Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Put America Back To Work

Bob Herbert


The biggest domestic policy failure has been the refusal of top officials in the White House and in Congress to recognize the severity of the employment crisis that has settled like a plague over American workers. There is no longer any excuse for believing that the Great Recession and its aftermath was a more or less typical economic downturn to be followed by a robust recovery. That’s a pipedream. What we are experiencing is an economic disaster, the worst reversal to hit the U.S. since the 1930s. The human suffering is profound. Some 14 million Americans are officially counted as unemployed. Nearly half have been out of work for six months or more, and many have been jobless for a year or two or longer.

Like infrastructure spending, a carefully crafted direct jobs plan would be an investment that would be repaid many times over, just as investments in Hoover Dam, rural electrification, the Works Progress Administration and the G.I. Bill delivered enormous long-term benefits to the society. F.D.R., in his first inaugural address, told a worried nation that “our greatest primary task is to put people to work.” It was a task, he insisted, that should be treated “as we would treat the emergency of a war.” The question today, in one of our darkest economic hours, is whether we’re smart enough to heed that essential lesson of history.

5 comments:

  1. Not to worry comrades!

    The great one will speak to us all in a major speech after labor day !

    Outlining NEW job creation referendums that will suceed even more brilliantly than his green
    jobs programa have!

    And that's really saying something

    Just remember comrades

    Hope and change !

    Yes! We can!

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  2. Jobs aint comin backAugust 31, 2011 at 5:34 AM

    The real jobs ate in China, Brazil, India, Indonesia
    The usa has exported all its productive capacity, and now a nation of low paying service jobs.
    The real jobs arent coming back...ever

    ReplyDelete
  3. Recondite material hereAugust 31, 2011 at 8:43 AM

    I laugh everytime I hear those Tea Party retards talk about how Obama is in the way of job creation. I hate Obama quite a lot, and his fat ass evil wife. But still, like 5:34 said...

    Tea Partiers and grouchy old people, there was never any stone written which claimed man's existence revolves around labor. Teenagers should learn to use their brains primarily; reading books and thinking deeply. Even if it means they don't work as waiters or baggers. All great minds in history were eccentric like this (didn't follow the crowds).

    I suppose making sure your son is like all the other boys or plays football is more important. If he has to smoke pot to fit in, as long as he has "friends" then let him do so.

    Is college important? 30 years ago yes, there were opportunities. Today there are not. This nation's brainwash is quite deep, habits don't die here. We have such poor discipline the slightest noises take our attention away until the cause is identified.

    Most people who are academically inept will still accept a 30K+ loan in self deception imagining that six figure income job being there for them that is entirely fictional. How about all the idiot moms in their 30s returning to school? What a waste.

    The most prudent course is educating yourself as much as possible and either starting an enterprise of some sort or inventing something that people will buy. Even so, the real education you get on your own time and with REAL books will make you useful when people need an organizer/manager/strategist in the time ahead.

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  4. in an industrial wealth producing economy as america once was, creating shovel ready jobs in infrastucture investment, even using deficit spending, government debt ,can facilitate, add to future productive capacity increasing future wealth possibilities.

    American empire is not such a productive economy now that can be saved by more debt creation.

    In an insolvent rent/toll seeking globalised Ponzi services economy ,new infrastucture spending can only facilitate more efficient shopping on credit or property bubbles. About as unproductive as spending on even more jobs for bomb making and more wars for the military industrial complex ,with an already bankrupted by militarism government now captured by banksters that control all future government tax revenues anyway.

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  5. Infrastructure is only useful if something is being transported on that infrastructure. When a road is done, it is finished.

    Saying that "investment in infrastructure" is a way of creating jobs is a ridiculous statement. This is ignoring the fact that it is NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S JOB TO "CREATE JOBS."

    The job of the Government (that is, if the Constitution had been adopted, which it was not) is enumerated very succinctly:

    Ensure the defense of the borders of the several states.

    Coin money and regulate the value thereof.

    Punish Piracy and Counterfeiting.

    Ensure the safety and construction of Post Roads for the transport of mails.

    That, with a few minor exceptions, is IT!

    But, it is a dream, as the Constitution was not adopted.

    Instead, we have a Corporate Dictatorship, where everyone has been inculated to expect the Gov. to take care of them. Innovation and initiative are squelched in the Indoctrination Centers/(Re)-education camps (Gov. Schools).

    Any political party, no matter how noble the intention, will be compromised and hijacked to prevent anything from changing. Partisan WWF wrestling ensues, embroiling people in a choreographed battle that distracts them from the fact that the tent is on fire.

    Truth is, the Gov. and the Owners worked very hard to get things to this point. They truly do not want any kind of recovery (sorry, but the amount of effort required to get the inherently stable financial machine to the smoking wreck that it is today took IMMENSE resources). When people are starving, desperate, and without recourse, they are malleable and eminently more controllable. War becomes an easy sell, to reshuffle the resources and kill off a few million useless eaters (to quote the Nazi Henry Kissinger). Like 90% of all the wars in history, this is a great prospect for the Owners, as they get rich and consolidate their control even more.

    People need to simply stop playing. Form small autonomous groups, and figure out how to get by without relying on the Gov. teat. Coin or print your own money, it is well within your rights. Just stop complying with the jackasses that claim to be your "leaders."

    ReplyDelete

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