Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 1, 2011 17:53:40 GMT -6
This is a link to articles by Mike Stathis who writes some pretty comprehensive economic overviews for Market Oracle.
He contends that we are currently in a Depression. And he makes very good arguments supporting that assertion.
www.marketoracle.co.uk/UserInfo-Mike_Stathis.html
Below is an excerpt from his most recent article, discussing the structural problem with the US economy, which is largely due to our trade policies:
"Bernanke has no idea what he is talking about, or else he is lying in order to protect corporate interests. I detailed the trade and labor problems extensively in America’s Financial Apocalypse.
Corporate powerhouses and Washington officials (who have been bought off by corporate interests) do not want Americans to understand the real problems. This is one reason why the book was banned by publishers and I continue to be black-balled by America’s corporate media monopoly, which includes the Internet.
Conduct a search for my articles and you will see them on maybe two or three sites, while others lacking credentials have their articles plastered on hundreds of sites. Why might this be? Websites make money from ads and they don’t want the truth because advertisers will pull their ads if say, people realize the truth about gold. They want their game to continue uninterrupted. Keeping me out of the loop ensures they will make more money. The problem is that they are making money at YOUR expense through disinformation.
It appears as if they will win this game because the media continues to distract from the main problems, all while feeding its audience with extremists, all while leading the tea party into the hands of the Washington Mafia. It’s truly a dog-and-pony show. And most Americans remain oblivious as to what is happening. You need to understand that your “heroes” are laughing all the way to the bank, all while pleasing their corporate sponsors. [18] [19]
The ONLY solution to the unemployment problem is to restructure free trade agreements so that trade is fair for the U.S. You cannot have a system of fair trade when your trading partners play by different rules. And without fair trade, jobs will continue to be sent overseas. I do not expect trade agreements to be restructured adequately because corporations care only to find the cheapest labor, regardless of the location.
Regardless whether you have democrats or republicans in charge of the game, you need to understand that when it comes to corporate interests, they are in complete agreement; good U.S. jobs will continue to be sent overseas. This is the issue that should be the focus. Nothing else matters when put into perspective. [20]
By no means am I the only individual that points to structural economic problems as the root cause of the current depression. However, others who have previous highlighted trade disparities as the cause of America’s decline have since sidelined the topic in order to show support for the democratic presidency. When Bush was in office, these individuals were anxious to blame trade issues on America’s problems. Now that Obama is in office, trade issues are rarely mentioned by these same individuals.
Even Washington’s most loyal cheerleaders (economists) don’t expect the U-3 unemployment rate to drop below 9% for some time. That alone indicates the unemployment rate is likely to rise. Folks, you cannot have a jobless recovery as the so-experts claim we are witnessing. Jobs are the driving force behind economic growth. Anyone who states otherwise is either a liar or a damn fool.
Since the official start of the current recession (December 2007) nearly 9 million jobs have been lost. Unfortunately, most of these lost jobs simply aren’t coming back. I discussed this early last year in an article called "It's Time to Face the Facts.” Since then, even many economists have made this admission. [21]
The only jobs that will return are those that no one wants; the low-paying, dead-end jobs, offering little or no employee benefits. It’s the same situation that played out after the dotcom collapse. This partly accounts for the fact that there has been no real recovery since 2001.
So let’s have a look at some recent employment data.
After coming off of a respectable job gain of 172,000 for October, on December 3rd, the Labor Department reported disastrous numbers for November. Last month, employers added a total of only 39,000 net jobs, falling well short of the 150,000 estimate by the geniuses of the world, economists.
The lack of new jobs bumped the U-3 unemployment rate up from the 9.6% mark where it has stood for several months to 9.8%. The U-3 is now at a 7-month high and has exceeded the 9% mark for 19 straight months; the longest streak on record.
Several months before the latest uptick in the jobless rate, most economists stated that they expected unemployment to remain firm at 9.6%. As a result, economists also lowered estimates for job growth over the next four quarters. This means more Americans will continue to slip into the discouraged worker category which is not counted by the U-3 data.
For November the U-6 unemployment rate (which measures the U-3 plus those working part-time but want full-time work plus discouraged workers) came in officially at 27 million. My own estimates top 34 million.
Note that the U-6 does NOT say anything about work week hours, nor does it state anything about underpaid workers, or workers who are being paid lower wages than their skills, education and experience dictate.
For November, 1.3 million new discouraged workers were added to the total pool, which is now officially 6.3 million.
Despite the record $2 trillion of corporate cash sitting on the sidelines, corporations refuse to offer good jobs to Americans. Instead they continue to hire overseas although the media is not reporting this. The only jobs being offered to Americans are those most people don’t want.
