"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

The story behind the July job numbers
Posted by Jill | 11:28 AM

The Bush moonies have been trumpeting the 207,000 new jobs created in July as some kind of marker of a resurgent economy.

But let's look at little closer at the kinds of jobs that were created, shall we?

Actually, we don't have to, for Paul Craig Roberts has done it for us:

Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.

Here is the breakdown of the major categories:

• 30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
• 28,000 health care and social assistance:
• 12,000 real estate;
• 6,000 credit intermediation;
• 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
• 50,000 retail trade; and
• 8,000 wholesale trade.
(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.)

Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China.


My question is, what happens when no one is making enough money to even buy fast food and Wal-Mart crap? The fact of the matter is that the American job market is in a race to the bottom. Remember all those high-paying, high-tech jobs of the future? Gone...replaced by low-paying jobs, many of them without benefits and most of them without security.

I keep thinking about Jamaica, a country I've visited many times in which most of the so-called "good jobs" are service jobs in the tourism industry. People in these jobs are lucky to make $65/week, and many of them live in fear of being fired for transgressions ranging from fraternizing with the guests to accepting tips (which is a firing offense at many of the large, all-inclusive resorts.

Then I look at where the job market is headed here, the only bright spot is in another 10 years, American young people won't need to pay the $400,000 that college will cost by then, because the only jobs available won't require a degree.
0 comments
Bookmark and Share