Mort Zuckerman: U.S. No Longer the Great Job Creation Machine

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As David Meiswinkle Indepenendt candidate for NJ govenor all we have to do is re[peal and revoke Natfa and Cafta Trade treaties and get the USA out of the WTO, by voter petition, and politicians who do not agree vote them our or impeach them or petition to recall them like they did to Gov. Gray Davis in Calif.
Rmemeber this country is in a global trade war and the middle-class and our jobs and children's future are at stake. Nothing is impossible if enough American Voters exert their political will power in a inified manner. If we do not bring the jobs back to the USA the states will never have enough revenue or taxes to survive. If the idiots that passed this realized that as soon as the middle class is extinct there will be no one to pay the largest share of taxes and consume the most products in the USA. Even the rich should consider that without the MC to support our US economy they will be the only ones left to tax into oblivion. If they were smart they would bring back the middle class jobs now if for no other reason than to save their own wealth. Not to mention economic control and sovereignty over our own nation rather than by some foreign power such as China.

notrequired of CA 1:45AM June 27, 2010

Quoting Zuckerman: We must face the hard fact that many of the lost jobs are gone forever. In this cycle, 56 percent of the currently unemployed have permanently lost their jobs, according to Ned Davis Research. These people have lost their jobs because plants have closed, work has moved overseas, or companies have gone out of business. This compares with an earlier peak in 1982 and 1991 of 43 percent.
The loss of manufacturing is the problem and has been occurring since the 1960's. When a people will not purchase the very product they, themselves make. Instead they purchase the same product made in a nation where the worker is paid, between $2.00 to $3.00 a day, somewhere in the future, the manufacturer those people work for has to close its doors and move to the country with the lesser wage. You cannot demand the highest wage with the most benefits in the world and turn around and buy from these countries. All your monies go out of country. Pat, no denials, See it for yourself. What is it, 14 trillion in debt now? Jobs gone, now the wail "Woe is me!".
I told this to the carpenters Union in the late 1960s, and was called Crab Grass. I hear there is virtually no union carpenters in the housing market in Ca. now.
So how do we retrieve jobs? Will it cause a war with China? Will China call in their loans? It is a conundrum. Don't you think.

Jim D Hise of AR 2:26PM January 29, 2010

1. U.S. economists are morons. Let's kill all the economists.
2. In a global free trade environment, jobs flow to China and India, which have 10% of our labor costs.
3. Numbers of legal and illegal immigrants are unparalleled in US history, increasing competition for jobs.
4. It doesn't seem to be in American character to maintain quality like the Japanese and Germans.
5. Manufacturing is derided. Supposedly we're in an "advanced" post-industrial period. In reality, manufacturing IS the high technology sector of the economy, as manufactures and their processes are designed by engineers and scientists, often thousands of them over a period of decades. Compare building a Boeing jetliner, which has required thousands of engineers and inventors to produce over the years, with "information technology," the darling of the media. Putting up a website is really non-mathematical high school level stuff for the most part.
6. Unfortunately manufacturing employs for the most part unskilled production workers, making manufacturing jobs susceptible to being moved to any low wage country.
7. The US was a great innovator in the past, with great inventors like Thomas Edison, ...John Bardeen, Jerome Lemelson. Patents give you about a twenty year headstart in starting and dominating new industries--about the only way to protect yourself from low wage competition is a patent and the frontrunner's advantage in technology. Unfortunately US innovation died about 1970 when cheapo businessmen started making use of Ted Kennedy's chamberpot immigration policies to displace the great R&D teams we had that dominated the world with garbage from the third world. US techs left the field in droves upon seeing the tsunami of immigrants, so that now we are pathetically striving to compete with world class Japanese and German engineers with third worlders doing third world level R&D. A lot of economists and liberal arts people still don't get that it's quality that counts, not quantity, and still call for more and more H-1B's and chamberpot immigrants. Another problem is political correctness. If your highest priority is getting women and minorities into science and engineering, then quality must assume a lower rank. Then worst of all there is "hired-to-invent." Increasing R&D costs gave rise to the employed inventor, and employed R&D people for the most part have no rights to their inventions, and thus no financial incentive to do ought but hack work. Would you invent a transistor if you only got a buck for it? Probably not with any enthusiasm. That's why if you visit a research lab you need to bring a mirror to hold to the lips of the scientists to see if they are engaged in research or may have expired. Reminds me of the decadence of Rome: Tiger Woods gets a billion for hitting a ball, but if you invent a transistor you get a buck.

