WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former President Carter warned members of Congress on Tuesday that America's failure to achieve energy independence is threatening the country's national security, undermining its long-term potential for economic growth and contributing to global warming.
"Collectively, nothing could be more important than this question of energy," Carter said during a rare presidential appearance before a congressional committee.
"I would guess that our entire status as a leading nation in the world will depend on the role that we play in energy and environment in the future."
Carter, who in 1977 famously declared the fight for energy independence to be "the moral equivalent of war," told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that reaching that goal is crucial to ending the country's "vulnerability to possible pressures and blackmail."
Right now, he noted, "whether we admit it or not, we are very careful not to aggravate our major oil suppliers." Watch Carter talk about energy and security »
He also asserted that more jobs will be gained than lost by transitioning the country away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner, renewable energy sources.
Carter's testimony came as Congress continues its consideration of broad-reaching energy legislation with the potential to dramatically tighten emissions controls while reshaping America's environmental standards.
Among other things, the American Clean Energy and Security Act would create a controversial "cap-and-trade" system establishing steadily declining limits on greenhouse gas emissions over the next four decades.
Under the bill, polluters would be able to buy and sell emissions credits while utilities would be required to generate an increasing amount of power from renewable sources.
Congressional attention to the issue is being driven by President Obama, who, like Carter, has placed energy near the top of his domestic agenda.
Carter suggested that energy reform advocates craft an omnibus proposal that could be considered collectively by Congress in order to minimize "adverse influence of special interest groups" opposed to any major changes.
Powerful entrenched interests ultimately helped derail his administration's energy agenda, he said.
Carter noted that his administration nevertheless succeeded in reducing net oil imports by 50 percent, from 8.6 to 4.3 million barrels per day. But after "a long period of energy complacency," he said, daily imports to the United States are now almost 13 million barrels.
America consumes 2.5 times more oil than China and 7.5 times more than India, he noted. On a per capita basis, the United States consumes 12 times more oil than China and 28 times more than India.
"Although our rich nation can afford these daily purchases, there is little doubt that, in general terms, we are constrained not to alienate our major oil suppliers, which puts a restraint on our nation's foreign policy," Carter said.
The former president reminded committee members that, as part of his drive for renewable energy, he had ordered 32 solar panels to be placed on the roof of the White House in 1979. But the panels were removed "almost instantaneously after [Ronald Reagan] moved into the White House, with assurances to the American people that such drastic action would no longer be necessary."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, opened the hearing by noting that the price of a barrel of oil has fallen $90 below the record high hit in summer 2008. Unfortunately, Kerry added, the "political will to take decisive action has dissipated" as each past energy crisis has subsided.
Carter "had the courage to tell the truth to Americans [and] set America on the right path in the 1970s," Kerry said. "Regrettably, the ensuing years saw those efforts unfunded [and] stripped away."
Richard Nixon was the first president to set a goal of energy independence, Kerry noted. Nixon called for that goal to be reached by 1980.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/12/carter.energy/index.html#cnnSTCText
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Breaking Down the Auto Bailout
by WILLIAM GREIDER
May 8, 2009
So this is how the auto bailout will work. American taxpayers pump tens of billions into rescuing General Motors from bankruptcy. Then GM pays us back by shipping more jobs overseas--the equivalent of four assembly plants. The federal money will directly subsidize more imports from abroad, enabling GM to double its car production in Mexico, South Korea and China and selling the cars into the US market.
Can someone explain how this is in our national interest? If that is the best deal Obama's auto czars can come up with, then this angry taxpayer says: laissez-faire--let GM go down. Better to settle for bankruptcy court than provide public financing to further the destruction of US manufacturing.
The Obama administration has stumbled into the middle of the political train wreck known as globalization. The president is an orthodox free trader, notwithstanding his vague promises of reforming trade agreements. But the auto deal is not much of a recovery plan. It begins to look like another sly victory for the old order that has failed. The business plan the federal government is advancing for GM follows the free-trade model created by Robert Rubin and other Clintonistas during the 1990s. Do whatever you can to help US multinationals succeed in the global trading system and assume this represents the national interest-- never mind the damaging consequences for US production and value-added jobs. That is how America became a debtor nation with its steadily weakening industrial base and stagnant wages. That condition became the predicate that led to financial crisis.
The president was probably hoping to evade the fight on globalization-- at least for now--since he already has a lot of other large matters on his plate. His intervention on behalf of auto producers was billed as a temporary work-out--enough financial aid to get the companies through the collapse in consumer demand and refashion themselves for lean, mean production of smaller, cleaner cars. No one disputes that scores of thousands of jobs will evaporate in the downsizing.
