About Those US Jobs
By David Galland, Casey Research
US politicians make a great show of concerning themselves with the level of unemployment. And so they bluster about the need for this new program or that new program – in fact, about any new idea except for the one that will actually be effective. Namely, stop the meddling.
Recently there have been some interesting developments that merely confirm the government’s intentions are to continue doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.
For starters, we had the news that President Obama announced his administration was going to block the Keystone XL pipeline, blaming the decision on the Republicans and foisting responsibility for the call onto the back of Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
The story has received quite a bit of coverage, so I won’t repeat it here. However, I will mention a Reuters column by John Kemp, titled Keystone symbolizes what is wrong with US policy. As he points out, the initial permit application for Keystone XL was filed in 2008 – and yet here we are, going on four years later, and the president is complaining about the “rushed and arbitrary deadline” imposed by the Republicans as part of the latest round of budget theatrics.
The actual fact of the matter is that the United States is becoming increasingly unfriendly toward businesses that actually produce anything tangible, despite our politicians constantly carping about the evil capitalists sending American jobs overseas. Continue reading
How DEEP Will Cuts in Government Services Go?
Plus: The check is STILL in the mail.
“Localities have chopped 535,000 positions since September 2008…”
USA Today (10/18)
Cuts in government services became conspicuous after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
The first edition of Robert Prechter’s Conquer the Crash saw this coming, even though the book published nearly a decade ago:
“Don’t expect government services to remain at their current levels…The tax receipts that pay for roads, police and jails, fire departments, trash pickup, emergency (911) monitoring, water systems and so on will fall to such low levels that services will be restricted.” (p. 257)
Households throughout Massachusetts know exactly what Prechter is talking about. Continue reading
“$100,000 A Year for Part-Time Work”
Job Security May Not Be What It Used To Be for Some Government Positions
By Robert Jay
- 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
- 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
- 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
- Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
- Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
- In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
