The Jobs Have Been Found

We may not have found the weapons of mass destruction, but the recovery is finally revealing some jobs.

The Labor Department reports nonfarm payroll employment increased by 308,000 in March.

Even the New York Times had to say something positive about this development:

Economists, who had been perplexed by an economy that showed strength in virtually every indicator of production except employment, were elated by the upbeat numbers. "This is a watershed number," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Banc of America Securities. "It realigns the employment conditions with all the other economic data."

The Times was able to dampen the good news by saying if the good job numbers continue interest rates might rise.

And to further dampen any excitement over these great numbers the Times has this article questioning the government's employment estimates:

Since last fall, economists have each month consistently and sharply overestimated the number of jobs added by the economy. Since September, the consensus or median prediction has been that the economy would add, on average, about 110,000 new jobs a month. But that has turned out to be almost twice the actual number of 60,000 a month, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And the forecasts have been getting more inaccurate, not less, of late. In January, when analysts predicted employment would grow by about 175,000 jobs, they rose by only 97,000. Last month, when analysts cut their expectations to roughly 130,000 new jobs, payrolls grew by far, far fewer: 21,000.

According to Reuters, President Bush was a little pleased with this employment report:

"The economy is growing and people are finding jobs," Bush told a community college audience in the election swing state of West Virginia. "This economy is strong. It is getting stronger."

Comments

[Stephen Crockett]

American Workers Betrayed By Congress

By a vote of 217 to 215, the Congress of the United States at the direction of the Bush Administration has betrayed all American workers. The Central American Free Trade Agreement will create unfair pressure to lower the wages of all American workers when the basic staples not likely to be influenced by the agreement are exploding in price.

American companies will be under great pressure to move manufacturing operations outside the United States. Giant retailers of cheap imported products made by grossly underpaid and exploited Central American workers will profit. Companies like Wal-Mart will profit but not most American workers. American taxpayers along with American workers will suffer.

Even as consumers, Americans are unlikely to benefit in the long term. The trade deficit has begun to erode the buying power of the US dollar. Imports are beginning to become more expensive because of the falling value of the dollar. The Central American Free Trade Agreement will make the trade deficit larger.

When the North American Free Trade Agreement was sold to the American public, Americans were told that it would be accompanied with agreements that would raise labor and environmental standards in Mexico to American levels. It never happened.
Mexican workers continue to be exploited and pollution spills our southern border. The American job boom never happened. The jobs created in America paid much less than the jobs lost to Mexico had paid.

Lower wages and lost jobs will hurt the Social Security program. Income tax revenues will make the federal budget deficits and national debts larger. The Central American Free Trade Agreement is very bad for the American nation. Only a few large corporations that will make huge profits from exploited labor and polluting the environment will profit from this very bad piece of legislation.

Almost all Republican Congresspersons voted for the agreement which was pushed by the Bush White House despite the fact that all their constituents will suffer. Fifteen Democratic Congresspersons voted for this terrible agreement. Most will now face strong Primary opponents because of their votes for this measure. Even formerly safe Democratic incumbents like Ike Skeleton of Missouri, Jim Matheson of Utah, Jim Moran of Virginia, John Tanner and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, etc are likely to have strong Primary opponents because of their votes in favor of this agreement.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host, Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: 7A Planville Drive, Fayetteville, TN 37334. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com .

[Tapart News Advocate]

President Bush followed President Clinton in a Pearl Harbor attack on American workers - see http://arklineart.fotopages.com
Both are Globalists and Free Traders who betrayed American workers.
NAFTA and GATT were passed by a Democrat controlled Congress and a Democrat President - Clinton. President Bush continued the bombing of American workers with the passage of Fast Track which was hidden by the war news.
Globalism and Free Trade now have over a ten year history of failures. Both President Clinton and President Bush stated that one billion in exports creates 250,000 jobs. They neglect to tell us how many jobs are lost due to the trillion dollar trade deficit. They both have sold out America. See The Clinton Years- The American Dream Reversed, The American Dream is Burning, Locked out workers bearing their cross and the Cross of 9/11 Tangle of Terror artwork by Ray Tapajna asking who will now untangle the terror Globalism and Free Trade have bred. See http://tapsnewstory.filetap.com http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/a/arklineart http://yestapart.bizland.com/id12.html

[cris]

in many places, perhaps jobs are being created. in michigan, it's not the case.

ford cut 42,000 jobs, most of these during 8 years of clinton. since 2000 to september 2003, we've lost 370,000 jobs, 170,000 of those were engineering positions and manufacturing jobs. a company in a small michigan town closed its doors here and moved to mexico a couple months ago. 2700 people... most of the employed adults in that town ... lost their jobs. monday night last week, wayne county education administration announced 440 cuts in administrative jobs. on wednesday night, it announced 3,200 jobs would be cut in education on top of the 440. 900 of those are teachers. ford cut another 7% of all of its jobs in michigan in 2001. in 2002, they cut 1,000 jobs in michigan in product development. last year, they cut another 6,000 jobs.

this isn't something bush caused. it happened because during the clinton years, laws were passed which made it easy to move companies offshore and across borders. it happened because too many people want their employers to pay for more and more and the government increased the tax load both on businesses and individuals. there is a limit to how much money you can take from people and businesses before they can't afford to keep going forward.

also under clinton, senator abraham from michigan pushed a piece of legislation through which permitted the immigration of 100,000 more engineers and scientists a year from asian countries. why? because, according to that man, we don't produce enough graduates from universities in these fields. presumably that's why more than 250 engineers apply for any job opening in michigan according to michigan works.

we need, badly need, another 4 years of bush. a kerry term is going to cripple michigan further. kerry supports increases in CAFE rules for the automotive industry. why? why not push for stricter regulations for the utilities which produce electricity? my car was built in 1991. i could drive to sydney, australia and back before it produced the same volume of pollution created by the local utility company to meet just my needs for one year.

think about it. i'm sure things are better in other places. but we're still losing 1,000 jobs a month in michigan since january 2004, courtesy of companies cutting back and sending jobs elsewhere.... it's not rosy all over.