But the unfolding facts demand full-throated debate and political resistance in Congress. The United Auto Workers sent a letter to Capitol Hill the other day that revealed the terms. GM's restructuring plan envisions a doubling of the vehicles it will import from overseas factories, from 372,000 to 737,000, in the next four years. GM's imported cars--already 15.5 percent of its domestic sales--will rise to 23.5 percent.
"The overall number of vehicles GM will be importing in 2014 represents the production of four assembly plants, the same number that GM plans to close in the United States," UAW legislative director Alan Reuther noted. People already outraged by the bank bailouts should save some anger for the carmakers. "GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," the UAW insisted.
US Steelworkers president Leo Gerard is joining the fight, taking the same message to the public with a traveling bus campaign that will hit thirty-six towns and cities. When the auto industry shrinks, Gerard explained, lots of steel workers will lose too because they are in the supplier chain at paper mills, blast furnaces and iron mines.
Yet this fight is not fundamentally about displaced workers. It is about the gravely weakening national economy. The US government pursues a uniquely backward strategy in its approach to globalization that is unlike every other advanced industrial economy, as I explain in my new book, Come Home, America. Other nations like Germany, Japan, France and of course China impose national obligations on their producers and multinational corporations--demanding that companies retain their highest value-added production and best-paying jobs in the home country. The US gives its multinationals a free ride--even assisting them in dispersing production and capital to low-wage economies while keeping open the US market for their imports. Our own companies game this system endlessly--producing cheaply abroad, then selling the "US brands" back into the home market.
President Obama has taken an important step toward changing this system with his recent proposals for taxing US multinationals more aggressively. That could be the start of something big--a more effective strategy that defends the national interest in the global system. Or it could be just more good talk. The outlines of the auto deal suggest the president is sticking with Rubinomics. Will other Democrats be brave enough to stand in his way?
About William Greider
National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and, most recently, Come Home, America.
May 8, 2009
So this is how the auto bailout will work. American taxpayers pump tens of billions into rescuing General Motors from bankruptcy. Then GM pays us back by shipping more jobs overseas--the equivalent of four assembly plants. The federal money will directly subsidize more imports from abroad, enabling GM to double its car production in Mexico, South Korea and China and selling the cars into the US market.
Can someone explain how this is in our national interest? If that is the best deal Obama's auto czars can come up with, then this angry taxpayer says: laissez-faire--let GM go down. Better to settle for bankruptcy court than provide public financing to further the destruction of US manufacturing.
The Obama administration has stumbled into the middle of the political train wreck known as globalization. The president is an orthodox free trader, notwithstanding his vague promises of reforming trade agreements. But the auto deal is not much of a recovery plan. It begins to look like another sly victory for the old order that has failed. The business plan the federal government is advancing for GM follows the free-trade model created by Robert Rubin and other Clintonistas during the 1990s. Do whatever you can to help US multinationals succeed in the global trading system and assume this represents the national interest-- never mind the damaging consequences for US production and value-added jobs. That is how America became a debtor nation with its steadily weakening industrial base and stagnant wages. That condition became the predicate that led to financial crisis.
The president was probably hoping to evade the fight on globalization-- at least for now--since he already has a lot of other large matters on his plate. His intervention on behalf of auto producers was billed as a temporary work-out--enough financial aid to get the companies through the collapse in consumer demand and refashion themselves for lean, mean production of smaller, cleaner cars. No one disputes that scores of thousands of jobs will evaporate in the downsizing.
But the unfolding facts demand full-throated debate and political resistance in Congress. The United Auto Workers sent a letter to Capitol Hill the other day that revealed the terms. GM's restructuring plan envisions a doubling of the vehicles it will import from overseas factories, from 372,000 to 737,000, in the next four years. GM's imported cars--already 15.5 percent of its domestic sales--will rise to 23.5 percent.
"The overall number of vehicles GM will be importing in 2014 represents the production of four assembly plants, the same number that GM plans to close in the United States," UAW legislative director Alan Reuther noted. People already outraged by the bank bailouts should save some anger for the carmakers. "GM should not be taking taxpayers' money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries," the UAW insisted.
US Steelworkers president Leo Gerard is joining the fight, taking the same message to the public with a traveling bus campaign that will hit thirty-six towns and cities. When the auto industry shrinks, Gerard explained, lots of steel workers will lose too because they are in the supplier chain at paper mills, blast furnaces and iron mines.
