Can’t complain, nobody listens

Life Without work doesn’t even begin to tell the story. The terrorists who want to hurt America are rank amateurs compared to the terrorists of Wall Street and Corporate America! It also speaks volumes about our elected leaders who are so busy raking in their campaign donations from all these fat cats that they can’t be bothered with watching out for the ordinary folks who have built real America.

So now we have life without work, and life without full time work, and life without health insurance, and life without a decent retirement, and, increasingly, life without a home after foreclosure.

In response, our elected leaders are mortgaging our future generations, but is that money going to help the real people or is it to be just another Paulson givaway to the same terrorists who are hiding their stolen assets? These sleazy slime are laughing at America’s working people because they know they have paid enough politicians off to insure that they will get to keep their money and nobody is going to go after them and bring them to justice. It stinks!!

I lost my job in March and have had no luck in finding another, even part time work. I worked for a large Fortune 50 company in Human Resources, making six figures, and after 17 years I was part of a team that laid off thousands of workers plus myself. I saw this coming because I worked in the financial services part of this huge company. I get by on unemployment insurance because my savings have been depleted, and I don’t see the employment situation getting any better until perhaps late summer/early fall. I do hope the Obama administration undertstands that there are millions like me and will provide the necessary emergency actions to ensure home ownership, healthcare, and aids for day to day living.

A commnentator on WVPR this morning made the point that when a company cuts an employee they’ve also cut a consumer. Companies that think they’re going to “cut” their way out of this downturn are just amzingly short-sighted.

Tom;

I moved to RI with my husband in Sep 07. For the first time in my life, I could not find a job. My husband is in the Air Force. Thank god one of us are employed.

The biggest irony here is that (ready for this?) I am a Job Counselor! 40,000 people lost their jobs in this tiny state in 08… We have moved 11 times with my husband’s military career in the last 19 years, and I have always found jobs. I know the tricks of the trade!

I lost a job last August in the non-profit sector- in fact, I oversaw the demolishment of my entire program and a denial of its mission. Even though as a manager , I understood the financila rationale behind the decision, it was still a personally debilitating and painful episode that I am still struggling to recover from. I am an older worker- a women approaching 60 and I feel time is running out for me to ever have a meaningful job again.

I want to offer encouragement to everyone looking for work. I lost my job twice in six years; once during the rampant acquisition phase in corporate America and again in the wake of corporate greed and corruption that bankrupted the company I worked for. It was very difficult, especially the first time, to remain optimistic and confident. It was incredibly difficult for our family and for me personally but you will survive. Stay focused and be open to all possibilities. Good luck!

The question was: ‘How do you bolster your spirit?’ My suggestion is to go to your library (it’s FREE) and find inspirational and motivational books. There is also HAY HOUSE RADIO which has morning to night – 7 days a week – utterly fantastic programming for inspiring all its listeners. Some names are, Louise L. Hay, FOUNDER, Caroline Myss, Wayne Dyer, and my favorite Robert O-HOT-TO (Ohotto).

I know this because I work in the best place in America! The Present Moment in Libertyville, IL. For ideas you can view our website at “www.thepresentmomentinc.com” and I do believe everything happens for a reason. Maybe all of you are being offered a chance to explore working in an area of your heart’s desire.

Good luck to all of you!

Additional issue for MA residents: health insurance! I have COBRA thru company from which I was laid off & can’t afford it. Applied for assistance thru the DUA and haven’t heard a word, can’t get thru on the phone due to so many unemployed, using all my savings to pay. I’m 59 years old, well educated and have few prospects.

I’m optimistic, but . . .

HI.. I was just on and lost cell service. I wanted to add that our college age daughter is still at home and she is working and helping as she can.

We have taken all reference to age off resume’s.

Enjoying today’s show. I thought I detected a Gulfport accent, having been there last June for my daughter’s wedding. My hat goes off to Mr. Avery. People have absolutely no idea what they went through with hurricane Katrina. Three years later one could still see the devastation.

Here, here Lou C! Most of us have known for years that banks are full of greedy crooks. I don’t feel sorry for any banker, including your guest. They do nothing for the public good. Maybe she should go start a credit union. For Susan, home ownership is not a right, it is something you must earn. The government is not a source for handouts. When I was upside down on my mortgage in 1990-1995, no bank or mortgage company would re-finance my high interest mortgage even though I have never been unemployed and was in a very stable field. I often saw programs advertised in the Boston Globe for low income people who needed “assistance” to get into the housing market.

