Stockman: “Jobs outlook worse than people think”

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

  We’ve heard a lot about how the economy has created one million jobs since the end of the recession in 2009, but until recently we haven’t heard anyone break down what those jobs are like.

  That changed last week when David Stockman appeared on CNBC.



Stockman interview begins three minutes in

 “The jobs that they count every month and people get excited about are really part-time jobs,” he said.

  Stockman separates the “breadwinning jobs” – jobs that average $50,000 a year – from the part-time jobs – jobs averaging $20,000 a year. Once you do that it you start to see a clear reason for working class discontent.

 “if you take core government plus the middle class economy (65 million jobs), that’s the breadwinning economy, if we take some numbers – how many jobs in the “core economy” in November – zero; how many jobs since last December: net zero; how many jobs since the bottom of the recession in June 2009: still a million behind from when the recession ended.”

 Stockman destroys the myth that you can simply accept a headline economic number, like so many have.

 Two-thirds of all the jobs created since the end of the recession have been these part-time, $20,000 a year jobs. You can’t build a recovery on that.

 “there is 35 million jobs in that sector, with an average wage of $20,000 a year: that is not a breadwinning job, you can’t support a family on that, you can’t save on that. Those jobs will not generate income that will become self-feeding into spending.”

  David Stockman served as budget director in the Reagan Administration and was considered one of the architects of the modern tax system. Since then he’s had a change of heart. In the last six months he’s made a clean break from his own legacy. The topic of the break concerns the Bush Tax Cuts.

  Five months ago Stockman burned his bridges with the current GOP.


 We’ve arrived at a historic turning point as a nation that no longer needs outside enemies to destroy us, we are committing suicide. Democracy. Capitalism. The American dream. All dying. Why? Because of the economic decisions of the GOP the past 40 years, says this leading Reagan Republican…

  Stockman rushes into the ring swinging like a boxer: “If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt … will soon reach $18 trillion.” It screams “out for austerity and sacrifice.” But instead, the GOP insists “that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.”

  In the past 40 years Republican ideology has gone from solid principles to hype and slogans.

 Stockman has said that extending Bush’s tax cuts will bankrupt America and that both political parties are “on a race to the fiscal bottom”.

 There has been a lot of discussion about the tax cuts recently, but little of it has been in the context of whether we can actually afford any of the tax cuts. Both parties have framed it on the issue of fairness. The Tea Party has only opposed the new spending, not the loss of revenue that will cause our deficits to become chronic and “Greece-like”. The Tea Party’s concern over deficits has been exposed as phony in record time.

  Recently Stockman has said that Republicans have adopted a theology of tax cuts.

 What Stockman has done is something increasingly rare in today’s political world – look at the raw numbers and draw logical conclusions. No one wants to here that in today’s world.

11 comments

Skip to comment form

    • gjohnsit on December 12, 2010 at 21:51
      Author

    There’s going to be a lot of us.

  1. http://www.forgottenagesresear

  2. leaving only the military, police, homeland security, etc etc…dismantling everything else.

    It’s almost complete, and it’s probably unstoppable.  

    • RUKind on December 13, 2010 at 04:55

    Meanwhile, the liars and deniers destroy the greatest economy on the planet through sheer greed and ignorance.

    Voting old ones out and new ones in does nothing. Nothing.

    We need a Wikileak on the Bailout, Wall St and the people who actually run the show. We could start with the nine anonymous people who run the derivatives market. Just learned that one today. If that doesn’t scare you then I want what you’re taking.

  3. Lasthorseman’s Sith Lord Dictionary of Modern Bizspeak terms.

    Not only are there no horses in the barn, the barn burned down well before the Clinton financial de-regulation and carbon exemptness of China setting the stage for Sarbanes-Oxley US business de-productivity thus breeding the hijacked Tea Party movement who rejected the 911 truthers and the diversions of mandatory unicorn flu shots or the expiration of unemployment benefits, Detroit bulldozing homes or a good feelup at the airport or amazing Hopi Indian Prophecies.

    I know, I left out alot.

  4. Precarity.  

    The term refers to all possible shapes of unsure, not guaranteed, flexible exploitation: from illegalised, seasonal and temporary employment to homework, flex- and temp-work to subcontractors, freelancers or so-called self-employed persons. But its reference also extends beyond the world of work to encompass other aspects of intersubjective life, including housing, debt, and the ability to build affective social relations.


    Precarity is the most widespread condition of labour and life in Europe today. It affects everyone, everyday, in every part of life: whether chosen or imposed, precarity is a generalised condition experienced by the majority of people.

    Precarious people are now the corner-stone of the wealth production process.

    Notwithstanding this, we are invisible and count for nothing in the traditional forms of social and political representation or in the European agenda.

    The single piece of blogging I’ve done that I’m proudest of was on this topic:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/

    Unfortunately I’ve since lost the photobucket account I used at the time, so all my carefully chosen visuals are gone, but the text still stands up I think.

Comments have been disabled.