Linda Re of KY 4:51AM December 09, 2009

In reading Mort's description, I was struck that what is needed are well-paying manufacturing jobs that can't be exported, which suggests to me that 'green jobs' programs make sense. Wind, solar, natural gas (as proposed by T Boone Pickens) and 'cookie-cutter nuke plants (like, dare I say it, in France), plus the transmission grids to move the power from point of generation to point of use, would create many of the good jobs we need, jobs that either can't be off-shored or could be prevented from being off-shored. Plus we have the bonus of reducing our dependence on oil from the Middle East. What's not to like? We just need a stable regulatory/cost environment to assure investors the investment would pay off. We could do this through tax credits, although my preference would be a fuel tax that slowly, repeat slowly, increases costs and includes a retail floor price so that oil producers don't temporarily flood the market with cheap energy to derail efforts to transition from a petro-based economy. You can make far too many useful things from petroleum to waste it by burning it.

Bob of MO 5:42PM December 07, 2009

Unfortunately, I believe Mort is right on about the US failure to create jobs.
The US is in financial and leadership crisis. Our leaders are failing to recognize this crisis and to respond in a positive manner. During the last year, our political leaders in Washington have devoted most of their efforts toward the stimulus plan (which is an obvious failure) and the health care plan (which may ultimately bankrupt our nation). Neither address our real issues.
I believe the most difficult problem the US and it's citizens face is political leadership. There is little difference between Republicans and Democrats. When you cut to the core, most politicians support greater government, more government spending, and ever heavier taxation of their citizens.
Before the US can start to have meaningful progress toward a better economic future, we must change our political leadership. We must develop a political environment in Washington that favors less government intrusion into our citizen's lives, less government spending, less regulation, and less taxation. Government is not the solution. Government, as we have endured it, is the enemy of our future.
However, the chances of real change in government is low. Because the voters either do not hold elected representatives responsible, are looking for something "free" from government, or are just so stupid that they don't understand the consequences of what is happening in the US.
I fear for our great nation. We may have already destroyed ourselves. We have meet the enemy, and he is us.

Jim in Seattle of WA 4:58PM December 07, 2009

I think the suggestion to have the US goverment pay the unemployed to help repair/replace infrastructure and do other jobs that improve our schools, towns, neighborhoods, cities and states is a good one. However, merely paying at minimum wage will only minimmally help ease the economic pain. Further, some of the jobs would be in competition with other jobs (like construction for infrastruture) in a way that might bring down wages for the competing jobs. The government commonly contracts for construction work and other kinds of services with private sector contractors. As part of these contracts, there could be requirements to hire and train the unemployed in new skills, and also help in paying wages that are closer to what is called "prevailing wage" in both federal and state law. Should actual unemployed skilled tradesmen (like electricians, plumbers, etc.) or skilled profeesionals (like teachers) find it necessary to take a government paid job under these auspices, it would make sense to pay them wages and benefits close to what they would have been paid if they were working for a private contractor.
This approach might also allow the unemployed to get health care coverage as part of these jobs, which is one of the things most people lose when unemployed, and which they are therefore hard pressed to find money for, whether or not we end up with a "public option" under the proposed national healthcare reform.

Kenneth Ciszewski of MO 9:35PM December 06, 2009

It's all about rewards.
Most professional gamblers understand "the odds" when they wager. What this administration has done is reduced the rewards for hiring to such a low level that one will actually lose money if you hire someone. Better to sell whatever you have and have shortages. If prices increase that's a good thing but if they don't at least you're not losing and that's a good thing.
One then ends with the result of Socialism - scarcity for all except the elites. Consider how many private jets, including Air Force One, show up in Copenhagen. This won't change until the 2010 and finally 2012 elections. At least one better hope that change is, indeed, on the way to reverse our sinking into Marxism.

cedarhill of KY 8:47AM December 06, 2009

I totally agree with the substance of your comments. The problem is that we no longer make "things". Manufacturing is the greatest engine of wealth generation.
Most people have given up on US Manufacturing, yet this is exactly where we should focus. The key is the factory floor productivity. Yet, like you say, management is largely insulated from this fundamental aspect of their business. If the decisionmakers had floor experience they would see there are huge opportunities for productivity improvement. The factory floor is fundamentally flawed. With the proper fix, American workers can compete with anyone in the world. It is possible to bring all those jobs back from China.

RJ Burns of FL 8:25AM December 06, 2009

We’re on the way to having a long-term unemployment problem because Obama wants the country to have a long-term unemployment problem. He doesn’t give a rat’s backside about getting the current system back in running order, he wants to tear it down and fundamentally change our relationship with government – the more needy people there are, the more they “need” government to “save” them.
There was an article in Slate a while back – the lefty commentator Michael Lind was expounding his theory about opposition to Obama’s plans being motivated mainly by racism. Near the end, he let something slip: Since many small-business owners oppose massive social-welfare schemes (along with their annoying habit of often voting Republican), maybe what’s needed is…fewer small businesses! Let’em work for Walmart or the government! Moral of the story: if you’ve been thinking Obama’s hostile to to the folks who actually create jobs, you’re not imagining things.

Jeff of WA 4:45AM December 06, 2009

Good article. Regardless of political leanings this is a great article. To bad pur president and Congress only want to spend and control, not help the nation

Gabe of ID 12:33AM December 06, 2009