Yes, We Need Jobs. But What Kind?

ON Thursday, President Obama will deliver a major speech on America’s employment crisis. But too often, what is lost in the call for job creation is a clear idea of what jobs we want to create.

I recently led a research team to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has advertised his track record of creating jobs. From January 2000 to January 2010, employment in the Valley grew by a remarkable 42 percent, compared with our nation’s anemic 1 percent job growth.

But the median wage for adults in the Valley between 2005 and 2008 was a stunningly low $8.14 an hour (in 2008 dollars). One in four employed adults earned less than $6.19 an hour. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that the per capita income in the two metropolitan statistical areas spanning the Valley ranked lowest and second lowest in the nation.

lendmeflight2 wrote:This is a typical New York Times Article. It is absolutely correct but it won't mean anything to Rick Perry's base. The premise is that he created jobs paying $8 an hour and that's not enough money. Where I live now, the average guy starting at a factory doing hard labor gets paid about $8 and hour because we have no unions. They are going to look at this article and be impressed that he created jobs even though they were stolen from other states.

Rick Perry will be a force for Obama to reckon with. My mother asked me yesterday if I thought Rick Perry would make a good president. This is coming from a woman who has never voted for a republican in her life. This means that she is hearing a lot about Perry from people that she knows which means that he is gaining steam fast.

JoanB wrote:I keep thinking that he's peaking too soon, lendme, but what do I know? And then I keep thinking that there can't be enough dumbasses to elect someone like him until I remember Bush...but then he wasn't really elected, but still.

Damn, it could happen again, couldn't it?

lendmeflight2 wrote:

JoanB wrote:I keep thinking that he's peaking too soon, lendme, but what do I know? And then I keep thinking that there can't be enough dumbasses to elect someone like him until I remember Bush...but then he wasn't really elected, but still.

Damn, it could happen again, couldn't it?

Joan, I don't think he has peaked yet. If no one else enters the race he will gain the ticket with a fuehrur-esque shout from the right wing American people who think that just a little fascism will make everything aaaaalllllllll better just like back in '32.

We are so stupid that we don't remember or never knew.

Another cowboy president, it very well could happen again.

I have been predicting this for 2 years and now their leader has arrived.

lendmeflight2 wrote:This is a typical New York Times Article. It is absolutely correct but it won't mean anything to Rick Perry's base. The premise is that he created jobs paying $8 an hour and that's not enough money. Where I live now, the average guy starting at a factory doing hard labor gets paid about $8 and hour because we have no unions. They are going to look at this article and be impressed that he created jobs even though they were stolen from other states.

Rick Perry will be a force for Obama to reckon with. My mother asked me yesterday if I thought Rick Perry would make a good president. This is coming from a woman who has never voted for a republican in her life. This means that she is hearing a lot about Perry from people that she knows which means that he is gaining steam fast.

JoanB wrote:I keep thinking that he's peaking too soon, lendme, but what do I know? And then I keep thinking that there can't be enough dumbasses to elect someone like him until I remember Bush...but then he wasn't really elected, but still.

Damn, it could happen again, couldn't it?

exhaustedandtired/1208 wrote:They'll be plenty of rail, roads and bridges jobs soon! So everyone can find a job in those sectors!

wausauguy wrote:Free trade benefited China far more than US. Prices of so many things may have gone down, but now we don't have enough jobs so we cannot even buy cheap goods, which even cuts into China profits.

It is too bad that professors who taught so many of the CEO's did not drill it in the soon to be managers that employees must have jobs with living wages to buy what is made or the system fails.

Really so much common sense, but seems so little common sense drives businesses and politicians who are simply focused on making quick short-term profits and making themselves look good.