Washington refuses to address unfair trade policies that have sent millions of jobs overseas because U.S. corporations are recording huge profits as a result. In the third quarter, corporate profits hit a record-high at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion, surpassing the previous $1.655 trillion record-high made prior to the economic collapse in the third quarter of 2006. In addition, the recent earnings of U.S. corporations accounted for 11.2 of the economy, second only to the forth quarter of 2006 when that number topped 11.7%.
Private firms created only 50,000 jobs in November, the fewest since January and down from 160,000 in October. This ends the 11-month streak of growth in new jobs.
Even worse, no new jobs were added in five sectors. Stores cut above 28,000, factories 13,000, financial companies 9,000 and construction companies 5,000. Government eliminated 11,000 jobs (mostly at the local level). Healthcare added 19,000 jobs, temporary firms added 40,000, education added 6000, and hospitality added 11,000.
The main problem here is that too few jobs were cut in the financial industry....
The financial industry still remains much too large. And let’s not forget that this industry creates very little real value. Over the past 30 years, the U.S. has been transformed from a manufacturing powerhouse that supplied the world with high-quality goods, to a nation dominated by financial giants focused on issuing high-interest loans and manipulating the capital markets in order to siphon off the wealth of hard-working Americans.
Also noteworthy in November was expiration of up to 99 weeks of extra aid to nearly 2 million jobless Americans. Recently, this has been extended for 1 year. Moreover, Social Security taxes have been cut for a year. In exchange, republicans insisted on an extension of Bush’s 2001 tax cut for the wealthy.
While most Americans have been fooled to think that democrats or republicans are on their side, the fact is that this back and forth bickering only serves to draw in votes. It does not matter whether democrats or republicans are in charge of the Washington mafia. Americans will get the same results regardless for issues that matter the most; securing good jobs. In reality, both parties are destroying America’s future, much as they have for decades. This latest stimulus package is nothing more than a poorly designed economic stimulus plan that does nothing more than increase the severity of America’s long-term economic problems.
Two years ago, I predicted that there would be numerous economic packages and bailouts. After Obama signed the ARRA, I predicted it would be the first of many installments. The recently passed tax and employment benefits package is estimated to cost $900 billion over the next two years, which is more than the ARRA. In addition, most of this money will be spent for the estate tax provisions and for AMT adjustments.
While the ARRA was largely a waste of tax dollars, this recent package is a complete waste. And it will only make the consequences of America’s 2nd Great Depression more severe. Stay tuned, because you can bet that Washington will do more to worsen the severity of the depression, all while sending even more money to the wealthy....
more than 40% of America’s jobless have been unemployed for more than 6 months. This trend has lasted for over 1 year. This is truly a devastating trend that has not been adequately addressed by the media.
In the past, I have discussed the fact that being unemployed for longer than 4 months greatly increases the chance that a person will have to change careers. Thus, it seems very likely that millions of jobless Americans will be required to make a career change, most likely with reduced wages WHEN they are able to finally secure employment.
Instead of restructuring free trade policy, as Obama promised in 2008, he has continued where Bush left off by expanding trade to South Korea and other nations, all under conditions that do nothing to protect U.S. jobs. This is disturbing, given that America’s jobless rate remains as the single most significant threat to an already weak economy.
Recently, Obama signed off on the largest U.S. trade deal since the 1994 signing of NAFTA. Obama has been informed by his “trusted advisers” that the South Korean trade deal will “support” at least 70,000 U.S. jobs. In other words, it is not expected to necessarily create any new jobs, but prevent the loss of these jobs. As you can imagine, there is no way to determine whether or not the deal will save jobs. The only way to determine the effectiveness of any trade deal is to count how many new jobs were created.
I will guarantee you this trade deal will create many more jobs in South Korean than in the U.S. In fact, the deal was backed by several U.S. conglomerates such as Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, General Electric, and Caterpillar. That should tell you who stands to benefit from this trade agreement, and it isn’t going to be U.S. workers. This is just another chapter in the book of destructive trade policy that has led to America’s chronic decline.
Regardless who is in office, these criminally destructive policies will continue as one would expect with any fascist nation. Although the definition of fascism is not clearly agreed upon by many authorities, I use the definition embraced by Benito Mussolini, which attributes fascism as a partnership between government and corporations. This is similar to corporatism, a political system whereby legislative authority is provided to corporate bodies representing economic, industrial and professional groups. Rather than the people, these corporate bodies dictate the laws of the nation.
This is precisely what we see in the U.S., with CEOs of the Fortune 50 wielding more power than any senator or congressman. Corporations exert their control over Washington via huge sums of money shuttled to politicians by lobbyists. Moreover, the corporate giants provide Washington with often illegal if not unconstitutional access to the nation’s backbone, whether it is in the telecommunications, railway and air transport, or banking sectors. In return for these favors, Washington permits these corporate giants to engage in monopolistic expansions, thereby destroying small businesses, in order to eliminate competition so that they gain complete control over pricing of their goods and services."