When all is said and done, I do feel sorry for those who try to work hard and just can’t find work. The government probably should play some role in the recovery process, but please – no handouts.

Anyone else find it interesting that the majority of those calling in claim to have had family incomes in the high five and low six figure incomes and they did not notice that the economy was in trouble until it hit them in the pocketbook? I agree with the fellow named Ken from Alabama, the biggest whiners are the previously well off not the perpetually less well off. I agree also with James Howard Kunstler; the real problem is that the human population has thoughtlessly procreated at exponential rates based upon false economic premises of creating wealth not realizing that the real wealth was coming from the exponential consumption of the Earth’s stored energy supplies. It took the Earth’s flora and fauna, in cooperation with the Sun, billions of years to create the energy store that humans have consumed the easily obtained half of in about 100 years. Kick starting the economy will likely result in a repeat performance, of collapse, in the near not distant future. An economic system and human population based upon stasis rather exponential growth is the logical approach. Not a high likelihood of that occurring as long as religion, superstition and a distrust of science control thought processes in the human population.

I’m wondering how many people laid off for a while and having a hard time finding work might be considering the military as an option. I’m not a recruiter and I won’t benefit for plugging the military. But I have felt extremely blessed during these times of economic hardship and woe to have a very stable job, decent income, and benefits that can’t be beat. Many civilians may have a hard time picturing themselves with an M16 in hand sleeping in a tent in Afghanistan separated from their family for months at a time. However, the military is not all about soldiering. I have a job in intelligence and have had the opportunity to go to Monterey, CA to study Arabic for a year and a half. And now I’m about to go to training to fly helicopters. I’m very satisfied with all the doors I’ve opened for myself outside of the military for when I get out.

I know the military is not for everyone. But it certainly makes me curious to know how many folks out there have been to see a recruiter since their jobs have gone down the toilet.

I have yet to hear a WestCoaster call in live on the show which is typical for us when so much commercial and public programming originates in the East. Nevertheless, I may be one of your best “experts” on the topic of the day. I went through the scenario in 1993 that millions more are experiencing early in the new century. Mine was the California Depression–aerospace companies fled the state like they were being consumed by wildfire. . .something else we’re rather well known for. I was 55 years old at the time–a home under water, no job, a “201″k plan, a severance package of $7,000 and a handshake. Want to hear some sobering news? The early ’90s for me was the depression from which I never recovered.

Here’s what is going to happen to you, particularly if you go through foreclosure and then, because you absolutely cannot pay off a mortgage on a house you can’t live in, you file for bankruptcy. Are you one of those who still believe that the stigma of bankruptcy will hang around for only seven years and that you can probably “work around” the aftermath? Think again. The people who “love you” in Washington have seen to it that you will never produce at your former high level–not in this, or any other, lifetime.

America is now reaping that which it has sown. America is not interested in your ability to produce past a certain point, either in time or the capital you might still be capable of generating. America cares nothing for whether or not you could be a budding entrepreneur, in spite of the rhetoric you might have heard lately. Why? Because you have no credit, you never will have any credit, and America doesn’t care. So goes the *real* cost–the hidden cost–of home ownership in this country, which would be the same as the hidden cost of being underinsured (or uninsured) when natural disasters like wildfires occur, except that it’s worse. I’m convinced that I could have pulled up stakes and emigrated to another country–starting from scratch–and had it 10 times better than trying to “tough it out” here in the good old U. S. of A.

I’ll never make it to the air on live talk shows–any that are worth the time–but I’m working on a book that I’m quite sure I can finish this year. It might help a few folks who are still down the road and haven’t a clue what’s in store for them. One tip I can share. If you get on unemployment compensation and can manage to enroll in school–any kind of school from formal college to skill development programs, do it. Rules vary statewise, but I enrolled (you and your curriculum have to be approved by your state employment board) and managed to keep my comp checks coming for as long as I was enrolled. Moreover, I could not be evicted from my home while I was receiving unemployment compensation. This could vary statewise also, but who knew? One has to discover these tricks. The government is not going to throw them at you.

