US economy: better jobs REAL WAGES!

[sukie]

April 11, 2006 edition

US economy's latest output: better jobs and pissed off liberals

Newest job numbers show that businesses are expanding opportunities in high-wage fields.

By Mark Trumbull | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The US economy isn't just producing jobs these days, it's also producing good jobs. Alongside the ads for jobs handling a cash register or a spatula are these new opportunities:

• In St. Louis, AFB International is enlisting both technicians, paid $30,000 to $40,000, and PhD scientists, offered $80,000 to $100,000, in its quest for the perfect pet food.

• In Delaware, Honeywell plans to hire people at $40,000 to $100,000 to work in a data-storage center.

• In southern California, some of the latest openings involve working on the railroad, for $35,000 to $70,000 a year. Union Pacific plans to add 2,000 employees altogether.

These reports in the past month symbolize a welcome trend during an economic expansion that at first offered only tepid job gains, both in quantity and quality.

This good news about the breadth of job creation comes against a backdrop of labor-market anxiety that has persisted despite the economy's solid overall footing. Competition from imported goods, the threat of outsourcing services abroad, and a controversial influx of illegal laborers are just some of the forces that make many workers worried about their future.

Creating good jobs - the kinds that can keep American living standards rising - appears likely to remain a challenge. But the current employment picture at least indicates movement in a positive direction.

"We're creating lots of all kinds of jobs, across many industries, occupations, and pay scales," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. But he adds: "If your skill sets are rusty, or at the low end of the skill range, you're going to have a tougher time."

The economy added 211,000 jobs in March, according to a Labor Department report Friday - a solid showing about on par with expectations. The unemployment rate fell a notch, to 4.7 percent.

...more...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0411/p01s02-usec.html

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[voicekiller]

Clinton Describes `Troubling Issues' in Economy (Update5)
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said the stability of the U.S. economy may be threatened by ``skyrocketing'' health-care costs, widening trade and budget deficits and disappearing middle-class jobs.

``The economy is working really well for many people,'' Clinton, a New York Democrat, said today. ``But if you look just over the horizon and below the surface there are some troubling issues.''

In an interview previewing a major speech she will give tomorrow at the Chicago Economic Club, Clinton said, ``the rich are getting richer, everybody else is marching in place'' and ``I don't think that's good for us.''

Asked if the government should step in should General Motors Corp. go bankrupt, Clinton said the government could help by relieving some of the costs auto companies bear for retiree health care in return for getting them to ``expedite a move toward energy efficient products.''

Clinton, 58, also expressed concerns about U.S. manufacturing being able to compete in a ``race to the bottom'' with other nations over cheap labor.

`Defeatist'

``It's defeatist to think U.S. manufacturing can't compete,'' she said, citing currency manipulation and other unfair trade practices.

Clinton said ``there can't be an abrupt change'' in the exchange rate of China's yuan, which many U.S. manufacturers say is kept artificially low, giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage. Yet, she added, ``I don't want us to be played for a sucker.''

She acknowledged that China and the U.S. are in a ``mutually dependent relationship'' because the U.S. needs China to buy its debt. ``I would much prefer that we work together on this.''

Clinton said the recent controversy surrounding the bid by a United Arab Emirates-based company to purchase several U.S. port facilities should spark a critical national dialogue on security. ``We've been very cavalier about infrastructure security,'' she said.

Under pressure from Congress, the Dubai state-owned company, DP World, said last month that it would divest itself of its U.S. operations, including terminals at six major ports.

On health care, Clinton said a new plan in Massachusetts to require everyone to have health insurance ``gives us some hope,'' though a market-based approach to pensions and health care is ``not sufficient.''

more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aAEb1RS0TMvg&refer=us

Is George W. Bush the worst president in 100 years?

He has always been a polarizing figure, but now his constant battles at home and abroad are taking on historic proportions

STEVE MAICH

On March 16, Iraqi insurgents fired a mortar shell into the U.S. army base in Tikrit, landing near two members of the 101st Airborne Division, reportedly as they stood waiting for a bus. The explosion killed Sgt. Amanda Pinson of St. Louis, Mo., making her the 2,315th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq since the war began three years ago. She was 21.

A few hours later in Washington, the U.S. Senate voted 52-48 to increase the ceiling on the national debt, by $781 billion, to $9 trillion (all figures US$) -- or roughly $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the country -- thus avoiding the first-ever default on U.S. debt. The House of Representatives then approved another $92 billion in federal spending to support the war effort in the Middle East.

That night, Gallup wrapped up its latest opinion poll on Americans' attitudes toward the White House, showing just 37 per cent approve of the President's performance, versus 59 per cent who disapprove -- a drop of five percentage points in a month -- one of the worst scores of any president in the modern era.
Just another day in the life of the world's last superpower under the leadership of President George W. Bush.