He contends that we are currently in a Depression. And he makes very good arguments supporting that assertion.
www.marketoracle.co.uk/UserInfo-Mike_Stathis.html
Below is an excerpt from his most recent article, discussing the structural problem with the US economy, which is largely due to our trade policies:
"Bernanke has no idea what he is talking about, or else he is lying in order to protect corporate interests. I detailed the trade and labor problems extensively in America’s Financial Apocalypse.
Corporate powerhouses and Washington officials (who have been bought off by corporate interests) do not want Americans to understand the real problems. This is one reason why the book was banned by publishers and I continue to be black-balled by America’s corporate media monopoly, which includes the Internet.
Conduct a search for my articles and you will see them on maybe two or three sites, while others lacking credentials have their articles plastered on hundreds of sites. Why might this be? Websites make money from ads and they don’t want the truth because advertisers will pull their ads if say, people realize the truth about gold. They want their game to continue uninterrupted. Keeping me out of the loop ensures they will make more money. The problem is that they are making money at YOUR expense through disinformation.
It appears as if they will win this game because the media continues to distract from the main problems, all while feeding its audience with extremists, all while leading the tea party into the hands of the Washington Mafia. It’s truly a dog-and-pony show. And most Americans remain oblivious as to what is happening. You need to understand that your “heroes” are laughing all the way to the bank, all while pleasing their corporate sponsors. [18] [19]
The ONLY solution to the unemployment problem is to restructure free trade agreements so that trade is fair for the U.S. You cannot have a system of fair trade when your trading partners play by different rules. And without fair trade, jobs will continue to be sent overseas. I do not expect trade agreements to be restructured adequately because corporations care only to find the cheapest labor, regardless of the location.
Regardless whether you have democrats or republicans in charge of the game, you need to understand that when it comes to corporate interests, they are in complete agreement; good U.S. jobs will continue to be sent overseas. This is the issue that should be the focus. Nothing else matters when put into perspective. [20]
By no means am I the only individual that points to structural economic problems as the root cause of the current depression. However, others who have previous highlighted trade disparities as the cause of America’s decline have since sidelined the topic in order to show support for the democratic presidency. When Bush was in office, these individuals were anxious to blame trade issues on America’s problems. Now that Obama is in office, trade issues are rarely mentioned by these same individuals.
Even Washington’s most loyal cheerleaders (economists) don’t expect the U-3 unemployment rate to drop below 9% for some time. That alone indicates the unemployment rate is likely to rise. Folks, you cannot have a jobless recovery as the so-experts claim we are witnessing. Jobs are the driving force behind economic growth. Anyone who states otherwise is either a liar or a damn fool.
Since the official start of the current recession (December 2007) nearly 9 million jobs have been lost. Unfortunately, most of these lost jobs simply aren’t coming back. I discussed this early last year in an article called "It's Time to Face the Facts.” Since then, even many economists have made this admission. [21]
The only jobs that will return are those that no one wants; the low-paying, dead-end jobs, offering little or no employee benefits. It’s the same situation that played out after the dotcom collapse. This partly accounts for the fact that there has been no real recovery since 2001.
So let’s have a look at some recent employment data.
After coming off of a respectable job gain of 172,000 for October, on December 3rd, the Labor Department reported disastrous numbers for November. Last month, employers added a total of only 39,000 net jobs, falling well short of the 150,000 estimate by the geniuses of the world, economists.
The lack of new jobs bumped the U-3 unemployment rate up from the 9.6% mark where it has stood for several months to 9.8%. The U-3 is now at a 7-month high and has exceeded the 9% mark for 19 straight months; the longest streak on record.
Several months before the latest uptick in the jobless rate, most economists stated that they expected unemployment to remain firm at 9.6%. As a result, economists also lowered estimates for job growth over the next four quarters. This means more Americans will continue to slip into the discouraged worker category which is not counted by the U-3 data.
For November the U-6 unemployment rate (which measures the U-3 plus those working part-time but want full-time work plus discouraged workers) came in officially at 27 million. My own estimates top 34 million.
Note that the U-6 does NOT say anything about work week hours, nor does it state anything about underpaid workers, or workers who are being paid lower wages than their skills, education and experience dictate.
For November, 1.3 million new discouraged workers were added to the total pool, which is now officially 6.3 million.
Despite the record $2 trillion of corporate cash sitting on the sidelines, corporations refuse to offer good jobs to Americans. Instead they continue to hire overseas although the media is not reporting this. The only jobs being offered to Americans are those most people don’t want.