Yet this fight is not fundamentally about displaced workers. It is about the gravely weakening national economy. The US government pursues a uniquely backward strategy in its approach to globalization that is unlike every other advanced industrial economy, as I explain in my new book, Come Home, America. Other nations like Germany, Japan, France and of course China impose national obligations on their producers and multinational corporations--demanding that companies retain their highest value-added production and best-paying jobs in the home country. The US gives its multinationals a free ride--even assisting them in dispersing production and capital to low-wage economies while keeping open the US market for their imports. Our own companies game this system endlessly--producing cheaply abroad, then selling the "US brands" back into the home market.
President Obama has taken an important step toward changing this system with his recent proposals for taxing US multinationals more aggressively. That could be the start of something big--a more effective strategy that defends the national interest in the global system. Or it could be just more good talk. The outlines of the auto deal suggest the president is sticking with Rubinomics. Will other Democrats be brave enough to stand in his way?
About William Greider
National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and, most recently, Come Home, America.
Oil above $60 on economy hopes
Oil prices have risen to their highest level in six months, buoyed by hopes the worst may be over for the world economy and demand for oil may recover.
US crude rose as high as $60.08 a barrel before falling back, while London Brent crude rose to $58.64.
The price of US crude is now up by about 80% from a January low of $32.70 a barrel, but is well below the record high above $147 hit in July last year.
Oil has risen in response to a global rebound in stocks.
Weakness in the dollar has also spurred the oil price, which tends to rise when the dollar falls. The dollar hit a four-month low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday.
Ample supply
"The feeling is we've seen the worst of it, and the only way now is up," said Gerard Rigby, an energy analyst with Fuel First Consulting in Sydney.
However, despite the optimism there is so far scant evidence that demand for oil is recovering.
Oil supply is also ample. There is an estimated 100 million barrels of crude oil stored at sea on tankers and US crude inventories are at their highest in 19 years.
But the recent stock market rally has sparked hopes that the world economy is recovering and thus investors are betting that demand for oil will recover soon.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8046058.stm
Published: 2009/05/12 18:18:26 GMT
US crude rose as high as $60.08 a barrel before falling back, while London Brent crude rose to $58.64.
The price of US crude is now up by about 80% from a January low of $32.70 a barrel, but is well below the record high above $147 hit in July last year.
Oil has risen in response to a global rebound in stocks.
Weakness in the dollar has also spurred the oil price, which tends to rise when the dollar falls. The dollar hit a four-month low against a basket of currencies on Tuesday.
Ample supply
"The feeling is we've seen the worst of it, and the only way now is up," said Gerard Rigby, an energy analyst with Fuel First Consulting in Sydney.
However, despite the optimism there is so far scant evidence that demand for oil is recovering.
Oil supply is also ample. There is an estimated 100 million barrels of crude oil stored at sea on tankers and US crude inventories are at their highest in 19 years.
But the recent stock market rally has sparked hopes that the world economy is recovering and thus investors are betting that demand for oil will recover soon.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8046058.stm
Published: 2009/05/12 18:18:26 GMT
Recession Drains Social Security and Medicare
May 13, 2009
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Even as Congress hunted for ways to finance a major expansion of health insurance coverage, the Obama administration reported Tuesday that the financial condition of the two largest federal benefit programs, Medicare and Social Security, had deteriorated, in part because of the recession.
As a result, the administration said, the Medicare fund that pays hospital bills for older Americans is expected to run out of money in 2017, two years sooner than projected last year. The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than predicted, it said.
Spending on Social Security and Medicare totaled more than $1 trillion last year, accounting for more than one-third of the federal budget.
The fragility of the two programs is a concern not just for current beneficiaries, but also for future retirees, taxpayers and politicians. Lawmakers say they would never allow Medicare’s trust fund to run out of money. But beneficiaries could be required to pay higher premiums, co-payments and deductibles to help cover the costs.
The projected date of insolvency, a widely used measure of the benefit programs’ financial health, shows the immense difficulties Mr. Obama and Congress will face in trying to shore them up while also extending health coverage to millions of Americans.
The labor secretary, Hilda L. Solis, noted that 5.7 million jobs had been lost since the recession began in December 2007. With fewer people working, the government collects less in payroll taxes, a major source of financing for Medicare and Social Security.
A resumption of economic growth is not expected to close the financing gap. The trustees’ bleak projections already assume that the economy will begin to recover late this year.
The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said the only way to keep Medicare solvent was to “control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures.” And he said Mr. Obama intended to do that as part of his plan to guarantee access to health insurance for all Americans.
But if cost controls do not produce the expected savings, Congress is likely to find it difficult to preserve benefits without increasing taxes.
Just hours before the trustees of Medicare and Social Security issued their annual report, suggesting that the nation could not afford the programs it had, the Senate Finance Committee finished a hearing on how to pay for the expansion of health insurance coverage that Mr. Obama seeks.