If you’d like to discover how one person finally got another good job (his last) after the holocaust of recession and depression in America, maybe some day you’ll find yourself reading my book. It’s not titled just yet, but “homeless” will probably appear in the title somewhere. Can you graduate from a technical skills program (getting Pell grants, and student loans) while only ten years from retirement, then continue to hang in there by patenting a product and planning enter the world of entrepreneurship during your “golden years”? Oh, and I forgot to add, “while you’re homeless?” Well I’m still not all the way there, but I’m working on it. (Uh-h-h, one more thing. After foreclosure and bankruptcy, you’ll never again be able to rent a decent apartment–not after they’ve checked your credit.)

Have a nice day.

Go Ken Hall! We should have an online conversation some time. I’m sure you have some thoughts that haven’t occured to me, and vice versa. One quick one: the Earth is at 6.5 billion in human population. Do you have the information I’ve heard which says that the sustainable population for Homo Sapiens is around 9 billion? And for the very reasons you expressed above. This is a program topic if I’ve ever heard of one.

As usual, Life Without Work was a wonderful broadcast. Thank you Tom. A chance to get at something, maybe. I heard emotional stories, and I could tell one too. All very sad. But where was the emotion? I heard nothing resembling upset or fury at this present economic collapse — whereas first poster Lou at least expresses some in his summing up of the real fallout:

“So now we have life without work, and life without full time work, and life without health insurance, and life without a decent retirement, and, increasingly, life without a home after foreclosure.”

How can we not be angry at all this? Why all the happy, inspirational talk from callers and guests: just hang in there, keep plugging, don’t give up, get out there everyday, keep networking, keep a smile on your face, etc, etc, and things will work out — you hope. I agree, we need to do all this. It is common sense. But is this a solution alone? And why can’t we express a bit of rage and fury? Why is that so difficult? Has society, to protect itself from disorder, so totally beaten out of us the will to protest? Why do we accept all this as an inevitable hiccup in our wonderful “rags to riches” system? Is the answer that we all turn into entrepreneurs tomorrow?

Why do we accept that it is somehow our fault if we are long-term unemployed, our fault for being unhappy that our $50,000/year job no longer exists but we can serve coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, our fault when every job that can be outsourced, offshored, dumped by a corporation has been done so for years? Isn’t that the essence of why nobody can buy our overpriced houses: because people either have a lousy job or no job at all and too much debt? Malcolm X may have been right when he said “You have all been had”. I think we Americans for too long have been mamipulated, lied to, and programmed by government, media, schools, religion, the family to believe, believe, believe in America. We are the best country. America can do no wrong. It is the greatest place on earth. After awhile, to question, to question our conditioning, seems impossible; it’s right out of George Orwell. But what if it is all a lie? What if the very narrative itself is unsustainable? I heard none of this as a possibility on the broadcast this morning. Scary.

First poster Lou called Wall Street and Corporate America terrorists. If they are not that outwardly, they certainly, as a collective pack, behave like vampires. Look at the working system we have. It amounts to an ongoing blood-sucking war on workers. I do not understand it. It is not as if working is optional to life. We all have to work. And yet our labor laws, because of market ideology, savagely favor business over workers. Thus, it is impossible because of corporate tactics of intimidation and mass firings of any who wish to join or form a union in the workplace. I did not hear the word UNION once on the broadcast. Unbelievable. It is like the idea of it has been sliced and diced from our minds. If something goes wrong with our job or we can’t get a job, it must be our fault, something we are not doing right. It’s brainwashing.

Compare the outrage in Congress and the unwillingness to help the unionized auto industry while they gave away a part of our and our kids’ future to non-unionized Wall Street banksters, with nearly no strings attached. There is no political party that protects the interests of working people anymore. It is one giant Corporate love fest, because they have the bucks the politicians depend on. Labor history? What labor history? It is as if it never happened in this country, or anywhere else. Orwell said, “If you control the present, you control the past.”

If enough of us could form a union so that we could work out with corporate managers (most are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. MBA’s and not the original entrepreneurs that started these enterprises) decent working packages, this economic meltdown, triggered by people being in massive debt because they don’t earn enough, would not be happening so ferociously. This is a fact that no amount of punditry or ideological belief in discredited free market fundamentalism can alter.

The pendulum of unfairness has swung so far. The government is no longer a buffer against Corporate irresponsibility, it is a collaborator. We all are paying a heavy price. I would like to see each Congressman, Senator, and Court Justice get laid off today, and have to live it, to see how it really feels. Of course they would all have a plum job very quickly, and wouldn’t have to live off unemployment very long, drain life savings paying bills, or go on foodstamps. They, for having colluded in the Corporate war on all of us, are so corrupt, so dishonest. Who knows if they’ll be able to fix this thing.

