Are Jobs in America held down on purpose

Jobs in America, are we being held down on purpose?

So what is the big deal about jobs and the unemployment rate in America?  First, let’s clear up the myth that just because the unemployment rate declines it means people are back to work.  On the contrary, these numbers are erroneous and do not reflect how many people are working.   It simply means fewer people are collecting or applying for unemployment.

You have to look at the workforce participation rate and the U.S. labor force participation rate in 2013 was the lowest since 1979.  So the people without a job, who have stopped looking for one are no longer counted as unemployed. 

That's why the U.S. unemployment rate dropped in despite weak hiring.  If the 496,000 who left the labor force last month had still been looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would have risen to 7.9 percent.

So what are we doing to put people back to work?  It is easier to answer what we are not doing to put people back to work.

Let’s start with the national debt which is at $19 Trillion http://www.usdebtclock.org/ this is money we have borrowed to cover expense of things we can't afford, including interest payments on the debt.  Keep in mind it does not count all of the unfunded obligations.  The current administration wants you to believe by borrowing money and pumping it into the economy adds jobs.  Here is one example of how they are wrong. 

Currently China owns 25% of our debt which is which is used to prop

up both economies. The US wants to pump billions into the economy so it borrows it.  China does not want all that cash from the products we bought pouring into their economy because it would cause the value of their dollar to rise and make the products they sell to the US less affordable.  So they lend the US that money. Very Nice arrangement right?  Wrong… at least for the jobs in the US.

You see the US manufacturing level verses GDP have declined for years.  Imagine what would happen if China could not artificially devalue their dollar and if they would have to compete with the US for manufacturing.  Remember built in America.  Now it is just bought in America.

Let’s look at energy production in the US and how it might be hurting jobs and even helping terrorism.

1. By not using our oil and natural gas resources we must import more oil.  If we started producing more oil and using more natural gas it would have an impact on the global market, hitting Russia and the Middle East the hardest. 

This would put thousand to work in the US in our oil fields and refineries.  Where do you think most terrorist get their funding?  From oil rich nations and if the price of oil dropped below $70 a barrel they could no longer afford to rage war on the US.  This would cripple Iran.  Bam.. two birds with one stone.

2. By not exporting coal to China it cost jobs at the mines and the shipping ports.  We have enormous amounts of coal still in the ground and stock piled above the ground.  By not exporting it to China we have a double negative impact.  The mining industry has been cut in half and the loss of revenue from China.  If we shipped all this coal to China it would create thousands of jobs at the mines and ports and the sale to China would help balance out our GDP. By balancing our trade debt with China we would be able to pay down that debt we are leaving our children.  A Twofer

3. The new coal fired power plant regulation makes it more expensive if not impossible to produce power and will cause more manufacturing jobs to be moved offshore.   What is the one thing all manufacturing plants in the US use?  Electric power and they need lots of it and need to get it cheap.  So what about the impact on the environment?  If you shut down all the coal power plants it would reduce the carbon output by .02% 

4. Here is the weird one, using solar panels.  We are installing millions of solar panels each year and in the process, millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water are create through the manufacturing process.   Here is the twist, most of those panels are made in China and the failure rate is 5.5% to 22% over 18 months.  Here is an example of that, solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.  A Double whammy!

5. OK.. so let’s produce our energy with wind, there is a problem there too.  They take up vast amounts of space and only produce power on windy days.  Wind farms can cause climate change, according to new research, that shows for the first time the new technology is already pushing up temperatures.  Man-made Global warming! 

What else is impacting jobs.

Taxes… that dirty little word.  When you tax people more and more of what they make they have less to spend on buying those things we manufacture or service we provide in the US.  So when we buy fewer things and services, the fewer things we build and the fewer services are needed.  I don’t call it trickle down, I call it the water fall effect and here is why.  Now we are all making less and paying fewer taxes but the government keeps spending at the same rate or higher, so they raise taxes on some groups to make up the difference and so it continues.  Farmers, Rancher and the American Indians all knew this, don’t over use your resources or soon you will not have enough to support the family.  The taxpayer is that resource which is being over used.

Government services are not unlimited and cannot sustain everyone, there is a tipping point. According to the Census Bureau, there are over 100 million people on welfare and another 8 million on Social Security Disability.  This is 1/3 of our population. 

So what do you do?  Change the system; everyone must be accountable for their input and output.  It is OK to take out of the system if overall you put back more than you took.  I suggested that everyone on Welfare be retrained as part of their benefits and if they don’t participate, they lose their benefits.   This will get rid of the drug addicts, they won’t show.  Change the name officially to WorkFare, when not in training they are working, I see a lot of streets that need to be repaired and cleaned, sidewalks needing to be repaired, public housing needing renovation.  All of this work will give them self-esteem and new skills.

Education and the debt required to get a four year degree.  You want to invest in America, invest in our greatest resource, the people.  The greatest resource many countries have are the talents and brains of the population.  Do you realize we import 70,000 smart people every year thorough our H1 visa program.  These are the guys and gals running many of our corporate computer systems, among other things.  This does not count the talent we tap into from India and other countries because it is not available locally.  

So how do you pay for this investment in education? When you open up federal land for Oil and Gas exploration use the dividends from the Federal Oil wealth is to invest in education?  It is already being done.  Alaska citizens (man, women and child) receive between $800 and $2,000 every year from the permanent fund.

A burst appendix and addiction

A burst appendix and addiction are similar, the both cause pain we can not see.

When we treat a disease we must remember there is a human being behind the disease.  Too often we forget there is a person with feelings behind the behavior, the illness, the struggles and the pain.  We go through life reacting because of our life experience, our callousness and our pain.   

When a doctor is treating a patient with cancer it is easy to remove their self from the human in front of them and see it is just another problem to solve, just another form to fill out.  When we treat an addict we must remember there is a human being behind all the anger, deceit and bad choices.  We must remember they didn’t start out this way, they became this way over time.  The tough part is not to become cold and callous to their condition.  Sure they are going to lie, yell, and treat you poorly. They will even cheat on their UA test, we must look at why they are acting this way.  Is it out of shame, guilt, the pain or is it how they have learned to protect themselves.  When you confront them about lying, cheating and their bad behavior it’s their nature react, to want to protect themselves with more lies to cover up the last lie.  We must look beyond this and still treat them as a person who is hurting. 

What if you were rushed into the emergency room screaming in pain because your appendix just burst and the surgeon said“until you clam down and stop screaming I am not going to treat you”.  The patient would die before that happened.

Realize an addict is in pain; pain you can't see or understand.  Don’t take it personally and don’t let it make you cold and callous.  Look beyond the lies, the anger and the behavior and treat them as a human being in pain. 

Discover what is causing their pain, causing them to act this way, what are they afraid of if they tell the truth and ask for help.  They may not know and we must help them answer the question.

When the surgeon asks the patient where does it hurt, they may get “everywhere” or even “I already told you &(#)#^&..”  This doesn’t deter the nurses and doctors from their mission of saving a life.

You must not be deterred from your mission, because how you treat an addict may save their life and someone else’s life.