Mr. Obama has said he does not want to finance expanded health coverage with more deficit spending. Rather, he says, Congress must find ways to offset the costs, so they do not add to the deficit over the next decade.
Federal deficits and debt are soaring because of the recession and federal efforts to shore up banks and other industries while trying to revive the economy with a huge infusion of federal spending.
“The financial outlook for the hospital insurance trust fund is significantly less favorable than projected in last year’s annual report,” the Medicare trustees said. “Actual payroll tax income in 2008 and projected future amounts are significantly lower than previously projected, due to lower levels of average wages and fewer covered workers.”
In coming years, the trustees said, Medicare spending will increase faster than either workers’ earnings or the economy over all.
The trustees predicted that, for the first time in more than three decades, Social Security recipients would not receive any increase in their benefits next year or in 2011. In 2012, they predicted, the cost-of-living adjustment will be 1.4 percent.
The updates are calculated under a statutory formula and reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index, which was unusually high last year because of energy prices.
If there is no cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, about three-fourths of Medicare beneficiaries will not see any change in their basic premiums for Part B, which covers doctors’ services. The monthly premium, now $96.40, is usually deducted from Social Security checks, the main source of income for more than half of older Americans.
The trustees said that one-fourth of Medicare beneficiaries would face sharply higher premiums: about $104 next year and $120 in 2011. This group includes new Medicare beneficiaries and those with higher incomes (over about $85,000 a year for individuals and $170,000 for couples).
Seventy-five percent of beneficiaries will not pay any increase, so the remaining 25 percent have to pay more to keep the trust fund at the same level, Medicare officials said.
The aging of baby boomers will strain both Medicare and Social Security, but Medicare’s financial problems are more urgent.
The trustees predict a 30 percent increase in the number of Medicare beneficiaries in the coming decade, to 58.8 million in 2018, from 45.2 million last year.
But the projected increase in health costs and the use of medical care is a more significant factor in the growth of Medicare. The trustees predict that average Medicare spending per beneficiary will increase more than 50 percent, to $17,000 in 2018, from $11,000 last year.
Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said the Medicare report “underscores the urgent need for health reform.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Even as Congress hunted for ways to finance a major expansion of health insurance coverage, the Obama administration reported Tuesday that the financial condition of the two largest federal benefit programs, Medicare and Social Security, had deteriorated, in part because of the recession.
As a result, the administration said, the Medicare fund that pays hospital bills for older Americans is expected to run out of money in 2017, two years sooner than projected last year. The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than predicted, it said.
Spending on Social Security and Medicare totaled more than $1 trillion last year, accounting for more than one-third of the federal budget.
The fragility of the two programs is a concern not just for current beneficiaries, but also for future retirees, taxpayers and politicians. Lawmakers say they would never allow Medicare’s trust fund to run out of money. But beneficiaries could be required to pay higher premiums, co-payments and deductibles to help cover the costs.
The projected date of insolvency, a widely used measure of the benefit programs’ financial health, shows the immense difficulties Mr. Obama and Congress will face in trying to shore them up while also extending health coverage to millions of Americans.
The labor secretary, Hilda L. Solis, noted that 5.7 million jobs had been lost since the recession began in December 2007. With fewer people working, the government collects less in payroll taxes, a major source of financing for Medicare and Social Security.
A resumption of economic growth is not expected to close the financing gap. The trustees’ bleak projections already assume that the economy will begin to recover late this year.
The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said the only way to keep Medicare solvent was to “control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures.” And he said Mr. Obama intended to do that as part of his plan to guarantee access to health insurance for all Americans.
But if cost controls do not produce the expected savings, Congress is likely to find it difficult to preserve benefits without increasing taxes.
Just hours before the trustees of Medicare and Social Security issued their annual report, suggesting that the nation could not afford the programs it had, the Senate Finance Committee finished a hearing on how to pay for the expansion of health insurance coverage that Mr. Obama seeks.
Mr. Obama has said he does not want to finance expanded health coverage with more deficit spending. Rather, he says, Congress must find ways to offset the costs, so they do not add to the deficit over the next decade.
Federal deficits and debt are soaring because of the recession and federal efforts to shore up banks and other industries while trying to revive the economy with a huge infusion of federal spending.
“The financial outlook for the hospital insurance trust fund is significantly less favorable than projected in last year’s annual report,” the Medicare trustees said. “Actual payroll tax income in 2008 and projected future amounts are significantly lower than previously projected, due to lower levels of average wages and fewer covered workers.”
In coming years, the trustees said, Medicare spending will increase faster than either workers’ earnings or the economy over all.