Labor Law legislation to begin to reform the employer-employee relationship, Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA) is pending in Congress. Corporations are pulling out all the stops to block it. Their lobbyists are swarming all over Congress, and President Obama has gotten scared and has backed off his campaign pledges to pass it. They have threatened all Democrats they will mount furious campaigns to defeat them in elections if they vote for the EFCA, which would help restore a modicum of fairness and the right to join a union, as the 1935 Wagner Act allowed for. For years now, corporations have flouted the law, ignored this basic right. They brag about intimidating workforces that have wanted to join unions, and get away with it. Walmart CEO, Lee Raymond, said recently about the pending fight over EFCA, “We are in control now and we like it that way and we’re not going to give it up”. I wonder, is he really worth 5,000 times what he pays most of his workers? He, like any corporate manager, makes the rules he likes, that benefits his class, his group, and, of course, his shareholders. Wall Street and Corporate America are tied at the hip. People who work and have to live in Walmartized communitites — that’s all of us — pay the price.

I have my serious doubts that monied special interests will allow anything like real deep structural reform of the economy because they would have to give up too much and would rather keep people scared, pay people meagerly, and throw millions out of work as fast as they can so that their privilged position can be maintained and their psychological leverage over employees maximized. Do we really believe something profoundly different will come into being? I am not holding out much hope for it.

It was in about Oct. ‘08 when Prime Minister Sarkozy, of France, in response to the beginning of this latest round of toxic economic/financial system unravelling and contagion exported from America to the world said, “Laizzez faire is dead”. And I believe he is right. Corporate America does not.

The real challenge ahead, the work that sadly Roosvelt’s New Deal tried but failed sufficiently to do the last time economic inequality brought us to a similar abyss in the 1930’s, will be to create an economy from these ashes that works for the majority of people so that they can live a decent, dignified life. Our way, though it worked for awhile because Europe and Japan’s WWII industrial economies were demolished and were no competitive threat to our economic hegemony, is no longer working. And the 30 year period between 1945 -1973, which was America’s best because jobs were more secure and we children of that period could grow up in relative stability, was able to occur because 33% of the workforce was unionized, lifting labor standards and wages for many others who weren’t. Now, union membership is 12% at most, and we as a society have reached the tipping point in inequality; it can’t sustain any more. See the relationship?

Maybe the banks, by shutting off the consumer credit spigot, have done us a favor. Easy plastic money has fed the illusion that we’re better off than we really are. Now that we are beginning to realize the truth, what will we do with the inevitable anger and resentment? How long can we go without getting angry at what is happening, at why it is happening, and why a grossly unequal economy has been set up to keep workers in perpetual fear of losing their job without civil job protections, with insufficient wages, where personal debt rises to make up for a meager paycheck? None of it has to be this way, but it can’t change until we stop believing in myths, false hopes, national narratives and ideologies that have been imposed on us by non-stop information and PR, controlled by monied interests that have rigged the whole damn game in their favor.

Something has gone terribly wrong with the American Dream. But I did not hear one voice on the broadcast that even came close to acknowledging this. We need to become much more politically incorrect when we have the chance, like Bill Maher. American-style Laizzez faire economics left to its own devices, with no industrial planning and regulation to allocate all resources, including human, notwithstanding the incredible wealth it has created for a relative few, has been a disaster for so many.

Great show Tom,

Thanks for letting me call into the show today. I would like to add a few comments from my own job searching experiences.

The key to getting a job in this or any market is to network…network…network. Statistics say 80% of the jobs landed (most of them never posted) are landed because of networking with others. Only 2% are landed by applying to openings online. I lost a lot of time and momentum in my early search because I spent too much time creating resumes, applying to jobs online, then not even receiving an acknowledgement.

I found my job search strategies were outdated. I was embarrassed to tell anyone that I was unemployed. What you want to do is to tell everyone you are in transition. I attended a seminar entitled “Get off your butt”. It enlightened me about the current world regarding employment search practices.

There is a lot of help out there and a lot of people who are willing to help you (for free). Never…Never…Never pay for a resume to be written. Chicago alone has over 200 network groups representing various professional disciplines. Many churches have employment ministries. Latter Day Saints have a wonderful three day seminar on how to get started with your job search. Many of these organizations have sprung up in the last 10 years because they saw a need. There is no charge to join many of these groups.