With deficits and debt swelling to epic levels, an economy showing massive cracks, and support for America crumbling abroad, the Bush administration finds itself increasingly isolated. With mid-term elections looming in November, the President is now widely seen as a political liability. Republicans are actively distancing themselves from Bush, and joining Democrats in strident critiques of the White House. And things may be getting worse. Last week, court documents emerged showing Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, testified that Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence to shore up support and discredit critics of the Iraq war, raising, for the first time, the possibility that the President may be personally implicated in a scandal.

These are more than just the normal travails of a second-term president fending off the slings and arrows of partisan attack. Bush's constant battles at home and abroad are taking on historic proportions, hardening perceptions that his administration is defined by failure on multiple fronts. Just over 16 months have passed since George W. Bush was elected for the second term that eluded his father, but already historians and pundits are beginning to debate whether he just might be the worst U.S. president in a century.

In 2004, George Mason University polled 415 presidential historians and found 80 per cent considered Bush's first term a failure. More than half considered it the worst presidency since the Great Depression. More than a third called it the worst in 100 years. Eleven per cent said it was the worst ever. Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College in Mississippi, says scores would likely be worse if the poll were repeated today. "When I filled out that survey I said Bush was the worst since Buchanan [1857-61], but things have gotten worse and now I'd have to consider him the worst ever," McElvaine says. "If you look at the situation he inherited, and the situation following 9/11, he had great opportunities and he basically squandered them. He has put the future of the country in a much more precarious position than it was when he became president."

That Bush is unpopular, especially among academics, is not surprising in itself. He has always been a polarizing figure, and most presidents have been deeply unpopular at some point in office, especially those who dedicated themselves to ambitious projects beyond America's borders. Even Abraham Lincoln, now generally considered the greatest of all U.S. presidents, was widely detested in his day for triggering the bloodbath of the Civil War for no good reason.

In the final analysis, presidents are judged on a relatively narrow set of criteria -- fiscal management, economic stewardship, handling change or crisis at home, and the promotion of America's interests abroad. It all boils down to two questions: how did he deal with the challenges of his day? And were the American people better off at the end of his tenure than they were at the start? No president can claim an unambiguously positive record, but few have come up so short, on so many counts, as Bush has.

Ronald Reagan was attacked for mismanaging the nation's finances, but he won the Cold War and his aggressive tax cuts eventually ignited the economy. Richard Nixon resigned under the cloud of Watergate, and remains one of the nation's most reviled presidents, but historians now credit him with huge foreign policy successes, including the opening of relations with China. Bush's supporters say history will be kind to him, just as it has been to Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson. They, like Bush, guided the nation through wars -- Korea and Vietnam respectively -- widely seen as unnecessary and ill-conceived. But Johnson was a champion of the civil rights movement and an ally of Martin Luther King. Truman was the driving force behind the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the Second World War.

With just a few years left in his mandate, historians say George W. Bush has no such achievements to offset the grievous cost of Iraq in blood and treasure. Despite the biggest federal spending spree in more than a generation, the Bush White House has produced no transformational vision for domestic policy. His massive tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 have neither sparked the economy nor bolstered his popularity. They have, however, exacerbated a fiscal crisis that threatens to undermine the very basis of the American state. "It used to be a part of the American character to believe in delaying gratification, and saving for the future," McElvaine says. "But it seems the future is being ignored in spectacular fashion by this administration."

more...
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/article.jsp?content=20060417_125323_125323

[nehemiah]

hey voicekiller... you gotta trim that post down.

from TOS: 5) No posting of entire articles/copyrighted material. Posts containing news stories/article segments must also include author’s name, name of the publication or source, and the URL where the story was found.
http://www.buffalorange.com/showthread.php?t=62809

[sukie]

I like my personal finances... thanks to Ronnie... I'm A Okay. Of course I'm not financing a war or cleaning up a terrorist attack in NY or cleaning up a wind ravaged flood zone bigger than the UK... but hey that stuff costs billions.

[rob on the job]

After reading Voice's post:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~malin/pictures/geneva2004/geneva/zdad%20asleep.JPG

[sukie]

Trim that post...
i blew out a ligament scrolling past that crap.

[nehemiah]

Trim that post...
i blew out a ligament scrolling past that crap.the TOS for PRS reads as follows...

#1: sukie is a poptart.
#2: don't listen to poptarts.


that is all.

:D

[sukie]

Great news like this slayeth the beastly Nehemonster.

[Wally]

Hillary Clinton has my vote. She hits the nail right on the head about the middle class and such.

[sukie]

Hillary Clinton has my vote. She hits the nail right on the head about the middle class and such.
What head? She doesn't know what the middle class is. Nor does anyone else on this forum. It is a great talking points buzz phrase.