The trustees predicted that, for the first time in more than three decades, Social Security recipients would not receive any increase in their benefits next year or in 2011. In 2012, they predicted, the cost-of-living adjustment will be 1.4 percent.
The updates are calculated under a statutory formula and reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index, which was unusually high last year because of energy prices.
If there is no cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, about three-fourths of Medicare beneficiaries will not see any change in their basic premiums for Part B, which covers doctors’ services. The monthly premium, now $96.40, is usually deducted from Social Security checks, the main source of income for more than half of older Americans.
The trustees said that one-fourth of Medicare beneficiaries would face sharply higher premiums: about $104 next year and $120 in 2011. This group includes new Medicare beneficiaries and those with higher incomes (over about $85,000 a year for individuals and $170,000 for couples).
Seventy-five percent of beneficiaries will not pay any increase, so the remaining 25 percent have to pay more to keep the trust fund at the same level, Medicare officials said.
The aging of baby boomers will strain both Medicare and Social Security, but Medicare’s financial problems are more urgent.
The trustees predict a 30 percent increase in the number of Medicare beneficiaries in the coming decade, to 58.8 million in 2018, from 45.2 million last year.
But the projected increase in health costs and the use of medical care is a more significant factor in the growth of Medicare. The trustees predict that average Medicare spending per beneficiary will increase more than 50 percent, to $17,000 in 2018, from $11,000 last year.
Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said the Medicare report “underscores the urgent need for health reform.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Monday, May 11, 2009
Use Jobless Time to Build Better World
by Barbara Ehrenreich
In most parts of the world, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not in the U.S., though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.
Many reasons -- from Prozac to Pentecostalism -- have been cited to explain American passivity in the face of economic violence. But the truth might be far simpler: In America, being unemployed doesn't mean you have nothing to do but run around burning police cars. Unemployment has been reconfigured as a new form of work.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the white-collar world, where the laid-off are constantly advised to see job searching as a full-time job. As business self-help guru Harvey Mackay advises: "Once you're fired, you already have a job. The job you have is tougher than the last one. It's more demanding." How demanding? He says you need to "plan on 12 to 16 hours a day."
Picture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.
Some people no doubt have found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.
If there is something familiar in the image of laid-off workers soldiering on, it may be because of films such as "Tokyo Sonata" and the 2001 French film, "Time Out," in which the heroes -- laid-off executives -- conceal their status from their families and continue to mime the daily ritual of going to work. In the movies, this behavior seems pathetic -- a case of terminal denial -- but it's exactly what the American "transition industry" of career coaches and outplacement companies recommends: If you don't have a job, fake one.
In real life, it's OK for a man to tell his wife he's lost his job; he should just never reveal that he has time on his hands. A February article in The New York Times featured a laid-off Illinois man who justified his refusal to do more around the house by saying, "As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I've been to told me: 'You're out of a job, but it's not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.' "
At the kinky extreme, laid-off white-collar people are advised to simulate the office environment further by finding someone to play the part of a "boss" -- a spouse, a friend, a paid career coach -- to whom you report every few days on your progress.
Is it any wonder there's no time left for lobbying for universal health insurance or reading Marxist tracts on the "reserve army of the unemployed"? It's all a person can do to keep up with the relentless pressures of an imaginary job.
The blue-collar unemployed are subjected to gerbil-like exercises of their own. While white-collar layoff victims are encouraged to polish the "brand called you," blue-collar people are told they have nothing to offer unless they start all over with "retraining." Hence, in part, the current surge in community college enrollments.
But in his 2006 book "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle raised the obvious question: "Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite. There are no guarantees, of course, of eventual jobs. In a recent report for the organization Food AND Medicine on laid-off manufacturing workers in Maine, Steve Husson, who himself was laid off as a DHL driver, found paper-mill workers stuck with intermittent seasonal work and low-paid service-sector jobs despite stints of retraining.
Even two or three years ago, when the economy was apparently healthy, average layoff victims "landed" in new jobs paying 17 percent less than the old ones -- if they landed at all. Today, with the country losing more than a half-million jobs a month, both white-collar job searching and blue-collar retraining are becoming surreal exercises in futility. No matter how smart you are -- how flexible, personable and skilled -- you can't find a job that isn't there. At least until the unemployment benefits run out and the credit cards are canceled, you might as well devote yourself to "Madden NFL" and "Minesweeper."
Of course, there are a few constructive, work-like alternatives. You could join one of the emerging efforts to organize the unemployed, such as Food AND Medicine in Maine, the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Association of Allen County, Ind., or the nationwide group United Professionals, which I helped start. Or you could pitch in with one of the several organizations fighting for single-payer health insurance or at least a huge expansion of public health insurance for the unemployed. You could get together with laid-off friends and co-workers to discuss how you would design an economy that made use of people's precious skills instead of periodically tossing them out like so much trash.