There also network groups like the Chicago Executive Network Group. It has been around for 19 years. Their membership has doubled in the last few months due to the recession. This organization has established smaller Job Search Work Teams based upon Orville Pierson’s Job Search Methodologies’. Each team comprising of up to 10 members meet weekly to help each other with their job search progress. I strongly recommend getting his book “The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search” and finding a JSWT or accountability group.

Above all try to do two things per week not related to your job search: It will help keep your sanity.

As a mortgage loan underwriter, I was downsized twice in 16 months; once from Washington Mutual and again at Indymac Bank (can I pick ‘em?). After joking for years that I just wanted to be a yoga teacher, I earned my teaching certification at Kripalu and have been working (part-time) teaching yoga since September. I don’t know what the future holds, but practicing yoga has helped me keep my emotions in balance, and allowed me to find some contentment in each day. If you are having trouble staying motivated, and feel yourself getting swept away by all the negative news, find a yoga class with a teacher you can relate to. You may be able to avoid depression, get in shape, and even notice your own inner voice directing the next move you make in your life. The world we live in is the world we have made. It is absolutely possible to find a way to live in these times which will not be in conflict with your highest purpose in life. As the Buddha said “be your own light”.

(Quoting Ken Hall) “Anyone else find it interesting that the majority of those calling in claim to have had family incomes in the high five and low six figure incomes and they did not notice that the economy was in trouble until it hit them in the pocketbook?”

Ironically, those very same people probably denied that foreign outsourcing, work visas, and mass immigration were damaging our nation’s economy.

(Quoting Robert G:) “Why do we accept that it is somehow our fault if we are long-term unemployed, our fault for being unhappy that our $50,000/year job no longer exists but we can serve coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, our fault when every job that can be outsourced, offshored, dumped by a corporation has been done so for years?”

As Americans we have been indoctrinated with the “Myth of Meritocracy” — hard-working people always prevail so if you don’t it’s your fault. We have accepted this notion as though it were a religious dogma.

For those people who want to really understand our economic problems, I offer this repost of an essay I myself personally authored elsewhere:

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Introduction

Global Labor Arbitrage is an economic phenomenon where, as a result of the removal of or disintegration of barriers to international trade, a nation’s economy and labor market essentially merges with other nations’ economies and labor markets producing an averaging out of the wages paid to labor and, consequently, of nations’ standards of living. Jobs may move to nations where labor is relatively inexpensive and/or relatively impoverished labor may move to nations with higher prevailing wages. Two common barriers to international trade are tariffs, which are politically imposed, and the costs of transporting goods across oceans and long distances. With the advent of the Internet, the decrease of the costs of telecommunications, and the possibility of near-instantaneous document transfer, the barriers to the trade of intellectual work product have almost completely disintegrated.

Oftentimes, a prosperous nation (such as the United States) will remove its barriers to international trade, merging its labor market with those of relatively impoverished nations (such as India, China, and Mexico), resulting in tremendous economic stress on the relatively prosperous nation’s lower and middle classes. The end result is an almost instantaneous dramatic increase in the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor which means a decrease in the price point (wages, standard of living) where supply and demand curves intersect. This means that the owners of capital will be able to keep a relatively larger amount of the value of a laborer’s work product, resulting in the enrichment of the owners of capital and (to a small extent) laborers in the impoverished country at the expense of laborers in the relativley prosperous nation. In the United States, this could mean the extinction of the American middle class.

Forms of Global Labor Arbitrage

Global labor arbitrage can take many forms, including but not limited to:

Foreign Outsourcing

(Sometimes also known as Offshore Outsourcing or simply Offshoring.) Capital moves to nations with relatively impoverished labor for the purpose of producing goods and services for export to other markets. The classic example is the case of a factory or office closing in the United States and then moving to China for the purpose of producing goods or services at lower labor costs for export back to the United States. This decreases the supply of capital in the United States, increasing its supply of labor relative to its capital, often resulting in layoffs and increased unemployment and underemployment in the U.S. For example, in the United States, the amount of manufacturing jobs has decreased while the importation of manufactured goods from other nations has increased (along with the U.S. trade deficit).

