| Here are the factors restraining job growth, in no particular order: |
Michael Lee Bugg
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| September 8, 2010 |
Here are the factors restraining job growth, in no particular order:
Scared Americans are spending less and saving more, fearful that their job will be cut next.
Automation, machines, and particularly machines run by computers, has been putting unskilled and some skilled workers out of work for years, and the trend is increasing.
Outsourcing by our big companies to get cheaper labor and to avoid paying benefits to Americans. Remember when Bush said not to worry about the 7 million manufacturing jobs lost during his 8 years because service sector jobs will take up displaced workers? You betcha!
Stingy banks that have gone to the opposite extreme from loaning money like it was toothpicks to not loaning money to people who do show repayment ability.
Corporations sitting on over a trillion in cash that they plan to give to their CEO's and VP's, preferred stockholders, and Republican Congressional candidates, instead of expanding their labor force or giving it to common stock holders.
The shameless, hypocritical Republican'ts successfully preventing any meaningful jobs programs by Obama and the Democrats because the Republican’ts want millions of people to suffer right up to the day after the November elections and blame the Democrats for their plight so that the unemployed will fall for the Republican’ts empty promises yet again!
The cost of health care, thanks to Congress continuing to allow pharmaceutical companies and for-profit health insurance companies to bleed companies and individuals like gigantic leeches!
Taxes are TOO LOW. Corporate management is not compelled to reinvest in their companies because they can keep most of their outrageous pay! I wonder if the TEA Party folks think Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, the Wall Street crooks, our professional athletes, our movie stars, and most of our Fortune 500 CEOs are “taxed enough already”? And didn’t Bush promise in 2001 that his tax cuts would make the economy boom? That worked out really well, didn’t it? The economy was far better with the tax rates under Clinton! After WW2, under Republican Dwight Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate on wages was 93% to help pay for the war. Our economy was as good as it ever has been between 1955 and 1970. It is time to bring that 93% bracket back!
The counter-productive, endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that continue to drain tax revenue that could be used to help create jobs. Aren’t we supposed to believe that “wars are good for the economy”? With Bush’s two costly wars ($2 trillion in direct and indirect costs, all of it borrowed) the economy should be spectacular, right??? Our bloated defense budget (larger than the entire rest of the world COMBINED not counting the two wars!) is actually the biggest threat to our security because it drains resources that could be used to upgrade our own infrastructure, build schools, subsidize alternative energy and improve conservation of energy, and could be used to protect the lives and wellbeing of ALL Americans with real health care!!!
And last but not least, and perhaps the biggest culprit of all - greed combined with “free trade” which allows companies to shut down American factories to avoid paying good salaries and benefits to anyone other than the CEO and top management! The less Americans make, the less they have to spend, but our elitist top 5% and their Republican lackeys in Congress don’t seem able to comprehend that.
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