But the first step, as in any 12-step program, is to overcome denial. Job searching is not a job; retraining is not a panacea. You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you are also freer -- to express anger and urgency, to dream and create, to get together with others and conspire to build a better world.
© 2009 The Capital Times
Barbara Ehrenreich, is the author of This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation and Nickel and Dimed. She won the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize.
In most parts of the world, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not in the U.S., though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.
Many reasons -- from Prozac to Pentecostalism -- have been cited to explain American passivity in the face of economic violence. But the truth might be far simpler: In America, being unemployed doesn't mean you have nothing to do but run around burning police cars. Unemployment has been reconfigured as a new form of work.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the white-collar world, where the laid-off are constantly advised to see job searching as a full-time job. As business self-help guru Harvey Mackay advises: "Once you're fired, you already have a job. The job you have is tougher than the last one. It's more demanding." How demanding? He says you need to "plan on 12 to 16 hours a day."
Picture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.
Some people no doubt have found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.
If there is something familiar in the image of laid-off workers soldiering on, it may be because of films such as "Tokyo Sonata" and the 2001 French film, "Time Out," in which the heroes -- laid-off executives -- conceal their status from their families and continue to mime the daily ritual of going to work. In the movies, this behavior seems pathetic -- a case of terminal denial -- but it's exactly what the American "transition industry" of career coaches and outplacement companies recommends: If you don't have a job, fake one.
In real life, it's OK for a man to tell his wife he's lost his job; he should just never reveal that he has time on his hands. A February article in The New York Times featured a laid-off Illinois man who justified his refusal to do more around the house by saying, "As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I've been to told me: 'You're out of a job, but it's not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.' "
At the kinky extreme, laid-off white-collar people are advised to simulate the office environment further by finding someone to play the part of a "boss" -- a spouse, a friend, a paid career coach -- to whom you report every few days on your progress.
Is it any wonder there's no time left for lobbying for universal health insurance or reading Marxist tracts on the "reserve army of the unemployed"? It's all a person can do to keep up with the relentless pressures of an imaginary job.
The blue-collar unemployed are subjected to gerbil-like exercises of their own. While white-collar layoff victims are encouraged to polish the "brand called you," blue-collar people are told they have nothing to offer unless they start all over with "retraining." Hence, in part, the current surge in community college enrollments.
But in his 2006 book "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle raised the obvious question: "Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite. There are no guarantees, of course, of eventual jobs. In a recent report for the organization Food AND Medicine on laid-off manufacturing workers in Maine, Steve Husson, who himself was laid off as a DHL driver, found paper-mill workers stuck with intermittent seasonal work and low-paid service-sector jobs despite stints of retraining.
Even two or three years ago, when the economy was apparently healthy, average layoff victims "landed" in new jobs paying 17 percent less than the old ones -- if they landed at all. Today, with the country losing more than a half-million jobs a month, both white-collar job searching and blue-collar retraining are becoming surreal exercises in futility. No matter how smart you are -- how flexible, personable and skilled -- you can't find a job that isn't there. At least until the unemployment benefits run out and the credit cards are canceled, you might as well devote yourself to "Madden NFL" and "Minesweeper."
Of course, there are a few constructive, work-like alternatives. You could join one of the emerging efforts to organize the unemployed, such as Food AND Medicine in Maine, the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Association of Allen County, Ind., or the nationwide group United Professionals, which I helped start. Or you could pitch in with one of the several organizations fighting for single-payer health insurance or at least a huge expansion of public health insurance for the unemployed. You could get together with laid-off friends and co-workers to discuss how you would design an economy that made use of people's precious skills instead of periodically tossing them out like so much trash.
But the first step, as in any 12-step program, is to overcome denial. Job searching is not a job; retraining is not a panacea. You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you are also freer -- to express anger and urgency, to dream and create, to get together with others and conspire to build a better world.
© 2009 The Capital Times
Barbara Ehrenreich, is the author of This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation and Nickel and Dimed. She won the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize.
Rate of Job Loss Slows Moderately, Unemployment Rate Rises to 8.9 Percent
May 8, 2009
By Dean Baker
Previously reported job loss has been revised upward by an average of 86,200 in the last five months.
The economy lost another 539,000 jobs in April, down from an average of 680,000 over the prior five months. The unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent, in spite of the fact that the household survey actually showed an increase in employment of 120,000. On an age-adjusted basis, the current unemployment rate would be equivalent to about 10.5 percent in 1982, almost the same as the peak level hit in that year.