Importation of Foreign Labor Using Work Visas

Labor, often skilled and educated, migrates to the United States on a probationary “guest” basis. This has the effect of increasing the supply of labor in the U.S. job market. In America, two of the most common foreign work visas are the H-1B and L-1 visas. The use of foreign work visas to import skilled labor can often result in layoffs, decreased wages (supply and demand), unemployment, and underemployment amongst people in the same fields. For example, importing foreign computer programmers into the U.S. can result in layoffs, lower wages, unemployment, and underemployment for displaced American computer programmers. It also removes computer programming as a field for which displaced Americans can retrain and reeducate. This form of global labor arbitrage tends to most directly affect a nation’s middle and upper middle classes. Some American programmers have even been made to train their H-1B and L-1 replacements in order to get severance pay. Victims sometimes quip that, “My job was bombed by the H-1B.”

Immigration — both Legal and Illegal

In this form of global labor arbitrage, relatively impoverished labor moves towards capital in relatively prosperous nations. This tends to increase the supply of labor relative to capital in the prosperous nations and decreases wages, according to the laws of supply and demand (of and for labor). Sometimes the immigration occurs illegally. This form of global labor arbitrage tends to affect the poor and the working classes. The mass immigration (especially illegal immigration) of impoverished people into a relatively prosperous nation also has other effects, including but not limited to the costs of providing education, health care, and a criminal justice system to the impoverished immigrants and/or to the Americans that they have displaced from formerly middle class jobs, such as construction. For example, in the United States illegal immigrants have decreased the wages paid to Americans in the field of construction while increasing local governments’ and hospitals’ expenditures for education and health care for the uninsured.

Population Explosion. Population explosion can occur as a direct consequence of mass immigration and can have the effect of increasing the amount of people relative to a nation’s limited supply of land and natural resources, which might properly be regarded as “resource capital”. Although it may not technically be a form of global labor arbitrage, it may be a direct result of it. As a result of an increased population, the supplies of land and natural resources relative to the demand for land and natural resources decrease, resulting in a higher price point for a nation’s populace and thus a decreased standard of living, especially for the lower and middle classes.

Maintenance of a Trade Deficit by Selling Land and Capital Assets

As a result of Foreign Outsourcing, foreign labor produces goods and/or services for import into the United States without other countries purchasing an equal value of goods and/or services from the U.S. This could result in the restoration of a balance of trade or it could result in the sale of American-owned land and capital assets to people in other countries. In the case of the United States, it appears that we are exchanging our land and capital assets for ephemeral goods and services which will ultimately result in our collective impoverishment. The trade deficit could be the result of the other three forms of outsourcing or merely the purchase of goods and services produced by foreign-owned businesses.

The American media has sometimes erroneously referred to this practice as “insourcing”. In actuality, most of these alleged cases of insourcing have merely been instances of a foreign business purchasing an American company in order to enjoy the profits made by the American company as opposed to opening a new production facility in the United States for the purpose of exporting products back to its home country. Sadly, the news media often mistakenly implies that this constitutes an increase in American employment when in reality only the ownership of a business has changed, ironically symbolizing increasing American impoverishment.

As I listened to the show, I found it rather sad that much of what seems to be the “solution” to our problem is simply better job hunting techniques. Any way you slice it, there are only so many worthwhile middle class and lower middle class jobs to go around and no amount of networking or improved job hunting techniques will improve the nation’s job market. Even 1000 Purple People Eater Collective websites won’t fix our nation’s economy.

Ultimately, what we need to do is to throw out our conventional milquetoast representatives in the federal government and replace them with representatives who will address our nation’s real economic problems. Until we bring manufacturing jobs and knowledge-based jobs back from overseas, until we expel the H-1B and L-1 visa holders who are working knowledge-based jobs domestically, until we expel the illegal aliens who have depressed wages in the construction and meat-packing industry, and until we decrease immigration back to pre-1965 levels, our nation’s job market will not improve noticeably.

Washington’s “stimulus” packages are a huge joke in these regards since they completely fail to address our nation’s fundamental economic problems while putting us deeper into national debt.

These problems have been building for years but were partially masked by the housing crisis. For years our nation’s economy was based, not on Americans’ efforts to produce tangible wealth, but rather on Americans’ borrowing money they didn’t have in order purchase wealth produced in foreign countries or by foreigners domestically. Consequently, our nation’s financial collapse was inevitable. At some point Americans would either end up being unable to borrow more money on credit and unable to pay their debts, and perhaps now we’re beginning to realize that the foundation of our nation’s economy has grown hollow.

Unless Americans grow up, cast off free trade dogmatism, and face reality, we will continue to devolve into an impoverished second-world or third-world country.

