Germany population. 3.7 x 3.97 =14.689 mill.

14.689 mill from Germany comparably to the US's 7.9 mill is quite a differance.

[SWC Bonfire]

As we shift from a economy that used to produce something to an economy of workers that produce very little for the world market

You do realize that Texas was largely rural and agricultural 50 years ago, right? This may be more of a concern up north, but that's because some of the manufacturers are "outsourcing" to the southern US (where there are no unions) & Mexico (where Texas gets the trade benefits).

[SWC Bonfire]

Europe's economy stinks for younger people. I didn't read all the links above, but a lot of them don't work, aren't looking for jobs, and probably don't even get counted in unemployment.

[scott]

American workers should be forced to compete, just like American companies. I'm sorry that some overpaid shlub had his job exported to India, but that is something he is going to have to deal with, Dan.

The economy has grown at a healthy clip for the last 3 years, and there isn't any way you can deny it (although I don't doubt you'll try). You can debate the reasons for the economy's health and whether they are good in the long run - but the facts speak for themselves.

[ElMuerto]

CAFTA will help Republicans continue their gain of the hispanic vote.
Jeff Bolton is having an orgasm over it.

[smeagol]

People complaining about the shape of the economy here in the US (or in Europe or in Japan, for that matter) is so ing funny!