The biggest factor behind the slowdown was an increase of 66,000 jobs in the federal government, mostly due to the 2010 census. Private sector employment declined by 611,000 in April, which is still an improvement over the 680,000 average job loss for the prior five months. This improvement is explained almost entirely by slower rates of job loss in construction, manufacturing, and employment services.
Construction lost 110,000 jobs in April, compared to an average 121,000 loss over the prior five months. With manufacturing the numbers are 149,000 compared with 180,000, and with employment services the April job loss was 68,900 compared with an average 87,200 over the prior five months. The basic story in all three sectors is that they are running out of jobs to lose. This is most clear in the case of employment services, where the number of jobs is down by 32.8 percent from its pre-recession peak in December of 2006.
When making comparisons with prior months, it is important to remember that there has been a consistent pattern of sharp upward revisions to job loss numbers in subsequent reports. The number of jobs lost in February and in March was revised up by 66,000 in this report. On average, the initially reported job loss for the last five months has been revised upward by 86,200 in subsequent reports. If the April job loss is subsequently revised upward by a comparable number, then the rate of job decline, apart from the census workers, will be the same as the average for the prior five months.
If this proves to be the case, then the accelerated job loss in sectors like retail trade (especially car dealers) and financial services, and slower job growth in health care, will offset the slower rate of job loss in other sectors. It is also worth noting that the jobs imputed for new firms not included in this release continues to outpace the rate from 2008. There were 226,000 jobs imputed for new firms in April of 2009 compared with just 176,000 for April of 2008. Given the health of the economy in 2009 compared with 2008, this seems unlikely.
The surprising increase in employment shown in the household survey was concentrated among older women. The number of employed women between the ages of 45 to 54 increased by 106,000, or 0.7 percent. The number of employed women over the age of 55 increased by 99,000, or 0.8 percent. This is a striking rate of employment growth in a steep downturn, if it holds up in subsequent months.
The flip side is that the employment picture for men continues to deteriorate, with the unemployment rate for adult men rising by 0.6 percentage points to 9.4 percent. The rate for women is 7.1 percent. The unemployment rates for men and women had been almost equal before the downturn.
Most of the other data in the household survey looks bleak. The percentage of unemployment attributable to voluntary job leavers, a measure of confidence in the labor market, fell to 6.5 percent, equal to the low hit in November of 1982. The share of the long-term unemployed stands at 27.2 percent, the highest on record. This raises the prospect of millions of unemployed exceeding their period of extended benefits.
While optimists will be inclined to find "green shoots" in this report, on a close examination there is not much good news here. There appears to be some decline in the rate of private sector job loss, but this will largely disappear if the revisions follow the same pattern as in prior months. Furthermore, the slowdown in wage growth (almost zero in April) suggests that workers' purchasing power will be falling in the months ahead.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC. He is the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy. He appears frequently on TV and radio programs, including CNN, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
By Dean Baker
Previously reported job loss has been revised upward by an average of 86,200 in the last five months.
The economy lost another 539,000 jobs in April, down from an average of 680,000 over the prior five months. The unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent, in spite of the fact that the household survey actually showed an increase in employment of 120,000. On an age-adjusted basis, the current unemployment rate would be equivalent to about 10.5 percent in 1982, almost the same as the peak level hit in that year.
The biggest factor behind the slowdown was an increase of 66,000 jobs in the federal government, mostly due to the 2010 census. Private sector employment declined by 611,000 in April, which is still an improvement over the 680,000 average job loss for the prior five months. This improvement is explained almost entirely by slower rates of job loss in construction, manufacturing, and employment services.
Construction lost 110,000 jobs in April, compared to an average 121,000 loss over the prior five months. With manufacturing the numbers are 149,000 compared with 180,000, and with employment services the April job loss was 68,900 compared with an average 87,200 over the prior five months. The basic story in all three sectors is that they are running out of jobs to lose. This is most clear in the case of employment services, where the number of jobs is down by 32.8 percent from its pre-recession peak in December of 2006.
When making comparisons with prior months, it is important to remember that there has been a consistent pattern of sharp upward revisions to job loss numbers in subsequent reports. The number of jobs lost in February and in March was revised up by 66,000 in this report. On average, the initially reported job loss for the last five months has been revised upward by 86,200 in subsequent reports. If the April job loss is subsequently revised upward by a comparable number, then the rate of job decline, apart from the census workers, will be the same as the average for the prior five months.