Tom — great show today, with interesting people as usual. I’m an American living in Sydney, and even with a masters degree here, work is getting really really difficult to find unless you are in I.T. I was considering going back to the U.S. but the job market there is not any better, so rather than spend the $1200 to get back to the States, I’m trying to temp, do odd jobs for friends, and get the occasional part time position to keep me going here. This just isn’t the U.S., but it has definitely started to overflow to the rest of the world, at least Australia.

Thank you, Ken Hall (and, secondarily, Fred Bracy)for bringing us back to the crucial issues of global over-population and the likely possibility that we will try to reinvent the wheel and end up just where we are now, once again in the future. We were advocating zero population growth in the seventies and were distracted from that course by greed and religious dogma. I believe we need a entire new paradigm for the global community that, as you stated so well, is based upon stasis and not exponential growth. I, too, would love to this to be a program topic!

I was reading and enjoying more posts last night. I was really surprized there were so few.

Just a few more thoughts:

Great posts Ken, Wendy Fred and Frank. Frank, you nailed it on the disappearing middle class (everyone who went to college and who showered before work, rather than after work). Deindustrialization, beginning in the 1970’s essentially destroyed the middle class dreams and hard work of those who toiled and struggled and happened to wear a blue collar.

Well, we don’t make much steel anymore, or anything else for that matter. Our “new economy” has been hollowed out. Robert Reich has been writing and talking about it his whole academic career, talking about government led industrial planning and full employment. Big corporate power does not want either enlightened planning or full employment. Which is why Clinton proceeded to “lock Mr. Reich in the cabinet” when he was the Secretary of Labor. I hope it doesn’t happen again with President Obama’s Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis.

James Kunstler’s work is superb; I am totally in agreement that possibly the salvation of humanity depends on embracing environmentalism and reordering our economy, our work lives around it.

We as a nation need to wake up and begin listening to people like Kunstler. If American democracy survives this coming Depression, his views of a sustainable economy based on making and doing things again locally, small-scale enterprises and local food production, and putting a dent in the necessity of weaning off the petro-dependency with a true mass-transit and railway overhaul — along the ideas of Europe.

The key question: how will we get there? It was Frederic Douglas who famously said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” And when it comes to the world, and especially America, global corporations are the power along with the governments that enable exercise of this power. The most enlightened countries and places just happen to be the ones where the Corporations don’t have total sway over the land as they do here — where they are still expected, while they make huge profits, to act responsibly and weigh the public interest as well as their selfish private interest.

For those who listen avidly to On Point as I do, it was Jack Beatty a couple of Fridays ago who quipped, “Somebody asked Mao, ‘what do you think of the French Revolution’, and Mao replied, ‘it’s too soon to tell’. The meaning of that was incredible. We Americans have a totally distorted view of history, in that we don’t understand and grasp the full sweep of it. France, and Europe in general, and old civilizations have long institutional and historical memories, especially of the stuggles of developing industrialization.

And they have had real revolutions, where there was uprising from below. Unlike the one here, which was an uprising from above, of powerful landowners over a distant empire, while also crushing native dissent. For me, the way we have treated the land and the people, I doubt it would have evolved too differently had the British been victorious, which is why we make such good allies.

Read Jack Beatty’s book Collusus, about the power of the Corporation in America. Fascinating read. Lots of reference to labor history as well, per my first post.

Lots of strife right now in Prime Minister Sarkozy’s France. His is a conservative government, which makes Barack Obama look like a right-wing Republican. Anyway, he has called on all heads of Corporations to not lay people off while France tries to steer through these dangerous economic times. Isn’t that refreshing? There’s a real sense of community in that. Not just every man for himself.

President Obama scolding the banks yesterday and their shameful behavior was also very refreshing, especially for an American head of state. I don’t believe I have ever witnessed such a moment. Mr. Geithner was sitting there looking scared, however, like he had a load in his pants. It will be interesting to see how far this kind of thing will go. Maybe President Obama will stand up to Jack Welch and his Corporate ilk; it was Mr. Welch you may recall that on election night, after Obama was declared the winner, was quoted by ABC News as saying, “Obama is too liberal, he needs to move to the center.” No doubt this was a Corporate shot across the bow.