Washington refuses to address unfair trade policies that have sent millions of jobs overseas because U.S. corporations are recording huge profits as a result. In the third quarter, corporate profits hit a record-high at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion, surpassing the previous $1.655 trillion record-high made prior to the economic collapse in the third quarter of 2006. In addition, the recent earnings of U.S. corporations accounted for 11.2 of the economy, second only to the forth quarter of 2006 when that number topped 11.7%.
Private firms created only 50,000 jobs in November, the fewest since January and down from 160,000 in October. This ends the 11-month streak of growth in new jobs.
Even worse, no new jobs were added in five sectors. Stores cut above 28,000, factories 13,000, financial companies 9,000 and construction companies 5,000. Government eliminated 11,000 jobs (mostly at the local level). Healthcare added 19,000 jobs, temporary firms added 40,000, education added 6000, and hospitality added 11,000.
The main problem here is that too few jobs were cut in the financial industry....
The financial industry still remains much too large. And let’s not forget that this industry creates very little real value. Over the past 30 years, the U.S. has been transformed from a manufacturing powerhouse that supplied the world with high-quality goods, to a nation dominated by financial giants focused on issuing high-interest loans and manipulating the capital markets in order to siphon off the wealth of hard-working Americans.
Also noteworthy in November was expiration of up to 99 weeks of extra aid to nearly 2 million jobless Americans. Recently, this has been extended for 1 year. Moreover, Social Security taxes have been cut for a year. In exchange, republicans insisted on an extension of Bush’s 2001 tax cut for the wealthy.
While most Americans have been fooled to think that democrats or republicans are on their side, the fact is that this back and forth bickering only serves to draw in votes. It does not matter whether democrats or republicans are in charge of the Washington mafia. Americans will get the same results regardless for issues that matter the most; securing good jobs. In reality, both parties are destroying America’s future, much as they have for decades. This latest stimulus package is nothing more than a poorly designed economic stimulus plan that does nothing more than increase the severity of America’s long-term economic problems.
Two years ago, I predicted that there would be numerous economic packages and bailouts. After Obama signed the ARRA, I predicted it would be the first of many installments. The recently passed tax and employment benefits package is estimated to cost $900 billion over the next two years, which is more than the ARRA. In addition, most of this money will be spent for the estate tax provisions and for AMT adjustments.
While the ARRA was largely a waste of tax dollars, this recent package is a complete waste. And it will only make the consequences of America’s 2nd Great Depression more severe. Stay tuned, because you can bet that Washington will do more to worsen the severity of the depression, all while sending even more money to the wealthy....
more than 40% of America’s jobless have been unemployed for more than 6 months. This trend has lasted for over 1 year. This is truly a devastating trend that has not been adequately addressed by the media.
In the past, I have discussed the fact that being unemployed for longer than 4 months greatly increases the chance that a person will have to change careers. Thus, it seems very likely that millions of jobless Americans will be required to make a career change, most likely with reduced wages WHEN they are able to finally secure employment.
Instead of restructuring free trade policy, as Obama promised in 2008, he has continued where Bush left off by expanding trade to South Korea and other nations, all under conditions that do nothing to protect U.S. jobs. This is disturbing, given that America’s jobless rate remains as the single most significant threat to an already weak economy.
Recently, Obama signed off on the largest U.S. trade deal since the 1994 signing of NAFTA. Obama has been informed by his “trusted advisers” that the South Korean trade deal will “support” at least 70,000 U.S. jobs. In other words, it is not expected to necessarily create any new jobs, but prevent the loss of these jobs. As you can imagine, there is no way to determine whether or not the deal will save jobs. The only way to determine the effectiveness of any trade deal is to count how many new jobs were created.
I will guarantee you this trade deal will create many more jobs in South Korean than in the U.S. In fact, the deal was backed by several U.S. conglomerates such as Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, General Electric, and Caterpillar. That should tell you who stands to benefit from this trade agreement, and it isn’t going to be U.S. workers. This is just another chapter in the book of destructive trade policy that has led to America’s chronic decline.
Regardless who is in office, these criminally destructive policies will continue as one would expect with any fascist nation. Although the definition of fascism is not clearly agreed upon by many authorities, I use the definition embraced by Benito Mussolini, which attributes fascism as a partnership between government and corporations. This is similar to corporatism, a political system whereby legislative authority is provided to corporate bodies representing economic, industrial and professional groups. Rather than the people, these corporate bodies dictate the laws of the nation.
This is precisely what we see in the U.S., with CEOs of the Fortune 50 wielding more power than any senator or congressman. Corporations exert their control over Washington via huge sums of money shuttled to politicians by lobbyists. Moreover, the corporate giants provide Washington with often illegal if not unconstitutional access to the nation’s backbone, whether it is in the telecommunications, railway and air transport, or banking sectors. In return for these favors, Washington permits these corporate giants to engage in monopolistic expansions, thereby destroying small businesses, in order to eliminate competition so that they gain complete control over pricing of their goods and services."