Para los qu piensan residenciarse en los EE.UU.

Ya les he dicho que los gringos nunca dicen la verdad. Este posting tiene
que ver con la falta de empleos. ¿Cómo se las arreglan para mentir?
Simplemente dicen la parte de la verdad que les conviene y callan el resto.
Lean y aprendan.
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*Life in the Bush Economy: Fat, Drunk and Broke A Nation of Waitresses and
Bartenders*

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll jobs report released May 5 says the
economy created 131,000 private sector jobs in April. Construction added
10,000 jobs, natural resources, mining and logging added 8,000 jobs, and
manufacturing added 19,000. Despite this unusual gain, the economy has
10,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than a year ago.

Most of the April job gain --72%--is in domestic services, with education
and health services (primarily health care and social assistance) and
waitresses and bartenders accounting for 55,000 jobs or 42% of the total job
gain. Financial activities added 26,000 jobs and professional and business
services added 28,000. Retail trade lost 36,000 jobs.

During 2001 and 2002 the US economy lost 2,298,000 jobs. These lost jobs
were not regained until early in February 2005. From February 2005 through
April 2006, the economy has gained 2,584 jobs (mainly in domestic services).

The total job gain for the 64 month period from January 2001 through April
2006 is 7,000,000 jobs less than the 9,600,000 jobs necessary to stay even
with population growth during that period. The unemployment rate is low
because millions of discouraged workers have dropped out of the work force
and are not counted as unemployed.

In 2005 the US had a current account deficit in excess of $800 billion. That
means Americans consumed $800 billion more goods and services than they
produced. A significant percentage of this figure is offshore production by
US companies for American markets.

The US current account deficit as a percent of Gross Domestic Product is
unprecedented. As more jobs and manufacturing are moved offshore, Americans
become more dependent on foreign made goods. This year the deficit could
reach $1 trillion.

The US pays its current account deficit by giving up ownership of its
existing assets or wealth. Foreigners don't simply hold the $800 billion in
cash. They use it to acquire US equities, real estate, bonds, and entire
companies.

The federal budget is also in the red to the tune of about $400 billion. As
Americans have ceased to save, the federal government is dependent on
foreigners to lend it the money to operate and to wage war in the Middle
East.

American consumers are heavily indebted. The growth of consumer debt is what
has been fueling the economy. Social Security and Medicare are in financial
trouble, as are many company pension plans. Decide for yourself--is this the
economic picture of a superpower that can dictate to the world, or is it the
picture of a second-rate country dependent on foreigners to finance its
consumption and the operation of its government?

No-think economists make rhetorical arguments that the decline of US
manufacturing employment reflects higher productivity from technological
improvements and not a decline in US manufacturing per se. George Mason
University economist Walter Williams recently ridiculed the claim that US
manufacturing jobs are moving to China. Williams asks how the US could be
losing manufacturing jobs to China when the Chinese are losing jobs faster
than the US: "Since, 2000, China has lost 4.5 million manufacturing jobs,
compared with the loss of 3.1 million in the U.S."

The 4.5 million figure comes from a Conference Board report that is
misleading. The report that counts was written by Judith Banister under
contract to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and
published in November 2005 (www.bls.gov/fls/chinareport.pdf). Banister's
report was peer reviewed both within the BLS and externally by persons with
expert knowledge of China.

Chinese manufacturing employment has been growing strongly since the 1980s
except for a short period in the late 1990s when layoffs resulted from the
restructuring and privatization of inefficient state owned and collective
owned factories. To equate temporary layoffs from a massive restructuring
within manufacturing with US long-term manufacturing job loss indicates
extreme carelessness or incompetence.

Banister concludes: "In recent decades, China has become a manufacturing
powerhouse. The country's official data showed 83 million manufacturing
employees in 2002, but that figure is likely to be understated; the actual
number was probably closer to 109 million. By contrast, in 2002, the Group
of Seven (G7) major industrialized countries had a total of 53 million
manufacturing workers."

The G7 is the US and Europe. In contrast to China's 109,000,000
manufacturing workers, the US has 14,000,000.

When I was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration,
the US did not have a trade deficit in manufactured goods. Today the US has
a $500 billion annual deficit in manufactured goods. If the US is doing as
well in manufacturing as no-think economists claim, where did an annual
trade deficit in manufactured goods of one-half trillion dollars come from?

If the US is the high-tech leader of the world, why does the US have a trade
deficit in advanced technology products with China?

There was a time when American economists were empirical and paid attention
to facts. Today American economists are merely the handmaidens of offshore
producers. Apparently, they follow President Bush's lead and do not read
newspapers--thus, their ignorance of countless stories of US manufacturers
moving entire plants and many thousands of US engineering jobs to China.

Chinese firms, including state owned firms, have numerous reasons, tax and
otherwise, to understate their employment. Banister's report gives the
details.

Banister points out that the excess supply of labor in China is about five
to six times the size of the total US work force. As a result, there is no
shortage of workers in China, nor will there be in the foreseeable future.

The huge excess supply of labor means extremely low Chinese wages. The
average Chinese wage is $0.57 per hour, a mere 3% of the average US
manufacturing worker's wage. With first world technology, capital, and
business knowhow crowding into China, virtually free Chinese labor is as
productive as US labor. This should make it obvious to anyone who claims to
be an economist that offshore production of goods and services is an example
of capital seeking absolute advantage in lowest factor cost, not a case of
free trade based on comparative advantage.

American economists have failed their country as badly as have the
Republican and Democratic parties. The sad fact is that there is no leader
in sight capable of reversing the rapid decline of the United States of
America.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@xxxxxxxxx

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05082006.html
-----------------------------
¿Cómo hago yo para saber siempre la verdad casi siempre? Es muy simple,
busco confirmación, nunca le creo a los medios oficiales sin obtener primero
la opinión de otros. No es idea mía, es algo que le oí decir a Walter
Cronkite en TV hace muchos años "You cannot know the truth by only watching
the news".

¿Por qué hay gente que cae tan fácil en la propaganda yanqui? Porque están
predispuestos desde antes de oírla. El control de la información lo logran
haciendo ver a los demás como mal intencionados, mentirosos y
descrediatándolos, así la gente está lista para oír algo de alguien que no
mienta y como ellos han eliminado o acallado al resto, los únicos creíbles
[por desfalco] que quedan son el CIA y la mafia de Bush. Elemental, Watson.

Es mas difícil saber la verdad que sacar un PhD, se lo garantizo.

T.Schmidt
P.S. Lo mismo que en cualquier negocio, lo peor para un vendedor de mentiras
es que no haya nadie que se las compre.


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