If this proves to be the case, then the accelerated job loss in sectors like retail trade (especially car dealers) and financial services, and slower job growth in health care, will offset the slower rate of job loss in other sectors. It is also worth noting that the jobs imputed for new firms not included in this release continues to outpace the rate from 2008. There were 226,000 jobs imputed for new firms in April of 2009 compared with just 176,000 for April of 2008. Given the health of the economy in 2009 compared with 2008, this seems unlikely.
The surprising increase in employment shown in the household survey was concentrated among older women. The number of employed women between the ages of 45 to 54 increased by 106,000, or 0.7 percent. The number of employed women over the age of 55 increased by 99,000, or 0.8 percent. This is a striking rate of employment growth in a steep downturn, if it holds up in subsequent months.
The flip side is that the employment picture for men continues to deteriorate, with the unemployment rate for adult men rising by 0.6 percentage points to 9.4 percent. The rate for women is 7.1 percent. The unemployment rates for men and women had been almost equal before the downturn.
Most of the other data in the household survey looks bleak. The percentage of unemployment attributable to voluntary job leavers, a measure of confidence in the labor market, fell to 6.5 percent, equal to the low hit in November of 1982. The share of the long-term unemployed stands at 27.2 percent, the highest on record. This raises the prospect of millions of unemployed exceeding their period of extended benefits.
While optimists will be inclined to find "green shoots" in this report, on a close examination there is not much good news here. There appears to be some decline in the rate of private sector job loss, but this will largely disappear if the revisions follow the same pattern as in prior months. Furthermore, the slowdown in wage growth (almost zero in April) suggests that workers' purchasing power will be falling in the months ahead.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC. He is the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy. He appears frequently on TV and radio programs, including CNN, CBS News, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
(Allegedly) Pace of US job losses is slowing
The US economy lost 539,000 jobs in April, fewer than in previous months, in a sign that the US jobs market might be beginning to improve.
April's figure was better than the 600,000 economists were expecting and below March's revised 699,000 jobs.
The Labor Department said that the unemployment rate rose to 8.9%, its highest level since 1983 and up from 8.5% in March.
Since December 2007, the US economy has lost 5.7 million jobs.
The data showed job losses across most sectors of the economy, although hiring picked up in education, health services and government.
“ It's a terrible number but an improvement relative to the very terrible numbers we had before ”
Jay Mueller, Senior portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management
Chris Rupkey, an economist at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi said the economy may have reached a turning point and the labour market could begin to improve.
"The economy doesn't turn on a dime but it does look as if the pace of job losses is starting to slow from the turn of the year," Mr Rupkey said.
"You can make the case that the panic layoffs that we saw at the turn of the year are starting to ease."
There have been some signs that the worst of the recession in the US may be over.
Consumer spending, which plunged in the last half of 2008, grew in the first quarter of this year and some recent data on the housing market has been more upbeat.
The head of the US central bank, Ben Bernanke, has said he expects the recession to end this year unless there is a major financial setback.
But others are less optimistic and predict that unemployment will decline further.
"It's a terrible number but an improvement relative to the very terrible numbers we had before," said Jay Mueller, senior portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management.
"The big question is, has the peak in job losses hit? I am somewhat sceptical that we have seen the absolute worst of it."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8040276.stm
Published: 2009/05/08 13:24:45 GMT
April's figure was better than the 600,000 economists were expecting and below March's revised 699,000 jobs.
The Labor Department said that the unemployment rate rose to 8.9%, its highest level since 1983 and up from 8.5% in March.
Since December 2007, the US economy has lost 5.7 million jobs.
The data showed job losses across most sectors of the economy, although hiring picked up in education, health services and government.
“ It's a terrible number but an improvement relative to the very terrible numbers we had before ”
Jay Mueller, Senior portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management
Chris Rupkey, an economist at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi said the economy may have reached a turning point and the labour market could begin to improve.
"The economy doesn't turn on a dime but it does look as if the pace of job losses is starting to slow from the turn of the year," Mr Rupkey said.
"You can make the case that the panic layoffs that we saw at the turn of the year are starting to ease."
There have been some signs that the worst of the recession in the US may be over.
Consumer spending, which plunged in the last half of 2008, grew in the first quarter of this year and some recent data on the housing market has been more upbeat.
The head of the US central bank, Ben Bernanke, has said he expects the recession to end this year unless there is a major financial setback.
But others are less optimistic and predict that unemployment will decline further.
"It's a terrible number but an improvement relative to the very terrible numbers we had before," said Jay Mueller, senior portfolio manager at Wells Capital Management.
"The big question is, has the peak in job losses hit? I am somewhat sceptical that we have seen the absolute worst of it."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8040276.stm
Published: 2009/05/08 13:24:45 GMT
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