One more thought on the subject of job losses raining down on America. 45,000 announced in one day alone this week. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce along with other Corporate business councils have for awhile been preparing the Corporate business community for dealing with the possibility that the Employee Free Choice Act, making it easier for workplaces to join a union if they so desire, will pass both House and Senate and be signed into law by President Obama. While Organized Labor is in a death spiral, Corporate America wants to step on its neck and finally be done with this beast, and will do anything to keep the labor movement from resurrecting – the antipathy borders on the psychotic. These mass Corporate layoffs we are experiencing, far greater in scope than they need to be, are a preemptive attack, I believe, on the already desperate economy, and a warning to Congress not to allow this legislation to come to the floor for a vote.

These corporations are as unpatriotic as you can get. They are throwing the economy overboard. They war on their own people. They ruin careers we have worked hard and sacrificed for. They sell our lives down the river. They would sell their own mother. I will repeat: they are vampires.

I was listening last night on the way home and heard a caller from Marlboro MA seeking work. I live in Marlboro myself, and my company is seeking part time workers with potential to advance to full time. Is there some way we can network?

Some people are still having a hard time believing this is all happening, even in Oregon where unemployment in our county is now officially 9.5%.

What it has come down to, Robert G., is that we’ve entered the age of the “boom and bust” economy. Laissez Faire capitalism is not dead, sadly, although it may have suffered a temporary setback. Americans are going to have to learn to live with great angst and uncertainty as a few big dogs gamble with the future of the rest of us–the vast majority. Plan for retirement?. . .sure, with a spin of the wheel. Plan for your kids’ education?. . .sure, like drawing to an inside straight. Try to save a little and make the American dream come true for you?. . .sure, just pray it doesn’t come up snake eyes. It’s all very simple. This is how they want it, and this is how it’s going to be.

Fred B. — No question about it, that we are entering a bust period. It may last a long time. A majority of Americans will not only live with great angst and uncertainty as you suggest, but experience painful downward mobility and living standards. Yesterday’s false boom already left behind many. It was based more on a debt bubble than on real earning power. It is not coming back anytime soon. Many more will be left behind. We may need to reassess just what the American Dream is supposed to mean.

In reality, you are right: Laizzez Faire capitalism is not dead, and will not die. The power structure has seen to it that the idea of America, pounded relentlessly into all of us, is too embedded in the individual ethos, the westward expansion, the pioneering spirit that tamed the wild, the 1840’s gold rush and all of that.

But what has to change if society is to remain civil, is the balance of power over the economy, mostly held by corporate managements, the so-called capitalists, enabled by government. We have accepted this condition as permanent. The Democratic Party, bought off long ago and aligned with monied corporate interests, has completely forgotten its birth mission, to represent the interests of working people and labor. For anything to change, this needs to change.

I don’t expect anything to change fundamentally with the Obama administration, even with the leverage this economic crisis has given him. The message has already been dumbed down: ‘just put people back to work.’ How did we get to this point where so many people aren’t working? It is disingenuous not to address our sick, soulless economy, equally so the official statistical lies of how unemployment is reported, begun during the Reagan recession to soften the sting. Unemployment is actually approaching 15%, twice the reported number – a proven fact.

Unfortunately, Pres. Obama’s team, the so-called “best and brightest”, are all drawn from Wall Street, from corporate-funded think tanks, from elite schools. All have been indoctrinated in the dogma of the elite and the “myth of meritocracy”, siding with the rich, regressive taxation and trickle down theory, anti-Organized Labor and a strong belief that there would be less unemployment if only people would work for less and be happy. And I thought we just had a change election! Am I missing something? This is like the change I can’t believe I’m seeing.

To really get out of this financial/economic crisis, it has to be a bottoms-up solution. Top-down solutions don’t work when the whole house of cards is collapsing. We not only need jobs that support a middle class lifestyle which will restore circulating liquidity, we need a rules-based economic structure not hostile to producing them. We need a bonafide jobs program that has as its goal full employment, period. For the good of the country now, let the majority of working people earn more while the minority of the managerial and investment class earn less exhorbitant salaries.

All this tinkering with the tax code, on the basis of a job-creating delusion, is the Republican noise machine that never stops, while Democrats collude. It is the bait and switch, smoke and mirrors tactic that 24/7 corporate lobbyists always win against the unorganized citizenry. And if we don’t get true campaign finance reform and throw the lobbyists out of the nation’s capitol, we will never change the political cesspool that Republican and Democratic Washington is. Ross Perot was right in 1992. Few listened.